Mormon Stories #1347: Mitch Shira - Impersonating LDS General Authorities as TikTok’s "genie_man"

hello everyone and welcome back to another edition of mormon stories podcast i'm your host john deland it's september 22nd 2020 and today we have something uh different something fun i think something entertaining and a little bit of sugar to help the medicine go down so to speak uh today we have on mormon stories mitch shira is that how i pronounce it mitch that's correct mitch shira and you may uh you may recognize mitch's face uh mitch is is taking the progressive and post-mormon uh internet world by storm he has produced a series of tick tock videos uh that impersonate uh various lds church prophets and uh they're super funny and they're a little bit sharp edged sometimes they're unsavory a little bit uh blue or uh brass i don't brash i don't know exactly how to characterize it but they're always funny and they're always very effective and they always pack an important punch pack a powerful punch there's some alliteration um i do want to give just a quick content warning uh mitch deals with uh serious adult topics including matters of sexuality and so uh there's kind of an adult content warning to this audio and video if you are sensitive to those sorts of things if you can't wrap your brain around this idea that that lives are at stake that that the way the church teaches issues around sexuality for example really do impact lives um and sometimes in a very serious or fatal way thus you know uh thus sometimes the the language needs to be serious if you are not cool with that uh turn it off now um but these impressions are phenomenal so find a way to them anyway he's known as genie man on tick tock genie g-e-n-i-e underscore man on tick-tock um also there's sort of uh orthodoxy warning i'll say if you are sensitive to your prophet seers and revelators being impersonated uh if you feel like that's sacrilegious if your interpretation of your temple covenants make it so that you are not comfortable with loud laughter or evil speaking of the lord's anointed you may or may not decide that this interview's for you we're going to try and keep it fun and light but we're also going to be dealing with serious serious topics but uh is that is that enough disclaimer uh mitch or do you want to add something no i think that's perfect i think it's a great disclaimer a great way to start all right so uh i'm going to start off mitch with one of you well first of all i want to welcome our viewing audience uh we are live streaming this on facebook and on youtube and we really want to uh welcome uh comments and questions mitch you can see those questions right i can't so okay well all right well i'll have to read them for you but all right listeners and viewers if you are interested please do share your questions and comments on social media and we'd love to incorporate them and uh so without any further ado should we show one of your videos [ __ ] let's do it all right all right guys and uh tick tock works funny on the desktop so i have to go to the window and refresh it because it doesn't have a pause button so if you hear a sound before the video starts it's just me refreshing the browser that's not so much a technical glitch as a as a weird uh function of tick-tock on the desktop because tick-tock is an app that you install on your phone and it lets you watch super short videos and it's a big deal it's so big that donald trump wants to ban it and it takes a lot to get banned by donald trump i would say is that fair to say that is fair to say a lot of us had a scare there when uh on sunday but you know i was one of the ones i thought that was just another scare tactic so and it's still here so so we're going to be interviewing mitch throughout this interview obviously we'll be showing a few of his videos and then maybe he'll bust out a spontaneous impression and we'll just have some fun with this so just to introduce you guys to mitch uh here's a first video sisters all right here we go my dear beloved brothers and sisters it is with a heavy heart that i come to you today excuse me i come to you now with all open-mindedness and an open heart to tell you the truth of the so-called self-proclaimed prophet of the lord even joseph smith himself i declare openly this man was a fraud he married other men's wives took children to wife practicing on a pr excuse me practice an abominable practice all right all right mitch so that's beautiful that's uh that's that's mitch shira as genie man on tick tock impersonating none other than the beloved gordon b hinckley mitch welcome to warmer stories podcast thank you thanks for having me john it's a pleasure i feel so honored all right well let's just uh let's dig in a bit with your story tell us tell us about your early mormon years and uh lead us to the point where you would ever decide to create a tick tock channel like this let's get started all right well uh i was born and raised in the church born in the covenant um born in 1987 and very very religious family i had a very typical mormon family i have eight brothers uh no sisters um and my whole life my entire uh life was watching general conference my my dad and mom were of the of the rule that we always sit down from the age that i can remember i gosh it was even when i was three i can just remember i would be outside playing on saturday and my dad mom would come out and be like general conferences on get in here and we would sit through every session and so i think that contributes to a lot of a lot of my impressions and i've had years to watch them but uh yeah i i guess a lot of my i was a lot of times when as i grew in the church i was one of the ones that was completely invested and i had a huge huge desire to find the truth and to follow the spirit um from an asia i can remember once i knew about missionary work i was stoked and ready to go i looked forward to it so i was i never i never regretted or or i guess uh held any discourse about going on a mission it was something that i always always wanted to do tell us again what town tell us what town kenny you grew up in uh i'm born and raised in utah um i grew up mainly in linden which is uh right by orem and uh utah valley what'd your parents do for work uh so my dad is uh a filmmaker he's an independent filmmaker nice and my mom at the time was a stay-at-home parent um now she works as a in the government as a um a health worker i believe um and uh but that was before they they're now unfortunately divorced uh but which is part of uh my journey but yeah i grew up there um when they did how many how many siblings uh eight eight brothers whoa that's a what yeah are you this are you one of the eight or are there nine total uh there's nine there are nine brothers in your family nine nine boys all together no girls so any adoptions or or blended families or any of that nope uh all all natural what the oh my i gotta meet your mother yeah she is she's my hero she's honestly um an amazing the most amazing woman alive she's she's been through a lot so seven brother they say seven brides for seven brothers nine brothers nine brothers yeah nine nine nine boys and uh and where are you in the birth order i'm number four okay that's uh wow and you say lit mostly linden is that what you said well yeah correct mostly lyndon and lyndon's kind of like north of provo right yes it's north of provo it's it's right to pleasant grove mm-hmm south pleasant grove uh about 35-45 minutes from salt lake city my my uh my one visit to linden uh when i was in at byu ty detmer the heisman trophy winning quarterback yeah got baptized at a at a chapel in linden so i i drove to london to watch ty detmer get baptized that's my that's my one association with lyndon you know it's actually a really nice quaint little town um it's growing a lot just like a lot of utah county but but yeah um lived there you had mentioned your parents got divorced at what age were you i was around 12 when they separated oh wow right in those middle school years that's that's about the same age i was i was my parents got divorced yeah it's it's tough it was it was a tough experience before the divorce how traditional was your mormon family uh extremely traditional very very um to the book i would say um every we were one of those families that if you we'd always do always always my dad would always sit us down for personal scripture or family scripture study in prayer um and we'd make sure we stayed awake because at the end of the day as kids we would be so tired and dozing off and he would make sure that we were staying awake so that we would listen and uh we have family prayer every single night family home evening every monday he and mom went on temple dates weekly and so it was very very traditional mormon family and quite honestly uh i a lot of cherished memories although even though now later in life as i've went on my journey and discovered for myself that i don't affiliate with those beliefs um you know the the the things that i do take away from religion um the mormon religion is that uh there's structure there's some good structure for kids did you did you do the the cub scouts and and all that stuff and all of it yeah the cub scouts uh every i mean i would fluctuate every tuesday or wednesday sometimes thursday when i'm the camp campouts and made a lot of friends uh and so yeah we were we were a traditional mormon family and and i mean i can i bet you can imagine just the shires walking in nine boys coming in through the door and finding a pew in the in sacrament meeting big enough to sit down and so and we were always late at mormon center time always always always well with nine boys you get a medal just for showing up um do um was it was the divorce a surprise to you as a 12 year old mormon kid did you anticipate it was it just a total blind side it it was and that's part of the i would always because even even as a young uh even being so young the mormon church and its teachings made a great you know very distinct impression on my mind that families were extremely important and that they were eternal and i think i knew subconsciously seeing some problems now that i look back i would see some problems in with my mom and dad and so i i even remember asking my dad um hey you guys are never gonna get divorced right that's never gonna happen and so i think i knew that they were something was coming up but i he he would always say no no we're together forever we're always going to be here and so when it did happen um it blindsided me in a way that i i i think it shattered my dreams of like the eternal marriage of like what these guys are supposed to stay together forever and uh and yeah it was it was i guess an understatement could you could say it was very blindsided it's i just have to say i i had that same conversation with mine with my dad i asked my dad are you guys ever going to get divorced and of course he said no never mm-hmm i remember kids kids kind of know kids kind of feel it they do they do and uh and that's the point where my dad is originally from northern idaho clear up in the panhandle and a very small town called kooski he moved there and my family split so a lot of my brothers i think four of them eventually went with my dad and i me and uh i think uh five younger not four younger uh stayed with my mom oh wow so it it split the family the whole family and it was it was a pretty uh pretty devastating split uh just put the brothers up yeah it split split the brothers up and not in the way of like we were so young a lot of us were so young that we just you know at that point it was just like i want to be with that i want to be with mom and so um and i remember thinking because i we i went to idaho too to visit and at that point there were some of my older brothers um staying up there wanting to live with my dad and it was kind of uh more for lack of a better word a trend in my they were they were trying a lot of my brothers were doing it and they felt they needed to be up there um and so i i i remember being faced with this dilemma i was like well of course i love dad i love him with all my heart but but everyone's leaving mom and i uh i don't want her to be alone and i just remember thinking that and going i need to get back to mom and help her out and so i went back to utah um stayed a couple years there um and that was challenging it honestly was to to to go from a perfect mormon family to completely and i'm and and for me personally yes but i can't imagine what my mom and dad went through the view of the i guess the cultural view and and the doctrinal view of the mormon church one day walking in with nine boys all together eternally as a family perfect mormon family and then suddenly where's where's my dad where's where's uh half of the kids split family and my mom continued to go to church she was very strong in the church just like my dad and so i just remember in junior high it was it was tough i was i i started suffering a little with my identity i didn't know exactly who i was and i think that's common for a lot of kids going through divorce um but honestly i [Music] through all of that i kept my core beliefs in the mormon church it's all i knew i mean i went to primary i was i went to sunday school and a lot of my friends were there and so i kept some of those core beliefs with me even though i was struggling um so yeah i it was it was an interesting time of my life i i i just wanted to say that i've heard i i love comedy um i've followed it from a young age whenever i could uh i've heard comedy described my parents this is weird in the 70s our family would uh watch the saturday night live as a family and we were a mormon family back then and this was pre-divorce but their parents would let me stay up late and watch saturday night live and this was bill murray and jane curtin you know little radnor garrett morris you know chevy chase lucie and and uh comedy was a really you know even the donnie marie show had a lot of comedy we watched as kids as well so i but but but the reason i'm mentioning all that is because i've heard comedy described as pain plus time i don't know if you've heard that before have you heard that description uh i don't think so i don't think i've heard that one okay well the i i guess what i'm saying is i'm hearing you know some some are gonna probably say that your youtube videos can be a little bit vicious or harsh but my guess is the the level of harshness or directness or sharp elbowedness connect to maybe a lot of this pain that you experienced starting from a very young age having to see having to pick between your parents having to feel that disappointment having to worry about your mom as a kid when your parents are supposed to be worrying about you that's a lot of pain yeah and and and i i agree it's uh a lot of and there have been there have been uh i'm sure well intentioned members uh true um active members that that have commented and i can see that they're offended and um and and so with me a lot of when i when i do these videos yes there's a lot of pain and and i think this is this is for everyone that not only goes through a faith transition but any any kind of pain in your child in your childhood or your early adulthood or even now pain is is gonna stay it's part of life and um and the more we can appropriately i would say poke fun at it and and use that as laughter it it heals it really does and and um and and so for as now as an ex-mormon having left the church though i went through tremendous amounts and i still am going through tremendous amounts of pain and and quite frankly identity crisis because i built my entire life around those beliefs i built my entire life around those narratives and when i discovered and did my own research and started going on my own faith journey it was a huge blow and it it it it hurt and it still hurts and and so one of the reasons i do these these videos is for me i selfishly it's cathartic to to want to go hey what if what if these prophets actually spoke what they should speak what if they actually address these concerns that the members themselves have that seem to be constantly put aside and just no let's just talk about these over here or this over here and it's kind of like a um a magic trick to be quite frank it's like don't look here look here and and that's one of my biggest biggest uh letdowns and so i was like you know what i've uh i've been i've been messing around with these impressions my whole life and uh why not start pretending that these men actually say hey you know what you're right that that was really crappy of us well let's uh let's show another one of your videos and i think it'll be a good segue into your adolescent teenage and early adult years uh because because we all know that as a mormon teen in utah you will have uh been confronted with the dilemma of the little factory so without any further ado let's bring in boyd k packer is that okay that's perfect all right here we go let me switch switch screens really quick and uh here's boyd k packer several years ago at the university of brigham young i am ashamed to admit that we practiced things there that were not right we viewed the homosexual as an abomination in the sight of our lord and savior jesus christ there we tested them also known as shock therapy in which we would show them male pornography and if they became aroused we would shock their genitals on one occasion i was viewing these circumstances and i became aroused myself and so naturally i shot my own penis it was painful so um that is uh mitch shira as genie man on tick tock uh that that was that's a that's a heavy one that's a serious one it is um and we tried to give some warnings at the beginning but that uh as as one of our listeners kimberly noted that that video probably deserved definitely deserved a trigger warning um maybe uh when i go back and edit this for the audio i can i can include that but um but you know boycay packer that first of all uh what a heavy topic i'm like i'm feeling the weight of that topic as someone who researched a lot of those issues but i'm also feeling just you know hilarity as i see you impersonate boyd k packer who is a you know an apostle who influenced all of our lives as mormons and his adolescents why don't we jump into your adolescence after the divorce and uh talk about your your experiences as a as a teen and even a young adult and uh let's just follow your timeline of your story yeah um so after my parents divorce and after i was living with my mom in utah i remember um the first time that so so to be i guess another trigger warning to be completely honest um my and i'm sure there are a lot of members like this ex-members and members alike and that i i had no idea what sex was i had no idea i my my mom and dad never talked about it they never pulled me aside and said hey this is what sex is this is its function with even within the mormon church um this is funny story is when i remember the only time my dad told me about anything even to do with sex or even masturbation was i remember i was in the bathtub it was probably nine i was in the bathtub and he came in um to check on me and he was like don't play with it and i had no idea what he was talking about i just remember as a kid going don't don't play with it don't play with it and so to me as a kid that meant don't play with my genital as a toy and that's what i thought he meant he didn't give any background he didn't give any context and so up until i was 15 i remember hearing for the first time i was with my older cousin one of my role models at that time and i remember he had brought me with he and his friends he was attending byu and he knew that we had gone through a divorce and so he he had stepped in to try and help the kids and help my mom and he took me to byu one day he was with his friends and they were they were sharing stories about when their parents first told them what sex was and they were going through and i was sitting there in the cafeteria and i just i mean if you can imagine a kid a 15 year old 14 year old 15 year old kid eating and hearing for the first time that every detail of what sex what's how to have sex or the parents telling their kids okay sit down this is exactly how you have sex and this is its function and my mind would i it felt like my mind melted i had no idea and i thought at up until the age of 15 i thought that you had when you had babies it's because you loved each other plain and simple and it's embarrassing to admit now looking back but it you know it's going back to that video and packer is is not only packer but is he's he's notorious for talking about basically shaming sex in any form and or masturbation or something that now to me sex you know it's it's a natural thing and looking back at the influence that my parents had and now the bigger picture in my mind is the stigma around sex in the lds church you don't talk about it and i know it's it's changed a lot i know that there's change but back then i'm sure um there are many who experience this this a similar experience you just don't talk about it you don't it's hush-hush you don't talk about the bedroom you don't talk about sex sex and if the if you do talk about sex sex is bad sex is bad um and so as as a teen i remember being introduced to that not in the right way and i struggled a lot i didn't know i mean this hit me like a ton of bricks to be honest i was like what the how come and so i started to feel resentment i was like why and and i was of course living with my mom and so unfortunately i did take it out on her i i remember and i and i was a soft spoken kid like i yeah i was rambunctious it was a goofball um but i i didn't confront and so i would i remember talking to my mom and being like why why didn't you guys tell me this is important like this is this isn't something i should be learning now i should have you should have been having this talk with me when i was 10 11 12 um if even even if that's that might even be too late um and i think that contributes to a lot of there there are some some issues there are some sexual repressed issues within not only the mormon church but a lot of religious communities and and so even going in going into bishops interviews i mean hell they weren't even they weren't even blunt about it they would tiptoe around it as and and uh i remember the first time i didn't know what the heck he was talking about the counselor was interviewing me as a youth and he he was like all right mitch pocket pool you playing some pocket pool and i had no idea i was like what the hell is pocket pool what that kind of stuff i i had no idea and so even all the way up until i was 16 i just i was i guess i was in a daze i was just like why i had no idea that these things happened and my world is shattered and um and and then i moved i moved um i got to a point where i i needed to be with my dad and i made the choice to move up to idaho and once i got there i remember being at this this the i guess a cross line of like i still held my core beliefs of the lds church but i was really struggling with my identity because of the divorce because of the i guess not even knowing what sex was or how it works until i was 15 and when i got to idaho up in idaho it's a northern it it's clear up in the panhandle it's if you're familiar with uh obviously boise but two hours north of boise's mccall and then two hours north of mccall is kooski and it's beautiful up there you it's back you know it's up in the mountains beautiful green rolling mountains with tons of thick dense forests and rivers um so it's nothing like the southern part of idaho a lot of people when i say i'm from idaho they're like yeah i'm sorry and i'm like no no no you got to go to northern idaho so i went up there and these the school i attended the high school i got transferred to that my brothers were also going to was there was only 150 kids so i went from utah from this huge populated these huge populated junior highs and high schools all predominantly mormon to 150 kids and basically my brothers and i were the only mormons and so i was i was forced i was pla i was i faced this decision whether i could continue to just kind of flirt with the line and be like i don't really know and stand up for my beliefs and at that time and i often think about this at that time i needed to stand for something i needed it desperately um i didn't know that as at the time um but now when i reflect on those years and i ask why you know i i still believe but man i i took i did a 180 i went from just kind of being a quiet kid to i was i was that a that was that kid that if there was someone was swearing i would tell him to stop i'd be like hey stop you don't need to swear if you swear just please go cuss somewhere else and a lot of people started respecting me for it and i and sometimes i'm like now i look at those like i when i went to college i looked some some kids would do that and i'd be like i can't believe i did that like that's so to a point of like you respect me but i don't respect your lifestyle but you better as hell respect my lifestyle or i'm gonna tell you to get out of the room um and it was for you know even though i look back now and i'm like oh geez i was i was kind of intense i needed like i said before i needed to stand for something and so i grabbed hold really hard and and my dad is it still is very very well yes and he's very traditional very oh he's he's uh he's one of my heroes too he he's he stands up for what he believes and he sticks to his guns and i learned a lot from that i learned a lot from that and so yeah he he helped with that when i got up there he kind of got me back into the traditional you know make sure you read your scriptures every night and pray and and and so i got onto this kind of path of like hey i'm i'm going to stand for my religion i'm of i'm no one else here is mormon and it it helped to be honest i helped a lot one of the things i've noticed you know i often ask myself what is it that makes some progressive and post-mormon speak out and others just uh stay quiet or or don't speak out and there's no judgment there everyone has a certain certain levels of privilege i'm like dripping soaking with privilege so yeah it would almost be outrageous if i didn't speak out there are other people that because of who they're married to or who their parents are what their job is or their or their personality profile or whatever socioeconomic status education level they just can't speak out but one trend i have noticed whether it's bill reel or sam young or kate kelly or others is that a lot of the people that end up speaking out and you're speaking out uh on tick tock and very bold and almost jarring but also profound way is is that is that those people were often some of the most devout committed mormons at least at certain points in their life yes and that that level of commitment and devotion just kind of carries through to to a different side right yeah i completely agree with that and and that's um as as a teenager young adult in high school i i went the whole nine yards man i i started reading the book of mormon cover to cover multiple times as fast as i could president hinckley was my prophet that's why a lot a lot of people will say that he's the one i can impersonate the best is because i i watched everything that he did i watched his every move because i was he was my hero um and and i when he like you probably remember this back in the early 2000s he he um challenged the members to read the book of mormon within what was it 90 da i can't i can't remember short amount of time a super short amount of time he challenged every member to read the book of mormon boy i jumped on that i read it within a month and i was just like yep this is true this is true and uh i thought it was in a month i thought it was in a moment was it a month you're you're right i i can't remember i couldn't remember if if it was longer than that but yeah but listeners can remind us they're they're they can text us yeah yeah they they definitely can um i and so i um yeah as as a teenager i i lived for it um and i got invested and i i had experience after experience um and and just i was so so excited to go on my mission i was so excited i was it was and and this can this can there's a topic in and of itself the uh missionary work or how it's um did you get were you called did you serve i was i i served in south korea from 06 to 08. oh wow okay so uh missionary work in and of itself among other things you're taught that from primary in the church from primary on and in your home from the moment that you can understand what missionary work is and i um i remember as a young adult just looking forward to that looking forward um to serving serving the lord going out and teaching the gospel and it was exciting it was new i was like i can't you know every every missionary wants to go to a foreign country and and so i was like you know i'll be i was i was you know said all the right i'll be so grateful for the if i go to to idaho or utah or nevada like i know it doesn't matter the lord's work is the lord's work but secretly i was like i do i want to i want to go across these um i want to go to a foreign country i want to go far far away and experience a new culture and and i was lucky i was i guess for lack of a better term blessed the lord heard my prayer um really quickly our our listener aaron glue spencer one of our dear my dear friends and our listener she writes i think it was a 90-day challenge by hinckley she couldn't keep up so it looks like it wasn't a month it was three months which is still a formidable request given given the content of the book of mormon and just second nephi in and of itself two two months three months is still a herculean task by any stretch oh it definitely is um but i i think i me a few of my brothers and i i think we read it twice um so we were that family that family that was just like yeah mormons um so did you have a good mission experience overall i did i had an amazing experience and even after i've left obviously i look back and i go man i would do so much different but to be honest i made so many and i know i know there are many many members uh and missionary returned missionaries that have left the church that had just had um such painful hard experiences um and so to be honest a lot of missionaries i talked to that have left the church have talked about their painful experiences on their missions and so me saying i had such a great experience it's i in my own experience it's actually not common um but i know there are many members um alike and ex-mormons alike that have had wonderful experiences um but yeah i when i left you served you served the full two years and had a good experience i did wow so what year did you finish oh wait the end of a weight okay so that's 12 years ago okay any any quick stories from your mission that were really important your overall story or is it good enough just to say you had a good mission experience uh really quickly um i'm not a specific specific stories but a mission is basically i contribute that to my first step to thinking for myself um because i was around my family so much around everyone telling me hey do read your scriptures pray and i remember on my mission that was my first light bulb i and it wasn't like oh all these people are saying joseph smith wasn't and if you believe it or not south korea they've got a lot of christians and they know about joseph smith and so i remember being confronted by them being like joseph smith did this and this and i you know i would say that's a lie and that would bear my testimony um but i just remember it wasn't about that it was more about i remember thinking about a year into my mission why do i have an agenda if if this is you know if i'm following christ would christ be out here telling numbers trying to get people baptized wanting to be their friend with the goal to get them to church or take a discussion or commit to baptism and i remember that's the first light bulb and i was like i should just be out here just to be with these people just to serve with without any agenda um and i thought it was as i thought through that i remember going well no that's i think that's the temptation to not do the lord's work um and so that's one of the things i regret i regret not getting fully listening to that prompting or my conscience saying hey you shouldn't be out here trying to befriend people with an agenda you should just love them for who they are and no matter what even if they never ever join the church never even if you don't teach them one say one word about the lds church you should just be here and love them and so i guess that's [Music] the only thing i would say is that was my first step to thinking um for myself in that way we have a character witness uh of you southworth derek southworth yeah i served in korea with mitch and i've always loved and respected him such a funny and caring guy did are you in derrick in touch or is that a i haven't been oh southworth uh last night last i was in touch with southworth was on my mission or directly after we had a couple mission reunions but so would you have ever expected that he would be watching mormon stories i would not no i have expected that so it that's that's incredible uh southwood i miss you man it's good to see you good to go and would he would he have expected that you would show up on mormon stories you know to be honest i don't think so maybe maybe i'd be surprised but i was a pretty pretty devout missionary so a lot of us were but yeah that's that's that's incredible um let me ask you this just quick i i know that your your profession's acting is that right yeah so when did you start your acting career when did you start was it in plays or musicals in high school was that before your mission or after your mission i'm just curious i've always been since my dad has been in the arts and film himself i've always been i've all i've always had that flame of like i i love the arts um ever since as a kid ever since i was a kid i would i would often i was one of those weird kids that would go in the bathroom and make faces at myself in the mirror and uh and talking all these weird voices and so my i actually started pursuing acting um in junior high i was in oklahoma and oliver as a made-up character because they had so many kids and then once i got to idaho i continued um to act and they had a very small program but they had it was it was a good program up in clearwater valley uh and they i was in i that's where that's where the true passion arose because i remember being in place like much of my about nothing grease um beverly hillbillies uh charlie zen and and i loved it i loved expressing i loved hearing people laugh i i loved seeing that there could be joy um and and then continued after my mission i wanted to continue but then i was faced with the social dilemma of like well acting the arts is not a very sustainable job and this is not only a social dilemma this is a very religious and if i may say a mormon based um dilemma i guess is you get back from your mission you marry as fast as you can and you start a family and you get a job to support that family and so i got back from my mission and instead of pursuing my career what did i do i went on a wife hunt i was like who's gonna marry me i gotta get married i gotta start a family i'm so excited um to start a family i'm gonna do it right i'm not gonna do what my parents did um you not get divorced right like a divorced and uh but i was so anxious i was so anxious to get married because that's i mean my mission president in my exit interview was like elder shira you need to get married as fast as you can get home that should be your first priority while you're pursuing school just to get married and start a family and so that's what i wanted and i got back and started uh looking for a an eternal companion where'd you look i i so i first got back and stayed in idaho for a bit and and i didn't really there's you know i didn't really and mormon uh active lds um women at that time northern idaho there weren't a lot um and so me and my mormon brain and i i cringe i go back to that i think the way i did was just like i wouldn't even give him a chance i'd be like nope it's kind of you got to be active you got to be and that and to be honest that's the only thing i was looking for and now i mean it blows my mind but you're taught that and it it makes me so sad that that's is that is what is taught or that somehow that the only thing and this has been quoted and spoke of and and i can't who i can't maybe maybe our viewers can help maybe you know john the the leader that said that all you need to have in common is the gospel to get married that's it any i think it may have been kimball who said that any two worthy people basically any two worthy people can make it can make marriage work yes kind of thing yes our listeners can tell us if i'm wrong yeah um but i that's that's all i cared about to be honest i was just like whoever um whoever is a and i looked through all the stereotypical things that you would look for in a mormon wife um i would look basically strong in the gospel wanted to have kids and wanted to raise a family with me um i had testimony and and uh and that's that thinking is so it it breaks my heart because of what i went through but also so many people that may have gone through that or may be going through that i mean not and and i do want to say i know that not all mormons think that way i know that i know that the not only all mormons were taught the way i was taught i'm just saying that there's a common ground that these these uh principles are constantly taught and you're conditioned to go on a mission you're conditioned to get married in the temple you're conditioned to want these things to be accepted um in that community um and so but but a lot of a lot of people get past that point of it's subconsciously you you might be doing it for acceptance and i i will speak for myself subconsciously i believe i was doing it for acceptance but consciously i was i was on a different road i was doing it for the lord i was doing it for um because it was the right thing to do um and so yeah i it took me a while i i was i was one of those awkward kids in high school before going back for a bit that wouldn't wouldn't date because president hinckley said you shouldn't go steady so i took that to heart didn't date didn't kiss didn't hold hands i was like no my mission is my goal and whoever stands in my way so help me um so i didn't do any of that so i had no experience when i got back i was the most awkward returned missionary on the face of this earth i would ask to hold someone's hand i'd be like hey can i is it okay if i just slap hold your hand and it made things so awkward that the girls would be like what what why are you why are you asking to hold my hand i'd be like i don't i don't know i i don't know how to do this and so it was it made for a lot of awkward dates and uh i chased a lot of girls away because man i just knew what i wanted and i'd be like i like you we'd go on one day and i'd be like i like you i like you a lot we should date because i know you have and i didn't say this outright but in my mind it was like man she's she's strong in the gospel i can feel it and i feel the spirit telling me this and this and i that this she she's a she's a prospect i should date her steady right now and man i scared let's get a lot of girls and i feel bad but um so uh i finally met my then wife and i'll explain my journey more but i i am divorced now spoilers and a wonderful wonderful woman and she how soon did you get married how we started dating in let's see 2011 2010 and we got married we so we we started officially dating the very beginning of 2011 and we we got married in the the summer of that same year 2011. and you got off your mission i got off my mission the end of 2008 basically two it was it was new year's eve of 2008. okay so it took you a year a couple years to find a special someone yeah okay well you did your best you know yeah i did uh by mormon standards i guess i was pushing forward but uh and i guess from my own experience it was i that's all we had in common was the gospel and and now looking back at what that that's that's why i feel so strongly about it that's why i um and i know i'm i'm aware that a lot of things may and are changing with that rhetoric in the church but from my own experience knowing and taking personal responsibility of going no all you need to do is find someone that's basically any any and now looking back is as simply and as as best as it might as this might sound as any girl that has a testimony and wants to have a family and is attracted to me and likes me is a candidate um one of our listeners aaron she writes kimball said uh kimball said that about marriage partners and then repeated many times again by other church leaders i definitely remember john by the way preaching that at byu fireside it's crazy yeah yeah and that's kind of interesting i did a i did a short little video on uh my new youtube channel called understanding mormonism where i in a long litany of risks associated with uh being in the church you know and there are so many positives but there are risks and one of the risks i mentioned was people being rushed into marriage and kids too quickly so many people freaked out and said that's not what the church teaches and it's and then they're able to point to a policy of an obscure policy that probably was only recently made public or written that says you know the number of kids to have is a sensitive thing and people shouldn't be judged but it's so weird that the church can just all they have to do is issue a policy like that online so that they can sort of deny that that that that was ever a thing but we all know that for 100 years you know for all our lives it was get married as soon as you can oh yeah and now it's just such a weird thing because we all know that that was so heavily emphasized and yet members in 2020 are like trying to say to me it's almost like i feel like i'm being guest lit it's like that's not what the church teaches and i'm like what church did you grow up in you know yeah and that that honestly makes it so hard when we're trying to have respectful conversations um with uh believing members now is because so many times i'll say that i'll say you know i was taught in the mormon church that these this was priority and they'll look at me and be like you were taught wrong that's not i've never been taught that and that's and i've you know at being being out completely of the church for a couple of years now i've just learned to just go i can't i can't argue with this because that's what the church that's the pattern of the church they have one revelation after another they make it either policy or doctrine and then when it's not acceptable anymore they have another one that goes no let's disavow that and but they don't talk about it they don't apologize for it they don't admit that they've done it and so it gets these mem members and and ex-members alike to butt heads when they don't and it's like you know blacks and the priests was another one where i've had so many conversations with people and said this was this was not a policy back go read some enzyme articles back in the 70s this was doctrine this was pre-earth life and it just admit it i'm sure um ex-mormons and progressive mormons are like it it bogs you down it's like you can't have these conversations because now even the book of mormon is being changed book of mormon or or interpreted differently from saying blatantly saying and being taught i'm one of the ones that remembers the skin of darkness the lord caused the skin of darkness to come upon the lamanites to separate them because of their wickedness and now i'm seeing this new rhetoric of no no that was never a thing never ever a thing god never would do that it's a spiritual darkness it's a it's a countenance it's it was referring to the countenance are you kidding a skin of darkness and it's changing and it just it it makes it makes us take two steps back to go when we're trying to bring awareness to these harmful harmful things many harmful things that are taught that we were taught and that are suddenly poof they're gone without any recognition of like hey you know what we actually did teach that and that was really wrong and really close-minded and it's hurt a lot of people it's just and and that's what makes it so hard how long how long were you married in your first marriage mitch seven years that's that hit the seven year inch you basically made it to the seven year itch yep yep uh and and uh we you know it was like i said let me ask you what what profession did you and or your wife pursue in terms of school or work and then what are you able to you know i don't want to dig for dirt i know that our relations are sensitive yeah yeah and what what what are you able to talk about in terms of that dynamic especially knowing that you probably like me your number one goal was not getting divorced right yeah yep um exactly uh and so career-wise and this this is one of the many uh things that that i will take so much responsibility for is i in my heart of hearts i wanted to pursue acting i wanted to be an artist i wanted to pursue film but i was at this battle within myself and i was like i can't do that because i won't be able to support my it's not a traditional mormon family it's not a traditional american family like i've got to go out and get a nine-to-five job i mean now i'm saying this as a memory i wasn't thinking exactly why i'm uh relaying it now but i wanted to find a job i was looking for something different i've always wanted to teach and so i was like well i'll be a teacher i'll go and be a teacher and so and i remember talking with uh my wife then and and saying first i would say well i want to do this and but i i want to be an artist and i want to act and so for a second early in our marriage i started to pursue it and i could tell that it wasn't good i could tell that it wasn't what it couldn't be supported within the narrative of the mormon family because i found out quickly as a filmmaker as an actor you move move move you go from one job to the next and you know you don't and so it's hard it when i saw that narrative i was like i can't i can't do it i can't do that um and so i didn't i said no i'll do that as a hobby and i'm gonna start looking for something else so i wanted to be a seminary teacher i was like i love the gospel i'm gonna teach seminary i i heard that utah state had a wonderful program up there and so i was i started looking to that and i was like yep and i told and this is an interesting i remember praying about it and having a revelation um and i look back on this and and i wish i would have done it differently but i i was one of those priesthood holders that when i had a spiritual experience i would let my wife know and be like and it wasn't like we're doing this pack your bags i would let her know that i i would make sure she knew that it was a revel or a spiritual experience and as a priesthood holder um and not not to be you know like i said before it wouldn't be for the the point to be like you have to follow me i've had this revelation so just do what i say it was just that rhetoric that i was used to it was like oh my and i was so excited i was like oh my god i i had a revelation i had this spiritual experience that i'm supposed to go to utah state and be a seminary teacher oh okay and i was so excited i told my wife and she i could tell she was a little hesitant but she was like okay she did she did the the mormon supportive thing um which i'm appreciated of appreciative of and she supported me she was like okay so we moved to logan went to utah state and i started to go take classes to be a seminary teacher and immediately i sat down and i would listen and and keep in mind that you know i hadn't really i'd had a few light bulbs a few questions but i would just shove them away i remember sitting down in one of those classes and just something wasn't right i was like and i took it as oh you're satan's tempting you because you had a clear revelation that you were supposed to be a seminary teacher so you just got to stick with this because once you know another rhetoric once you get a revelation once the lord speaks satan comes in boom so i thought that i was like no i got to stick with this but every time i went i something didn't feel right i didn't like how they were telling teaching and it wasn't because i disagreed with the gospel it just didn't sit right i was like this i and so i i ended up not doing it and there was a film program that just opened up and i remember going and checking it out and that feeling that you feel which i know so many can relate where you know you found what you want to do and i was i was glowing i went to that uh open house to introduce the new degree of film at that place at new york usu mm-hmm it's not there anymore it was a they tried it and it was in conjunction with uh i think slack it's salt lake city community college yeah yeah yeah right sorry uh slick um and uh what you would do is you would go two years at utah state learn the technical sides of uh theater and film and then you would go and get transferred down to salt lake city and hands-on start doing films um and so i was like okay this is what i'm gonna do and then how long i i have to ask how long were you at in logan at utah state and what years i i so we moved in 2014 and i graduated in 2019. oh wow okay so we overlapped i uh i was there in 2014 and 2015. that's i got excommunicated in cash valley so i was i graduated with my phd from utah state in 2015. so we would have been we would have uh overlapped those two years we probably passed each other at one point or another i was a counselor in the counselor in the what's that i said i love love utah state it's it's yeah go waggies i'm a cougar aggie but uh i was in the counseling center so did you ever go to the counseling center at utah state okay yeah oh okay i i went just a couple of times yeah but that's awesome yeah so we were there at the same time you would have been there when i got uh excommunicated and um i do uh i we do have a listener who it's it's win marino he writes in i remember these conversations with you way back when in logan man how far we have come i'm so proud of you dude do you remember when yep oh yeah when when uh a shout out to win man when i was going through my transition he was there and he's one who's been through a lot of that uh himself he went through a lot of the same things that we've all gone through and that was that's jumping forward to 2000 yeah 2015-16 i think i believe 16 is when i first met win and uh he really i remember bringing these doubts to him that i was having um it may have been 2017 but anyway regardless he really talked through and he was and i'm i appreciate when um and so many like this because what he did is he he said he would encourage me to follow my heart he would say mitch just do what you know is right if you stay in the church that's awesome that's wonderful if you don't that's wonderful but all you need you just need to follow your gut follow your heart and that's all that matters so so this is only a few years ago so we're talking three or four years ago where you're at utah state having a faith crisis is that right that's right yep and oh go ahead and i don't want to i don't want i don't want that comment to pull us off the timeline so you said that once you found out about this acting program maybe this joint program with utah state and slick you feel like you had found your calling is that right yeah so it was a film program and then i decided um to odd let's see i oh i as part of that film curriculum i was required to take beginning acting which was i was so stoked about and i remember getting into that class and starting to do the work and the professor uh richie call who still teaches up their amazing amazing man took me aside and he said mitch if you want to keep doing film keep doing film but i'm telling you you should at least audition for the acting program and so i took it to heart and i've always wanted to act always always uh in conjunction with film and and so i took it to heart and i dis i auditioned and i got in and i was jumped so fast from film to acting and then i was in the acting program which is a very rigorous four-year cohort program where you start with the same people and end with the same people and you go through very specific cr classes building up to the to your graduation and then you have a showcase in new york city and man i remember when i and again my responsibility of letting my wife know then that i just i told her i said i just need to be an actor i need to pursue arts and i remember that was hard because i had set up this i had set up this vision of what our family was going to be and we i'm sure we both had it and and not only i had set it up but this is going back to conditioned of what a mormon family looks like my own personal past of divorce and what i carried with me into that marriage um and so we we did only have the gospel in common and so when i said acting i knew that it was gonna be hard on our marriage and i didn't wanna but i didn't wanna not be me for the sake of someone else i didn't wanna i was getting also getting to the point where i was i'm a people pleaser i pleased all my life and i i got to this point at utah state where i was like no i i'm gonna drown if i keep doing this i've got to start doing what i know i need to do so i auditioned got into the acting program i remember a counselor there in the theater department that told me when i started um with all well intentions she knew i was mormon she was mormon herself and she said are you sure you want to do this this isn't for a mormon family um and that scared me i was like yeah yes yeah i mean this is what i want to do um and then and the interesting the beautiful thing about arts and why i love the arts and why it drives me is because you in my opinion some can disagree with me and that's that's wonderful in my opinion you cannot be an artist without expanding your mind you cannot pursue arts you cannot create art unless you're willing to expand your mind and at least jump to the other side and go okay i'm willing to drop those barriers and think outside the box i'm willing to be uncomfortable and that is art that is acting that's that my experience with acting and so i started taking these rolls where there was cussing and i remember going i can't i can't i can't swear and it was the f-bomb and jesus christ and these plays that they were just full of all this language and i was like i can't do that and i remember um making my justifications with the help of a professor who was also lds there and and i said okay i'll do it and so i started taking these roles and my mind started to blossom and i started to study other perspectives and it wasn't just comedy i i was in in straight plays that were very serious and very had such serious themes that made me think so hard and made me so uncomfortable but it was the right path i was like i this feels uncomfortable but i need to keep doing this i need to keep thinking outside of my own experience and that was i would say another huge step towards my transition out of the church i was still very active but i started to think for myself a lot more instead of think the way that i was taught to think and feel uh no i'm i'm i'll i'm let me jump in here just for a sec i i think about i mean there's this stereotype of the artist whether it's bono or ben affleck or you know pick your activist artist where they're kind of mocked and i want to put that aside for a second because i follow popular culture and if i'm just being totally honest with just my radar and my impression of artists when i hear an artist speak again whether it's sting or or matt damon or whoever they they often come across to me as articulate and as super thoughtful and some of my listeners or viewers may totally not agree that's fine if you if you hate if you if you if you don't like uh or don't agree with me but i've often wondered what exactly is it about the performing arts that seems to cater to thoughtfulness and i mean you're kind of explaining it but but uh you know when i watch your your tick tock videos there's clearly they're not just like you're not just doing an impression they're they're scripted in a way and i don't know how much it's spontaneous versus you work on the script at a time but there's a lot of thought there's a lot of thought that goes into that and it's often just made me wonder what is it about the performing arts that leads to thoughtfulness and yeah and that's that's uh to be honest switching from my traditional mormon brain to the next part my progressive mormon brain i became an advocate of making someone uncomfortable not inappropriately but just making them think making them hit that wall and go why am i uncomfortable right now watching a play and and cache valley is predominantly mormon and so these mormons would come to these shows and some of them would get up and leave and walk out because they were brass they were they'd make you so uncomfortable and and i started going this is needed people need to and it doesn't mean that you get uncomfortable and you have to agree no it means just going to that other side letting that wall fall and letting yourself think about what what are these characters going through because for me personally my old mormon brain the traditional one when i would see an r-rated movie or even a pg-13 or a play that was that had sex jokes or or swore or had nudity or or presented themes that made me uncomfortable i would shut it down i'd be like nope the spirit's gone and now my progressive mormon brain in 2015-16 i was going that's not the spirit leaving that's because i'm uncomfortable i'm uncomfortable with this content and i started and that's and that's why i say in the arts you're forced to ask why when you hit that wall why am i uncomfortable right now why do i feel this way when someone says the f you know f you why do i feel this way when when there are sexual themes talked about very very blatantly in a play or death or religion and so i began to go no i need to i need to embrace this uncomfortable and and push against the wall and step to the other side again not to go i'm going to agree with everything this play or this theme is but to at least go to the other side and and basically ask what would i do or what what are these people experience if i experience this would i be acting this way or would what would this cause me to do if i was presented with this situation and as an actor i learned very quickly that i started to have this um awakening i guess where i would be presented with these roles and i would i would start preparing and some of them were hard to to put my mind around in my heart around because i didn't agree with what they were doing even as a progressive mormon i'd be like no and then i started to go i was taught very very well and utah state a shout out to them that program is a wonderful program it's it's a hidden gem so if you are in the arts and you like acting go check it out i i didn't even know usu had an acting program for i went to nine years of grad school at usu you know honestly a lot of people don't and that's why i say it's a hidden gem because the their what what they do what they put on and and the reason i i admire them so much is because they do what art should do in a very religious community they don't go well we're just gonna and and i'm not bashing anyone that does this art is beautiful but the art for me and my personal experience and what i lean towards is art that inspires change or makes makes you think and so these the this art program would put on these plays that went against every mormon standard every religious standard of like no you don't talk about that you don't swear you don't you know this and this and they they said no this is this is what it is this is what art is and they didn't do it and on the flip side they did have a lot of wholesome plays they didn't do it just to the other side and push them like no we're just going to only do these brass plays but uh yeah they they're they're a great program but i i learned i learned to open my mind and it was that that's a huge step towards my transition out of the church yeah as i think about it as i as i'm kind of thinking about my own question to you and reflecting back what i've heard from you and other things one thing that comes to mind is as an actor you have to it seems like you would have to learn to develop empathy for people who aren't you the people who don't have your perspective because if you're going to play a murderer or a killer or a priest or a you know an abuse abuser or an abuse victim you won't have had all the experiences that the roles you play have had and so you have to i'm sure you have to do even homework to get in the shoes of the character you're playing exactly learn about what it's like to be them and so you're forced into empathy which is something we as mormons we probably don't excel at we don't excel at empathy we're focused on like here's the life you're supposed to have hear the feelings you're supposed to feel here are the thoughts you're supposed to think here are the ways you're supposed to behave fit the mold wear a white shirt wear a tie go on a mission get married quick have a job raise your kids follow the brethren that's not that's not a preparatory for empathy right that's not a laboratory for empathy right as an actor you're doing that plus acting's supposed to make you feel it's supposed to challenge you you know art is supposed to make you feel art's supposed to challenge you and art is a lot of the ways that you know if you think about how did lgbt rights get accepted in the united states it's when ellen an actor does a show and comes out and all of a sudden through that you know any lgbt person will say that there's sort of before ellen and after ellen right and and and or uh yeah and so and so i i think the arts you know i often think about like getting an advanced education can be perilous becoming a historian can be perilous to faith uh you know if i think about mindy gledhill or tyler glenn or dan dan reynolds or a lot of the entertainers that have come on mormon stories yeah it just seems like those dynamics of of being an artist can can make faith become more and more tenuous yes um and i i completely agree and that's what started happening that's exactly what started to happen and i i was uh um i was forced to think outside of myself and start putting myself in other people's shoes and uh and ironically that started not ironically thankfully that started happening in my not just in my character work but in my life i started to think outside the box um and i started letting myself not immediately close off when i had a thought that i was told nope don't do that i would go why why why why am i uncomfortable right now and is it because and you you know i as i learned this it was this is a human behavior it's because something within you it's never another person if you react a certain way it's because of something within you that's making you uncomfortable and so i started to learn this which brings me to my next huge step is i um in that in the program and there were uh a few friends that were lgbtq plus and as a mormon it was hard to feign acceptance even though i did accept them but i in the back of my mind i was like nope i can't i can't truly accept them for who they are but i can love them and and i i think a lot of people know what that narrative is and i became really good friends with um [Music] uh one of these fellow actors in the program scotty zaborski and he we can't became so close and he this this was such a wonderful loving man accepting man and i i was like why why are we taught they're uncomfortable thought of why are we taught that these back then when i was young and now their narrative has changed just like you you and i have discussed joan back then when i was young if you were gay you were a pedophile i was told that i was that narrative was taught to me not that you know no one sat me down and said now listen mitch if you ever have these this and this and this uh you're a pedophile no i kids absorb i remember conversations that my dad and uncle would have i remember my mom and dad talking about it i remember seeing as a kid we were on a trip and two men holding hands and my dad almost lost his [ __ ] and he got the family away and i was just like whoa i didn't know what was happening and so i reached this point where i was like why am i uncomfortable with this man who has shown me nothing we're good friends but i still feel uncomfortable and so i started to peel it open and i started i said and he used to be lds and i said scotty i have a lot of these narratives in my head i remember the night we we've been playing nintendo games just having a blast and i said i remember that i said there's these narratives in my mind that say that i've been taught that say that you are a sinner and i said i'm going to be blunt and we we we had a close enough relationship where we could talk very openly and i said i'm going to be blunt and i'm not i'm meaning to be offensive but i want you to tell me your experience because what i have in my mind my narrative is that if you're gay you've been molested if you're gay you chose to be gay because of some kind of problem in your past and if you're gay you have inappropriate thoughts about children and it was hard for me to say and i said it and he told me his story and it blew my mind it blew my mind and i started to go something is wrong with this something is wrong with these you know scotty who something's wrong with with these religious teachings that are telling us that these people that these human beings these loving wonderful people are not worthy are tainted are going to hell and i started to i started to disagree with what the church had peddled to me and when he told me this beautiful story of his progression in life and um and he told me he said no that i never said my uh and he said mitch i was never molested but let me be clear even if someone is molested that doesn't make them gay and you need to get that out of your head immediately um and then he told me a story about his exit of the church he told me stories and his experience about shock therapy um when he found out that byu did studies about it he he told me stories about being shunned from church being when he started to come out being shown from his own family um and the theme of that story was i'm not going to apologize for who i am and he's and he said i've gotten to a point that this is who i am and i can no longer affiliate with the church that tells me we love you but don't be you and that hit home i was like why why am i here a very privileged white male straight white male and i have all these privileges within the church and i'm treated so differently and that was a huge catapult i started looking at women uh going why are they treated differently why can't they have the priesthood why are why are these things building up and it i started so many thoughts started colliding in my mind that i thought i was going crazy because it it like opened the door and the wall broke down and it was just like all these thoughts that i'm sure i had since i was a kid that i shelved just came crashing out and i started to question and i knew that i disagreed with how the church was treating the lgbtq plus community and how they treated and how they treat even now them and women and i disagreed and i started becoming even more of a progressive mormon um where i i wouldn't i if if i heard someone saying that you know we love you but you can't go to heaven they wouldn't say it that bluntly but basically that's what they were saying i would start going no no i don't i don't like that like that's if you heard if your logical brain could hear you right now that just you know it's wrong you know it's wrong so why why do you go through jump these through boobs but i have sympathy and empathy for that because i went through it i jumped through a lot of those loops to try and justify that wall staying intact maybe maybe this is a good time to play your uh doubt your doubts video really quick is that okay yeah of course all right let's let's hear this is uh this is mitch shira uh as genie man on tick tock uh doing another one of his famous impressions tell us who this is an impression of this is thomas s monson okay uh talking about doubting your doubts is that right that's correct all right let's play it i remember not too long ago i began to dive into the church history there i began to find things contrary to what was taught to me while growing up in primary on one occasion i wrote an account that struck me as i brought this account to my dear bishop and there i told him of my doubts he looked at me and with a twinkle in his eye he said tommy you must know you must doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith close quote i looked at him and with a twinkle in my eye i told him why bishop that's complete [ __ ] i remember not too long ago oh my gosh i love that so much as someone who is someone who grew up with thomas monson it's spot on brother thank you and he's another one that uh right after hinckley i i idolized and listened to every word yeah okay so i mean i just thought you know you're starting to have in your narrative you're starting to have doubts and questions and that it's perfectly yeah i doubt your doubts and that's what i started to do yeah and you were doubting you that you were honestly doubting everything you've been taught for your whole life right so that becomes very confusing yeah and at that point i wasn't like it was mainly around just these issues of like basically equality and true acceptance and it triggered my experience on my mission where i had the same kind of thing of like why do i have an agenda same thing why do i have an agenda why does love why should love and acceptance have this agenda we love you if you do xyz but if you don't do that yeah we still love you it doesn't make sense it's like no love is love you you accept and that's and i i started this conundrum started going on where i was reading the new testament and christ's love was unconditional and i knew that and i started to go why is it conditional in this true in in this true one and only true church why is it conditional if christ's love is unconditional then it should be unconditional plain and simple um and so from there i remember these thoughts starting to come into my mind and it and also from being in the arts just not i think i just started flexing that muscle in my brain of like i'm uncomfortable instead of going like this i would go why let's dig into it and i started to see things so my journey is a little i i i had heard about church history the actual uh true narrative of the church history and i that was one wall that i just was like nope that's lies lies lies and they and they teach that hard and that's probably one of the reasons why it was a very very strong wall is because you don't look outside church sources you just don't and that's it's if you do it's basically denying the spirit and going to satan's side and that might sound so blunt but honestly that is exactly how they that's that's the impression that you get and i'm sure you went through this john i'm sure so many did of the first time that you kind of go maybe i should just put this website in and oh yeah oh no no pornography and that's not even pornography it's just it's just a blog of some ex-member sharing their experience and you treat it like it's this this uh terrible terrible thing but anyway i before that i was very i started to get uncomfortable in church because of the way the church's stance on the lgbtq plus community and women in the priesthood and i started to get uncomfortable with other things because i was reading the new testament and i was going christ's love is unconditional it should be unconditional but then i remember sitting in elders quorum and hearing a lesson on tithing and i got uncomfortable and i was like why am i uncomfortable let's think about this and i went down this rabbit hole on tithing of going way way way so in order for us to be truly accepted by god to be truly admitted into the highest degree of heaven we are required to pay money 10 of our income to get a club pass to go into these buildings and have these ex you know get these endowments and and and and that when i and i obviously i didn't think of that exactly that way at that time that's a progression of a lot of uh um thoughts over the years but that bothered me and so i started going to my bishop and i was like why is tithing on the temple recommend issue but fast offerings are not why can't why is why is building these million dollar temples and these expensive churches and i get and at that time my progressive warming mind still mormon i was like i get that it's important to go to church i get that temple work is so important but why are we doing this when and why is this question so prioritized over fast offerings which if you're familiar with the church that is voluntarily giving i guess money when you fast you give to uh you skip two meals and pay as much as you would have paid if you um at least as much as you would have paid if you had bought in those two mills bought those two meals and then you're willing you know you're encouraged to pay more um but it's not on the temple recommend interview it's not one of the questions and those were the type of questions that started popping up in my head that didn't make sense that were conditional and i really that one really bothered me i was like no this isn't right i shouldn't have to pay 10 and the reason why it bothered me again aside from all that my first red flag was whenever you're taught that lesson it's about faith the tithing lesson you just pay your tithing faith just do it don't don't question it and a brother in that uh lesson i remember him raising his hand and going i just don't want to know what i what would happen if i didn't pay my tithing i've had so many blessings because of it i just i can't imagine not paying my tithing i'm scared to even know and i was like what what and my brain exploded i was like no no no no no no no that's that's not really for me it made me so uncomfortable and i started to look into it baptism came up i was like why are we baptizing kids at eight and i was still mormon so i'd be like it says the age of accountability begins at eight why are we why is the church going baptize them baptize them and i was part of the bishopric at this time i went to the i was uh the secretary and i would go to these bishopric meetings and they would talk about so and so and so little jimmy is nine and he's not baptized and they would be so concerned about that family and it blew my mind i was like why are you concerned about this kid is nine years old and you're wanting you you're thinking that you need to pull this family in for an interview because the kid is nine not eight and so questions like that and and that man i guess if it's a slippery slope once you open that door it's like nope and so i started to look at the church in a much different light and then i remember reading the new testament and there was a it was one of the sections with the sadducees and the pharisees and i a light bulb went off and i was like oh my god the lds church is everything that jesus was teaching against everything that jesus was saying don't don't the gospel is not about taking this many steps on sunday and doing this and paying your tithing and going to the temple and doing all these steps the gospel is about love and acceptance it's about bettering yourself becoming for a lack of a better term in my experience becoming more christ-like more god-like whatever you affiliate with that's what it is and god embodies love god is love and so when that that hit me and i at that that was a huge turning point when i had that thought i couldn't get it out of my head and i was still very mormon i was still progressive progressive mormon and i um i kept going to church and then uh i guess shout out to uh my dear friends trevor mcintosh eileen mcintosh uh we we've been friends trevor's been a childhood friend of mine um ever since uh elementary junior high and he opened up and said he had left the church and that blew my mind i was like no even though i was progressive i was like no what that he had served a mission and he introduced me to the ces letter and i had never dove into the history until that point and i was like you know what there's some red flags going on and again i wanted to empathize i didn't want to just be like yeah you read this the ces letter and i remember uh when i was at that point where i was open enough to be like okay like i'm not judging you and i remember i called them and left left them a voicemail as president hinckley and i was like oh what a terrible thing it is when you're raised your whole life mormon and you decide to go down satan's path i am so shocked at this please come back to the fall i beg of you that's not exactly what i said but i remember leaving a message in in good in good spirits as sarcastic and i was still lds and so they got a kick out of it but that was my way of saying hey dude i still love you i'm not judging you um but then yeah i uh i read that ces letter and then that uh that shook my entire world but i think uh tell me tell me don't forget where you were don't forget where you were right now so remember where you're about to go with that butt okay but i think uh it'd be fun to play your uh your response to the ces videos see your video is that okay yeah yeah that's that's exactly basically how a lot of us feel all right so this is uh this is mitch shira playing gollum is that right yep from lord of the rings smeagle i guess smiggle in response to reading the ces letter let's let's give this a try oops uh give me just one second for some reason that that uh let me get that let me get that video working for a second if you can stall for just one second um yeah so the in my experience it's a little about this video i remember thinking a couple weeks ago you know what lord of the rings is my favorite movie of all time and schmiegel's scene in the two towers where he battles with himself is a perfect experience it's it correlates so closely to what i and many of us have gone through who have left the church or who have are progressive or who have read the cls letter in general and just had that foundation shaken and so i was like yeah maybe uh maybe we all have these dual voices in our head all right let's try this again should we try now let's try it all right let's see if this works ah no huh having a slight technical difficulty here let me try one more thing so here's the video all right there we go we told you they were trixie we told you they were first masters are friends master is [Music] [Laughter] not the arm to the square anything but the arm to the square right yeah yeah i thought that would be a nice little touch to it i have to i have to ask just because it's coming to my mind as an actor you had to have been like impressed or turned on by the by the actors in the in the in the temple ceremony in the movie i don't know if you got to see like michael balum play satan yeah did you ever like as an aspiring actor have a secret part of you that someday wanted to to act in one of the temple movies or or in any of the you know the joseph smith yeah you know temple temple visitor center you know movies or any of that stuff oh yeah uh yeah i i remember thinking when i would watch the temple videos i'd be like man if i if i can make it as an actor it would be such an honor to play in these temple videos um and and in any lds film and that's honestly i was like i'm gonna i'm gonna make it as an actor and i'd love to portray joseph smith and oh and uh and now now i'm just waiting for that true history movie to come out and i would love to be in that i'd be like okay let's do it let's uh let's let's dive into these characters because i'm so excited but but yeah i i definitely aspired to be in that uh in those temple videos and michael balum was actually um the theater i acted professionally during the summers while at school the lyric theater in logan um the opera house is right next to it and that's what michael balon owns and so i uh i talked to him a lot and was able to pick his brain a couple of times he's a great guy but i have a going back oh yeah i have a listener who asked they're they're one of the common responses well there's a lot of people that most people have never heard of the ces letter overwhelmingly so um and i want to get back to the your line of thought around the ces letter but yeah um there are a lot of people who just most people overwhelmingly don't know about it because the church is so good at creating this bubble where you can live in cache valley in 2014 2015 someone's being excommunicated it's a literally it was a global story it was tweeted by the new york times and you didn't even you probably didn't even know that was happening just like two miles down the road and i'm only saying that not to pull me in but just to say the bubble the mormon bubble is so profoundly strong that most people have never heard of ces letter mormon stories any of that that's the overwhelming majority yeah then there are some who hear about it and are influenced by it there are others that read the ces letter and they say it strengthens their testimony what do you have any reactions you know so continue where you were going when discussing this ds letter but i'm also curious if you if you have any thoughts about when when the ces letter isn't as ineffective why that might be um so from my experience i remember the reason i decided to read the cs letter um aside from my dear friend trevor telling me hey you should read this was because i remember having another thought going why does the church say you can't read um unapproved church sources or or you can only read things that are approved by church sources and i remember talking to my wife then as and i was open with my transition what i was going through and i remember talking to her and saying why i said what if you were in a neighborhood and you have this babysitter and you just pan her and she's doing such a wonderful job but something's just not right and she's not being honest with you and you decide okay i want to get references something's a little weird i just want to see and she finds out and she goes no don't don't ask any neighbor don't ask any neighbor what i've what what their experience with me was just ask me would we go oh get good cool all right you're in or will we go wait a second red flags red flags why why can't we ask is are you hiding something and i remember having that thought and having that conversation with my then wife and and then reading the ces letter that was one of the reasons i was like i sh i should be i shouldn't be afraid if my and there's that narrative too if your testimony is strong enough you should be fine um and so i read it and shook my world and one one of the first things that i noticed when i was reading it was um i was i was reading it and i thought this this isn't hateful this guy is sincere he's asking the church why haven't you told us this that's the gist of the letter all the things that he brings up is asking sincerely hey why why why am i finding out about this from other sources sources that you told me not to look at that would lead me astray but they're actually it's actually actual history and that's one of the first impressions i got and it meant of course my mormon brain was firing like crazy i was like no that's not true that can't be true that can't be true um but i that's one of the things i remember going okay all right this this guy is sincere in his quest for truth like that and so that it didn't turn me off i was like okay all right and um i remember trevor reaching out to me asking if i had read it and i said yeah and he was like so what did you think and i was like there are a lot of great points he was really sincere but i'm you know i'm not leaving how many how many years ago was this where you're actually reading the ces letter i believe it was 2017. so it was three years ago so shout out to trevor for him being willing to open open his mouth i yeah yeah i have kind of an emotional i don't want to say breakdown but i had an emotional epiphany of sort of anger yesterday as i was preparing for an interview with shannon caldwell montez about bh roberts and just how long the brethren have known about these problems for so long i just always gave them the benefit of the doubt because i just love these guys like i'm about to show holland's clip like whether it's monson or hinckley or holland i had a love affair with these men as a boy and as a youth and as a teen and as a young adult i loved and trusted these men and that's that's part of what makes these videos so appealing to me is because it's i love them you capture their spirit their voice their intonation their emotion but at the same in the in their lovability but at the same time i'm so furious at them because they have been in many cases intentionally misleading us and for so long i didn't want to accept that but now that i've really started thinking about it and digging in there's no escaping the fact that they've known all that stuff in the ces letter they've known for 120 years at least and and every 10 years there's a major event in mormon history where they were put on notice and every they always punish the truth-teller told the members to to cover their ears and then lied and and hid the truth and uh you know and misled people and so it's so uh it's so powerful i'm gonna go ahead and play the jeffrey holland clip i okay this this is this is special to me i uh jeffrey holland was the president of byu when i when i attended byu as a freshman oh okay yeah i dated his daughter mary uh as a freshman and uh just you know a few times and then i um i was a teaching assistant for american heritage with with matt holland so i i played tennis with jeff holland uh i took a religion class from jeff holland wow and then during my faith crisis i met with him twice my brother and him in a restaurant uh that was shut down it was just us at a restaurant me and my brother and so like elder holland when i and when i came to byu he and pat gave this talk of soul symbols and sacraments i'll never forget it and just his passion and his charisma just uh totally was a huge influence in my life and then when he gave that book a mormon talk after i met with him he tells me he wants people like me to stay in the church then he gives this book a mormon talk in general conference with this passion saying that if you if you're going to leave the church you have to crawl over under around the book of mormon with this rhetoric this voice and this intonation it's along i thought it was part of his like the strength of his soul but then i realized that it's almost acting it's it's almost acting the general authority voice the the crying on cue the trembling and you can you can capture it in a tick tock as an actor and it sort of showed me that that so much of what general authorities do is acting i know that probably sounds rude but uh you know that that's just my riffing it's very very true so this is mitch shira as genie man on tick tock um channeling jeffrey r holland and uh this is just hold on your hats everybody here goes among people who have left your face let me refresh this hopefully it won't crash okay here we go why i ask why come to a place obviously not intended for you spreading shame among people who have left your faith which you cannot fathom the pain which they have felt why to you i say shame on you shame on you why where how who and what my dear brothers and sisters oh my gosh i mean it's so funny and perfect that it's so dark i know it's super dark when i when i started making these let me tell you my mormon brain got triggered because when you're conditioned to think and feel that if you speak ill of the lord's anointed you're going to hell and i remember when i st when i've been making these i would be like oh i my mormon brain still there which i believe will still be with all of us whether or not we've left the church and it triggered me i was like i i there are times the packer when i hesitated posting because i was like man that's that's a dark that's that's that's got some themes and i'm i'm really really pushing the envelope here but then i click out of it and i go you know what no this is humor this is this is helping others i know that and plus it shouldn't be a justification but where my mind is at and in my journey where i still that anger still comes up sometimes because of what you just said when you know that these men that you idolized were in many cases purposefully withholding being dishonest and withholding what the true his the actual narrative of the church is it stays with you when you have built your entire life your identity crashes and of course to all to all maybe to for members and uh that may not understand and that i've often heard of like you shouldn't be angry why you're so bitter you're so bitter and that's like a justification that we're we're contentious and first of all anger anger is a very natural emotion that i'm still learning to embrace because of what i was taught as a mormon kid that narrative of anger equals contention unless it's righteous anger by elder holland um but uh it's it's so natural it's a part of the grieving process to be able these men hurt so many people not only with their dishonesty but even the lgbtq plus community everything that shot it's it's a it's a heavy subject when i made that packer video it's a heavy heavy subject you're talking about these men of god approving shock therapy harming other individuals because they're something's wrong with them something's wrong doing emotional physically abusive manipulative things and so when i go when i have that thing pop and i go oh i'm speaking ill of the lord's anointed i'm always like no this needs to be said there needs to be some humor about this at the expense of those leaders because of all the the pain they've caused and so um i still respect i do respect the church i do respect members but i'm not gonna stop shedding light in a humorous way going okay if you're gonna if you don't like my page then move on but if you're gonna stay then be prepared buckle up because i'm i'm gonna be shedding some light on some things that need to be said because of the pain so uh you've already touched on this but i'm just gonna ask it directly um you know i did i again i i released a a youtube video just a couple days ago on uh the the lds church and truth truth in the lds church i think it was called and uh i had i had some dude on youtube make a response and it's just like mormon church is so good uh the mormon church is helping everybody it's it's creating great families it's making people happy people are happier and healthier in the church this was the guy's argument he's like what do you have against like happy families and healthy people like what's wrong with you so if you were to respond to that question because you know if you haven't already received the tax you might um and somebody's you know and i one of the things i love is that i i feel from you a love for mormonism at the core of everything you do i think you and i share that to this day i still love mormonism i feel like i had a great upbringing in it i'm grateful for it grateful for every part of it really um but at the same time i'm exposed to so much harm but instead of me doing a diatribe how would you answer that question of like the church does so much good why why would you spend your time on this of all the things you could spend your free time on why are you attacking a church that just does so much good what would your response be um well to be honest uh after working through my defense mechanism going hot no no but i would if they're in a place to listen i would say listen the church you're right the the church does do some good um i and exactly what you said john i i i appreciate and i hold dear in my heart my mormon upbringing although it did cause pain and it did cause things the way i think the condition to think and believe to be harmful to others in my life but regardless of if a church does good or if someone does good but they also are hurting other people and not just common little mistakes not just human nature but they are what we've talked about knowingly keeping information conditioning its members to look the other way that alone is dishonest and extremely harmful and then on top of that you put the narrative in you put how they treat the how they treated the blacks how they treated and still treat the lgbt lgbtq plus community how they treat women within the church and if you can't look at that and stop and say something's wrong regardless of some good that or organize an organization might do it does not cancel out the bad it can't that's not how life works and the other thing i would say human nature is good and this is something going back to my story this is something that i really struggle with and this is the narrative and the conditioning that we all went through with if you don't if you leave the church your your your life's going to [ __ ] excuse my french but that's what you think and the minute you realize that and give yourself the credit that you are good that people human nature is good we want to do good we want to help we want to serve we want to think outside of ourselves we want to feel empathy we're still going to make mistakes but that doesn't mean and that's that's one of the biggest things that hit home for me is when the church was no longer the one and only true church it was just another religion to me because i believe religion has some good points just like the mormon church but i believe that if a religion or an organization is doing abuse and harm and causing people emotional and physical turmoil being lied to telling telling someone that they're not accepted by god you where i stand i can't honestly stand with that and that's why i'm gone i can't honestly stand with that and say well you do you do some good you make some families happy when most of their and in my experience and a lot of us most of what they have done and are doing is actually in my opinion more harmful so even if it was even that would still not justify it to me but it's more harmful in my opinion it's more harmful what they do what they've done the narrative and the conditioning conditioning they've done to cause so many people pain and that's why we feel betrayed is because our lives are crashing we didn't we thought we knew who joseph smith was not who he was in the slightest and um and so yeah that that's basically what i would in a nutshell it's a long response but i would say that and to to maybe practice some empathy and to look to the other side and go why yeah but why are so many ex-mormons why are there so many ex-mormons and why am i uncomfortable with this and to look to the other side and try to stand in our shoes and feel what we felt because the anger is there but there's also love and there's also um independence that we're finding but anyway that's it's knowing that and that goes back knowing that as i read the ces letter and as i started to exit the church um i made my justifications i was an apologist mindset where i'd go the the time that argument the time was different back then you know and then it went to well the prophets make mistakes how can they be perfect and then i went to well um god doesn't require the prophets to always do the right thing because that's agency and and as i kept going down that road i was like i'm just jumping through so many hoops and i have to go back and go wait stop what is what did the conscience say what did your heart say what did the spirit tell you what is it saying it's wrong it's wrong no matter how much you justify it the actions some of those so many of those actions in history and even now throughout our day are so wrong and abusive and it needs to stop i have to feel like you know you in your in your story in your narrative you're reading the ces letter because your friend introduced it to you and that's only three years ago i'm guessing this is six or seven years into your marriage at that point yep six and i'm guessing that had an impact on your marriage and i think that does tie back to my question about how the church harms people because you you chose some very specific paths and directions at very specific times and made some very specific decisions based on a certain set of understandings and i'm sure that you of all people didn't want to have your marriage end in divorce but but you're but but you know six years into your marriage three years ago four years ago you're having to deal with a whole level of complexity and difficulty on top of just the regular difficulties of just trying to keep a marriage together i think making seven years in a marriage is a phenomenal achievement even if it ends at seven years but but as the kid of a divorced family who wants nothing more than to not be divorced it must be very painful and i'd love to jump back into the story of how that affected your relationship with your with your ex-wife it must have been extremely painful to have that added pressure or burden or you could say the the rug or the foundation pulled out from under you once you learned the truth about the church after having been taught kind of a white-washed sanitized uh dishonest narrative do you want to do you want to pick up there is that is that a good place to pick up yeah yeah yeah um and honestly it was extremely difficult um extremely difficult on on both of us uh and as i said before in my personal opinion basically all we had in common was the gospel and so when i started that and once we had our kids that connected so you did have kids uh we had we have two girls two beautiful girls wow that raises the stakes right yeah yeah and that's that was another thing that was just so difficult and and we i remember bringing these issues to my ex-wife and going hey i i don't know if i am as strong anymore i am scared i have all these issues and i would talk openly about it but i could tell and she did her best and i and i appreciate her willingness to try to stick with that and to support me in my journey but when push came to shove it couldn't work and i regardless of i mean the red flags when i look back that i take personal responsibility for the red flags in my own decisions my own personal life going forward with her thinking that the gospel is all you need in common is such a no it's that's another harmful harmful thing to teach or to even imply and and i'm not blaming the church for that i'm not saying you're you caused my divorce you it's all your fault i know that that there there were things that i did there it's not that simple but it had a big part of our marriage because it was the only thing one of the of besides aside from our children that was the only thing that would hold us together and so when i said i don't i remember telling her i'm not going to church i can't and i got to that point where i was trying so hard and the easy path this is a contradictory to what believing members think the easy path was to go to church was to just put my head down and nod and take the sacrament go to sunday school go to priests and keep going that was the easy thing i was terrified terrified to stop because i don't have an identity identity now and when i told i remember getting to the point where i just said i'm at first i stopped going to sunday school and the priesthood and i just went to sacramento meeting to be together as a family but then i got to the point where i was like i i was looking and this is this was how my brain was working and it still does i was going i'm i'm so done with dishonesty i'm so done going to church and having to sit here listening to this narrative of these men who we idolize and praise for being such wonderful wonderful men regardless of the good that they may have done they have done so much bad and the church is still being dishonest about it and so i said what can i do i can't be dishonest and it's for my own sake my own personal experience going to church is lying to myself at that point and i'm i was so done with this honesty that i was like i'm not gonna lie to myself i'm not gonna sit here lying to myself and being dishonest saying hey go to church and just get through this and the church is true and xyz and so i told her and i said i i'm not i can't go anymore and i could tell it crushed her i'm then it was hard and i'm throwing my garments away and saying i can't go to the temple i i can't support a lot of what this church does it doesn't mean i'm done with the church i just i just need a break and at that point um we were already struggling because of my career because i was away from the family a lot doing this rigorous program from 8 am to 11 pm at night constantly and um and i just remember knowing and i'm sure she did too knowing in the back of my mind that if that's all we have in common i don't know if this will or even should continue just because and it should and now i look back and i go yeah you should not be with someone just because a church says never ever get divorced because then you make more pain and with those children we had to weigh in that like are we is this happy for them they see the discord i know that i was a part of that in my childhood and regardless of the pain and heartache that i went through i now look back at my parents and i go they needed to split regardless of how much they loved each other there was abuse there was things going on on both sides that needed to stop and they just weren't healthy in that relationship anymore and that narrative in the church is never get divorced no matter what and personally i didn't as a as a kid or as uh in my marriage i didn't experience this huge amount of abuse from my partner or any anything in that marriage but there are people that do there are people that stay in marriages that are abusive and physically and physically abusive emotionally abusive manipulative and they're in these toxic toxic toxic conditions but why aren't they leaving because the narrative they're conditioned not to they're conditioned families are forever families are forever and so that was a huge regardless of our other problems that we have had that was a big one and once i left we drifted and uh um we i remember her coming to me i remember the night and it it was hard for both of us but she she opened up and just said that she couldn't do it anymore and we both knew it we were at that point i think i i know i was in the denial process of no no no even though in my mind i was like this this can't keep working um it's getting unhealthy because we're both on different pages and we'd have nothing in common other than gospel on our kids and and so i remember just breaking down because i had failed and it's a and that's a true thing when when you are a child of a divorced family and then you realize that you've done the same thing to your children and i know i've worked through i'm still working through forgiving myself and and not having that shame talk but when you realize that that is what you've done it it broke me and um and i know her intentions were great and i know that and i don't blame her for saying this but she said that she she basically said if i told iceland myself i would never divorce unless they left the church or i was cheated on and i left and i don't blame her for that because i know that's not her narrative i know that is a conditioned narrative that i was taught and that was my goal until i left i knew that once marriage was marriage and you'd never ever divorce and unless you know you can justify it you start justifying it if they are leaving because it's like threatening your eternal salvation of your whole family and so yeah leave and gets get help but and so i remember no hearing that and man the shame it was hard and that's why going back to that comment uh that comment saying hey the church brings happiness why are you why are you focusing on this because there is damage there's so much damage there is so much damage that members are not seeing that are conditioned into your lifestyle that when you step outside of that bubble and you realize and and that's the other thing once you step out you can't look at it again in the same way because you know that's what knowledge is you know and once you step outside that bubble and you see the harm we're gonna speak out we're gonna say no this is wrong hey you're teaching this narrative this is wrong and if they disagree say well you're being gaslit because that's the church that's what they do unfortunately regardless of the good that they do and now i'm in a place where i know that it was it was important for us to split our and i remember going when i got divorced it will separate it my life was spiraling um and i remember going to my class and my professor my acting professor who was a very strict very hard professor she was the artist there she just you if you passed her you passed her lessons in her classes you get yourself a pat on the back i should say without crying sometimes because she was just she made you push those boundaries and i remember she knew that i was separated and i remember sitting there in class and she very delicately said she said you know i hate the and and she would get soft-spoken and and get really real which i always appreciated and she said i hate the narrative and she wasn't mormon i hate the narrative that uh or the the word divorce or our relationship we split we ended the relationship um we separated because xyz she was and she looked at me and she said your relationship was fulfilled mitch and we should start looking at that with relationships some relationships get fulfilled to the point where it's no longer healthy or even a an advantage to continue to go especially if it's against your own personal health and instead of shaming us shaming people we should say you know what first of all i'm not in their shoes and second of all that's what relationships are we find people who we connect with and we and we love and we experience life with and then there gets a point where it's fulfilled sometimes and then we move on and it shouldn't be shamed in our society and especially in religion it's very prominent in religion to shame divorce or um ending a marriage or separating or anything like that and so when she i kind of went off there but when she said that that hit home so hard because it helped me heal and go regardless of the mistakes i know i made in that marriage um i know that that relationship was fulfilled and that i instead of shaming myself i can now step forward and i personally believe because i have stepped out of the church i am in a more healthy place to do this and to step forward and be there for my kids as much as i can to love them to teach them what i know is right regardless of my uh my ex-wife and her new husband are in the church they're very strong and so that's why i still have a good relationship with the church because i have kids in the church and i'm learning to empathize again on the other side now that i'm out and to go okay i can see why you think that and uh and so it's a it's a delicate process but that that is why the church harms and and uh those narratives have to stop and that's one of many there's so many harmful narratives so many speaking of that i'm sure you're gonna get i'm sure you've already gotten a couple different types of reactions i'm gonna i'm gonna give you the kind of offensive stereotypical reaction then give you a chance to just respond to it directly so if someone says to you mitch you brought it on yourself you you left the church and your marriage fell apart like you you broke your covenants basically if you had stayed true to your covenants your marriage would still be intact and you wouldn't have had to go through a divorce you know it's really on you for breaking your covenants if somebody were to say that to you what would be your compassionate but earnest response well first of all i guess where i'm at now i'd probably turn on my holland and just say hi shame on you and just dig into them uh with humor um but some of that's true some it's it's flipping the flipping it around to say hey you guys do this so let me show you how it feels but um empathetically it would honestly be hard because i heard that narrative and it was extremely difficult because that honestly that narrative is based in shame of like you did this you did xyz to your family you you broke your covenants um my empathetic response that that i would give would be regardless i guess regardless of our experiences first of all as i've said we need to put ourselves in other people's shoes but people make mistakes and where i'm at now i can see why you think that because i thought that way i went through that and please just be aware that those kind of responses can be extremely hurtful extremely hurtful but again i understand where you're coming from because i use those same words to other people not maybe in the exact same way and why is it not that's beautiful why is it not true why is it why is it not a fair summary of of you and your decisions to simply write you off as a covenant breaker why is how would you say no no let me let me give you a quick summary for what really did happen calling me a covenant breaker does it capture it and here's why yeah for simply because someone if you're called a covenant breaker which i that was one of the things so that's very true comment a covenant regardless of where i am so i where i'm at now is i don't believe that i have broken those covenants i didn't i didn't cheat on my wife i didn't i didn't uh do things the only covenant in the church that i broke was step away but even then i didn't i didn't leave the church when we were married i said i needed a break and the thing that the shame-based comment because it's shameful in that way or even if members and that's why i empathize with them as well because a lot of the times they are coming from a very sincere place and so it's easy for us as ex-mormons to go how dare you you're you're a piece of crap how dare you say that to me um and i'm guilty of it i mean i used holland on a few of my commenters but they are coming they're honestly wanting to know and so i would say hey if you have questions i'll tell you my honest answers if you're honestly willing to listen i didn't break any comments i didn't cheat on my wife um i what my wife and i decided first of all is our business and was for the betterment of our family and if you don't agree with that that's okay but you can talk to me about my experience and i will tell you openly what my experience was and why i personally decided that it was healthy healthier to leave than to stay and those aren't breaking covenants that's being true to yourself that's being honest and you might go as far to say that dishonesty can also break covenants and so it's it becomes a paradox when you stay in a marriage when you're honestly knowing that you shouldn't be there especially if there's abuse you're being dishonest so why would you that to me is breaking if you go as far to say the temple covenants and not being honest then yeah but i don't know if that's what you were getting yeah no that's perfect and it's beautiful and so if you had to summarize why you stopped attending and eventually left the church what would be your kind of one to two minute summary of why you left why you stopped believing um i've touched on this but i remember when i when i finally decided to stop i just finally decided because i still flirted i would still go back to church and try and it would be painful and i remember having experiences being triggered with spiritual experiences that i needed to stay um but i remember thinking to myself i am not being honest with myself right now i am convincing myself that something i know is wrong now is right again regardless of what good this organization does i was starting to see a bigger picture of what harm it does and that it i couldn't be a part of it i couldn't go to church and affiliate with something that spreads homophobia and sexism and and uh bigotry and hate disguised as love and a lot of members might hear that and be so flabbergasted but that is what is happening and when you get to that point when i got to that point i going to church was dishonest going to church went against everything that felt right to me and again it's easier to go it's easier to go it's easier to just turn on turn off those concerns and go and take the sacrament and just keep on keeping on and it was the hardest decision i ever made to finally stop and it's still extremely hard still extremely hard but i have gone through so much personal growth because my independence is blossoming i am not worried about what uh a prophet says anymore to guilt me um i'm being true to myself and that's regardless take away the mormon church whether whatever religion i have left if i left another religion or an organization i think the more the the most important thing for anyone is to stay true to yourself is exactly what when my buddy told me when i was going through it stay true follow your heart don't don't look don't disregard your conscience don't disregard the spirit if if that's a better way to say it and continue to follow that path because your heart won't cheesy cheesy cheesy but your heart will not lead you astray in that your conscience will not lead you you know what's right and when you use your logical thinking and your heart and your mind together as one and start pursuing that it's it's gonna lead to wonderful places it has for me so you know for for as many people as i've talked to about their loss of faith and leaving the church it's rare that i've thought about it as a as a matter of integrity you know people talk about i was expecting you to say joseph smith polygamy polyandry book of abraham book of mormon historicity and then occasionally it's like oh i converted to you know regular christianity or now i'm an evangelical but rarely have i had people frame it or at least in my mind do i remember it as being framed literally as a matter of integrity where you it was dishonest for you to remain in the church uh and so you had to leave because talk about keeping your covenants if you believe in god if you believe in jesus or if you've covenanted or if you just believe in the principle let's say you don't believe in god and jesus like you used to if you just truly internalize the value of honesty and of integrity and of being true and and of loving truth if if it feels like it's untrue if you arrive at the point where you're convinced that it's not an ethical thing for you to continue participating in something that you feel to your very core is either harmful or just untrue or wrong then what a beautiful answer to be able to say i left as a matter of integrity in some ways you're keeping your covenants by leaving i get i guess that's true that's a good way to phrase it yeah it's um and and personal growth i think um a lot of people stay um will want to stay in the church because they have that idea that if you leave you're you're you're not going to be a good person what are you without the church ballard where will you go if you if you leave it's that narrative of like no no you be true to yourself your integrity follow that if if it if it is and i'll say what wind said to me which is so true if it does lead you to stay in the church be true to yourself follow that integrity if it leads you out don't be afraid to leave follow that integrity to be a better person be your best self because we know ourselves the best and if if uh if something's ticking in your mind and heart to say i can't i can't be my truest self here regardless if it's religion or relationship or anything start following the path that will bring you to your truest most independent self and that's where you i mean at least for me i'm still learning but i'm learning a lot about myself out of the church and it's wonderful and it's scary but it's it's life this is what this is what life is and it's it can be a very beautiful beautiful thing once you break out for lack of a better term but i love it so a lot lots of uh lots of beautiful comments from our our viewers and listeners keller in writes mormon stories podcast that's so interesting for me leaving the church was 100 a matter of integrity it's dishonest for me to stay was exactly how i felt that's keller and my dear friend allison hey allison allison writes that's exactly what made me leave i had to have my integrity truth matters to me solidarity mitch um sammy writes omg i love him he's so funny uh tamara writes that is what happened to me i feel i felt like a fraud going to church once i knew that it wasn't true i couldn't stay just a lot of me too jordan wilcox writes integrity demanded my impart departure the church is everything the prophets warn us about uh wolves and sheep's clothing oh wow let me let me i'm gonna say this with a different intonation jordan says the church is everything the prophets warn us about wolves in sheep's clothing lies of omission selling signs and tokens for money you can buy anything in this world with money hidden in plain sight that post makes clear what i've never seen the church oh wow so jordan's feeling very strongly jordan says the church is an abomination to god for me it is a hijacker of this mortal existence the only thing we know is real with the promise of what we can't know is real wow very powerful and profound uh words uh thank you jordan do you have any response to to those yeah that's that's exactly what i felt i love that when you when you basically for me and for all these other ex-members when you continue to go to church you have that feeling that you're a fraud as well that if you continue this narrative which is ironic because the truth that one of the things that cheat that the church teaches that is good is integrity and honesty and ironically that is what led me out that is what i said this isn't right i was taught that my whole life and staying made me feel like i was contributing to the narrative and i couldn't and some people do stay and i admire that i just couldn't i just couldn't do it um and that's not me saying hey if you if you know the church that there's wrong in the church and you stay then you're not true to your integrity no that's wonderful if you feel like your integrity is to make a change in the church that's beautiful keep doing it but for those of us who have decided to leave because of that it's simply that if it's a fraud and i go to that corporation and support it i'm supporting a fraud i'm fraud myself it might sound extreme but that's that's a good way to put it um another stereotype people might uh foist on you is well yeah you're an actor you became an actor you chose the acting profession so you know you you chose a profession that's going to lead you out of the church oh yeah that's on you i think you've already answered this but if there's anything else you would want to say on top of some sort of accusation like that that somehow you chose a dishonorable profession that would lead to the loss of faith what would your response to that be honestly i would just say regard aside from what i've already said i personally believe that art is at our core i personally believe that religion is a form of art story telling to inspire us to do better and we as artists um basically we are tapping into that into what religion's true purpose in my mind is and changing it's all humanity progresses we evolve we change and um the purpose of religion used wrong in the wrong way is to put walls around that change and it's you look at the history of theater and art it's it's all over every time a religious uh religiously dominated government would be at the center and uh tell people what to do and what not to do the arts were there pushing for change and it's always going to be the case and so i'm you can tell i'm passionate about this because i am an artist but art is one of the most fundamental and i think it should be more recognized in our society so as i guess you could say i'm more true to i believe more true to following god and and i personally don't believe in god anymore but god in a sense of a higher self a higher humanity because i believe that's what god is so i am in a way still religious but not traditionally not traditionally at all so thank you and i love it and ironically i would say to that comment that that you know whether it's saturday's warrior or my turn on earth or legacy yeah the church is really you know all the heart cell stuff all those commercials over the years the church was super eager and continues to be super eager and uh bold in embracing actors and music and art and music in the spoken word the mormon tabernacle choir the church will embrace art when it sells people into uh membership or into continued membership so you know you can't have it both ways you can't rely so heavily on emotion on acting on music on on pulling people's heart strings to indoctrinate them to stay in and then all of a sudden like turn your nose up at artists and art when there are in a different direction than the church kind of points to them very very good point that's that's valid yeah that's that's very true this is kind of fun i have a friend from so those of you who know me i went to katie high school which is a suburb of houston texas um and one of the one of the friends in my graduating class his name is maurice ball he was a a person of color uh growing up in in katy texas we would have gone to high school together between 84 and 87. uh maurice has never been mormon but i didn't know morris murray she listened to mormon stories but i totally remember you that's awesome and maurice writes maurice ball writes john you and i grew up together and katie i did not grow up mormon however i did grow up in the black church and i see so many parallels with how the church pressured me particularly as a gay black man thank you mitch for your words and to john for this program uh maurice it'd be fun to have you on mormon story sometime i love my non never mormon listeners i love the fact that i have ex you know that i have catholics and episcopalians and baptists and jews and muslims and and uh scientologists and jehovah's witnesses or x all of those religions evangelicals i love it that i have never mormons who who enjoy mormon stories so thank you maurice for sharing uh that comment it's great to hear from you it's been a long time it's been 35 years you know 33 years since since uh i saw you guys uh saw you maurice but it's so fun to have you tune in and a shout out just to all our never mormon listeners um how does it feel mitch to know that your work might inspire people who have never even been mormon honestly it feels wonderful i love uh the most part it's humor and um and i ever since a kid i've always if i can spread joy that's i think that's awesome and so um but the the thing is is what maurice was also saying is i believe that there are themes and that's why another reason why the mormon churches um turned me off uh eventually completely like i didn't want anything to do with that or any other religion personally because i believe that religion withholds us from actually being our true selves to a point doesn't mean it's all bad it just means for me personally religion and society have these themes and traditions that we're always told to do always told to do and i think my videos and uh creating this content reaches people even who haven't been mormon because it's it's not only they might go it's my my church did or i just i was in a relationship like that these themes i'm finding and discovering as we all are are very common in our society so so let me ask you uh just some questions about uh genie man now if it's okay yeah of course so so you know tick-tock is a new medium it's it's probably emerged what late last year early this year and it's i think so i i just got on it so yeah when was your first video when did you post your first video how long ago i think it was about a little over a month ago in august only a month yeah okay yeah so so for those who don't know tick tock so that you know there's we've got twitter we've got facebook we've got instagram instagram's photos pinterest is photos uh facebook you know is is text but also photos and now it's video um you know youtube is is his videos as well tick tock is super short videos so what's the what's the maximum length of a tick tock video do you know mitch yep 59 seconds so one under a minute so super short up until now a lot of tick tock has just been like people doing silly little dances mimicking other people dancing people singing or or pantomiming to to music it's it's been a lot of silliness my brother joel started a little vegan channel where he started sharing veganism and vegan recipes but it's it's quick it's short it's punchy and it's it's uh it's a really interesting medium but it's it's one of the most popular mediums in the world right now especially amongst youth and young adults but also adults you can just sit there for long long periods of time just flipping through short videos right yeah and so i guess my first so i want to talk about your choices as an activist because you are an activist um you know you're you're jumping right in there now with with kate kelly with jeremy reynolds with bill reel with radio free mormon with me with lindsey hansen park with you know with all the players because your your videos are getting shared regularly on x mormon reddit and i'm sure your viewers are growing how many viewers do you have right now how many followers are followers i think it's close to 2 000. so about 2 000 we'll see if it grows after today um hope it does uh please please you know if you want to if you still can download tick tock uh uh search for genie man g-e-n-i-e underscore man and uh follow him let's see if we could double or triple his followers that'd be super cool um so first question is what made you choose tick-tock as your medium versus youtube or facebook or other things well uh my brother had told me a while ago because he he had tick tock and i didn't know what the heck it was but he was like mitch um we should make videos they're one minute videos but it would be a lot of fun to just make these people are making these short videos on tick tock and and so i watched a few and they were pretty funny and i was like yeah okay but it didn't really catch me um and then the reason i started is because i finally got tick-tock to see what all the hype was about and i found the ex-mormon community wonderful community and i was like this is awesome people are speaking out about the church people are sharing their experiences i love this and so for a while i was just viewing it brought a lot of uh healing to view and then that thought popped in my head you know i i have these impressions of these uh leaders that i should start uh throwing out and then one thing led to another and i started and the reason i went to tick tock and i know this is gonna the reason i went to tick tock is because i don't know if facebook or instagram would have uh liked what i did because i have so many friends and family that are still mormon and uh what i wanted to do um was catered to an audience who understood exactly what i was saying not just the impressions but the the honesty the dishonesty the deceit and doing in an ironic way and i didn't even know about reddit ex mormon i i mean i'd heard of it but it was my it was my cousin um derek who he said dude you should you should post these on ex mormon reddit so so you didn't so prior to to doing tick tock you weren't really into ex mormon reddit at all nope i would say that my it's probably the biggest forum for progressive and post-mormonism in the world i would read a few things on there but i read it wasn't i wasn't familiar with it familiar with it much i i facebook my my place was um facebook your page mormon stories um and uh utah valley post mormons um and other pages where i would that's where i would get a lot of my and so i i didn't even think i could have posted there as well um but i think in the moment i was just i started getting involved with tik tok and i was like i'll just do here so your main influences as a progressive and post-mormon were ces letter what other what other what other people or social media or content were influences for you i'm just kidding so uh ces letter um there was uh uh obviously my my two um close friends eileen and trevor mcintosh friends and family like that um who encouraged me and were there for me um mormon stories podcast when i think trevor actually introduced me to that as well when i started taking stepping out um i started listening to a lot of uh episodes on here and it was so freeing um there are there are there particular interviewees that really touched you or that and if you don't remember their names or but but is there do you remember any episodes that were meaningful to you just as shout outs to the people that told their stories um let's see when i first a lot of it to be honest was what what uh i heard at that time when i was leaving back in 2016 was basically what hit home with me were the the ones that talked about that kind of the fraud being true to yourself integrity and there and like you said there wasn't a lot but um i was also really invested in the church historian didn't you have a church historian is that google maybe yeah yeah yeah um i i got really fascinated with that um because once i read the ces letter i wanted to dive in more and so listening to any uh podcast of yours that dove more into the church actual history of the church so i really enjoyed the one with the um uh church historian um and i know you had uh sam sam young yeah sure he was um a huge uh once i started stepping out of the church he was a huge influence on bringing awareness to interviews of children and child abuse in the church um and uh and then there was another podcast i listened to it right as i was leaving and i i listened to a handful of episodes um but it was uh i believe it was i can't remember the name of the podcast it basically um she would talk about she started it's all about joseph smith's wives and maybe the viewers can help me out so that's that's year of polygamy podcast with lindsay thank you thank you yes i started listening to that and that fascinated me a lot because even when i was still in the church i wanted to know what the actual history was and so i listened to there was a time when i was going through my transition where i listened to those as well um trevor uh and adam worthington made a video called 50 problems with the mormon church um trevor my good friend from childhood he he and adam made that video i didn't know what it was when i was born but once i got that i watched that and that was amazing that helped me a ton because it just basically condensed so much of what the problems with the las church um and uh yeah um there have been ex-mormonism or ex-mormonology i think is another one i've been listening to and she gave me a lot of new perspective on working through the trauma because it's easy for us to hang on to that anger and she talks a lot about how we can take a breath and when someone's makes a comment a shameful comment um instead of attacking back we can just acknowledge that words were spoken and understand that they're coming from their point of view and they're not rarely it's intended to hurt it's it's and so that's that's helped me a lot um my brothers left my one of my younger brothers left before me he was a huge help my mom is one of my biggest heroes she left after but she has she's always been there even while i was going through it she was one of the only ones that would sit down and just listen to me regardless if she was a believing member or not she just listened and i feel incredibly lucky i know there are not a lot of people whose um parents any of their parents have left um but my mom left as well she's not going and so i talked to her a lot about what i'm struggling with with the church and she listens and talks back but yeah those are just a few i've there's a lot what yeah so i'm a shout out to the mormon informant youtube channel those guys do great work oh yeah and some of those videos i just realized had over a million a million views so if you haven't checked out uh the mormon informant youtube channel uh they only have 8.4 000 subscribers which is a lot but uh they could use a lot more but but one of their videos 50 problems with the mormon church has over a million views and i can just tell you as someone who's been doing youtube for a long time i've i've never i've never released a video that has a million views i have i release videos with hundreds of thousands of views but but not not millions so so those guys have done done really good work and uh so he and trevor getting the ces letter and he also introduced me i didn't know it was him i actually funny story i watched that video even before i knew trevor my my childhood friend had made it and so he when i told him he was like uh yeah we made that and i was like what that's awesome yeah so shout out to adam and trevor right yeah so my next question for you is um i've got about and i've got about 20 minutes left i've been keeping you longer than i told you i would but i moved an appointment because i wanted to not rush it um you're uh i mean you're clearly gifted and talented do you want to tell everyone just kind of what you do like if they want to follow you uh allison asked earlier if uh if you can be rented out for parties um let's see if i can yeah so allison writes i keep asking this on your big dock but can we rent you out for parties uh how do people if people want to support your day job your art like can they go down to saint george and see you in plays or musicals is there any way right now no there's a lot of theaters um aren't going on because of uh covid so right now i actually work as a youth mentor up in hurricane um which is nearby st george um but i'm trying to get creative tick-tock was my first kind of step to get creative with uh my impressions and acting um and i'm i'm wanting to do more but uh right now as of now there's not like any any uh events going on um but i'm willing to do work uh with people want me i'm happy and open to do work um and trevor just my friend trevor just said he was like you should mitch i would pay money for you to crack jokes as uh lds leaders at the at their expense like this so he was basically saying you should look into this more so this is kind of new for me i'm very new at this um i i'm still learning so unfortunately right now i don't have anything but tick tock and ex mormon reddit um one of our listeners it's tamara tanner donna thorne yes yes it looks like is she your cousin yeah uh-huh so she says hey cuz your mom is incredible i love her so it's fun to have your family showing up yes um on here amazing it's it sounds like the biggest thing people can do to support you is share your videos exactly yeah share my videos um subscribe to your channel if you know and comment my brother told me that commenting on tick tock helps with the algorithms quite a bit yeah that is true uh-huh yeah so go on tick-tock like his channel heart or like his posts comment on them and that's that's helpful yes and if you have if i'm also interested in voice work uh if you know of anyone that is looking for any any actors or voice actors just oh yeah that's great references is what i'm all about right now i'm just i'm a new actor even though i've been studying it for a while i'm starting to put my foot out there so any help would be so awesome to get to keep going in that avenue all right so shout out to anyone who needs uh who needs talents like those mitch provides let's let's get him hired um let's get him supported somebody is saying derek says be sure to look into the tick tock creators fund i don't know what that is but that's a suggestion from derek um lewis says you should try cameo or fiverr i have no idea what that is but fiverr but i haven't heard of cameo um let me ask you one you know i want to show a couple more videos to close um your you know your there are different levels of like tone or severity that you can choose and i would say your videos go right for the jugular in some ways they're can i kind of not say for work they're um they're kind you know and you come across as very mild and thoughtful you're not coming across as like strident or angry and when i say angry i mean like an angry person uh anger is healthy we all should be angry at having been misled and and uh you know intentionally deceived uh and to have our lives kind of uh thrown upside down so anger's fine we should all embrace our anger we should also act responsibly with with the anger and then process it and heal and not get stuck in the anger having said all that your your your personality is very mild and thoughtful but the videos you you watch that and i'm like well i don't know what this guy's like in real life because this is like really this is kind of hardcore stuff right this is yeah this is going for the jugular that's a that's kind of a toner style choice and honestly there's a bit of a mismatch between the demeanor that comes across knowing you and kind of what i would guess your demeanor would be like with such kind of hard-edged videos can you talk about that choice of of you know going for r-rated versus pg-13 versus pg versus g as an activist and you're new to this so i don't even know to what extent you have enough experience to have really contemplated this but you know with mormon stories it's always like do i come off as a believer do i come off as kind do i try and stay objective do i get angry do i you know there's always this tone policing that you do to yourself as an activist and other people do to you can you talk just about that choice to be kind of hard-edged um i mean honestly that's what uh old me would have been like no um you need to keep it mild but a lot of times even serious content um requires you to push those boundaries like i've talked about and my decision to say you know what no screw it um my whole life as an actor as wanting to be an actor in the arts i've always um because i was raised lds i've always looked for like the more mild or you know the the clean humor and i am now an advocate i love clean humor i love that as well um it can be really really good and helpful and funny but on the other side um i'm now an advocate because it makes you uncomfortable and i myself one of my decisions was um i'm uncomfortable with this i should do it and that's not a good lesson i'm not saying you should do something just because you're uncomfortable with it of course i looked into the why but having the years that i did at usu and learning about art and the purpose of it is to push those boundaries i believe that you need you need to tackle serious things we often shy away from it we often shy away from tackling saying the things that really cause us to think um and that's dark humor as well it's that's a very fine line for me too some dark humor i love some dark humor i'm still like that cross line but i think it's so important for us um and for you know for myself um and my own personal growth i guess as an actor is to to push those boundaries for myself i um i mentioned that i was i still get triggered when i i go and rewatch some of these conference talks which on a good day it doesn't bother me at all and on a bad day i get really triggered and have to take a break um but one of the reasons i decided to really do this is because of that narrative that my conditioned narrative is you don't you don't joke about the men of god even if the jokes are fine you don't that's a fine line to walk as a mormon um and so it's to help me to get past that berry and say you know what no i know deep down that i'm not uh going to hell for for this and also i know that just like this is therapeutic for me this is therapeutic for other ex-members and members who are on the fence to be able to see to be able to laugh at something especially ex-mormons laugh at something that that has caused so much pain and a lot of people there are members that get on my tick tock that don't understand that they're like you they say that narrative um you you're going to hell or you you're fighting against the men of god be careful and uh and that's something that they won't understand until they put themselves in our shoes and try to understand that the what we've talked about john the harm the pain the abuse that's gone on and so um my decision was because of those those points is to help help others help myself get through this trauma that i still experience and honestly getting getting through some of those and uh making jokes at the expense of the leaders has been hard there have been some times where i haven't posted that i won't think i won't post but i work through it say no this is this is needed this i need to i need to paint these people that are held up in a light that are so revered and with humor say hey these people aren't exactly who you think they are and who they try to feed you that they are or the narrative of the history of the church and uh yeah an act an activist and fighting for that so yeah i'm gonna do something that's kind of uh kind of intense but i'm going to share a comment of a critic tom robinson who uh who has a facebook no it's a youtube uh handle tom robinson all things real estate he writes those tick tock videos are disgusting and very disrespectful to those individuals i'm not sure why they are being praised or promoted so i'll answer i'll answer that and then uh tom robinson i'll answer that and then i'll give you a chance as well to chime in mitch and this is going to be repeating a lot of what you just said but you know if you study cults if you study harmful cults stephen hassan has a book um about two books about colts actually three and they're really important uh combating cult mind control is his first book and what he what he gives us is an acronym called the bite model b-i-t-e bite and what you learn and you learn if you study waco and david koresh if you study scientology and l ron hubbard or david miscavige if you study the jehovah's witnesses if you study you know super orthodox judaism any cult right pick any cult what you'll find out is they control people's behavior don't look at things don't read things wear this don't wear that eat this don't eat that touch yourself here don't touch yourself there here's how you should be sexually here's not he should be sexually they control the information that you receive um in other words don't read that only read mormon approved resources stay away from anti-mormon resources excommunicate john to lynn don't watch his stuff because it's bad so they do all that to control the information that you receive so that t thoughts they can control your thoughts they don't want you thinking just like mitch you shared a couple years ago i can't go there i'm not going to think about that i won't read this i won't read that oh there's a babysitter don't look into the babysitter uh you know if somebody says don't look into the babysitter that's your number one concern that you should look into the babysitter right and it's true at churches the church that says don't look into our history is the church you should run from and and so the church controls your thoughts um they control the information so they can keep you from having thoughts about huh could this be true is it really like they said was joseph smith just persecuted because he was a loving blood jesus or maybe were actually something to why joseph was persecuted right is sam young is samyong just a bad guy or are there children that are being sexually abused in the church and the church is covering it up oh stay away don't look at that stuff excommunicate him he's an apostate that's bad these are all maneuvers that cults make to control people and then the e in the bite model is emotion they want you to feel reverence for the church that the church is inspired that the church is of god that the church is holy and then they want you to feel fear and sadness and and afraid to ever speak ill of the lord's anointed or or to speak ill of the church or to violate the the veil or this veneer of sacredness and it's so hard because i get it i was mormon i thought the temple was sacred i thought general conference was sacred i thought the brethren were sacred and i get why you're asking this question mr robinson but my response is that's part of how they control you when they tell you these men are of god and jesus is sacred and god is sacred and the temple is sacred don't talk about it and certainly never criticize it that that's like an armor of protection so that you can't see it for what it really is it's mind control it's thought control and it's emotional manipulation and so it's not like i love being sacrilegious i love mocking people's sacred beliefs that's not what i can speak for me that's not that's not who i am i love mormons i i am fond of the mormon church but the extent to which we cower in the church's requirement of holding things sacred and not talking about things and all the leaders are sacred and don't make fun of them and don't laugh loudly and don't tap too much into your emotions don't learn too much don't think too much don't talk too much that's all part of how they create this impenetrable bubble that makes it so people can't see things for what they really are that's why 150 plus years into the restoration most mormons don't know joseph used a peep stone they don't know that he was a treasure digger they don't know that he admitted that he was a fraud they don't know that everything he did with the book of mormon was was a reaction to his treasure digging they don't know that the witnesses were all uh were all superstitious gullible people they don't know joseph smith was having adultery before he was calling it polygamy they don't know that you know the first witnesses disagreed with joseph and called him a fallen prophet they don't know that he was lying to emma that he had 30 plus wives that he uh that he was lying to emma about all his affairs that he was sleeping with 14 or 15 or 16 year olds marrying other men's wives sending them on missions so he could proposition their wives they don't know all the problems with the book of mormon that it's a joke in terms of its scientific credibility horses wheat barley you know just all the chariots steel horses swords all the craziness about the book of mormon being a preposterous plagiarism nobody knows that nobody knows the book of abraham as a joke in terms of it it's uh being a translation from a papyrus and then a thousand other things and the reason why jim robinson the reason why people don't know any of this is because of the walls that the church has put in front the blinders that people have put the church has put on people's eyes to say don't laugh don't mock don't talk don't learn don't listen don't don't joke about this those are all hooks of control to keep people from seeing the church for what it is sorry that's my answer mitch and that's that's something perfect whatever you want to add no i'll just add up to that really quickly um i understand um because i was there and i know john does too but i would just like to ask um what what is disgusting about them i find it kind of ironic to be honest that i post these videos of church leaders being sincere and telling the truth and i get members saying that's disgusting you're doing disgusting things these about these men and some of them have passed on and how dare you and i i want to ask and go i have not personally attacked these men i have not gone i have not verbally said this person's a piece of [ __ ] or this person's terrible or how they i'm glad they're dead no no no all i've done is talk about my my whole platform is to go what if church leaders actually told some truth about the history of the church and about their history and wrongdoings and it's ironic because the comments i get or the people that say how dare you be so disgusting to these men it's actually and some of the most forceful comments have been on the video in my most recent videos of the collage of church leaders talking about apologizing apologizing let's play that let's play that clip now cause i've got that is that is that okay yeah because i think it's a really powerful way i don't want to end but i've gotta i've gotta run in just a few minutes but before everyone leaves i wanna make an appeal that's really really important not for me but for mitch and for his art so let's show this clip mitch let's have you respond to the clip we'll summarize and then i want to make it appeal to everybody because i think it's super important so let's mitch let's go ahead and show um your uh your clip about about i think it's about an apology but let's actually see but not fully true my dear beloved brothers and sisters the time has come for us as leaders of this church to hold ourselves accountable the lord and savior himself would not be pleased with what we have done with such power throughout the years we have misled you giving you a wide wash version of what history actually was and for that we are terribly sorry as a part of that narrative we have misled you to believing things about the prophet joseph smith which may have partly been true but not fully true and for that we take full responsibility we offer our heartfelt apologies for misleading so many but please look in your hearts and forgive us as christ would forgive you so um that one's so brilliant and uh and i have several people now who are uh i'll just read a few comments laura lee writes omg this is so good my friend allison writes yep this is the one that made me weep uh chris tolman hatch says this one made me cry can you tell us what you were going for there mitch and what that video was about and and why you did it um i previously touched on it a bit but uh honestly i i've often thought to myself why doesn't the church these great men that i've idolized to be something which sadly they're not um no matter how much i keep trying to think they are hopefully one day they will be right now they're not but i've i've often thought as many members and ex-members alike i'm sure why don't these men do what they should do and apologize just apologize and say we're gonna do better we take full responsibility of this of the pain we've caused and we're gonna do better and uh and so in a way kind of like jonathan streeter who who um shout out to him he wrote that uh mock letter mock apology letter and he got so much criticism from the mormons and uh but praise because it's therapeutic it's therapeutic to hear these voices that you grew up with that you idolize as truth-tellers as men of integrity and you find out that they're not men of integrity for the most part it breaks your heart because these are the men and leaders that you they were your heroes and and so part of that the irony is to go hey we're gonna apologize it's healing and it's funny because it's not gonna happen and those of us who have left know that i've accepted that and god if it does happen but it's it's not i mean i don't i don't believe it will it it will destroy their church and that's why they don't do it it'll completely break down their foundation and they'll they won't have as much of a following and you know you can connect the dots from there money money money uh corporation they need members and they know that if they peddle the truth they're gonna lose a lot of members and they are losing a lot of members so beautiful well that's super powerful i love it and i'm going to just make it appeal to our listeners i think this is really important so this is mitch's tick tock channel uh the channel name is uh genie man g-e-n-i-e underscore man so one thing you can do is start following him on tick-tock liking or harding his videos and commenting on them if he gets a surge um of uh followers that will definitely help him uh with the algorithms uh derek derek baird actually writes that he says follow mitch on tick tock i work with creators and a surge of followers will really help mitch i also checked out cameo this is super cool so i have an idea okay if you want mitch you listeners or viewers want mitch to create i'm guessing the cameo is this app that lets you as a as kind of like a a celebrity of sorts maybe give a birthday wish or a birthday greeting in in the name or the character of your favorite general authority of choice or figure or celebrity so mitch maybe you need to sign up for cameo that's a that's an awesome idea and then you listeners wouldn't it be fun for your brother your sister your spouse your friend someone you love your missionary companion just left the church or whatever or not you can hire mitch to do um you know uh you know a little like a video card for their birthday i think that it could be personalized so that's something that i think could help let's support mitch in his art um another thing i think mitch you can create a patreon account and i actually saw someone earlier who said that they would sponsor you um with a specific video so if there's a particular if any of you want to sort of um finance a video of mitch i i think uh the platform that we mentioned earlier provides let's see i'm looking i'm looking through it somebody is saying uh they're they're making a request for jay golden kimball mitch is the best uh jiggled and kimball next as suggested previously um aubrey writes this is great when is someone going to make the true mormon documentary or joseph smith movie you need to act in one of those so somebody's wanting you to be joseph smith i am honestly one of my dreams is it i just want i now that i've left the church i would love to play joseph smith in an actual historical account not because i want to bash him i already know what he did it's my it's wanting to understand more and as an actor you have to dive all in it would scare the hell out of me to be honest but i would it would be a good experience to part of what's hard is we don't know what joseph smith sounded like that's true so it's it's gonna it's it's it's different art because you're not mimicking you're having to come up with the character right yeah yeah um yeah so uh others are saying that your videos have been therapeutic uh if someone wants to reach out to you in in and donate to a patreon or or just donate to your art how could they reach out to you mitch oh geez uh tick tock you can message me um i'm i'm still catching up on some of the messages so i apologize if if i haven't responded um facebook you can john's tagged me in this my facebook is mitchell jean shira and you can message me there uh i'm also on instagram i think i'm mitchell jean there um but i'll i'll create a cameo and more platforms and start really chugging away at this because i think there's great opportunities and i feel so humbled right now and and uh honored thank you all thank thank you to john for giving me such a nice shout out um and to help me and in my art so that's yeah that's that's i'm speechless right now so thank you well you know i i there's still a lot of mormon in me so whenever something has swear words or like is graphic there's a part of my brain that's like wait that's too harsh that's too but i i like your idea of challenging that it's not that i want to become a a crude or an obscene or sacrilegious or even a disrespectful person but but i i think you made a really important point that i think i'm repeating now is that we have to look at why why we have the emotional reactions we do instead of just running obeying them slavishly in fear but looking at them and understanding them and and digging deeper i think that's what art is about i think that's what you're doing and i love it that you're challenging me and others and so uh you know mitch shira i just want to give you a heartfelt thank you and a shout out what you're doing is courageous it's creative it's funny i grew up with rich little as an impressionist so i have a fun you know space in my heart for impressions and i love dana carvey you know i've loved all this the saturday night live traditions of impressionists and it's just so fun to have to have a a mormon slash post-mormon impressionist who's so talented and i just want your progressive post-mormon career and your day job career to explode in positive ways and so let today be the the next step in in the advancement of your career how's that that's awesome thank you so much i i don't know that's a i'm i'm super super stoked super super grateful uh john you've been you've been awesome and kind to reach out to me and to to uh allow me to share my experience it's been healing i haven't done this i mean personally with others but you know i'll be honest i was i was kind of terrified to get on a platform and share my experience and it's been very healing and i just want you to know that what you do is very healing and therapeutic and you should be proud and you sir are doing the lord's work [Laughter] so keep keep on keeping on i love it all right well thank you mitch thanks all our listeners who joined in and made comments today um so many good comments please stay in touch please follow mitch and of course i'll just i'll just end by saying again thank you mitch thanks to our listeners thanks to our supporters everyone who who donates to mormon stories the open stories foundation you make all this possible so if you donate thank you probably less than one percent of my viewers or listeners actually donate so if you're one of those that really finds this programming valuable if you want to see it continue if you don't want to see it die in the next year or two because of covid and all the people who've had to stop their donations please become a donor today go to mormonstores.org become a monthly subscriber uh 10 20 100 bucks a month whatever you can afford it it pays for the equipment the software the production uh the time the effort all the stuff please support us if you can and last but not least support mitch support genie man in all the ways that you can let's have this guy's career flourish invite him to your parties bring him down i can meet him in person we'll have you develop like a one-act show like i don't know if you know this but carolyn pearson back in the day developed a one-man act um where she would she would play different characters uh i'm going to challenge you to consider developing a one-man show where you incorporate uh general authorities joseph smith maybe even jesus into one play that you can tour around utah and give and i'll i'll be your promoter i will recruit audiences for your one-man show what do you think thank you that i think that's an awesome idea and uh i'm i'm i'm uh surprised i didn't think of it that's actually brilliant so i'll start to start that's actually a really really good idea all right mitch i'll you stay in touch and i'll be your number one fan promoter all right brother all right hey thank you john i really appreciate it you've been awesome you you are awesome and lots of people want you to develop a john de lin impression i don't think my voice is very um i don't think my voice is very amenable to impressionists but there's the gauntlet okay i'll give it a shot no i'll i'll have to i'll have to see if i can do it there are some voices that that i can't do unfortunately just aren't distinctive enough not only that it's just like their voice and deep and and some kind of something that's just not possible oh right right your profile yeah all right all right brother you take care listeners you guys take care thank you so much thanks for all the support thanks everyone and we'll see you guys again soon on another episode of more stories podcast follow genie man on tick tock thanks everybody take care thanks mitch

Channel: Mormon Stories Podcast

Views: 32,264

Rating: 4.6769457 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: glyrzFTDteE

Length: 209min 0sec (12540 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 22 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/GreenApronChef]

Loved this interview. Mitch Shira seems like a great guy. I hope things continue to go well for him and that he finds the success and happiness that he deserves

[u/wendyells]

This guy is Amazing!!!! Love him.

[u/johndehlin]

<3

[u/Tiny_Tinker]

Awesome!

[u/Alpha_Goat]

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLg0IpPdbApl3fpz-Ijn9hU0AFiGTwNAVp

[u/reddituser0606]

Loved the interview

[u/Chino_Blanco]

Ha ha, that’s awesome.

[u/[deleted]]

Oh my gosh! I knew I recognized him. I was in a school play with Mitch in jr. high. In particular I remember writing in my journal about how blue his eyes were. (He was cute then, too.)

[u/DarlinClemintine]

I can only try to imagine a JD imitation. Somehow, i think it would be a natural.

BKP telling teenagers to tie their hands to the bed post (for the strength of youth.)