After high school Josh left the church and became very hostile towards it. After his divorce, a stake president changed his life in a moment the led him back to the waters of baptism.

Come Back Podcast

Ashly Stone

Religion & Spirituality

4.9 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 16 April 2023

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

"In class we had the stake president talking. He was shorter in stature, but just a spiritual giant. I could feel it as he started talking. I was on the fence if I really wanted to investigate the church. He started going back and forth, pacing and talking about Joseph Smith and The Book of Mormon and all these factual things. He is a very successful person and I was thinking "How could such a smart guy be fooled by all this, this doesn't make sense." Some of the concerns he was bringing I thought "That's a really good point, I have never thought of that." It was almost like on his piece of paper he had all of my concerns and he was just checking them off one by one. I was just sitting in the corner bawling."

Come Back Team: Director, Founder & Host: Ashly Stone Producer and Senior Editor: Lauren Rose Outreach Manager: Jenna Carlson Editor: Michelle Berger Art Director: Jeremy Garcia

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is Ashley Stone and you're listening to the Comeback Podcast.
0:07.0	My name is Josh by the way and for anyone that's even somewhat associated with the church
0:19.1	especially you know sometimes older people they they automatically think about John by the way right so you know it's very clear early on that I was a member of the church and especially here in Utah you know parts of Idaho Arizona everyone always asks you know almost in like a hush tone like are you related to John you know like I think every
0:40.0	probably eight out of ten times at the temple. I get asked that, you know. Yeah, I thought about asking you, but I yeah, everyone does you know outside of Utah, Idaho Arizona people are just, that's not really your last name.
0:53.1	Anyways, so it's no shock that growing up it was, it was, you know, the by the ways,
0:58.4	they're members of the church.
0:59.6	Now, just to clear it up, he's a very distant relative.
1:01.9	I can't claim anything. I think I've met the
1:04.2	dude twice and he was like oh yeah cool you know like he gets it probably all the time from
1:09.0	forced cousins or whatever so you know I grew up here in Utah, my parents, I'm the second oldest of six kids.
1:18.0	And church was kind of just an automatic thing. Both my parents were raised in the church, my mom a little bit more of an active relationship with the church growing up.
1:28.0	But my parents, I knew from a very early age had a strong testimony and that they really cherish their membership in the church and I really felt that they had had testimonies.
1:40.0	Growing up in the church, especially Utah, It was more of a cultural thing for me.
1:45.0	I was baptized when I was 8 and I became a deacon when I was 12 and it was just kind of the automatic
1:51.6	progression, right? It never, I never thought about it. It was just the
1:55.2	automatic thing. My older brother did it, my cousins did it, my dad's cousins, like
1:59.8	whole extended family of course the by the ways were all members of the church right so I had a great
2:05.7	childhood and I was lucky enough to be raised an award where you know some of my closest friends
2:11.5	even to this day we're all in the same
2:13.5	same work going to mutual was never a hard thing I had great spiritual
2:18.3	experiences growing up but around that time that you get to high school right you kind of figure out whether or not
2:24.8	you're standing on your own thing or if you're gonna figure it out and and and go
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -681 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Ashly Stone, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Ashly Stone and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.