Converting to the Church as a Gay Youth in the Philippines

All Out in the Open

All Out in the Open, Questions from the Closet

Latter-day Saint, Christ, Society & Culture, Mormon, Gay, Religion & Spirituality, Faith, Lgbtq, Transgender, Church Of Jesus Christ, Christianity, Lgbt, Lds

5 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 12 November 2024

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, Iese Wilson interviews Cris Sembrano, a gay Latter-day Saint and convert from the Philippines. Chris shares his journey of balancing faith and identity, from navigating cultural challenges in his hometown to finding community and love at BYU-Provo. His story highlights resilience and the strength of personal faith in finding belonging.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to All Out in the Open. I'm Charlie Bird. And I'm Ben Shladdy. Today's episode is an out and about episode where Yesee Wilson takes us on a tour of the LGBTQ-Lagascu experience around the church. And today's stop is the Philippines.
0:12.3	I was trying to do a drum roll. Oh, sorry. It's okay. The Philippines. We're going to the Philippines. And he's going to introduce us to his friend Chris Sembrano, who's from Mindanao in the Philippines.
0:23.8	Yeah, this is so interesting.
0:25.4	You know, one thing that I thought was cool was like the cultural structure of the specific
0:31.8	town that he lives in, where it's like a mix of Islam and Christianity and how that like
0:36.6	overarchingly played into the story.
0:37.9	I just thought it was interesting and kind of fun to hear a little bit about.
0:40.6	Yeah, even like the Philippines, we might think of as one thing, but like this part of the Philippines is different than the rest of the Philippines.
0:45.9	Like even there, there's a lot of diversity.
0:47.9	Yeah.
0:48.5	Yeah. how he came out on his ward and like converted to the church with other friends who were also
0:54.2	gay and kind of what that did to like the local religious community. It was, it was cool.
1:00.6	And, uh, and so Chris then goes to school at BYU, Hawaii and then BYU in Utah. And he is guided
1:07.8	regularly through like, like dreams, like like spiritual promptings that come through
1:11.8	dreams which I think you know happens in a U.S. context but not nearly as much as happens in the
1:15.9	church abroad you know when I listen to this I was like I hope that my dream last night was
1:20.1	nothing to do with what I should do in my life because it was so weird but it was cool like
1:26.7	it was really cool I Chris I was cool. It was really cool.
1:28.0	Chris, I love listening to this episode and I think you all will too.
1:32.2	We hope you love it.
1:49.7	Aloha everybody and welcome to out and about where we go on tour through the stories of LGBTQ Latter-day Saints all over the church who are modern pioneers.
1:55.0	I'm your host Yesea Purcell Wilson and today we are traveling to Salt Lake City, Utah.
	...

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