Childhood Abuse & the CES Letter Destroyed Bailey’s Faith…Until Jesus Rebuilt Her from the Dust
“Those answers just don’t matter as much as my relationship with my Savior. It’s like a weight system, you know? I’m not gonna give up something that’s so important to me for the tiny weight of this one particular answer. I’m weighing my options, and I’m gonna choose Christ every time because He is who put me back together and it doesn’t matter if I really believe in polygamy or not. He was there, so I’m with Him.” Tickets to the Come Back to Christ Event: www.comebackpodcast.org 00:00 Abandonment and Doubt 00:57 Live Event Announcement 04:50 Family Upheaval and Abuse 08:06 Speaking Up and Silence 21:21 CES Letter and Marriage Strain 31:09 Years of Doubt 38:59 Scriptures Rebuild Faith 43:32 Healing and Hard Questions Serve Clothing code COMEBACK for 15% off https://serveclothing…. If you have a story to share please submit here: https://comebackpodcas… For inquiries contact info.comebackpodcast@gmail.com Come Back Team: Director, Founder, & Host: Ashly Stone Editor: Cara Reed Outreach Manager: Jenna Carlson Assistant Editor: Britt Smallze Art Director: Jeremy Garcia Production Director: Trent Wardwell
Elise Read the CES Letter, Lost Her Testimony, and Asked for a Divorce… Then Everything Changed
“God is aware of you, aware of your doubts. He knows and understands you, and He wants to hear from you. He wants you to pray. I also want you to know that the Savior, He is there and He is real, and the atonement is big enough to handle all of your truth, all of your sin, everything. So when you’re ready, you just lay it on the table and you pray and you tell the truth and get all of it off of your back, and it’s such a relief.” – 00:00 Lonely Mixed Faith Marriage 07:04 Faith Crisis And Doubts 10:05 Marriage Strain And Leaving 15:05 First Prayer And Return 24:39 Putting Garments Back On 25:32 Grace For Joseph Smith 27:41 Beyond A Scared Testimony 29:20 Love Those Who Leave 36:19 Honest Faith And Healing – Mike’s Auto Shack https://mikesautoshack.com/ Serve Clothing code COMEBACK for 15% off https://serveclothing.com/ – If you have a story to share please submit here: https://comebackpodcast.org/submissions/ – For inquiries contact info.comebackpodcast@gmail.com – Come Back Team: Director, Founder, & Host: Ashly Stone Editor: Cara Reed Outreach Manager: Jenna Carlson Assistant Editor: Britt Smallze Art Director: Jeremy Garcia Production Director: Trent Wardwell
Joseph studied the CES Letter and Anti-Mormon claims…why he chose to Come Back to the LDS church
“I personally believe that one of the ways in which the Spirit speaks to someone such as myself is through logical sense. Which I think is interesting because usually those two things are pitted against each other. I never received the voice in my head saying, this is true when I’m reading the Book of Mormon as some people would. As something clicked in my head I would be at peace about it. And then obviously the heart and mind have to be unified in order to be spiritually in tune. So I am always like, well, if you’re experiencing an absence of the Spirit because you have all these logical problems, that’s probably why. It’s because your heart and mind need to be in tune. And that’s obviously why I never received a purely spiritual witness, because my mind was just not in it, and my mind needs to be in it. And so I always like to view those two things as working together, not really working against each other.” – Recommended Books: The Crucible of Doubt, by Terryl Givens A Case for the Book of Mormon, by Tad Callister Light and Truth Letter, by Austin Fife The Christ Who Heals, by Terryl Givens A God Who Weeps, by Terryl Givens All Things New, by Terryl Givens — 00:00 Facing a Crisis of Faith 08:06 Seeking Answers and Facing Doubts 11:54 Turning to Family and Church Leaders 20:23 Finding Hope in Apologetic Literature 23:54 Discovering Influential Books 29:36 Advice for Navigating Anti-Religious Content 32:39 Reconciling Faith and Logic 39:20 What Makes The Church Different Memor Jewelry code COMEBACK for 10% off https://memorjewelry.com/ Serve Clothing code COMEBACK for 15% off https://serveclothing.com/ If you have a story to share please contact ashly.comebackpodcast@gmail.com For inquiries contact info.comebackpodcast@gmail.com Come Back Team: Director, Founder, & Host: Ashly Stone Editor: Cara Reed Outreach Manager: Jenna Carlson Assistant Editor: Michelle Berger Assistant Editor: Britt Smallze Art Director: Jeremy Garcia Production Director: Trent Wardwell
LIVE EPISODE WITH BAILEY
CONTENT WARNING: This episode contains sensitive content that may be triggering or offensive to some audiences. Parental discretion is advised. “ Reading the Book of Mormon that week, I really sat down and actually studied the words of the Book of Mormon, and it was powerful. It was so powerful. It was undeniable. And I had been reading about how this genius farmer, right, we always were like, ‘He’s such a genius. That’s how you get away with it,’ wrote this book out of nowhere. And as I’m reading it, I’m just like, there is no way. There is no way. I remember so many scriptures, I couldn’t get enough because there were so many things, and it just felt like God was just waiting for me to open the door and He would just feed me, you know. Like I was starving and He would just feed me.” Come Back Team Director, Founder & Host: Ashly Stone Producer: Lauren Rose Outreach Manager: Jenna Carlson Editor: Cara Reed Assistant Editor: Michelle Berger Art Director: Jeremy Garcia Episode sponsor: Brick House Recovery
The murder of Ashley’s brother shook her faith – until she started noticing miracles around her.
CONTENT WARNING: This episode contains sensitive content that may be triggering or offensive to some audiences. Parental discretion is advised. “The trial is going to be coming up either at the end of this year or possibly at the beginning of next year. So I’m still going to be going through this. I still have to sit through a full trial. But now I have a lot more strength and armor on me. I am preparing for it to be hard, so I just have to find strength in the Savior. I remember praying one night about forgiveness and how sometimes when you hold that stuff inside it can eat away at you. It’s like poison inside of you. And I thought, ‘how could I ever pray to allow forgiveness for murder? That one’s too big.’ So as I was praying about it, I just thought, ‘All I can do is pray that the savior will carry the burden that I feel from losing someone to murder.’ And in that moment that’s what I did. I said, ‘I don’t know what this looks like, but I need you to carry this for me.’ The Savior never once has let me down with asking Him to carry a burden. It doesn’t matter what kind, whether it’s overcoming depression, losing people or financial loss, the Savior’s love is there, He carries all burdens. So I’ve learned through all this that he can carry anything.” https://mikesautoshack.com/ Come Back Team: Director, Founder & Host: Ashly Stone Producer: Lauren Rose Outreach Manager: Jenna Carlson Editor: Cara Reed Assistant Editor: Michelle Berger Art Director: Jeremy Garcia Episode sponsor: Serve Clothing https://serveclothing.com/?gad_source=1
The Stick of Joseph brothers talk about building faith through questions and lessons learned by overcoming personal challenges.
“It was interesting to see where Hayden was in high school to where he was when I came back from my mission and how big of a change that was. I was able to see this with the conversations we were having about the gospel. I saw so much more conviction in him after he put his beliefs on the table and dissected them and then to finding those pillars in which he had to stake his faith on. It allowed me to see his conviction and also to trust him more as a source to go to with the questions I still had – even after serving a mission.” – Book recommendations: Faith is Not Blind, by Bruce C. Hafen The Crucible of Doubt, by Terryl Givens – 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
Austin’s faith crisis went on for 10 years. After his search for more light and truth he wrote his own response to the CES Letter.
“There’s very logical reasons to be members of the church, and very logical reasons to believe in a higher power –something beyond that’s bigger than us, that has a spiritual aspect. This isn’t irrational, this is rational. And so once you can get back into realizing that belief is reasonable, then you can ask the questions that will truly give you a testimony through prayer and study and pondering those primary answers we hear all the time. I talk about the heart and the head. I believe that we can, and should, have knowledge in our heart, feeling emotion, yearning for God, along with rationality and reason. For me, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is God’s true and living church on the earth. I know that in my heart and I know it in my head. I have both of those. I think critics have had their way for a long time trying to convince people that there’s no reason to have a rational testimony. But the ‘Light and Truth Letter,’ it’s showing that it is reasonable — and rational to believe, there’s a lot of space for belief. My hope is that if you’re struggling and you’re a believing member, but having doubts — If that’s the case for you and you’re telling yourself, there’s no way the church could be true. That’s not you talking. That’s the critic parroting. You’re parroting a critic, because there’s lots of reasons to believe. I try to lay it all out in the ‘Light and Truth Letter.’ To show all of the positive evidences that there are for the church and that it’s actually really rational and reasonable to believe. There is a preponderance of evidence that is more for us than against us. And for me — that’s enough to believe. And once I made that decision, then God could do something with me.” https://www.lightandtruthletter.org/ 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
After leaving the church, Elise felt misunderstood. How God reached out, softened her heart and helped her marriage.
“For anyone who has left and even has the smallest desire to come back, one thing that I would say to you is: I could have left my marriage and maybe I could have healed. But me healing within my marriage was like nothing else. I don’t know that I could have healed another way. Sometimes people need to come back to heal within the church; maybe they feel like the church broke them and the church caused them a lot of pain. I see that, but that might be just the place that you could come back to. And if you can heal there, it’s such a deep part of us, and if you can come back there to heal, it’s like nothing else.” – Recommended song: “Always Be My Savior” by Shawna Edwards – 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
Stephen Murphy left the church after being exposed to anti-Mormon content. After much studying and researching, he returned.
“I remember my dad, he sent me an apologetic video — initially I was like, ‘Dad I don’t want to listen to this pseudo scholarship, this mental gymnastics. The church isn’t what it claims to be. Come on, give it a rest.’ He was like, ‘Just watch it.’ I sort of recognized that I’m not being very open-minded, I’m not willing to listen. I’d already come to a firm conclusion so I was like fine I’ll watch it. It was by a guy called Bruce Porter and it was about the connections and correspondences and parallels between our temple endowment and ancient Egyptian temple rituals. If I’m being intellectually honest and consistent, just as I couldn’t deny that there are things which are similar – if not identical, between a Masonic ritual and the temple endowment, there were things which correspond quite well. So I was like, ‘okay, I can understand why a true believer they might think that the temple endowment is like a restoration of an ancient temple ritual.’ So that sort of sparked some curiosity and I started to explore more evidence for things like this.” – Check out his channel: https://www.youtube.com/@mormonismwiththemurph – 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
What is the CES Letter and why you shouldn’t let it shake your faith | Q&A with Sarah Allen
“How I handle things when I have questions is I do my own studying and I look at things from different sides, but I always lean on Heavenly Father. I always keep Him in the loop. I always tell Him what I am questioning, what I am struggling with and He always points me to sources that help. Sometimes it takes a while, the answers don’t always come right away. But He always points me to something that helps me understand things or helps me feel at peace about it even if I don’t fully understand it.” — PSA: The Letter For My Wife is another anti LDS document that Sarah is writing a rebuttal to on FAIR https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Sarah_Allen_CES_Response_Posts Recommended talk: “Stand Forever” by Lawrence Corbridge: https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/lawrence-e-corbridge/stand-for-ever/ — 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