LDS Podcast "Latter-Day Lights" - Inspirational LDS Stories
From Finance to Fiction, Fantasy, and Faith: Mike House's Story - Latter-Day Lights
In this episode, Mike House shares his story of how he was able to take a step back from his career in the finance world to follow his life's dream of becoming a writer, and how this journey has affected his faith.
Join us as Mike talks about some of the fascinating books he's written, including an in-depth trilogy on Barabbas - the criminal that the people chose to set free, and put Christ to death in his place.
It's a great podcast that you don't want to miss!
*** Please SHARE Mike's story and help us spread hope and light to others. ***
To WATCH this episode on YouTube, visit: https://youtu.be/WTgo6-Kd-eI
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To READ or learn more about Mike's books, visit (direct link): https://www.mdhouselive.com/
(Fun sidenote - Kirby Heyborne narrates the Audible books in the Barabbas series if you're a fan of the movies "The RM" or "The Singles Ward".)
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Also, if you have a faith-promoting or inspiring story, or know someone who does, please let us know by going to https://www.latterdaylights.com and reaching out to us.
In this episode, Mike House shares his story of how he was able to take a step back from his career in the finance world to follow his life's dream of becoming a writer, and how this journey has affected his faith.
Join us as Mike talks about some of the fascinating books he's written, including an in-depth trilogy on Barabbas - the criminal that the people chose to set free, and put Christ to death in his place.
It's a great podcast that you don't want to miss!
*** Please SHARE Mike's story and help us spread hope and light to others. ***
To WATCH this episode on YouTube, visit: https://youtu.be/WTgo6-Kd-eI
-----
To READ or learn more about Mike's books, visit (direct link): https://www.mdhouselive.com/
(Fun sidenote - Kirby Heyborne narrates the Audible books in the Barabbas series if you're a fan of the movies "The RM" or "The Singles Ward".)
-----
Also, if you have a faith-promoting or inspiring story, or know someone who does, please let us know by going to https://www.latterdaylights.com and reaching out to us.
Hi everyone, I'm Scott Brandley.
Alisha Coakley:And I'm Alisha Coakley. Every member of the Church has a story to share, one that can instill faith, invite growth and inspire others.
Scott Brandley:On today's episode we're going to hear how one man's desire to share new perspective on the Scriptures led him to a better understanding of how the Lord could use his talents. Welcome to Latter-day Lights. Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Latter-day Lights. We're so glad you're here with us today. We're really excited to introduce our guest, mike House. Mike, how are you doing Good? Thank you very much.
Mike House:How are you?
Alisha Coakley:We're good.
Mike House:Doing great.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, I was just telling you guys I'm a little hot. It's like over 100 degrees here in Texas and you guys are just basking in the beauty of where you guys are at right now and all of your less than 100 degree weather here.
Scott Brandley:Yeah, it's beautiful here.
Alisha Coakley:I am a little jealous. I'm a little jealous.
Scott Brandley:Well, you could be in Alaska right now, Alisha, so yeah, but even Alaska right now is probably cooler than. Well, it's probably like 60.
Alisha Coakley:I know it's probably beautiful, so that's okay. That's okay.
Scott Brandley:Well, mike, we're happy to have you on the show. Well, I'm happy to be here so thank you.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, so, mike, I can't remember how did you get in contact with us? Was it through?
Mike House:It was through, I believe. If I remember correctly, it was through the Latter-day Saints in Publishing, media and the Arts Facebook page LDSBMA.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, it's been a really great page. We've had a few different people who are in that industry come on and been able to share not only their stories with us but some of the work that they've put out there, which is just. It's just so fun, right, like we love being able to get edified in ways that are entertaining or ways that are just kind of new, and I love that today we're going to talk a little bit about that, about those new entertaining ways to connect with gospel topics and spiritual heroes and things of that nature.
Mike House:Oh yeah.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, before we get to all that, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Mike House:Sure, well, when I put together my bio, I like to talk about myself as a recovering corporate cog and my wife doesn't quite like that but because it does sound a little bit brusque, if you will. But I spent 25 years of a career in corporate finance and business leadership and did lots of fun and interesting things. I enjoyed that career, but it was the one I chose because it was quote-unquote safer. I always wanted to be a writer and do things like that, but in college I thought I had to go a certain path. I almost became a lawyer. That's scary, right, I did. I almost did.
Mike House:I actually started out a polypsi major my freshman year at BYU and then I went on my mission to Costa Rica and Panama and by the time I came back I had taken before I left, I had taken an honors econ 110 course and everybody that you know probably hates economics in college, hates it, hates that class. My son, who went to BYU, no different hated it, Couldn't stand the class. I loved it. I ate it up. And I came back from my mission I switched my major to economics with a minor in polypsi and said I'm going to go the MBA route and do a business career, if you will, and that's what I ended up doing and it was good, it worked out great and we were able to do OK.
Mike House:And then I had an opportunity a little while back about three years ago to take a little bit of a step back from that and go half time. So I'm partially retired or semi-retired and now I can do both. I can still engage in that career to some degree, and then I can write and, as I was telling Scott earlier, I've kind of gotten into a flow now and the books keep coming, the ideas keep coming and I'm having a lot of fun. I'm probably having too much fun. I'm not sure why I deserve to have so much fun.
Alisha Coakley:So that's so neat and you mentioned you're married. Do you have kids?
Mike House:Yes, yes, we have two kids, one's in the Army, one's a nurse. And yeah, and I was going to mention you were talking about, we were talking about LDS-PMA. I just got involved with that group last year and I really hadn't heard about it and I went to their annual conference for the first time and, admittedly, my expectations were modest because I just didn't know them, and it was a fantastic conference. It was you interviewed recently, junior Mal Li Bonner, right?
Alisha Coakley:Yes.
Mike House:And he was one of the keynotes at the conference last year and he was amazing. And Gerald Lund was one of the keynotes and Jane Clayson Johnson was one of the keynotes and it was a fantastic conference. And since then I got involved and I'm now the director of the mentoring program and there's a committee of us that are putting together a one-on-one mentoring program that's actually in the sign-up process right now. So I'm enjoying that, having a lot of fun with it.
Alisha Coakley:That's amazing, so cool. Yeah, last year was my first conference. It was Scott's second. I bailed on him there first time.
Scott Brandley:Well, you had COVID.
Mike House:I did have COVID, it was an extension. You enjoyed it. I mean, you enjoyed it, I did yes. Yeah, it was great.
Mike House:Yeah, we made some great connections and learned a lot and just kind of opened up a whole new world of like oh, I had no idea that all of this was going on and it's not just writers, it's all kinds of people in different kinds of art, and so that was really fascinating to see all of that, and we're trying to engage more people because historically it's been more writers, and we're trying to, like in the mentoring program, we're trying to open it up to more avenues People who do acting or filmmaking or podcasting.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, everything that's amazing.
Scott Brandley:Yeah, I actually found a podcast today. I was going to tell you, alisha, like we should have this person on the podcast, on our podcast, right, like, because everybody's got a story. And one thing I like about the LDSPMA is that all those people have stories. That's why they're doing it right and their stories are usually pretty good. But, so that's one of the reasons why we like having people from there on the show is because they have such great stories.
Mike House:There's a lot of talent and there's a lot of inspiration behind a lot of those stories as well, and so if we can come together and help each other polish our craft, we can have an incredible impact on the world. And that's what we need to do. We need to prepare the earth for Christ's return. That's our job, right, amen.
Alisha Coakley:Yep, absolutely Well. So that's our soapbox for today. Everybody needs to go check out the LDSPMA. It really is fantastic, though We'll just add a link to the description there you go, we'll do that. And you guys, if anyone's interested in anything involving media publishing in the arts and you like to kind of keep it in a gospel-centered direction or whatever, go look them up. You guys have a conference soon too, right October?
Mike House:October, I think it's 19th and 20th.
Alisha Coakley:Something like that, yeah.
Mike House:It's going to be at UVU this year, yeah.
Alisha Coakley:That's awesome. Well, there you go, we will, and we will make sure that we add all of the information in there, so cool. Well, all right, mike, we're going to go ahead and turn the time over to you and we're going to let you share your story with us. We're very excited to hear it. So the floor is yours.
Mike House:Okay, well, thank you and feel free to pepper me with questions. I love the interactivity of a setting like this. But, to start, I told you I had this first career and I was able to step back a little bit. I had written off and on a little bit as much as I could over time, but with a full-time job and a family and church, callings and different things, there wasn't a lot of time to really engage in it. And I had a science fiction novel, which is what I thought I would write Science Fiction and Fantasy. That's what I most like to read, and I figured that's what I would write Science Fiction and Fantasy. And so I put together this science fiction book and it ended up being pretty long at the end of the day, like really long not Brandon Sanderson long, but almost Brandon Sanderson long, wow. And publishers don't really like to pick up books like that from unknown authors, right or first-time novelists and so I had a hard time getting it placed. I finally published it myself, well, for the second time, back in I think it was 2018. And it's called Patriot Star. And then I had this opportunity to step back and do more writing and I thought, okay, I'm going to keep going on this path.
Mike House:And then the story. I don't know how and why, but the story of Barabbas just grabbed me For some reason. I had, like you, I'd read that story a lot of times, right, pilate and Jesus and Barabbas and the whole interaction there and what happened, and Pilate's wife's dream and all the interesting things that go along with that. And I thought, boy, what was that like for Barabbas, who was he and what would have been like for him to be there and to see what was going on? And he probably didn't really know what was going on at that point. He probably had heard of Jesus, right, he probably knew who he was Most people did, but he didn't really know what it was all about. And he was a.
Mike House:We know from the scripture. We don't know much about him, but we know each of the four Gospels mentions him, each of them, and he's called a robber and a thief and a seditionist and a murderer. And he was most likely a Jewish rebel against the Romans. He probably killed Romans, maybe even Roman soldiers, and the Romans hated him. They would have hated him and he was expecting to die. And when someone is in prison and they're expecting to die, they get ready to die, right, and the mentality shifts to where you're getting ready to pass on, and all of a sudden he's released and he probably didn't know quite what to make of it. And again, he had heard of Jesus. And at that point he had a choice, which is the same choice we all have to make. Right, at certain points in our lives that choice might be more intense, but essentially we make that choice every day. Right, are we going to follow the Savior or are we not? Are we going to trust the Savior or are we not? And again, we don't know what happened to him because, you know, josephus doesn't record it, tertullian doesn't record it, pliny the Elder, all of the famous historians from that time frame don't really say now, there may have been some records, but 99% of the records from that era have been lost. They're gone right, at least until we get to the millennium, right, and then we'll see all those records. So we don't know what happened.
Mike House:But as I thought more and more about it, I thought well, what if he decided to learn more about this man who had saved his life? And he had saved his life in two ways. Right, he was sacrificed in his place physically. But then he also paid for his sins and he didn't know that at first, but maybe he came to know that. And then you start to think about, well, who could have mentored him in that? And I chose the Apostle Paul, and so Barabbas.
Mike House:I ended up writing a trilogy. This grabbed me so hard that after the first book I thought I was done for about five seconds and then it was like nope, there's a second book. And after the second book I didn't even bother thinking about it. I knew there was a third. So I did three full books and the Apostle Paul figures prominently in all of them and you get to follow him through a number of years, right, and you see what's going on in the Roman Empire and you see what's going on in Paul's life. We have the shipwreck Remember the famous shipwreck on Melita, which is now Malta? We have that. That's a scene.
Mike House:In book one. We have some encounters with the Roman emperor, nero. Now he's an interesting character to think about. We have those in book two and Peter gets involved in some of the other apostles. And then book three. It keeps expanding and you see the growth of the church and the courage, the real courage and the faith of those early saints, particularly the ones around Rome, and it was just a fascinating journey to take.
Mike House:And in book three you have the year of four emperors. Now think about that for a second. Rome had four emperors in one year, and a turnover of emperors was not a peaceful process. It was always a big battle, right. So the emperors were gathering legions to their side, or the vying emperors, and they would battle and lots of people would die. And they did that four times in one year. And then you know, finally Vespasian became the emperor and it was him and his son Titus that were fighting the Jews in Judea. And it was his son Titus, who later became emperor, who besieged Jerusalem. And it was that horrific siege in 70 AD, where they figured close to a million people may have died in that siege and that effectively ended the Jewish state. It was done, it was gone. As a landed people, the Jews were no more.
Scott Brandley:Isn't that also where the temple gets wiped out?
Mike House:And that's where the temple gets completely destroyed, as Christ himself had prophesied, right, yeah, just fascinating. So it was fascinating to get into that history and that story. And you have the Apostle Paul and you have the Centurion Cornelius he was another one I brought in and he was a fascinating character to write as well and the book. So I have this trilogy and then wrote some other books and then there's going to be a spin off to the trilogy coming out in about a month and a half, called Sophia, and Sophia is the daughter, one of the daughters, and she's a kind of a spitfire, and that was so much fun to write, oh my goodness. So, anyway, so I did this trilogy and then I thought, ok, now I'll go back to science fiction and fantasy, right, and I already had this one science fiction book out there and I had ideas I was working on for a book too. But then another story grabbed me and that was from the Book of Mormon and that was the servant of Helaman. And again I just thought, huh, we don't even know his name. We don't know why we don't know his name. Mormon had access to a lot of the records, right, right, why was his name not given? Was it not given in the original records or did Mormon hold it back for some reason? But he did something remarkable, right, really important, because he saved Helaman, the son of Helaman's life when he became the chief judge. And that story in Helaman, chapters one and two, that whole story is just it's it's tailor made for a movie, and in fact I've got a screenwriter right now writing the script for it because it's perfect.
Mike House:Right, you start out with the assassination of Pahoran the Younger by Kishkuman right, who became part of the band of Gadi Anton, and this is when the Gadi Antons first began to rise. So Pahoran was was assassinated and Kishkuman escapes and they can't find him. And within a year the Lamanites launch another invasion, led by a man named Coriantumr, and they bypass the border forts right, the border cities, and they attack Zarahemla. And they take over Zarahemla for what, as far as we know, the first time they take over Zarahemla. And then he decides he's going to go rampage across the middle of the country and he leaves, most of you know, takes most of his troops and starts going across the country and Moronihah, the son of Captain Moroni, Moronahah, then surrounds him and defeats him. And so you have that. That's kind of your, your middle portion, right. And then so the brother of Pahoran Pakumonai had become the chief judge. He's killed in the in the battle of Zarahemla. Coriantumr kills him. So now they need a chief judge again. And Helaman becomes the chief judge and Kishkuman decides he's going to kill Helaman.
Mike House:And this servant had somehow infiltrated the Gadia ntons, this new group. So he was a spy, he was. He was probably some sort of a hybrid of a soldier and a spy and working for Moronihah and his army. And and he infiltrates the Gadia ntons and he's close to Helaman somehow, we don't know how. So in the book I have to come up with a way for how. He becomes close to Helaman and Kishkuman comes to kill Helaman and this servant of Helaman convinces Kishkuman that he's on his side because he can give him the whatever, the signs or the passwords or whatever they used, right. And and then when they, when they get close, he surprises Kishkuman and kills him, right, Stabs him and kills him and that's. That's the end of the story, right? But just, it's perfect for a movie, yeah, and so so we've got a scriptwriter doing that.
Mike House:And then I went back to you know the science fiction and I did the sequel to Patriot Star and that, just that, that was so much fun, just a lot of fun, and it's it's a completely different sort of writing. So Barabbas was one style. It's a little, it's a little more evangelical, if you will. The Barabbas books, you get into the servant of Helaman and that's kind of part spy thriller, part evangelism, and then you get into, you know, the science fiction. That's science fiction, right. So it's different styles of writing and and it's fun to get into those different modes, if you will, of writing, which which has been actually not not real hard to do. And I finished a fantasy book that's not published yet and I said I've got the Sophia one. And then the one I just did was a side project, that just another one.
Mike House:Another story just kind of came to me and it wasn't a particular story, but it was a man and it was Amulek, and I started to, in my mind, connect a few more dots in his story and I and it just it came to me, I want to write this down and I wrote the first half of it, which takes us to you know where, where he leaves Amun Iha with Alma and Alma takes into his house and it sounds like he's alone at that point. Now we know he had a wife and children earlier were told that but it seems like he then leaves alone. So that's a dot. I hadn't fully connected. I hadn't. I guess I'd seen it, but I hadn't really I hadn't fully realized what it meant. And that's where the first half stopped and then, and then I wrote the second half, because it continues working with Alma and building up the church, and then they go to visit the Zoramites and in between there there's other wars that happen and there's there's Korahor that happens. That story happens in that timeframe as well. So I include all of that. So it's kind of the life and times of Amulek. But it's a short book.
Mike House:I didn't want to embellish it too much with lots of other background. I just wanted to tell this this short, compact, powerful story of Amulek, who, who Alma called his one of his best friends and most faithful follower, you know, followers of Christ, and we we kind of I think a little bit I have glossed over Amulek a little bit, but really he's featured prominently. Mormon featured him prominently, more prominently than we, than we sometimes realize, and so I finished that and published that and I kind of did that one a little more on my own. I usually have, you know, professional designers and art. You know other other folks helping me. This one I did a little more on my own. I used like a template on book brush to do the cover and I used Atticus dot I O to do the interior, which does nice interiors, and and then, you know, and then with Sophia, I'm going back to having the designers you know the professional designers do it. But a lot of fun so far.
Alisha Coakley:So I mean just just in, like the little bits and pieces that you gave us. Now I cannot imagine how much research went into this because obviously and I and I think this is the hard part about writing fiction mixed with reality, right, like when you have those true events and then trying to put them in there and then trying to make sure that you stay True to history, but also take a little bit of that, that creative control, to kind of, you know, create the story and and create the characters and fill in the gaps where we don't have the information. So so I have to ask you, what did research look like for you?
Mike House:You know, well, it's a lot easier to do now than it used to be, right Thirty, thirty years ago or forty years ago, when you go to the library and you get in the card catalog and you pull out a card and you go find the book on the shelf and then you sit down at the table and you, you know, write notes. And we didn't, you didn't have a phone with you. You could take a picture of a page, right? You didn't have any of that, right?
Scott Brandley:That almost gives me PTSD.
Alisha Coakley:I know.
Mike House:I will remember card card catalogs, even in college. I remember card catalogs at the big you know the big library there. So it's a lot easier now, right, you can find a lot of things online. I bought a number of books as well that I, you know, keep with me at home on. You know Roman history and Jewish history and things like that.
Mike House:But, but there's two elements, I think, to the history that are that are really important. One you do want to get the history right. You want to know what happened, when and, and to some degree, you can kind of figure out why. But the other reason is you want to put yourself in the place of those people. They're really not any different than us we're. We're no better than they were. We haven't somehow evolved as a species. We haven't. We're still just as selfish as we always have been. We have all the same weaknesses We've always exhibited. We also have the same strengths and the same opportunities right To do good. But you try to put yourself in their place, in their circumstances, and and you think about so with the servant of Helaman, I went through and I did the timeline, a very detailed timeline, of what had been happening over the last years, the last decades, right In the Nephite Nation, because that was ever present in their minds, in their psyches, right, they remembered the Great War that lasted six or seven years, just like we remember 9-11, right, and things like that.
Mike House:They remembered that. They thought about that a lot. It drove a lot of the way they thought about things, and so I did this timeline just so I could hopefully put myself in their place and feel some of what they felt. Right? And of course, we have the Book of Mormon, and that's hugely valuable. And I say that about the New Testament as well. People have asked me well, you know what's your primary source for the Barabbas books? Your historical source? And it's the New Testament. And, in fact, academics have studied this and they find that the most accurate historical representation of that timeframe is the New Testament. It's not just a bunch of stories that people made up, right, to teach moral lessons. Those things actually happen and it's the most accurate record we have. And the Book of Mormon is no different, right? And so we have that resource and we have the other thing we have, of course, is, if we're sincere about it, we have the Spirit guiding us to understand some of what went on and how it went on, and so that was a lot of fun to do.
Mike House:Another thing I did with the Apostle Paul, because I started in the Barabbas books to speak sometimes from his perspective. So the point of view became Paul, not Barabbas, right, and so I was speaking from Paul's perspective and I thought, well, if I'm going to do this right, I need to go back through all of the epistles of Paul and take careful notes on all of those. And so I did 400 lines of notes in Excel on Paul's epistles and the things he said and the things he commented on right, the things he referenced. There's all kinds of references there that are really obscure to us because they're not a focus of any of the teachings, right, they're just there. There's a lot of really interesting foci there, if you will, and I use one of those. So one of them and he's a little more well known is the slave Onesimus. So Onesimus belonged to what was his name? Oh, philemon, and her name was what was Philemon's wife name? Philemon's wife, apthia, I think, was her name Apthia, and they owned a slave named Onesimus, and at one point Onesimus had left because he wanted to go join Paul.
Mike House:Now Philemon was a member of the church, he had been converted, he was a member of the church now, and of course we think about you know, we try to compare our time to their time in some unfair ways sometimes. Right, slavery doesn't exist in this country, for instance in the United States. Now, modern slavery does exist in the world and it exists in several different forms right and some really ugly forms. That's still true. But we don't have institutional slavery on our laws. Right, and they did, the Romans did. Most wealthy Romans owned slaves. Right, and the church back then, just like it does now, tries to be respectful of civil authority. Right, and tries to operate within the boundaries set by those civil authorities.
Mike House:And so what did Paul do? When Onesimus escaped, essentially, and came to him, he asked him to go back because he would be obeying the law. And now, eventually, philemon freed him. Right, which was the right thing to do. And Christianity taught that. Right. And it was Christians. Later on, many, many years later, right, it was Christians that led the abolitionist movements, primarily in the United States and in Great Britain. It was Christians who led those movements. And so Christianity was, you know, opposed to slavery, adamantly opposed. So as was Christ right, and so Paul sends him back and so we have that story, and so I actually decided to use Onesimus in Sophia. So he becomes one of the main characters in Sophia and she travels with him and with the apostle John and she can't figure out why John has so much energy. Now, he was the youngest apostle, but by 72, 73 AD he's not young anymore, right, but she's like, why does he have so much energy? And so a lot of mainline Christians don't understand, don't have the modern, revealed truth that John was promised he would not die Literally, would not die, right. So that was.
Mike House:It's interesting to pick those little pieces up and then do something with them that isn't just entertaining but is useful, right, and that's the aim of everything I'm trying to do. I want to be entertaining and so I'm trying to get better at my craft. I'm trying, you know, I take the writing classes and do the workshops and interact with other folks, and but I'm also trying to, you know, spread the gospel. That's what I'm trying to do, and I've had lots of interviews like this with non-LDS Christians where we're both trying to do that. It gives me a lot of hope because there's so many good people out there so many good Christians out there and I've spoken with a number of them and it's just fantastic.
Mike House:In fact, I shared a quote with a lady named. You probably haven't heard of her, but she's on the Faith Radio Network. She's up in Minnesota, her name is Carmen LaBerge and at the end of our interview I shared a quote from Neal A Maxwell and I doubt she had ever heard of Neal A Maxwell, but he was brilliant, right, he was just absolutely brilliant. And he said saying need not get everyone to be like Cain or Judas, though he relishes such success, he only needs to get able men and women to be like, or able men and women like Pilate and Agrippa to see themselves as sophisticated neutrals. And there is no neutral ground, right, there literally is no neutral ground. And that blew her away. She loved, absolutely loved that quote. Had never heard of Neal A Maxwell, so that was fun.
Alisha Coakley:That's awesome.
Scott Brandley:That's interesting. Yeah, when I was researching my book, which is about faith and people having the faith to stay in the church, I did a lot of research from non-LDS. Oh yeah, because they. One thing I found is they're very passionate in trying to like find evidence for God right and they will go to great lengths to find that. And they've done so much research in that field that it was fascinating to see just you know how dedicated they are to God and to finding truth.
Mike House:Absolutely. There's a couple of movies that come to mind. One is called the Case for Christ. Have you heard that?
Alisha Coakley:one yes, I've watched that one I've heard of that one?
Mike House:Have you watched that one? So that was by a reporter I don't remember his name right now, but a reporter in Chicago, and we lived in Chicago for 20 years, so I'm familiar with that area and he approached it like a journalist would trying to disprove the existence of Christ, and not just his existence but his resurrection. He tried to disprove that and ended up proving it. It's a really well done movie. It's not just a good concept, it was a well done movie. And then the other one I just watched was Jesus Revolution. Have you seen that one yet?
Scott Brandley:I haven't, but I've seen the previews Jesus Revolution, and I hadn't.
Mike House:I didn't know a lot about that. So we're in the late 60s, early 70s, and you've got all these protests about the Vietnam War and of course I was just a baby so I didn't know anything about this, what was going on, and I didn't. You know, I haven't studied a lot about the Vietnam War years. I'm a big World War II history buff, but I didn't study a lot about Vietnam and apparently. So this is based on a true story.
Mike House:There was this youth movement arose, this kind of revival movement, revival Christian youth movement, and the way it was explained by one of the main you know, one of the main characters is that these youth, they really want to find truth and they want to find God, and they've been trying to do it through drugs and some you know some of the other things, and they can't find it there.
Mike House:They finally figure out that it's not here, right, and they figured out that it was Jesus. That's who, that's who it was, that's where they could find the truth and the peace they were looking for. And this, this movement grew and spread like wildfire. There were hundreds of thousands of people and spread across the country and I didn't know anything about it. I watched this movie and it was really really fascinating to hear that story. The other, the other really interesting story that you and I know you've heard of this man, dietrich Bonhoeffer. So one of the first people I interviewed with when I was promoting the Barabbas books was Eric Metaxas, and Eric Metaxas is a pretty well known author and radio host and podcaster and such.
Scott Brandley:That's so funny because I'm reading his book right now.
Mike House:Which one? Which one?
Scott Brandley:Is atheism dead?
Mike House:Is atheism dead. So I was on the launch team for that one.
Scott Brandley:Really, it's fascinating. Yeah, I'm loving it.
Mike House:It's. It's in three parts, right, so you have a part that talks about the science, right? The, the, the, the advancements in science. Back in 1966, that's a fabulous book Back in 1966, Time Magazine came out with an article and they put it. They put this, the words in bold on the front cover, right, and Time Magazine was huge back then. It isn't so much anymore. It said is God dead? Right, and essentially the story was about scientists proclaiming that they had finally proven that God couldn't exist. Fast forward to now and scientists have proven that God has to exist, because there aren't just two necessary elements or variables that are needed for life to exist, there are more than 200, and they have to be perfectly balanced. And there's no way that it could happen unless someone was guiding. And they've proven that now. And so Eric Metaxas did something really clever. He took that and flipped it on its head and said is atheism dead? And so he goes through the science. Then he goes through the. Have you gotten to the archaeology part?
Scott Brandley:Yeah, I'm actually. I think I'm on that part right now. You're on that part, and they've discovered I can barely put it down because it's just- so well written and so well researched.
Mike House:It's good we now know where Sodom is, the city of Sodom.
Scott Brandley:I just listened to that part, did you? Yeah? And Bethlehem, where Christ lived, like they found his house. Yeah, sure, it's so fascinating.
Mike House:Yeah, and then the third. You'll get into the third part, which is a lot about some of these, you know, famous atheists who have figured it out Right.
Alisha Coakley:And what is the name of this book? Again, I'm going to put it in my list Is atheism dead?
Mike House:All right.
Scott Brandley:That's so funny that you, that you brought that up. Like, what are the odds that I'm reading that book out of all the books in the world and you just you happen to like, talk about it and you're part of the launch?
Mike House:Well, here and here's your next book. Here's your next book from Eric the odds are the spirits here, scott, yeah, 100%.
Alisha Coakley:Here are your odds.
Scott Brandley:Here's your next book.
Mike House:Here's your next book from Eric Metaxas and he published it back in September and it's called Letter to the American Church and it links with Dietrich Bonhoeffer. So he wrote. I would also recommend the biography he wrote of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It's rather long it was. It took a long time to read, but it was really really good.
Mike House:Dietrich Bonhoeffer, this this German, and most of the Germans were Lutherans, so it was a Lutheran faith. He was a German pastor back in the 20s and 30s and 40s in Germany and it has a fascinating story. He came to America for a while and actually he was going to stay, but then he went back to Germany to try and help save his people. He could have stayed and been safe in America, but he decided to go back. Even after, you know, it looked like war was starting. So anyway, back in 1932, so this is when Hitler ascended to the chancellery.
Mike House:Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of the few people who recognized the full import of Hitler and his teachings and he knew they were absolutely evil and they would just bring wreck and ruin to the German people. He knew it and he warned his fellow 18,000 pastors 18,000. He warned them in. This letter to the German church is what it was called Letter to the German church. He warned them that they needed to stand up against Hitler and his ideology. And about 3,000 of them agreed with Dietrich. They stood with him 3,000, one out of six. The rest of them went along to get along.
Mike House:Right, and that's what we see in a lot of churches today. We see this across a lot of Christian churches. We even see it inside the LDS church. We do, we absolutely do. There are a lot of things we should be standing up stronger against and we're not, because we're going along to get along and we don't want to rock the boat too much and we don't want to lose our job or whatever right. Whatever it is, and they're real. I mean the real concerns. I don't want to diminish the concerns, they're real, but we have to learn to trust the Savior more than we presently do. And Dietrich Bonhoeffer did. I mean this man was a hero and he eventually became part of the plots to kill Hitler and he was eventually executed for that, for his involvement in some of these plots, and there were a lot of plots and in fact he died. I think it was about two weeks before Allied forces would have freed him from prison.
Mike House:So and he had, he had met this girl and he was going to get married. I think maybe they did get now and forgetting if they got married or didn't get married, but then they immediately were torn apart and I don't think he married her, I don't think, I think they got engaged, and then he was arrested and never saw her again. And powerful stories. So anyway, that's. I like to bring up Dietrich Bonhoeffer a lot, not just, you know, in this kind of a setting, but you know, when I teach a lesson or whatever in church. He's just a fabulous example.
Alisha Coakley:Wow. So can I ask, do you feel like your testimony has shifted, changed, you know, developed more Like, do you feel like you even have testimonies of things that you didn't even know before? You know in all of your research and your writing, and and especially in that perspective, mind shift right, because I know that sometimes that's where the biggest lessons come from is just when we put put ourselves in someone else's shoes. How do you feel that that has helped in your testimony?
Mike House:Well, I try to be careful with that kind of an answer because we're all susceptible to temptation and to false ideas and I've seen so many miracles in my life. I look at all the miracles that I've seen and the things that I've been through and I think there's no way I could ever deny and I think that's to some degree part of my nature. It would be hard for me to deny just just. Naturally, however, I'm susceptible. I'm not perfect, right, I could be corrupted, if you will. Right, I could be. And in fact I was just reading and this is a great, another great example from the Book of Mormon. I was just reading about Samuel the Lamanite and the years following his visit. So here comes Samuel the Lamanite in about 5 BC, right, and he promises all these things, these signs and wonders that are going to happen. And then they happen.
Mike House:And there's additional signs and wonders that happen. We're told that there's lots of them, but we don't even know what they are. But there were lots of other signs and the people saw them all. And within five years they're squabbling again amongst themselves and trying to explain them away. And within 15 years you've got this pitched battle now between the Nephites and the good Nephites and the good Lamanites who banded together under Laconius right, who are trying to fight off the Gadiant and Robbers, who become so powerful and infested the entire land right that they're basically besieging them.
Mike House:And you think, how could that happen? How could those people who saw those things you had a night day and a night and a day with no darkness and you knew Christ had been born, and then you saw a whole bunch of other signs and then you fell away. How, how does that happen? And it makes us question ourselves. Remember, elder Uchtdorf gave that famous talk called Is it I? Yeah, right, and that's something we always have to ask ourselves, right? So I think my testimony has grown a lot over the process of writing these books and doing research and meeting all these fantastic people and just seeing a lot of things miraculously fall into place. But I can't let up, right, I can't get comfortable, if you will. I can't assume that I've reached some sort of I don't know plateau or pinnacle from which I can't fall.
Alisha Coakley:Right.
Mike House:I could, I could absolutely fall, and so I have to make sure I guard against that. Does that make sense as an answer?
Alisha Coakley:I love that you say that, because it just reminded me of the scripture that talks about. You know in these coming days that even the very elect right can be disowned.
Mike House:Sure, absolutely.
Alisha Coakley:Even like the best of us, and I do think that, unfortunately, we're going to see that we're going to. I mean, I'm already seeing it personally. I see tons of friends and family members and stuff like that who are they're shifting. You know they're shifting and it's not that they're becoming bad, it's just they're just getting away from the gospel for whatever reason. And it always, it always makes me worry about myself.
Alisha Coakley:I'm like, am I too sure in myself? You know, like I constantly am like okay, like I got to check where I'm at and what am I doing and who am I listening to and where am I getting information from. And I think that's why I love doing this podcast is because it kind of brings me back to, like, the foundations of my testimony, you know, and it reminds me of my own little stories and the things that I've experienced that have, that have identified truth to me. But I love, I love how you're so careful in that like, yeah, you, you feel like your testimony is stronger and you're grateful for those experiences, but you're also always watchful, right, like just want to make sure that I don't, you know, don't get too comfortable, because I think that that's that's so important in this life. You know, in order for us to become the person that our Heavenly Father wants us to be, we have to know that we're never. We've never attained that yet, right Like we might be where we need to be for the moment, but there's always more growth.
Alisha Coakley:That we need to do in the end and we should always be growing closer to Him and not just in, like some random area of our life. You know.
Scott Brandley:Sure, yeah, sure, I think it's. It's so easy nowadays to I mean, we have everything we could ever want, right? Yeah, it's so easy to just forget God, to think that we did it, you know, to think that we, we, everything we have is because of the work we put in. It's so easy to forget God. We have to be actively engaged or else we will fall away.
Mike House:Sure? Well, we're told in Doctrine and Covenants 88, right To draw near to God and he will draw near to us. But that's a constant thing. We have to constantly be drawing near to God. And then the promise comes that if your eye is single to my glory, your whole bodies shall be filled with light. And that body which is filled with light comprehendeth all things, all things, everything. So fill yourself with light.
Mike House:I remember that from my patriarchal blessing. I was told to fill my mind with things out of good books. Right, and that's what we need to do, but it also is in our actions as well. We need to fill ourselves with light and then we can comprehend anything, literally anything. Remember the brother of Jared? He had so much faith and he was so good that the Lord was like I can't hold anything back, you have a right to it, you've earned it. Right, I'm not anywhere close to that, but he got there and that's amazing to think about. Right, god doesn't want to hold things back from us, only in the sense that he needs us to learn right. And in fact, what was I thinking about just the other day? We shouldn't fear God's punishments or what we view as punishments. We should only fear Satan's punishments, right? There's nothing that God does that isn't for our good, nothing, even if it looks like a punishment, and he won't hold anything back that we're ready for and that we've earned. He won't hold it back.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, I love that.
Scott Brandley:Interesting. So I have to say I think your idea. When you first said you wrote a book about Barabbas, I'm like what. That didn't make any sense, but as you shared it, the idea it's fascinating. I really like that. Like the work in the glory was something that me and my wife first read when we were married. We loved it right. It was just get so involved in the characters and it has enough of the historical truth that it flows really well and it actually helps to strengthen your testimony even though you know it's not true. You know it's fiction, right, and then even the chosen right.
Scott Brandley:It's based on so many true things in the New Testament. But it's a story.
Mike House:It is they're?
Scott Brandley:making it up right, but it helps to increase your testimony too, and I think your books can do that same thing. Once you explained it to me, I'm like, wow, that would be a fascinating book to read and it reminds me kind of like I haven't read it but just in my mind and thinking like kind of like a Jean Valjean, you know, like he was the worst sinner and then he had this, this turnaround right and he did good.
Mike House:And the books. Each of the books in that trilogy are a little different, right? So the first book is really about personal redemption, and then the second book expands into talking about the faith and the courage of those early saints and how they built the church, right? And the third book kind of continues with that theme and broadens it even further.
Alisha Coakley:So let me ask you how do you feel you're able to liken yourself to the scriptures now? I mean, because you've obviously done this deep dive of so many different stories and characters how do you, how do you take that instruction that we receive to liken the scriptures to ourselves, and how do you apply it?
Mike House:Sure, sure. Well, one thing I mentioned is I'm trying to put myself in the place of other people who lived through those experiences that are recorded in the scripture, right. And the second thing is I see some of my own weaknesses, right, I expose more of my own weaknesses as I liken myself to the scriptures. But then the third thing is I see heroes. I see people I want to emulate, not just Christ, but some of the other people. I mean, we all are trying to emulate Christ.
Mike House:But sometimes we feel like, well, I'm not going to be perfect, I can't, you know, I can't do that right, I can't do what he did. And sometimes we say that in too self defeating of a manner. But but there are other folks maybe we could look at as well and say, well, I could be a little more like Esther, right. Or I could be a little bit more like Thomas, thomas the doubter, who actually was a really faithful man. He had, he had, a moment of doubt there, but he did some great things right. And so we find some heroes as well as we try to put ourselves into the scriptures and find ways that we can overcome the weaknesses that get exposed by, you know, following the examples that we see of the heroes right, including Christ right Right.
Mike House:Right, thanks, I love that, yeah, it is.
Alisha Coakley:It is something that I know. For me personally, like if I just sit down and I read the scriptures, I I'm like, what did I just read? I have to go back all the time.
Mike House:Yeah, so it's when.
Alisha Coakley:I stop and I think about okay, what did I just read? And I think sometimes helping it, like it helps being a writer, because we do step back and we do kind of, you know, ask about the character development and and the plot structure and the goals and the obstacles, and you know, like, like we have all of these things that we're trained writers to make sure that we include in stories, and it's amazing to see how much is in there.
Mike House:Yeah.
Alisha Coakley:When you sit back and you kind of like you know, piece it out and just say, oh, okay, I see.
Scott Brandley:Sure.
Alisha Coakley:I see where this is that and that's that, but I was, I was thinking about it too, and I was thinking about how you know this wasn't your profession, right? And I'm curious did you have a natural talent for writing already when you first started, or or is that something that you think just kind of?
Mike House:I did and I did, and to some degree I think you have to. I think you have to have some natural talent at fiction writing. Fiction writing and nonfiction writing are two different beasts. They really are. And in fact I've got a brother who's a PhD in microbiology and he's done some really interesting things all over the world and he he'll tell me I've sat down and tried to write fiction. I can't do it, it just doesn't, doesn't work. My mind isn't wired that way. Your mind does have to be wired a certain way to write fiction, to tell stories, and so it is. So it is different, but then, but then they're just like you may have a talent for playing basketball, right, but unless you work at it, you're not going to really go anywhere with it, right, and it's the same with writing. So, yeah, there was some, there had to have been some natural talent there. And then you just develop it over time and and the more you do it, the better at it you get. And and you know you not only do self reflection on your own writing, but you see how other people react to it and the kinds of comments they make and things you learn from.
Mike House:You know classes and such as well, and I took the. I watched the Brandon Sanderson I think he still does. He teaches a class at BYU on on you know, writing science fiction and there's like 10. There's 10 episodes on YouTube of this class, from 20, I don't know 2018 or something like that and I watched all of those. Really, really interesting. He breaks down some, you know, really interesting things, gives you new ways to think about how you're plotting and how you're developing characters, and I think about Mormon. You talked about Alisha. You talked about you know how we can pick up some of these things out of the scriptures. We didn't realize were there and Mormon didn't have a lot of time to do plot arcs and character arcs and things like that. He didn't have a lot of time to do that, right, and what he was needing to accomplish with the book of Mormon, right, but he did some. He did some and it's amazing sometimes to pick out some of those pieces and you see a little bit of, maybe, the personality of this person or that person. We don't again, we don't have a lot, but we see some pieces and so it's fun to get into those.
Mike House:And oh, I was going to say here's the thing I was thinking about earlier, scott, that you might be interested in as well, were you the one? You're the one that mentioned the Gerald Lund books, right? So he wrote a series called the Kingdom and the Crown, which are similar, right, and it's a series of three books and it's about the life of Christ, so it's a little bit similar to the chosen. He makes up a fictional family that lives in I think they live in Capernaum, and he follows that family as they interact with Jesus of Nazareth, right? Okay, so that might be a fun one you would enjoy as well, this Kingdom and the Crown series, also by Gerald Lund. And I was going to mention the other thing the chosen is really interesting because they take some flak sometimes for some of the elements they add to the story, right, and Dallas Jenkins comes on and explains look, we're trying to. You know, we want to entertain people, but we're staying true to gospel principles, and sometimes there are things that aren't found in the actual scriptures that we've put in there to maybe build the story or build a character arc or something. Right, because they're you know, they're filmmakers and they know what they're doing. They're doing a really nice job of it.
Mike House:Actually, one of the examples that pops out, and I don't know if you remember this, but at the pool of Bethesda there was the crippled man and remember there was the tradition that general authorities in the past have and in fact Bruce Armaconkey was one of them. He said this did not happen and in one of the translations it got in there and it's not correct that the pool would bubble and there would be an angel there and the angel would make the pool bubble and whoever got into the water first would be healed. And he said that's bunk. It's not what happened. But anyway, there's the setting of this story the pool of Bethesda and this, this cripple there, and Christ heals him and in the chosen that man ends up being. I believe it's the brother of Simon the zealot.
Scott Brandley:All right yeah.
Mike House:Well, the scriptures don't tell us he's the brother of Simon the zealot, but they used that interesting link in the story right To tell the story. So you know they're doing some things like that and, and you know, I'm taking certain liberties in the sense that I'm, you know, making up back stories and certain bringing in certain characters that are not found in the scriptures, but they're helping me tell the rest of the story and they're hopefully making it both interesting and useful.
Scott Brandley:I was thinking that you could leverage the story that you teach. Leverage may might not be the best word, but you can. When, when somebody reads your book and they and they read the New Testament again, right, it'll give them a different perspective and some depth. Even though it might not be based on Sure you know what's in the New Testament, it still gives you depth into the potential character of of Barabbas and and other characters in the New Testament, right?
Scott Brandley:And if you've done your job right, it should yeah, yeah, and that can only help to strengthen your testimony.
Alisha Coakley:So Well, and I think you know, just like just like our prophet told us a couple conferences ago, you know it's we're getting to the point where we need to have that spirit with us all the time. We need to know what the spirit is telling us, because there is going to be so much out there, so much truth out there that's revealed to us, and I don't think it's always gonna come straight to. You know the prophet here and to give to us, like I think that that's just part of the way that Heavenly Father does things is Truth is gonna be found. Where truth is found, you know, you're gonna be able to see him in everything. You're gonna be able to find evidence of God everywhere that you look, and and, really, that's the way that it should be.
Alisha Coakley:You know, we can't just always Exist in this little bubble and we have to be able to have that strong connection with the Holy Ghost and we have to be able to Know where to recognize truth and where to leave behind the things that aren't true, even if they're good.
Alisha Coakley:You know, we can be like, okay, and and I think that that's a great distinction with things like this, and I love that you're using your talent to To bring the gospel into entertainment. Right, like it's not, and I bet I bet I haven't read your Patriot Star book, but I bet that even if you go into that book, there's probably gonna be elements of the gospel in there too. There's probably gonna be morals and Struggles and you know things, things that you just can't separate yourself from the gospel when you have a testimony of it. It just is in you and I I love that you're taking your talent and that you're using it for good and that you're putting things out there that people can get bits and pieces of truth from, and that's Hopefully, like Scott said, lead them back to the scriptures so that they themselves can read through the stories, understanding them a little bit better, and then be open to that interpretation that comes from the spirit you know through them.
Mike House:Yeah, and you're spot-on, joel, joel prophesied right that our sons and daughters would prophesy and our old men would see visions and our young men Would dream dreams. And and we're all you know, we're all capable of of Doing our part, right lifting where we stand in the spiritual world, right lifting where we stand in the kingdom, wherever that is, and with ever, within whatever sphere of influence we have. And we're entitled. We're entitled to revelation, and whatever we're doing, as long as we're again trying to do what's right, yeah, very cool.
Scott Brandley:Well, Mike, do you have any last thoughts that you'd like to share before we wrap things up?
Mike House:Well, just maybe one more bit of encouragement. I know President Hinckley was famous for being optimistic Right, and there are again lots of reasons for optimism in this world. There are a lot of great people out there. In fact, last month I visited the LDS homeschool see homeschoolers in Conference in Salt Lake City, lds HE, and they had tracks for both the youth and the adults and I got to talk with a gaggle of youth at one point and I was so impressed with those youth right and the kinds of questions they were asking and the way in which they were asking them and how sincere they seemed there. There there's lots of reasons to be optimistic. I know there's a lot of bad things going on out there and of course the news media Focuses mostly on the bad things, but there's lots of good things too.
Mike House:And President Mcconkey, bruce R Mcconkey, talking about the Savior, he said he presides over this church. He is no stranger to his servants. As we move into the future with quiet confidence, his spirit will be with us. There is no end to his power to bless and direct the lives of those who seek truth and righteousness. And that that was at the end of his talk and it just blew me away and I I recorded it, I wrote it down and I memorized it and I won't ever forget it because that was so powerful and such such a reason for Optimism in a crazy, crazy world right.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, I love that you said it was a quiet confidence.
Mike House:Quiet confidence, and I asked myself that question Am I being quietly confident today, yeah, or am I freaking out? And why am I freaking out? Why should I?
Alisha Coakley:be freaking out, right, right, yeah, absolutely.
Mike House:Wow, not that I shouldn't have urgency, but I shouldn't be freaking out, right.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, exactly. Yeah well, and I love it too, because it means you don't have to throw everything in people's faces, right, like you can just, you can just be, like that's okay, you know, like you don't have to agree with me, you don't. You don't have all the understanding I have and I don't have all the understanding you have, and that's yeah. I can just be confident in the truth that I've received and in the spirit that's with me and in the purpose that I'm trying to, to absolutely you know yeah that's amazing Wow great.
Scott Brandley:Well, mike, if somebody wants to read your amazing books, what are the names of your books? First of all, and the Barabbas one particularly. But yeah, and then how do they find them?
Mike House:So there's lots of places to find them. But the Barabbas books, there are three of them. The first one is called I was called Barabbas, that's book one. Book two, which is a little bit longer than book one, is called Pillars of Barabbas. And then book three is a little longer than book two and it's called the, the Barabbas legacy. And then we have the servant of Helaman, and then the book on amulet is called amulet revenant, and then the science fiction, our Patriot star and kindred star, and there will be a third book to that one, and that one involves modern-day earth and interacting with people from another human inhabited planet.
Mike House:And there are some interesting questions about God. If we say God is the God of the universe and we find a planet in our galaxy, is he not the same God? Exactly? Do we not have the same God? So there's some interesting questions there about not just God but government and the other questions there about not just God but government, good governance, what that looks like, those sorts of things. And I again, I was a polysine major, so I get into that a little bit awesome, awesome and and most of them are on audiobook as well.
Mike House:So the the science fiction ones are not yet on audiobook and amulet isn't yet on audiobook, but Kirby Hayborne is going to do amulet revenant. He's going to narrate that one and he did the Barabbas legacy and he also did the servant of helaman. And I didn't know he did audiobooks Until I don't know, a year and a half ago, two years ago, and then I found out and I had him do a couple of the books and he's fantastic, he's really good. I don't even like audiobooks and I, at points as I was listening to the chapters that he did, I felt like the movie was playing in the background, right. So he does a nice job.
Alisha Coakley:That's cool.
Scott Brandley:I mean, all I listen to is audiobooks. Now I just don't have time to read.
Mike House:But yeah yeah, so I appreciate those Barabbas books and audio. Yeah, yeah, okay.
Alisha Coakley:Well, thank you again, mike. We really appreciate you taking the time to come on here and to share your story Well, your stories, yeah, you know to share your books and your talent with us and and to just kind of give us a Um another resource for gaining a new perspective of the scriptures and the heroes that lie within, and we just we really, really appreciate you taking the time out for that and yeah, thank you so much.
Mike House:Well, thank you I. I really enjoyed this and, as you can tell, I love to talk, and probably too much. Thank you again.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, you know problem Well, and to our listeners, guys.
Alisha Coakley:We want to thank you guys for tuning in today. Please, be sure, be sure to share, to do your five-second missionary work and to share today's episode with others, and we will post links to any of Mike's books and his work and stuff like that so you guys can easily access them. We'll also share some links on the lds PMA if that's something that interests you. Um, and we, we would love to hear from you guys what book are you most interested in in picking up for yourself, or what part of today's interview Really resonated with you? We, we love hearing feedback, we love knowing how we can do better and how we can Get more of the light out to the world. So we just want to say thank you to all of our listeners too.
Scott Brandley:Yep, and if you have a story that you'd like to share, like Mike, go to ladderdaylightscom and fill out the Section there and let us know so we can get you on the show. So, until then, have a great week and we will see you next Sunday. Okay, take care.