You Never Know Who God Is Putting in Your Path: Russell Scott Allred's Story - Latter-Day Lights

What if the encounters of people we meet have a greater purpose than we realize?

In this week's episode of Latter-Day Lights, Scott and Darla sit down with author Russell Scott Allred to explore how seemingly random encounters, small acts of kindness, and unexpected experiences can change the course of our lives in ways we may never fully understand.

From losing his father while serving a mission in Brazil to witnessing remarkable transformations while serving in a prison ward, Russell shares powerful experiences that taught him about God's love, the healing power of Jesus Christ, and the eternal connections that bind us together.

He also shares the inspiration behind his novel, Passing in the Fog, and how a lifetime of experiences led him to wonder whether the people we meet—and even the people we almost meet—might have a greater purpose in God's plan.

Through his stories, Russell reminds us that we may never know the full impact of a kind word, a helping hand, or a seemingly insignificant moment. But sometimes, those little moments can change a life forever.

*** Please hit SUBSCRIBE to get our latest episodes, and hit the SHARE button to help us share Russell's story and light with others. ***

To WATCH this episode on YouTube, visit: https://youtu.be/eFsoEydri6k

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To READ Russell’s book, “Passing in the Fog,” visit: https://amzn.in/d/0bnm1XW2

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To READ Scott’s new book “Faith to Stay” for free, visit: https://www.faithtostay.com/

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Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/latterdaylights

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.

Transcript

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“Faith to Stay” by Scott Brandley

Scott Brandley 0:00

Hey there, ladies and listener, I want to give you a very special gift today. My brand new book, Faith to Today. This book is filled with inspiring stories, powerful discoveries, and even fresh insights to help strengthen your faith during the storms of life. So if you're looking to be inspired, uplifted, and spiritually recharged, just visit faithtostay.com. Now, let's get back to the show. Hey

Intro

Scott Brandley 0:30

everyone, I'm Scott Brandley.

Darla Brandley 0:32

And I'm Darla Brandley. Every member of the church has a story to share, one that can instill faith, invite hope, and inspire others.

Scott Brandley 0:42

On today's episode, we're going to hear about a man whose dealings with death and grief have shown him that while there can be trials and challenges in life, the rewards of the gospel are great. Welcome to Latter Day Life.

Welcoming Russell Scott Allred to the show

Scott Brandley 1:15

Russell, welcome.

Russell Scott Allred 1:17

Thank you so much for allowing me to talk with you this evening. It's a pleasure.

Scott Brandley 1:22

Yeah, we're super happy you're here. To get things kicked off, we usually ask people to tell the audience a little bit

Russell in a nutshell

Scott Brandley 1:30

about themselves. So tell us about you, my friend.

Russell Scott Allred 1:33

Okay. Professionally, I spent most of my life as a business consultant working with family-owned businesses. My brother and I worked together and we published our first book, The Family Business. Um, and it's a guide to help families work better together and make more money. And last, that started me writing. I heard the story of my friend who had found buried gold in the Philippines. Uh, everybody familiar with the Philippines knows about Yamashita's treasure. Well, he found Yamashita's treasure, and um, he told me this story, and it's not part of our story tonight, but it's very exciting. So I wrote a fictional novel about his story and published that. It was called Dead Gold. And later on, I decided to write another book, which is this one. It's called Passing in the Fog. And that's uh what I hope to talk about a little bit tonight.

Scott Brandley 2:30

Awesome.

Russell Scott Allred 2:31

And family? I am married happily for 48 years, and I have three children, two girls and a boy, and nine grandchildren. Currently, I am serving in the bishopric of a young single adult ward. I was called as a high priest when I was 24, and um, when I was 29, I was called to be the bishop of a ward in south central Los Angeles. That is where the riots occurred. That was when you saw them film passing about the riots in Watts, Los Angeles. That was my ward. Wow. So I've had a varied church career. I taught seminary for nine years. For eight years, I was in the bishopric of a prison ward here close to Bakersfield in Taft, California. So I have a plethora of experiences and stories to tell. And I love to tell stories. My dad was a storyteller, and I like to tell my stories.

Scott Brandley 3:31

That's awesome. That's so fun. Well, you've picked the right place to tell stories. This is why this podcast exists.

Russell Scott Allred 3:38

Awesome.

Scott Brandley 3:39

Well, great. Let's jump right in. Um, why don't you tell us where your story that you're going to share today

Russell goes on his mission

Scott Brandley 3:45

begins?

Russell Scott Allred 3:46

The inspiration for Passing in the Fog was an experience of just terrible grief. But I want to start with God prepares us for everything that's coming in life. This is my testimony. I was called as a missionary to Sao Paulo, North Brazil. And I was going to be there for the dedication of the Sao Paulo Temple, the first temple in all of South America. And so we got to the MTC and I started to learn Portuguese, and they were delaying in getting our visas to Brazil, and we were getting a little bit worried. We're only supposed to be there eight weeks, and it was nine weeks and ten weeks. And it was getting old, and we kind of felt stir crazy. And finally, they said, we can't get visas for you for Brazil. You have to go to Laredo, Texas, the Texas San Antonio mission, and speak Spanish. And we were shocked. And it's okay. So we went where the Lord called us. I went to Laredo, Texas, and started speaking Spanish. Fortunately, God had prepared me because I studied Spanish in high school and a couple of semesters in college. I had some background in the language. I was there six weeks. We baptized several people. It was very exciting. The gospel was real. I could see it act in people's lives. And now I got to go down to Brazil, and all of the Portuguese that I had learned for three months at the MTC was gone. It was all mixed with Spanish and English. And so I had to relearn Portuguese and in Brazil for a few weeks, and I get called as a guide for the visitation of the Sao Paulo temple. And it was so exciting. And the temple in Sao Paulo was not just for the people of Brazil, but all of South America. So all the nations of South America were to come to this visitation of the temple and receive their blessings, their endowment. And so I'm a guide. And I can speak some Spanish and I can speak English and I can speak some Portuguese. And all of these people, I saw them lined up to get into the temple. There's a long walkway up to the Sao Paulo temple, down to the sidewalk. And when they opened up the temple, this line continued. It looked like for miles down the sidewalks. Let us see what is in this temple. And they were coming in and they would come to our visitation and we tell them the story of the restoration of Joseph Smith and the very God of heaven visiting him and introducing his son. And we saw people's eyes blaze over in tears and just the stunning outpouring of spirit. And everyone heard the gospel in his own language. It was like the day of Pentecost for me. And I am on top of the world as a missionary. This is the greatest experience of my life. And I came so close to the Lord. And then I was transferred. And before we could see the dedication of the temple, the reason that we were there, and I was

Russell gets discouraged at Rio Claro

Russell Scott Allred 7:00

sent to the countryside of Brazil, to a beautiful, quaint little village called Rio Claro, which means clear river. And the work was hard and nobody would let us in. It was a tight-knit community. Everybody knew each other. They were all Catholic, and they didn't want these Mormons coming in here and telling them the truth. They wanted their own truth. And we just worked and worked day after day, and we just couldn't get any, not even a discussion, let alone a baptism. And it was troubling and hard. And I was getting a little discouraged. I knew the gospel was true, and yet nobody wanted to hear what I had to say. And then I got word that my father had had a stroke. And they took him out of his job on a stretcher, put him in an ambulance, and took him to the hospital, and he never came home. And I didn't even know, I didn't even know that he had passed away until after he was buried. And because the communication, we got a letter once in a while. And I'm struggling. It doesn't matter what's happening at home. The work goes on. We get up in the morning, we pray, we study the scriptures, we study our language, we go out and try to find uh people to teach. And in the evenings, when I had a moment to myself, I just wrestling with God. Why would you do this to me? And I'm thinking, if he's not real, then why am I here? And if he is real, he's so mean. Why am I here? I want to go home. Yeah. Yeah. I'm living in a shed. There's no running water, there's no kitchen. My companion and I have a cot, and there's a path across the patio

Russell sees the Southern Cross constellation and hears the voice of God

Russell Scott Allred 9:00

to a restroom that didn't have a shower in it, had a pipe sticking out of the wall. That was our shower. And I'm going to prepare for the night one evening. And I look up in the sky and I see the constellation that you can only see in the southern hemisphere called U Cruzero do Sul, the Southern Cross. And obviously, it has reference to Jesus. And I look up at this cross in the sky, and I said, Why? Why are you doing this to me? Scott, Darla, in my mind and in my heart, I heard the voice of God come to me and say, Russell, you know that the church is true. And you know through the atonement of Jesus Christ, you and your father will live again. And you know that the covenants that you made in the temple that you just showed to my people here in Brazil are real and binding. You will be a family forever. You know. The people of Brazil don't know this. And I was humbled. And I was sorry. I never questioned the creator of the universe. And how he chose to teach me that he is real. That is my witness. And having experiences like that, and I completed the rest of my mission. Everybody out there, I loved my mission.

Russell’s life after his mission + meeting his wife

Russell Scott Allred 11:00

I love Brazil. I love to speak Portuguese and Spanish. And I love the gospel. At 24, I was called to be a high priest and serve in the bishopric. At 29, I was called to be bishop of the Gardena First Ward that took in South Central Los Angeles, a place of great violence and danger. And yet there were people that were so dear and so sweet. And they they loved the Lord as well. And they deserve the gospel. Just to give you an idea of experience I had at 29 years old, the day after I was set apart as bishop, I was awoken by a call from a member of our ward, Bishop, Sister Johnson's son, has been murdered. That was the my first call as bishop. So I have seen grief. Acquainted with and the beautiful messages of eternal families they live on. And I met my most beautiful bride one day at a young adult dance, and I saw her across the room, and she saw me, and she said I glowed, and I thought she was the most beautiful thing that I had ever seen in the world. And we met that night and I arranged a date for the next day, and we were gonna go to Knott's Berry Farm. I don't even know if you know what that is, but it was an amusement park here in Southern California. We're gonna go to Knott's Berry Farm. And I get up the next morning and realize, oh, it's General Conference tomorrow. I have to go to general conference. So I call her apologetically, and I didn't realize this general conference. Would you be so very disappointed if we didn't go to Knott's Berry Farm? And whoa! She's thinking, this is the guy I want to marry. He's got his priorities straight. And I'll tell you, I got the greatest treasure for doing what I knew was right. Because I got Nancy Elizabeth Pyle to be my bride and my eternal companion and the joys of the gospel. So we're at our date and we're driving along, and there's probably 10 million people where I live in Torrance, California. She lived up uh in the where the rich people live up on the hill. And we're out on this date, and we're driving along in this giant city, and we drive past this little insignificant swimming school. And I just pointed out it, and I said, It's probably five, six miles away from my house. And I said, That's where I learned to swim. And she said, That's where I learned to swim. And we started thinking, well, we live in the same area. Did you go after dances for Bob's big boy to have a hamburger andor a shake and fries? Yes, I did. And where did you go to high school? Well, we played you guys when basketball and football, and just this was always wondering where might we have met, and there was no way of knowing. And so we just thought, well, I guess we'll have to wait till we die to know where we met. Yeah, and so these experiences, um, they're the inspiration for my new novel, Passing in the Fog. Basically, I wanted to tell the story how people almost meet and don't. And then I wanted to say how important these meetings become. The the meeting of a girl at a dance is just a girl at a dance, but when she becomes your wife, it changes your world. And a

Russell’s inspiration behind his book, “Passing in the Fog”

Russell Scott Allred 14:55

simple meeting at an airport or a bus station or at a school dance can change a world. And I thought about the kindnesses that people have done to me, and because of their kindness, I did something nice for somebody else, and I realized that these chance encounters, these passings, they can change the world with kindness. And so I wanted to tell this story, and I wanted to share with my children these thoughts that I have and these beliefs that I had. And then I started to think about the people, like the people of Brazil, who don't know the gospel that we have and don't know these wonderful thoughts about an eternal family that grows and fills the universe. And I thought they need to know that too, but they're so blinded by their misperceptions of our faith and our in us as humans. I wanted to be a secular story that people could read and realize, huh? I always thought that. My wife, in fact, she said, when the missionaries told me that I had lived before this life, the light went on, the spirit bore witness. I knew that that was true. And I think as we share the truths of the gospel, whether it be with a testimony or a secular story, it will enrich and help other people. So I begin this story. And um Darley, you're gonna- No, I said that's so awesome.

Darla Brandley 16:35

I love it. Keep going.

Russell Scott Allred 16:37

Okay, so I'm thinking, okay, so how do I begin? How does this story create? And I wanted to have a reunion, but maybe a month or two into COVID,

Russell’s daughters leave the Church

Russell Scott Allred 16:50

my two daughters came to me and they said, We're leaving the church. We know it's not true. And I'm thinking guilty. Did I tell you my stories? I just want you to know that and my eight grandchildren at the time. I again this grief. But see, I had everything that we have to go through, God prepares us for all the righteous. And I knew that the church was true, and I knew that through the atonement of Jesus Christ we would resurrect from the dead, and I knew that the covenants of the temple would bind families together forever. And so that gives me hope. I wrote things that I knew that were personal to me. So most of it is fictional, but

Russell’s anecdotes

Russell Scott Allred 17:45

some of it I used experiences from my life. So the story begins. A guy is going on a gig, he's a professional speaker. So he's driving from Bakersfield to San Francisco, and because the plane is grounded, he can't, it's the fog is so thick. That's something about Central California. We call it the Thule fog, and it's just so thick that you can't drive through it. But he thinks, I know this road so well, it's not a problem. He gets behind this utility truck, and the truck starts spitting out rocks at his windshield, and he's getting frustrated and it's slow, and this big ugly truck is in front of him, and he knows it's better to let the big truck go first. But the rocks are hitting us, and he's in a hurry, and he's got to get to his gig. And so he pulls out around this truck, and wham! A big old semi-truck crushes his car. They're watching the evening news, and the son looks up at the news and said, That's my dead car. It's crushed underneath that semi-truck, and they're trying to haul it out, and that's how he knows that his father has been hit, and he gets to the hospital, and then they get the call from the chaplain at the hospital. The chaplain says, You gotta come and say goodbye. And the goodbye for somebody who didn't get to say that it is very emotional to me. But to have the chance to say goodbye, even though dad's in a coma, it's so beautiful and blessed thing to have the chance to say goodbye. So that's the way the story begins. I don't know if you want to hear more of the story, or is there something that a tangent that you would like to know more about or more about the novel?

Scott Brandley 19:31

Oh, you've got my attention so far.

Darla Brandley 19:34

Yeah, I'm intrigued by everything that you've said so far. So everything is you're on a good path.

Russell Scott Allred 19:40

All right. So this son, he's 16 years old, and he's brilliant, and he doesn't like school. And so the dad, trying to get him to go to school and get decent grades, tries to give him some incentive. He says, I want you to come and see a conference, and I'm gonna bring you as my videographer when I give my talk. And so the boy starts to film his speeches, and they use the speeches as marketing tools, much like you do. And so the boy becomes his videographer, and he's very interested in this. And his dad will say, I need you to pull up a conference that we went to, and I said this, go find that. And the son creates an app that hunts down video, and you give it some parameters, and the bot goes out and looks for that video, and it comes back and catalogs it and puts it in chronological order, and so it tells it a story. And the son keeps looking at it and he says, I wonder if it works in real time. So his sister is in El Salvador doing some service work, and he says, I wonder what Monty, that's his sister's name. I wonder what Monty's doing right now. And so he sends out this bot to see if he can find any video of his sister in El Salvador. So he does and he takes a picture and he gets that in the airport. Um, she's coming home to say goodbye to their dad. And so in the airport, he sees her on her way home, and she gets back home, and uh again, they're watching the news. And the news is showing this picture of a man that was supposedly involved in a terrorist act to blow up JFK. And the the sister is watching the news, and she said, I know him, he was at the airport with me. I helped him buy a ticket because our plane got misdirected and he had to buy a new ticket, didn't speak any English. So she helped him with his language and she was kind to him. And it turns out that her kindness makes him realize I don't want to hurt anybody. He just got recruited at the airport, so they'd see it on the news. And the boy says, I wonder if anybody wants to know about this. My sister knows this guy, so he connects his sister with the FBI. The FBI get involved, the sister is witness to another terrorist. So the guy that she met is not. Part of the plot. He was just a pawn to carry explosives into the airport. But the real criminal is found with this boy's video program. So now we've got this intrigue going on. They're all just innocent kids. They're living their life. They're just passing people, unknown, if you will, in the fog. And they get involved in this plot and they thwart this terrorist cell and they save hundreds of lives. And it's a fun story.

Darla Brandley 22:32

It is a fun story. That's awesome.

Russell Scott Allred 22:34

So I'm gonna leave it with that. I want you to get the story. And so Jeff, the boy, he continues to perfect this based on his interaction with the FBI. They ask him, Well, can you do this? And he's I don't know, I'll try. And he does, he's successful, he knows what he's doing. And so the program starts to predict what criminals might do given where they have been and who they have met, what they might do in the future. So it predicts the future. And then at the very end of the story, the video machine peeks into heaven and shows what heaven is like. I'm gonna leave it there and I'm gonna come back to the gospel and these beautiful truths that we have. When I came home from my mission, it was very challenging. And I came into the house and my mom had rented out my room. My mom needed money. Yeah. Every day at 6 30, my dad would usually come home sleeping on the couch in my own house. I hadn't been home. I'm back home, and every day at 6 30, I'm looking at the back door thinking, Dad's gonna come home any minute, we're gonna have dinner. And he didn't come home. And I'm thinking, my family's broken. We go to church and there's nobody to sit with. And he was the manager of a store, and he's not here to help me get a job. And I think we're just broken and we can't heal from this. And later in my life, we had a reunion, as most of us do. The all-red family reunion. And we went back to the old homestead where my mom and dad grew up in Star Valley, Wyoming. And we all got our t-shirts on that said the All Red Family and the Cowboy. And we're all standing and posing, and there's like 75 descendants of my mom and dad in this picture. And I lifted the picture and I thought, we're not broken, we're eternal. Yes. And this story of a family, the dynamic of a family is evidence that families are forever, that a man and a woman joined together, they have offspring, the children have children, and they have children, and it grows and it grows till it is numbered as the stars of the sky or the sands of the sea. That is the beauty of the gospel. And I try to tell that story in a secular fashion so it's palatable for other people. Yeah. I have lots of stories. Where would you like to go

How Russell’s stories tie into his book

Russell Scott Allred 25:20

now?

Scott Brandley 25:21

How did these stories and these events in your life tie into the book? Is there a tie in that?

Russell Scott Allred 25:29

Yes, I use my personal experiences like going to a funeral. I went to my grandmother's funeral, but I didn't get to go to my dad's funeral. And here's a person that I loved, and I didn't get to say goodbye. Our processes for dealing with grief, they're very therapeutic. The fact that we meet in a religious setting under God and surrounded by our loved ones, this eternal family of friends that surround us and they comfort us, they give us foundation, they retell all of the stories that keep us united together. So I'm using these personal experiences. I remember going to my grandmother's gravesite, and there was still snow on the ground, but it didn't much melt it off. And my grandmother, she's buried just a couple uh plots down from my dad, and just touching his headstone and making that connection. Um, I use kind of kind of imagery to make my characters real, to tell my story, but through a character. That's part of the tie-in. I use the very landmarks of here in Bakersfield and Torrance to tell my stories, and then the people that know those landmarks, they can dig into them. They lean into that because they're familiar. And this process of funerals and gathering, it was so cathartic for me.

Darla Brandley 27:07

Oh, yeah.

Russell Scott Allred 27:08

Just say goodbye, even though I wasn't there. It was so helpful to me. And of course, the gospel message that underpins everything. This idea of Jesus. Throughout my life, I've grown to know him. I taught seminary for many years. And every morning I get up early because I had to think about my lesson and get ready. And I would get up very early. I would pray. We have early morning seminary here, not the wimpy kind that goes to school. We have to get up early in the morning. And um, so I get up way early, and the gospel's still the same, no, don't worry about that. So I get up way early in the morning, and then I would pray about each of my students, and I would see their faces, and then I could feel this outpouring of the spirit, which I have come to know so well, and God would reveal to me this is what they need to hear today. Yeah, so I know God loves his children because I have felt that. I'm a witness. I served in a prison in the bishopric, so we had church services every Sunday for eight years, and we were among some very disgusting characters, stake presidents, return missionaries, bishops who'd done ugly things to get themselves in that circumstance. And even there, in that dark place, the spirit would descend, and I knew God loved them, I knew He did, and I loved them despite their mistakes, and I saw that there was repentance. I testify to you that because Jesus has the power to resurrect a body, he has the power to resurrect a testimony. Yeah, and he did, and I watched them repent and in sackcloth and ashes, if you will, and think, Can I give the lesson? Can I give the prayer? Volunteering to serve where they could serve. And we had special concessions in the prison. And they repented and they turned their hearts. Um it's been the story of my life, and I'm so blessed to know these things. So true. If I may just one last thought.

Jesus is our advocate

Russell Scott Allred 30:00

So we know that Jesus is our God and our king, but we often don't think about him as our advocate and our judge. That Jesus is our advocate. I had a disagreement with a person, and they owed me a lot of money, and so I sued them to get the money that they owed me. And and I went to hire an attorney, a very pleasant man, and he wanted to be a Lutheran minister, and he was going to school, he was an attorney, full-on jurisdoctorate, and he's going back to school to become a minister, and uh we had a pleasant lunch and a pleasant conversation. He was so peaceful and so much a brother because we talked about sacred things together, and despite our differences. Anyway, I just saw him as this kindly person. But when we got into the negotiation room, he ripped this person a new one. I mean, he defended me with every last ounce of his being, he would not let this person get away with their lies and contempt, and he was my advocate, he worked for me. I mean, he's fighting for me. And when I hear that Jesus is my advocate, I think of him. He's fighting for me. Yeah, he did some dumb things, but he's repenting and he's trying. Give him a break, Heavenly Father. I vouched for him, and then what's better? Jesus is also our judge. How could it be better? The guy's in my corner, he's fighting for me, and he makes the ultimate decision for me and every one of his children. I mean, there's so much hope in the gospel of Jesus Christ, yes, and he is there for us, he is our advocate, and despite what some people might say, maybe they say that ours is an oppressive church. I know better. I know better. This is a church, as Elder Kieran said, of joy. Yeah, and despite our challenges, and we all have them, there's this amazing underlying undergirding of hope and promise and future. And we get to work with such lovely people, like you guys doing this great mission, telling people's stories. And I thank you so much, Scott and Darla, for help letting me tell my story. I appreciate you. Thank you.

Darla Brandley 32:49

No, we love hearing people's stories, and they can be so different, and they can be so inspiring, really. Building up hope and like light in other people's lives. It's so inspiring, it really is. Truly.

Scott Brandley 33:04

Yeah, well, and there are a lot of opportunities to do good in the world, kind of like your book. You never know who you're gonna meet, you never know what good you're gonna do, whose life you're gonna touch. And it's probably people that you're gonna pass, and you're gonna touch them for that like just one experience in one moment, and you might never see them again. But that one thing could change the directory of their lives and the lives around them.

Darla Brandley 33:35

Yeah.

Russell Scott Allred 33:37

I dedicated this book to my children, and I told the story of how we meet these strangers and they impact our lives forever. And the most poignant meeting that we have, I think, is when the little baby comes into your life, this little stranger, and they change your life forever. Yeah, what a beautiful thought. This thought of family is so it's so Christian, if you will. Yeah, yeah.

Darla Brandley 34:15

That is so true. That little stranger changes everything.

Russell Scott Allred 34:19

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They don't have to do anything, they just cry and poop, and they're not all they have to do is exist.

Darla Brandley 34:26

That's it. Yeah, yeah.

Scott and Darla’s parallels to Russell’s story

Scott Brandley 34:30

Yeah. So there's some interesting parallels between us, Russell. Like how my wife and I met. We realized we knew a lot of people after we had been married for a while and like experiences that we had been through together and things like that. It's just it's funny.

Darla Brandley 34:48

This was a lot of parallels.

Scott Brandley 34:51

Yeah, right, yeah. Random people meeting random people, putting us together, right? Like changing our lives. But then I was thinking too about like some other things that are common between us is when I was first made a bishop, I had two families leave the church, right? Like when I was a new bishop, and they were like return missionaries, relief society president, like that kind of stuff. And it killed me. I tried everything I could to get them to stay, and it was super hard. And that's actually why I wrote my book, Faith to Stay.

Russell Scott Allred 35:36

And in my research, I did I remember seeing that now. Yes.

Scott Brandley 35:40

Yeah, so I wrote that because those families left the church, and it actually caused me to have a faith crisis myself. And that was hard, like when I was a bishop, right? Yeah, so and uh the way I got out of it was I had to break my faith down into its most basic elements and then build it back up again. And it is hard when people that you love, like when they don't see it anymore, right? When they lose that vision and you want to bring them back to do anything you can to bring them back, but you have to hold to that faith, you have to hold to your belief that there is a purpose in everything. And even one thing I have learned is that we have to give people the freedom to have agency, even when we don't want them to.

Russell Scott Allred 36:42

I can do it so much better than you.

Scott Brandley 36:46

Yeah, and it's especially when it's our kids, that's the hardest one, right? Yeah, truly, truly, but hopefully you have to have that faith that God loves them, that there is a plan for them, that he's gonna be their advocate. I love that when you're sharing the thing about the advocate, I that got me because I hadn't pictured Jesus fighting for me like in a courtroom style, like where he's doing everything he can to fight for me personally, and then he gets to be the judge too. Like that was awesome, man. I really love that.

Russell Scott Allred 37:23

Yeah, you can't lose if you have faith in Christ, you cannot lose.

Scott Brandley 37:28

Yeah, yeah. But there are definitely some parallels in our stories and our lives, Russell. So I really appreciate your coming on and sharing your story because it helps me to realize how much God loves us again, right? Oh yeah, hearing people's stories and then internalizing them just makes it so much more powerful. I agree.

Darla Brandley 37:52

It does.

Scott Brandley 37:54

So, what would you like to share a message out there to help people come closer to Christ or to increase their faith or find hope or peace in their life? What would be a final message you'd like to share?

The two great commandments are the love God and to love your neighbor

Russell Scott Allred 38:11

There are two great commandments to love God and love your neighbor. I think if we can concentrate on loving our neighbor, we will learn. We will come to know God more closely and love him more because we will see our neighbor as he sees them. I know that that is hard work, but it's worthwhile work. If you could change someone's life and bring happiness where there is misery, oh do that. Don't judge Don't judge your neighbor for their politics or their habits. Those are earthly things that they will all go away. There's no Republicans or Democrats in the celestial kingdom or in any of the kingdoms. And we show them grace, love them as God loves them. Be kind, be patient, try not to judge. It's an ongoing effort for me. We've shared our stories and we shared our experiences, and we share this drive, this hope for a better future for the world. Let's all be a part of that.

Scott Brandley 39:31

Awesome. Well, how do people find your

Where to find Russell’s book

Scott Brandley 39:35

book?

Russell Scott Allred 39:35

If they're are we do you have a is it on Amazon or yeah, it's it's available on Amazon, it's available on Barnesandoble.com, Walmart.com. You can go to your favorite bookstore and support your local vendor because I was in family business and there's not a lot of them left. Go to your local bookstore where you like to shop for books and ask for passing in the fog. They will order it, it will come to you free shipping, and all you have to do is go pick it up at your local bookstore. Or you can order online and they'll ship it to you. I have a publisher, so they take care of all of the manual stuff. I'm a writer, I'm not a distributor.

Scott Brandley 40:14

Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, well, we'll definitely we'll include it in the show notes for anyone that's listening. Go check it out. Passing in the fog. Russell, it's been awesome having you on.

Darla Brandley 40:24

Yeah.

Scott Brandley 40:25

I'd love to hear more of your stories. It sounds like you got some good ones we didn't really have the time to get into, but uh, we'd love to have you on some other time.

Russell Scott Allred 40:34

If I can fill in some time, I'm happy to talk. Like I say, I'm a storyteller. I love to tell my stories. That experience in the prison was so enlightening and so foreign to our world. You go to church, everybody's dressed in a suit. You go to church in a prison, and everybody's dressed in fatigues or in the their beige and their t-shirt, and it's a whole different world. So tell your story though. Awesome. Absolutely. What is it that President Holland always said? There is no place so low that you can go that Jesus can't come to you. And I don't want to talk about the sins of my congregation, but you can't go lower than they went.

Darla Brandley 41:19

Yeah.

Russell Scott Allred 41:20

That Jesus can pick you up out of that.

Outro

Russell Scott Allred 41:26

True.

Scott Brandley 41:27

Well, thanks again, Russell, for coming on. Thanks, my friend.

Russell Scott Allred 41:30

Thank you so much. I appreciate the opportunity.

Scott Brandley 41:32

Good. And thanks everyone for tuning in to another episode of Latterday Lights. If you have a story that you'd like to share, like Russell, go to latterdaylights.com. And we'd love to have you on. Also, go hit that share button, do your five-second missionary work, and let's get Russell's story out there so we can share his story of light and hope with the world. So hit that button, help out Russell, get his story out there. And thanks again, Russell.

Russell Scott Allred 42:02

Thank you.

Scott Brandley 42:04

And thanks everyone for tuning in. And we'll see you next week with another episode of Latter Day Lights. Till then, take care. Bye bye. Bye.