You Believe Weird Stuff

A friend once told me, “You believe weird stuff.”

At the time, I wasn't quite sure how to respond. Maybe he was right. Angels? Gold plates? Modern prophets? Temples? Eternal families? God speaking to people?

Yeah…we believe some pretty unusual things.

But somewhere along the way, my response changed from “Yeah, I guess we do…” to “Heck yes we do—and I think it's awesome.”

In the first episode of The Faithful Misfit, I talk about my own journey of becoming more comfortable with what I believe—and with who I am. I'm a Latter-day Saint and currently serve as a bishop, but I don't always feel like I fit the stereotypical LDS mold. I love the gospel. I also love punk music, haunted houses, movie scores, reggae, and plenty of things that don't exactly scream “bishop.”

We'll also talk about questions, Church history, friends who challenged my faith, things I still don't understand, and why I ultimately decided to stop measuring my testimony by whether I could answer every objection and start paying more attention to what following Jesus Christ was actually doing in my life.

This podcast isn't about pretending there aren't hard questions.

And it isn't about tearing down faith.

It's about being willing to ask real questions while still rooting for belief.

So yes. I believe weird stuff.

Welcome to The Faithful Misfit.

Believe deeply. Be yourself.

"Upbeat Forever" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Welcome to the Faithful Misfit. I'm your host, Mike Davis. This is a podcast for people who believe deeply, who love Jesus Christ and the restored gospel, but maybe don't always feel they fit the mold. We talk about faith, history, church culture, and all the cool, weird stuff we believe, and what it actually looks like to follow Christ while still completely being yourself. I definitely don't have all the answers. I would argue I don't even have all the questions, and I'm guessing you don't either, and that's okay. Believe deeply, be yourself. This is the Faithful Misfit Podcast. So welcome to episode one, everybody. Um, as mentioned, my name is Mike Davis, um, and I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And along with that, most of the time, I am a big dork. Um, I am just an average guy, I'm nothing special, but I do love being a member and I do love the gospel of Jesus Christ. Um, and I feel like sometimes maybe I have a few more rough spots than others. And so if you feel that way, that maybe you need a little more polish sometimes, um, then I think you found found your spot here. Welcome home. Um, before we start, I do need to um what's the word? I need to put a caveat out there, a disclaimer. I am the current president of the mumblers of America. Now, the mumblers of America is not a real thing, but if it were, I would be the president because I do mumble a lot, and I will do my best to uh enunciate. How about that? But no promises. And if all of a sudden you can't understand what I'm saying, it's because it's probably my fault. So let's dive into a little bit here. Full disclosure why I'm doing this podcast. I do have a little bit of experience podcasting. My wife and I used to host a podcast for a number of years, but it had nothing to do with the gospel. It was 100% based on weird stories from history, things like uh aliens and weird battles in World War II, and I don't know what, people making up their own countries, all sorts of weird things. So, nothing at all about this podcast. Um, but I felt uh well, I feel a strong desire to do something like this. Um, full disclosure, I am serving as uh bishop of my ward, which is a pretty funny joke in and of itself, but hey, that's what it is. Um, I tried to do a ward podcast. I had this idea, this feeling, that doing a ward podcast would bring people together, would bring our ward together. And it might have, but man, it was hard. I could not get people to show up at all. Uh, I interviewed my counselors and their wives, and they that was they were super great. I loved them, but it was very hard to keep it going. So scratched that. I still had this itch though, about doing some kind of I don't know what media e social podcast thing. So I tried doing a YouTube channel, uh, that just yeah, it was it was good. I started getting some followers and stuff, but it was too stuffy, it was too formal, it just wasn't me. And so this is where I feel the most comfortable just talking into a microphone. Now I've never done a podcast by myself, it's kind of weird just sitting here by myself talking, but uh you're here, and I'm pretending you're here and I can see your beautiful face. So, welcome. I want to start by telling a story, and I think this story is going to give a lot of insight into the reason why I'm doing this. And uh a good buddy of mine, we grew up together. Obviously, I won't tell his name, but we were good, good friends from the time we were we were young. And uh we went on our missions within a few weeks of each other. I served a mission in Honduras, but technically most of my mission was spent in the country of Belize. Um and my my buddy was I think he was called the Norway. I don't remember. Um, the reason I don't remember, he he went home real soon. He actually never made it to Norway. Um, went home, got married, and we didn't talk a whole lot. I got home from my mission, um, life. We live in different places, we've gone different ways, school, all the things. And uh it was maybe I don't know, maybe 15 years later or so that he ended up getting divorced. And he got divorced in a pretty nasty way. Um, there was infidelity involved, uh, none of which was on his end, and he was in a bad spot. And in this time, we kind of rekindled, and uh we we share a love of music, and so we we decided to I live in Spokane, Washington. He lives in eastern Washington, a different place. We decided we're hey, we're gonna meet up, we're gonna fly down to Los Angeles and we're gonna go to a punk rock concert because both of us love punk rock music, and we used to go to warp tour and similar shows when we were teenagers, and uh this is what we decided to do. So this is maybe three or four years ago. So we fly down, and we've got it's a it's a I don't know, it was a festival of a couple days, but we're only gonna go for a day, but we were down there for a few days. So we thought, what do you do if you're two guys or two dudes hanging out in Southern California? You've got some time to kill, you could go surf, you could go to the beach, you could go to a Dodgers game, you could do anything. What do we do? We go to Disneyland, of course we do. So two grown men going to Disneyland together, and uh that was that was a riot. But then it was the first day we go first thing in the morning. Now, my buddy at this time had left the church. He'd been um not just inactive, uh he had conscientiously decided to leave, and it'd probably been a few years at this point, not a ton of time, but maybe two or three years. And uh he's in a pretty rough spot emotionally, so I don't really want to talk about the gospel, but at the same time, we haven't hung out a whole lot, and I don't really know where he's at with that. So we talk a lot, you know. If you ever want a good therapy session, Disneyland is the place to do it because you have ample time while you're standing around in lines all day long to talk. So we talked about, you know, relationships and all the things, and it was awesome. But there was a one point where I asked him, you know, I felt it was his maybe the second or third day we were together. I felt, okay, I can ask him about the gospel and ask him where he's at with this. And uh so I brought it up as we were standing in line in California Adventure, and uh he had a very short his answer was very short, very simple, and you could tell it wasn't something he wanted to talk about. But he told me, you guys just believe some weird stuff. And you know, at the time I didn't really have an answer. I thought, wow, okay. I guess, yeah, all right. Well, uh, I don't I don't I don't know what to say about that, so I didn't bring anything else up. But the more I pondered on that, the more I thought, I'm like, oh, I guess almost sheepishly, like, yeah, I guess we kind of do believe some weird things. And that's where I was. But now I've come to a kind of different place in my life over these last few years, and we're gonna talk some about this. Where now I think, like, yeah, we do believe some weird stuff, and you know what? It's pretty awesome. I love the weird stuff we believe. I wish we would lean harder as members of the church into our weird and unique beliefs. So everybody has a worldview, everybody has something that they believe. That's strange, that's unique. As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we believe a lot of weird stuff. If you really break it down and think about it, we believe that a 14-year-old boy literally saw God and Jesus Christ and that they spoke to him. We believe that that same boy was visited by numerous angels, one of which showed him some gold books that were buried in a hill, that he then used some rocks, or maybe didn't use some rocks, however, the historical account you look at goes to translate this ancient record that was written in some form of Egyptian, even though it was in New York, into what we call the Book of Mormon. There's a lot of weird stuff in there, but my point being there's a lot of weird stuff anywhere in life, you know. Whether you're a member of this church or not, um, you believe weird stuff, and we're so I guess my point being lean into it. Like, don't be ashamed of our weirdness. Everyone's got weird stuff. If you're a Christian in general, not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ, the Latter Saints, but you're just a normal other denomination Christian, you believe in weird stuff too. You know, think about it. You believe that Elisha, Elijah, the prophet, um called down fire from heaven and that that uh burnt up a lot of people. You believe that Elisha the prophet summoned some she-bears to kill some kids. You believe that uh I'm just coming off the top of my head, I'm just making stuff up. We're not making things up, but just pre-thinking here, you know, things from the Bible that people believe that are strange. There's all sorts of things that we believe, or that other Christians believe. If you do not believe, let's say you're not Christian, you know, and you're you're, I don't know, think all the different things in the world people believe. People believe in aliens, people believe in conspiracy theories. Um, even atheists believe in things that they can't know. You know, there's theory, a big bang theory, for example. You know, you can do the science and you can go back far enough, but eventually you have to hit a point where you are relying on faith. Even with something like that, there comes a point where you just don't understand or know, and you have to take a giant leap of faith to make everything else work. So, my point is everybody has to put their faith somewhere. There's nobody who can put that doesn't exercise or use faith in something or a belief system in something. If you don't believe there's a God, you're still banking a lot of faith that that's a true statement. And we as Latter-day Saints put a lot of faith into sure, some unique things and some weird things, but man, are they cool and man are they beautiful? So um that was the first time though that I think I'd ever really been forced to look at my own belief systems in that way. Um but you know, it's interesting because you can love the gospel. I love the gospel. Hopefully you love the gospel. But just because we love the gospel, sometimes the culture of the church can feel stuffy. Sometimes it can feel different, sometimes you might feel we don't belong. Um, hence the the reason of this podcast. And we're gonna I've got all sorts of ideas of things I want to talk about on here, and this episode might be a little rambly because it's the first one, and I apologize. But we definitely all can feel sometimes excuse me, that we don't fit in. I'm gonna give you some examples, and I think it's important that we understand church culture and discipleship are not the same thing. You don't have to fit into a certain mold to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. I would argue, on the contrary, actually, that the Savior wants you for you, He wants you for the unique things that you bring. Obviously, all of us are on the path of trying to become more like Him. But we don't need, we're not on the path to try to become more like Brother So and So or Sister So and So. Give you some examples. I have never in my life enjoyed church music, generally speaking. I mean, there's some church music I like, but I've never been a fan of like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir or the Tabernacle Choir. I don't know what they're called anymore, but you know what I'm talking about. I've never been a huge fan. I mean, it's not bad by any means, but it's not what I would choose to listen to. Um, growing up in the 90s and the early um 2000s, you know, EFY music was a big thing. Definitely not into EFY music. And so there were times in my life where I felt like I just don't like on a Sunday, they want me to turn on music, but music I just really don't like. And I don't fit that bubble, I don't fit that mold. Um, so even to this day, I don't listen to church music on Sunday, but I do find music that I really love. I find music that's inspirational to me. Most of the time, it is movie scores, it's instrumental, it's inspiring, uh, it makes me think of bigger and grander things, and that works for me. And I think we need more of that where we we recognize, like, hey, I this isn't my thing, but I can find something else that is my thing that still lets me get to that same spot. Um, there's also a lot of things in life that I just um I just like that I don't know, you know, your typical member would fit into that mold. Um, I love reggae music. My favorite music of all time is ska music. I love punk music, I love reggae music. When my priests get together and we go do an activity, I promise you they are listening to reggae. That is what we do every time. Um, that might be weird for some people. Um I love haunted houses, I love ghosts, I love creepy things. Now, as I grow and as I mature, I definitely am trying to stay away from things that would not invite the spirit. So, you know, I'm not looking for horror things, but I I I mean it's just me. I I love if you could put me in a haunted house every day of my life, I would be so happy. We bought a piano from 1898 and we put it in my living room. And the first thing I told my wife was, I hope more than anything in the middle of the night that I hear a random key being played. This thing's so old, it has to be haunted. I'm gonna be so disappointed if this piano is not haunted. Guess what? It's not haunted at all. Very not haunted. If there's anyone playing it in the middle of the night, it's our kids and they'll be in trouble. But I love that stuff, that's just me. And you know, that's probably not something that fits into general LDS culture, and that's okay. Um, I mentioned that I'm currently serving as a bishop. Uh, I've been doing that for a year and a half or so, and one interesting what my favorite meetings in church. Every other month we meet, it's called Bishop's Council. It's the stake presidency and all the bishops in the stake, and that's it. And it's the greatest meeting because uh, you know, it's being a bishop's interesting because you can't talk a lot of things to a lot of people, but in this meeting you can because everyone's in the same boat. And the last one we had, I was listening to some of the other bishops, and most of them are older than me, not by not by a lot. Great men, awesome men, way better bishops than me in a lot of regards. But uh listening to them talk and the things they're doing, I think to myself, man, I don't do any of this, I don't look at this at all the same way. And I don't think that's a bad thing. You know, the day I got called as bishop, and the state president told me and the the bishop I was replacing, hey, you guys should spend maybe like five hours, six hours together, kind of going over all the stuff that needs to happen in in the ward. And hopefully our state presidents never listening. He's the greatest guy. We maybe spent 15 minutes together because I didn't want to know anything about anything. Um, I didn't want any preconceived notions about anybody in the ward. You know, if there was something I needed to know, I was like, tell me that. Other than that, I don't want to know anything. Um and the previous bishop, he agreed, and so we didn't really talk about that much. I mean, he literally gave me the keys. But the one thing he said is, you know, he said, Mike, I know that you are being called right now for you. You know, you're the person that the ward needs right now, whatever that means. And I think all of us are in that same boat. We're in the spots we are because that's where the Lord needs us. Now, sure, we're gonna grow in those, but on the flip side, um, he needs us and he needs the unique talents we bring. And sometimes those unique talents are super different than what the common answer status quo might be. So I hope people lean into that and lean into you, be yourself in the gospel. That's what this podcast is going to be about, more than anything, is you just be you. That's not an excuse not to try to change and not to become more like the savior and not to become a better person. That's not an excuse to say, like, I like this sin, and Mike told me be me. No, no, that's not what I'm saying. Constantly change, constantly improve, constantly be better. But those unique attributes that make you you, and maybe that make you different than the normal person in your ward, like lean hard into that, be that, use that because that's why you have those things. Um I sat in a it's about like five years ago, maybe right after the COVID or so. Sat in a state conference, and uh I think I was a gospel doctor teaching then. I was it was just this random, you know, Saturday afternoon adult session. And I wish I could remember who the general authority was. He was an area authority, he had come up from California, and uh I'd never ever met a general authority like this in my life. He was just goofy, and he reminded me so much of me, and I thought, oh my goodness, if this guy can be this guy, and the Lord's gonna use him as a general authority. Okay, I got the green light to be me. And oh, I can't, I wish I knew what he was. He was just he was hilarious and he was funny, and he was just different, you know. You think of what a general authority might look like and sound like, and this guy was the opposite, but man, he had a love of the savior and he had a love of the gospel and the restoration, but he was just different, and it was he was he was so cool. He's my idol, and I don't even know who he is. Um, another time, you know, is I love Eli Kieran. Eller Kieran's my my Elder Bednar is probably my favorite apostle, but Eli Kieran's close second, which is funny because they're like polar opposites, right? But I love Eli Kieran because he's always talking about joyful, be joyful, be joyful, serve joyfully. The gospel should bring us joy, and it definitely should. Like if the gospel's not bringing you joy, you're doing something wrong. Um, but uh I love that idea of joy. When I was a teenager, I grew up in Richmond, Washington, and it was it was in high school, maybe middle school, somewhere like that, when the Columbia River Washington Temple was uh built. So we were there, participated in the open house and all those things. And President Hinckley came to dedicate the temple. And this is you know, young Mike, very little experience with anything. Don't even know who my state president is, let alone how the church works, anything like that. And but we're all invited to watch, you know, a broadcast from the State Center of President Hinckley dedicating the temple. And I love President Hinckley, all-time favorite. And I will never forget he he showed up. And the one thing you have to understand about Richland, Washington, Southeast Washington, it is a desert. You think Evergreen State, pine trees, rain, beautiful. Yeah, that's Seattle, not at all on the other side of the state. Hot desert, tumbleweeds literally blown around all over the backyard, and just a lot of dust, dust everywhere. And so President Hinckley, he gets there and he he stands up and he says, You know, I first came to Richland back in the 1960s, and back then it was just uh a dusty, desolate town, you know, with no future, or something like that. He says, and now I'm here, you know, in the 2000s, whatever the year was, to dedicate this temple, and it's still a dusty, desolate town with no future, or whatever he says, and just cracked up. Everyone's laughing. The entire time that President Hinckley was in that temple, he was nonstop smiles and cracking jokes. I kid you not, the only time that he was serious was when he was offering the dedicatory prayer, and that made such a mark on me. Be happy, be yourself, do the things that make you you. And serve the Lord. So, um, those are some thoughts. I'm trying to think here. What are my next thoughts? Don't have a whole lot more to share here. Um, I had another good buddy when I was in um grad school, and he and I shared um, well, we served together. We were the Weeblow's advisors back when we had scouting, and we taught primary on the I don't know what it's called, maybe the CTR sevens or eights. It was the year the kids got baptized. We taught that class. So we prepped them for baptism. We went to all the baptisms, we went uh on Wednesday nights and and did those things, you know, all the little scouting things, the pine wood derbies and the stuff we used to do. And we did this forever, I mean, for years, a couple years together while we were both in school. We carpooled together in school, just uh a good buddy of mine. We graduate, and I kid you not, the next week he's completely like anti, like he's gone off off the deep end, and uh severing all these relationships and sending out all of this massive anti-Mormon stuff. Now, this was kind of like I feel like this was the new thing to do. This would have been 2014. That was like the start of it, it was really cool to be anti and to be aggressively leaving the church. Um, so it was kind of a new thing for me, and I hadn't really dealt with it before. This was before my other buddy, and he would send me all of these things, these, you know, historical records why Joseph Smith wasn't a prophet or why this or that. And at the time, my only, you know, I wasn't as uh as spiritual as I am now. Ha ha. Uh no, I wasn't as uh grounded at all though. And my my approach to this was okay, I'm gonna take this and I'm going to research the crap out of it. And I'm going to, and literally I would, like, I would look up court documents from you know 1841 and Avu or whatever and read source material. And most of the time, I kid you not, most of the time, I would come up with answers of no, you're wrong. Like, this isn't the full picture. Uh, most of the time I could debunk things with simple history, which is not the way to do this. You know, the way to do this is cool. I'm gonna lean hard into the spiritual side of this, but uh, that's what I did. But there were times where you would find something that uh hmm. I don't know, that doesn't make any sense. And even now, there are times, there are things in the church that I just don't understand. But here's the bottom line that's okay. To say I don't know is a perfectly justifiable and okay response. Sometimes you just have to lean into faith. Sometimes that's just the way it's gonna be for now. Um and I think saying I don't know, this is gonna sound counterintuitive, but I think honestly saying I don't know can sometimes be the most faithful answer that we can give. Because it I mean that is the definition of faith, right? Not being able to see something but still believing in it. Um there's definitely things in in church history and science and relationships, all sorts of things that I just don't have answers to. I'm sure there's lots of things that you don't have answers to. That's okay. Um I think some of this is to walk by faith. Well, we know that's true. Um I'm gonna share a little um a little I don't know what insight into my myself. Kind of in a few years ago, I don't want to ever say my faith was wavering. I think I've always had a testimony, but I had so many friends and so many associates leaving the church in droves and being so angry about it that it was challenging. And you may, you know, you ask yourself, am I missing something? Am I the one here that's being um duped? And I remember sitting in an elder's quorum, and there was a guy there who didn't come very often, and I'd actually been to a few social gatherings for school that he had been to, um, and where he had been drinking. So I mean I knew he wasn't super active, but he came to Elders Quorum, so hey, that was good. And he talked about, and this is always this has touched me a lot. He talked about how people bear their testimony about things they know, but they don't really know those things. And I've thought about that a lot. Like, huh, when I say I know this or that, do I really know these things? Um, and so I've thought about that a lot, and I thought about faith a lot and how those two go together. There are things in my testimony that I hope are true. There's a lot of things that I hope are true. Um, but one thing that I've noticed that is a hundred percent true, and I know this for myself because I've I've lived it, is that when I live the gospel of Jesus Christ as taught and restored by the prophet Joseph Smith, um my life is better. My life is more joyful, I am filled with hope, I can um tackle challenges that come better because of that hope and because of that faith in my savior. And that's something that I I've noticed. I've noticed, I've I've learned, I've seen, I've felt, I've lived. I don't know all the things, but I do know that when I am doing the things that I'm supposed to be doing, my life is is better. I'm happier, things go smoother, relationships are better. So I made a conscious effort a few years ago that, you know, ripping off President Ukdorf's quote and probably saying it wrong, you know, but I was going to doubt my doubts, not worry about those things, and I'm just gonna lean all in on the gospel and all in on doing the things that I feel I need to do. I'm going to get up and I'm gonna say my prayers. I'm gonna read my scriptures every day of my life. I'm gonna go to church, I'm gonna fulfill my callings, whatever that might be. Um, before I got called as bishop, I was our primary chorister, which was awesome. I don't play anything really. I don't've very musical, don't really know anything about music. Um, and that was one of the greatest callings of all time. Doesn't matter where we serve, doesn't matter um what callings we have, as long as we are all in about it, then that's all that matters. I promise you that I can testify if that's the word we want to use. That choice to go all in has made all the difference in my life. Do I know anything now that I didn't know then? No. No. The questions that I had, I still got those questions. You know, the things I don't understand, still don't understand them. But man, my life is way more rich. It's like equal portion. The more I go in, the more the Lord blesses me. It's probably even exponentially the more he blesses me. And I feel good. And life's just, it's it's rich, it's it's fulfilling. So the point of this podcast, I want people to come here. I want to listen. I want to talk about things that maybe are different. Maybe things that make you feel, I don't know, you know, that you just don't belong. Sometimes that's great. We should feel like we don't belong sometimes. Um, if there's one thing I can tell you that is 100% true from serving as a bishop is, you know, you show up to church, everybody has imposter syndrome. Everyone thinks that they're the only one there that's got issues, and everyone else has got it figured out. And let me be the first to tell you that it's 100% not true. Um, most people don't got it figured out. Everybody needs the savior, everybody needs his atoning sacrifice, everybody needs the sacrament and to renew those covenants. It's not in the eating of bread and drinking water, it's taking that broken heart, taking your thoughts, taking your intentions, and pointing them towards the savior. Those are the things that we need, everybody needs, myself included, more than anybody. So, again, the point of this: I hope we can find a community of people who need the savior, who feel a little off, we'll talk about fun things, we'll laugh, it'll be great. Um, but more importantly, that you can just be yourself, that you can come, you can believe in the savior, you can believe deeply, strongly, passionately, because I think that's what we're gonna need. And you can be yourself. You can be a bishop who loves ska and reggae music. At 41 years old, I do not mosh anymore, but it has not been very long since I have hung up my moshing shoes, and there's definitely times where I am tempted to get them back out. Talking about mosh pits here, um, and that's great. You know, do the things you love to do. Uh and love the savior. You can combine those worlds. So I want to thank both of my friends who are both still inactive. And hopefully someday they will come back. But I want to thank them because they've both forced me to dig deeper into my own testimony, into my own thoughts, and uh look at what I really believe. Going back to our opening of the opening story, Disneylands, with my buddy. Yeah, we believe weird stuff, and it's awesome. I love the weird stuff we believe in. And I hope that we can talk about some of that here as as time goes on. Um, so this is my story. This is my podcast. Uh, it's for misfits who believe deeply, who love Jesus Christ, who live faithful lives, but maybe sometimes you just don't feel like you fit into the LDS box one way or another. Uh, if that sounds like you, then I hope you'll hang out. Hope you'll spend some time here with me. This is the Faithful Mispit podcast. Believe deeply, be yourself, and we will chat with you next time. Bye.