Living In The Mix

This last weekend was the 189th Semi-Annual General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. All I have to say is WOW! It was a beautiful conference. It's probably my favorite to date. So much to think about and apply into my own life.  Last week I spoke on the topic of how those within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, despite coming from a place of genuine love, can cause hurt and pain from the things they say and do.  This part 2 will address this same topic, but from the other end of the spectrum, from those of the LGBTQ+ community.  I have come to appreciate the PRIDE flag. For me, it means that there's a lot about human sexuality, gender identity, and love that we don't know or understand. There are all different kinds of love. Love is diverse. To me, the flag is taking PRIDE in diversity of love. Even if a type of love doesn't fit within the bounds of your own personal beliefs, you still honor and respect tha...

The last few weeks have been a crazy whirlwind for me and my wife. If you had told me a year ago that I'd be doing the things I am today I would not have believed you. A year ago I was not out to the general public nor to most of our family. Now, Emma and I have participated in a music video with North Star, we've come out to all of our family, we have come out to our church leaders and are working closely with them to help them learn how to help LGBTQ+ Church members and providing them with resources to learn and help (that is an ongoing process and I will probably write a blog post about that when we've gotten farther into it), I've come out to the general public and started this blog and a Facebook page to go with it, and just this last week we have officially become part of the Voices of Hope Project with our videos and essays being launched.  It is a surreal feeling to see all of this happen in such a short time when it took me and us as a couple so long to b...