A Living Witness of Change

April 15, 2008

In 1990, Evergreen started me on a path of discovery that was extremely difficult for me for many, many years, but has resulted in a life that I honestly always hoped for but never thought I would have. I was at that time 27 years old and never married. I was a returned missionary and quickly aging out of the "young single adult" segment in the church. I had refrained from homosexual behavior for more than a decade but struggled every day with attractions towards other members of my same gender that clearly were at odds with my spiritual beliefs.

Today, I am 44 years old, married with 4 wonderful children whom I love very much. My life today is nothing short of a miracle! I have had sexual relations with my wife for the past year that I very much enjoy and which for the first 8 years of our marriage were completely impossible. The people that I associated with in Salt Lake City and the knowledge that they gave to me on the subject of same-sex attraction have been an eventual blessing in my life. I am very happy to see that Evergreen has continued to grow and stay true to those original principles of change within the framework of the LDS doctrines and beliefs.

I have pondered for many months what, if anything I should witness to the world relative to the issue of homosexuality. This issue has been on my mind and heart for several months now. I have decided that my experience MUST be shared so that others may know that it is possible to experience a fundamental change in sexual orientation. The famous quote that the only thing that evil needs to succeed is for good men to do nothing applies to the experience that I have had. If those who have experienced change never share their experience then how will others struggling with this issue know of what can be.

My journey will not be your journey. But perhaps my journey could possibly inspire you on your journey.

Since my early teenage years, I experienced a physical attraction to other guys. Since I was living on my own as my own guardian since the age of 16, I did not have anyone that I felt comfortable talking to about this subject. My earliest homosexual experiences date back to when I was 13 years old in my foster home. As I progressed through my mid teenage years, I experimented several more times with homosexual behavior. Obviously, this was never a point of discussion between me and anyone else in my family.

When I started to go to church at the age of 18, I gained a strong desire to know if the Church was true or not. In time, I gained a very strong testimony of the LDS Church through a lot of studying and a lot of prayer and a lot of personal revelation. That testimony changed the entire direction of my life. After an incredibly strong spiritual discussion with my bishop at the time, which included repentance for homosexual issues, I submitted papers to serve a full-time mission. As part of this process, I refrained from all homosexual activity—to include homosexual pornography and its attendant masturbation which I had become very much addicted to—so as to be considered worthy to be called as a full-time missionary.

Upon returning from my mission, I was confronted with the fact that though I had refrained from acting on my same-sex attraction, I really was not attracted to the opposite gender at all, and, in fact, I was still very much attracted to other guys. The next step after a mission is typically college or marriage—making my life now very conflicted. For so many years, I tried to keep myself either too busy or too spiritual to give any attention to the fact that I was sexually and emotionally attracted to members of my own gender. I attempted on a few occasions to date women and even proposed to two different women that I felt very comfortable with—though I never discussed with these women my true feelings. My entire life was secretly influenced by this issue.

In 1989, I was 25 years old and I felt impressed by the spirit to move to Salt Lake City, Utah. During the two years that I lived there, I served as the ward mission leader and at the same time as a counselor in the stake mission presidency. I spent a great deal of time (40+ hours a week) working directly with the full-time missionaries, in addition to working my job. My life was VERY spiritual, but very lonely. One Sunday morning prior to going to my early morning church
meetings, I was praying and I received the direction through the spirit that I was to go to LDS Family Services for counseling relative to same-sex attraction. The spirit also told me to get a recommend from my bishop that day. And so I did.

My first visit to LDS Family Services for counseling, the counselor was a "former gay man." This man also was the president of a new support group organization that had just formed in Salt Lake, called Evergreen Foundation. I began talking with him and then attending group therapy sessions under his direction. Within a few months, my church callings fell off of my priority list completely as I began studying a lot of books about homosexuality. I began attending a lot of activities with other men that struggled with same-sex attraction but wanted to overcome it. Eventually, I was voted in as the new President of the Evergreen Foundation and started doing various interviews on the topic as part of that role. I met in a meeting with the worldwide commissioner of LDS Family Services as well as other church leaders and Evergreen leaders to discuss what, if anything, the Church could do to assist those that were struggling with this issue.

During these couple of years, I became very indoctrinated in homosexual change theory and became very much a staunch supporter of it. However, I had not changed. I had only read about it, talked about it, and hoped it would happen to me. Dealing with all of these issues over a period of about a year and a half lead me to have an emotional and nervous breakdown leading me to actually being homeless for a short time. I left Salt Lake City in 1991 to return to a former business, traveling quite a lot as a means of "normalizing my life" and getting away from "all the homosexual stuff."

After a couple of years of not thinking about the topic by keeping busy on the road, I finally decided to start applying what I had learned for myself during those associations and studying while I lived in Salt Lake City. I began to do a lot of reading again. I also began to do a lot of writing. I outlined a book of 450 pages on the subject of "Homosexuality: The Transformation Process." And most importantly, I began to try to change by dealing with the roots of my identity. Part of this process involved me spending time with each of my siblings and with parents. During these visits, I taped a lot of conversations and worked through a lot of strong emotions and a lot of family history issues. I ended up moving in 1994 and lived with my brother in his condo. By this time, I was about to turn 30 years old. I was still single with no hope that that would ever change and now I was no longer a "young single adult." I became very depressed and stopped going to church because church now only served to remind me of what I never would become and never would have—a heterosexual family.

I wrote a letter to my bishop in which I posed the question "are there those whom Christ will just not redeem?" This seemed to sum up my great conflict between who I seemed to be and what I believed. My sexual orientation and my spiritual beliefs were very much at odds with each other. I started to work for a major retailer and just threw my life into work. If I was busy enough, I wouldn't have time to be depressed. But I really was depressed and lonely. I had tried so hard to live a life according to LDS doctrine. I had prayed so hard and so long and yet my attractions were still towards other guys. My life became a life of loneliness, suicidal desires, and depression.

One day in another attempt to get help, I went to visit with my new bishop, who didn't even know who I was because I'd never gone to church in his ward. I started a relationship with that bishop that became very helpful to me. I was assigned the ward mission leader to be my home teacher and he became my best friend. Over the next two years, I experienced many things with this bishop and my home teacher and elder's quorum president. This reinforced the fact that all of the resources necessary to perfect the saints truly are in the Lord's kingdom. Those priesthood leaders did the work of angels for me.

Within time, I would meet my future wife at church. She and I began to date and I really liked her a lot. I also found myself emotionally wanting her companionship, which was something that I had never experienced before with the opposite gender. I had only had relationships in the past out of a sense that it was what I should do—not because I emotionally really wanted to. In time, I had a very strong spiritual revelation that I needed to ask this wonderful woman to marry me, which I did and she said "yes." And then I was in shock! In the months leading up to this proposal, we read together a very lengthy and detailed life history which I had written about myself and which we discussed at length. It included at its core my struggle with same-sex attraction. I did not get married as part of my therapy, nor
because I thought that marriage would "cure me" of my homosexuality, nor because I was physically attracted to this woman. I got married because the Lord told me to and because I really loved this woman and because I was now prepared to have at least an emotional relationship with a female. I was spiritually and emotionally attracted, but not physically attracted. But when the Lord speaks in undeniable ways, we obey! I trusted the Lord more than I trusted myself.

When we went on our honeymoon, I really had a lot of anxiety over the physical part that sex would now play in our lives. Somehow, through a great deal of stimulation on the part of my new wife, we were able to miraculously consummate our marriage on our honeymoon. But that would prove to be the last time that I would be physically aroused by my wife for the next 8 years, despite much earnest desire on my part! Over time, together my wife and I both came to accept the fact
that physical intimacy was just not going to be a part of our lives together. We built a very strong relationship based upon a lot of communication and trust and love and patience between us, but physical relations simply did not exist between us. During this time, most of my sexual attractions towards the same gender were not very noticeable. In other words, for the most part I no longer struggled that much with being attracted to men. However, gaining a physical attraction to women was a completely different process altogether and one that I had not yet experienced virtually at all.

Since both myself and my wife were constantly involved in church leadership callings, we tended to be somewhat high profile in the ward in which we lived. I served again for 7 years as ward mission leader experiencing tremendous spiritual blessings. About 5 years into our marriage, we were approached by a friend at church regarding the idea of adopting a young man that needed a family. This started our journey with adoption which resulted in our adopting a total of 4 children over the next 3 years, ranging in age today from 7 to 16. By adopting children, I had a sense of relief that my wife could be a mother despite my personal challenges and that made me very happy. I also became very happy to become a father. God had provided a way for us to have a family after all, after much trial of both of our faiths.

A little over a year ago, apparently the Lord decided that I had done all that I could do and he decided to intervene and bless me with a miraculous change in my sexual orientation. As I had long since come to the conclusion that I would never embrace the attractions towards the same gender and that I would always for the rest of my mortal life simply be satisfied with the emotional companionship that my wonderful family had provided to me, but never until the next life experience physical intimacy with my wife.

But somehow through the blessing of God, I began to experience physical arousal with my wife. Over the past year, we have had more sexual relations together than we ever experienced in the entire 8 years combined preceding in our marriage. I now can say that I am spiritually, emotionally, and physically attracted to my wife—and that is a miraculous statement!

The challenge now is keeping the dog out of the way, or the kids, or the job, or the stresses of life. But we have miraculously embarked on a new chapter in my life and in our marriage. I take nothing for granted. I thank God regularly for the blessings he has given me. I realize that what I have experienced cannot be attributed to my efforts alone. My personal efforts to change my sexual orientation really stopped about 7 years ago. Still, I realize that all the work that I did to apply the principles that I began to learn as I affiliated myself with Evergreen almost 18 years ago were critical to my growth. I would not be where I am today without that work. But, having said that, I could not change myself! I could only prepare myself for God to change me.

Over the past year, after 25 years of intense focused effort and prayer and many priesthood blessings, I have experienced a miraculous change in my sexual orientation to the point where I now am very much attracted to the opposite gender and to my wife specifically. This experience would not be accepted very well in the world today. The world today tells us that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality and those that think there is are misguided at best and bigots at worst. The world really says that there is simply no way to change one's sexual orientation. We are born with our orientation and we all just need to accept it and "celebrate the diversity among us." I am a living witness that these lies are lies. However, without the gospel foundation, I too would eagerly accept the worlds lies—for that would be MUCH, MUCH easier! But I have the gospel and I know that the restored gospel of Jesus Christ is true and somehow that gospel just doesn't jive with the world's lies.

In conclusion, let me share with you just a few of the things that I have learned from 25 years of experience:

1. There is a God in Heaven who is our Father. He does know each of us. The trials that we each have really ARE the trials that each of us needs to become like him. He is truly an AWESOME God that knows all things!
2. The purpose of this life is to become like God and to live the kind of life that He lives. God is heterosexual in nature. God is not homosexual in nature. The purpose of this life is to overcome anything that is not in harmony with that divine nature. For some people, this means overcoming anger or other un-Christlike emotions. Many need to bridle their heterosexual desires and urges to avoid fornication or adultery or simple lust. There are many things that are not in harmony with the divine nature and therefore prevent us from becoming like God. Homosexuality is only one of them. Indeed, as the scripture says, the natural man is an enemy to God and will be forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit and becomes as a child: meek, submissive, willing to endure all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him. It took me over 40 years of my life to be willing to endure. It is interesting to realize that the term "natural man" really does mean different things to different people. But the purpose of life for all of us is the same—that of overcoming the natural man.
3. When we have done all that we can do, then God will do the rest. But he will do so on HIS timeframe not ours and He knows better than we do when we have done all that we can do. There may be things that we need to "undo," "redo," "not do," as well as "do." When we've done it all—and the Lord knows better than we when we have done it all—then according to the desires of our heart and based upon our faith and prayers, he WILL do the rest!
4. The day of miracles has not ceased. We just don't read about most miracles in the newspapers or hear about them on TV. We seldom even hear about them at church because miracles are sacred and shared only as the Spirit directs. I am a living witness that miracles have not ceased.

The organization that I was president of back in 1990 has since become the premier organization among church members to help those dealing with same-sex attraction and their family members and church leaders. I am placing the link to their Web site here (www.evergreeninternational.org) and would recommend that you peruse this site. There is a tremendous amount of information there.

Please know that I do not talk about this subject lightly. In fact, I rarely anymore even talk about this subject. I know very well the pain and trial that it is. I also know how personal the journey is, even if there are some common road signs along the way. My journey is not your journey, but we each have a journey. I would be accountable to God for not sharing with you the journey, experience, and blessings that I have had. I believe that God would have you have this information. As always, what you choose to do with this information is your choice. I sincerely wish you all the best as you continue your journey of life.

Sincerely,

A Living Witness

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