Come Back Podcast

CONTENT WARNING: This episode contains sensitive content that may be triggering or offensive to some audiences. Parental discretion is advised. "I still have not seen the face of Christ. I still haven't had miraculous experiences, but I've made the choice to follow Him and it's changed my life. I've done counseling. I still sometimes will do meditation - even guided meditation. And those things have helped me so much with some of my mental health struggles. But without the Savior involved in the middle of it. I would still not be who I am or where I am - with the capacity to now utilize our story and our passion for safety to go and try to change some of the culture on the ski slopes. That's being welcomed across the industry in a really miraculous way. But none of that would happen if I didn't come back to the roots of my Savior." snowangelfoundation.org  Come Back Team: Director, Founder & Host: Ashly Stone Producer and Senior Editor: Lauren Rose Outreach Manager: Jenna Carlson Editor: Michelle Berger Art Director: Jeremy Garcia

"One thing that I noticed when I started coming back to church was I put my focus on who I wanted to be - instead of trying to fix who I was. Instead of trying to stop doing all of these things, it was, okay, I want to be this person. I imagined myself being a mom and a wife. I wanted a family and I thought, 'who is the type of person that I need to be to have those things?' I envisioned that for myself. Then my focus just really shifted into the steps that I needed to take to be who that person was." Come Back Team: Director, Founder & Host: Ashly Stone Producer and Senior Editor: Lauren Rose Outreach Manager: Jenna Carlson Editor: Michelle Berger Art Director: Jeremy Garcia

"He just went on and on about all the challenges and the different things that they had to do if they could get this aircraft past Pluto. As I was watching it, it was like a stream of revelation to me. Every single word he said was a metaphor for me and what I felt like I was doing. I realized what I was doing was trying to understand this crazy pixelated picture of what I thought God was and what religion is and I was like 'I don't understand anything, there's so many problems that I'm having on this journey of trying to figure out what this means!' He finished his story and miraculously, through so many miracles, they saw Pluto and now we have beautiful pictures of Pluto. I was so rejuvenated and impressed by that. As I was leaving, the answer was like, 'Yes Hailey, just push through. There's so many questions you have and there's so many challenges on your way to figuring out your answers.' I felt deeply that Heavenly Father wanted me to push through, find the answers, and do the work required to receive the revelation that I needed in so many different areas." Come Back Team: Director, Founder & Host: Ashly Stone Producer and Senior Editor: Lauren Rose Outreach Manager: Jenna Carlson Editor: Michelle Berger Art Director: Jeremy Garcia

"There is no way, in mortality, to get through it by yourself. You can't push, you can't shove, you can't design, you can't do any of that. Even if you're not on drugs! You must turn yourself over to a loving Heavenly Father and then there is this capacity for the Savior to enable you - he kind of does internal work and changes you. You think 'This is different. I'm different than I was.' And I give them the credit. Luckily, they caught me before I passed away and helped me out." Come Back Team: Director, Founder & Host: Ashly Stone Producer and Senior Editor: Lauren Rose Outreach Manager: Jenna Carlson Editor: Michelle Berger Art Director: Jeremy Garcia

"I just called out to Heavenly Father and said, help. I was very aware that there were angels all around me protecting me, I knew that Heavenly Father was rescuing me. He was hearing my prayer and That black feeling immediately was replaced with warmth, and love, and total mercy. It was like, I've been waiting for you, I got you. And I just was totally honest with Him and I told Him everything that I needed to say. I told him 'I'm so insecure. I don't know how to do this. I don't know who to be. I don't know how to commit to being a good girl. I don't know what that looks like. I'm attracted to all of these things that I don't know how to reconcile.' I just didn't know what to do next, but I knew that I couldn't continue in that life that I was in. I was so honest and submissive and just like, I'm gonna give this all to you and you help me figure out what to do next. And it was beautiful, it was amazing, it was the most sacred thing that's ever happened in my life. Then I felt like I should go see a bishop." Come Back Team: Director, Founder & Host: Ashly Stone Producer and Senior Editor: Lauren Rose Outreach Manager: Jenna Carlson Editor: Michelle Berger Art Director: Jeremy Garcia

"There was this amazing thing that happened at Carthage Jail. There was a guy there, a college -age guy, who was in sweats, like total travel clothing. We went up to the room where John Taylor sang the song, 'Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief ' they usually just play a recording of that song but this guys mom put him on the spot and said, 'my son is a music major. He's about to graduate and he knows this song, would it be okay if he sang the song?, He got up and sang that song so beautifully and music speaks to me. The spirit has spoken to me through music so many times. I just feel the spirit in songs so much. Something transitioned for me there. It was just so real life for me that he was standing up there singing so beautifully, he knew the words, and was put on the spot and yet did such a rockin job at it." https://www.plantwhys.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠comeback⁠⁠⁠  Come Back Team: Director, Founder & Host: Ashly Stone Producer and Senior Editor: Lauren Rose Outreach Manager: Jenna Carlson Editor: Michelle Berger Art Director: Jeremy Garcia

"I still had no idea of coming back to the church. I didn't plan on it. We went to my sister's ward and we were saying the sacrament prayers, I just had this feeling in my heart. I looked at Lynn and I said, 'what do I need to do to take the sacrament? I remember Jesus.' And she beamed and she said, 'you were baptized. So I took the water and that was when the first trickle of living water started trickling back into my heart. Shortly after that, we got an email from the church saying anybody who's gluten intolerant, you can bring your own gluten-free bread. So I started doing that. And it was when I started taking the full sacrament that cracks really started opening in my heart. And not long after that, I started reading the Book of Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price, the Doctrine and Covenants. I read them all in very short order and started reminding myself of what I had left behind." Memoirs of a Prodigal Daughter: Returning to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints https://amzn.to/3Vp9Tcg House of Glory: Poems for Latter-day Saints https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CSF2FBF2 Faith & Doubt: Poems for Troubled Times https://books2read.com/u/mg5Qv6 https://www.plantwhys.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠comeback⁠⁠  Come Back Team: Director, Founder & Host: Ashly Stone Producer and Senior Editor: Lauren Rose Outreach Manager: Jenna Carlson Editor: Michelle Berger Art Director: Jeremy Garcia

"The thought of the temple came to my mind and to my heart so clearly that I had a homesickness for it. I also had a remembrance that I could go there and within those walls, while not everything is solved or fixed, everything is okay. You leave feeling like everything is okay. You're elevated. At that moment, I'm like, I know I have to take the steps to get back to the temple. I have to make this an active part of my life - not just a thought. I have to say that receiving the restoration of my temple blessings was the most incredibly profound experience I've had in coming to know the power - the atoning power - of my Savior, Jesus Christ." contact Kat: knelsonartist@gmail.com https://www.plantwhys.com/⁠⁠comeback⁠  Come Back Team: Director, Founder & Host: Ashly Stone Producer and Senior Editor: Lauren Rose Outreach Manager: Jenna Carlson Editor: Michelle Berger Art Director: Jeremy Garcia

"When I was in Young Women's, one of the themes was... I'm a daughter of Heavenly Father who loves us and we love Him. You always say those things but I never really thought about what it really meant. And then I really thought about it one time, like, I'm a daughter of Heavenly Father. Which means if I have inherited things from my earthly parents, I must have inherited things from my heavenly parents. That means I have a divine potential. We all have divine potential! Which means that we can do things that we cannot even imagine. There are people doing things around us that we never thought possible until somebody does it. Just the knowledge that I am a daughter of my Heavenly Father and Mother and that they really love me. They know me. They know everything about me. They know more about me than I know. Knowing that gives me so much strength. So now every day I use this as an affirmation. I say to myself, I'm a daughter of heavenly parents. I have divine potential. I have the power to overcome everything. I have Christ -like love inside of me. I receive this love from others and I give this love to other people. Doing this makes me strong, it helps me keep the commandments." Link to Paula's eBook: https://www.lulu.com/shop/paula-andriessen-and-debbie-drennan-bennett-and-heidi-gassman-yates-and-griffins/the-power-to-overcome-everything-ebook/ebook/product-w4vzkzv.html?page=1&pageSize=4 https://www.plantwhys.com/comeback  Come Back Team: Director, Founder & Host: Ashly Stone Producer and Senior Editor: Lauren Rose Outreach Manager: Jenna Carlson Editor: Michelle Berger Art Director: Jeremy Garcia

"I've read a lot about history, like the founding fathers and enlightenment and tried to really get into their heads of how they thought. I feel like they had a kind of expansive view of Christ. They thought that His teachings of the golden rule applied not only to bringing brownies to your neighbor, but also in big things like how you structure the government. I feel like what's happened over time is kind of a shrinkage where if you have problems with your plumbing, you call a plumber. You're not like, oh, let me go look in the Bible. Over time, I think what's happened is if you have an economics question or if you have an ethics question, you go to the economist, or you go to the ethicist. I feel like what's happened is that the influence that Jesus has and the gospel has is kind of shrinking as it's being crowded out by these secular theories, which again, if they pointed back to gospel truths, that would be okay, but they didn't seem to, at least in my opinion. So that was one last thing that just drove me crazy. I had to figure out who was right. Either the economists are right or Jesus is right. My money's on Jesus." Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brett_alder Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brett.alder/ Come Back Team: Director, Founder & Host: Ashly Stone Producer and Senior Editor: Lauren Rose Outreach Manager: Jenna Carlson Editor: Michelle Berger Art Director: Jeremy Garcia