Participant #1:
Welcome to Lift and Love Conversations, where we're building a supportive culture around LGBTQ families in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints. I'm Allison Dayton, and I'll show you how to embrace your child and your spiritual discomfort to deepen and grow your testimony of Jesus Christ. And I am Jenny Hunter, and I will help you identify and overcome obstacles that can get in the way of sustaining healthy relationships. And I help you realize the blessings of being an LGBTQ family. Each week, we will bring you lessons that we've learned from our own life, the experiences from hundreds of families that we have worked with, and conversations with amazing experts.

Participant #1:
Hello. Our lift and love community. We are thrilled to be with you today. We have somebody as beautiful inside and out and pretty much a celebrity in Mesa. You're going to know if you are from Arizona, you are going to be like, she's our girl, and we have her on our podcast today. Don't we, Allison? We're so excited. So Julie Spillsbury is joining us from Mesa. As we said, she's a Mesa city council person. I just came from Mesa, and it was lovely and warm. I have lots of family down there. My dad's family comes from Arizona, and my husband's little brother was there, so we got to go see everybody. It was so fun, and it's so nice when it's 30 degrees here. Yes, we have beautiful weather right now. You do. When we have horrible weather, you have great weather. And when we have lovely weather, you guys are roasting. Yeah. But I'm sure some of you are wondering why we have Julie on our podcast today, but there has been a lot happening in Mesa, and she has been pulled into the LGBTQ advocacy world. So, Julie, can you just kind of give us a background if people aren't familiar with the current events in Arizona right now? Sure. So I grew up in NASA, and my husband and I raised our six kids here. And I love to volunteer. I love community. I love people. And I was thinking about running for school board, and I got asked to run for city council, and I said, Heck, no. Why would you want to do that? That's a lot of people getting mad at you and a lot of boring stuff. Anyway, as I explored it and prayed about it and met with the mayor and I started watching the council meetings, I realized very quickly that a mother's voice was needed on our city council. There was only one woman on the council. We have a mayor and six people on our council. Our city is 520,000 people. It's the 35th largest city in the nation, so it's huge. And we only had one woman on the council, and she's not a mother. So I thought, well, my voice is definitely needed, and why not me? And more importantly, I felt very strongly that Heavenly Father wanted me to do this and I prayed about it and had that heart pounding where you just sort of like now, I guess. In fact my husband was like, wait, what? No, this wasn't our plan. But as soon as I made the decision, we made the decision, we had no turning back at that point. And so that led to a year and a half of campaigning. I had to run against an incumbent and it was difficult to say the least, and it stretched me in ways that I never wanted to be stretched and it was difficult. Is it your first time doing something like this? Were you like the president of your high school or was this the first time? No, I was going

Participant #1:
what bravery to do all this like really green about it, huh? Yeah. I've always kind of been a leader and been in leadership positions but never ever had the desire to run for a political office. My husband is definitely more of a political one in our family, but I do, like I said, less community and less people. So it felt like the perfect place for me to be able to use my talents and gifts that I've been given. And my kids are older and so right now we have one kid left at home and so you have a little bit more time on your hands. It felt like a good place, but I can't tell you how many times I have played with Heavenly Father to not make me do it. And I kept getting the answer that this is where he wanted me. And so my election was in August of 2020 and I won and I wasn't going to start until January. And the mayor came to me and he said, hey, I just got to let you know that at the first of the year I will be putting forward our non discrimination ordinance for the city of Mesa. And this is something that our city has been working on for six years. It came up in 2014 and it just got ugly quickly and they kind of decided to back off of it. So as you know, Mesa is a very conservative city at least has the reputation for being very conservative. We actually only have the numbers are around ten to 12% LGs really it feels much more than that. I know I would assume it was like all and these are families, right? These are families that live there from the beginning. So I'm sure there's a lot of weight in the community. Mesa has deep, deep roots and they are LGs families and they're wonderful people and so they are who is out there. And we definitely have a high representation statewide in our politics. So the mayor is LDA and we have one other council member that's zelda but the other four are not. The mayor came to me and he just said explained kind of the background behind a nondiscrimination ordinance. He described how the church really was asking for local leaders to come up with legislation that could protect religious rights and protect the LGBTQ rights. And our mayor felt like this was a good time to do it at the beginning of 2021. And he wanted to know he wasn't telling me how to vote, but he just wanted me to know that it was coming and that I needed to be aware. At the time, I always pictured the conversation, because at the time I remember thinking, well, yeah, of course I would go for that. Like, what's the big deal? Like, I didn't I had no idea what was around the corner. That's what the opposition would feel about it. Huh? Yeah, I really didn't know because it just made sense to me, like, well, yeah, we have those religious rights protected. We have the LGBT rights. It seems like perfect balance there. And so I got sworn in. Were you going to ask something else? Oh, I was just going to say, just for background, for those of you who don't know. So the LDS Church was involved I think Elder Cook and Elder Perry were involved in what is called the Utah Compromise, which was sort of a precursor to this. Right. And that was passed, I think, in March of 2015. I think that sounds right, yeah. And our very conservative Utah Senate passed it 23 to five. Yes. So you would think, oh, this is going to be great. This was something that was done with equality. Utah, troy Williams, Elder Perry, Elder Cook and Jim Tobacco, who is a wellknown politician in Utah and a gay man. So, you know, they work this whole thing together. And from what I remember, your mayor sort of put together the legislation based on the Utah Compromise. Is that right? Yes. So there is one main difference, which is kind of the issue. So the Utah Compromise specifically addressed employment and housing, but did not allow for the public accommodation that the city ordinance that Mesa was putting forward. And there are national regulations now for housing and employment that cover a lot of that anyways. But Mesa's ordinance specifically allows for accommodations, the public accommodations, which means bathroom. So it means that you can use the bathroom of the gender you identify with. And that is why across the country for the last several years, they're called bathroom ordinances and why people get really upset. I don't think there are very many people left who are like, yes, we want to discriminate against gay people for housing, employment. What people do have a hard time with is there's going to be a man in the bathroom with my little girls or my granddaughters? Meaning that's how they phrase it, right? That's how their beliefs are about it. That's how their beliefs are. And there's a lot of fear. I couldn't believe the fear that was rampant and the untruths that were spread immediately about things that just aren't true. There's no data to back it up. So I guess let me go back. The mayor talked to me in the fall, and I spent months researching the topic, looking at both sides, talking to people on both sides, our attorneys that drafted the ordinance. And we have what is her exact title with the city. We have a new diversity director. I think it's her title. So she was working with our lawyers to draft exactly the wordage of every phrase in this ordinance. So I spent a lot of time talking to them. The community as a whole doesn't really pay most people don't pay attention to local politics, let's be honest. Right. And so most people weren't aware of it yet, but the few people that were paying attention that we're concerned reached out to me. I met with them several times. We talked about things. There were even some things changed in the ordinance because of those conversations. Our mayor is wonderful about listening to all side. We had a quality Arizona and one community where the two main LGBTQ organizations that worked with us on this, and then we had several religious organizations working with us on as well. So we felt like it was a really beautiful coming together of everyone on all sides. You know that if you have the HRC not happy and the strong religious right, that you're probably in a good spot. Right. If the two extremes want you to make changes because it's not extreme enough for them, you've probably figured out a pretty good middle granny. Yeah. And so we moved forward, and I prayed about it. I felt really strongly that the research that I saw, this type of an ordinance is in 322 cities across the nation, and there has been zero increase in violent incidents because of this. The bottom line is bad people do bad things, and they have done it before. There's an ordinance and they will continue after ordinance. And there are not people sitting around waiting for an ordinance like this to be put forward so that then they can go and do bad things to girls in the bathroom. Right. That's such a rational statement desk. I know. So there's seven cities in Arizona that have ordinances like this. Phoenix and Tempe are two of them, which are big cities. Tempe has ASU, and Phoenix is our capital with 3 million people. They have had zero citations, zero incidents. So with all of that kind of research and data, I read everything I could find on it to just really make sure that I wasn't missing something. Because the sphere out there was so real, people just I think that's a good way of putting it. It's real. It becomes real because there's no data saying anything else. Right. It's just oh, and maybe logically, it might feel that way. So Julie and I have really pumped Julie for information because I've been trying to do a lot of research on LGBTQ rights and the transgender bathroom laws and all of that. And when you start really looking at it and the statistics, like, 90% of children who are molested or molested by a family friend or someone in the family, we have these scary ideas about who are LGBTQ people are, and it's not even close to the truth. Right. Our LGBTQ people are the people that are sitting next to us, who we love in our wards and stakes. And the truth of it is, a transgender woman is not based in a male restroom. Right. That's where the danger is. Truthfully. Right. Yeah. The studies show. Yeah. So Julie has been so great at helping me get up to speed on that. I have so many. I've liked a million links all over the place. Yeah, I love it. Compile them all in one. But I also want to just mention, so during COLVID, as everyone, we had a lot more time on our hands, right? So all of my return missionary, college age daughters, and my husband and I were just kind of on a journey of learning. And so we were constantly sending each other podcast episodes and books to read and quotes that we saw, and we were listening to tons of, like, Faith Matters and Richard Osler's podcast and just things that kind of opened our eyes and our hearts and broadened our understanding of some of these issues. I had some really incredible experiences through that year, some really incredible spiritual experiences with Heavenly Mother and Heavenly Father and why I was being asked to be here, and I didn't even know this was coming. But I very much feel like over the course of a year, the evolution of my heart on this was incredible. And so for me to expect everyone who hasn't been on that journey to just immediately be okay with it gave me more patience, I guess, for their view. I love that you brought up this point because we get asked a lot, how do I teach other people? And it really is they have to kind of have the desire that you and your family did to be taught. And I got to tell you, Julie, everybody who I have talked to who has gone on that journey of, like, okay, I'm open to the Heavenly Father, let me know when they are open to learning more about their LGBTQ saints. It is a spiritual experience, and their heart just burst open with love and with understanding that I call, like, the pharisee. Thinking kind of gets swept away a lot. Absolutely. It's an amazing experience, and I think it's important to realize that not everyone has been there yet because I was getting so frustrated. These are my friends and family and people that I grew up with and their parents and my parents friends and people who are my young women leaders and my young man leaders that were out there saying horrible things about me or about the way I voted. And that's really painful. And so it's really easy to kind of get negative about that and get hard feelings. But then I had to keep reminding myself, like, okay, they're just not there. They haven't been on this journey. And I also don't think it was coincidental at all. I absolutely believe that my Heavenly Father knew that I was going to be faced with this boat and that he was preparing me and my whole family to be in a position where I could do this. To be honest with you, we already had our four votes, so it shouldn't be a partisan or a political issue at all. But our three Democrats on our council were voting yes, and then our mayor, who is a Republican, was voting yes. And then it left three of us that were Republican, and one had already said, Heck no. The other one was trying to decide, yeah. And I didn't have to vote yes. I could have very easily voted no because I knew it was still going to pass, and then I would have made all my constituents happy with me. But I had to do the right thing. I had to do the right thing. So through the course of the study sessions and the city council meetings and everyone coming and all the emails and all the hate that I received, being able to be convicted in my vote to vote yes was the most incredible feeling. I mean, one of the highlights of my life, to be able to vote yes on that. And then the people that reached out to me after that, because I'm the Mormon conservative mother on the council and I'm the one that voted yes on it, they already expected the others to, but my vote has so much for impact on them. And so to me, it was really obvious that Heavenly Father was just kind of guiding me on this little journey to help me get to that place where I needed to be able to have that kind of an impact. Why did you vote yes? Again, as I talked and looked into these incredible LGBTQ people and you know, what really didn't for me was their mother, one mother in particular who reached out to me and sent me emails, who has a transgender son, who's LDS, who is in this fight and shared with me some of her experiences and her son's experiences. I'll never be the same, right? Like, I changed because of those stories. And listening. I love to listen, learn, love, because you have to listen to people to be able to learn from people, to be able to love people. And there's just not a person on the earth that if you listen to them and learn from them, you wouldn't love them. And I really believe that that was an incredible thing. And another thing that just my husband pointed out. So when it became public knowledge that the city council was voting on this and a really far right conservative think tank group sent out an email, and people just went crazy. The majority of my emails that one weekend. So I got 1300 emails. I always thought I got 1107, but then I got more. My number increased, so I got a lot of emails, and at least eight or 900 of those were negative. And I got lots of them are LDS people, and a lot of them are people I knew, frankly. But I got lots of, like, you're going to hell. You need to repent. The Lord's displeased with you. I mean, I could go on and on, and it was shocking to me. It was hurtful. I can talk about it now, but for three weeks, I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't function in life. And I'm a people pleaser. Like, I love people to love me, right. My whole life. I like it when people like me. And so this is very difficult. I'm very opinionated, but I always go with a smile on my face so I don't make enemies. And this was really painful. And we live in an extremely conservative neighborhood, and my husband was serving as the bishop at the time, and oh, boy. I think probably one of the strongest efforts to fight against this came from my neighbors, people in our word, our ward members, counselors in the bishop, rick with my husband, government's president. But you're talking about, like alison did a poll on Instagram where we found out people are so afraid of everybody's worst nightmare. You live the worst nightmare. Okay. We are so bound in our ward communities, especially a lot of times, those are people that we've moved into a neighborhood. We didn't know anybody. Yeah, they're what I call family. They're not just family. They're like our family. Right? They are. And to do anything that would get you kicked out of that family or get you, like, kind of shunned your brain must have been felt, because we are wired to connect and to be part of the community. So how did you get through that period and stay safe?

Participant #1:
We want to share this particular key to everyone that listens, because this is an important part, as you said so well, like the evolution of hearts. You have to be able to stand up to this, right? Yeah. I have so much I can say. I'm trying to think what direction I want to go. So in the midst of this, my husband sorry, it's still such an emotional topic for me. It was the most beautiful experience, but the most painful. So my husband made the comment to me, wow, if we're getting this much hate just for supporting the LGBT community we're not LGBTQ. We don't have LGBTQ children. Can you imagine? Wow. What they're feeling, what they're going through, and it opened up my eyes. Oh, my gosh. Let's just pause for a moment there. That his wisdom. He must be the best bishop. I mean, honestly, empathy in that comment and the truth, that's such a beautiful way that he was able to see that. I mean, that must have changed your heart in that hard time. It didn't. My kids are ages 15 to 23, and so they get this for nothing else. I wanted to do it for them, too. I wanted them to know that their mother knew right and wrong, like, whether it was popular or not, whether people were happy with me or not. I had my neighbors in my ward, my friends that I served with, that I've had incredible spiritual experience with, wanted to recall me. They got on Facebook and wrote that they wanted to recall me over this issue. That's the strength. And again, there were so many things that went out on social media, gain social media. It's so good, but it's the worst for stuff like this. It just wasn't true. And so I spent months like well, I say months, week, going around putting out fires, trying to correct misinformation, trying to say, no, that's not true. No, that's not true. No, it doesn't affect schools. There was a rumor that we couldn't say ma'am and sir in Mesa anymore. I mean, just things like that. I don't even know where it came from, but someone would just lash onto it. Then it would just snowball a bit. Yeah. And so it was really hard trying to combat that. And I had just prayed to Heavenly Father that I did not want to do anything that was going to hurt his kingdom. Right. My greatest goal in life is that I can help gather Zion and build his kingdom. And he told me over and over again that that's exactly what I was doing. And we started having several lots of our children's friends who had come out and had left the church that were struggling reach out to us. We had them over for dinner. We had conversations with them. We were like, wait, the Spill series are really strong in the church. Wait. There are LGBTQ allies? People were dumbfounded, and they reached out to us to think of them, to fill up and feel safe. And I get that so many people do that, and I'm so grateful that they do that. But we were in a position so publicly that it was out there, and I thought I was in LGBTQ to La. Well, I didn't anyone know, but just put it out there that was more public and just hearing their stories and the heartache and the pain. Man, I love this church, but we have a lot of work to do. I will never forget the first Sunday I went back to church after all of this. It's hard to walk in the door, right? Families can be together forever. And I just cried because I saw it so differently now. I thought, oh, this used to be one of my favorite songs, and now this song is a song that people feel pain when they hear it. Anyway, it just changed me. Like, I will never be the same. And the people I got to meet through the LGBT community, michael Soda with the Quality Arizona, and Angela Hughes with one community are, like, two of my best friends now, right? Like, I love those people. And our mayor received an Equality Award through a Unity Award through one community. So we went to this big, huge event down in Phoenix at a hotel. Oh, my gosh, the love that's there. And these people are incredible. I mean, just incredible. And I'm hugging transgender woman who just because they showed this whole video with how this video made the ordinance, I just thought, These are my people. And I don't think there are very many LDS people there. I don't think there are very many Republicans there. And I felt so comfortable and so loved and so accepted, and I thought, this is how I want everyone to feel. Like, this is how everyone should feel. And they are the ones teaching us how to love. They are the ones that are blessed with those gifts and pounds that she says how to love. So I just fill that so strongly. Yeah. How did you walk through those doors when you had your best friends ask you for your recall? I mean, that had to be such a painful experience emotionally for you. So during a lot of it, we weren't at church. We were on Zoom Church, so I think that helps. Thank goodness. Under Mercy. Yeah. We did have people that when we went back to church, we had several people in our family, in our ward family that did not come to church because they were mad at my husband. We had several families asking our state president for my husband to relieve. How did your state president handle it? Okay, so I should also probably mention that while this was publicly out there, you have to maybe be following city politics somewhat or have friends that were following it. But then my wonderful husband decided he needed to get on Facebook and make some posts to explain why we supported the nondiscrimination ordinance. And I loved him for it, but that definitely had a little bit more drama. My husband went back to school recently to study peace and conflict studies, and so he's really good at that. He doesn't get offended easily. He loves people. He sees the best in people, and so he handled that maybe a little bit better than I did. It was hard. I'm in a book club that I have been in for 18 years with 15 girls that are my best friend, and there were some of them that were not in support of it, and we couldn't talk about it. And that's hard. That's really hard. Have you come to on the other side with those friendships? Yes,

Participant #1:
we have family members that are in the agreement. Extended family or closed extended family or my husband's family? My family. My mom grew up in promo her whole life anyway. She's the most wonderful woman, but she had a hard time with us. And then when I started pulling up all these different quotes and stuff from the church officials, from the Brethren and showing their support of legislation like the Fairness for All Act that's being presented in opposition of the Equality Act, my mom was like, oh, okay. She kind of came around on that, but that helped her. And we were able to have some really neat conversations that I didn't think I'd be able to have with my mom. It's all about education, isn't it? Right? And not listening to social media, but going and getting the real facts of the situation. Because like you said, once you really saw the facts, there were zero incidences and actually way more incidences on the transgender people. How can you argue that when you have the facts, you really can't agree with the good of the bit? And even just last month, six weeks ago, there was an incident that came out in the news, and it was I did all this research on it in Icah, North Carolina. Does that sound familiar? About a boy that dressed up like a girl and went to the bathroom and raped a girl, and so everyone oh, as soon as that came out in the news, everyone just went crazy. And I got sent back by several people to show how horrible I was and how wrong I was and the vote that I did. Well, if you research that that incident happened way before there was ever any kind of ordinance, and also that boy had done other stuff like that before anyways, it has nothing to do with transgender issues. It has nothing to do with the ordinances, but people will just latch on to anything that fits their view. That's hard to combat. It is hard. And we tend to I think as human beings, we tend to take an easy answer over a complicated research, especially if everyone agrees too. Right? We got these echo chambers going on so it feels like, see, I'm right and they're wrong, and we make it enough for them. And that's not what it's about. It's not. It takes a lot of rethinking. I love Adam Grant with the professor, right? And his whole thing is about rethink and think again and having the neuroplasticity to think around what we think. Ocdorf has that great quote of the iron. Sometimes we have an iron gate that doesn't let us let's see the iron gate around what all we already think we know that stops us from learning a new kind of expanding like Jenny and I. Will tell you that just the stories of the spirit leading people like you who don't have family members into this work, they're almost more remarkable than the parents of children because by your very nature, you want to make the world better for your children, especially those. And when you're worried about their mental, emotional, physical, spiritual health, romantic health, all of it, right? All of it. But when you've got it's just amazing. And as you watch these people come together and the spirits with them, there's something happening. Yeah. No, it's beautiful. My husband loves to quote Joseph Smith by saying, and the proving of contrary truth may manifest. And my daughter, she's at Utah Update, and her whole thing is that simplicity versus complexity. Right? And we have to come over on the other side of complexity and all of that. It's learning, it's opening, it's growing, and it's painful a lot of times, but it's so beautiful when you do come on the other side and you realize that you're changed and you're different and that you're closer to Jesus Christ. We had so many people when my husband made those posts that we were in support of the LGBTQ ordinance. We had so many people that we love that are close to us, that know us, that said, okay, so when's your post about that you're leaving the church, okay, so you must be struggling in your testimony, right? It's so the opposite after this journey we've been on and that we're still in our testimonies could not be stronger, we feel even more strongly about the love that Heavenly Father has for every single person. We feel even stronger about our testimonies of the Savior and that he suffered for every single one of his children. Right. I mean, those things have only been solidified and magnified through this journey. And yes, we have seen places in the church that there are problems and that we have so much work to do. And one of the first Sundays in our Sunday school, an older person made the comment about how proof that Satan was taking over the world because he can't turn on the TV without being gay people. I'm just like, no, we don't make comments like that. I feel every Sunday we're having to fight that, but it can happen. I can do a lot more good inside the church than I could ever do outside of the church. I really feel that. And I know that God put us in this path. He put my whole family on this path together so that we could do it together, because having my husband by my side through all this was really beautiful and made our relationship stronger. And so maybe if I hadn't had a Kim, maybe I would have buckled under pressure. But because we did it together, I thought, you know, what if I left with no friends? Which would have felt like if I'm left with no one at least I have my I have my family and my kids, and I know I did the right thing, and I wanted to make the points into I had so many people reach out to me after they were made aware of the ordinance or we did a Faith Matters podcast. People from all over, by the way, everyone should just to get the full there's two Face Matters, right? There is one I did at the mayor where we talked specifically about the ordinance, and then the other one I did with my husband, where we talked about some of the challenges we faced in our ordinance and serving as the bishop. Yeah, they're both really important. We got asked to do that, and I said, sure, and we did it. And, oh, my gosh, like, the amount of comments, like, messages I got sent from complete strangers who felt alone, right? They felt like, oh, my gosh, I thought I was the only one that felt this way. Like, there's so many of us out there, people in my ward that said, hey, Whisper, but we really loved your podcast. We don't want to say it too loud, but we love your podcast. Right? So. I mean, that's incredible. And then that helps you realize, oh, there's so many more people out there that I realize. And sometimes in our little influencer world, we feel like we're alone, but really, there are so many more people out there that feel the same way, that has the same desires to create buy in with our diversity. I said this in the Faith Matters podcast, but it's worth repeating because I feel it strongly. We don't want to bring in our LGBTQ brothers and sisters because it's the right thing to do or because that's what Jesus wants us to do. We need to do it because we need them. We need them. We need their gifts and their talents and their love and their compassion and their beauty. They are incredible. We are not complete without our LGBTQ brothers and sisters. So true. And I think they have so much to teach us, so much. The way that my heart and understanding, like, the evolution of my heart over the decades that I've been learning about this and researching and whatnot I feel like there's so much education and understanding where other people come from. And really, like you said, so many people feel alone in this journey, which is exactly the opposite of what we're supposed to feel. Right? We're supposed to have unity one with another. So we know that feeling is anything that makes us feel isolated, either as allies, as mothers, and particularly as LGBTQ individuals, is wrong, and we need to eradicate that from our church, our amazing church. Yes. I could not agree more. One of my favorite things that happened recently is we got a new bishop. My husband was released, and we had some ward changing. It had nothing to do with his boat. It wasn't your fault. Our new bishop, he's young. He has four little kids. And he brought me into his office and he said, Sister still very which I hate to be calling you sister still not Julie, right? That's how young you sister still great. Help me understand. He said I'm immediately saying that I need to know more about the LGBTQ population and their struggles and what we need to do to help. And we don't have anything like that in our state. I have a wonderful state president. We don't have anything in our state, and I don't know how widely accepted it will be, but we need to work hard in that area and to just have my bishop so humbly say to me, teach me, help me understand. And you better believe that I send him links every time I come across something that's helpful. Well, Cameron and understand. And it's been a beautiful thing to recognize that Humility in him. I love his words. Help me understand. And David Archuletta, just this last week, 49 minutes of really just I mean, it's so painful to listen to, but it's also a gift to all of us to I was actually going to bring him up because I am, like, maybe the biggest David Archletta fan in the world. And so I've seen him, like, nine times anyway. But when I watch that video, you just want a mom hugging. But I thought, there's just not a person I know that couldn't listen to that and realize we've got some work to do. I said to Alison, I said, he's LDS royalty, right? If he feels this way, can you imagine how just the normal kids going to church who is not a rock star about who they are, who are LGBTQ that is not how Heavenly Father wants these children to fill ever. No. That's 49 minutes that will teach so many people the pain and the conflict and the othering and the suicidal feelings that are caught up. I love the way we say things, and we should be praying with these individuals to help us all understand better, to help us all understand how we can help them. That's a painful experience to go through this, but it sounds like you wouldn't trade it now, even though it rocked relationships that were core to you. And what did you learn? What would you say? Was it worth it? Voting yes,

Participant #1:
100,000%. I tell people all the time, like, there are still people that won't speak to us. All right, it's about two families, but most people smile at me in public and they're polite to meet in my face. I can live with that. I don't know if I'll get reelected if I decide to run in three years. So we'll see. Who cares, right? Like, who cares if I was able to help one teenager feel more loved and decide to stay on this Earth? Who cares? I don't care if I'm the most popular city council member or that everyone loves me or that everyone thinks I did the right thing. I would do it over and over and over again because I am not the same person. My heart is ten times bigger. I have such a greater capacity to love. I see people differently. I see everyone differently, not just LGBT people. I have such a strong desire in my position to be a voice for people who don't have a voice. And I honestly think if there's no other reason why Heavenly Father wanted me to be on city council in Mesa, Arizona, this was the reason, right? If it was just for that one thing, and I have to do four years of a lot of hard work just because of that one boat, so be it, right? I just could never say enough of what I've learned and who I am and who I've become because of what I've learned through that experience. I love hearing that. I'm so emotional about it. Oh, no. It's so painful. And you are so brave, and you have a lot to teach the rest of us who also struggle to stand up, even in much smaller ways. Oh, right. Like much smaller. Every time you stand up in any way, it might not be on a city council vote that thousands of people witness, right? But anytime you do anything in any small way, it changes people. It does. And one day, one of those two families is going to come to you and say, I was wrong. I was wrong. Or we have a child. Can you help us understand, just like your bishop? Help me understand. Because the fact that I still genuinely feel so much love for them is proof to me that Heavenly Father has changed my heart, right? He's given me his love for them so that it doesn't create problems in my life. It's true. Getting your covenant and being that disciple because that's where his heart has refined you and changed you. I mean, it's clear and apparent, and I think anybody listening will see that sometimes living our covets is standing up for the one. Right? And that's hard, especially when the community who should be standing up for them are not right and going against that community. And thank you for being the Esther. I can't even take that compliment

Participant #1:
well. I was so moved by your podcast. I'm so glad that we are connected. You've helped us, and I'm just so grateful for this conversation that will help other people stand up and withstand the blowback that will come. Thank you for all that you guys are doing. You're my hero. And your listeners realize the blowback is worth it because the blowback will change you, and you become who you need to become. Like, it will give you strength. It's hard to do it. You can do it. Why we're here, right? So why we're here. Thank you so much. We are just so appreciative of you. And for those of you who want to hear more about the city council vote, we'll put it in show notes. And I really suggest you listen to Julie and her husband because they do a fabulous job on the matters. Thank you so much. Thank you, Allison. Thank you for joining us. If you like what we share, subscribe to the Lift and Love podcast. And if you have a minute, leave us a five star rating so other families like yours can find us. When your child comes out, you need to find support where you feel safe and understood. This is why we created the Lift and Love coaching community. A place where parents can connect, learn and grow in a private setting. Jenny is a certified, advanced trained spacebased life coach with almost ten 0 hour of coaching. Together, we have worked with hundreds of families just like yours. To see if the Lift and Love community is right for you, go to liftandlove.org and click on the Community link. For more free information, support groups and available resources, check out lyftandlove.org and Liftandlove.org on Instagram and Facebook. But most importantly, remember you are not alone in this journey. We are building a community of thriving and faithful LGBTQ families who are here to lift and love you.