From the moment she was born Deb's life was hard. Unwanted and raised in a home where her mother suffered from mental illness, Deb's childhood was very dark and lonely.
However, at her lowest points God was with her, and as a young adult, He led her half way across the world on an incredible journey to find the truth and light of the gospel.
*** Please SHARE Deb's story and help us spread hope and light to others. ***
To WATCH this episode on YouTube, visit: https://youtu.be/eBFIEioWzWM
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Also, if you have a faith-promoting or inspiring story, or know someone who does, please let us know by going to https://www.latterdaylights.com and reaching out to us.
From the moment she was born Deb's life was hard. Unwanted and raised in a home where her mother suffered from mental illness, Deb's childhood was very dark and lonely.
However, at her lowest points God was with her, and as a young adult, He led her half way across the world on an incredible journey to find the truth and light of the gospel.
*** Please SHARE Deb's story and help us spread hope and light to others. ***
To WATCH this episode on YouTube, visit: https://youtu.be/eBFIEioWzWM
-----
Also, if you have a faith-promoting or inspiring story, or know someone who does, please let us know by going to https://www.latterdaylights.com and reaching out to us.
Hi everyone, I'm Scott Brandley.
Alisha Coakley:And I'm Alisha Coakley. Every member of the church has a story to share, one that can instill faith, invite growth and inspire others.
Scott Brandley:On today's episode, we're going to hear how, despite being surrounded by childhood trauma, one woman's seeking heart taught her to trust the Lord, no matter what. Welcome to Latter-day Lights. Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Latter-day Lights. We're so glad you're here with us this Sunday afternoon and we're really excited to introduce our guest, deb Fryar. Deb, how are you today?
Deb Fryar:Good thanks, how are you guys?
Alisha Coakley:We're good, we're tired. I was just saying it's a sleepy Sunday. Everyone's going to be wondering where Alicia's eyeballs went. They want to go back to bed. So they're little today. Yeah, I'm the opposite. I'm feeling great because I got another hour and a half later in church. Yeah, thanks to the new year.
Scott Brandley:That's always nice. I wish the ward-eye men would change. But we won't change we never change.
Alisha Coakley:We never change times, so we're always going to be early morning. I wish the ward-eye men would change, but we won't change. We never change. We never change times. So we're always going to be early morning, but at least we didn't have to get up and shovel snow. I have to say I'm still part of our ward page Scott from back in Rockcliff, and I saw that they had to cancel church and everyone was encouraged to grab a shovel and go shovel someone's driveway today from all the snow. So I'm like, well, at least I don't know that. Yeah, that's true, that doesn't happen in Texas.
Scott Brandley:Yup, exactly, so, miss Deb, yeah.
Deb Fryar:Arden.
Scott Brandley:Snow.
Deb Fryar:Oh, I'm in Yuma, arizona. We never have snow here. It's 70 degrees out there right now. Is it really Maybe a bit cooler because the wind's blowing? We had a bit of rain this morning, which was nice. It's been kind of chilly lately, more like 65. When it gets to 70 here, everybody puts their coats on. We're freezing.
Alisha Coakley:People are swimming at 65 in Utah when we get hot in the cool cool, cool, cool Summer's boiling.
Deb Fryar:You can't go outside in the summer, it's so hot.
Alisha Coakley:Oh wow. Well, that's okay, you can stay indoors. We were just commenting earlier about your beautiful display. Do you want to tell our guests what that is?
Deb Fryar:I've never seen this before, but it makes my heart happy.
Deb Fryar:Because of my pitiful health. I eat a whole food plant-based diet, so I have to have lots of greens, beans, vegetables. My fridge is just full of vegetables, Nothing else Nice. I do have a garden Not this year so much here in Arizona. There is no soil, it's just sand. I have built beds. I pulled up all the bricks in my backyard. I have built beds. I have made my own compost over the last four years.
Deb Fryar:This year I tried to plant earlier in October, which is still hot here. It seeds, you just put seeds in the ground. I think a lot of them got baked in the sun. It was kind of cooled off in September quite a bit. It kind of lulls you into a false sense of security. I have to start again. With three more summers coming. I think a lot of my seeds got baked. It's just been a nightmare. These little bugs came. If you build it, they will come. I mean, I'm in the middle of nowhere. Nobody here grows any vegetables. Where I live they're just eating everything. You can't even see them with the naked eye. You walk and they fly up and you're like what. It's a learning curve. I'm from Yorkshire, England. We have real soil over there.
Alisha Coakley:This display behind you is your food storage.
Deb Fryar:Correct this is ongoing eating. I buy in bulk from Winco Foods. I love Winco. I've had them out many times. I fill them all up and then get more. All my cupboards in the kitchen and behind me in this buffet, they're all full of jars of food.
Alisha Coakley:That's awesome Some of your own when the bugs don't eat them Actually most of mine go into the fridge.
Deb Fryar:I usually grow greens, Lots of different types of greens. I use a lot of different colors. I grow it this year not so much. I should have just put beets in, because they're doing great Carrots. I don't eat a lot of here, but I did put a few carrots in. I've never done those here before. I'm a big beet grower. I love the beets. That's awesome.
Alisha Coakley:Good for the heart. I'm envious. I can't keep fish or plants alive. I can keep kids alive. I feel like there's that I don't know where to get this from because I haven't been a gardener until I retired. Really.
Deb Fryar:I've never done gardening in my life. I never lived anywhere I could have a garden. It's the first time that I've had Wow, that's inspiring. Then I lived in Idaho for four years and I had a tenth of an acre there. That's where I learned to garden by experience and Awesome trial and error.
Alisha Coakley:That's awesome, very cool.
Scott Brandley:Awesome. Well, Deb, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Deb Fryar:Well, I'm from Yorkshire, England, post-war baby Born in Leeds which is also a mission A mission in Leeds and I'm the second oldest of nine children. My mother had 13 all together. Three of them died and one of them was adopted, so I was raised with just the nine.
Deb Fryar:So I'm the second oldest and they say the second child is the rebel. That's basically what I turned out to be. Yeah, but not a rebel in the bad way. Right, the swelling against what, what wasn't right. They said what was going on, gotcha. So I became this kind of from a very I mean, my mother used to say that I was an old soul, and I would say that I'm. I would describe myself as a sober child, gotcha. Extremely sober, inward looking, introverted, would rather be sitting by the fire reading a book, you know, and, from a very young age, um, questioning everything. Mm. Yeah, gotcha, I'm still trying to find your VS, aren't we all Awesome.
Deb Fryar:So what brought?
Scott Brandley:you to the US.
Deb Fryar:BYU. Okay, I came to BYU in 1988 on a master's program, without a bachelor's.
Alisha Coakley:Wow, and we're going to get into that a little bit in your story today, correct? Yes, that's after I joined the church, so, oh, okay, so maybe next.
Deb Fryar:So next time spoiler alert Deb's coming on for a second episode. Yes, so I was very, very blessed. The Lord told me to come here and he was completely receptive to the spirit and gave me a free pass and everything was paid for. It was amazing. Talk about miracles happened, that is cool. That is really cool.
Alisha Coakley:So you went from wet and green to dry and hot.
Deb Fryar:Well, I lived in London for eight years Well, six years in the church before I came to America. So a lot of concrete in buildings, okay, and not so much green, except for parks. But yeah, I was absolutely. I mean, when I saw those mountains I couldn't believe them. They're good ones, I mean never seen mountains in my life, yeah, wow.
Alisha Coakley:Very cool, all right, miss Deb. Well, with that, let's go ahead and have you take us back. Where does your story?
Deb Fryar:begin? Well, it begins when I was born, because when I was six years old, my mother told me about my birth I guess me and my sister were asking her questions about it and she said to me well, I had one pain at 2 am at the hospital and you were born at 10 past 2. And when the nurse brought you to me, I said that's not mine. And the nurse said Mrs Turner, my name was Turner. Mrs Clona, this is the only child born here tonight. I assure you this is your daughter Said well, I'm no oil painting, but I don't want anything as ugly as that. Take it away.
Alisha Coakley:What yeah? Wow, no, your mom told you this.
Deb Fryar:Yeah, sorry there. So I grew up from that moment thinking I didn't have friends because I was ugly, and I actually found out years later that I was suffering from mental illness and I was severely depressed. By 7 years old I was severely depressed. So, dialing back to my birth, and I know many people don't remember their baby hood but for some strange reason I do and I had an experience.
Deb Fryar:I don't know if you've heard of a pram like a baby carriage. Back in the 50s women put their kids outside, they stayed in to do their housework and they stick the kid outside in a stroller or a pram in all weathers to get some fresh air. And you're sitting out there and you've got a hood up. There's a hood on them, there's a little shield, you've got reins to strap you in, you've got warm clothes and blankets and everything, but you're sitting there by yourself in this little cubicle looking out onto brick houses cobblestone streets were then, they were not paved until the 60s and very grey skies. I remember I was sitting I must have been about six months old because I was sitting up and my sister and a couple of young children in the street were sitting on the bottom step. We had steps that led up to the front door and then there were steps that led down to the cellar kitchen and they were all sitting on the steps crying, the noses were running. You know, and I'm looking at this scene and I said to myself and I mean I know for a fact that children think in words I guess I said to myself I didn't come here for this. I could take you if that, if that street was still there and it's not now, because it was all knocked down. The M1 motorway was built and that is the start of it. Where I lived, it was knocked down. But I could have taken you to the very spot where I remember thinking that it's like it was yesterday and I don't know why. I thought it's just. Everything seemed very bleak. I just all I can think is that being fresh from heaven. I was thinking, whoa, where are we going on here?
Deb Fryar:I was thinking that the horse in my family, my mother, was psychotic. I mean, she was. I know now she was definitely bipolar, definitely narcissistic, possibly borderline. I don't really know what you would say, what the diagnosis would be, but she was arranging a holic. She was always on the warpath and you had to watch it. You couldn't be anywhere near her if she was. So my dad was more placid you know person browbeaten, I would say and her, she ruled the roost. And I described my upbringing as like being in a concentration camp, because that's what it was. I had absolutely no choices whatsoever, none. So I felt trapped from a very young age and I just want to tell you that I know that Heavenly Father knows who we are, because he has helped me every step of the way to get out of there and to be healed, still working on it. So I'll go forward to when I was about three years old.
Deb Fryar:I was an extremely small child Now I know it's because I had serious thyroid issues and I didn't grow very big. They come with the territory when you've got mental illness. And when I was about three years old, four years old, in that same house, I had a book it was an annual, a wonderful character that I used to read in comics, mostly reading pictures when I was little, but it was called Rupert the Bear, and they put together this annual every Christmas, you know, for people to buy for the kids. And I got this annual for Christmas and I was just. I loved it, I carried it everywhere and I couldn't find it. One night when I went to bed I couldn't find it and this was just on my mind and I woke up in the morning thinking about it and the spirit said to me go to your parents' bedroom. It's at the bottom of the bed, in the, in the, in the footboard. I mean, it wasn't even words, it was just like an image. I think I don't remember words spoken, it was just I knew I had to go do this. My parents were already. Oh, the bed was made, so I climbed on the bed and I felt down at the end of the football and there was the book. So that was my kind of first intimation that somebody was was directing me, and I didn't even think about who it was or what it was. I had no clue.
Deb Fryar:And then fast forward to we moved from there, so everything was being demolished. Our family was growing, so we moved to another house and this house had a front street and a back street. The house I was living in was is what they called a well, I don't know, it wasn't a back to back, but anyway there were. The house I was born, that I lived in pre about age three, we had an outside toilet in the yard. Like you pulled the string, you sat on a, you sat on a wooden toilet seat. It was spidery and scary and cold and we had a bath in front of the fire on a Saturday night. That's what British people used to do in those days. You just had a bath on a Saturday night and that was it. So we had, we had this tin bath in front of the fire and you'd fill it with, you know, pans of boiling water and everybody would use that water. Those were the days, party time. So so we're in this new place that actually has indoor plumbing, which is nice, and my mother, being very volatile, had a fight with somebody in the street, the neighbor that she didn't like, and we lived kind of about two thirds of the way down the street and this neighbor was right at the end.
Deb Fryar:So we were, we were like closer to her, probably about 10 doors away, maybe less, and the back street both streets were cobbled and the back streets are very narrow streets and the front streets were wider. So you'd have a little backyard with steps going up to the, to the back door, and I remember, after this big fight my mother had, but you know, just shouting match in the street. I had to go to the shop for my mother. She they would send children to the shop. In those days it were five, six years old, which is about how old I was, about six, and you know the shop was like a block or so away, but in those days there wasn't a lot of traffic. You know, I think my dad was the only there were only two or three people in the whole street that had a car.
Deb Fryar:Then my dad had a van for his, his work, his business, and so I had to go to the shop and it meant walking down this back street, past this woman's house, and I was kind of terrified at what you know, that somebody might come out and talk to me or shout at me or something. As I was walking past the house. I looked up at the door and I said to myself and I can tell you, I, I, that street is still there. I could take you right to the spot where I thought this. I thought why do people come here if they don't like it? And I didn't mean to the neighborhood, I meant to earth. I didn't know why a six year old would be. I mean, I didn't question why I thought it at the time. I didn't question it now. Why would I think that? Yeah?
Alisha Coakley:And then I got and you you didn't grow up in the church at all, or anything like that. So this is like your parents didn't teach you. No no, no About any of this stuff.
Deb Fryar:I never have a prayer with my family in my life.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, so you didn't know about God, you didn't know about Jesus?
Deb Fryar:Well, I knew about the Bible, because my mother had a Bible in her drawer in her bedroom and she once brought it out and I think she she read it or just showed it to us. But it wasn't something that happened. My mother was raised in the church of England. She left the church at 16. Her parents were separated when she was 12. Her father was a absolute nightmare. I'm sure he was bipolar.
Deb Fryar:Now that I've studied my own and you know come through my own illness, which was bipolar disorder, I've traced it back and with different things that people have said to me about family members, I know it's all in the family for sure, and every one of my brothers and sisters is suffering in one way or another with depression, anxiety, different things. I don't know what level of, you know, illness they had, but my mother was definitely very had massive mood swings. So her mother somebody wrote me a letter once and told me that her mother was very depressed. Now I didn't know my grandmother. She died in 1950, but I never met I never. So I never met her and I never met my grandfather. So I don't know them. I was raised without any extended family whatsoever. So my mother had two brothers and never met them either. So you know it was a very insular family and it was like you don't. You know you don't tell anybody what's going on in this house. You know things. You know honky-dory on the outside. I mean, we were all well taken care of, we're all clean and fed, you know right. But emotionally, mentally, we were all destroyed. I mean, my brothers and sisters are suffering massively because of what you know. So I can see, you know, I can see why the church is teaching that families are the most important thing and that loving the family is the, it's the bedrock of society. So anyway, back to this, going past this house and thinking this thought, and as soon as I thought, why do people come here if they don't like it? Then I heard a voice, and the voice came in my mind said when you're 30, everything will be all right. And I couldn't wait to be 30 years old and I was only six at the time, wow. So I went through, you know, I got through my childhood.
Deb Fryar:I was the first person in my family to go to grammar school, which is a very big deal in those days when you're 11 in England you take something called the 11 plus exam, and out of 60 children there was only five of us that passed that exam and went on to grammar school. So grammar school starts at 11 and you go there till you're 18, providing you get through your O levels in the sixth, in the sixth form, no fifth form. So you know you're in forms over there, not great. So in the fifth form you take your O levels, which were then ordinary level exams, they call them. Most people took, you know, five, six, seven subjects and you have to have five O levels to get into a college. I mean I'm sorry to move on to the sixth form where you then A levels which are advanced level courses and usually most people take two or three really brainy acts maybe take five and you're two years there and then you're applying to colleges.
Deb Fryar:So so I was the first person in my whole genealogy to go to grammar school and my mother said to me she basically said you're just like a sponge. I mean I was like this kid that was so like wanting to know everything. I read everything I could get my hands on, I poured over them. I mean you didn't have to tell me where things were in Canada, scott, because I already knew them on the map before I came to America Because I studied maps, I studied encyclopedias, I mean I read everything I could, like all the classic books I could get hold of in my childhood. In fact, my dad, he was a painter and decorator, painting houses and for quite a long time, and he had customers that had, like one had a set of children's encyclopedias that were illustrated and he got those given to him and I was the one that was always in them. And then another customer had like this whole set of brand new classic literature, like 40 books or something. I was the one that was always reading them. So you know, I was just like devouring stuff and my mother called me a sponge. She said, you know, you just this walking sponge, and I wasn't very, I wasn't very brilliant it's. I mean I was. I was smart as a in elementary or primary school. I was always top of the class there. But when I got to grammar school I struggled. And I know now why I struggled, because when you're mentally ill and you hit puberty that's tough. Because I was so I was severely depressed. I remember my school photograph was I looked like the most depressed in the whole class that first week of school in this great big building that you know was scary and you know new school and I had to travel on a bus by myself. You know you didn't get a bus to pick you up, a yellow bus at the door. You get your bus pass and you walk three blocks to the bus stop and you're on your way and it takes it's like several miles away. So it was a big school, you know, only 500 girls. But my, my elementary school, my primary school, was a lot smaller than that and was much more homely and I really liked my primary school. But I did grow to love my grammar school, but it was.
Deb Fryar:It was hard for me to to be in an institute, a big institution, and I guess that's, you know, people with bipolar disorder. It's very hard for them to be outside the home, even a lot of the time you want to be sheltered, you want to, you know, protect yourself and it can be hard. It can feel very isolating and lonely. In crowds we feel very lonely and then if you're not doing well at school. And then when I was 13, I got mono nucleosis and was off school for a whole term semester where I couldn't even read a book. I wasn't allowed to, and I would sit day after day in front of the fire on my own. My parents were at work in a dark kitchen this is in the winter with no one to talk to, and just I just had to sit there with nothing to do. So I became increasingly depressed and then when I went back to school, I couldn't keep up with everything. I was just. I was devastated because I couldn't. It just wasn't, nothing was gelling.
Deb Fryar:You know, I did end up dropping a few subjects when I was 14, you kind of choose your subjects, oh, level. One of the subjects I had to choose from was religious education, because in those days everybody had religious education in schools. Everybody said prayers in the morning, we had assemblies, we had opening him, we had a message, a spiritual message from the headmistress, a little talk, maybe by a teacher. We sang hymns I mean closing hymns, we and prayers. That's where I learned. Religion was in school.
Deb Fryar:So, thankfully, I was exposed to the Bible and because of my studies I have to have a Bible. So my mother bought me a little Bible that I kept by my bed and I read that thing every night. I loved it. I loved the Old Testament just as much as I love the New Testament and I found out that I have major Jewish background, so the Isaiah speaks to me, so I love the scriptures. But when my teacher, miss Webb her name, this very thin-lipped, pasty-faced spinster called me forward to the front of the class to talk quietly with me and say, you know, was I going to continue with this subject as an O level, I said no and she said why? And she obviously thought I had some kind of, you know, pension for religion. And I looked at her and I wish I could meet her today because I wanted to repent. And I said because I don't believe a thing you're telling me. Wow, now, that's not what I meant. I believe I love the Bible.
Deb Fryar:I believed Jesus was I can't say Jesus was the Christ. I believe he was a real person and I believe he had a father called God. I totally believe there were two separate people, that they were real people. I mean, I'm a very kind of, I'm a very kind of basic person. It's like I believe things, you know. It's like I'm literal. I'm a literal believer, you know.
Deb Fryar:And if you tell me that Jesus Christ did this miracle, I believe it Right. So I have this believing it was the way it was taught this dry as dust, you know, and as a little child I had a couple of friends in the street that took me to church with them a couple of times and I loved it because, you know, in those days you dress up with your little, you know, you have little white gloves on and your little white handbag, you have little white pattern leather shoes and just trip off to church, you know, and you sit there on this pew and you listen to this vicar or whoever they have at the front, and I remember thinking to myself as like a six, seven year old Well, if this is religion, you can keep it.
Alisha Coakley:And I remember thinking.
Deb Fryar:I heard this sermon because none of it made any sense to me whatsoever. And it didn't. It didn't fire me. So I kind of, you know made it through my teens by the skin of my teeth, got my old levels, stayed on in the sixth form and came time to choose what are you going to do with your future? And my parents went to probably the only parent teacher meeting they ever went to to decide this and I decided I didn't know what else to do that I was going to be a secretary. Now I don't know why I thought that, because I absolutely hate typing. I've never liked that.
Deb Fryar:I'm a good assistant. I like helping people. I don't like being number one, I like being number two. I like being the supportive role. I'm not a leader. I don't consider myself a leader. If I was called to any leadership role in the church I'd probably pass out, but I've always been a teacher. I love teaching. So I, my parents, had this conversation with this teacher and she was a French teacher at the school and she wasn't my French teacher, but she had substituted once. When I was to give a talk, we were assigned any subject we wanted from France. I loved the French language. I was the French speaking champion of Yorkshire when I was 14.
Alisha Coakley:Wow.
Deb Fryar:I got a prize and everything. So I am an auditory learner, I hear, so it made me a good reader at a young age because I could hear the sounds and when I hear language like I'm a good copycat. You know I can and I love the French language. So this teacher she had been substituting for my teacher that was off sick when I gave this presentation about Renoir the artist, I was a serious artist from the age of 10. And that's what I ended up doing in college was fine arts. So I always was drawing from life all the time. And she said to my parents she should not be a secretary, she'd be a complete waste as a secretary. She's a born teacher.
Deb Fryar:And it was from that presentation on Renoir. It's like a 15 minute present. I don't even remember it, but I remember standing there scared to death. But I guess I did well. And the funny thing is when I was in elementary school, in primary school I didn't know why at the time, but they picked me, this little introverted, shy girl that never spoke to anyone. They picked me for the lead every year in the school play and now that I'm a grownup I know why it's because I was a good reader. I could learn the little things, but I was petrified on the stage. I was like this massive note, you know. So anyway, yeah.
Deb Fryar:So I stayed on in school, got my A-levels and I wanted, I knew, I knew. When I went to Roundie High School at 11, I knew that's where I wanted to go. And, sure enough, that's where I got in. Because you have choices, you have several school choices. That was my first choice. I loved Roundie High. It had a good reputation. I was also an avid. I became an avid tennis player and they had tennis courts all around the school. So I lived on the tennis courts whenever I could, you know, in play times and so. And so got to having to choose where to go to college, and so you called up to outside the library. There's these tables covered in books about different colleges. You know prospectuses, and there's the one right there and it was Bath, england. Now, if you've ever seen Persuasion, the movie, yeah, Jane Austen.
Scott Brandley:That's what I was thinking when you said Jane Austen.
Deb Fryar:I worked in an office in Bath, several doors from her house Wow, I was an architect's secretary at one point, anyway. So I told my parents I wanted to go to Bath. Well, that was 300 miles away. Yorkshire, leeds is in the northeast it's the frozen north, and Bath is in the barmy southwest. No snow, plenty of rain in the fall, green is absolutely beautiful, lots of hills, and the architecture is there's nothing like it. It's beautiful, honey colored limestone. If you've ever seen pictures of Bath, the big semicircular streets and there's one called the Circus which is completely circular, which I love. That is in Persuasion, I believe. That circular street it's got a big tree in the middle. The office I worked in was just down from there and Jane Austen's house is just further down the street. So I love Bath.
Deb Fryar:But my parent, my mother, did not want me to go and she wanted me to stay home, go to college from home in Leeds. So I was kind of. You know, you don't cross your mother, not when you've got a raging, psychotic mother. You don't speak back to that. You do what she says. So I did my best to accept that. But then the spirit worked on me and said to me no, you must go. And I just I stood up to my mother and said I'm going, I'm going to Bath, and that was the end of life as I knew it, because I went through another 10 years of absolute hell, of severe depression. You know I'm from, you've got nine, eight siblings. You know, second to oldest, I'm now used to being the mother hen to all these little kids.
Deb Fryar:I was raised. I mean children. Today they do not have an idea what it's like. I mean. I was raised. I used to clean my mother's house on a Saturday morning from top to bottom this is five bedrooms, three floors from top to bottom every Saturday from the age of 14 to 18. I used to have a latch key from the age of nine. I let my brothers and sisters in. I cleaned the house before my mother got home from work. I lit the fire, I vacuumed, I made tea for my brothers and sisters. In those days we had sandwiches for tea because we would have a cooked dinner at school every day, but my parents only had sandwiches at work, so I had to cook dinner for them at night. So I did all that and that was from like 3.30, 4 o'clock in the afternoon till 6 at night when my mother got home, by which time my brothers and sisters were all in their pajamas ready for bed. And that was my life. I was this, you know housekeeper. And then I had to study every night from 7 till 9, doing my homework in the dining room all by myself, very isolated, and I might get a little bit of TV in before I went to bed.
Deb Fryar:So I went to college and it was. You know, it was scary because I didn't have this big group of people around me, even though it wasn't a happy group. It was scary but I loved Bath, which really compensated for it. I ended up having many more traumatic experiences that I won't go into detail in and didn't know, had no idea that I was suffering from major depression. So I made it through college. It was actually a teacher training college where I was an art major. So you're doing an art major but you're being a teacher, you're learning to be a teacher along the way, going on teaching practices and things like that, and I did elementary school teaching. So I love teaching, love children.
Deb Fryar:The problem is I couldn't take the stress, I didn't know why. So I never became a schoolteacher. So a lot later that came later, but it was very, very. It was just too hard having all those bodies coming at you all the time and parents and other teachers and all the tape and everything was just. It was too overwhelming for me and I didn't know why. I didn't know and I had this.
Deb Fryar:I just kept having these feelings that I couldn't do things like I couldn't plan anything, I couldn't. I couldn't look ahead, I couldn't look to the future. I was barely like hanging on by my fingernails every day trying to spy. And I was in Bath one day walking down the street and I had this feeling like I was walking in a bubble all by myself. I just felt so lonely and I felt like that my whole life. I felt lonely in my family. I felt completely isolated, even though I was surrounded by people. I felt lonely at school. I felt lonely at college and I had a.
Deb Fryar:The worst experience of my life was when I was 24. And that was the biggest shocking experience of my life, when I had a child born dead and I'd been married. I married at 20. I, you know, so lonely. I probably just accepted him because I was. I needed somebody and a little girl. I was just shocking and I became even more depressed. But this is where the life begins, because out of that ashes I had even more direct help from God and I moved out of that apartment. I had this apartment already for the baby.
Deb Fryar:I was divorced, I was separated, planning to have the baby, and I had it all fixed up nicely and everything and I just I actually went to my parents about six, seven weeks after. I stayed with my parents and it was. It was like being in the nightmare again. I couldn't handle it. And my doctor, our doctor, family doctor I was. I became so depressed I couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, I just felt this stress like I'd never had before and he threatened to put me in a psych unit if I didn't take antidepressants.
Deb Fryar:So I took this antidepressant that may turn me into a complete zombie, without any feelings, and I got to a point where I just couldn't take anymore and a friend of mine called me from Bath and asked me how I was doing. I said not very good and he sent me some information about eating natural foods Because he was in. I didn't know that he was into all this, you know, I didn't know the extent of it anyway, it was called macrobiotics back then and he sent me information and this information just spoke loudly to me and I threw those pills down the toilet. I should have done that and my mother went berserk and I booked my passage back on a bus back to Bath and got back to Bath, was completely depressed and some friends of mine lived just up the street from me. We're leaving their apartment and I applied to take it over from them. One of those great big Georgian. If you've seen what's the movie Jane Austen? No, the one we just talked about.
Alisha Coakley:Oh, Persuasion, persuasion.
Deb Fryar:I think it's Persuasion. Yeah, and they're in the big, like the big drawing room type of room. That's exactly what the rooms are like. They're very big, tall ceiling, everything. So I got this apartment and it was very. I mean, I had no furniture, hardly, but I'm sitting in this in this apartment and I'm 25 by then now, I think 24.
Deb Fryar:It's a few months after this happened and I was painting. I was painting a tapestry canvas. I had a friend lived in the old apartment block house. She was from America actually and her husband was English, and she would design needlepoint, tapestry needlepoint you know, I don't know what you call them tapestries that you sew. So she would do the designs on them and she'd do a whole bunch of them and she needed someone to paint the colors. It was like painting by numbers. Oh, ok, so I'm sitting painting. One day she was paying me to do this because I couldn't work. I was too depressed to work and she was.
Deb Fryar:I was painting this little canvas in my living room and it's a bright, sunny morning and as I'm sitting there and of course you know I'm a trained oil painter, you know painting by numbers coming down in the world and I suddenly said to myself what am I doing with my life? And that's when my life changed, because God spoke to me and said someday you are going to travel across America cooking for people. What? Where did that come from? And one thing led to another. I ended up moving out of Bath, moving to London, which I hated, but I figured if I was going to work because Bath is a very seasonal place, there's not a lot of work in a year round, it's a tourist trap. So I moved to London and I got a job typing, which I absolutely appalled, but I didn't know what else to do and I was working in this typing pool. That I was. I mean, I was suicidal. That to me is like you want to make me suicidal. Just put me in a typing pool with women, women bitching at each other all the time. You know, every time somebody left the room they were talking about them. You know, it was scary, I just couldn't handle it. But anyway I did.
Deb Fryar:I did different, you know, temping jobs. And then one day I used to go out on a Saturday and I would go to different like little markets, street markets, you know. And there was a market at Camden, camden Lock, in Camden Town that I wanted to go to. So I went, got out of the tube station and, as I'm walking, I'm walking down the street towards the market. I'm walking down the street to the market. On my right here is a restaurant called Sunwheel. It was a macrobiotic restaurant, which I'd heard of it, but I didn't. I'd never been there. I looked in the window and there's a little card saying help wanted, weekend help wanted. So I went in, got the job on the spot. I was working seven days a week now I started washing dishes and within five months I worked my way up to being the night cook.
Deb Fryar:Because people leave, you know, restaurants, yeah. So I was there, I don't know, maybe a year or something, and the people that ran this restaurant, who were the managers, were Americans from Boston and they were having a baby and they wanted to have the baby in America. So they gave up their job and they said to me have you ever come to America? Come and stay with us. So fast forward.
Deb Fryar:A friend of mine who was a baker he baked at the East West Center. He ran the bakery there. His name's Tony was leaving the East West Center. The East West Center was the head of the macrobiotic community. It's the headquarters. You know, there's one in Boston, there was one in London. So he said I'm leaving, why don't you apply for my job? So I went, I had an interview with Bill Tara, who was American. He was over there just running it for a while and I got the job on the spot.
Deb Fryar:And the challenge to me was I want you to change this food in this, because there was a little cafeteria, there was a shop next door owned by the man who owned that Sunwheel restaurant, and there was a little school in the basement, a little preschool, and there was a bakery upstairs. This is a big old school. It used to be an elementary school and they rented it and converted it to a small store, rented it and converted it, and so there was a kitchen and there was a bakery and I became the manager of this whole shebang. I mean the bakery, the kitchen, I oversaw the meals in the basement for the children and in the snack bar and did all the buying and you know, for hiring and firing. I was what? 26, then 27 tops, and the first thing I did was fired everybody because nobody was working, everybody was just like. These are a bunch of like very liberal hippies that are just like taking their sweet time, taking all morning just to prepare one salad.
Deb Fryar:So I basically, over a few weeks, got rid of everybody, brought in new people that I knew, and the place was transformed. I mean it was filthy. I mean I had to. I'm a detailer, I was a professional organizer, so I'm a detailer and, of course, coming from a big family where you had to be organized, I was the cleaner of the family so I knew how to clean. So I just whipped the place into shape, got rid of everybody and made it a viable business. And they were impressed and I have no business experience whatsoever.
Deb Fryar:So, anyway, you know, get to a point when you're doing these jobs and cooking that you've had, you kind of reach the ceiling where you can't be any more creative than you're being, you know. And so I decided to start my own business and all I had I didn't drive. I didn't learn to drive till I came to America. I had a bicycle and it had no gears and I rode that bike to work every day, six miles and six miles back in the traffic. It was insane. I don't know why I was doing that. It's not nothing healthy about sucking in those car fumes.
Deb Fryar:So I decided to do this and what had happened in the meantime was that I was living at the house of the people that own Sunwheel Restaurant and that shop next door. Peter was English and Kim, his wife, was American, from LA. So they asked me if I would move in with them. I could have the spare room, if I would clean the house once a week. That would be my rent. So I had a free place to live and they were so accommodating.
Deb Fryar:Now, he was great Peter. He was an architect by trade before he started, got into the whole food business. He was a great businessman and great cook. Him and his wife were great cooks and they were so accommodating that let me do my business in their basement kitchen. And it was. He had completely remodeled this house, it was beautifully done and they let me use this kitchen, you know, and there's jars everywhere and they didn't mind at all. And I'd be driving around London with my basket full of jars to different whole food shops. It was insane.
Deb Fryar:But I got experience and at the same time I was doing catering. I started my own catering business, catering for weddings and parties, and everything was from scratch. So I would hire a bunch of friends if I couldn't do it on myself and we would, you know, do an event. So I got known a little bit by the macrobiotic community in London and these people from the West Country, right near Bath in Bristol, were visiting and met me and said would you like to cater our wedding? So I took a team of people down there, three or four people with me, and we took three or four days to cook it all and put on this huge spread for this couple. And they had a natural food store and next door to it was a delicatessen and they asked me if I'd like to run it. So I said yes, because I just wanted to get back to the West Country.
Deb Fryar:But what had happened was that I had met somebody in London. I knew him as a friend. He was in the Maccabre. He was actually the first tofu maker in England. He's now got a fantastic business. He's very well known throughout the land.
Deb Fryar:But he was just kind of, you know, young then with this business and he had separated from his girlfriend, they were living together, they had a child, she had left him and we ended up falling in love, anyway. So we got engaged and within a few weeks the engagement was over because she threatened him and she said if you marry her, you'll never see your son again. So I was devastated and I had I'd gone to Bristol and I had come back to marry him and it all fell through and I had nowhere to go. So I took out a map of England, I put it on the floor and I looked at that map and I felt like I didn't belong anywhere there and I was back. I went back to Peter, peter and Kim's house.
Deb Fryar:They let me come back and Peter said I have a friend and I knew this friend because he all these macrobiotics around the world. They come to England, london, all the time. And this friend of his was in British Columbia and he said they're looking for somebody to manage their business in British Columbia. Why don't you write to them and I'll give you a reference? So I did and they wrote back and they offered me the job. In fact, they called me and offered me the job and I, basically, within a few weeks of that engagement breaking up, I was on a one-way ticket on a plane to Boston Because my friends in Boston. I contacted them. They said come and stay with us Now. This was in August and that job wasn't starting until May, because the mountains are all snowed in you know in British.
Deb Fryar:Columbia, and this was an outdoor. This experience was like teaching people how to live outdoors and forage food and eat wild food and take care of themselves in the wild. And I would be on the team that you know. I'm heading up the team that provides them their daily meals, you know, while they're foraging weeds, basically. But I had this. I am Mrs Little House on the prairie. All I wanted was to build my own house, grow my own food, make my own pottery and be self-sufficient, self-reliant. So I had been writing to a couple of men from England to America. One was in Boston but had land. I wanted to meet somebody that had land in America, you know. One was in, you know, in California, northern California. So I was writing back and forth with them and got to meet the guy in Boston.
Deb Fryar:Anyway, so August the 6th 1981, I was on a plane, on a one-way ticket. I sold everything I owned and I had $1,800 in my pocket and off I went. I'd never been on a plane in my life. I'd never been on a plane. I'd never been well, I'd been to France once for the weekend, but that was it and got a taxi from the airport to my friend's house, jordan and Sue, and the first thing Jordan said was I'm going to start a catering business. Do you want to help me? Because his wife had a baby to take care of and she couldn't work with him anymore. So that was my thing. I was working with him making food at home and taking it to people, so he was a great cook. They were both great cooks, so they taught me so much, just like Kim and Peter had taught me so much, so that was my first job.
Deb Fryar:Anyway, when you're in the macrobiotic community, you get to meet all these people, and this one guy I met said he was going to Connecticut for the weekend. Did I want to go? Just as a friend? There's no romantic attachment or anything and I said yes. So he was driving down there. So we puddle to Connecticut and landed in Middletown, connecticut, beautiful little town, and he dropped me off at these girls where I'd be staying for the weekend, and they made futons cotton futons for a living and they taught me how to do that. And then they took us out to dinner that night to these guys who owned a restaurant, a macrobiotic restaurant, and right next door was this brand new. I mean, you talk stainless steel to a cook. You know All stainless steel deli, unused, ready to go, and they wanted it to be. They were planning it as a tofu delicatessen, so they'd make tofu on site and everything that was sold would be made from that tofu. Well, after hearing my story that night of what I'd been doing in London, they offered me the job.
Scott Brandley:So many opportunities.
Alisha Coakley:I was going to say, like just one after another after another.
Deb Fryar:I was taken aback, frankly. But as soon as they said, as soon as they asked me, I just knew I shouldn't do it. I just felt no inside me and, to kind of buy time, I just said can I take a few days to think it over and get back to you, Because I didn't know why I was saying no, you know Right. And got back to Boston, talked to Sue and Jordan about it and I said why don't you do it, why don't you guys do it? And that's what they did. They ended up moving there and it's the perfect place to have a family. It's a really pretty little town. I just and the only thing I can say is the only way I've ever been able to describe this is I felt like I had this rope tied around my middle and somebody was pulling me west. It wasn't go west, young woman, it was. Somebody was pulling me. It was that feeling that I wasn't in the right place. So I, this guy, had been writing to I, you know, would become friends and he was going out to his land, which was in Missouri. He had a part of a 40 acre parcel with some other people that were all trying to live self sufficiently and he took me out there, bags packed. I left Boston. We'd already made arrangements with the family there to host me and the deal was that if I cooked for their family I could stay with them. So there's my second job, cooking for people in America. And it didn't cost me a penny to get there in gas, Nice, and in fact all the way across America. I didn't pay a penny's worth of gas, Wow, or fares. It was all paid. So here I am in Missouri and I found Missouri a very interesting place. I, I, I have this feeling about places and people and things. I, it's like I feel the spirit of a place you know, and I felt that Missouri had a very negative spirit. I felt this kind of almost like a barrenness there for some reason. I didn't know, but this farm was in a nice spot. It's kind of central, central, more southern, I think, Missouri.
Deb Fryar:This couple were a. They were a religious couple but they didn't go to church and they were using reading some alternative to the Bible. I don't remember what it was, but he he wasn't a very happy man. He seemed quite kind of depressed. His wife, they were very artistic people and they were running a business making these beautiful little dough ornaments. That were little people, you know, just beautiful details and they'd paint them. So my job was to take care of the children and, you know, help them. You know, while they were working in this business and while I was there, his wife was, she was, she wanted to make porcelain dolls. So she started making doll heads and firing them when I was living there and I was just there for a few weeks. She is now the one of the foremost doll makers in America, Wow, yeah.
Deb Fryar:And after I joined the church I wrote to them and told them and she said well, funny, you should say that I'm from Ogden, Utah, and I was a member of the church. I was raised in the church, so they were threat. She was happy for me. But so these are people that had lost their way. You know she'd lost her faith and Children didn't have any any upbringing in the church, but nice people. So I stayed with them for a few weeks and they had a little one room schoolhouse on that property painted red, and their school teacher had left and they didn't have a teacher. So they asked me if I would run it and I said okay. So I cleaned out the school after.
Deb Fryar:You know, it was after the summer, so it's like September, wait, September, yeah, about September time, and there were about 11 children on that property and the parents are, all you know, pretty hippie tight. Mostly, this couple I stayed with were the most stable. So we're living like a double wide trailer, you know, with a porch. And while I was there we actually helped do their house raising. I helped with the house in the frame, raise the frame One Saturday I think it was. So they were building their own house and I, you know, I really loved this, this little job with these children, and every week we took them to Columbia, Missouri, to the library, and one day, when we took them to get books, I I smoked then, by the way, and, yes, I was a little addict back then and, yeah, my parents were smokers, so you know, a lot of us, the second hand, smoke as well.
Deb Fryar:So I'm I'm like gagging for a cigarette. So I went outside and this library it's like this brick building with two wings out this way, and then there's like doors here and then you get these two wings with no windows, just just brick, you know, and there's two paths along each side and I went out and I stood on one side and I looked over and there's this man, old man, white hair, Dressed completely in white, from head to foot, like white tie, white shirt, white trousers, white shoes, which you know. I've seen people like that in England in the summer. They do cricket, they play cricket like that. So it wasn't like some, you know some. It wasn't unusual for me to see somebody dressed all in white. And he looked I mean, we're talking that's probably about 30 feet away from me at least and he looked straight into my soul and he said you mustn't do that anymore, Smoke. And I went who do you think you are? I didn't say anything, I put the cigarette out and went back in.
Deb Fryar:But that was very interesting. I thought I, you know, and all the way across America, Americans don't like you smoking in their houses, so in England they don't care because they all smoke. They smoke in a pub. So all the way across America I was having to cut down on cigarettes. So anyway, back to the school. Little did I know that the parents all got together one evening or one day, whenever I wasn't there and had a meeting, and they came to me and said we would like to stay here permanently, and if you do and run this school, we will build you a house for free and you will have your own garden. Well, you know, Mrs Little House on the. This is my dream come true. But a little voice inside of me said, uh-uh, no, oh man, they were horrified when I said no, I said I don't know why I just can't.
Deb Fryar:My last night there was November the fifth. I remember it because that's bonfire night in England. Guy Fawkes and I used to play guitar then, so I was playing and singing in front of the. I taught them how to do bonfire night. We did candy apples is what we do in England toffee apples and baked potatoes. And so in the sing song, you know, around the fire. And that was my last night.
Deb Fryar:And the next day I got on a bus with two of those children whose dad lived in Colorado. I headed, I was. I wanted to follow the weather. I wanted to. I was like every time it got cold I started moving on to somewhere else. And while I was on this trip across the country, I was sending clothes to some people in LA that I had met in London. That were friends of Peter and Kim, who had said to me anytime you come to America, come visitors. And I was sending bundles of clothes package it, you know, boxes of clothes to them. You know, because I was buying nice American used clothing. You know that was, you know, summery. So I took these as a favor to this family.
Deb Fryar:The mother and father were separated to save the mother, taking these two children all the way for the holidays. They were spending the holidays with their dad I guess you know Thanksgiving and stuff, I don't know. They were flexible because of their schooling. The father paid for my fare, the bus fare, for me to take them 30 hours on a bus with two children it's like four and six, oh man. And as we're driving through Missouri, it's nighttime by then. I see this sign independence. I'm like that's a weird name for a place, independence. Yeah, I was crossing the planes. This was my crossing the planes moment, right.
Deb Fryar:And then we headed up to the Rockies and I tell you I've never seen anything like it in my life. I was just, I was amazed. And I'll tell you why I was so amazed. Because when I was a child, my favorite book was Heidi that lived in the mountains with her grandfather and all I wanted was to live in the mountains. And here I was with these gigantic Rockies. I mean we actually drove through and they just come. You know they're just like there. It's incredible. I mean, from somebody that's used to living on a flat land, you know it's like wow. I mean we have rolling hills and everything. But you know, I think I've been at Mount Snowden in Wales, but that's about it. Anyway, it was incredible. So it had been arranged.
Deb Fryar:These people that I was staying with knew this guy in Colorado, right near Aspen actually, a place called Snowmass, that built log homes for a living. He had his own business. He was a bachelor, lived on his own up in the mountains in his little log house and said I could go be his housekeeper for a while. So I, of course I wouldn't do that if I was a member of the church, you know, live alone with the man in the house. But so I cooked for him and he had a little wood stove as well as regular stoves. I would cook on this wood stove. I was in my element because it's like, just give me, give me the natural life, and I'm so happy. So I cooked for him. And then the time came to leave there because it snowed, oh. We went to Thanksgiving dinner with friends of John Denver Nice, not so nice, oh, really Not so nice.
Deb Fryar:I mean I was I may have been a latter day hippie in those days, you know kind of working in this little kind of environment of macrobiotic cooking, but in my heart I was truly conservative and very, very. I mean I wear long sleeves all the time now, summer and winter, pretty much. I was a very modest person. I, you know, I didn't show my body off to people. But when I got to this house, the woman of the house was standing in her underwear cooking food at the counter. I was so shocked I didn't even know it. I was just I'm like oh, and I could feel myself like just disappearing. I didn't even want to be there.
Deb Fryar:Anyways, it was a very weird day and they all, they had a. They had a what's it? A sauna. They're all into spawners, you know. And then jumping in the river after. And I declined. I didn't do that because who knows what they were going to be showing. Yeah, no, thank you, I'll just stay in the house. Very bizarre. So I ended up leaving there. It snowed really, really deep One night.
Deb Fryar:One morning we woke up and it was like up to here in snow and I decided it's time to go. So I flew this is my first flight from Denver Airport to LA Now and this guy that I've been staying with paid my fare for the housekeeping work I've done for him. So and I was on. When I was on the plane, I ended up being next to a famous person I can't remember who it was now, but it was some guy that had been on American television was in the plane. I can't remember his name now.
Deb Fryar:So I was told that from Denver to Salt Lake was a wonderful train ride, scenic train ride, and that's what I really wanted to do. But then I remembered I'd been sending all these clothes to these people in LA, so I didn't have any choice. So I went down to LA, flew there and they picked me up at the airport. They lived in the right next to the first house I was built in San Fernando Valley and these people were. They were microbiotic, and so I cooked for them. So I cooked for them right through Christmas, january and the first week of February, and they were training to be trainers in an organization called the Est Training.
Deb Fryar:I don't know if you've heard of that Orcheart Seminar Training. What I found out later on was that the church warned members against it. So these people were highly involved in this and they had two young men staying in their house as boarders. I don't know what they were, but anyway. So I cooked for them and there came a point where I had an emotional breakdown because of this, leaving this man behind in London. You know this engagement breaking up, and so Art his name was. He said so, when are you going to do the training?
Scott Brandley:And I went oh, I'm going to do it right now.
Deb Fryar:So they signed me up to do this training and this is a training you definitely don't want your children to do. It's two weekends and I guess a midweek day, and you go in and you're told all this truth you can't have a watch, you don't know what time it is, you know you're there for hours and hours and you're deprived of everything from food to water. You know, and you have this experience and you end up getting it and you become enlightened. You know, and yeah, I was all in after the first weekend. In fact, I was told that I was a star of this program. So, like, oh dear, after I joined the church I realized what a big mistake it would be, but so I got involved in that while I was there and then February the 5th came, which I remember the date because it's my dad's birthday.
Deb Fryar:I flew from their place in LA up to San Francisco, which is where the other boy was that I was writing to, so he said I could come stay with him while I waited for the mountains to open. You know, in May, and this was the only time I paid airfare. It was $39 to fly from LA to. That was the only time I paid airfare in the whole of my trip. So there I was. I'd crossed America cooking for people.
Deb Fryar:I ended up going up and doing some cooking. But the thing is he was supposed to meet me at the airport and we missed each other. So I ended up having to get a bus and he was living in Mill Valley in the north of San Francisco. So I got to his house and as soon as I met him I did not like the look of him and he didn't like me either. So this was going to be tricky. And I found out why I didn't like him because he was completely immoral and I was sleeping on his couch and he was having girls in and out all the time and it was just awful so and I didn't even know all that.
Deb Fryar:But the day after I arrived I took the bus back to San Francisco, knowing that the Est headquarters is right there in a very plush office building, and I was told that they had a big bulletin board. You could put a free ad up on a file card. So I took a little pen and a card and I wrote that I needed some work and a place to stay. Now I didn't have a work permit, so I was illegal. I was just on a visitor's visa, but I just needed something to do and I just said I would do house cleaning. So I put the card in that building and I didn't get any response for a couple of weeks and then I got a phone call and the voice at the other end said to me oh my gosh, deb Turner, what are you doing here? Yeah, this was a girl called Jill, from New Zealand that had run the preschool in London in that basement that I provided for. Ok.
Deb Fryar:And she had stayed with me for a week before she flew to San Francisco. I saw her off at the airport. I never thought I'd see her again. She was traveling the world, she was 23 years old and she said what in the world are you doing here? And I said well, my engagement with him. This guy broke up. And, in fact, what I told my friends when I left London. These were my words I am going to change my life if it's the last thing I do. Those are my parting words to my friends. And that's what happened. Little did I know. So I said what are you doing here? And she said well, she was down the road in a place called Corten, madeira, which is just a few miles away from Mill Valley.
Deb Fryar:I am staying with this family and I'm helping them in their business. I live with them and they're Mormons and I've joined their church and I'm like no, no, back what You've done. What? Now? This girl was into Est in London and tried to get me involved in London. I said no way, I'm not a joiner, I don't join stuff like that. She had met these people in the church and they were ex Estes. They had been in the Est program. They had been big helpers in that program and she had gone into that building with some dry cleaning for one of the trainers and saw my card on the board.
Scott Brandley:What are the odds of that? I know.
Deb Fryar:This is why I mean led by the spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do. So I didn't see her. It was about six weeks till I saw her and then she called me and asked me to go to lunch with this woman that she lived with. And they took me to lunch in Mill Valley and I found out I have a lot in common with that woman. I was actually 28. So the woman was like 31, something like that, and Jill 22. So I think we had a little bit more in common with her and we just got along.
Deb Fryar:So I went back to what I was doing little house cleaning here and there and one day I just couldn't handle anymore of being in this place. I packed my bag and I put it outside and I called Jill's house, meaning to speak to Jill, to ask her if I could just come stay for a week and till I found something else. And the mother answered and she said I explained what was going on and she said we'll be right over. They came over and their husband in their van I'm sitting in the back, driving to their place she turns to me and she says well, I have to tell you something. We don't drink, we don't smoke and we go to church on Sundays and if you want to live in our house, you've got to do the same. And I'm going what Back in it Just like whoa, what are we getting into here? And that was the beginning. Oh, you never guess what. He was her husband, the ward mission leader. So they saw me.
Deb Fryar:And they taught me how to pray in the mornings. I didn't know you could pray in the morning. I only prayed at night. I did pray, by the way, in my own life, at night. I didn't know who God was really and I didn't feel a close connection to him. But I want to just backtrack to when I was 14 for a minute, because I had a bad day, a bad experience with my mother, and I ran up to my bedroom crying and I knelt on the floor by my bed and I said God, please help me. There has to be more than this. Please just lead me to the truth. That's what I said at 14. Here I was, at 28. And they taught me how to pray in the mornings. So I was sleeping on the big couch. She had this big, big sectional living room. There were very minimalist people, so it's kind of the main thing in the room and I would push the cushions on the floor and sleep there at night, very comfortable, and I would get up before they got up in the morning to pray. And they started teaching me to pray over meals and the correct way to pray and these and those and things like that.
Deb Fryar:And then one day the mother loaned me a book and it was the book by Stephen R Covey, spiritual Roots of Human Relations, and that book just spoke to me. I loved that book. So because I was going to church with them. But I thought the people at church were weird, frankly, because I was the weird one. They were probably thinking the same thing about me, but I was kind of drinking in. I was hearing them talking to each other in a way I'd never heard people talk to each other with respect. I'd hear her talking on the phone with respect and caring and love and friendship and all that. This was all very new to me. So I was listening and I was watching and I was praying. And then she loaned me another book and it was the biography of the prophet Joseph Smith.
Deb Fryar:And as I was reading that book, I got the strongest impression. It wasn't any words, but what the spirit was trying to tell me was if you don't do something about this, you're going to regret it forever. That got my attention and I just, I just that that I just went. Wait a minute, I'm 28 years old and I've never heard of this. What I, I, I, I am Mrs Knowall, I've read everything you know. I mean, how could this be that I didn't know about this? And as I am learning all this from these people, I'm getting the impression and of course I saw the first vision movie, you know they showed me that, yeah, and I just got the impression that I'd heard all this before.
Deb Fryar:I knew I knew this somehow and the there was a couple of young people working for them in their business. They had a, they had a house cleaning business, cleaning for millionaires that were in very big posh houses, very, very detailed work, and I worked with them, not getting paid, but just, you know, for my keep. And I cooked for all these people as well, by the way, I was cooking there for them. And One day, heidi, who worked in the company we, we were traveling in her car to a job, she had a little beetle car and she, she just said I'm, I'm, I'm going to be baptized. She'd been listening, you can. You know she, her, she hadn't shown any interest before before I came to the house.
Deb Fryar:I got interested. And then this other guy, paul, who also worked for all three of us, got interested In one of these morning prayers and I I was just about to get on the floor to pray this one morning. I was just about to ask again because I kept asking is, is Joe, was Joseph Smith the prophet, is this all true? And before I could even get the words out of my mouth, I felt a hand on my right shoulder and there was nobody in the room and the voice said to me Deb, it's your turn now. And that was when I decided I was, you know, going to be baptized. So I told them that night that I'd had this experience. So that was it, you know. The missionaries came in and I was the first one in the room, and I was the first one in the font, and that was May 22nd 1982.
Deb Fryar:And my visa ran out in June, end of June because I had had it renewed at Christmas, a new year you can renew it once and you know so. I'd been there since August in America, and this was the end of June, and they had a friend who was a lawyer that tried to get me help to stay, but he just couldn't swing it for me to stay there and I, the people that baptised me, flew me back to England. They paid for me to go back. So another fair paid and I'd nowhere to go. So I went to my parents up in Yorkshire and I hadn't lived there for 10 years and I wasn't welcome. Now I'd written to my parents and told them I was baptized and I was shocked at my mother's response. She said finally, you've found what you've been looking for your whole life. Really, I was shocked. I was so shocked, wow. But it was a different story when I got back to them, because nobody wanted, nobody wanted me there. They didn't want anything to do with me. They all my dad said was oh, they just want you for your money.
Deb Fryar:And I had one conversation. I was at my sister Elizabeth's house. She's the older sister. I was my very youngest sister, who was only 12 when I joined the church. I was 16 years older than her. I was talking to her one day and she I mentioned the temple and she said oh, what's the temple about? For? And I told her about. It's to where people go to get sealed together to their families. And my sister Elizabeth suddenly was listening to this conversation, like in the background somewhere, flew into the room and went absolutely berserk, swore at me and told me to get out of her house and never come back, and that was the end of that.
Deb Fryar:And I in the in the seven months I lived in, I stayed in Leeds, I lived in seven different places and I just I, I just couldn't, I couldn't get established there. I was, I started cleaning houses but I just couldn't get a foothold. And I went to the ward, you know, and people were really nice and fellowship me and they took me to church and really nice, made some good friends there initially. But one day I was praying about my situation and the Lord told me to go back to London. So I went back to London and I actually joined the Institute and it didn't take long.
Deb Fryar:Within a year I was the Institute Secretary and um, yeah, that was that was my boss, saving me from a life of because I went back to to typing. I was in a typing pool in London. I was suicidal again. I'm like I can't do this. And he and I applied for this job and, um, there were, there were 10 other candidates and he said to me I don't know why the Lord wants you in this job, but you're the least qualified for it. But here we go.
Deb Fryar:So um so I was in there, and I was in the North London ward, initially because it where where I lived. And, um one year to the day of my baptism, I went knocking on the bishop's door. I want to go to the temple. And he said no, immediately, no, just no. And then I said why? Because I don't know. I feel like it's not time yet. I was so crushed, so fast forward.
Deb Fryar:I, um, I was living with this um woman. She she was a macrobiotic loved what I did at the. She knew me from the East West center before I went to America and she invited me to live in her house for free If I cleaned her house. I did that and, um, while I was at her house, I was in the West center, and I was in the West center. I was in the West center. Um, while I was at her house, um, I had, um a conversation with my bishop on the phone and, uh, as as as we were wrapping up the conversation, he said I think it's time now for you to get ready to go to the temple. This was like the following year. This was January the following year. Well, remember that revelation I received when I was six years old, that says when you're 30, everything will be all right. Mm, hmm, I was 30 years old when I was endowed in the temple and I can tell you that was the best thing I could have ever done, cause I love the temple. It just all made sense to me and I ended up working in the Institute and I met elder Eyring the last night, the last night I worked there.
Deb Fryar:He was the head of church education Then. He was like 55 years old he was a slightly young thing then and, um, he came into my office. I had prepared food for him and, um, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was there to serve him. And the guy, dave Cook, who was the head of the, who was like the area director of England, and they'd come from Solihull, the great, spacious building they call it up there Um, you know the church office building and he, they came down and they were late and it was already frantic. The elder, elder Eyring, was speaking to the class and, uh, the class was packed and he started speaking and this girl started crying and, um, she just, uh, she was crying. She had some reason. He'd hit a nerve, so I had to pull her out of there and and comfort her. And she was sitting in my boss's office which had the the connecting door um to the classroom and uh, we're listening through the door, you know. And well, this was my last night.
Deb Fryar:I was, I was leaving the job at that point and, uh, I'd been asked to say the closing prayer and I came into the room at and I just that prayer. The spirit was so strong in that room, that prayer just like flew out of my mouth, I didn't even need to think. I remember it just so vividly. And so, when everybody had gone home and I'm like wrapping up the office, putting things away, and the guys are all sitting in my boss's office with their feet on the desk and their ties loose and talking, and then Elder Irene came in and shut my door it was a glass door. He walked in, shut the door behind him and put his hand out to me to shake it and he said Sister Turner, you are wonderful. And I went and so are you. I couldn't think of what else to say, but I was so touched that he and I guess my boss had been singing my praises, maybe telling him about my background and what I'd come from.
Deb Fryar:All of that maybe my history. So I can tell you that 41 years later, I am more devoted to this church than ever. I know it's all true. I've prayed about every single aspect, from its history to its doctrine, you name it. I've prayed about it.
Deb Fryar:I've studied that Book of Mormon over and over and over and of all the books I have read in my life, it's the only one that I've ever read more than once and I've read in dozens of times and I never get tired of it and I can tell you that it is truly the anchor to the person's soul and to the activity in this church. So when you stay with that book, that is what solidifies everything. I love the Bible, but I'll tell you, when I read the Book of Mormon and I found it hard to read because of the names and places and it was all different language type of thing but as time went by, I saw the relationship between the early church and the latter day church and how it all just fit together like this massive big soul puzzle. And I absolutely know that it is true. And I've been rejected by my entire family. I've lost my home, I've lost my country, I lost everything to come to America. The Lord told me to come to BYU and he opened the way for me to come.
Deb Fryar:I was married within a few months of coming to BYU. There was nobody to marry in England and I married an Englishman and I'm telling you there is nothing outside of this church worth wasting your life on, nothing. This is it as far as I'm concerned, and I have spent my last 41 years trying to help people to understand that this is real. I'm talking about people in the church, because I haven't had a lot of. I've done some missionary work. I've brought a few people into the church, but overall I think my mission has been to help the existing church members to stay in the church and to know that there is nothing out there worth having.
Deb Fryar:This is it, and Elder Holland said it best. He said it best. He said the church means everything to me when he said that I'm like yeah, that's how I feel. Good for you, because it does. I am the church. I'm not just a part of the church, it's like, and I'm not just a daughter of God either. I belong to him. I'll do anything and my life is not.
Deb Fryar:It's not easy at all. I'm divorced, I've got three children. I've had to raise almost all by myself and I've had my mental illness. So much opposition. I had a sister a few years ago that very youngest one that was 12, I told you about. She got into it a few years ago and she made all these wonderful noises about wanting to be reconnected with me and everything. And her whole agenda was to destroy my faith and she tried to buy it from me with money. She tried to, knowing I was in a difficult financial position. She tried to buy my testimony with money and I had to turn away from her again. And the vitriol that came out of that. And she's now in her fifties. So, yeah, I've lost everything and everyone.
Deb Fryar:And so when I hear people whining and belly aching about what they don't understand or this and that and the other, is like please just think of what the Savior gave, look at all that he did for us. How can we turn away from Him? And I so feel for when he said how I would have gathered you as a hen gather at her chickens and you would not, because that's what happened with my family, that's what all my friends turned against me when I went back to London and I reconnected with all those friends after I joined the church. They didn't want to know me. They didn't want to know me. So I lost everything and that's why the church is everything to me, the gospel is everything, the plan of salvation, it just makes sense. To me, it's the. This is the most powerful thing that you could even imagine. Nobody could make this up.
Deb Fryar:I know Joseph Smith didn't write that book, because I've written two books. I've done a total of 21 edits on those two books and they're still rubbish. I mean, I can't believe what he did in 65 days. There's no way that this one's a college graduate. There's no way. So I absolutely know that it's true and real and exciting. That's what I love about it. It's if people only knew what this was, they would crawl across the plains on their hands and knees to find it.
Deb Fryar:And my family didn't want it and I'm now the registered genealogist and I've found out a lot of things about my family and it's a very cool group and but I know why I'm here and I think that's the important thing in this life is you have to know why you're here, you have to know where you came from and you have to know where you're going, and your bottom line is you have to know who you are, and that's what the gospel has taught me. I didn't know God was my father. I knew he was Jesus' father, but I had no clue. When I found out he was my father, oh my gosh, I rejoiced because of what I'd been through. I was so. Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Alisha Coakley:Thank you so much, Deb. I think that you know there's so much to it. You know, like so many, many, many miracles and mighty miracles in your story that kind of kept pushing you along, pushing you along, pushing you along. And I feel like if we were all to sit back and we were to look at our own lives, we would probably see that that's the way that Heavenly Father works with almost all of us.
Alisha Coakley:You know, like he has all these little tiny miracles kind of weaved in to make this big, huge miracle for us that brings us to where we're supposed to be, and so I'm very proud of you for being rebellious.
Deb Fryar:Was it Elder Eyring who said to keep a journal and to write where you've seen the hand of God in your life that day. I think it's much more common than you think. I think I'm grateful that I've been given this story, because it makes it very clear that there was somebody involved beyond me. This is very clear to me. This is not just some random happening and I had an experience when, after I joined the church in those first few months, I was in an attic room in Leeds, staying in this house where I was renting a room. It was a bare room with just a little single bed and a wardrobe and a chair and it was just dire. I couldn't afford anything else. And it was right in the attic. It was right at the top of the house. It's like a four-story house and I couldn't hear the doorbell from where. I was up there and one day, in tears, with the Book of Mormon leaning on my bed, I just didn't understand the Book of Mormon. At that point I'd been in the church like what? A few months, three months, something, and it was all just overwhelming and I just started crying and I just said Heavenly Father, please send somebody, please send somebody. I'm so lonely and I did not hear the doorbell. But 15 minutes later there was a knock on my bedroom door and standing in the doorway was the Relief Society president and she said I was just sitting down to watch Coronation Street, which was a soap opera over there. It's been going for 50 years now. I can't believe it. She said I was just sitting down to watch Coronation Street when the spirit said go see Deb. That's when I knew that God could see through the roof a person praying and send somebody to help them. So I know he's there, absolutely I know he's there. And I tell you, through all the trials I still suffer because my health is really a problem. Now All I do is just pray more and more deeply and listen to more podcasts and more scriptures and just try to fill my life with the best of the best to help me, because I am very alone here. I'm far away from my children, far away from family. Nobody in England cares about me. So here I am and it's still true, and all I can say is that whatever you're suffering in this world, you can't let go of that iron rod. You have to keep holding that iron rod because you're going to suffer anyway, but you're going to suffer more when you don't have that. I think so. Life is hard. Life is suffering. We are truly in the last days here. This is no picnic, but we stay. Hold of that rod and keep that keep. I think that relationship with God is absolutely paramount to our survival in these last days. This is it and this is really is it. I keep.
Deb Fryar:I've told people for 40 years this isn't a dress rehearsal, this is it, yeah, yeah. He needs to prepare to meet God, and it takes a lot of suffering and opposition and trials, because who are we? We're supposed to be like the Savior in every way, and we suffered for us. Are we not willing to suffer for him in return? And so I don't. You know, while I've lost everything, I have gained everything. I've gained everything my family has. Well, they do now, because my parents are in heaven. I've done the work for them in the temple and they're learning. They know, they know who I am. Now that's the good thing is, they know I'm not this rebel, I'm not this person that was trying to thwart them. I was trying to help them and so hopefully, they will, you know, feel that beyond the veil. Yeah, yeah. I'm sure they do.
Scott Brandley:Well, Deb, you're an inspiration and I love your testimony. Thank you, you know, I think you have. One of the reasons why you have such a strong testimony is because you've been through so many challenges and adversities in your life. It's just helped you to make your testimony even that stronger. And when you say it, you know, like I can feel it, that it's true and in your every fiber of your soul and fire in the belly.
Deb Fryar:Is it what President Hinckley said? My son Jake, a few years ago, said to me on the phone. He said, Mom, I don't know anyone that's been through what you've been through, he said. He actually said to me you're going to get the biggest mansion in heaven. Mom, I don't want a mansion, I just want a cottage, A little cottage with a garden. There you go. Yeah, but if you have a, mansion.
Scott Brandley:You can invite everybody to come hang out with you.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, you can cook for everybody.
Deb Fryar:I only like people in small groups. I'm much rather have people to dinner than like being a crowd, you know. I'm what we call an INFJ personality the most introverted of introverts.
Alisha Coakley:Oh well, we are very grateful for you coming out of your shell today for us. I'm not that much of a shell, small doses.
Deb Fryar:There you go. I have some great friends. My friends are my family and I have many people around this country that I consider kindred spirits. I know I'll go forever. I think the gospel can do that with people that aren't your family. They can give you that sense of belonging, yeah.
Scott Brandley:I'm excited to hear the second half of your story. Yeah, that'll be fun.
Alisha Coakley:So I'll just leave that as a hook for the next episode.
Scott Brandley:What an amazing story. So far, God's definitely been in your life, even when you haven't been able to see him. But it's definitely obvious now, especially looking back.
Deb Fryar:Well, I can see there was somebody gave a talk I remember it was recently in conference where a child they went to a home as ministers and there was children that were neglected or something. I think it was an apostle said they will be okay. We can't do anything for them now, but they will be okay. This is, and I just have a testimony, that and I will talk more about this in the next thing, the next session is that there really is reason why we're in the family that we're in.
Deb Fryar:Yeah, there really is a reason. I know what that reason is and I found out what it is.
Alisha Coakley:So next time I'll tell you that's right, next time. Well, thank you again, Deb.
Deb Fryar:We really appreciated your story and your testimony. I appreciate you guys and I think you did a great job. Keep up the good work.
Alisha Coakley:Thank you, thank you and to all of our listeners, thank you guys, too, for tuning in today and for going along Deb's journey with us. We really appreciate you guys as listeners, and we just want to encourage you guys to do your five-second missionary work and to click that share button. Make sure that you get the story out to others who might need to hear some of the things that Deb talked about today. And, of course, if you guys have a story that you'd like to share, be sure to reach out to us. You can either email us at Latter-dayLightscom or you can comment below, find us on Facebook. Head over to Latter-dayLightscom. There's a form there that you can fill out. There's lots of ways to get ahold of us, so feel free to reach out, just like Deb did, and let us know what your story is. With that, I think that's all we have for today. Is that right, scott?
Scott Brandley:Yeah, Thanks again, Deb.
Deb Fryar:Thank you so much.
Scott Brandley:Thanks to everyone for watching and we will see you next week. Thanks, Sounds good See ya. Get things working Okay, Bob.