In this episode, Dave Higham shares how during his 3rd time serving as a bishop in the LDS church, he was excommunicated for 5 years.
This led to the painful loss of his marriage and many friends, strained family relationships, and guilt for the consequences of his actions and the effect they had on others.
But even through the darkness and pain, Dave has hope for the future and is looking forward to be being rebaptized. His difficult battle has helped him to have empathy for other's who have gone through this difficult process, and hopes that by going through this experience that he can in some way help to encourage others to find their way back.
*** Please SHARE Dave's story and help us spread hope and light to others. ***
To WATCH this episode on YouTube, visit: https://youtu.be/hfMj1JDSgLg
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To Visit Dave's website, go to: https://onesheep.blog/
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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.
In this episode, Dave Higham shares how during his 3rd time serving as a bishop in the LDS church, he was excommunicated for 5 years.
This led to the painful loss of his marriage and many friends, strained family relationships, and guilt for the consequences of his actions and the effect they had on others.
But even through the darkness and pain, Dave has hope for the future and is looking forward to be being rebaptized. His difficult battle has helped him to have empathy for other's who have gone through this difficult process, and hopes that by going through this experience that he can in some way help to encourage others to find their way back.
*** Please SHARE Dave's story and help us spread hope and light to others. ***
To WATCH this episode on YouTube, visit: https://youtu.be/hfMj1JDSgLg
-----
To Visit Dave's website, go to: https://onesheep.blog/
-----
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.
Hey everyone. I'm Scott Brandley 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 an excommunicated bishop is working his way back to membership while encouraging others who are going through the repentance process to keep their focus on the Savior. 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 today and we have a special treat for you. We're going to hear from Dave Hyam. Dave, how are you doing today? Great, how?
Dave Higham:are you two?
Alisha Coakley:We're good, we're really good.
Dave Higham:Good Thanks for having me on.
Alisha Coakley:It's nice to have a fellow.
Scott Brandley:Canadian on the show Good day.
Alisha Coakley:This is going to be the nicest show ever. We've got two Canadians. That's okay. I'll throw a wrench in your plans. I'll make you guys angry at me, it's fine.
Scott Brandley:We're used to it.
Alisha Coakley:I know I know Well. Dave, thank you so much for reaching out. I am so excited to have you share your story today. One of the things that I loved when Scott came up with the idea for the show is he was like every member of the church has a story to share. Everyone, no matter where we're at on our path, and you have a very unique story and you are in a very unique position right now.
Alisha Coakley:I don't want to give too many spoilers or anything, but I love that Scott was able to put together this whole idea and this platform so that you can share your story, because I know that there are so many other members like you who are going through some stuff right. They need to hear voices like yours. I'm really excited for your perspective and for your story and for you to share the messages that you shared with me on our brief phone call earlier. Anyway, I'm super excited about that, but we're not going to start with that yet. First, we're going to start with who is Dave? What does Dave like to do? Tell us a little bit about you.
Dave Higham:I don't have, I don't know. I live out in Victoria BC, out on the island, which my hobby used to be smoking meat, which was great because it didn't clutter the shelves, just the arteries. But since moving out here I live in a place I can't run charcoal, so instead it's been more so enjoying my motorbike on the beautiful winding roads on an island full of rock. That's a lot of fun to do.
Alisha Coakley:That's really cool. Really cool yeah, Married kids hobbies.
Dave Higham:I am on my second marriage. Okay, that'll be part of the story as to what's going on, but I am married here and we're plugging away and been here for about a year, married for just over a year and putting life back together.
Alisha Coakley:All right, awesome, yeah, and how did you come to find Latter-day Lights?
Dave Higham:My wife. I have a habit of I do renovations and I work by myself, so every morning I listen to church podcasts, church-centered podcasts. Every afternoon I listen to Dateline NBC and deal with whatever true crime stuff.
Dave Higham:But in that listening to the church stuff every morning. I'm always looking for what's out there and you find your favorites. My wife found you somehow, I don't know, and she told me about an episode. So I've now listened to quite a few of your episodes and, like I was telling you in the previous, I had no idea there was much of a video component to it and photos and stuff like that, because to me everything's just in my ears as I work away. So thank you for getting me through a lot of hours of work by myself. You're welcome.
Alisha Coakley:If you want to send me part of your pay for that, that's 5% there you go there you go 5% Canadian dollars doesn't make much down there.
Scott Brandley:Yeah, that's just a couple bucks, you know. No big deal, that's true Cool. Well, we're glad to have you here, man. We're excited to hear your story, so why don't we just jump right into it and turn the time over to you?
Dave Higham:Sure, this is the hard part because I don't like talking about myself, but anyway, I was raised in the church up over in Alberta, just very close to your stomping grounds Scott Normal LDS. Teenage life in small town, southern Alberta, went on a mission and then came home, ended up moving up to Calgary where there was a lot more going on, and after a couple years up there I ended up my bishop passed away and I ended up marrying his widow a little while later and she had seven children and so I went. At 24 years old I had a 17-year-old daughter named Alisha, spelled the same name right down to a two-year-old, and then we had one more after that together. So that was a quick jump into the parenting side of things and it was exciting and there was a lot of great and fond memories of that experience. Right after I got home, the day we got home from a honeymoon the morning I got home from the honeymoon, bishop came over and called me to be young men's president and that started kind of my leadership within the church.
Dave Higham:I was young men's president and did a lot of other seminary teachers, scout leader a lot of working with youth throughout my time in the church, so much I just loved it.
Dave Higham:I loved working with the youth. As a matter of fact, my 50th birthday party I just invited all the youth I'd ever served with or they, you know, it was scouts, the girls that were that age and we just had a fun birthday party of inviting a whole bunch of people that I just meant the world to me and still do mean the world to me. I loved when the turn of time opportunity came to be a bishop. I had worked for years with a guy that had been a state president, not my state president. I told him I couldn't be friends with my own state president but I'd worked for years with him, enough that when I got called to be a bishop it was something that I really embraced and appreciated because I felt like it had a lot of training on how to look at individuals and the struggles they face and recognizing. That may sound harsh, but there are other people's problems and I can't take their problems home, but I can receive revelation to help them through their problems and I found a great amount of joy in being able to sit on that side of the desk and to be able to try and help others feel the love that I could feel Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ had for them. I really, really appreciated that opportunity.
Dave Higham:One of the things that can happen, though, and I learn more about myself and my circumstance stuff goes, but I kind of lost track in the middle of the process of that of myself. I ended up making a couple decisions that were wrong, I sinned and I ended up. I was a bishop in three different wards two family wards and then a young single adult ward and I ended up losing my membership and going through that experience, which I'm still going through. Most people get told it's one year. I was told that because I had been serving as a bishop, it would be a five year term before I could reapply for baptism, and that's not fun. I don't encourage people choosing that as a path to go. It's terribly. It's full of probably every emotion you could think of and every thought, every whatever, and the experiences you have with other people are quite profound. I don't think the post is out yet. I'm working on a post about how the experiences I feel. I felt some were anticipated, some of the feelings and experiences were anticipated and some were not, and it's just been a very interesting experience.
Dave Higham:That's had a lot of challenges but a lot of really good things about it. One of the first thing that really hurt, of course, was the damage you do to your family. I've lost relationships there that I don't have control over and I don't know. I don't know what may come of them down the road. I hope they can be rebuilt, but I don't know and I it's one of the things that I've lost that I don't know if I can ever get back again. But there are some beautiful moments that come, but there's an awful lot of hard ones as far as some of those relationships you have.
Dave Higham:One of the challenges you also have is worrying about other people. Being a bishop you worry about have my actions caused someone to lose their testimony or to lose faith or to stop trying? And that weight was very heavy on me for some time and I hope I don't sound. At one point I got to the point where I realized who do I think I am to think that I have that kind of control over other people's testimonies or agency? I don't, and I'm sorry if my actions caused somebody to struggle with their testimonies. I hope that if it did that, they also can look at me, and I hope that I can be a bishop. If it did that, they also can look at me and say I have not given up on the church, I have not given up on the savior, or trying to make my life right, make myself right with the savior again, and I hope that, if they chose to step away, that they choose to also follow me back. But everybody has their own choices, and I, but I recognize that I caused. My actions have caused also some struggles for others, and that's a burden that you care for or that you carry with you. One of the benefits, though, is that, having all those years of sitting on that side of the desk and basically eavesdropping on what the Lord is telling people who are sitting on the other side of the desk, I was able to recall a lot of that stuff and think well, if it applied for them, why wouldn't that apply for me? And my circumstance and the experiences I had from the one side of the desk have turned out to be a huge blessing, as I sit on the other side of the desk and realize I know that's what I felt as a bishop instructing or offering counsel to somebody. I know that that's what I felt from the Lord and it's got to work for me too and that's where it starts to really grow and start to become a pretty neat experience to start applying those things and not just preach them but also try to walk them. That makes a big difference. But there are dark days and it's not.
Dave Higham:I read there's a book by a guy named Hiram Smith who was Franklin Covey, franklin Quest. He is a founder of that. He lost his membership at one point and he wrote a book which I have not read yet, but I did read an article about it on that in Deseret News. He referred to the experiences going through the meat grinder and now that's not repenting with the Lord. In my opinion that's some of the experiences that happen with the church culture. Experience of it all is going through the meat grinder. But he also commented that 97 out of 100 people that lose their membership never make it back. I don't know where you got that membership or that number. It was written in the Deseret News and I can't see why that might be the case. I could see how that would be a number, because it's not a cakewalk.
Dave Higham:It's not a really easy thing to do and I don't say that to my heart because I'm not back yet. I'm trying to. I'll tell you what I've always been impressed with converts. My mom and dad are converts and I think anybody that can accept the gospel and at the expense of losing friendships and sometimes family relationships because you accept the gospel, I've always been impressed that people can do that. They do have the benefit of a word that's excited to welcome them in and go through that. I look now at people who have lost their membership and lost friendships and lost, sometimes family relationships and look at a church that once the excommunicate you, there's really nothing unless you get a bishop or a state president who takes initiative how they make it back and go. I want back into that and make it. I can see how it's three in a hundred with it being what it is right now and it's. I don't mean to rip on the I'm not ripping on the church or whatever but one of the things I've found in my process is when you look through the church library, lds library, of all the things there's help for if you've got an addiction or if there's a death or a divorce or if there's a loss of a job, or if there's LGBTQ challenges or suicide or transgen you name it. There's a manual or something for it, but there's nothing for anybody who's lost their membership in this manner that I can find, and I've not been able to find anybody that's ever received any training from it. So I can see why maybe only three in a hundred make it back and I want to try and do something to help those I've.
Dave Higham:As part of my experience and story. My wife decided she didn't want to be married anymore and so that divorce happened after about 27 years of marriage when we separated. There's a lot of stress that comes on with that. That was right at the beginning of COVID. So in some respects I was kind of thrown a bit of a, a bit of a bone because I didn't have to walk right back into church right away. You know, my disciplinary council happened where everybody was socially distanced and you go home and you can't go to church next Sunday anyway. So I'm sitting at home watching church in my pajamas like everybody else is right, and I had that for a time.
Dave Higham:But as soon as church started up again, I had the beautiful experience where I had moved into this into a condo downtown, a rental place, and I thought I was moving into a certain ward. It turned out when I was in the YSA ward, boundary changes had happened and I was actually in the first ward, and the first ward was a ward that I had been a high councilman assigned to serve and I loved the ward, loved the people, and it was interesting because once I realized that I just felt the strongest impression on two different occasions, the Lord told me this is why you were a high councilman at that time to provide a soft ground for you to land on this. And that was. That was a pretty sweet, tender mercy from the Lord to have that. The ward was very nice to me, very good, most all of them were very friendly and opening and I've got zero complaints.
Dave Higham:But but you know, part of the experience, part of the church culture side of things is, you know, I heard through other avenues and I tried to stay out of the gossip of it. I tried to not hear what people were saying about me. I heard the first three rumors and none of them were accurate and I thought, okay, this just messes me up and so I don't want to hear any of it. So I tried to shut it all down. But you'd hear some things. You'd hear sometimes who was talking about you or whatever, and you try to just push it away because then you have to deal with forgiving and stuff and rather than not have anything to have to forgive somebody for. But I did hear once that people were kind of there were people that were upset that I was still going to church and that I was happy, and you know that kind of cuts a little bit. When you hear that you think, yeah, 3%, make it back, I'm not surprised. It's only 3%, if that number is accurate.
Dave Higham:However, what I've learned through all of this is the relationship I had to build was not initially with the church. The relationship I had to work on was my relationship with God through Jesus Christ and His Atonement, and so that's what I did. I just focused on that. I worried about where they were. I did know, by my nature, I needed a little bit of a support group, so I selected just a handful of guys. That well, it was actually very few, it was just two or three that I thought, okay, I need a couple of people that I can talk to and I don't want to over-inundate all of them. They need to be some but I'm not going to complain about the nuts and bolts because I don't want to ram or complain about any individual and it needs to be somebody that has a strong enough testimony that if I say something that doesn't make sense church-wise, they don't have a testimony challenged if that makes sense. Those were the important things to me.
Dave Higham:The thing I thought was interesting is I had my three and one day I'm sitting around a Sunday afternoon and the phone rings and a guy calls me up and he says I answer and he says what's going on with you? How come I can't get you off of my mind? Why does the Lord have me call you? And that, for me, was an example of I could either say, oh, I'm fine, no worries, whatever else.
Dave Higham:But I recognize that this is a case of the Lord reaching out to me through him, and if I want that help from the Lord, I need to be open to it, I need to accept his ministering efforts and they were sincere, absolutely, and very much appreciated and very valuable to me, or very valuable, moving forward in ways I didn't anticipate at the time, which to me is a big lesson in all of this, and perhaps one of the things that I come away with from this is we're really good at saying God is good, but we also tend to attribute things that are bad to God, and I focused hard on not doing that. I determined I started going okay, if something's bad, what's the core source of it? It's either from something I've done or some other choice someone else is taking, and they get their agency because I get mine, and so be it. Or it's just something that happened. But I started looking and going okay, I'm not gonna attribute anything bad as being coming from God. I'm gonna say God is good. So if anything good happens in my life that came from God Whether that came through my buddy calling me up out of the blue, whether it came from a check coming in the mail just in the nick of time, whatever it was If it was good, I wrote it down in my journal, and I kept a journal very close then, with a gratitude list at the end of every day. I would just recognize these things are from God. And it's where the rubber hit the road for me from.
Dave Higham:Christ-like attributes are not just words in a book. Christ-like attributes show through people that reach out and act on them, and they're not always people you expect and they're not always members of the church. There is a lot of and they're not always active members. There's just a lot of Christ-like attributes that show through and when you pick them out you go that's Jesus looking out for me, that's Jesus looking out for me. And you become trained on noticing those things and it warms your heart but also thickens you a little bit. It thickens your skin a little bit to go okay, that stuff's not gonna bother me anymore. The other things, the stuff that's whatever. It just don't let it get to you as easily, which was a huge benefit for me.
Dave Higham:One of the things I also determined I found that outside of that group that I relied on, there were individuals who I refer to them as the fellowship of the forgiven. These are people who they don't have to have lost their membership, although several of them did. I had people that I'd known for years reach out and go look, I lost my membership once. I just want you to know that I love you and if I can do anything for you, I'm here for you. And I had no idea and I'm the guy for 20 years and had no idea he'd been through that prior to that. It doesn't have to be somebody that's been through a loss of membership or a disfellowship or whatever, but the people who I find. There's a group of people who have felt God's forgiveness in a sincere way and appreciated it so much that they wanted to share with others the relief they felt, if that comes across the way to do it. They're an amazing group of people and they're quiet and you're never going to know them. They're never going to be listed and there's some in every word and they're just beautiful souls who offer Christ like love and and it's a beautiful thing.
Dave Higham:I was surprised as I went through this. Maybe it's naive of me, but how much you still can feel the Spirit. You don't have the Holy Ghost as a constant companionship, as the gift given at baptism, but you still do receive counsel, support, help, warning as you're searching and training yourself to listen to it. I found for myself where I picked it up. I found an easy go-to for me and that was that was prayer over my food. For some reason, every time I asked a blessing on my food sincerely, I could feel the Spirit strongly and it got. I can still expect it every time. I don't know why, but I just love it and for me that became my touch zone. That became where I went back to and said, okay, what feels like that? Because you have lost the gift of the Holy Ghost. What happens is you become very sensitive to where you do feel the Spirit and people who bring that Spirit into your life. You cling to them. You like at least I chose to. I could feel it. I knew what I was feeling. You hear of converts going. I don't know what it was. I felt I knew what it was and so I tried to stick myself to that as much as I could, because I knew that there was the path I wanted to follow. That mattered to me.
Dave Higham:Another thing I thought was interesting is I had a line in my patriarchal blessing that I've looked at for 30 years that I did not understand. Over 30 years I did not understand that line and one day, as I was reading my Come Follow Me lesson by myself in my apartment and stuff, there was something that just hit me in, something I read and the Spirit came behind it and the message was this is what that line is talking about your patriarchal blessing. I went and got my patriarchal blessing and then I went back to the scriptures and I realized that God had put that in my blessing for that time in my life, that he knew I was going to need that then and I recognized that it would have slipped right past me if A I wasn't up to date on, you know, if my patriarchal blessing wasn't something in my mind that I'd read enough, frequently enough and B it wouldn't happen had I not been reading my scriptures. I'd have my head where it should be and that is not lost on me. That was a very profound experience for me, but that just carried on for me to realize the Lord is still with those of us who lose our membership as we seek for Him, and he is there to help us go through the challenges. It's been an amazing thing I've. You know.
Dave Higham:I went through the divorce. I went through a period of time of just what am I gonna do? What am I? I had one guy that was great. He reached out to me. He was from one of my wards that I'd been in and we started getting together for dinner and then we started getting together just having steak at my place. Then we started inviting others and having some awesome steak dinners, which is there be four of us guys talking the gospel and just chatting, and they were very. It's a great way to do ministering. If you're trying to find a way to do ministering in a way that is, you know that's fun. Just have a steak dinner together. I don't want that.
Alisha Coakley:If anyone wants to invite me over for steak dinner, you go right ahead.
Dave Higham:But that, you know, that was a great thing. There's just some I could just go through piles of things where the Lord was reached out and helped me, but I had to put myself in that situation. I realized that, and that was the experience of being on both sides of the desk, realizing that sometimes the bishop's real busy and he's not avoiding you, and sometimes the bishop just doesn't know what to say because there is no training, there is nothing for them or whatever. So it's just there's, you know it's. I'm not picking on anybody, any of the leadership I've had or whatever. I'm just saying I recognized my responsibility and my working on my relationship with God and how that played such a big role in pulling me out of the darkness and giving me more of a backbone and some thicker skin and helping me realize that I need to stand up for myself more, and so that was all a wonderful thing and that led to well and I ended up getting remarried and moving out to Victoria and you know, fresh new start and if you have to winter in Canada, victoria is a great place to do it. But I wanted to try and help others going through this, so I started a blog onesheepblog, like O-N-E-S-H-E-E-Pblog and just writing my experiences down. I mean, if members want to read it, fine, but my purpose ended is trying to help those going through this kind of an experience, hopefully find some ways that might work for them. It may not, I don't know, but just trying to try to do something so that there's something somewhere to offer some hope.
Dave Higham:I, before I started that, I went looking. Could I find anything? And I found, in 2018, a lady looking online for support for her husband saying you know, is there anything from my husband for support for this? And the comments that came back well, he's probably an adulterer and stuff like that. What kind of support is that Like that's? And there's just nothing. So that's why I started it and I've tried to get going an ARP style online meeting and if somebody still wants to participate, I've got a guy that had lost his membership in the 80s, was out for 16 years ago, that he's been a service missionary doing ARPs three different times. He's bored and happy to run it.
Dave Higham:The purpose is not of addiction recovery nature, but it's in that format with the idea of how do you deal with, how do you deal with going back to church the first time, or how do you deal with not being able to baptize your child? Or, in my case, I couldn't. My mother passed away and and I wasn't able to speak at her funeral because no complaints at all. But the way my state president interpreted that was it was a church meeting, even though it was in a cultural or a funeral home, because it was presided by a. I'm a branch president from my mom's ward. I get it, but that's just some of the challenges you have and what you can lose by choosing this path, by sitting, by doing up outside of the church, and so I wanted to create something to try and help them, and if I can get it going, great. The problem is finding people, because they're not all spending their morning at work listening to church podcasts and searching out to find something.
Dave Higham:Another thing I've started doing is trying to help or, as I said earlier, I'm really impressed by those 3% who make it back into the church, and so I've created a list of 15 questions, and you can find it on my blog, where I want people that have lost their membership and made it back to go fill out those questions for me and then I'll put them up online. You don't have to put the name. We can use a pseudonym or initials or whatever you want, just so that others can read and go. This is what somebody else went through and what they experienced and maybe how they coped with it and they made it through this and came out of it and I find them inspiring. I find them quite uplifting to see the strength that people developed in going through this process. So I call them the real stories part of my blog.
Dave Higham:So that's what I'm hoping is, through something like this, we can find some people who are maybe looking for a little support as they go through this, or somebody who has been through this that can offer some of their experiences as a way to be encouraging or supportive to others, because it's really easy to throw in the towel and give up.
Dave Higham:But I can tell you it's really worth it to stick it out and go through the experiences, because God is good and it's real. This life, existence, is real and it's full of a lot of experiences, and Adam and Eve in the garden had two choices in front of them and either way, choosing one or the other, there was a consequence and we're in this life where we are going to sin. Hopefully we don't sin to the extent that we end up losing our membership, but hopefully we realize that we're going to sin and our kids are going to sin and our spouses are going to sin and the other people at church are going to sin and a lot of times they're going to sin different than we are and they need the people that are more of the fellowship, of the forgiven kind of people, to make it through. And by doing that we not only help them, we help ourselves a lot.
Dave Higham:Yeah, I love what you said oh sorry, I love what you said no, go ahead, go ahead.
Alisha Coakley:Before we started recording Eve, you said sin and transgression are just part of the plan, you know, and it doesn't mean that. It doesn't mean that, heavenly Father, for example, with the thing that's in your patriarchal blessing, it doesn't mean that you're predestined to sin in a certain way, or anything like that, but it's just that it's just part of it, right? Like, how else are we supposed to use the Atonement to the fullest? Right, because we can use parts of the Atonement for other things. But how are we supposed to fully use the Atonement if we don't include that repentance process of our sins and our transgressions, our mistakes, our dumb choices, whatever you want to call them? And I love that you said that, because it really is true.
Alisha Coakley:And recently I read that book and it's not like a church book but it's called Conversations with God and it's really interesting. He's got, you know, there's some things that I'm like no, but then there's some things in the book that I'm like wow. And one of the things in that book he talks about is the purpose we're here is for experience, right. And how else are we supposed to get experience if we don't have the struggle, we don't have the hardship, we don't have the bad choices we don't have, you know and not we've kind of talked about this too. It's not that it's giving you permission to go out and make a bucket list of sin that you want to take part in. That's not the point that. The point is to understand that when that happens because inevitably it will when that happens, you do have a savior, you do have an atonement. You know you do have resources that you can use and also sometimes the resources maybe they're not there yet and you going through this is a way of Heavenly Father encouraging you to become the person that can help those resources come to fruition. You know, and so we mentioned this to Molly Bonner, who made the Green Flake movie, and he's working on his second movie right now about.
Alisha Coakley:You know, the Green Flake was about the first black enslaved pioneer. He has this incredible story of how it all came to be and, and one of the things that he ended up doing was he got in contact with the first presidency and he was able to get a bunch of statues of the first black pioneers to be put up in in this is the place over at Heritage Park and and to be able to get them put up in Salt Lake, and it's an amazing thing because now we have more pieces of our history right, we have more stories, we have more members that that we can look to who were great examples and stuff like that of hardship and of getting through trial. And so I think that sometimes, if we allow our our struggles and our trials and our our negative things that are happening to us, if we allow them to be a propellant for good, sometimes we can be the thing that helps just enough to make a positive change in a in a new direction that brings everybody to a closer relationship with the Savior, right. And so I I want to ask you, because you did mention, obviously, church culture is not church doctrine and the things that people in the church do sometimes is definitely not the way that Christ would have us do them right, like because again, we're all human and not an excuse by any means. It's not excusing and just being like, oh well, that's just church culture, you just have to get over it that, no, we need to do better. That's what it is Right. We need to do better as as members of the church, as as members in Christ, whether you're LDS or working your back or haven't ever been or never want to be again, or whatever you're at. We all have to do better.
Alisha Coakley:But I wanted to kind of ask you, like going through this process, what kind of advice would you give to to those who are, I guess, in good standing? I hate that, I hate that word, you know the worthiness and like, but what, what would you say to those who aren't going through that repentance process, who might have some judgments or might have some. Maybe it's not even a judgment, maybe they just don't know how to help because they don't want to make the the person who is going through it feel awkward, or they just don't know how to, how to address the topic, or you know whatever else. So, like what, what can we do to help those who are going through the membership or through the repentance process, whether it's from disciplinary action for something not, as you know, big as losing your membership entirely, or if it is something that's bigger, that that causes you to lose your membership, what, what can we do? How can we talk to those people who are going through that and help them?
Dave Higham:Well, that's a tough one to ask because I can't speak on behalf of the church or anybody, and I I struggle, even having not holding a membership right now even even offering any instruction to members as to what should be done. People can do what they want and I'm not going to judge any of them for any of it. But I will say that I felt very keenly in my circumstances that if I wanted to receive forgiveness I had to forgive, but the number one thing I had to do was any. I couldn't hold anything over anybody. I could feel clearly that that would hold me back from the process I was on.
Dave Higham:If I were to go back and have a chance to parent again, I would try to be less observational about things that are wrong, if that makes sense, less I would. I would hope that I would point out less when I see things that are not the way that perhaps the church teaches or that I would think personally it should be done. I would try to be far more understanding of other people, because we are all on such different paths and we do all walk down different roads and I I agree with you the Lord doesn't lay stuff out that you're going to do this, this and this, but I think any experiences we have, he can turn to our learning, our understanding, our good. But if we are going to be judgmental, if I'm going to be judgmental of others, I'm going to shut off the opportunity. And if I, as a parent, am doing that, I'm scared that I'm teaching my children that it's an okay thing to do. Or I'm scared that I'm teaching my children that if they sometime fall short which we all do, which we all will that maybe my dad or my bishop or somebody else may not forgive me, because that's my experience. You know, I had somebody say to me at one point well, you know five years, I guess the church is just trying to. Maybe the church is trying to make an experience, an example out of you, and maybe that is the case.
Dave Higham:But what I fear for is the people who watch that and go. Do I want to repent? If it's going to be that, and I would say, if you do need to repent of something significant like what I need to repent of, that it sure is worth it. That, as hard as the hard times are the personal relationship you can develop with Heavenly Father, the paths he can lead you down, if you're willing to be led, he can take you through your sin, through your you know sin is something we're all going to do. The rebelling my wife, my good wife, likes to point the rebelling is the problem when we're fighting back as opposed to we made a mistake, we ended up in the wrong, we all. You know. If you're a parent of a child, we understand that sometimes that child's going to punch the sister in the face and take the toy because they want the toy. We look at him and we go come on, you're not supposed to do that. But we don't shun them, we don't cast them out. We understand that. I believe that Heavenly Father is the same way that he understands we're going to make mistakes and as we go through that, drawing on what I've gone through, it's just the thing I feel is I wish I think I did a pretty good job as a bishop, being non-judgmental of others and being supportive.
Dave Higham:I always felt like when someone walked into the bishop's office, my job was to have them walk out of their feeling as hopeful as they would had they met with the Savior. Now, I'm not saying I'm the Savior by any stretch, but I felt like if they're going to walk into that office, then willingly, then they should walk out of there with a similar kind of you know maybe okay, I messed up, but I got to correct this. I feel like I did pretty good at that as a bishop. I hope I did good at that as a dad. I think it's very important, though, for me, moving forward, to make sure I don't put across a feeling like I'm being judgmental of someone or saying something negative about them because they're choosing to behave in a manner that I don't choose to behave in, or maybe once did and need to, not now or whatever.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah.
Scott Brandley:Yeah, it's funny.
Alisha Coakley:Go ahead, Scott.
Scott Brandley:Oh well, so I have some. I wrote some stuff down.
Dave Higham:That's a lot of All right, bring it on.
Scott Brandley:I don't know what you're talking about here. So I wrote a book. I haven't published it yet, but it's about faith and it's about an experience that I had where I struggled with my testimony when I was a bishop and how I came through that. But one thing I talk about in my book is this analogy being on the other side of the desk. I actually talk about that in there.
Alisha Coakley:Oh, okay, that's so funny.
Scott Brandley:And so in the story I mentioned, I remember being a teenager and making some bad choices and being on that side. And then I talk about when I was called to be a bishop. If I wouldn't have been on that side of the desk, I wouldn't have appreciated being on the other side, right, in your case it's kind of flipped the opposite way. But one thing I noticed, being on that side, being a bishop right, and you've probably seen this too being a bishop, when you are meeting with people that genuinely want to change and they've come and talked to you and it's so hard to come in and share that you've made a mistake with anyone, right, right, I always, at the end of those meetings, I always felt more love for them going out of the room than when they came in and gave me a little bit of a little feeling of what the Savior must feel when he sees somebody change or want to change. And so I guess one of the things I wanted to know is when you went through the disciplinary council, how did you feel?
Scott Brandley:And then the other thought I had was self-worth. You've talked about how to forgive yourself. You had to learn to forgive others. But I'm wondering, because you were a bishop and you held some high position, that high position multiple times. How was your self-worth and what kind of mind games did you play?
Dave Higham:It's one of the You're going to have to remind me the first question. I'll answer the second one first, just because it's the one on my mind. First, I went to a multi-faith conference last weekend here in town and people got up and shared. They talked about kin and kindness, and the Jewish rabbi that got up, he spoke and he gave a quote, a Halil quote, halil quote, and one of the lines was if you don't stand for yourself, who will? If you don't stand for others, who are you? It's something I was like, but so I'm actually working on a post that includes that in it right now, because I was really touched by that and I've realized if I don't stand like, there's always something.
Dave Higham:If I don't stand for myself, then Satan will, and I became very aware of God has to be let in. I had to make efforts to let him into my life, to look him, to recognize where he's making efforts, acknowledge him for that, and then I started identifying all of this great places that was happening. Meanwhile, satan, if you took a break from doing that, satan found down the door, making you feel like dirt. Right, and sometimes other people are trying to make you feel like dirt. And so if you didn't make an effort, that was overwhelming, it just was. It was just if you sat back and did nothing, that came crashing through the door onto the stage of your brain.
Dave Higham:So I made conscious efforts and I think that's how I did it because, plus the fact that I had that support group of guys, they were very supportive in making me feel like I was still worth something when some maybe didn't want to and when certainly Satan didn't want to. And so I would give those two responses saying you had to make a conscious effort to have this, you know, to have to recognize God in your life, and making that effort also to reach out, recognizing I need to talk to somebody and reaching out to some of those guys from time to time. Okay, and the first question again what's that?
Scott Brandley:Oh, empathy. And how did you feel when you went through the disciplinary process?
Dave Higham:Oh, there's a million feelings on that one. There's a million feelings. It's hard. Like you know, it's at the stake offices. I've sat up for several decades and you know when you go through that council and go out and sit on that chair outside and wait to find out what the decision is going to be, he's not lost on me that I'm sitting in the same chair that I've sat in for years for temple recommends, for PPI's, as a bishop or as another's foreign president. Like I'm sitting, man, I'm in the same chair for exactly the opposite side of stuff now and there are every emotion you could think of going through there. You feel it all. I felt it all.
Dave Higham:And walking out afterwards and sitting in the truck and looking back at the church that was the building where I was serving as a YSA bishop and I loved the YSA and I loved the missionaries that were there with us and it was just such an awesome experience and it felt like I have so many good memories there. But I also felt like I just had the door slam shut and I was pushed out from it. And you feel, you feel such a love for so many of the experiences and people you've had, but you also feel. I also felt very much. You're not welcome now.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, I can imagine that there was a grief to it, right Like a.
Dave Higham:Oh, absolutely, yeah to navigating forward.
Alisha Coakley:And then you know I know you had mentioned that the COVID thing kind of gave you a little bit of a like, threw you a bone. But at the same time, like we all know, covid was a really hard thing to deal with too. There was a lot of change happening and so, just out of curiosity, you have a few years left to work right At this point before you can.
Dave Higham:Yeah, I'm single to mile. This single to mile is my four year mark.
Alisha Coakley:Oh, wow, okay, so you have a little over a year left to go.
Dave Higham:Yeah, and do you know what? I don't mean to sound disrespectful with this, but you get to a point where it's like I want to be baptized again, I want to go back to the temple again, I want to be sealed to my wife. That's something I've not experienced yet. I want those things, but I'll wait. I'm fine with it. I'm having beautiful experiences with the Spirit, with Heavenly Father. I've got a fantastic stake president, a most supportive wife and friends, and I'm fine. I mean, I used to think to myself could you imagine if you lost your membership and died before you get repaptized? How bad that would be. I look at it now and I go no, the Lord's got plans for all of this stuff. There's nothing going to frustrate His work for those who strive to want it. It's, and so, yeah, I've got to wait just over a year still, but I'm okay with that. I know it's a long game and the Lord is blessing me and I'm grateful. I'm just very grateful.
Alisha Coakley:So how do you, I guess, if you're in that position where you're going through the disciplinary actions or repentance process or whatever you want to say, if you're in that position where you have been asked to do things like not take the sacrament, not bear your testimony, not say prayer for the whole group or whatever it is, whatever stipulations that they put on it, how do you in that moment right because I know I've gone through this myself right where I've looked at someone else and I've been like I know what they're doing and they're just popping that bread right in their mouth, and here I say it and I'm like.
Dave Higham:You got to stop judging other people there.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, like, how do you stop comparing and thinking about what should be and how it should be more fair or it shouldn't be more fair, or whatever else? How do you get out of that mindset of this is too hard or this is unfair, or they shouldn't be doing that, and how do you really just focus on the atonement for you?
Dave Higham:How do you?
Alisha Coakley:stay in that mindset.
Dave Higham:I'm an analogy guy so I'll do this. One of the things that I have done in the past a few times is you ever felt like you need to get out of town? You're like I want to take a break, I want to take a holiday, I want to whatever right I think to myself. Where I live is. It's a place people will come to holiday. People will come and they'll drive through this town and they're probably driving through this town today going oh, look at this, look at that. I try to look at the town I'm driving through and go. Could you imagine seeing this for the first time? That's beautiful. Or imagine seeing that for the first time? That's beautiful. I've done that little mind trick on myself many times to go. I really appreciate where I'm at as a bishop. So this is one of the benefits of sitting on the other side of the desk or the experiences I had doing that.
Dave Higham:I really did try to look at people through the Lord's eyes and think who does the Lord see there? I believe that helped me as a bishop to look at people in a light that's not judgmental, that's maybe a little more open to. I don't know what the struggle is, but they're probably struggling and what can I do to help? Or what can we do to help process and learn and grow so that this life is not? We don't get into the celestial kingdom with an 85% score or a 98% score. We get into the celestial kingdom because we've learned how to think celestial and act celestial and be celestial in what we choose to do, and it's available because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It just wouldn't exist. We already do get something great because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, but if we can become more like Jesus Christ, we can become that kind of person that can live that kind of existence.
Dave Higham:If you don't want to, fine. It's like we can't be judgmental of other people because they just don't want that. That's perfectly. We got to be accepting that. Everybody comes from a different background and so I mean I just look at people and go. I'd rather look at them and see them how the Lord sees them, and that makes it easier for me to not worry about what they're doing, because I don't know what's causing them to make decisions they make or act the way they do or talk the way they do. It's but that's somebody that God loves, and so if I'm going to try and love my Heavenly Father. I also need to try and love that individual, and it's just easier when you try and see Him. Who does the Lord see there? Who does Heavenly Father see?
Alisha Coakley:That's a good one.
Scott Brandley:Really cool. Okay, before we started the podcast, you mentioned a quote from Christ I'll forgive who I choose to forgive, but for you it's really, oh, you're bringing that one up, are you? I really liked what you said there. Can you just bring that or discuss that for a minute?
Dave Higham:At one point, as you're going through all of this experience I was going through all this experience and thinking about it I came across that scripture that said that the greater sin is not forgiving somebody. And so I thought about that and at the time I'm being selfish, I'm thinking about it in a self-division. Well, it's a bigger sin on you if you're not forgiving me. I'm being selfish as I'm thinking about it at the time and I was talking about it with someone and they said so are you saying that not forgiving someone of murder is worse than murdering them? And I thought about it and I thought you know, when we don't forgive somebody, I know how that feels to have somebody not forgive you now and have somebody be judgmental of you and to have somebody not give you a chance. And when it comes to that being within the church culture, it makes you decide or makes you tempted you to think maybe I don't want to come back, maybe I just go away. I even had somebody say to me well, a couple of people say you can go, do whatever you want for four years and then straighten up for a year, and they're going to be thrilled that you came back, that you straightened out and came back to the church, and that's not my nature, right? So it's not what I'm going to do, but if somebody chooses to, so be it. I have felt what it's like to have people be that judgmental that you feel like why would I come back? And it's almost like maybe this sounds dramatic, it almost sounds like an attempted spiritual murder. It's just the temptation to stay away is greater because there's somebody there saying don't come. And that's one side of it. But I think the even worst part of that sin and it is a sin according to Jesus Christ, I mean, we're talking quotes from out of the mouth of Christ here I think the greater part is what it does to us to not forgive others. And again, that's why I'm not here to judge anything other than I have felt like if I'm going to work my way through this, I just have to forgive everybody, and if I don't, then that's going to hang over me. So I don't want to do that Now.
Dave Higham:Added to that, scott, which I think the point you really liked in that was that where the Savior says we must forgive or I, the Lord, will forgive who I will forgive, but a view is required to forgive all men. It was during this process. I thought well, does that mean we go to the celestial kingdom and we spend our whole lives learning how to forgive everybody? Because we have to forgive everybody, because that's a commandment. But now that we become celestial, we live in a neighborhood with a bunch of people who are now entitled to forgive who they want to forgive and not the others.
Dave Higham:And I thought well about that one, and so I said to my wife how do you think that works? And she just looked at me as playing this day and said well, it's easy. He's going to forgive everybody. He will forgive who he wants to. Don't get hung up on who the Lord is going to forgive, or why he's going to forgive them, or what they have to do to earn forgiveness, or how long it's going to take, or anything like that. Let the Lord do that. Ultimately, he's going to forgive everyone. For now, if you want to become celestial, you're going to have to learn to forgive everybody. Is that what you were referring to, scott?
Scott Brandley:Yeah, I just thought that was really profound.
Alisha Coakley:Well, I really like that part too, because the thing that stands out to me is like everyone, includes yourself, and I think that a lot of people who are going through any level of the repentance process, that is the hardest thing I feel to do is to really forgive yourself. If you're truly repentant, right, if you're truly repentant, how do you not just beat up every ounce of your spirit, being like why didn't you do that and you should have done this, you knew better and why didn't you go talk to someone?
Alisha Coakley:and what were you thinking? Right, because sometimes we just weren't thinking, or sometimes we were thinking it would be fun, or we were thinking that we would get away with it, or we were thinking it wasn't a big deal. But most of the time, I think, when we do something stupid, we really just aren't thinking, we're just not paying attention to our surroundings or we're hurting, or we're hurting yes, or we're hurting and we're just.
Dave Higham:we just don't we like. Analogy I thought of is if you have your own pet dog and that dog gets hurt and it's laying there injured you know, you've heard it time and time again the owner, who it loves, can go to pick it up and that dog will bite at you Because it doesn't know it's just pain. It's so self-centered and the dog will lash out at anybody because it's hurting. And I think that's sometimes why some people sin is because they're hurting, and so that tends to happen.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Oh. So many good nuggets in this one. I, you know, I I'm really really impressed with you and with your choice to not only like stay on this path and to work your way back to um, to having that full membership restored and stuff, but also to be so open and to share your story and I know maybe it's not even the story, it's just the insights, it's the perspective, right, it's the going through this, and you can kind of be a voice for people who who are also going through something similar, you know. So I'm just really really inspired by you and I'm really grateful for that, for you, for coming on here.
Dave Higham:Well, I, the hardest part of this is for a long, for a while I had my name was. The only way you'll find my name on the on the blog is when it's reaching out to one of these podcasts, to being on a podcast. I don't want my name out here. I really don't want it to be attached. I'd rather not do that, but in order to find people, I have to get out on these podcasts, and so I really appreciate it, and you're not going to do it without saying my name. So I have to, unfortunately, attach my name.
Dave Higham:But I'm only trying to share what I have experienced as being great love from Heavenly Father and an understanding that he knew, when he put this planet here and put us on it, that we were going to fall short. That's why he gave us the Savior in the Atonement, and I think we do a disservice and show disrespect to the Atonement when we try to pretend that sin doesn't exist or that we don't have to make changes and correct course corrections. I mean, if we can, if we can live that way, that's like you know what. Okay, we don't want to go out sinning. I certainly don't encourage you to try and beat the odds of the three and a hundred that make it back. I don't encourage that kind of behavior. Don't go sin for the sake of sinning.
Dave Higham:But I think we need to accept the fact that sin happens and it's okay Because the Atonement's there and, as a matter of fact, when you sin and when you repent, there's some great growth there, and what it does to you inside of you is really one of the greatest gifts of what this Earth experience is about. That teaches us a compassion and a love, and we're really here. I mean, the message of it all is Jesus wins. So let's learn how to love God and what that means, and learn how to love one another and what that means. And I don't know how we can do that without the Atonement and without accepting the fact that sin happens. People hurt, people make mistakes, and let's just support one another through it.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, I love that.
Scott Brandley:Yeah, one thing I really appreciate about you being on this, dave, is the perspective that you bring to people that I mean, we all make mistakes but like we don't have to go down to the, you know, down to the X communication road, but we can learn from people that might have gone down it and if you can learn from reading the Book of Mormon and not have to do it yourself.
Dave Higham:that's great, right, right, that's what I'm saying, right.
Scott Brandley:So I appreciate you being on here and being so willing to share, because it helps me to be a better person, because now I have the perspective and I can learn from your experience and your feelings and your thoughts and emotions so that I can have that perspective myself and not necessarily have to go through it. But I really appreciate being willing to share so that I can learn and maybe you, maybe, if I get to a point in my life where I'm going to make a bad choice, I can reflect on this. You're right, this time we've had together. I'll be like hey, remember what Dave said. You know, like I have that now as part of me and I can learn from it.
Scott Brandley:So I really appreciate you being on here and sharing that with us.
Dave Higham:No problem, can I say one other thing in relation?
Dave Higham:to this yeah that quote from the 2022 enzyme talk by President Nelson, or enzyme message from President Nelson. He says because the one on has said right, we all familiar with that him talking about that. He says because God has has said for those who have covenant with him, he will love them, he will continue to work with them and offer them opportunities to change. He will forgive them when they repent and, should they stray, he will help them find their way back to him. I don't get anywhere from that that there's a level of sin that he won't give that same has said style of love for anybody who's lost their membership, has started on that covenant path and this gift of, has said I am of.
Dave Higham:It is my experience that when you sin, even if you lose your membership, it doesn't put you back in the general public, so to speak. You are often a certain kind of side pastor where this covenant that you've made with God still exists and still plays a role in blessing and helping you through this. Just like he said, he will continue to offer opportunities to change, forgive them when they repent and, should they stray, he will help them find their way back to him. I can testify that's true. It's not when you lose your membership. You're now lost in something. You're actually, I believe, put in a kind of special side pastor where, if you'll stay, if you don't give up, I think getting off the covenant path is giving up when you stop trying. But to me, this quote says even when you're trying, you're going to fall short, you're going to sin, you're going to stray, but you're started on the covenant path. You made that commitment and God's not going to give up on you, and he has not given up on me and I am very grateful for that.
Scott Brandley:Well, that's why he leaves the 99 and goes for the one right, Because he loves that one yeah.
Alisha Coakley:I love that. Well, we're definitely going to be. We'll put a link to your blog in the description here, so anybody who wants to can head over there and check it out and check out some more of your thoughts and everything, because you really have some really great perspectives on this and things that you know, even those who maybe aren't going through that process right now. I feel like there's so much opportunity for us to grow and to become better and to do better, you know, to be more Christ, like to look for those who are hurting and who are struggling and who are trying to work their way from from a really low point sometimes, and, I think, even in the position where maybe you don't have the gift of the Holy Ghost as a constant companion, you are doing what's necessary so that you can still adhere to that too, which is to continue to do things that will give you those outreaches from the, from the spirit, and so I just applaud you for all of your efforts and for your willingness to come on here today. I love, I love that.
Alisha Coakley:That quote that you shared Is there. Is there anything else that you'd like to leave with our listeners before we go?
Dave Higham:I think so. I think I want to point out, remember that repentance and forgiveness are two different things that are closely tied together. So just because, as I said earlier, the Savior is going to forgive everybody, that does not mean that we have changed sufficiently to become who we could become. I think that the motivation, I think when we turn to Him and feel His love and His forgiveness, that should be the motivation to us to help us elevate our lifestyle, elevate our decisions. And so at the end of every day when we're trying to repent, or during every day when we're trying to repent, we realize that it's not necessarily that we're trying to hit that finish line of I feel forgiven.
Dave Higham:Being forgiven of stealing a candy bar doesn't put you in the Celestial Kingdom, it's. It's changing away from rebellious kinds of behavior or or becoming somebody better. So, as much as I might have said, I don't want to be misunderstood when I say God forgives us of all kinds of. He forgives us, but the onus is now on us to take that and propel from that with that love behind us, and become who we can become, and become Celestial, think Celestial, be Celestial. I think that's. I think that's what I'd like to leave that on with a great appreciation to my wife, who's just been such a great, a great help, beat and helped me talk through these things in my head, because she's just incredible.
Alisha Coakley:I love that Awesome.
Scott Brandley:Well, we thank you so much for being on the show and you know we wish you all the best in your journey and Thank you. You know this is weird to say, but we wouldn't be talking here today, hopefully sharing these things that can help other people, if you wouldn't have gone down a different path.
Dave Higham:Yeah.
Scott Brandley:I, I mean, I'm not saying that that's the best thing to do, but, like you said earlier, this whole life is about going through trials, sinning, repenting, doing better and hopefully, helping other people along the way. Yeah, and we.
Dave Higham:Yeah, there's a lot of people that. There's a lot of people that are heroes to me because they made it through some tough times and I'm just trying to emulate that Right. Sorry to cut you off there, scott. No, you're good.
Alisha Coakley:We really do appreciate you, dave, and and we do wish you the best and we hope that you know. I'm going to just say I'm going to invite you back on later on. You can tell us how things have changed and grown. You know, maybe we'll do a Cinco de Mayo next year, which would be so fun.
Alisha Coakley:You can bring the steak, that would be great, but but I am excited to see, like, where this goes and how many people can be helped and everything like that, and so part of that is it falls on the shoulders of our listeners. Guys, if you have listened to this episode today, we just want to encourage you guys to do that five second missionary work. Hit that share button. Make sure that this gets to others, because you you really, just like Dave said he had friends that he didn't even know had been excommunicated because they just kept it secret, and and it's so sad to think that there are people who are trying to get through that repentance process without having that support, and and I think that you never know where this can go. So please, please, please, if you're listening, make sure that you guys share this episode with others. You don't know who it's going to reach or how it's going to affect their life, but but I promise you that that there is is light in this episode, there's truth in this episode and there's. I've been able to feel the spirit, and so I really hope that those who are listening are able to feel it too and are able to get in touch with some some inspiration for who they can help individually.
Alisha Coakley:So thank you again, dave. Thank you are, you know, to all of our listeners. We really appreciate you guys tuning in and and if you have a story to share, one like Dave, please reach out to us. You can either go to Latter-day Lights dot com and you can fill out the form at the bottom of the page, or you can email us at Latter-day Lights at gmailcom, and we would love to you know, to talk to you about your story and see if you'd like to be a guest on our show. So anything else, scott.
Scott Brandley:Well, good, edified and ready to go to the next week. Thanks again, dave, thanks again everyone. Thank you too. We'll see you next week.
Alisha Coakley:Bye guys.
Scott Brandley:Bye.