LDS Podcast "Latter-Day Lights" - Inspirational LDS Stories
Popular LDS Podcast "Latter-Day Lights" gives members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints the opportunity to share their stories of inspiration and hope to other members throughout the world. Stories that members share on Latter-Day Lights are very entertaining, and cover a wide range of topics, from tragedy, loss, and overcoming difficult challenges, to miracles, humor, and uplifting conversion experiences! If you have an inspirational story that you'd like to share, hosts Scott Brandley and Alisha Coakley would love to hear from you! Visit LatterDayLights.com to share your story and be on the show.
LDS Podcast "Latter-Day Lights" - Inspirational LDS Stories
From Catholic to LDS: Dr. Fred Dodini's Search for Additional Truth and Light - Latter-Day Lights
From a young age growing up in a Catholic home, Fred had strong desires to become a priest, but several years into his studies he realized that he had a lot more questions than answers.
Fortunately, through a series of inspired events, Fred was able to find the answers he was looking for in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and has been a faithful member ever since.
As a professional therapist, the gospel has helped Dr. Dodini to help many of his clients to view their lives from a different, higher, and holier perspective. These ideas and perspectives are so valuable that he wrote a book about them, titled "Shine Brighter: Choosing a Life of Greater Clarity, Purpose, and Joy".
*** Please SHARE Fred's story and help us spread hope and light to others. ***
To WATCH this episode on YouTube, visit: https://youtu.be/Hc8ZKu-xC_0
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To READ Fred's book "Shine Brighter", visit (direct link): https://www.amazon.com/Shine-Brighter-Choosing-Greater-Clarity/dp/1631953346
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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.
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 a Catholic priest in training and a powerful answer to prayer led one man to seek truth and follow the promptings of the Spirit. Welcome to Latter-day Lights. Hi everyone, welcome back to another episode of Latter-day Lights. We're so glad you're here with us today. We're really excited to introduce our guest, dr Fred Dodini. Dr Fred, how are you doing today?
Fred Dodini:I am well. I hope you are too.
Alisha Coakley:We are.
Scott Brandley:We are, yeah, we're doing great.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, I was just asking Scott earlier if he got a Sunday nap in, did you? No Busy day today Me neither, so if we fall asleep, Scott will just have to keep the show going for us.
Scott Brandley:Huh, I didn't have a nap either. Oh no, I think. I think this is going to be a really interesting episode. Actually, I'm excited.
Alisha Coakley:I, I concur so, dr Fred.
Scott Brandley:Yeah, how do we, how do we address you, dr. Fred?
Fred Dodini:Fred is just fine. Okay, that's what my mother Well, fred, fred is just fine.
Alisha Coakley:Okay, that's what my mother tells me Well cool, Well, Fred, why don't you tell everyone a little bit about yourself?
Fred Dodini:Well, I grew up in Northern California, a little farming community called Gridley, and grew up in an active Catholic family, which is they're in the minority, as you may know, when it comes to Catholics. But served as an altar boy when I was a kid. I started parochial schools from fifth through eighth grade and then my freshman year, high school. I entered the seminary system. So if you're going to be a Catholic priest and you start as a freshman in high school, it's a 12-year process. So four years of high school, four years of college and three years of theology school. So that was the plan.
Alisha Coakley:That's longer than it takes to be a doctor.
Fred Dodini:Yeah, yeah, I mean not everybody starts, you know, freshman year of high school, but-.
Alisha Coakley:And it's less pay oh absolutely Absolutely. Wow.
Fred Dodini:That is a commitment.
Alisha Coakley:I did not know that, yeah.
Fred Dodini:So, my wife and I, we just celebrated our 50th anniversary. Last year we have 10 children and 34 and counting grandchildren. So we are a fun group, especially for family reunions are quite the experience.
Alisha Coakley:Okay, so I have to ask because my parents are at the point now where they've got grandkids and great grandkids and like their Christmas budget, for each person gets smaller and smaller and smaller. And I told him I said just don't buy for the adults, Like, just buy for the little ones. You know, like be like under 18, you get gifts, but over 18, you don't. So how do you guys do it with 34 grand?
Fred Dodini:Yeah, we have a wheel, so each of our 10 kids each year we turn the wheel right. So there's names on the outside, names on the inside, and so it lines up. One sibling buys for another siblings family. But my wife insists on us getting something for each of the 10 families, so it's it's not elaborate, elaborate, and she's doing things for the grandkids all the time.
Alisha Coakley:Oh wow, oh my gosh, that's cool. So it's like the wheel of Christmas.
Fred Dodini:Yes, yeah, that's what it is. We try to keep it within the budget.
Alisha Coakley:Wow, that is so cool. Oh, my goodness. Well, that's awesome. So we know that you're a doctor. A doctor of what?
Fred Dodini:Yeah Well, I got a master's degree in clinical social work from BYU and then a PhD at Purdue University in marriage and family therapy. So I have a practice private practice where I work with couples and families and people with anxiety and depression and all sorts of challenges in their lives.
Alisha Coakley:And being 50 years married. Yeah, oh, lots of experience there.
Fred Dodini:Yeah, as soon as I tell people that their mouth falls open. Yeah, that's incredible Instant credibility when it comes to talking about marriage and parenting issues.
Alisha Coakley:Oh, for sure that is awesome. Well, wonderful, super cool. Well, fred, we're definitely interested in hearing how you got from altar boy to super Mormon grandpa.
Fred Dodini:Yeah, yeah, so why don't you go ahead and share your story with us? You know, when I was in sixth grade, it was a Catholic school in Marysville, california. Each year there would be a priest from the diocese, which is kind of like a stake in the Catholic church. They would go to all of the Catholic schools in the area and talk to the sixth, seventh and eighth grade boys about the possibility of, you know, considering a vocation as a priest. And I was just really struck with the conversation because, you know, I was aation as a priest. And I was just really struck with the conversation because, you know, I was a mischievous kid, to say the least. But there was a serious side to me too. And I remember thinking that day it sounded like a great idea. This showed slides of every you know it's an all boys school, so there are, you know, kinds of sports stuff and fun kinds of things.
Fred Dodini:But I just really felt that if I wanted my life to matter, I should just let God decide how to use it. And becoming a priest was the natural choice to let God direct my life. So I remember going home that day and just announcing around the dinner table that I'd made my decision I was going to be a priest. You know, when you're 11 years old you're going to be a baseball player one week and, you know, an astronaut the next. So nobody took much interest in it. But I kept the brochure they gave me, I put it in my desk in my bedroom and, beginning of eighth grade, I pulled it out and filled out the little form to request information and mailed it off. I don't even remember if I told my parents that I'd done that.
Fred Dodini:So, yeah, my mind was pretty well made up at that point and I spent the first three years of high school in the seminary the minor seminary system and my senior year. Father Bruce was the dean of the school and, like I said, I was a bit of a mischievous kid. I kind of led the way in the pillow fights and the kitchen raids and that sort of stuff. So I got myself into a pretty good amount of trouble and so it was a very conservative place, you can imagine, and Father Bruce didn't think I was priesthood material at that time.
Fred Dodini:So they suggested I spend my senior year of you know somewhere else. So I went back to public school my hometown and that was not a good year, um, and said. You know, I really didn't plan to become priest. So I went on to the, to the college section section, my freshman year of college, and that's when I really began to feel like I did not feel, like I had that confirmation from the Spirit that I felt I had before. And the more I thought about it and prayed about it, the more convinced I was that there were, and I was learning more and more about Catholic doctrine and the history of the church and there were obvious, you know, some glaring problems there.
Scott Brandley:How does that happen? Like what's the schedule? Like how much studying do you do?
Fred Dodini:Well, in addition, you know normal school curriculum stuff. There's religion classes and we were involved in communities teaching what they called CCD classes. They were religion classes you know to, to kids in various parishes and stuff, and it was just the mindset that you know you've made this commitment so you need to live your life prepared for that. So you can imagine we were we were dating during summer vacations was strongly discouraged if you were going to be a priest.
Fred Dodini:So yeah, that was interesting when I went back to public school and not very great social skills around girls at that time, but yeah, it was just. I mean, we went to mass every day and we had time for meditation and prayer and reading the scriptures and stuff was part of the curriculum and our daily routines. So it was just that we were trying to live our lives in a way that would prepare us for that responsibility.
Alisha Coakley:Gotcha.
Fred Dodini:And then, after I so that freshman year of college, I just really felt strongly that this was not what God had intended for me. And so I went home really kind of really didn't feel any direction in my life at that point because what I, you know, dreamed about doing since I was 11 years old, here I am 18. And it just I didn't have anything else, I didn't have plan B, but I remember I enrolled some community college classes and stuff, but my head wasn't in it. And so I really began to pray, and I mean I did normally each night before bed, and I remember vividly it was a midweek, weekday night in mid-January of 1970. I'd just been out of the seminary for a few weeks and I just knelt by my bed and I prayed and I asked Heavenly Father, and I said this is exactly what I said. I said, father in heaven, if there is truth to be found on the earth, please lead me to it. I got an immediate, unmistakable, undeniable response. Response, and the spirit made very clear to me that my prayer had been heard and would be answered in a specific time frame when that would happen. It would happen in two years, which I wasn't happy about because you know, I'm ready now. You know, give me the answer. What am I going to do for the next two years? Right, my thumbs waiting for something, and uh, you know, the old saying is that god can't steer a parked car. So I figured, okay, if, if the catholic church wasn't the answer and I didn't know which, which direction I was supposed to go, I had friends that went, you know, attended different churches and stuff, and i'd'd actually attended some LDS services with a couple of friends in high school who were LDS, and it was a time of kind of upheaval in my life. I was in a band, we made the trip to Hollywood to try and get a recording deal and stuff like that, and that didn't go well.
Fred Dodini:And came back from that and decided I was ready to go back to college and started back at the community college, and that was the fall of 1971. And there were some really good kids in the chorus class that I was enrolled in and we got to be good friends and we used to spend our lunch hours just talking about religion and philosophy and things like that. And there was a girl, patty stott, that was in our little group and we used to and she was lds and, um, it was just a, you know, very open kind of conversation and I think, gradually, the more time I spent with her, the more I think the spirit began to work on me and I just felt strongly drawn to learning more about uh, the lds church. The Spirit began to work on me and I just felt strongly drawn to learning more about the LDS Church. So I went to a friend of mine, one of the guys I'd been in a band with. He was LDS but he wasn't active in the church, and asked if I could borrow a Book of Mormon from him, if he had one. And he said he didn't have one but he knew his grandmother would. So he was at his house, he got on the phone and called his grandmother and a couple minutes later I looked out the window and she was sprinting down the street. She was probably in her seventies, at least with a Book of Mormon in her hand. So I started reading and couldn't put her down.
Fred Dodini:I read the whole book in a couple of weeks and then I went to one of the faculty members on campus that I knew was LDS and just said I read the Book of Mormon, I want to know more. What's the next step? And he said well, I can contact the missionaries. So in my little farming town of Gridley, california, I got a call one day from a gentleman who wanted to come by and he and his friend were ward missionaries. They were funny, they were both pig farmers, so a little uncouth. And I had all these very intelligent questions, I thought, and they struggled, I think, to answer them. But the more I took the discussions, the more convinced I was in the spirit to continue to work with me. And so they asked me about baptism. I said, yeah, let's do it.
Alisha Coakley:So how long was this after your prayer?
Fred Dodini:That was a little well, almost two years at that point, almost two years at that point. It was a little after the two-year period that I actually got baptized. I got baptized in March and that prayer experience had been in January, two years before. But I was reflecting on that a few months afterwards and the big changes in my life, and especially with the gift of the Holy ghost and radical change, uh, it was like the spirit was cleaning house in my head. Um, I just began to with the old doctrines, the old ideas just began to kind of drift away and be replaced with, you know, the doctrines of the restored church. And and I was reading everything I could get my hands on.
Fred Dodini:I read the book of Mormon probably three times in the first three or four months, wow, and you know President Kimball's book and, just like I said, I just tried to devour as much information as I could. And one day, like I said, a few months afterwards, I was just thinking back and reflecting on what had happened and that whole process. I was just thinking back and reflecting on what had happened and that whole process and I realized that the day I opened the Book of Mormon and began reading it for the first time was almost two years to the day of that prayer experience, so I didn't write it down at the time. But it was in a midweek day in mid day in mid January two years later that I opened the book more for the first time. So, um, that is so cool. Things went, uh have gone well ever since.
Scott Brandley:What was that like Um, having grown up with a certain way of looking at God and and certain doctrine, and then having the book of Mormon come in out of nowhere and just with new ideas and new teachings. Because you?
Fred Dodini:know as I read, because I had a lot of. There were a lot of questions you know Catholic doctrines and stuff that weren't really answered in the Bible. There were, you know, policies and doctrines that the Catholic church taught that weren't really taught in the Bible. But reading the book of Mormon just kind of filled in most of the blanks that I had questions concerning about some of the doctrines and things and it just felt right. I mean, that's what the Spirit does. It felt like home. In fact, the morning I got baptized I jumped on my bicycle and decided I was going to make one last trip to make sure I was making the right decision. So I pedaled past the LDS Church on Spruce Street in Gridley and felt this overwhelming feeling like I was coming home.
Fred Dodini:And then another, you know, maybe half a mile away. I drove by the Catholic Church I had grown up in. I had been in there hundreds of times, served as an altar boy, and I felt nothing. I just felt empty, and to me that was just the final confirmation that I was making the right decision. I was home.
Alisha Coakley:Wow. So can I ask, and I don't know, I mean you don't have to share if you don't want to, because normally we don't really do this on the show. It's more just about the experience and not like the doctrine part. But I'm curious, like for you what were some of the things that you struggled with in regards to the Catholic Church that were answered as you were reading the Book of Mormon?
Fred Dodini:You know the doctrine of the Trinity that really came out of the Council of Nicaea in 325, the idea that God was a mystery, that there's the three-in-one concept. It didn't jive with me on what I was reading in the scriptures. The Savior addressed the Father. He always said the Father is greater than I. And you know, when he said the Father and I are one, he also said the same is greater than I. And you know, when he said the father and I are one, he also said same thing to the apostles, that they needed to be one. So that was an issue, um and the whole concept of transubstantiation, that somehow the eucharist or the, the sacrament, is somehow actually transformed into the body and blood of christ like the physical body, right, yeah?
Fred Dodini:even though it still maintains its appearance of, you know, bread and wine and that sort of thing, and it just um, you know, I knew about the last supper, I knew about what the savior had said to the apostles and um, that just didn't, you know, that didn't stick, didn't work for me. Yeah, and there were. There were practices back in the ancient church, you know the popes who were selling indulgences and doing some bad things, and just overall the history of the church changing, of the form of baptism. There were all kinds of things that to me seemed not in harmony with what the New Testament taught.
Alisha Coakley:Did you ever bring that kind of stuff up while you were in the seminary? Did you ever ask anyone else about it, or did you kind of keep it in internal?
Fred Dodini:Yeah, we didn't talk about in the high school part. We didn't really get that deep into some of the doctrines. But in the in the college department you know our freshman year we got more into the philosophy and that sort of stuff and and yeah, we used to talk about some of these things in our classes. There were a lot of young men there that really were kind of on the fence as far as whether they believed the scriptures were literal or not. And even today there are people in a lot of mainline religions that aren't entirely sure exactly what the Savior's role was. They don't understand the atonement very well.
Alisha Coakley:Wow, what about the doctrine of, you know, with, with priests being single, you know, and having that life of celibacy? Like how did that?
Fred Dodini:that policy and that didn't really come out until it was the fourth or fifth century at least, and the idea was that somehow, if you're going to be serving God and serving you know, your fellow man is a priest that you didn't have the time and the energy to devote for family. And there was, there were doctrines about that kind of made the flesh, you know, any kind of sexual relationships and stuff like that kind of. That was a lower level of faith, I suppose, and so you know priests and nuns were considered they were living by a higher standard, I guess, if they took vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. So. But I knew a lot of priests that were struggling with a lot of things, you know, even the ones in the seminary where I lived. It was a boarding school environment, so we lived there nine months of the year and some of the priests were struggling with, you know, alcohol issues and some other stuff. So I knew it was a difficult life and I knew there were some things missing from their lives.
Scott Brandley:that didn't necessarily have to be Gotcha. Did they encourage you to ask questions or was it more like you don't ask?
Fred Dodini:No, that was typical of the Vatican Council, which was a big church council in the Catholic Church in the 60s really opened up a lot of ecumenical kinds of ideas we started. You know it used to be considered a mortal sin to even attend another church's service, but there in the seminary we had a really good choir and I played in the combo and sang in the choir and stuff and we used to perform at other churches in the seminary we had a really good choir and I played in the combo and sang in the choir and stuff and we used to perform at other churches in the Sacramento area and so there was more of a kind of an open position on inquiry and learning more about other religions and the Greek Orthodox Church, which had broken off from Roman Catholicism back in the 13th century. Now it was okay for Greek Orthodox priests to come celebrate Mass with Roman Catholic priests. It was considered valid. So that was huge.
Alisha Coakley:That's cool.
Fred Dodini:So there were changes.
Alisha Coakley:And I don't know again, this is not normally where we go with the show, but I am really intrigued with like knowing a little bit more about this, Because one of the things that I didn't even know about the Council of Nicaea until and maybe I'm saying that wrong, Is it?
Fred Dodini:Nicaea.
Alisha Coakley:Nicaea. Okay, so I didn't even know about them until probably 10 or 15 years ago, something like that, you know. And then when I heard the story of how that all came out and what their purpose was, I was just like holy cow, like how come everybody doesn't know about this? Like how come this isn't common?
Fred Dodini:knowledge. It's a really important event. Constantine was a newly minted Christian at that time, and so the Roman Empire allowed Christianity. It became the state religion. But there was a big conflict between the eastern part of the church based in Constantinople, which was separate from the Roman church, the western church. The Roman church had more people, more the Pope was there and all that, and so Constantine's the one who called that council, and one of the biggest issues that they addressed was the Trinity. There was an Eastern Orthodox scholar by the name of Arius who was teaching that the Father and the Son are not of the same substance, that they are separate individuals. That didn't go over well with the Western part of the church, who had more political clout. So they went out in that council and Arius' writings were destroyed and he was branded a heretic. So that's really where that three-in-one mystical kind of concept was really canonized was at the Council of Nicaea, and it's still part of Protestant and evangelical Christianity to this day.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, all mainstream Christianity, right. Yeah, I don't really know of any other faiths who believe in the Godhead, despite the fact that I founds who believe in the Godhead, you know, despite the fact that I always I found it interesting that the word Godhead is found multiple times throughout the scriptures, but the word Trinity is never once found in there. Is that correct? So it's interesting how they, how they came to, like, gather that idea, and I know that there's a few scriptures that are kind of confusing when you read about. You know, I am the father and the father's in me and you know, like I understand that, but it it was just, it was almost like jaw-dropping to me when I learned about this council and like the history of it and I just thought how, how did how did christianity get so far? You know, I mean like it was a gradual thing that happened, yeah there's a book I'm trying to remember.
Fred Dodini:I believe it's written by one of the other I think he's in the presiding bishopric, and his name escapes me at the moment.
Fred Dodini:I think it's called the blueprint for the savior's church or something to that effect. Okay, and it's really good book and he documents a lot of these changes that occurred over the centuries. And, um, he found there was was a letter by the Bishop of Carthage, northern Africa, and this was in the early, I think in the early fourth century, like around 300, well, maybe in the third century. He was the bishop of that congregation and there was a letter that was found, that from someone who was part of the congregation saying you know, we really need to rethink this baptism thing because there are a lot of older people who want to get baptized. I mean, we can't dump in water, they could get sick and you know, blah, blah, blah. We should, we should come up with an alternative.
Fred Dodini:And this was I can't remember his name again, but he was a well-known scholar in that time in Christianity and his response was I don't have a problem with that, but you're going to have to convince the people back in Rome that that's okay. Well, within a century. That's exactly what happened, and that was when the mode of baptism they allowed sprinkling.
Alisha Coakley:Wow, I didn't know that, so they used to baptize like we did.
Fred Dodini:Yeah, in the first second century of the Christian church there were still a lot of the original first century doctrines that were surviving, but over time, just a lot of it's an apostasy. A lot of false doctrine began to creep in and gradually gain acceptance over time.
Alisha Coakley:Gotcha Very interesting.
Scott Brandley:So, as you're learning, reading the Book of Mormon and stuff, you must be comparing all these things that you've learned to these new ideas from the LDS church, right it?
Fred Dodini:wasn't really a comparison, it just made sense and that's how the Spirit works, right. You know truth when you recognize it. I knew it when I read the Book of Mormon for the first time. I knew it when I prayed about Joseph Smith and about whether the church was true. So it spoke to me and so I didn't really struggle over those changes. I was all in when I made the decision to get baptized and if I was interested, after I'd had the missionary discussions, I went to one of the other faculty members at Community College and I also heard it was LDS and I said I've read the Book of Mormon, I've taken the missionary discussions, I want to get baptized. I said are you authorized to do that? It just so happened he was the state mission president.
Scott Brandley:Oh how cool.
Fred Dodini:He's the one who baptized me.
Alisha Coakley:Oh, that's awesome.
Scott Brandley:So how did that affect your family?
Fred Dodini:It didn't go over well. In fact, my parents asked me to move out soon after that.
Fred Dodini:My parents are great people, just good human beings. You know, the Catholic Church goes back in our two sides of the families back five, six, seven hundred years, I mean literally. I've traced our genealogy back to interesting back in the 1600s in this little village in Switzerland where my father's family came from. We've traced it back to a Catholic priest who had some children with a young woman he was in a relationship with in that community. They couldn't be married but it was not uncommon for priests to have relationships Really uncommon for priests to have relationships Really yeah. So yeah, wow, I've got some Catholic priests on both sides of my family, my mom's and my dad's.
Alisha Coakley:How scandalous.
Fred Dodini:I know I try to bear the shame.
Alisha Coakley:Oh man, Did your family ever, you family ever come around at all you?
Fred Dodini:know we kind of had to understand. I had moved out for a while and was living in an apartment in Chico where I was going to school. And then that young woman that was in my class and that's another story. I'm reluctant to share this because it's going to give some people the wrong impression she was over at another friend's house. There was another girl in our college class we were all friends with and I remembered just wondering what role she might play in my life.
Fred Dodini:Or I was really just kind of praying and asking you know what's the next step, kind of thing. And I remember I was sitting in a friend's car and I said just kind of out loud that's the way I used to pray, I used to talk to God. I said you know, maybe we're going to wind up married. And boom, I mean I felt the force come through the top of my head and explode in my chest. That's the best way, you know. You talk about the burning in the bosom. And the answer was very clear that's it, she's the one. And I was not even a member of the church then.
Fred Dodini:Wow that was a couple months, at least a couple months before. So yeah, that was weird and I thought, well, I can't tell her that She'll make it really crazier than they already thought it was. But the Spirit just kept pushing and, pushing, and pushing and she had experienced one day. It was lunchtime, she was just praying about what direction the Lord wanted her to take in her life. She had this really strong prompting to get up and walk over to the outdoor lunch area. There I was there. She just felt directed to sit down and we started talking. I said, well, I've got something I'm supposed to tell you. I don't want to because you're going to really think I'm crazy. But I had this experience and I explained it to her and she just kind of smiled and nodded her head. She's LDS, she's not going to marry somebody. That's not LDS. And I had no idea, no time frame, none of that stuff. I just had that experience. But yeah, after I was baptized and we started dating and um yeah, kind of engaged
Alisha Coakley:a few months later. Wow, that's cool, really. Yeah, that's awesome, oh my gosh. Okay, so take us to. You're in college. Now you're baptized. You know how do you go to picking this profession that you're in with. You know wanting to be a marriage and family counselor and all that kind of stuff like where do you get? Where do you go from there?
Fred Dodini:well, I mean, that was my plan. I was, I majored in psychology, minored in music and and I played in bands, you know, you know dance bands and stuff like that in high school and college and we used to play for all the church dances when I was in college and, um, I was, I was applying for graduate programs in counseling fields, psychology and all that sort of stuff, and I just got a call from out of the blue. The guitar player in our band who was leaving on his mission, had run into another couple of musicians in the music store who played in a 50s show band you probably guys have never heard of, but they were. Uh, yeah, I have, you had, okay. So they were a bunch of you know guys from columbia university in new york and they played at woodstock and so 50s music was really popular at the time in the in the mid 70s. Happy days was on tv and stuff, yeah, and they were looking for a bass player.
Fred Dodini:They wanted to leave school and go on the road and I thought, you know, 50s music isn't really not very challenging and I was a better musician than that and you know I don't want to get up and jump around on stage and put dippity do in my hair I mean, that was beneath me, right but I felt this prompting I need to go audition with them, and I did, and I got this another powerful spiritual impression. That's what you're supposed to do, and I remember going home to my wife and saying this is crazy. I have no idea, this doesn't make any sense at all, but I feel like I'm supposed to do this, and so we both fastened a prayer about it and made the decision, and so I graduated, finished my undergrad about six months later and the band went on the road and I spent two years with the Bop-A-Dips that was the name of the band. They are still in existence in Missoula, montana.
Fred Dodini:The guy who was the leader of the band started another incarnation of them and it was terrible.
Fred Dodini:I mean, it was dangerous. You could have gotten killed several times. You know, traveling in Canada 40 below zero in the middle of February and having vehicles break down, so it was a little scary. Yeah, we had two kids at the time and so it came to the point where I said this is, this isn't working. You know this can't be the right thing to do. So I quit the band and and uh, it was planned to, you know, go back, get my plan started for graduate school. And then we moved to Utah so it would be closer to BYU, because I thought, you know, they had a program in social work and marriage and family therapy and psychology. So that was kind of the plan.
Fred Dodini:And I got another phone call from somebody I'd never met and didn't know, who wanted me to fly to Phoenix and audition for his bigger 50s touring band. He was picking musicians from different groups around the country and he'd heard about the Bop-A-Dips because we played one club in Boise that we were real popular at and his band wound up in the same club and the coincidences are kind of really weird here. The guy who was leaving used to do a Ray Charles the comedy Ray Charles impersonation. We did a lot of tributes from people in the 50s and early 60s. Just so happened that I did two in my other 50s band. I played a nerd character. The other bass player was a nerd character. So yeah, I just felt again my wife and I had the same impression this is what you're supposed to do. This part's not over yet and I thought this really is a bummer. I was on jazz to go to grad school and stuff. It's not over yet and I thought this really is a bummer. I was on jazz to go to grad school and stuff. And so I joined that band and the next six years it went from crazy to crazier.
Fred Dodini:I remember just a few months after joining the band I was home back when we were living in Utah and the band was based in Orlando, florida, and we had a little time off and I was home and made an appointment to see the bishop and we had just moved from one ward into this new ward in Orem just a couple of weeks before I left to go to join the band and go on the road.
Fred Dodini:And so the bishop thought I think he thought I was inactive or something. And I asked for the meeting with the bishop because I want to go to join the band and go on the road. And so the bishop thought I think he thought I was inactive or something and I asked for the meeting with the bishop because I wanted to make sure that the family had good home teachers and visiting teachers, because I knew I was going to be gone a lot. And so I met with him and I walked in and he shook my hand and I sat down in the chair in front of his desk and he just stared at me for a few seconds and then he said I've been thinking about this conversation all day. I had all my remarks rehearsed. I was going to tell you you need to quit this band, come home, take care of your family. But when we shook hands and you sat down, the spirit said to me you cannot tell him that.
Scott Brandley:Wow.
Fred Dodini:And I said I'm so glad that you are in tune with the Spirit, because I can't explain this either. I just know that this is what I'm supposed to be doing. I don't have any idea why. I just want to make sure my family is getting what they need.
Fred Dodini:And so about a year and a half later, just being based in Orlando, we toured all over the country and internationally. But I didn't want to leave the family. They would travel with me as much as possible. We just decided to move to Orlando. So we did that and we'd been there a few months and we went in to see the bishop for how we used to do the budget assessment and stuff like that. So my wife and I were there and walked in. Bishop greeted us, we sat down in two chairs in front of his desk and he just stared at me for a few seconds and then he said I've been thinking about this conversation all day. I had all my remarks rehearsed. I was in a pain. You need to quit this band and come home and take care of your family. But when you walked in and you shook hands and we sat down, the Spirit said to me you cannot tell him that it was virtually what had happened to people before and my wife and I just looked at each other and started laughing.
Fred Dodini:I said you're not the first bishop to have that experience, and I mean he'd been inactive at one time. The club I was based in was a 50s themed club, but it used to be well, it's to say, not a very savory place that the bishop used to hang out in. So he knew, you know, the reputation and the guy who owned the club that's another story. He was involved with the mafia and bad things happened. It's crazy stuff. You know when, when my wife and I tell people they just they can't imagine that that part of my life is just so bizarre. But so, yeah, again, and I explained the mission, I said I don't understand it.
Fred Dodini:I've been praying and praying, and praying to just get some clear guidance here. Why? Why am I supposed to be in this situation? It's not safe. I'm in a really bad environment a lot. It's not good for the family, it's dangerous, you know. But I never really got a really clear answer of what it was. But when the time came, when I knew it was over, the Lord made it very clear. I mean, the door slammed shut and it was done.
Alisha Coakley:So you still don't know why.
Fred Dodini:I still don't know why.
Alisha Coakley:I was going to say you must have affected somebody along the way.
Fred Dodini:Yeah, a couple of people who joined the church that were friends of ours, especially my wife, and so I mean my logical mind has to come up with some explanation. Well, that must've been the reason, but but I've never really felt like I had any clear explanation. At one time I thought, well, maybe this is just kind of preparation for something else that's going to come later. So that seemed to make sense. And when I did get a chance to go to grad school and become a therapist, a lot of those experiences really helped me understand people from very different backgrounds and people with all kinds of addictions and bad stuff going on their lives and trauma, and so in that regard, I think it's it's helped me feel more compassion for people who are very different than me, certainly, and whose lives they really struggle oh huh, that's an interesting perspective.
Alisha Coakley:So I'm noticing, you know you've got a few books behind you and I know we talked a little bit about this book, so do you want to kind of lead us into that?
Fred Dodini:Sure. Well, it kind of follows that same idea of following the spirit, searching for truth in our lives, and so I was the clinical director for the Anasazi Foundation in Arizona. It's a wilderness program for teenagers and young adults and it's run by some LDS families. We didn't really emphasize spirituality per se, but people would come from literally all over the world with various different kinds of religious backgrounds. So we always try to include at least a recognition of spiritual values if they had any in their lives In the Native American community, because one of the families was Ezequiel Sanchez. He's Totonac Indian and his wife is Navajo, so a lot of Indian kind of culture about the great spirit and the creator and those kinds of things. That language would be part of the way we spoke to kids, so we were always trying to find stuff from their wilderness experience. They're spending six weeks at least out in the wilderness living really primitively as a way as a teaching method, and so I still remember the conversation.
Fred Dodini:It was a 17-year-old boy from Beverly Hills whose family was very wealthy and entitled and he had rejected all that and was kind of angry and rebellious and he was kind of hard to connect with and we were just sitting on a mountaintop one day and I said you know, we're not here to tell you how you live your life. That's a choice you get to make. But can I help you figure out what the options are? He said what do you mean? I say, well, there's three kinds of people in the world sun people, moon people and star people.
Fred Dodini:You say what are you talking about? I say look up. What do you see? I see the sun, okay. So what? Okay, well, what does it do? Provides light, yeah. Warmth, yeah. Nutrition. Vitamin D comes from sunlight. We need it for plants to grow, so we have food to eat. We need it for photosynthesis so we have oxygen to breathe. So life on the earth couldn't exist without the sun. And the sun uses its mass to create a gravitational force that guides the orbit of the earth. We are just the right distance from the sun or life couldn't exist on this planet.
Fred Dodini:So I said the sun exists to serve the earth. It's the strongest, most powerful thing in our solar system, but its whole focus is on us, a tiny little blue ball in the night sky. So I said sun people are the same way. They provide light in the form of knowledge, wisdom, understanding. They provide warmth in the form of compassion and love. They provide nutrition in the form of service to the bodies, the minds, the spirits of all those around them. And they use their knowledge, their wealth, their positions of influence in the world, their power to guide other people's lives in a positive direction, toward happiness. And I said have you ever met any sun people? And he stopped for a minute and said yeah. And I said have you ever met any sun people? And he stopped for a minute and said yeah. I said how do you feel when you're around them? He said I feel good. I know I have value. They see me as a person of value, regardless of what I'm doing. I said, yeah, that's been my experience too. So, yeah, some people are the best.
Fred Dodini:What about the moon? What do we know about the moon? Does it produce its own light? No, just what's reflected from the sun. So I said well, that means the moon is always half in the light and half in the dark. You know, know, part good, part evil, part truth, part error. And then every now and then you have a little process where the sun, you got a full moon in the night sky and all of a sudden it starts to get darker and darker and darker, until the moon is totally in the dark. I said you know what causes that? He said yeah, it's a lunar eclipse. Dude, he's from California.
Scott Brandley:And I said yeah.
Fred Dodini:And so isn't that amazing. We've got a reminder in the night sky what happens when people let the world get in the way, and that's what moon people do. Their focus is on temporal things. It's about power and wealth and prestige, and entertainment and good looks and popularity All the stuff we leave behind when we die. But moon people are part in the light, part in the dark. They're ambiguous. They got the devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other. They're struggling to choose between good and evil and their focus is on themselves, not on the welfare of other people.
Fred Dodini:And I said do you know any moon people? And he laughed. He said, yeah, yeah, I live with them. So, okay, didn't want to go any further about that. Yeah, so, uh. I said oh, okay.
Fred Dodini:And I said what about stars? Stars are just a tiny pinpoint of light in the night sky, hardly any light at all, and no, no heat, no warmth comes from. Then they're too far away. And I said, yeah, star people are the same way. What little light and goodness they have within them they don't value, they don't nurture it, they don't want it to grow, they don't have anything to share with other people. So their lives are in the dark and they prefer it that way. They want power and they'll do whatever it takes to get it. They lie all the time, they steal, they cheat, they kill. It's all about control and power over other people. And I said have you ever met any star people? And he said yeah, you do not want to be around those people. They will hurt you. I said, okay, yeah, he knows. So I said you know, I just want to help you figure out your options in life. You're meeting some real sun people here.
Fred Dodini:The people on the trail, the staff were great. I mean, a lot of them were just, you know, college kids. They weren't that much older than the kids that were in the program, but they just had a light about them. They were so positive and optimistic. And I said you know, you have these opportunities here. You can see the way these people live their lives compared to some of the other people you've known.
Fred Dodini:So those are your choices sun, moon or star. And again, I can't make the decision for you, neither can your parents and neither will God. But if you want to know what those look like, if you think being a sun person is the way to go, by all means go for it. And as I got up to leave and in our conversation I turned back to him. I said oh, by the way, for the rest of your life, every time you look up in the sky, you're going to remember this conversation. He said dude, you're totally in my head now. I said, yeah, that was kind of the idea. We laughed. We had some good conversations after that, so that became the theme for the book. I just write about what it looks like to be a sun, moon or star person. A lot of it's from the Doctrine and Covenants, section 76, and 1 Corinthians, chapter 15. So people of faith certainly can relate to it, and I just use those metaphors to talk about our choices as individuals, as spouses, as parents and then as citizens in the broader community.
Alisha Coakley:Wow, that's really cool. I love that, so okay, so where are we now?
Fred Dodini:Where are we now? We're Carmel Indiana. We're Carmel Indiana. We came back out here. Our kids are spread literally from coast to coast. We have a daughter in the Portland Oregon area, we have a son in Arledge in Virginia and various places in between. So when we downsized from our family home in Arizona and I'd left the Anasazi Foundation, it was in private practice and we just decided to come back this direction. We were a little bit closer to a few more of our kids on the eastern half of the US than on the western and we've enjoyed it here. And my wife's a massage therapist. She continues to do some work and works a lot with people that have had trauma and stuff like that too. So we work and works a lot with people that have had trauma and stuff like that too. So we work together a lot of our clients.
Alisha Coakley:That's really neat. Oh, I love that and what.
Scott Brandley:so what does that look like Like? What does your day to day look like in your field?
Fred Dodini:Boy. Yeah, I see clients individually and couples and families. I get a chance to use that the sun, moon, star metaphor quite a lot, because a lot of times people are in bad situations because they made misguided choices or they've been involved with other people who are doing the same kind of bad stuff. So I think it's a good, just a simple metaphor that resonates with everybody. You don't have to have any particularly religious background. If you do, you can relate to it at a deeper level. But even then, it's, it's just, it's a. It serves as a simple metaphor to people. You want a better life? Okay, this is what it looks like. A better life. Okay, this is what it looks like, and I can help you if you want. But you got to make that decision. It's like the old uh, it's the old joke. How many psychologists does it take to change the light bulb? Just one, but the light bulb has to want to change. That's the challenge for therapists is finding people who want to change. Unfortunately, they're not in the majority.
Alisha Coakley:Oh wow, man, you have just like a very full life. I really have loved hearing about it. I'm sure you have a million other stories too.
Fred Dodini:Oh yeah, oh yeah. But my wife and I, we laugh about some of this stuff. You know, um, we have had, all you know, very diverse, uh, set of experiences in life, but it's all good, we've. We've grown. I think so much and appreciate so much because of a lot of the diversity and some of the adversity that we've had to deal with. And our kids have done really well. You know, they're all active in the church, all married in the temple, so we just feel that that's maybe that was the Lord's blessing.
Alisha Coakley:You have an awesome resume. Like for a marriage and family LDS counselor. Like check, check, check. Your phone's going to be ringing after this episode, oh yeah.
Scott Brandley:I enjoy what I do.
Fred Dodini:And it's even more satisfying when I can actually help people who are ready to make some changes in their lives.
Scott Brandley:Wow.
Fred Dodini:And I think those challenges, you know our older kids five of the kids were born during those traveling years and then the next five were not so they can't relate to any of the experiences their older siblings talk about, but they've really been there for each other through some really difficult challenges that some of them have faced. And we feel so blessed and that's one of the things I kept thinking Maybe because I made that sacrifice for whatever purpose the Lord had in mind. I think he has blessed our family tremendously.
Fred Dodini:And I tell our kids that I said. You know the fact that we did make some sacrifices. There was a reason for it and the Lord is going to remember that.
Alisha Coakley:And we've been blessed in a lot of ways so just a little off topic, but if you had to give advice to someone who wants what you have, who wants the 50 years under their belt with marriage, happy marriage, yes very happy anyone anyone can be married for 50 years.
Fred Dodini:Just that's a little harder no, we, we, we, great, great relationship. Um, yeah, um, you know, it all goes back to the, the basics. It's. It's about faith, it's about, I think, it's about seeking for truth, and that was what led me on this whole thing in the first place was a simple prayer to my heavenly father. I just wanted to find the truth and the promise came that I would and I did, and that really is what it all goes back to. If we have you know, moroni talks about it in Moroni 10, if you have the desire to know the truth and the willingness and the attention to act on it, when you receive it, the Lord's going to bless you, he's going to open up all of this knowledge. But you have to want to, you have to ask, ask right, ask, seek, knock, um. And if you have that desire, there's, there's, there's no reason not to believe that the answers will come, and they certainly will.
Scott Brandley:That's been my experience wow awesome well, do you want to have any last comments? Um, or any last thoughts before we wrap things up?
Fred Dodini:I was thinking of something funny. One of my clients said recently we were, we were talking, he's a nurse and he's had some real challenges in his life. And I say how you know, how are you coping with all this stuff?
Fred Dodini:And and he says I just tell my friends I'm just waiting for the rapture, just waiting for the rapture, just waiting for the rapture and it may come sooner than we, than we, some of us expect it, but for him that's it's not just a joke, it's, it's the way he copes. He's a man of faith. He's dealt with a lot of challenges in his life. You know he's got some sexual orientation issues going on there. We don't, you know, focus on that so much. It's mostly about. It's mostly about being a good person and that's what he wants to be and he's striving to be and so anything I can do to help him in that process. So I've encouraged people that if you make the commitment, if you want to be a sun person, in fact I kind of have it.
Fred Dodini:There's a secret to the book. When I talk about the sun, the moon, the stars, I always spell it the same way S-U-N. Right, there's one place in the book where I spell it differently and I did that on purpose. So if people of faith are reading the book, they're going to see that and they're going to wonder oh, this just isn't about the S-U-N, it's about the S-O-N. And I've told people who've read the book I say read it again, but this time keep a pencil handy and every time you come across the word S-U-N, just put a line through it and write S-O-N above it, and you'll discover you're reading an entirely different book.
Fred Dodini:I did it myself, and there's so many references, comparisons of the sun and the sky to God and the Savior. It's just to me that's ultimately the direction people's lives need to go in and store the Savior. That's where ultimate happiness is, that's where we find truth and that's where we find the solutions to our problems as individuals, as spouses, as parents and as citizens in the community. If we would just turn to the savior, turn to the source of truth, everything would be so much better.
Alisha Coakley:And so your book is called shine brighter. And where do we find it? Can we find it on Amazon, or is there?
Fred Dodini:Yeah, I think most of them, although online Barnes and Noble Amazon. There's a couple other ones. I think most of them have a widespread. Yeah. Okay, awesome, and we're just finished with the audio book here, cause a lot of people prefer audio books. Yeah, scott and I are big audio people, I'll actually give my kids to read my book, but they'll listen to it. That's another reason.
Scott Brandley:I've done some research on that and it's about one-third read the physical book, one-third read the digital version and one-third listen to the physical book. One third read the digital version and one third listen to the audiobook yeah you kind of have to do all three if you want to get the full exposure.
Fred Dodini:Everybody, yeah, yeah yeah, it's been fun. I've been doing the narration myself and I'm learning a lot about that process.
Alisha Coakley:So it's a lot of work.
Fred Dodini:It's a lot, lot of work.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been practicing myself for when mine comes out and I'm like I think I'm going to have to hire someone.
Fred Dodini:You know, I thought about that, nobody knows the material as well as I do and I have stage experience. I played a nerd character in the bands I was in, so I did all the comedy as well as playing bass guitar and with one hand while I'm reading a comic book with the other. I just did all kinds of stuff, so I think I'm getting up to speed on the narration gig.
Alisha Coakley:There you go. I love it Awesome.
Fred Dodini:Well, it's so great to meet you guys. I'm excited for what you're doing. Thank you, because you're bringing, I think, a great message to other people out there and we all need that. We're living in very challenging days and so many of my clients in the LDS ones are really struggling because of you know just situations we're all dealing with, and I think when we hear stories of hope and faith, it really it gives us something tangible to hold on to so we can get through some difficult times.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, and we didn't pay you to say that. No, not at all. That's free advertising right there. But it really is true, fred. You know, I think that the closer we get to the second coming, the more we need to have in our arsenal and I feel like we've said it before on the show the scriptures are just a set of stories and experiences of people's lives. That's all it is. It's just an accumulation of that, and if we're supposed to liken the scriptures to our lives, then we too are supposed to share our stories, and so I really appreciate you coming on here and sharing some of your stories with us today. This has been such a great show. I always feel like the telltale signs for Alisha, whenever I feel like I have a really good show, is either one I cry a lot, or two I smile so much that my cheeks hurt, and my cheeks are hurting really bad, and I'm really thankful that I didn't cry my mascara off this time.
Fred Dodini:I tell you I try to bring as much humor into my sessions with people because it really laughter is a very healing experience and I've always felt that, so I try to keep it light and engaging. I agree.
Scott Brandley:I feel like we're kindred spirits, Fred. We're both trying to share light.
Fred Dodini:Yeah.
Scott Brandley:I love your analogy of the sun. You know, because the world needs it and however we can deliver it, that's you know God's going to be happy, absolutely.
Fred Dodini:And I think there are a lot of ways, because there's a lot of people out there that you know they're not attracted to traditional religion because the institution has problems for some of them if they've grown up in bad environments, and I see that a lot. But you know, you can still get into people's hearts and their heads by, by stories and and they can relate. Other people's experiences are similar to theirs and I think that's it's one of the great missionary tools we have is that ability just to connect with each other's lives and experiences and and find the humor in it, in it all too.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I agree, Wow. Well, fred, it has been awesome having you on here today. We really really appreciate you and your stories and the light that you're bringing to the world too.
Alisha Coakley:um, if you uh are listeners here, if you guys would do our little five second missionary work, your your five second missionary work, uh, and hit that share button, get Fred's story out. I think that that would be awesome. Definitely. Leave us a comment, let us know what you thought about it. Let us know when you guys go order his book too. I think that that would be really really cool just to see who picked it up or who is waiting for the Audible to come out. Right.
Fred Dodini:And the people at Audible, book and Amazon keep telling me you need more comments or reviews or stuff like that, so I encourage people.
Alisha Coakley:There you go, there you go, see. So it would all help. It would help get more light out to the world.
Fred Dodini:It's just getting the, getting the message out there. That's what it's all about.
Alisha Coakley:It's very true, very true.
Scott Brandley:Yeah, awesome, awesome. And if you have any stories that you'd like to share, go to latterdaylightscom and send it in. Let's have you on the show. And if you want to hear more stories like Dr Fred's, subscribe to our channel so you can get alerted when we have another show.
Fred Dodini:Absolutely.
Scott Brandley:With that, thanks again, Fred, for being on the show. My pleasure, and thank you everyone for being here and we'll talk to you next week when we have another show. Take care, Bye-bye.
