LDS Podcast "Latter-Day Lights" - Inspirational LDS Stories

From Addiction and Temptation to Triumphant Redemption: Joe McCally's Story - Latter-Day Lights

• Scott Brandley and Alisha Coakley

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When you’ve wandered so far that rock bottom becomes your new normal, can a single moment of grace change your course forever?

Husband, father of four, and RN-turned-educator Joe McCally shares how his encounters with voices of doubt throughout his childhood slowly gave way to a downward spiral of addiction, broken promises, and near-catastrophic decisions. From wrestling with tobacco, alcohol, and pornography, to the familial struggles that left him homeless, Joe’s conversion story and journey to sobriety illustrate that no depth is too far for God’s reach.

Despite the threats that damaged any hope of Joe ever returning back to the Savior, a singular act of love in his darkest moment proved that miracles can appear at the most unlikely crossroads. He discovered that sometimes, all it takes is one warm and welcoming embrace—imbued with a compassion only God can give—to reignite the determination to return home to the Gospel.

Today, with a fulfilling career in nursing, a profound love for family, and continuous opportunities in Church leadership, Joe’s story stands as proof that the Savior’s hand remains outstretched at every turn. Join us in this powerful episode of Latter-day Lights as Joe reveals how unwavering divine love, relentless hope, and the courage to destroy old habits can forge a path to redemption—even when all seems lost.

*** Please SHARE Joe's story and help us spread hope and light to others. ***

To WATCH this episode, visit: https://youtu.be/mKmM-7-6Na8

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Scott Brandley:

Hey everyone, I'm Scott Brantley.

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 one man's journey of faith has shown him that God is in relentless pursuit of us and will exhaust every possible measure to bring us back to Him. 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. We're really excited to introduce our special guest, joe McCally, to the show. Joe, welcome.

Joe McCally:

Yeah, thank you. Welcome to you as well.

Alisha Coakley:

Thank you, I am so excited. We had your dad on a few months ago and his story was just so beautiful and it was so filled with a spirit, and so when you reached out and you were like I'm just feeling like I should tell you ours too, I was so excited. I love it because I feel like it kind of connects multiple stories together. You know, like I know, you won't really be talking about the same things that your dad did, but just just having like like that knowledge of like where he came from and then knowing where you came from and whatever else, I think it's going to be a really good one. So I'm super excited to have you on and very, very thankful that you reached out to us today to have you on, and very, very thankful that you reached out to us today.

Joe McCally:

Yeah, I'm kind of glad I did, but it was more of my daughters said dad, you've got to tell your story. Um and especially since you, you got to do it. You, you got to tell your side of the story. And, um, my oldest daughter always tells me that she loves my conversion story and it's the best conversion story I've ever heard in her words is what she has told me Aww, yeah, so that's where it put me is reaching out to you folks.

Alisha Coakley:

Yep, awesome. Well, you mentioned you have at least two daughters. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about yourself?

Joe McCally:

Sure, I am the father of four. I have three daughters. The oldest is 24. The twins, boy and a girl in the middle, are 20. And then the youngest is 19. Um, wife and I for the most part had almost eight months of being empty nesters. Um, our youngest daughter took a job here in town and came back from. They all moved to to Idaho, so new Idaho kind of thing, and so but yeah, that's kind of where we're at now. The twins are married, just celebrated a year. So the boy and the girl got married.

Alisha Coakley:

Like they're twins and they got married in the same year yeah, the same year.

Joe McCally:

What are the chances of that? Well, the son is about just shy of two hours older than his sister, but he got married a month or two after she did oh, oh, okay, gotcha, I bet your wallet didn't appreciate that very much.

Joe McCally:

It wasn't bad because we had a lot of volunteers. My wife is creative as well, as her family is too, and everybody just pitched in and it didn't really cost a lot, but it did cost something. So it it worked out. However, my son, on the other hand, he decided to get married in Texas and, yeah, that was more expensive.

Alisha Coakley:

Where at in Texas.

Joe McCally:

What is that? Commerce, Texas Okay.

Joe McCally:

I'm not familiar with that number. I think it's northeast of Dallas, fort Worth area. Okay, gotcha, very cool. We went down there. We pulled the fifth wheel all the way down there. It was in the park and a tornado hit in the area. So we thought like well, we're going to be like Dorothy and we're not going to end up in Kansas anymore, kind of thing. It was rocking the RV and the fifth wheel and it was interesting. The slide outs kept pushing and buffeting in with the wind and whatnot, but it didn't actually touch down exactly where we were. But we were getting the microbursts and the heavy winds while we were there. But the wedding was great, it was beautiful. I will never go back to Texas in the summer. That's when my son and wife now decided to get married. Humidity is terrible. All the wedding pictures. I am literally wringing wet.

Joe McCally:

So my coat is dark and there wasn't an inch of me that wasn't covered in sweat. And I learned a new thing too while I was down there that you get something that's called swamp fingers, really like you've stuck your fingers in warm water and let them smoke, yeah. And I told my daughter-in-law's uncle I said is this a normal thing? He goes yeah, it's normal. We call it swamp finger, but just be careful, when you grab onto something and twist, it'll rip your skin off. It's like okay, that's good to know. Yes, yeah, oh my gosh, wow so what do you?

Scott Brandley:

Yeah, oh, my gosh Wow.

Joe McCally:

So what do you do?

Scott Brandley:

for a living, Joe.

Joe McCally:

Well, I am an RN. I have been for the last 16 years. I just recently took a job with a community college doing nursing education, so it's just within the last couple of weeks no, excuse me, last three weeks I've been working as a clinical instructor for a community college in Eastern Montana.

Alisha Coakley:

Nice, that's really cool.

Joe McCally:

Yeah, I've been married for 25 years to the love of my life. Yeah, which is an interesting story that we'll get into later. It's part of the the transition or the story of my life, I guess, is how it's put.

Alisha Coakley:

So I love it. Well, I'm excited, so I want to hear more. Let's go ahead and turn the time over to you, and you can let us know where your story begins.

Joe McCally:

Sure, I guess we can go all the way back to the beginning. I was born in November of 1972, which is exactly just shy of exactly one year after my folks were married, which, if you've listened to the podcast at all, you'd know his story. He got married in Idaho Falls in 1971, november I believe it was 16th and I was born the next year on the 9th of November. I am the oldest of Larry and Judy McCally and for any all intents and purposes, I mean I had a normal childhood. I was raised and taught by goodly parents, as Nephi talks about, and sort of grew up in that 70s era where it's like you get told to go outside and play and then the door gets locked behind you.

Joe McCally:

Well, yeah, we survived from the garden, clothes and playing outside, you know, and that's what we did. We just we were outside all the time and I, you, I always really did enjoy that, that sort of normal childhood. Um, I uh don't know why, but, uh, my mother and I have a very strong connection. Um, I don't know if it was her deepest desire to have a, a boy or not, but, um, I guess you could call me a mama's boy, but it doesn't matter, I don't care. I'm all of six foot one and well over 300 pounds, and at one point in my life I used to be able to bench press 625 pounds.

Scott Brandley:

So you know, it's just something, holy cow yeah, gosh, stripling warrior, mama's boy, I think, is the term for that one which is funny.

Joe McCally:

I mean with with that, you know, being so connected to my mother. Um, I'm gonna, I'll tell a story on her. Um, growing up, of course we had that wonderful connection, but one day she smacked me so hard she knocked a tooth out of my mouth. Oh no, she smacked me so hard that a tooth fell out of my face.

Alisha Coakley:

Holy cow Did you?

Joe McCally:

deserve it, though. What's that? Did you deserve it, though? What's that? Did you deserve it? Though, as paul harvey would say, the rest of the story is I was sauce mouth and her and she smacked me, but the tooth was already loose anyway. So you know, it's it's perspective. How you tell the story is how it's perceived. So when I start right, mom hit me and she smacked me and knocked a tooth out of my face when I was young. But the rest of the story is, yes, I deserve it.

Joe McCally:

So you know, at the time, growing up I mean, as earlier I was talking with Scott, I'm from nowhere and everywhere all at the same time and because we moved around and I'm sure if you listen to dad's story you know that he worked for GM and he got moved around a lot but at the time when I was first born, we lived in Oregon City, oregon, and in Oregon City, depending on where you are, it's all on a hill. So you're either on hilltop and everything is downhill, or you live somewhere in between. So if you want to go up, it's always uphill or downhill. So for me, once I got to grade school age, it was a mile to the elementary school and it was all downhill, no big deal, not a problem. But going home it was all uphill. Going back to the house, and it's not that well, it was uphill both ways. No, it was downhill was going to and uphill was coming back.

Joe McCally:

And I really, during grade school I absolutely I hated the walk. It was a mile one way and there was no bus and we had to walk it. Rain, winter sleet, kind of like the postal service, you know rain, sleet, hail or it doesn't matter. You went and not going to school was not an option, but mom would kick us out of the house. She was a housewife and that was a kind of a constant in my life, that mom was always there, which later in life I came to appreciate. But when I talk with friends it's like I don't want to go to my house, but they always wanted to come to my house because mom was there, which is an odd scenario.

Joe McCally:

But with that having to go to school and walking back, one day while I was walking home, in my mind I'm thinking and pondering like, oh, I hate this walk, why do I have to walk this every day? I wish somebody would just stop and pick me up. Pick me up and I was probably within a half a mile of being home and this 1970s sedan pulled over and rolled down the window and said hey, your mom sent me to pick you up, you want to ride? And while I was standing there on the side of the road hearing this gentleman, this man, while I was standing there on the side of the road, hearing this gentleman, this man, which there was no one else in the car, say you know, come here. You know, I'll give you a ride. You know, your mom sent me to come get you.

Joe McCally:

That was sort of the beginning of hearing the spirit talk to me and tell me. And during that that interaction with that man, I clearly heard a voice say do not get in that car. And then I thought, well, maybe I should, why not? But it was so powerful and so overwhelming I heard it again do not get in the car with that man. And of course I did listen to it. I'm like thank you, no, I'm just right here, you know. And no, he left. But that was like one of those times where the Lord reached out and said I'm going to protect you and please listen to me. And at that time I did listen to him and honestly I firmly believe, had I not listened to him, I probably wouldn't be here today. Him, I probably wouldn't be here today. So it was pretty interesting.

Alisha Coakley:

I'm sorry. I was just asking how old were you when that happened.

Joe McCally:

I was probably six, maybe seven about that time. Oh wow, yeah, I started kindergarten when I was five. Of course, because I was born in November, I would either be the oldest or the youngest, depending on where I started.

Alisha Coakley:

So, mom started me at five and I was always the youngest all the way through school. Wow, like to remember that, like I don't think I remember hardly anything when I was six or seven years old. Really, I mean very, very little, but like that must've been a really big impression, you know.

Joe McCally:

It was huge, and a lot of my childhood memories I don't remember, except for these spiritual high points. I suffer from sleep apnea and was undiagnosed until I was about 26. So a lot of my long-term memories when I was younger I just don't have. But these high points, these high spiritual moments and significant events, I do remember quite well. Life progressed after that as best to describe it. He was a pedophile that was looking for his prey and I was having to be on the road at that time and I'm truly grateful that the Lord helped me in that situation and especially truly grateful that I actually listened at that time. I don't always listen, as you'll see as my story progresses, but at that time I did listen and I'm very grateful that I did. But at that time I did listen and I'm very grateful that I did. Later on, as I progressed through life, we're still living in Oregon City. We moved to a newer house which was probably four blocks away from the original house where we lived and there was a deep canyon. That was at the Oregon City High School. If anybody that listens to this has seen the old Oregon City High School, the football field is down in a canyon. There was an old growth pine tree up on one side of the canyon that had those big ropes that you kind of climb in gym class and it shimmied up the tree and tied it off and had cut the branches all below that and you could swing as a pendulum out across this big canyon. And at full swing of the pendulum on this rope you were probably four stories off the ground and I want to say I was probably seven, maybe eight, and I wanted to do it. I had done it a couple of times but I just, you know, kind of, you know slow, didn't really get get a good run at it and finally built up the courage, uh, one time, to get a good run at it and really swing out there. And as I hit the apex of the pendulum I lost my grip and that was the last thing that I remember. At that point, friends say that I ended up in the blackberry bushes down below and that somehow I had gotten up and started walking home. I don't remember the walk. I don't remember the walk.

Joe McCally:

Until I got within two blocks of my house, there was a gentleman who I had never met, never seen before and I never saw again, walking me home. When I finally came to in my memory, and he got to the corner, he walked me to the corner where I would turn and head down to our house and he said you can make it from here now. And then he turned and left and it was gone. When I turned around he was not there anymore. Was he one of the three Nephites? I don't know, but what I do know is I never met the man before, I never saw him again and no sooner than he said, told me that I could make it from here and I said okay, and I started to walk. I took two steps. It was um, thank you, um they. They got me back, um, and I didn't honestly break any bones, I didn't suffer anything that I know of Um, and life sort of progressed and went on from there. Then I got to eight years old. I apologize, I keep looking and when I'm in deep thought I look off into places that I shouldn't.

Joe McCally:

I got to about baptism age, which was eight years old, and all things were set and ready, and I got baptized at eight and I remember I don't necessarily remember the plunge we'll call it being baptized, but what I do remember is coming back out to be confirmed and hearing an audible voice tell me you were tricked, which, as life progressed that you've been tricked put a lot of doubt and fear in my mind as I went along. I grew up in the church, so I had the fundamental basis of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of Jesus Christ and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But at my baptism I fervently remember hearing that voice in my head saying that I was tricked, which sort of started me on a slight downhill spiral after baptism spiral after baptism. Shortly after baptism, probably about nine years old, was my first entering into trying tobacco, chewing tobacco like Copenhagen snuff, and the worst thing about it was I liked it and I liked it a lot. Um, so sort of this uh, ebb and flow of my life of, as best could be described, a pride cycle. Things start going good, you, you know you're, you're in the righteous position. Then things go good, you go eh, this isn't so good. Then the pride comes in and just this whole vicious circle of going round and round with my life. Dad always calls it riding the roller coaster of life, which it makes sense because there's ups and downs, and that was my life. So Also around that time.

Joe McCally:

Of course this was the late 70s ish and pornography was harder to get than it is nowadays, where you you pull up one of these little devices and it's instantaneous. Um, I've found a deck of cards that had pornographic pictures on them and about nine years old I I really started like, ooh, this is. You know that in psychology in college they call it the rat brain. You know the that fundamental. You know core ethos that's in the in the brain ideology. Um, but um, that sort of started me on, um, on again, off again, kind of wanting to see those pornographic pictures. Um, in moving ahead into middle school, um, which, how old would I be in middle school?

Joe McCally:

but I just don't remember um, so usually 12-ish I was gonna say yeah, someone was wherever that might be, about 12-ish, 11, 12 so probably for me I would have been 11. Um, because I, like I said I was always the youngest um in school is when I really got more into I tried my first cigarette. I. I liked it too. So any tobacco products that I could get hands on. And those were the days that you could forge a note that said, you know, and run down to the grocery store, the pharmacy, and you know, grandma told me you know, give you this note and sell me cigarettes. It worked out, you know. Yeah, you this note and sell me cigarettes. Yeah, it worked out. You know. Um, yeah, we don't do that. But, uh, growing up that's truly what they did. I, because of all that sports and things that I did in my life, um, with power lifting and wrestling and football, I have chronic pain in my joints so I got to move a little bit. So I apologize if I'm making people dizzy as I go about here.

Joe McCally:

So middle school happened, and about middle school is when, up until that point, dad had been working for a local Chevy dealership in the Oregon City area, and right at middle school was kindergarten through sixth, and then middle school was seventh through eighth or ninth, I don't remember, because right at that time, after the first year of middle school there in Oregon city, dad started with general motors and they transferred us up to Yakima Washington and in Yakima they had middle school, but it was 6th, 7th, 8th and then high school was freshman on to senior. So the two different schools were kind of a little different. The two different schools were kind of a little different, but that's when we we moved to Yakima Washington and to say that I was a putz during those years is is an understatement. I was, I wasn't really a good kid and I was seeking out pornography, seeking out alcohol, seeking out tobacco products, and it really got bad when we moved away from the core friends that I had, because in Oregon City we had a lot of church members that were my friends. So I had sort of a yeah, maybe I shouldn't be doing this kind of what would you call that guide marker or guide poster Right Peer group that helped keep you on the straight and narrow, as it were. Uh, so when we moved to Yakima Washington, um, we moved into a kind of a, a rural, um area of farming that they had, and, um, I really became not so good.

Joe McCally:

I would stealing things and of course, the alcohol and going to parties and getting drunk at 11, 12 years old. And at one point this has kind of been throughout my life I would get into accidents but I really wouldn't get hurt. And why the Lord has preserved me I may never know until I actually go onto the other side of the veil. Why did you always keep me so protected that I didn't get seriously injured in my life? I was riding a three-wheeler at a drunk party in Washington in middle school and if anybody's ever been in the, you know around three-wheelers they're kind of dangerous, a little tippy, oh yeah. I went over a jump drunker in a skunk. My foot slipped off the foot peg and my foot hit the ground and of course the rear tire ran over my foot and pulled me off of the three-wheeler. Of course I was going as fast as the thing would go and it drove my knee directly into the ground and all it did was cut my pants a little bit and put a little cut in my leg. And it should have done more damage than that, because when I fell I fell right onto my head and of course you know the tumbling that happens thereafter, why I was preserved from any other harm, I don't know why I was preserved from any other harm, I don't know. But I guess God watches out for drunks and fools, and I was both.

Joe McCally:

So so we, just half a semester or half a year into my freshman year in Yakima, washington, of course, gm from dad moved us back to Oregon. We moved into Willamette, oregon, and I started attending the high school there West Lynn High School, still kind of off again, on again. Really didn't do much more alcohol when I left, but I still would have, you know, the chewing tobacco, the snuff. At that time I had been wrestling since I was about six years old and so I got involved in wrestling and sports and football in high school as well and sort of kind of went through high school. I didn't have a whole lot of friends in high school. I was sort of a quiet, sort of a loner as it were. But I did have two pretty decent friends, one that I still talk to this day. He's sort of my best friend, as it was in high school, and he and I got into a lot of different troubles in high school what was it I was 14 or I think of different troubles in high school. What was it? I was 14 or I think I was 15 in high school and I got involved in the Explorer Scouts and learned how to be a firefighter and EMS first responder type stuff. I got certified as a firefighter and so on and so forth in my teens and volunteered as well, got involved in that and found it to be quite enjoyable, but, um, but still being connected and in the unrighteous desires of wanting to seek pornography and bourbon whiskey and coffee and a cigarette before I would go into classes.

Joe McCally:

My senior year, my senior year was the year of the I would call the mega putts, and and Gave up wrestling and football, which I wasn't always overly good at football, I mean, I was average wrestling. I got deathly ill with, I think, influenza and had two matches at the state tournament and lost both of them because I was deathly sick. So, and then my senior year, like I said, the mega putts came out and I I basically told the coach where to stick it and how the sun didn't shine where I wanted him to put it. Of course I wasn't doing the things that I should be. I firmly believe that my high school diploma was a participation trophy, believe that my high school diploma was a participation trophy. I think I did have one summer class after my senior year that I had to take, which was an elective, before they would actually give me my diploma for high school, which I studied industrial diesel mechanics at one of the skills centers there outside of Westland Oregon I think it was in Clackamas. And this part of the story of not really doing what you're supposed to do in high school comes to play when I get older and decide to go to college, when I get older and decide to go to college.

Joe McCally:

When we were in Young Men, young Women, we went on a whitewater rafting trip on the Deschutes River and they have class four, class five. It's pretty intense whitewater rafting. And we got to a section in the river where, um, you could get out and jump in, out of the boat and jump in with your life jacket and float down and go through this little bit of a rapids. And it was. Everybody did it and you've been doing it for years. Um, and so we did we. We got out and we jumped in for years. And so we did. We got out and we jumped in, we floated down. We were there, the entire young men, young women group, all day.

Joe McCally:

I was there, and my younger brother, who was two years younger than me, was there as well. Um, while we were there, um, I kind of was like, no, I, I, I don't want to go another time. I'd already gone like three or four times. I was like I don't want to do it. And so my brother said, well, I'm going to go do it. And he, he runs up and goes to the head of where you jump in and then float down. And, um, the thought came to me it's like you should go anyway. So I did. I am like, whatever, you know, I'll just go. So I ran up and jumped in. How many minutes after my brother had jumped in, I couldn't tell you. I want to say it's more than five, maybe less than 15, somewhere in there.

Joe McCally:

And when I did, I started floating down and all of a sudden I got sucked in by this undertow and as I went down, my feet kicked, something that was human, that was under the water, and I knew that my brother had gone before me. So what I did is I reached down between my legs and I grabbed the life jacket that he had on and I squatted down and with all my might and force I lifted him up and forced, shot my legs up and I pushed him to the surface and from what I can recall he said, when he came out of the water he actually his feet came up out of the water. I had forced him up and then, of course, I forced myself up as well and got out of that undertow, but for whatever reason he was stuck and he was drowning in that river. Reason he was stuck and he was drowning, um, in that river. Had I not listened to that, that thought of, hey, you know, just just go anyway. Um, my brother would have drowned that day. Um, and why I was was able to find him, or get sucked in and feel him it. Literally it was the strangest and oddest thing that could have happened. And of course, that was in my teenage years. Um, after high school, I really didn't like living under my father's roof and, um, he said I needed to get a job or move out and he wanted me to pay rent and basically I told him it'd be a cold day in hell when I pay him. So I left.

Joe McCally:

Growing up, I always had heard vague stories of my grandfather, my mother's dad, that he was a cowboy, you know, growing up and I always wanted to learn who he was. I wanted to see who he was, but he died when my mother was 10. So I never really got to meet him, but I'd hear, you know, generalized stories of how good he was with horses and training horses and so on and so forth from my grandmother, which is odd. I told you earlier how I had such a great, wonderful connection with my mother. Even to this day I still call her the mother type unit. She takes it as a term of endearment. I just do it to try and annoy her, but she doesn't get annoyed because it's like whatever. But I was raised with strong maternal influences.

Joe McCally:

In my life I had my grandmother, my mom's mother and my dad's mom that we spent a lot of time with throughout our growing up years, and I know that dad talked about his mom and the service that she provided. My mother's mom, my grandmother, was the same. She was the epitome of service, had nothing, but when she would get things that she would get donated to her, she would put it together and and make things for christmas gifts or for a gift for her grandkids. Um. So she would end up getting like yarns of color that nobody wanted. So you'd have these interesting color schematics of knitted or crocheted items that she would make and spend countless hours making. Um, but it was odd colors, I mean, like purple and and forest green and just things that people didn't really want. Um, she could get for free and make these things for her grandkids, but you know, she was the one that was married to my grandfather, who was the cowboy, and so I always wanted to know who he was and I always wanted to live that cowboy life.

Joe McCally:

So after I graduated high school and basically told my dad to stick it, I left home in a 1961 GMC pickup that had a canopy on the back and a door at the back and put my old twin-size mattress in the bed of it and an old Coleman cooler and a little one-burner Coleman stove and all my clothes and blankets that I had. And I left to Montana, drove around a lot looking for work, didn't really find anything and this was sort of the path that had to humble me and basically at that time of many months of trying to look for work, I was bound and determined to do it on my own. I didn't want anything from my parents. I didn't talk to my parents, I wanted absolutely nothing to do with them.

Joe McCally:

At this time I was about 17, because that's when I graduated high school, 17, almost 18 years old, and so, for all intents and purposes, I was homeless. I had the pickup, I had the canopy, and that's what I lived out of, and that's what I lived out of. And to save money, I would only got to the point that I would only eat about a half a can of pork and beans, because you could get them for 15, 20 cents a can, but I'd eat half a one a day so that I'd have enough to get through the week. You know, doing odd things, trying to get some money, but basically homeless, trying to find work. And of course, it humbled me enough that I finally did call home and dad said have you tried? At the time I think it was called LDS Employment Services. I reached out.

Joe McCally:

I was humbled enough that I reached out and found some work in Montana, where I was, and I ended up in Helmville, montana, found a job and started working. After the first week there they had a branding. At the end of that week the neighbors came to help. Like all brandings happen, the neighbors come and they help and everybody just helps each other during that branding time because it's a lot of work and it's not easy work. And apparently I impressed some of the neighbors, so much so that after the second week of working on this ranch hay farm, working on this ranch hay farm, I was told to go disc this field and prepare it for planting of new alfalfa growth. And I worked late into the night and I disc the entire field and got all the clods broke down and it was prepped and ready to go. And so I spent countless extra hours, you know, thinking I was doing a good job, trying to put in that extra mile, you know, to prove that, hey, I'm a good employee, you know, good employee.

Joe McCally:

And we showed up at the end of that week I think it was a Friday and the boss every morning would say hey, I want you to go down to here and do this. And he just sort of divvied up what he wanted us to do for the day and he pointed at me and said I want you to go back there and disk it. And I said well, sir, I worked late last night and I got it all done and he said what are you trying to do? Work yourself out of a job. You're fired. And fired me for working extra. So there I was. I had to leave. I'm homeless again, but I did have a little cash in my pocket. But I did have a little cash in my pocket and I happened to stop at the local bar, which has a cafe. I wasn't actually drinking at that time. I ordered a hamburger and was sitting there having a hamburger for lunch.

Joe McCally:

Um, you know I'd been out driving that morning looking for work and one of the local ranchers that had um been there to help with the branding um started talking with me and he said uh, yeah, it doesn't surprise me that you got fired. A lot of people get fired. We don't know what's wrong with this guy. He's a new, new um um boss for this company ranch that I was working at and nobody likes him locally is what he said. But he said I was super impressed with how you were working that day when we came out there to brand and I want you to use my name and just tell. And he told me his name. I don't remember it, but, um, he said use my name and I tell. And he told me his name. I don't remember it. But, um, he said use my name and I want you to go to the big hole. And he told me how to get there. And he said you go to some of those ranches and you, you use my name as a reference and you go work down there. You're just, you're too good to work here, you need to, you need to go down there. I firmly believe that he was divinely inspired to tell me to go down to the big hole, because this is where the story kind of gets a little interesting, at least for me and my family, because I took his advice, I wrote down his name and went to the big hole and I ran into some people in the big hole, got to talking with them and they said you know what, we'll help you.

Joe McCally:

And the next day I found a job working on the Huntley Ranch. And I'd been working on the ranch probably for two or three weeks and the whole time I was there on that ranch, every hill that I crested, when I would, you know, go out on a horseback to go check fence or to go check these cows or to go irrigate some field, something about every part of that ranch that I went to seems so very familiar to me, almost like a deja vu kind of interesting plight, and I mean I would question it's like, why is this so familiar to me? And after about three weeks I wrote home, wrote a letter specifically to my grandmother, my mom's mom, and told her I said, hey, you know, just letting you know, I'm in Montana, you know I'm working on, you know the Huntley Ranch and so on and so forth. You know the Huntley Ranch and so on and so forth. And the story that I got back that ties all this together is mom said that she was sitting, my mother was sitting with grandma as she was reading this letter.

Joe McCally:

And she said she almost fell on the floor. And my mother asked my grandma. I was like well, what's wrong? What's going on? She goes you don't understand. And this is where she wrote back to me and told me what I'm about to tell you. The ranch that I was working on. Not only was my grandmother born and raised in the town, which was just a few miles away from this ranch, but my grandfather, my grandma's husband, worked on that very same ranch. Not only did my grandfather, but my great-grandfather worked on the same ranch for the same people that I was now working for.

Scott Brandley:

Wow.

Joe McCally:

Wow, that's cool. So it's one of those tender mercies of the Lord that allowed me a righteous desire to be met and to meet, at least walk in his footsteps, to know who my grandfather was. And it was such an amazing story in there. To really dive into that history, grandma sent me some snap photo picture books that she didn't know who these people were. So what I did is I took them to the guy that owned the place and he had inherited from his father and his father was the one that my great-grandfather and grandfather worked for. But the man I was working for he looked. I said can you take a look at these pictures and see if you recognize any of these people? And we went through this entire I mean it was pretty thick picture book and he said oh yeah, I know that guy and he would tell me stories about that person and who their name was and so on and so forth. And he even remembered a story of my great grandfather that he said I remember him. I remember coming to the cook house and he was a big, burly man. He was huge, at least to my eyes. His name was Clayton.

Joe McCally:

The owner of the ranch was telling this story to me. He said I remember him, he'd come in and when he would sit down it felt like the earth moved. You know, of course he was a kid at the time and he said he had one rag to wipe the sweat off of his head and one rag to wipe his mouth. You know, it's just these little snippets of someone else's life that no one knew before, someone else's life that no one knew before. And being allowed to have that journey in there, while I was there, I was trying to kind of get my life in order. I hadn't been looking at pornography, I hadn't been seeking out any of that, and I was trying to get away from tobacco and I really I had stopped any alcohol that, um, I had been doing.

Joe McCally:

And one night, while working on that ranch, um, two of the other ranch hands wanted to go to town and get drunk. So they asked me if I'd be the designated driver because they had known that I was staying away from alcohol. So I agreed and I drove them into town in one of the ranch hands pickup. It was an old, either 77 or 78 Ford F-250 pickup and we've never seen the mirrors on the side that those year pickup. Has you either had these ginormous moose ears or antlers on them, or you had this tiny little mirror about probably about this big that stuck out from the side of the vehicle, maybe 12 inches maybe, and any closer, and the you know you'd be touching the side of the vehicle.

Joe McCally:

Um, the reason I described that so well is when I took these two gentlemen in, uh, drove them, drove them in, um, the guy that owned the pickup drove us in and I was going to drive them back. I got tired of waiting and the more drunk they got, the more belligerent, the more it's like I don't even want to be here. So, um, I told them it's like, when you're ready to go, find me on the road. So I'm going to start walking back to the ranch, which why I decided to do that, I don't know. It was probably not the smartest thing in the world to do, because the ranch from town was probably about 20 miles and so I was walking back.

Joe McCally:

It's late at night, it's dark. So I was walking back. It's late at night, it's dark and I hear, if you've ever heard a 460 Ford motor come rumbling and roaring at you, you kind of remember it, you know what it sounds like, and I'm just walking on the shoulder of the road, on the right-hand shoulder of the road, and I figure they're going to stop, they're going to see me, they're going to stop. I didn't really bother to look behind me and that's when that mirror I described the outermost part of it hit me at highway speed at the back of my left arm as I was walking on the side of the road, and that's how literally close to death I was by getting hit and struck by this vehicle driving down the road, by a drunk cowboy. Apparently, it busted the mirror off. They heard it, or their words were. Well, we heard some kind of noise. So we stopped and we backed up to see what was going on. Of course I used some colorful metaphors and told them how stupid they were and took us out of the driver's seat and I'm involved. So then we went back to the ranch and that was kind of the end of that story.

Joe McCally:

But, um, was your arm okay, surprisingly? Yes, I think I was more mad and didn't realize how. You know, it just slapped me in the back of the arm at highway speed, um. So I really didn't Um, and I don't recall if it hurt the next day, I really don't, um, but at the time I I couldn't say that I noticed it and that it hurt, other than it hit me in the back of the arm.

Joe McCally:

Okay yeah, so kind of during that time, because I was trying to get my life in order and all the good things that had been happening to me at the ranch there, I started the process to submit my missionary papers and so I moved back home to my folks' place for a very short time and I did the medical, physical and kind of started the paperwork.

Joe McCally:

And then that voice of you've been tricked came back to play and so I ran away from that You've been tricked sort of came back and I fully listened to it this time and it's like I am not going on a mission and I left and I went back to Montana to different ranches and got into sexual sin with women and pornography and alcohol and tobacco I mean getting so belligerently stinking drunk, going into the town pump, standing there in one of the aisles looking at the beef jerky in one of the aisles looking at the beef jerky, and then the next thing you remember is sitting on top of the cigarette case that was behind you, that you had literally passed out and fell backwards into the cigarette case. It was an interesting fall, really, of trying to go as far away from the teachings and gospel of jesus christ as I possibly could um can I ask real quick, when you you know you twice now you've heard this voice at big times in your life.

Alisha Coakley:

where you're, you were going to be doing something you know, getting baptized and things like that Did the voice feel or sound different to you than what like those other times were Like?

Joe McCally:

do you remember?

Alisha Coakley:

thinking like oh, this sounds the same as everything else, or did you not really pay attention?

Joe McCally:

I would probably have to say I really didn't pay attention to how it sounded. Sometimes it yeah, that's a difficult question I really more along. I think more along the lines of I really didn't pay attention, other than hearing the voice say you know, you were tricked. I'll have to really think about that more and but yeah, I don't. I can't say I noticed any difference.

Alisha Coakley:

Right, well, cause, like I know you know it, just it reminds me of, like when Joseph Smith was praying, you know, in the grove right Like he was praying, he was asking for answers and and and things like that, and Satan intervened, right Like Satan tried to stop that from happening. And so it very much feels the same as you're talking about this, but I can see how that could be. That could have been really disheartening and really confusing, especially if you weren't expecting any, any type of like oppression or any type of you know like, like, uh, walls to to be standing in your way there.

Scott Brandley:

Um, so I was just curious, kind of like to yeah it seems like you were trying to do what was right, you know which is funny and not funny, ha ha.

Joe McCally:

Just an odd coincidence Now that you mentioned that there has been times not only sometimes, it's not always the voice that I hear but there has been times, like when Joseph Smith talked about it, when a dark force came over him, so much so that it would bind him and his tongue. I've felt that probably four or five times in my life where a dark physical force would literally pin me to the bed and bind my tongue to where I could not speak or utter words. The first few times that it happened it was extremely frightening. I didn't know what to do or how to get out of this, and eventually I did. But after about the third time it almost became a nuisance to me. To where now, if it does happen and it hasn't happened in many years where that and it's like you said, during those pivotal moments in my life that something happens like this to where that dark force tries to stop me from whatever I'm trying to do or going, you know, down that road, and now it's more of a all right, get thee behind me, satan, I'm sick of this crap, go, you know. So, but I have felt that same force that Joseph Smith has, and, like I said the first time that I felt it, it was extremely, very worrisome to me.

Joe McCally:

At the time, after I want to say probably about five or six years of cowboying and working on different ranches, the desire that was in me to have a family was always there. I knew I wanted to be married, I wanted to have a family, have a family, and so, knowing that ranching really didn't pay a whole lot, I decided to start driving truck over the road and I moved back to Oregon and got hired on with a trucking company that drove truck over the road, and this is where I really fell into a lot of pornography and sexual sin and, um, alcohol and tobacco, um, so much so when I was driving truck over the road, case in point I'm not proud of this. I've told this story that I'm relaying to you, to my kids, to try and help them to know how bad it can be More of a warning voice for them, more of a warning voice for them. But when I was driving truck over the road, kind of towards the end of when I really, it's like you know what, I can't keep driving truck over the road anymore, I'm going to go down a road that I don't want to go down. I was sitting late at night at a truck stop and sitting in the cab of the truck and had the CB tuned to the channel that you could get a date for the night, as it were prostitute and had the microphone to the CB in my hand and was almost ready to call out have one of these ladies come to my truck. And for whatever reason, I didn't. But that's how close to the falling down in that pit and that abyss, that darkest of hours kind of hole that I, that's how far I had fallen from being born and raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and having that light from basically from birth and all these different miracles throughout my life of God's tender mercies and still being that prodigal son, as it were, and just going down that road of dread. And one positive that did come out of driving truck over the road is I drove through Central Oregon Bend Redmond area quite a bit when I was driving and I just this impression, this thought of this is beautiful, this I want to live here, this is where I I want to move to. So I quit driving truck over the road and I started working running heavy equipment. So excavators, motor graders, bulldozers, front end loaders, and you're going. How did you learn how to do all this? Mechanical things have always come easy to me, but working on the ranch, they had bulldozers, they had backhoes, they had front end loaders. So you had to learn and of course it was interesting to me.

Joe McCally:

And after I got married I told my wife I got the greatest job in the world. I get paid to play and dig holes in the dirt all day long. Just a big old kid. But I wasn't married at that time when I first moved to.

Joe McCally:

I moved to Lapine, lapine, oregon, and started working for a construction company running heavy equipment. Construction company was and where I found a log cabin that I lived in on the Little Deschutes River there in Central Oregon, just south of Sun River, oregon, and Sun River, if anybody's ever heard of, is quite a vacationer's playground, as it were, in Central Oregon, just south of the Newberry crater, which is a lot of you know volcanic activity was, and so there's cinder buttes and all sorts of different geological, volcanic geological anomalies that happened in that area. But anyway, in driving from the cabin that I lived in to work, it just happened to be one of the roads that drove past one of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints church buildings there in Lapine and every time I'd drive past it you know, coming to and from work it's like maybe I should go stop. I mean, I was still doing pornography, or viewing pornography, still drinking alcohol, still, um, doing tobacco things, products, Um, and just like maybe I should just stop, maybe I should stop.

Joe McCally:

And this went on for a couple of months and finally I built up the courage to stop in to the church building and happened to be a Sunday that the stake presidency was there and this building, if you've ever seen, like a branch building where the cultural hall, the gym, basketball court and the chapel are all one. It's all carpeted. It's a smaller building. It was an interesting design they did and it had partitions and dividers. You could divide it off but half of it was a basketball court and the other half was kind of the chapel, but it all connected and when they had a sacrament meeting they would open up all the dividers. They'd have chairs, you know, down on the gym floor that you could see up to the podium and where the choir and the bishopric and everybody would sit and the day that I decided to come, the stake presidency from that stake was there and the meeting was like I don't remember any spectacular anything that was in any of the talks that happened that day. But when the meeting was over and the prayer was done, I got up and I was bound and determined never to come back again. It's like this is I don't care, this is not what I want.

Joe McCally:

And in that type of church building the hallways run parallel, kind of like all church buildings. They have hallways. On the outside of the gym cultural hall, as you call it, the gym cultural hall, as you call it, I watched as I was walking out the back door, as I sat in the back. I came in a little late and I just snuck in and sat in the back. As I was getting up and heading out the back of this cultural hall, I watched the stake president literally run from the podium down the stairs, out the door and down the hall and before I could get out of the cultural hall into the hallway he caught me at in the hallway. I will always remember his words. He said I've heard that you've been away for a long time. Welcome back.

Joe McCally:

And then he reached out and gave me one of the biggest hugs I've ever had in my life and he literally melted my stone heart and started me on the path to returning to the gospel of Jesus Christ. President Chastain was his name. He's long since passed away, but what an amazing man to just be so in tune to the Spirit, to be able to say what was needed to be said, to melt a stone heart of a young man that thought this was never going to happen for him.

Scott Brandley:

That was like a critical turning point, then right, I mean, you were basically walking out the door and never coming back.

Joe McCally:

Yeah, it was absolutely pivotal. Apologize, I'm not crying, my eyes are sweating.

Scott Brandley:

It happens.

Joe McCally:

I'll tell people I was like I ain't crying, my eyes are sweating. Yes, it was absolutely pivotal and that was the catalyst that turned my life around within a very short time. I didn't have a large library of pornography movies at the time. That was VHS. Library of pornography movies at the time, that was VHS. But I took any remnants of the pornography that I had and I set it on a stump and I took a sledgehammer to it and destroyed it all. I stopped alcohol and tobacco that very same year. I stopped drinking coffee, all of it in the very same, that very same day.

Joe McCally:

Cause it which is odd the addiction for tobacco is strong. Cause when I talk about Copenhagen chewing tobacco or snuff, my mouth begins to water, even to this day, and I haven't had any tobacco products in. Let's see, married to the wife, 25 years, so 26 years I have not had any tobacco Dang. And which is funny because from that pivotal moment to coming into, you know, more modern times now is there's been pivotal moments where I know somebody somewhere is praying over my name to for a calling Um, those desires of certain things that I used to do sort of rear their ugly head. Um, and it becomes very difficult at those times. Um becomes very difficult at those times, but I still remain strong. I don't fall back into those practices. But it's a constant battle. It never goes away. It's something that you live with and combat the rest of your life. At least so far it's been that way for me. So I got my life in order.

Joe McCally:

I was 24, 25, somewhere in there, and a young single friend from that ward, the Pine Ward, came to me one day and says hey, I need a ride. I want you to go with me to the Young Single Adults FHE Family Home Evening. But it's in Bend and you got to give me a ride. I don't want to go. But I relented and said fine, I'll take you, but I'll sit in the parking lot. Got there and it's like no, you got to come in with me. Okay, fine, I'll go in. Oh, you got to come in with me. Okay, fine, I'll go in. So I and of course it was a steak center where they had a family home evening with the young single adults and I was a wallflower I sat up on the stage and like, yeah, I don't want to do this monkey business. You know they'd have activities. You know volleyball and basketball and all sorts of different things that they would do.

Joe McCally:

And I think I'd been going there taking my friend a couple weeks and this beautiful young lady walked up to me as I was sitting on the stage and she said hey, um, a bunch of us are going down to the Sherry's restaurant after you know, fhe, you want to come? We just, you know, have fries and maybe a milkshake or something. We just sit and talk and just sort of have fun. Do you want to come? I said okay, um, that was the first meeting I'd ever met who later became my wife, and we talked a lot, even after the main group left the Sherry's restaurant. We spent a lot of hours talking. The main group left the Sherry's restaurant, we spent a lot of hours talking.

Joe McCally:

So I invited her and her friend to go out to a restaurant which was it's called the cowboy dinner tree they're in central Oregon which all they have is steak or half a chicken and the steak is it's more of a roast than it is a steak. Um, well, and all the accoutrements it's kind of set in the uh old West kind of motif. Um, you still get the pie pin, uh, pie, pan, pie, tin, uh plates, um, you know, and biscuits, it's all. It's really really good, um, and I offered to pay for her and her friend. Um, we went out there. Um, I really didn't think anything of it. Nothing was even thought of. I was just trying to be nice. I mean, I was getting back into the church. I was trying to do the right things.

Joe McCally:

I'd been conversing with dad a lot during that time, telling him my righteous desires of wanting to have a family, and I wanted to get married and I wanted to. You know all these these good things, and you know, he told me he said I promise you just pray about it and work as if it all depends on you, but pray as if it all depends on him. Um, and so I I did. Um, I invited both of them, um, my wife who is my wife now wasn't at the time and her friend to come to a service project that I was doing for a family in my ward. I had rented a D4 cat and was going to clear a bunch of land and trees and lodgepole pines off of their property, and only Melissa, my now wife, showed up and as I was working and running the bulldozer, she was out there with this family and she was working hard. And every time I'd move that D4 coming back I'd see her out there just working hard Like man. That's one amazing woman. She's a hard worker, you know. And just seeing her there working during this uh project, project got done. I invited her on an official date.

Joe McCally:

Um, we went to the movies and after one official date, the spirit was unmistakable that I had to ask her to marry me. So, after a whirlwind courtship of about a week, I asked her to marry me. Oh my gosh. And after about a month and a half we were married in the Seattle temple. And that was another high, pivotal point in my life to have seen how far into the abyss I was to be on this high spiritual mountain of kneeling across the altar in the house of God and having the Holy Spirit of promise reach down and touch me as I held her hand across that altar so powerfully and so strong that even someone who, as I told you earlier, used to bench press 625 pounds, shook me to my core of witnessing to me that this was the woman that was to be my wife and was willing to be my companion throughout all eternity my wife and was willing to be my companion throughout all eternity. To say I loved her then is an understatement, because the love I thought I had for her then pales in comparison to the love that I've learned from her after 25 years and going strong of, you know, being married to this woman.

Joe McCally:

We have four beautiful children that are just as ornery and, of course, if you ask her, she would say, no, they're your children, exactly. My mother-in-law doesn't call it orneriness, she calls it determinedness. I'm determined. So, yes, my wife is very determined. She puts me in my place and of course I do need it at times. Sometimes it's received well, other times not so much. We laugh and joke. She will have disagreements and I'll realize very quickly that I was wrong and I'm not afraid to go to her and apologize the minute I know that I screwed up and she goes. I just want a minute to be more mad at you for a little while longer. But I mean, she's such a beautiful and creative individual, I mean so.

Joe McCally:

You know, we got married and we went from the Seattle Temple. We spent the night in a hotel that our parents had got for us and then we immediately went on to our honeymoon on to the Oregon coast. We stayed in a bed and breakfast, which I'm going to tell a story on myself here. While they're at the bed and breakfast, the lady was very proud of her food and she would say oh, there's the sun-dried tomatoes and this and this fancy crap and this and that, and is there anything else that you would like? Yes, can I have some ketchup? And you'd have thought I'd asked something very inappropriate. That's just who I am. Don't tell me all this fancy crap. I don't care, no-transcript, and I'm not necessarily into the really fancy stuff, but I call myself an amateur barbecue pit master. My kids tell me no, dad, you're a pit master, you are good at what you do. Just a lot of learning YouTube videos as well as PBS movies on barbecue and such. And my wife's father, believe it or not, was sort of born and raised in the South and he and I bump ideas and recipes for barbecue off of each other, even to this day.

Joe McCally:

Um, but while we got done with the honeymoon, then we had a belated um reception and this, the reception was like fine, whatever it was, it was, it was a reception, it was fun. We had laughed, we joked, but a miracle happened that day. My wife's grandfather, who has since passed away, and of course his lovely bride is now passed away as well. But he suffered when my wife and I first met. He had suffered for many years with asbestosis, which he was in the naval shipyards and got exposed to asbestos, and he suffered very heavily with respiratory problems and I was witness to my father-in-law and brother-in-law and, because my wife's grandfather was in his vehicle, basically an absolute respiratory failure, not being able to breathe. At the point of ready to call an ambulance, I watched my father-in-law give him a priesthood blessing and then I watched him stand up, my wife's grandfather and go back into the reception and dance with his wife.

Joe McCally:

He was an amazing man, my wife's grandfather, even my father-in-law. He's an amazing man. He has an amazing conversion story which I don't want to tell his story, but it's amazing, which I don't want to tell his story, but it's amazing. So after that, just life happens, we got married, we moved in together and very quickly kept getting these impressions you need to start your family, you need to start your family. And I told the wife this and we had planned, like, no, we'll wait, you know, a year before, you know, starting our family. And of course, we've only known each other for maybe two, two and a half months at this time when we're starting out, maybe three months, when I started getting these impressions that we should start our family and she kept saying no, no, no, no, no, no. But that impression continued to it's like you need to start your family. So I said, well, let's go to the temple. So we went to the Portland Oregon temple and we did a endowment session. And as we were sitting there in the chapel prior to going to do the endowment session, she leaned over and said all right. I said, well, we need to start our family. So we did. That was 1999. And in almost a year later from when we got married to when our oldest daughter was married. Our oldest daughter was born was about a year later, so we had our first child in 2000. Child in 2000.

Joe McCally:

And on the day that she was born I had been working in Great Falls, montana, for a construction company and I had just started. It had been working there for about a month and a half. My wife stayed with her folks in Central Oregon because that's where her doctors were and she had family to help her through the pregnancy. And the day came for my daughter to be born and so I hopped on a flight and flew into Redmond, oregon, and I didn't quite make the berth, but I was there very closely. After I had it all set up with my boss that, hey, my wife's pregnant, when she gives birth, I'm going to do this, and here's exactly the itinerary. He said not a problem, you just let us know, know, and you can go. So the minute I knew that I had to fly out, I told him, informed him, said hey, everything that I talked about and prearranged here it's happening.

Joe McCally:

Now, the day that my wife was discharged from the hospital, which was like a day or two later, we went back to my in-law's house and we were struggling with the whole breastfeeding problem that my wife just not able to do that. So we were new parents, we were scared, we didn't know what was going on. We listened to the lactation nurse at the time and we were struggling with this new child and then I got a phone call and I got fired, even though I'd prearranged to have it. You know it just another kick in the shorts to basically probably humble me for some reason. But we got through that lived life, trying to live the gospel and follow the teachings of Christ and do the things that we should. We felt impressed that I should go back to Montana and find other work, which I did, which got me closer to something else. And we ended up moving back to Oregon and I started working for a construction company there and really had been getting tired of being laid off and knew that I had this brand new child and not wanting to be laid off in the every winter and having to go through that financial struggle. But I should probably back up just a little bit, um, but I should probably back up just a little bit.

Joe McCally:

When we were in great falls, um, melissa and our oldest daughter, emma, um moved to great falls with me and there was a set of sister missionaries that um, it seemed that they were at our house a lot, but, um, sister Anderson and Sister Karchner in the Great Falls area. For some reason it wasn't the greatest of missions for sisters, for some reason, I don't know why, but they would come to where we lived and they'd spend time with my wife and, honestly, I think the reason that these sister maritimaries really didn't have a whole lot of proselyting things to do was to be there to help my wife through this transition of being a brand new mother. They were a godsend and they you know, sister Anderson, even later years moved in with us for a while as she was trying to get her life in order after she got off her mission. She's an interesting lady, to say the least. It was odd. I used to joke about it. I'd come home. I was like hi, hon, how are you doing? Oh, hi, sister Anderson, how are you? You know, house full of men here. So it was interesting at best, let's put it that way it was fun. They were great missionaries, they were great people.

Joe McCally:

So we did end up moving away, um, from Great Falls and, uh, moving to Oregon and during that time you know, just just life, things happening, um, and all for the positive. I mean you can't always be exuberantly happy 24, seven. You know there's there's ebbs and flows and and whatnots. Um, I started working for the highway department, um, which was to me and, having discussion with my wife, would give us a more year round solid base of of employment and which brought us to getting hired on with the highway department and then moving to La Grande, oregon. And after about three years of working for the highway department, just pondering it at night, you know, during the graveyard shift, of plowing snow and keeping the Ladd Canyon there in Eastern Oregon open during the drifting and blowing snow, it's like this is not what I want to be when I grow up.

Joe McCally:

And the more that I pondered and the more that I thought, um, during that time, um, I knew that when I was a teenager I really enjoyed the EMS, the doing the firefighting things and doing that sort of medical stuff, and. But I also knew that paramedics didn't make a whole lot of money. So the thought came to me why don't you be a nurse? Nurse? So, okay, all right, at 31 years old I've now got one daughter that's four years old, and now I got a set of twins that are on the way they're still baking in the oven, as it were and I decided to start nursing school, or start to get the prerequisites so I could attend nursing school. And this is where the trophy pros uh, trophy diploma, the participation trophy diploma from high school comes into play. Um yeah, I ended up having to take no less than 26 credits or more every term from summer of 2004 until I graduated the summer of 2008, just to make up and get myself into a position where I could understand what was going on in college.

Scott Brandley:

Were you working at this time too.

Joe McCally:

Luckily, this is where stories kind of converge with dad's story and mine. I ended up not having to work, but my full-time job was college and during this time is when my grandfather my dad's dad moved into that apartment that he built over his house that he talked about, and because of the money that, um, his pension and everything that got paid to grandpa, dad didn't need it, so that extra money helped to pay for the minimal amount of mortgage that I had on a house that I was living in and provided a place for my family to live that I didn't have to worry about. Of course we were on food stamps and other things because I was unemployed and attending college. But that's where another side of the miracle of my grandparents kind of comes into play. My grandparents kind of comes into play Because, without the little bit of money that grandpa's pension had truly paid for our, our, a place for us to live, even though he was living with my folks which is here's an anecdotal sidebar note to grandpa living over the garage in his apartment in my folks' place, they had a CCTV cameras in his apartment so they could, you know, kind of keep an eye on him in different areas. We call it vision, that's what we called it. Um, but my wife and I, you know, up until this point we would, we'd come visit my folks and you know we would take care of grandpa while mom and dad would go off and do things.

Joe McCally:

Um, he just, uh, a funny little dude that's blind and had dementia, and it was entertaining. He had these funny little quirks that he would do, like we'd sit down to feed him and he'd go, and it'd be some kind of meat product or a soup that had some meat in it. He's like, oh, meat meat. You know he, just these cute little things that he would do. And it's like, hey, grandpa, you tell me you're full. And he's like, oh yeah, I'm so full I can't eat another bite. It's like, well, we got some chocolate cake. Grandpa, you want some chocolate cake? Oh, there's always room for chocolate cake.

Joe McCally:

He'd say, kind of hilarious to you know he, he just, he was happy in his little bubble and dad was right, he, he, he put these rails and you'd hear him talking to himself Like I wonder where this rail goes, you know, and he'd follow it, like, how did it know? I wanted to go here, you know, it's just, it's, it was just funny to see you know's, just it's. It was just funny to see you know. I mean even from my standpoint, I mean you know even my kids, to this day, you know, like my oldest daughter she goes. Oh yeah, I remember watching grandpa vision, you know, and grandpa, vision so well, that's cool yeah so.

Joe McCally:

So I attended nursing school. Well, I started at a community college, got a year under my school, which was Oregon Health Science University, ohsu, which is a pretty big medical facility and education for all things medical, I mean doctors and dentists, and it's just, it's huge in Portland metro area, dentists, and it just it's huge in Portland metro area. But they had a satellite campus on the campus of Eastern Oregon University and I applied for that and I know the Lord had his hand in it. I was accepted immediately and when I started college, the wife wife said you got four years, that's all you get, and especially during that time, you know, taking so many credits to try and get it all done, truly doing in four years what normal people would probably do in six or seven years. That's just how heavy a load that I had to do because of how stupid I was in high school. There's no mincing words in that. I was an absolute moron, putz, mega putz in high, and so I graduated college with a 3.5 GPA. So I did something right.

Joe McCally:

Right Before graduation I told the wife it's like I'm moving back to Montana. I have to, we have to move to Montana. We got to, and bless her heart. She said, okay, but I'm not moving there until you have me a house. I said, okay, we can do that. But I also had to promise her when we did move this was the last move, at least until all the kids had graduated high school, and of course I held that end of the bargain and so I graduated nursing school. I had to take the state boards, the national boards, actually the NCLEX, which is a huge nursing test. It's the final, final exam. You can graduate nursing school and have a bachelor's of science in nursing, but still not be an RN. So but I passed the NCLEX boards and got my RN license and I, by the time that I graduated college, when we started college, I had basically three kids, one that was born and two that were on the way, um.

Joe McCally:

But by the time I graduated, in that four years, we had our fourth child, our youngest daughter, um, which is kind of an odd, funny story when we were went in for the ultrasound of the twins, went in for the ultrasound of the twins, the tech was counting heartbeats and we knew that multiples was a possibility, because from our oldest daughter to the twins is a four-year gap, and so she was on fertility drugs to try and have the next set of excuse me, kids. So multiples was a possibility, a high probability, and, um, so we were in the ultrasound and they're counting heartbeats. The tech was like one, two and I could hear her muttering under her breath One, two, uh-oh, move the ultrasound probe some more. One, two, uh-oh, wait a minute, what is this? Uh-oh, oh, three technicians. Later, finally, they got the supervisor in there and they're like listen, ladies, wait a minute, you're counting this heartbeat twice.

Joe McCally:

So we actually, up until that point, we thought we were having triplets, but it was just so. We assumed that the next child would be just as difficult. But she's an ornery little turd, we love her. But she's an ornery little turd, we love her. Very talented, our youngest daughter. But she was born 13 months almost exactly to the day that the twins were born. The twins were born on what is it? The 23rd of April 2004. 23rd of April 2004. And in May, 22nd of 2005, our youngest was born. So even the scare of triplets was still like raising triplets because they were so close together.

Scott Brandley:

Right yeah.

Joe McCally:

Yeah, which put together the whole empty nest. When I mean it was like the twins graduated high school and then the very next year we were planning another graduation and she graduated and everybody poof, just just that fast was gone.

Scott Brandley:

Wow, yeah um, I know, man, it goes by so fast. It just feels like the snap of a fingers. And you're like your kids are all grown up and they're getting married and moving out and you're like, wow, that was way faster than I thought so, yeah, it's been one wonderful ride.

Joe McCally:

I mean from that pivotal moment of that stake president catching me in the hallway until this very day. You know I've been a nurse for the last 16, going on almost 17 years years. I started off thinking that I wanted to be a NICU nurse because of the. It was a traumatic an emergency C-section for my youngest daughter because her cord prolapsed so they had to emergency take her. So she spent the night in the NICU and of course I was going through nursing school and it's like what do you want to do, seeing the way that the NICU? And of course I was going through nursing school and it's like what do you want to do, seeing the way that the NICU nurses work on my daughter? And you know it's like that's what I want to be when I grow up. So I did do a little bit of NICU training. I never did get hired into the NICU, but I did stick with pediatrics.

Joe McCally:

I moved to Montana, got hired with one of the local hospitals and spent the next five years doing pediatric surgical as well as I'll call it perioperative surgical. I only very rarely would I go into the operating suite to help out this most post-operative surgical. That I did for five years. I've worked basically from cradle to grave. I was a hospice nurse in there for a large chunk of time in the last 16, 17 years and I'm at the point now where I was glutton for punishment and go to graduate school to get my master's in science and nursing education and try and give back to the nursing community.

Joe McCally:

And within the last three weeks here I started working at a community college here in eastern Montana, work as a clinical nursing instructor. Now and in probably I think they said next summer, possibly next fall, I'll be hired on full-time permanent as a faculty nursing instructor. So professor type and that sort of brings us to today. I mean, since that day where President Chastain reached out and gave me that hug, I have had callings in the church with the young men. I've been an Elder's Quorum president. I have been an award finance clerk and most recently within the last year I was called to be second counselor in the bishopric in our ward here in Shepherd, counselor in the bishopric in our ward here in shepherd, um, which is what I came running from um as soon as we were done today we'll have this interview wow.

Scott Brandley:

So from teenage turd to just really stalwart in the gospel what a change, yeah. Have you ever looked back when and thought about like why you got those those voices, that you'd been tricked. Have you ever like thought about why that happened or what your life would have been like if that didn't happen?

Joe McCally:

Um, not as much as I should, but I kind of look back reminiscently on it, as that was the journey that I was called to make Um, and there was a reason for why I went down that path, because there was a lot of people, even in the darkest abyss, that I would run into um. Case in point, um, there was a young man that I ran into, um during my dark times, that he was even in a more darkest, uh a time of his life that he was contemplating suicide, a time of his life that he was contemplating suicide, and just conversation, of talking with him, and it's it's odd it's kind of like President Holland and Elder Kearing talk about this that it doesn't matter how dark a spot you're in, christ is always there looking to try and bring you out. He's never given up on you, he's never given up on me. He just won't, he just doesn't. He's always there. And why he chose to reach into those dark spaces for me, I don't know. I know someday I can ask him that question and I'm sure he'll give me an answer of you were the one that I needed in that spot to help my other child to get through these things, and I never denied Christ ever. I always knew he was there, but I wanted to run from him. I didn't want him to see me, I wanted to do it on my own. I was too headstrong. It just.

Joe McCally:

It's an interesting thing of how, if you allow it, how the Spirit of Jesus Christ can work through you, even where you would think that there is no light, there is nothing, there's nowhere I can go. I'm lower than a whale turd. I'm down at the bottom of the ocean and I'm the pond scum that feeds everything else, but I would say that you're not, you're not far. I mean the Lord and Heavenly Father. He wants you, he needs you, and that's the crux of what my life has really been. I've seen those dark places. I've been homeless. I've been in dark turmoil.

Joe McCally:

I've had these miraculous miracles happen in my life where, even when I was trying to run away from the gospel of Christ, that he would show to me how much he loves me by allowing me to walk in my grandfather's footsteps, by allowing me to have these miracles, even when I didn't deserve them. Even even to this day, I don't know In my prayers, it's like I don't know what I did to deserve the beautiful miracles that you have given me in my life. What did I do before this life that allows me to have such a wonderful and powerful testimony of how much Christ loves us and how he is always there, blessing our lives, reaching out for us? I actually have it as a screensaver. It's a picture of Christ walking on the water, reaching down into the water to pull you up. His hand is always outstretched, it's always there if you just reach for it.

Joe McCally:

And that's what happened to me when President Chastain. He was the mouthpiece for the Lord that day that brought a sinner such as I into a life that I wouldn't trade for anything, for family, for knowing a love of a woman that don't tell her this, but she's the best for me. I mean, I do all I can. I pray every day that I can be worthy of her, because I know how far I sunk. She is the miracle in my life. She made me a father and I have four beautiful children because of her, and that's that is that's truly the crux of everything that I would ever really hope that someone could see, or to hear that, wherever you are, god is there.

Joe McCally:

Christ is there. You just have to want to listen, to reach out, let him be that light. Follow it and you will have powerful miracles in your life. They may not be as huge, grandiose things, but simple, everyday, tender mercies that if you truly look for them, you will find them and you will be able to come back into that light that truly is almost shining like on my ball of noggin.

Scott Brandley:

Yeah. I got some of those too.

Joe McCally:

I mean, what a powerful testimony to know that Christ and our Heavenly Father never and I mean never gives up on us. They are always there, they want us to come back. But it is our choice, our agency that he gave us. I can't imagine the suffering that he goes through on a daily basis of his wayward children, of his wayward children is almost unfathomable to truly understand. You know, being a father myself and I know I'm sure you guys have children too If I hadn't had a family, if my wife hadn't blessed me with children, never know such a powerful love for individuals that truly can change the course of life and your destiny and the way that you are in life.

Joe McCally:

I try and go through life treating people as treating people as I want to be treated, which is odd. I go under the adage of God gave you two ears and one mouth so you should listen twice as much as you should speak. And using that in the nursing profession and that's something I really never talked about during this interview, and that's something I really never talked about during this interview of how the Lord will use the power of the Holy Spirit to touch you as a nurse or as a medical professional to save the life of someone else. There's been so many times where, of course, in nursing school, they call it your nursing intuition. They didn't want to call it anything else. They called it nursing intuition.

Joe McCally:

Now, it's the Holy Ghost, it's all it is. It's the Holy Ghost and you know hearing that voice, hearing those promptings and knowing exactly what to do. I know President Nelson talked about it in some of his surgeries of in my mind's eye I saw exactly where I needed to cut. It happens for the medical professionals that are willing to listen to that still small voice and to save the life of others or to ease the suffering of others, if you just listen. So I guess, in a nutshell, that is my message of hope that you can come out of that darkness and see the light and have that powerful feeling of light in your life. And I would say that and testify that all I have said today, to the best of my recollecting, is true, and I do so in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Scott Brandley:

Awesome. Thanks so much, joe for coming on.

Alisha Coakley:

It's really just so inspiring to see that people can change right and not that you have to go through really hard times or dark times.

Alisha Coakley:

It's not necessary all the time to go through that, but the fact that knowing if you do, if you make choices that take you down that path, or if other people make choices that force you down that path, Heavenly Father always, he's always going to have multiple ways to pull you back and and to guide you and to forgive you and to to use you right, Like even in your darkest, hardest times, you still were able to be a vessel of light to other people, Even if you weren't being your.

Alisha Coakley:

You know your most excellent self, right, Like the best version of you that you could be. Heavenly father can work with. He can work with all of us at any point, at any time, anywhere you know, and half the time we don't even have to realize that he's working with us for him to still be working with us. But it always is a lot more powerful when you pay attention and you know, when you're able to, to use that to add to your testimony to build um, you know, build a stronger testimony, and I love that you, that you did that.

Joe McCally:

So thank you so much for for sharing your story with us today. Yeah, yeah, thanks, joe. Dad I've heard it three times, I don't need to hear it again. He can sell a ketchup popsicle to an Eskimo and the Eskimo would say, hey, this is the greatest thing on the world.

Scott Brandley:

Well, thanks again, joe, for being on the show and thanks everyone for tuning in to hear Joe's story. If you have a story that you'd like to share, go to latterdaylightscom and tell us about it. We can have you on the show.

Alisha Coakley:

Yeah, absolutely, and do your five-second missionary work. Guys, share Joe's story. You just never know who out there needs to hear it and needs to have a little more light, uh, you know, induced into their testimony. And so we, we just really appreciate all of our guests that come on here. Joe, we appreciate you for taking the time out to come and to talk to us and to really just help us fortify our own testimonies, and we're thankful for our listeners too. Guys, we, we love you, we love hearing comments. So go ahead and comment, let us know what really stood out to you in Joe's story and, like I said, share it with others. We would love to be able to get you know, give this out there for everybody.

Scott Brandley:

Yep. So thanks again, joe, thanks again everybody for being here, and we will talk to you again next week with another episode. Thanks See in here and we will talk to you again next week with another episode. Thanks see, ya, thanks.

People on this episode

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Scott Brandley

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Alisha Coakley

Co-host