Taking a chance I might
Find what I’m looking for.
—SUGARLAND, “Something More”
My first big crush was a Mormon. He was a ripped soccer player with sandy blond hair and piercing blue eyes. He had sculpted broad shoulders and the most muscular legs I’d ever seen on a high school senior. In other words, he was everything I was not, including super straight. He became my best friend one summer, and he had no idea.
To get closer to this guy, I started attending his church. Then something shocking happened. I listened with an open heart and mind to the sermons and fell in love with the message. There was just something about Mormonism that spoke to me. I guess it found me right at a moment in my life when I was searching for something. My raging teenage hormones needed to be channeled, regimented, into holier pursuits, or so I believed.
When I told my parents that these visits to the Mormon church were something more, and that I’d decided to join the church, they were beside themselves. Mom especially. She has always been a deeply spiritual woman who is firm in her faith. One day, when I was about seven years old, we were driving somewhere when she pointed to a violet sky flecked with pink-tinted clouds from a setting sun and described the rapture, or at least what she imagined the rapture would look like from all her Bible reading.
“Just imagine, the kingdom of heaven right up there where we can see it, with trumpets playing and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ appearing in the air!”
Mom went on to describe how we, and all other believers, dead or alive, would ascend to Christ. All our loved ones who’d passed, all our ancestors, would receive their resurrected bodies. We’d all be made perfect in the eyes of our Lord, and up we’d float. Then Mom went on to quote the scriptures, as she often did:
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
—1 Thessalonians 4:16–18
I saw what she saw. I felt what she felt, as if my body were already floating skywards. An imaginative kid who’d inherited his faith, and then some, from his mother, these images seemed as real as the cracked piece of country road we were driving along.
“I can’t wait until the rapture is here!” I told my mother. “I can’t wait for that day.”
As a deeply spiritual kid from the time I can remember, it wasn’t all that hard for me to believe in miracles. And prayer was as natural to me as breathing. Like the time when I was a couple of years older and Mom and I found ourselves by the side of the highway waiting out a violent storm. We were on our way to my grandparents’ house about a hundred miles from our house via the I-20. What felt like hurricane-force winds rattled our little car, and hail stones the size of golf balls fell on its roof and hood with such velocity we thought for sure we were either going to get crushed or blown away into the empty tobacco fields nearby. We felt vulnerable and exposed to the wrath of Mother Nature. Mom couldn’t hide her panic.
“Oh, what are we going to do?”
“Pray,” I told her, then we both sat and did just that. Seconds later, the winds died down and the hail bombings stopped. Our prayers were answered, and we went on our way.
In a way, although Mom would probably hate to hear it, she laid the foundation for me to accept many of the tenets of the Mormon faith. She was always telling me about the Second Coming and what it might be like in heaven, and her stories captivated me. Mormonism linked up well with what I already felt. It didn’t seem all that different to what I’d been taught. To me the angels were real, and the story of Jesus was true. So why couldn’t Joseph Smith have discovered another volume of scripture delivered by an angel? It all seemed perfectly reasonable.
Most non-Mormons dismiss the religion as a little odd, and I get it. Polygamy, long underwear or “temple garments,” and no coffee, much less alcohol. My mother, a Southern Baptist girl, was as confused as she was disappointed when I told her I wanted to become Mormon. We attended several different Christian churches growing up from Nazarene to Baptist, but they were all in that southern tradition of the faith, so when I veered onto a different path there was a sense of shock and betrayal from her and some in my family.
I couldn’t help being drawn to the faith. My heart spoke loud and clear. There was a kindness and compassion to the Mormon doctrine that got under my skin in a way that those other churches did not. Mormons have a strong sense of community and dedicate their lives to serving others. They are family oriented and committed to doing the right thing, always. And the music of those soaring voices of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir gave me chills. It reached me at a visceral level, distracting me almost completely from the perfectly formed male standing next to me at church, in his crisp white shirt and tight black pants. I could actually feel the Holy Ghost in the church’s music. For a kid desperately searching for something that would help him transcend his inner turmoil and be a part of something bigger than himself, the timing of my exposure to that faith could not have been better.
I always had a strong impulse to connect with other people. I was eager to please and be liked, but it was much more than that. Mom called me her “ball of sunshine” because I had this need to make other people smile, even from the time I could crawl. It didn’t matter who they were, or where they were from. I was curious about any stranger I met, and if someone in a room looked uncomfortable, I’d lock in on them, draw them out with questions, and listen carefully to what they had to say to find out what I could do to fix it. Maybe I was a born entertainer, because being able to have a positive impact on someone else’s state of mind felt like such a blessing. Or maybe I was also a frustrated therapist. Either way, building those connections made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, like a spiritual rush.
Mormonism gave me a chance to use that impulse in a structured way, with a clear sense of purpose, almost like the military. So, when a friend from church approached me and said I should go on a two-year mission in Seattle, I couldn’t pass up the chance. That’s probably what broke Mom’s heart more than anything. It seemed like no one ever considered moving beyond the zip code, and here I was, at eighteen years old, planning to live clear across the country, 2,828 miles from everyone I’d ever known and loved.
There were plenty of tears when I made the announcement in our family living room, mostly from Mom, who had to watch her firstborn dive headlong into what seemed to her a radical religion. Dad was more bewildered than anything. As a parent now, I can’t imagine having to say goodbye to my son, Landon, for two years, with nothing but intermittent phone calls to keep me connected.
Yet, somehow, they found the strength to love me through it, embracing a decision they disagreed with because it was mine to make. Soon after I’d joined the Mormons, my parents made the effort to attend some of the services and get to know a few of the families. We were invited to dinners at the homes of some of the folks who were part of the church in the area and, to her credit, Mom didn’t miss a single opportunity to mix it up with some Mormons. She had plenty of motive.
“If my son is gonna leave our church and be a part of this new community, I’m going to make it my business to understand what it’s all about,” Mom said.
Grandpa sweetly and politely asked me about my newly adopted religion. His brother had married a Mormon woman and moved away to Pocatello, Idaho, so he already had some sense of what I was getting myself into and knew the questions to ask. We had long, deep conversations about the faith because he sincerely wanted to understand what his brother and I believed, and why. It gave Mom some comfort to know that I would be going to her uncle’s house in Idaho for a few days before being taken to the Mission Training Center in Provo, Utah. Maybe, she thought, since another family member believed, Mormonism wasn’t so wacky after all.
On the day of my departure, Mom, Dad, Grandpa, and a few friends saw me off at Columbia’s local airport. It was only ten minutes from our house, which was right on the flight path. It was tense on the ride over. Mom chitchatted about my immediate plans when I got there, whether I had remembered to pack enough socks, and the lunch she’d packed for my long journey across the country. But it was all she could do to stop her voice from trembling as she fought back the tears.
I felt elated. Here I was, embarking on a brand-new adventure that no one else in my family but me would get to experience. It was another example of taking the road less traveled. I believed I was doing something noble with this new tribe that was all mine, so I could hardly contain my excitement. But I was also being selfish. At eighteen, I didn’t have the wisdom to understand how hard it must be to watch a child head for the farthest point in the continental United States, a place that would be my home for the next few years. It’s not as if my parents could afford the plane tickets to come visit. They’d have to content themselves with the occasional phone call or a letter. Even a new military recruit gets more home leave and access to family. But as they saw me off to the departure gate, which you could do in those days, I scarcely gave them a backward glance.
When Great Uncle Billy picked me up from the airport at Salt Lake City, I was struck by how similar he looked to my grandfather, his brother. With the same bald head and square, wire-rimmed glasses, they could have been twins. While he looked familiar, the rugged landscape appeared new, strange, and mesmerizing. Pocatello was just a whistle stop from Yellowstone Park to the north, and about a two-hour drive along the interstate to Salt Lake City, with rolling hills and mountains. It was a huge contrast to the terrain of South Carolina’s Midlands and Low Country, with its swamps, lakes, and oak trees full of hanging moss. I rested with my relatives for a few days and adjusted to the thin mountain air before they drove me to the training center, a kind of boot camp for Mormon missionaries.
I loved the experience. It was a total immersion into the Mormon way of life and belief system, and I was pumped to get started converting people and saving souls in Seattle. The rules and expectations were clear. I was to go door-to-door in my designated area, the Book of Mormon tucked under my arm. The training session covered everything about how to greet strangers when they open the door. We’d start with a few introductory questions.
“Have you ever heard of the Book of Mormon?”
“Would you like to live forever, together with your family?”
“Do you want a closer relationship with Jesus Christ?”
The idea was to start out gently, engage the audience, get them curious about Mormonism. If we somehow managed not to get a door slammed in our faces, our goal was to entice with kindness and empathy. Politeness was key. And listening. The best way to get someone to listen to you is to listen to them first.
I embraced this approach wholeheartedly. It felt natural to a boy as gregarious as I was. Added to my natural skills was the church training, which taught me ways to disarm people even in the tensest of situations. The soft approach involved being passive, asking questions, and finding common ground to let a perfect stranger into my story. I’ve used what the Mormons call “teaching by gentle persuasion” throughout my career in radio and television, with the management teams at radio stations, even with my team today. It’s about making others feel comfortable.
It wasn’t about preaching, necessarily. I wasn’t there to prescribe what others should do. Instead, if I was lucky enough to get them to open the door a few more inches, I’d dig deep and say what I would do, or how Mormonism had helped me personally, extending a solution to them that’s helped me in my life. It was tricky, because I had to try not to make these conversations about myself, yet these conversations about spirituality needed to be personal. It was a way of humbly describing those moments when I’ve needed guidance.
These conversations tested me. More than once, I was challenged to defend my faith. It forced me to dig deep and ask myself, Do I believe this and, if I do, if I even want to believe it, how do I help someone else believe what I believe?
My first week in Seattle was rough. On a Mormon mission you do everything in pairs, to keep an eye on each other, and my “companion” and I had been assigned an area that was especially hilly. We had to navigate our way around on bicycle, huffing, puffing, and sweating our way up the streets in our snug-fitting dress pants, shirt, and tie. But it was the loneliness that got me. It also happened to be Christmas week when it finally hit me how much I missed my family. The people I was with in the field did their best to make me feel better, but they were virtual strangers to me and I really felt the miles between me, Mom, Dad, my sister, my grandparents, and everyone in South Carolina. On Christmas Day, a family from the local Mormon church hosted us, feeding us turkey, stuffing, and all the fixings. It’s a Wonderful Life was playing in the back room on the television, but while we were on mission, we weren’t allowed access to TV or radio.
“Go ahead, watch it,” the family patriarch told us. “It’s Christmas. We won’t tell!”
It gave me so much comfort. And perhaps for the first time, I grasped the full meaning of the classic movie. Jimmy Stewart’s character, George Bailey, is taught through his trials the important difference one life can make and the ripple effect of how just one action impacts so many people. That idea sunk in deep that evening and made the next day a little better.
But over the next few weeks I came so close to walking away from it all. As a recent convert, I was permitted to write home. I was even allowed the occasional call to my parents, a luxury most missionaries didn’t get so regularly. The love and acceptance in their voices, and the assurance that they would always be there for me when and if I decided to come home, helped me get through the next day, and the next. I knew I’d have to be all in every day for the next two years.
It was a monk-like existence. I lived in barebones living quarters with a bunch of other young men, getting up at dawn to pray, eat breakfast, and make my bed before spending the day knocking on the doors of strangers spreading the gospel according to Joseph Smith. You become so focused on the higher purpose that you check your ego, your sense of individuality, at the door. The rules were so strict, I couldn’t even listen to my beloved country music, just MoTab (that’s what hip Mormons call the Mormon Tabernacle Choir). That being said, when I wasn’t jamming to the choir, I would occasionally sneak out with my Walkman and listen to some contraband cassettes and local radio stations, tuning in to country DJ Tony Thomas on the legendary call letters KMPS. And I probably used the house phone (this was before cell phones) to reach out to kindred spirits more than I should have, sneaking into the hallway to make calls while my companion was sleeping or in the shower.
Besides the homesickness, I had some serious doubts about certain aspects of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. For starters, the fact that black people weren’t allowed to reach priesthood until 1978 concerned me deeply. The Mormon Church has a strict hierarchy, and the fact that they excluded a population from the highest echelons for so long stuck in my craw.
Then there was the obvious issue of Mormonism’s rejection of homosexuality. Although I was always trying to push it aside, I knew I was gay, although I never acted upon it, although some of the good-looking missionaries around me certainly caught my eye. I was always trying to be what I thought God wanted me to be. I was conscientious and determined to play by the rules, and if that meant somehow casting aside my internal wiring, I was willing to do that to be part of this thing that I believed was much bigger than myself. The church had a way of saturating my life, to the point where I put the things that troubled me into a locked box, deep in the recesses of my mind. But every now and then those doubts would creep up to the surface.
Polygamy was another bugaboo of mine. Although the practice had long since been banned by the official Mormon Church, it still went on under the radar, in offshoot congregations. And it was hard to forget that Brigham Young, the founder of Salt Lake City and the second president of the church, had fifty-five wives! Joseph Smith himself is said to have had up to forty wives, some underage. Polygamy was and is held up as one of the “rewards” in heaven, if not on earth. Mormons believe in producing spirits by bringing children into the world, which only happens through reproduction. While I always wanted kids and imagined the family in the little house with the white picket fence, akin to the way I was brought up, as a gay man the idea of sister wives horrified me. It was bad enough that I had to figure out a way to be with one woman.
When I finally hit that crossroads, plagued with doubts and tough living conditions, I reached out to my mission head, President McFarlane, who was always kind and wise. He immediately came to the shabby residence I shared with my mission companion and sat with me on one of the threadbare reclining chairs, listening intently as I shared some of my doubts and fears.
“I don’t think I can do this anymore, President McFarlane,” I told him. “I’m so sorry I failed you and the Lord, but I believe it’s time for me to go home.”
Shockingly, he told me, “If you want to go home, I support you 100 percent.”
What? I thought, expecting more resistance to my wishes.
“I would like you to stay, but I will love you and respect your decision, no matter what.”
Those words stayed with me. I always had this fear that if I sinned or failed someone, I would not be loved. I’d be rejected by my community, by God. But the opposite was true. This sweet, fatherly man made me feel unconditionally supported. When I finally did decide to stay, it wasn’t out of a fear of disappointing others. I didn’t feel coerced, guilty, or resentful. It was made in the fullness of my heart, and I felt so much better about it as a result. President McFarlane’s approach is one I’ve emulated time after time as a father. Whenever one of my kids came to me with a problem or a difficult decision they had to make, I just listened without judgment, and told them they’d be loved 100 percent whatever they chose to do.
I encountered a lot of church members like my mission president. They made it easier for me to stay. When we weren’t knocking on doors, we were being cared for by members of the congregation. Families would have us over for meals on Sundays, serving us glasses of milk (because we weren’t allowed to drink much else) with generous helpings of meat loaf, lasagna, pizza, and casseroles. We played basketball and board games together. We formed real friendships.
That sense of community was powerful. It made it easier for me to look past some of the flaws of Mormonism. Like any human, the church was far from perfect, but there was so much good. I went with that feeling, sharing my thought process with people I was trying to convert who had similar misgivings. Acknowledging the imperfections of the church and being open about my own struggle proved to be far more effective than glossing over the truth. My sincerity at least won me their trust and kept my foot in the door long enough to be heard.
Two of my dearest friends from the Seattle congregation were Wayne Quinton and his wife, Jeanne. Wayne was an extremely successful entrepreneur from the Seattle area who’d invented the treadmill used in hospitals for EKGs and was instrumental in inventing the catheter. This older couple, who lived in a private neighborhood in the Highlands full of McMansions, were mega rich. Yet they were incredibly humble.
Wayne and Jeanne often had me over for meals. They treated me as if I were their son, as their own son was serving a mission in Japan at the same time I was serving in Seattle. For a lost nineteen-year-old with so many doubts, their presence in my life was reassuring, like a second set of parents. They were instrumental in helping me work through some of my thorniest questions about the faith, patiently talking things through with me, helping me with my “testimony,” which in Mormonism is a statement of your beliefs in front of other members of the congregation, inspired by the Holy Ghost. Typically, you prepare for this initiation into the faith through lots of reading, quiet contemplation, and deep conversation with God. When that knowing comes, you recognize it with a sense of peace, a feeling of elation, a burning in your heart, or a voice in your head. I experienced all of the above.
But my friendship with the Quintons wasn’t just based on heavy conversations about Mormon theology. We had a true kinship. On one occasion, Jeanne asked me what my favorite dish from home was, so she could try her hand at cooking it for me. I attempted to describe the brown Carolina rice my mother used to make with pot roast. I didn’t know exactly how Mom cooked it, but I’ve since learned the recipe: brown rice, French onion soup, beef consommé, and about a pound of butter. I could eat this fluffy, delicate grain any time of day, as a side dish or a meal. Bless her heart, Jeanne did her best, but the end result tasted pretty awful. I smiled and chewed my way through it, but no matter the taste, the heart in Jeanne’s attempt meant everything.
Wayne often joined me on our Wednesday night visits to the home of Charlotte Jones, an older lady on my mission route who loved the attention of all the missionaries who came knocking. She was a jovial lady full of chitchat and smiles. Our goal was to figure her out so that we could convince her to get baptized into the church, but no one ever did until Wayne and I worked our charm to convince her. She was among my first baptisms in Seattle. It was exhilarating knowing I’d helped someone make that profound spiritual decision.
After her baptism, Charlotte came to church in the boldest colored dresses I’d ever seen, often with flowery scarves and a pearl necklace. She seemed to truly relish her newfound faith, and everyone in the congregation loved her right back.
Meanwhile, for all the small triumphs, there were countless failures and hours spent trying to save souls, with polite nods at best, and doors slammed in our faces at worst. Some of my fellow missionaries even had objects thrown at them in the streets. We did most of our “tracting,” which is the Mormon term for knocking on the doors of potential converts, in the poorest, roughest neighborhoods of Seattle. We figured the tougher the circumstance and the more humble the existence, the more need people may have for answers. On one strip of run-down houses, the neighbors suggested we try our luck with a guy named James, who’d just been released from jail for drug use.
When we came to his place, we knocked gently and the door swung open. The place looked like a crack den. James, a hulking guy with a ponytail, piercings, and covered in tattoos all the way up to his neck, stood at his threshold, looming over us as we stood on the doorstep below.
“Um, uh, hello, er, I’m Elder Chavis and this is Elder Johnson,” I stammered, praying I would not get punched in the face. “We’re from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and we have a message for people in the neighborhood.”
“Well, come on in!” James said, suddenly beaming (and possibly relieved we were not parole officers).
Oh crap, I thought, momentarily wondering if this was a trap. Any witnesses around? I wondered, looking over my shoulder before stepping inside. But he turned out to be a sweetheart who’d been trying to figure himself out and was thirsting for spiritual guidance. It wasn’t long before he joined the church. Last I heard, he was slipping back to his old ways and smoking weed, but it was a victory while it lasted.
Also among my journeys in Seattle, I won over Mike Boonsripisal, the son of immigrants from Thailand. He was just seventeen when we first knocked on his door. We introduced ourselves and he immediately invited us in. He had friends at school who happened to be Mormons and Mike wanted to learn more. Over the next few months, we chatted a lot. Mike loved having us over. Finally, we asked Mike if he’d like to be baptized. For him, it was a no-brainer, but he needed permission from his parents who were Buddhists. They had some misgivings. Mormonism was completely foreign to their Thai customs. Knowing how that felt from my own experience, I could give Mike additional support on his conversion journey and share my optimism that his folks would eventually come around.
We prayed about Mike’s baptism in church and in our morning and nightly missionary prayers. One day, my companion and I “blessed” Mike by placing our hands on his head to ask God for all His support for Mike and his family. Eventually, Mike’s parents did consent and today Mike is a successful member of the church, with a wife and family of his own.
Another win was Mark Papritz, who was dating a Mormon girl. Before their relationship could go much further, his girlfriend asked him to learn about her faith. But Mark had the same questions I had. Polygamy and bigotry were not great selling points. Over the span of months, we had long conversations as Mark challenged and I attempted to defend my faith. Finally, I acknowledged to him that I had the same doubts and shared how I dealt with it. Being human, saying, “Yeah, I don’t get that part either,” was what finally won him over. It let him know he was not alone in his questioning. If I struggled yet could get past those doubts and still love aspects of the Mormon Church, maybe he could too. Eventually Mark got baptized. It was probably my greatest success story on my mission.
During those two years in Seattle, I attempted to find myself, and this Mormon adventure was all-consuming. When you join the church, it’s not just something you do on Sundays. It’s 24/7. Everyone has jobs, and what Mormons term “callings,” whether they are teaching Sunday school to young kids or gospel to the congregation. There was always something to keep you busy.
I brought a lot of the lessons I learned on my mission with me throughout the rest of my life, although I am not the same guy I was then. Over the decades, my faith has evolved with wisdom, experience, and self-acceptance. It took me a long time to realize that institutionalized religion, despite its many virtues, does not have all the answers, and that even the most extreme measures cannot change who you are. I will admit I am still in that process of discovery.
Possibly the greatest gift Mormonism gave me was the space and discipline to be still in moments of prayer and silence, so that I could listen to my intuition and God’s voice. I also developed the ability to build a rapport and trust with complete strangers even in the most unlikely of circumstances. I learned to set aside my assumptions about the people who lived on the other side of the door. I didn’t know what they were going through, or even whether they were believers. Before I could even think about getting across their threshold, much less try to convey my message and spread the Mormon gospel, I had to show curiosity, care, and concern about their lives by asking thoughtful, probing questions. And I had to follow up with comments and clarifications that demonstrated I could catch every nuance of what they were feeling and where they were coming from.
I don’t regret that time in Seattle. I met wonderful people and felt a deep sense of partnership with other young men who shared the same mission: helping others. I wanted to be the best possible human I could be and live as close to what I felt righteousness looked like. I was probably also trying to fill a void. Nothing sexual—gay or straight—happened. No way was I going to go there. By the time I ended my mission, I was still a virgin. Instead, I was channeling all my energies into a higher purpose and serving God in the hope that He would somehow “cure” me down the road. Little did I know that was never His plan for me.