Our guest speakers will be Evan and Cheryl Smith — parents of a gay son who privately came out to them while Evan was serving as a bishop. Their son later decided to serve a mission and returned home after 19 months (while Evan was then serving as a stake presidency counselor) to publicly come out and be open to dating, in the hopes of eventually finding the right man to marry. They will speak about how their journey has taught them to be loving, accepting and understanding of LGBTQ Latter-day Saints while serving in leadership positions in the Church and how they felt the Lord prepared them for their son coming out. They will also talk about a difficult experience they had with a General Authority, and how we can all learn from it to be more loving and forgiving.

We are excited for them to share their journey with us! It will be a wonderful evening of learning how we all can love better! Evan’s book about their journey and his doctrinal hopes for a path forward for the church can be found at gayldscrossroads.org