Inside the increasing numbers of reconversion stories being shared online
(deseret.com 2-26-24)
Ashly Stone never imagined how her life was about to change when she tried heroin. “I was sick without it,” she remembers — “totally emotionally unstable.”
“Needing a substance to be able to function is a really rough way to live,” she remembers. This was a long journey from her happy upbringing as a “good kid” in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As Ashly recounted on the “All In Podcast,” she was eventually estranged from most people in her life — with the exception of her father.
“I don’t know how he didn’t give up on me, to be honest. … But he just didn’t. He always took my calls.”
Toward the end of her 15th rehab, a text message arrived from a friend at a previous treatment center. “Ashly,” he wrote, “if you read the Book of Mormon every single day, I promise you will never go back to your old life.”
“I couldn’t even imagine a life where I could live sober,” she recalled thinking. “That was so far from the realm of possibility.” But, she concluded, “I have nothing to lose.”
Ashly is now married and a mother of two young children. Eleven years later, she hasn’t missed a day reading the Book of Mormon, and she hasn’t touched drugs or alcohol either.
Today, she runs with Lauren Rose the “Come Back Podcast,” which shares stories of people coming back to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Although it isn’t even two years old, the podcast already has 1.2 million downloads across podcast platforms, and thousands of subscribers on YouTube.
Among the total episodes are 80 different stories of people coming back to faith, including 21 stories of people who came back to the faith after grappling with substance abuse or other addictions. There are also stories of people who once embraced critical narratives about the church or its history, and others who worked through significant health and emotional challenges.
(for the rest of the article follow link)
https://www.deseret.com/2024/2/26/24059906/do-latter-day-saints-come-back-to-church/
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