Released
Released
I Found Porn When I Was Eight Years Old | Colton Miller
In this episode (Sz4 Ep2) Colton Miller came on. Colton is a family man, an entrepreneur, a recovered porn abuser, and a defender of the faith.
In this episode, Talmage and Colton talk about: The power of the priesthood to heal, Colton’s story of finding porn so young, how porn has affected his life and marriage, his faith crisis, therapy techniques like EMDR and internal family systems, studying The Book of Mormon, and defending the gospel against hate online.
Colton’s Links:
https://www.instagram.com/colton_b_miller/
https://www.tiktok.com/@brother_miller
Talmage/Released’s Links
https://www.instagram.com/talmagethayne/
https://www.instagram.com/released_thepodcast/
https://www.youtube.com/@talmagethayne21
https://www.tiktok.com/@talmagethayne
Timecode:
0:00 Introduction and Colton Miller's Childhood
16:48 Mission Experiences and Post-Mission Challenges
28:38 Battling Feelings of Unworthiness
37:50 Inner Child Healing and Identity Formation
47:30 Navigating Relationships and Addiction
54:35 Personal Faith Journey and Doctrinal Understanding
1:03:13 Examining Controversial Church History Topics
1:13:54 Prophetic Fallibility and Modern Faith
1:18:26 Spiritual Experiences with the Book of Mormon
1:23:12 Defending and Living Faith in the Modern World
Remember, God is good and is planning on your success. And though you've been released from your mission, you haven't been released from your ministry.
When I was eight years old, we found this dresser, and we were looking through all the drawers, and I just remember we opened the bottom drawer, and we just saw a bunch of magazines that neither of us had ever seen anything like before. And I've had a lot of really good experiences with bishops, but I've learned that this is not in their lane.
Talmage Thayne:Born again Christians, when they're coming after us and saying we're not Christian because of this, I'm like, they kind of have some merit when it comes to this one line.
Colton Miller:There's not even an ounce of racism in the prophet Joseph Smith. As soon as I felt the anchor touch my foot, I just let it go. I'm getting dragged underwater by this anchor. But for me, the thing that got me to really doubt whether I wanted to stay in the church is.
Talmage Thayne:Welcome back to another episode of Released. In this episode, I got to interview Colton Miller. This is such a good episode. Colton. I found him on Instagram. He was defending the faith, and he'll take on really tough subjects, and he'll back it up with scripture and just very sound logic. And so it was awesome having him on. In this episode, in addition to defending the gospel, he also talks about how he fell into the porn habit at around age 8, which is just so young, but how it stayed with him on, on and off for a while. It affected him in his marriage and how he was finally able to recover. Anyway, this is a great episode for anybody with a faith crisis or addiction, or if you know of somebody that has those struggles, let's jump into it. Okay. Colton, thank you so much for being on the podcast. I just kind of wanted to open it up to you and have you tell us a little bit about yourself, where you come from, and what made you want to go on a mission in the first place.
Colton Miller:Yeah. So thanks for having me. I appreciate you reaching out. It's kind of funny. We were talking earlier about some connections that we didn't even know about with.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah. Crazy.
Colton Miller:My wife working with your older brother at Roxbury.
Talmage Thayne:So she's like, I'm gonna go say hi to Mike upstairs. And then I was like, you know Mike? She's like, yeah. And I know Mitch, too. I'm like, what the.
Colton Miller:That's crazy. Yeah. We had Mitch do some family pictures for us. It's been a while ago. Before we had. I think we only had my daughter Louise, so it's been probably four or five years ago.
Talmage Thayne:Dang.
Colton Miller:But they were some of our favorite family pictures we've ever had.
Talmage Thayne:So dang, let's go. Mitch is.
Colton Miller:We need a discount from Mitch on some more family pictures.
Talmage Thayne:Yes, he'll do it. Absolutely.
Colton Miller:I was born and raised in Manti, Utah. My dad grew up there. His dad, my grandpa Ellis grew up there and my great great grandfather and all them. So some roots in Sampi county for sure come from some pioneer stock on my dad's side. I think it's Jen's. Peter Olson was one of the down and back boys from winter quarters to Utah. I don't know the history.
Talmage Thayne:Down and back. What does that mean?
Colton Miller:They just like helped pioneers take things to and from Utah. Brittany, my wife, would know a lot better about it. I'm honestly don't know very. I just remember reading up about him on my mission a little bit. But.
Talmage Thayne:That'S sick.
Colton Miller:Yeah. Grew up going to. There's this really cool tabernacle or church building in Manti that is made from the same limestone that the Manti temple is made from. And it actually has this really sweet mural of Jesus at the Jacob's well in the back. I don't know if you've ever seen that, but it's pretty cool to go and visit anyways. Yeah, just going to church was a normal part of life. My mom was really good at getting all of us up before school and reading a handful of verses or a chapter from the scriptures before school, which I don't know how she did that because I only have three kids and she had seven and dang, it's a challenge. But mine are still young so hopefully I'll figure it out.
Talmage Thayne:But that is impressive.
Colton Miller:We. I think my. One of the big reasons why I wanted to and. And made a decision to serve a mission. I can't remember exactly how old I was, but my. One of my older brothers named. His name's Brendan, but he goes by Odie. So everybody knows him by Odie, like from Garfield. Just when he was a kid he told my parents, don't call me Brendan, my name's Odie. And it just stuck. So.
Talmage Thayne:Dang. Did he get that from Garfield? And he's like, dang, I just love this dog.
Colton Miller:Yeah. So it was kind of funny. But he had graduated high school. I think he's 38, 39 now. So he's eight or nine years older than me. But he was riding my dirt bike out west of Manti and him and his friend got split up and he found this pretty big rattlesnake and he thought, oh, I need to show Darren this rattlesnake. So he caught it and, you know, hopped on the dirt bike and he's driving over to see his buddy Darren and show him this rattlesnake and its tail's probably dragging in the, on the dirt road. And he thought it was a good idea or that it would be easier to, to drive the dirt bike by switching the rattlesnake from his throttle hand to his clutch hand. And he didn't even get bit when that happened. But finally finds his buddy and shows him and he's like, why did you bring me this? Why did you catch this? This is not smart. And when he set it down and tried to bring his hand back, he got one fang right in the, oh, palm of his or bottom of his thumb. Right here.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah.
Colton Miller:And his friend Darren was training to be a medic in the army or something. And so they went to Top Stop, which is the only gas station in town, and they got a bag of ice and some aspirin and figured that'd do the trick for a rattlesnake bite. And needless to say, he shows up to my house a few hours later, his arms swelling up huge. My mom's a registered nurse, so she throws them in the back of the car, they drive to Mount Pleasant, Utah and then they life flight them up north because obviously rattlesnake bites are bad and yeah, they need professional venom. Yeah. And that night, I just remember that was one of the first times my family ever was like, we really need to pray for Odie. And it was just a powerful experience thinking of somebody else and praying for him. And the next day we went up. I am pretty sure his arm was like 22 inches around. Oh my gosh. And it was getting really far up his arm. He had had over 20 vials of antivenom. And my memory is just seeing two of my oldest sister's return missionary friends come in and lay their hands on his head and give him a blessing. And next thing we know, he's recovering, he's coming out of the experience with the venom and everything and healing up just fine. At that point is when I first decided I'm going to serve a mission for sure.
Talmage Thayne:Dang, that is wild.
Colton Miller:Dang.
Talmage Thayne:His hand is fully recovered. Does he have any scar from it?
Colton Miller:I think he still has a scar like on his palm. And I remember for a few years after he would occasionally say he had some like weird nerve tingling damage or whatever.
Talmage Thayne:But that is kind of sick because he can like show it to people, have something to show as he tells the story.
Colton Miller:And so yeah, he's a. He's got a big old tattoo of, like, his. A rattlesnake on his arm. And he also accidentally shot himself in the leg and survived up in the mountains. So he has like a picture of a bullet or a tattoo of a bullet. And then there's one other thing on there, but, dang, he's kind of hardcore. Yeah.
Talmage Thayne:Sounds like it. Caught the rattlesnake, got bit by it, shot himself.
Colton Miller:Mm.
Talmage Thayne:Which is not as hardcore shooting yourself. But he survived, so that's cool.
Colton Miller:Yeah, he's had a lot of angels and a lot of people looking out for him, for sure.
Talmage Thayne:That is sick. How old were you when this happened?
Colton Miller:Gosh, I had to been in my early teens, so pretty young. I don't know if I was even a deacon quite yet, but pretty young. And when I. The only other thing that really helped me to know that I wanted to go and serve a mission was when I was 17 years old. My group of friends that I hung out with, they had pretty much all read the Book of Mormon cover to cover, and I hadn't. So I was like. I felt left out and I kind of felt dumb, honestly. So I decided, okay. Seminary was my first class in the morning, and my bishop was my seminary teacher. So I decided I'm just going to get up a little bit early, earlier than I normally do, and I'm just going to start reading it. And after a couple of weeks went by, I started setting my alarm a little bit earlier and then a little bit earlier, and it just became something that I loved doing. And I'll always remember that first time reading the Book of Mormon cover to cover and having questions come into my mind and writing them down and taking them to my seminary teacher, who was my bishop, and talking about it with him and having a couple of really poignant verses just, you know how some verses, it feels like, are just written just for you. Yeah, there's one of those in Jacob, where I felt like I finally understood and gained a testimony of prophets. And when Nehor slew Gideon was one of the first times I cried reading the Book of Mormon when I was 17. And it was funny because if you know anything about my dad, I grew up not really knowing how to express emotions and kind of needing to suppress them and kind of just be a tough kid and be a man kind of attitude. So it was funny to find myself on my bed bawling because Nihor slew Gideon. Just like, I don't think I would be doing this unless this is something that actually happened. So I had a powerful experience reading the Book of Mormon. And so from the. Experiencing the priesthood work and heal my brother, and from reading the Book of Mormon and having just a powerful spiritual experience through a lot of different ways, enlightening of my understanding and just feeling peace and being filled with joy. Those were kind of the two reasons I decided I wanted to serve a mission.
Talmage Thayne:You mentioned that you had a pornography addiction or problem. Did this manifest before the mission or was it just after?
Colton Miller:Yeah, so when I was eight years old, I was hanging out with one of the neighborhood kids. We were actually trespassing on one of the neighbor's property properties up the street and he had this old barn on it and we were burning worms with matches. So that's how mature I was.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah.
Colton Miller:And we ran out of matches, started looking, made our way into the barn. Eventually we found this dresser and we were looking through all the drawers and I just remember we opened the bottom drawer and we just saw a bunch of magazines that neither of us had ever seen anything like before. And so that was my first exposure to it. And I didn't even know what pornography was. It took a couple of weeks. You know, that neighborhood boy told a few of the other neighborhood boys and so there was a whole posse going over and looking at it. And one of my neighbors, older brothers, was the first person I ever heard call it pornography. So I was like 8 years old and yeah, I'd just been baptized and something told me, or else I maybe had been told or knew that it wasn't something I should be looking at. And there was a little tree house adjacent to where I grew up that I remember climbing up one day and saying a little prayer that asking for forgiveness and saying, heavenly Father, you know, I'm never going to go back here again. I know I wasn't supposed to do that and I never did go back there. But let's see, it would have been four or five years later, I had an older sister. That's when we got our first like family computer with the Internet. And I would just search things on YouTube and there was a part of me that remembered the good feeling, or at least so I thought of viewing pornography, you know, that pseudo connection. It's really powerful.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah.
Colton Miller:And so I started kind of getting drawn back into it in my early mid teens. I had my older sister find my, the search history and told my parents and my dad and my mom had a talk with me, had me go and talk with the bishop. And how was that?
Talmage Thayne:Did that just embarrass the. So living crap out of a. I was.
Colton Miller:I remember being nervous to go and talk to my bishop, but I had a really good experience and I felt just relief after going and talking with him. And I feel like that's almost always how the experience has gone. Even though there's been some bits of advice and counsel and things said that looking back in hindsight from a few of these different bishops over time, I don't really appreciate.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah.
Colton Miller:But really, I remember just. So my dad took me on a drive and we just parked on the. On the driveway going up to the temple and we had a little talk. And I don't really even remember what it was about, but I remember that being a little bit awkward.
Talmage Thayne:It's like, dang.
Colton Miller:My dad knows it definitely wasn't fun having that found out. And I think that's when some of the negative self talk and shame started coming into my world a little bit. So I struggled in my early teens. And then I. I remember the worst of it was when I was a sophomore in high school and my. I. The bishop I was working with at the time had me read He Restoreth My Soul, which is a really good book. And then I think I just got really busy my junior and senior year of high school and was trying to focus on other things. And I think, I mean, a huge. Every time I've ever read the Book of Mormon cover to cover. And I have had struggles with pornography. It's always really helped. So I totally believe President Nelson's promise from whatever, 2018, 2019, that if you read the Book of Mormon every day, it'll give you the power to resist temptation. So I think that kind of makes sense why I didn't really. There was a couple year gap between, yeah, my sophomore year and, you know, leaving on my mission that I didn't have any problems with it and then obviously didn't have access. We didn't have iPads or Facebook or anything on my mission, so it wasn't a problem. My whole mission.
Talmage Thayne:Dang. So tell me about your mission. Where did you go and on your mission? Was there ever. Was there an experience that you had that changed you, that you can look back on your mission and just be like, because of my mission, I'm a different person.
Colton Miller:Oh, man. So I served in the Nebraska Omaha mission. I went to the MTC Halloween of 2012.
Talmage Thayne:Nice.
Colton Miller:And I'd never been away from home before, so I mean, it's hard to pinpoint one experience on my mission that totally changed me. It was One of those. One of those things where I think the Lord was little, piece by piece, taking the stony heart out of my flesh and giving me a heart of flesh. And I think a lot of that has to do with just studying the scriptures but never being away from home before. I definitely really struggled. And in my first area while I was being trained, I don't know if I was homesick or I just missed my family a lot. But I wrote like every single member of my family a letter telling them how much I love them and basically asking for forgiveness for all the terrible things I did to him growing up. And then I just remember at that point really having to rely on my relationship with somebody else other than my parents or my siblings or anything else I've ever had a relationship with, like a girlfriend or pornography. And so that really was a big change as well. Just because my focus and where I was getting information and advice from was from Heavenly Father instead of other sources.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah, dang.
Colton Miller:And that's where I just fell in love with the scriptures. I feel like before my mission my testimony was all about my feelings and my emotions. And that still plays a part of who I am today. Like, I. I don't know what it is, but there's something about. I literally can't hardly get up on a fast and testimony Sunday and bear my testimony without the waterworks showing up. Which is kind of funny just because people look at me and they're like, you know, you're. Yeah, just look. I mean, just look at me.
Talmage Thayne:It's like you look like a man. Doesn't look like you're about to cry, but.
Colton Miller:But I just loved the scriptures. I memorized a lot of scriptures on my mission or passages of scripture. And man, it just really solidified the gospel just made so much sense to me. And I feel like that's really one of the powerful ways that the Spirit works with me is like, I'll be listening to conference and I'll hear just like a two or three word phrase or just a short phrase or sentence from a prophet or an apostle. And right at the end of my mission, and occasionally still now, my mind just goes straight to the Bible or the Book of Mormon or the Doctrine and Covenants. And I'm like, that's where they got that phrase from. They're speaking with power and authority. They're speaking with the spirit of prophecy and the spirit of revelation. And so the Scriptures really grounded me and they changed me. And the Spirit has a way of working through and across the words on the Pages of scripture and working into your heart and into your mind for sure. And that was the experience overall that I had on my mission. I absolutely loved it. Yeah.
Talmage Thayne:That's amazing. Take me back to the transfer. Before you go home, what was your plan? What did you foresee was going to happen when you got home from your mission? And then tell me what was the reality?
Colton Miller:So I remember actually one day on a preparation day, I was worried about what was going to happen to me when I went back home. So I decided I was going to set my camera up and I was going to record a couple of videos from Elder Miller to soon to be just regular old Colton Miller or Brother Miller. Yeah, I'd have to go find the SD card and listen to him to even remember what the advice was. But, like, one of the things I wrote in one of my advice to myself, I also had a little notebook. One of them was like, don't exercise any priestcraft in church. Because on my mission, I was of the attitude that if you wore anything other than a white shirt and tie and really modest, you know, clothes or shoes or accessories, then you were exercising priestcraft or.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah.
Colton Miller:And stuff like that. I look back on and I'm like, that was kind of silly because I'm either wearing my la Casey crocodile boots or my little Casey ostrich boots to church. And. Yeah, I guess that's as fancy as I get.
Talmage Thayne:But, hey, that's pretty cool ostrich boots and everything. What would Elder Miller think about the big beard?
Colton Miller:I don't think he. I don't know if he would approve. Maybe if you watch some of my videos, he would. He would be like, all right.
Talmage Thayne:It's like, okay, I. I can love this.
Colton Miller:Yeah, he can still. He can. He can have that thing. But, yeah, it's definitely different. I remember it being. The transition's tough. I mean, you get home, you've had just all these experiences. You're in the Word every single day. You're going and teaching the Word. Just the purpose and the mission that you feel like become. Had become a part of your DNA is like, stripped from you. Yeah, in a way. And I remember on the second or third day back, I just remember bawling, kneeling down in prayer. And my mom came in and she's like, what's wrong? What's wrong? What's going on? And it was just one of those experiences where I was just like, didn't know what was next.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah.
Colton Miller:And it was tough.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah, I've definitely had those days. And I'm just Like, I should be stronger than this. Like, I've. I freaking served in a foreign country for two years. I had to deal with people that were difficult.
Colton Miller:Both.
Talmage Thayne:Both randoms and also my companion who I had to live with. And I'm like, why are these challenges? It's mainly just the unknown, like, breaking me down so much. And so, yeah, I feel that, yeah, I.
Colton Miller:So a story that I kind of like to tell just because it goes hand in hand with my experience. Coming home from my mission and going back into struggling with pornography is just. We're a big boating family, and we had a rule. Can't swim with. In the water without a life, Jack, until you're 12. Were at Lake Powell, and my dad. My dad's best friend, Russell Lund, and his family was with us. We just gone sightseeing or something, and we pulled over to eat some lunch, and I thought, hey, I'm gonna go see. I was swimming, and I thought, hey, I'm gonna go see if I can tread water and pull the anchor up that's holding the boat down at the same time. And.
Talmage Thayne:Dang.
Colton Miller:So, yeah, a little bit arrogant and naive because of what eventually happened, but I got the anger to break free. So I'm feeling pretty confident. Started pulling it up. Felt pretty easy at first. And then by the time I almost got it all the way pulled up, I was just really anxiously awaiting being able to drop it back down because I was getting really tired. And what I didn't know is that this rope was made of a certain kind of material that floats. And so there's just all these little coils and circles of this rope kind of floating around me. And as soon as I felt the anchor touch my foot, I just let it go. And so I start watching all these coils and stuff go down in the water. And next thing I know, I'm getting dragged underwater by this anchor. I've got at least one coil around my wrist, and I don't know how far I went or anything, but it was a really traumatic experience, for sure.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah.
Colton Miller:And I just remember shaking my arm and shaking my wrist as hard as I could to try and free it from that rope that was wrapped around it. And luckily, obviously. Cause I'm here today, it came off and I swam up, and I just went right to the back of the boat and climbed in and sat down. And I just didn't say a word because I was embarrassed. And.
Talmage Thayne:And so nobody knew that that had just happened?
Colton Miller:Not that I know of. I don't think anybody knows until I started talking about this, but yeah, it, it just relates so much to how I felt at the end of my mission. And just the way pornography becomes a part of the environment around you in a not very good way.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah.
Colton Miller:And so when I came home from my mission, you know, I'd memorized like 500 passages of scripture. I was really overconfident in my testimony and my faith. I was pretty arrogant. I thought that there wasn't any anti Mormon material that could ever sway me. And, you know, you get busy, you go to school, you get married. I had a kid, I started my own business. I had a lot of other hobbies. And the adversary knew exactly what he needed to do to get to me. And it wasn't by tempting me to do something that I knew was against, you know, my moral autonomy. It was. Let's just let him relax.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah.
Colton Miller:Hey, he is really smart. He does have a strong testimony and those subtle.
Talmage Thayne:Let's let him pull the anchor up a bit.
Colton Miller:Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. And so that's just kind of what happened there. And then, you know, the same thing with, with the pornography. Within a month or two after being home, I remember slipping up and, man, when you come off of a spiritual high like your mission and you fall into that temptation and sin, it's really hard to not tell yourself awful things about who you are and just question everything about who you are and your worth.
Talmage Thayne:And what did you tell yourself? Like, what were some of those awful things that would come to your head? And did you challenge them right off the bat?
Colton Miller:Yeah, it's just a lot of what's wrong with me? Why can't I overcome this? Why can't I change? Am I just like this lustful, like, hormonging person? And, you know, just things like, let's see, you know, I'm, I'm unworthy. Was a big one. I'm unworthy of God's love. I'm unworthy of. You know, I was always nervous, pretty much almost my whole marriage doing temple recommended interview questions because on and off, basically my whole marriage I've struggled with pornography. And so just I'm not worthy and I'm not good enough. Just a lot of that kind of stuff.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah, yeah. Dang. Yeah, I, I feel that. Did you ever identify what you felt like you were unworthy of? Was it unworthy of just God's blessings in general, of people's love, of the blessings in your life, like your wife and kids?
Colton Miller:Or, you know, it's, it's interesting because I always kind of like, had this fear, like I needed to be looking over my shoulder because since I was participating in, you know, pornography and masturbation, that I was going to be punished by God or, you know, something bad might happen and it would be because I wasn't living up to the standard or I wasn't measuring up to who I was supposed to be and who everybody told me I was growing up as a youth and, and things like that.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah, yeah. No, I feel that. So, yeah, I guess what happened next. You said that this took a toll on your marriage.
Colton Miller:Yeah. And when I started dating Brittany, she knew that I struggled with it. I was always. I always was open with her about it. And I always wanted to go and talk to the bishop just because in my experience I always felt better. But I had a few experiences and over the years it just wore on her because it have one bishop and then we would move maybe for like summer sales and I would struggle with it again and I talked to a bishop there and then we'd move back to Manti and there's another bishop and is just the repetition and the constant betraying or betrayal of her trust in our relationship to go pursue pornography to basically self soothe and cope with all the emotions and feelings that I wasn't ever comfortable with or didn't really learn any good coping mechanisms growing up to deal with. And so it, it definitely started wearing on her. And as far as the pornography use goes, going back to the story, the more you watch it, the more rope you're just letting come up and surface around you, and the more difficult and the trickier the situation and scenarios you put yourself in. And if you're not careful, you might eventually be completely wrapped up in those flaxen cords and it could take everything away from you.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah.
Colton Miller:And that's just kind of the. To the point that I got with that. And it was really hard. That was the first time in my life that Brittany had ever told me that she didn't know if she wanted to stay married to me. And then I started having all these thoughts, what am I going to do with the kids?
Talmage Thayne:Yeah.
Colton Miller:At this point I've built a successful business. I'm making a little bit of money. What am I going to do with the money? And that was the first time in my life that I'd ever contemplated taking my own life before. And I just hated being in that place.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah.
Colton Miller:And so kind of out of desperation, you know, know, shaking my wrist, I was like, well, the only thing I haven't tried since I'VE read He restoreth my soul. And I've gone to all these meetings and I've tried the filters and the accountability partners and talking to the bishops and everything. I'm going to meet with a professional. And so I just searched sex therapist near me and I emailed a half a dozen of them because I really wanted to stay in my marriage and in my relationship with her. I wanted to keep enjoying the joy and happiness that my kids bring me. And I didn't want to lose what we had built together for, you know, as long as we'd been married. And so I learned, I learned a lot when I first started meeting with my therapist. And the first thing I learned is that all those outward things or those external things that I was told to do to overcome pornography were pretty much all wrong.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah. And I remember realizing that too. I was like, wait, what?
Colton Miller:You're like, dang it.
Talmage Thayne:I've been told the wrong things my entire life.
Colton Miller:So my favorite analogy too, that I always share is, and this is from a speech or something from Elder Oaks, he talks about what sin is, and he compares sin to soil staining the leaves of a tree. And the example he shares is basically, we're all the, you know, we're all these beautiful creations or living organisms or trees. And when storms come, some trees, their trunk gives way or bends just enough that the leaves hanging off the branches go down and they get soiled in the mud. And our whole lives we've just been taught to clean our leaves when it comes to pornography, not to do anything with the trunk. And also, there's nothing wrong with the trunk. The trunk is strong enough already. It's just if we're not confident in ourselves, the trunk gives way to that sin. And so in therapy I learned, hey, I've got to fix my relationship with myself because I hate who I am, I do not love myself. And I'm not doing myself any favors where I'm at. And that's the hardest thing I've ever had to do in terms of self help was fixing or the hardest thing. But also one of the most rewarding and healing and just life changing things that I've done was therapy. And specifically internal family systems meditations and work and emdr. And so basically what emdr?
Talmage Thayne:What's that?
Colton Miller:I can never remember what it's called. It's like I desensitute decent. Oh, desensitization. Yeah, something.
Talmage Thayne:Is that where they're flashing the lights or.
Colton Miller:Yeah, like my, my therapist just gives me these two, like vibrating handheld Things and she'll just turn them on and I'll just have my eyes closed while she's doing a guided meditation with me. And they'll just kind of vibrate back and forth. But there's. There's really two kind of meditations that I would do. The first one is like a parts meditation is at least what I call it. And then the other one is an inner child meditation or meditations. And what I learned is we're kind of composed of a couple of different parts. There's these parts of us that are called firefighters that show up to try and put fires out. And for me, when it came to not feeling love or getting the attention that I needed, or being comforted after someone said something unkind to me when I was a kid or things like that, I learned that I was not comfortable with those emotions. And this part of me learned, hey, if we view pornography, we don't have to deal with those. We can temporarily put those out. And honestly, when I was a kid and in my early teens, pornography helped me. There wasn't like a ton of negative consequences. But when I would do this meditation and have this conversation with this part of me that would show up for me and suggesting, hey, let's view pornography and masturbate, my therapist asked me to ask it how old it thought I was. And I was like, what the heck, this is weird. And I realized this part of who I am thought that I was still a child, a young teenager. And so I would have to update this part of me and let him know, hey, I'm married, I've got kids, I've made a promise to my wife to be faithful to her and her only. And this is actually what it looks like when you show up the way that you did for me when I was a kid or a teenager. And when my therapist first wanted me to have a conversation with this part, I did not want to like, I hated this part. It was like the crazy member of the family that nobody wants around kind of a thing. And she told me, you really need to be curious and you need to ask it some questions. And just opened my mind up and completely changed my perspective on this part because I hated this part. But I realized that he was just showing up for me because he loved me and he wanted to help me and. But he didn't understand that it have.
Talmage Thayne:Long term bad implications.
Colton Miller:And him helping me the same way that he used to help me when I was a kid doesn't help me anymore. Yeah, that's why it's called a firefighter. They see a little tiny flame, and they blast it with the hose and end up making a hole in the wall from the. There's more damage than healing. So that's one part of it, and then the other part is just. There's so many experiences and memories of me as a child where someone said some. Something unkind to me, or I was hurt, or I felt lonely and didn't get the comfort I need or the attention or the love and connection that I needed. And so my therapist would just have me do these inner child meditations where she would give me a prompt, and I would go to that memory and. And I would be the person that now shows up for little Colton when he was experiencing that and feeling those things. And, like, I've always. I've always loved writing affirmations down, but I never have really got behind saying them to myself in the mirror. Yeah, but this. This is just so powerful because you go and you say Colton, like, it makes so much sense why you feel the way that you're feeling, and you should feel the way that you're feeling. And it was not fair for you to experience this or have this happen to you. And then, you know, I would say, I'm going to be here for you anytime you need from now on. Anything that you need, I'll be here to comfort you and. And give you the attention that you need. And then before I would leave, I would sometimes in these meditations, take little Colton somewhere, and we'd go do something together, and I would tell him all of these things that I loved about him. And, you know, when you talk to this little kid that is actually you, obviously, and you tell them how people just love being around you and growing up, the effect that you have on people and the joy and the happiness that you bring to their lives, and just the light that you have in you and just the faith and all of these different qualities. And then you come out of the meditation. For me, it would be. I'd come out of it. I'd go hop in my truck, and I would start driving on the freeway down to my house, and then I'd have this realization. Hold. Holy cow. Everything I just told him that I love about him is true of myself. Yeah. And it's just like, you're just. It just washes over you. And that helped me to get rid of so much of the shame that I had felt and told myself. And this is 40, 50 sessions of all different memories and experiences of doing this kind of healing work. And so that's amazing.
Talmage Thayne:Have you, do you know NF the artist? He's a rapper, Christian rapper, kind of, but he's rapping to himself when he's younger, kind of doing the same thing, but in a very negative way. He's like, I wish I could feel sorry for you, but then if I did, that means I'd have to feel sorry for myself and I hate myself. So, so I'm not going to do that. So it's kind of like it's not healthy, of course. And he, he acknowledges that and he actually talks a lot about, about that kind of stuff in his raps and he's great. But I think that's so cool that you can go back, tell that little Colton who he really is, like, the real truth is about him because he had been believing so many lies about him for so long. And like, I've had the same thing where I'm just like, I'll believe the things about myself that are probably the most harsh, critical things anybody could ever say. And it doesn't do anything for me except make me timid, scared, and not want to try at life at all and feel like I'm unworthy of everybody. And so, yeah, just being able to say those truths to your smaller self and then having it resonate with you on the way home is huge. And it kind of reminds me of what you're talking about with President Oaks, talk with the, with the tree and how we already have a strong trunk.
Colton Miller:Right.
Talmage Thayne:We are already sons and daughters of God. That is already our identity. We don't have to build that. That is there. We just have to believe it. And if it takes saying it in the mirror, if it takes doing inner child work, then there is nothing, there's nothing that you shouldn't do to gain that kind of confidence in the truth of your own identity. And so I love the fact that you're sharing this and I really appreciate, like you sharing this and the vulnerability.
Colton Miller:Yeah.
Talmage Thayne:And I, I guess I wanted to ask you about what made you want to start sharing this on social media because you told me that sharing about your problems and how you have been recovering from them was the main reason that motivated you to get on social media and start sharing all of this.
Colton Miller:Yeah, it just kind of reminds me of like Alma giving his son Helaman advice and sharing, you know, his beautiful conversion story and, you know, talking about what he experienced and then the exquisite joy that contrasted that. And when you feel that or you experience that or you taste it, you can't help but want to share that with other people. And I know there's so many returned missionaries, and even after, like, I don't do a ton of videos about pornography and stuff, I just usually talk about it on interviews or podcasts. But yeah, I have people DM me all the time that have been struggling with it for a long time. And even just having it in my bio, people will reach out to me and ask me about it. And it's, it's just good that we're starting to talk about it more. And yeah, that's what's important because we, we need to stop telling people how to clean the leaves. There's a lot of different ways to clean the leaves, and those are good things to do after you've given the trunk the confidence given, given it its confidence back so that it can withstand those storms and no longer droop and get stained in those sins anymore. But it's just important to start talking about it. And I, I mean, I've had a real, a lot of really good experiences with bishops, but I've learned that, hey, bishops, if somebody's really having a, a long term problem with this, and there's a pattern of going back to it, like, this is not in their lane, they need to defer this to a professional that deals with this. And I, and, and I think bishops are starting to be more aware of that and understand that and know that as well. And, and the church has quite a bit of money allotted for individuals who can't afford professional help annually to be sent to someone. It doesn't even have to be an LDS member that's the counselor. It can be anybody. And you can get help too, because it's expensive. But as far as overcoming pornography and dealing with it for as long as I did, I absolutely 100% recommend going and seeing a professional, or at least somebody that has a lot of training doing these types of things and this type of work. And I, I, I've also, you know, I feel like women in the church kind of get the brunt of it. And like, I had a bishop out of the goodness of their heart. They're giving you this advice. But it's like I had one bishop tell Brittany one time, you need to be his accountability partner and check in with him every day and make sure that he had a good day and everything. And it's like, you cannot, after talking with a professional, you cannot tell your wife who you just betrayed the trust of your relationship with, to be your accountability partner. Like, she needs to do some Healing, work on her own just to overcome the trauma of you being unfaithful to her by pursuing pornography and masturbation. And then work on yourself and reach out to other people to be your accountability partner. It should not go back onto the women. And my sweet wife. I don't know how she has stayed with me over the years dealing with this, but I think she knows my heart and she knows that it's in the right place. And I think she's seen some huge changes that have come from this type of therapy and. And healing that has taken place.
Talmage Thayne:But, yeah, me getting personal about my own story. I'm actually just got married four months ago.
Colton Miller:Congrats.
Talmage Thayne:Mary's my wife. And that's been something that I've always, like, I didn't know how to go about. Like, if I relapsed, I'm like, hey, do I talk to her about it right away? Do I not? Because you want to be honest. You don't want to be hiding anything. But at the same time, you know it's not going to help them if you tell them, hey, I'm in a really bad place. I just messed up, and there's nothing you can do about it. There's nothing you can do to help me. But I just need to let you know it's just kind of pulling them down in the mud with you.
Colton Miller:Right.
Talmage Thayne:And so that's actually been something that, like, I've been trying to navigate and figure out how to do. Is keeping that open, honesty, but still navigating the best way to heal for both of us.
Colton Miller:Yeah. No, it's hard. And it's something that you have to work out between you and your spouse, because, I mean, I'm sure Brittany would be fine with me telling her, hey, I haven't had any problems in a while or tell her every day, hey, I ran into this, and I instantly said, not interested, or deleted this and tell her all these different things. But, you know, you just have to communicate with your spouse and come up with how you want to discuss it. But it definitely still needs to be something that you talk about openly. And for. For me and her, it's more of. She doesn't really want me telling her what's going on. She just wants to be able to ask me whenever and make sure that I'm honest when I. When I respond to her question.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah.
Colton Miller:And because she has every right to know anything that's. Excuse me, going on.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah. And I think that's really cool of you. Like, while you were dating you let her. You let her know. Because there are a lot of guys that would just keep it hidden until marriage and something is found out and everything. And so I think that's so important for, like, in the dating phase, you let people know what they're getting into.
Colton Miller:Right.
Talmage Thayne:And it's so scary. But at the same time, that could be one of the most incredible conversations two people can have is saying, hey, look, I am. I'm broken. I have some baggage that comes with me. I have an addiction. And it's a very shameful addiction. It's not just like a. I don't know, a video game addiction or a food addiction, which. Those are very hard. I'm not trying to discount those. But in our culture and society, it's very shameful. And so. And to have somebody respond to you when you share that kind of story or life experience with them with love is huge.
Colton Miller:Yeah. And the whole thing about pornography is it's. It's just a coping mechanism. And the reason, at least for me, that I used it is because I was uncomfortable with myself. I didn't love who I was. Anytime I was anxious or didn't feel the attention or the love or connection that I needed as a human being, I would turn to that pseudo connection of pornography. And I've just had to, obviously, through a lot of work, change how I view myself and how I view Heavenly Father and my relationship with him and how I view the world, which just happens to be literally the first sentence in the Bible dictionary under repentance is. It denotes a change of heart and obtaining a fresh view of God and of yourself and of the world. And until you do that, then you're still just going to keep going back to it and back to it. And so the sooner that you can get the help that you need, the less pain you're gonna have your spouse or your girlfriend have to go through and deal with because it's just not fair to her to have to be on that end.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah. And like, no price is too much for recovery. So if it is professional help, and if it is finding an accountability partner that you check in with every single day, whatever the price is, it's worth it.
Colton Miller:Knowing what I know now, if I could go back to, like, the first year or two that I was married and was falling back into it, or even right after my mission and not making a lot of money, I would have. Knowing what I know now, I would have spent as much as it would have taken to get the help that I needed to get to Where I am now, where I love who I am and I know who I am and I'm confident in who I am, and that makes all the difference.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah. Dang, that's so cool.
Colton Miller:And then I know we've kind of been talking about this for a little bit, but kind of going back to the Lake Powell story and like my testimony, overconfident at the end of my mission. And I just got busy, got married, started working, started making some money, decided to make my own business, moved halfway across the country.
Talmage Thayne:What is your business that you do?
Colton Miller:I do. I own a pest control company.
Talmage Thayne:Oh, Nice.
Colton Miller:With my buddy Devin Clough that grew up like a block and a half down the road from me in Manti.
Talmage Thayne:Nice.
Colton Miller:And yeah, you just get busy. We have a lot of hobbies. Like, I love snowmobiling. Everybody that I used to snowmobile with pretty much now just rides snow bikes. But mountain biking, dirt biking, anything on a boat, all that kind of stuff I really love. And anyways, life just happens. And I was overconfident, started pulling up that anchor and I went to church and everything, but I didn't really. So right when I got back from my mission, my. When my stake president, like released me or whatever, he took me to Section 4 of the Doctrine and Covenants where it says, what is it? Behold, the field is ripe, or the.
Talmage Thayne:Field is ready to harvest.
Colton Miller:The field is ripe already to harvest. And lo, he that thrusteth in his sickle with his might the same layeth up in store, that he perisheth not, but bringeth salvation to his soul. And he asked me, what is it that you're laying up in store so that you bring salvation to your soul on your mission? And it's all those things in the next two verses, which is developing faith and meekness and virtue and temperance and patience and kindness and all those different things. And he said, keep laying up in store. Keep thrusting with your sickle and working on those things. And it was kind of like foreshadowing what I didn't end up doing or following up with because I stopped doing all those things. I started really focusing on making money and taking care of my family and being really cool and having expensive toys and things like that. And which is a whole other thing in therapy that I've had to totally unburden. This performance based acceptance, part of who I am.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah.
Colton Miller:But yeah, in 2022, I just realized at. I didn't know if I believed in the Book of Mormon or not anymore because I went out with some missionaries And I tried to testify like I did back in the good old days in the Nebraska Omaha Mission. And it just didn't feel the same. It just felt hollow. And I ran into some. Or I. Someone recommended this Bible Scholars TikTok to me, and I learned a lot of stuff about the Bible that made me question a lot of things about my faith.
Talmage Thayne:Dan.
Colton Miller:Yeah, Dan.
Talmage Thayne:Dan McClellan.
Colton Miller:And it's funny because I actually really love his stuff now. But when I first got exposed to it, I was like, everything I've been told about the Bible my whole life is wrong. And I, like, almost held the Bible higher than the Book of Mormon on my mission. But, yeah, that was just wild to me. And I'm actually really grateful for all the things that I've learned from it now, looking back, just because really it's. You have to choose to believe that Christ is your savior because a lot of biblical scholarship does not think Christ rose from the dead.
Talmage Thayne:And I actually stopped listening to some of his stuff because I was like this. I don't know, he's associated with the church, but then he stopped and I was like, I don't know. I just didn't get. I didn't like what I was. How I was feeling when I was watching.
Colton Miller:No, it's. I watch that stuff with a. You just have to know going into it that you're going to learn a lot of factual things. That doesn't mean you need to question your faith or doubt your faith. It's just you have to understand where you're situated in the landscape of your faith a little bit better and going into it.
Talmage Thayne:And you have to understand he might put his politics in there a lot. Yeah, that's part of it.
Colton Miller:Yeah, he. But I. But I really do like his stuff. I think he.
Talmage Thayne:He does have very interesting stuff that I was like, dang, I had no idea.
Colton Miller:I don't know anything about if he's actively or faithfully still a member of the church or not. But deep down, I think a lot of his stuff is really supportive of the church just because he doesn't. He says the Trinity is nowhere in the Bible, which I'm a big supporter of in my videos. And so a lot of the ways he interprets or teaches what scriptures actually are talking about, I think side with the church quite a bit.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah. One of my favorite videos that he did was when he talked about that phrase, you're saved by faith after all you can do. Have you seen that video that he did?
Colton Miller:Yeah. And he, like wrote some scholarly article On. Yeah, changing after to despite.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah. And I loved that. It's like when, when you change after to despite, it's like you're saved by faith, despite all you can do.
Colton Miller:Yeah.
Talmage Thayne:And it, it just makes, it's, it makes so much sense in your head because that's just how they talked back in the day in New England. And after was often used as despite.
Colton Miller:And so I haven't read that, but read his, like, piece on it. But I've watched that video, that same video. Yeah, I'm sure.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah. It was just the video that I saw. I didn't read the piece, but it really cleared up a lot of the questions I had because I'm like, okay, yeah, it's by grace that we're saved and everything, but the born again Christians, when they're coming after us and saying we're not Christian because of this, I'm like, they kind of have some merit when it comes to this one line. And so that kind of cleared up one of those doubts for me.
Colton Miller:Yeah. And even for me, I used his, that, that changing out after and despite quite a bit in some of like my apologetics. But I found this year, reading the Book of Mormon, that the Book of Mormon teaches you what all you can do is. And it's pretty much nothing. Like when King Benjamin teaches the people about Christ being their Savior and him coming and all he's going to do for him, they immediately. All that they can do after coming to the knowledge of their Savior is acknowledge their own nothingness, that they're even less than the dust of the earth, and cry unto the Lord for forgiveness. And so I was like, that's all we can do. The Book of Mormon teaches us all we can do. And it's believe and have faith under repentance.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah.
Colton Miller:And I really like what people call Section 20 of the Doctrine and Covenants. They call it something in the church. It's like the. Of course I'm in a space, but.
Talmage Thayne:Actually I think we have a. Oh, no, I don't have the doctrine.
Colton Miller:Well, it's. I think it's verse 37, talking about what you need to do to be received by baptism into the Church. And one of the parts of that verse says, you know, after you do all that you can do, which is like we just talked about, basically acknowledge your own nothingness and that you believe and begin to exercise faith under repentance and cry for forgiveness once you have that experience happen. I really like the phrasing in, in this verse from section 20. It's like, and then truly manifest by your works that you have received of the Spirit of Christ unto the remission of your sins, then you'll be received by baptism into the church. So I like that because it's kind of like you have this life changing experience and then you manifest by your works that you've received of the Spirit of Christ unto the remission of sins.
Talmage Thayne:And then you're baptized.
Colton Miller:And also nobody even, I guess, except maybe probably still practicing and believing Jews believe that you're saved by works, because literally no one in Christianity even teaches that they're saved by works. Because anywhere in the New Testament that it talks about the requirement of the works, it's the works of the law of Moses. It's not talking about baptism or prayer or. Or things like that. Yeah, but yeah, then after running into a lot of his stuff, I kind of started falling into a different part of the algorithm, which was a lot of anti Antichrist stuff, because obviously we're not Mormons anymore. Yeah, I actually love that because now they can't even say they're anti Mormons. Eventually they're just going to have to say we're Antichrist because we're anti Church of Jesus Christ. Yeah.
Talmage Thayne:Dang.
Colton Miller:That's like.
Talmage Thayne:That actually didn't catch it the first time you said that. I'm like, oh, man, Antichrist. Anti theist. But yeah, Antichrist is.
Colton Miller:That's what they are.
Talmage Thayne:The new way of saying anti Mormon.
Colton Miller:Yeah. And, you know, polygamy has never really bothered me. I felt like I had a decent understanding from the scriptures of why that took place. And I felt like I understood some of the issues with race in the priesthood and, you know, the socioeconomic climate that the church was born into in the world. And yeah, for anybody that's listening, you've got to go listen to the Church History Matters podcast on polygamy and race in the priesthood. It's absolutely faith building and it really will help you to be confident that you can defend the prophet Joseph Smith and even Brigham Young, because I love how you say.
Talmage Thayne:And even Brigham Young because he's definitely the more rough one.
Colton Miller:And, and that's what I used to think until I listened to this podcast from these guys and understood the actual context and, like, chronological history of, you know, these things that were said by Brigham Young and experiences that he had. And I think it's important that members of the church know that they can definitely defend Brigham Young and Joseph Smith and their practice of polygamy or, you know, the, the problems with race in the Priesthood obviously exist, but we can make really good sense of them in context. Yeah, but listen to that. It's. I think the podcast is done by scripture central or whatever, but it's so good.
Talmage Thayne:Could you give a quick snippet or summary of like, how you would defend those two subjects.
Colton Miller:For me? Joseph Smith believed that he was commanded by God to reinstitute this ancient practice of polygamy. And even in it's either 1st Samuel or 2 Samuel, it talks about how the Lord literally gave David his wives and concubines. And I really like what it says in section 132 about they only sinned in that they basically wanted something other than what the Lord allowed them to have with David, obviously it was Bathsheba and then killing Uriah. But as far as Joseph Smith's polygamy, he was reluctant. Like, everybody always brings up the angel with the sword. Joseph Smith was commanded by an angel with a sword to go and marry 14 year olds. He's a pervert. He's a pedophile is what they always say. But they don't understand that Joseph Smith was a reluctant polygamist. It took him years and years and years. I think it was like 1831 or 32, he first learned about this practice and that God wanted it to take place. And it was years. And I think it took three visitations from the angel before he even showed up with the sword. And he. I mean, there's. In the Bible, it's. It's clear that polygamy isn't easy to practice. It's hard. And that's the same with Joseph and Emma's relationship. And when it first started, it was tricky for him and they didn't know. Heavenly Father gave him the commandment, but he didn't tell him, this is how you do it. This is how you practice it.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah.
Colton Miller:And so he was figuring that out through some trial and error. And after his first one with, I think it was Fanny Alger Alger, again, you got to listen to the podcast to podcast to get the context better. It's really good. But then he thinks, okay, well, I can just start marrying other men's wives because then I don't have to incorporate the sexual aspect of the relationship. And. And so there's. I can't remember how many in a row he just married. And he's like, oh, I'm good. I'm checking off this box of this commandment to practice polygamy. But then the Lord's like, no, like one of the reasons for polygamy is to raise up seed and to bring about a righteous generation. And that doesn't involve just sealing people for eternity. And even with the Helen Kimball gal, her. And a lot of thing. Something that a lot of people don't know about Joseph Smith is when he would propose to many of his wives, he would do it through their father or their brother. And so it's like, does a perverted.
Talmage Thayne:Whoremonger go to the parent. Yeah.
Colton Miller:No. Go to the spiritual steward or I guess the protector.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah.
Colton Miller:Of their sister or their child. Yeah. And ask for permission to marry him? No.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah, definitely.
Colton Miller:And. But even with. Yeah. He gets a lot of flack for Helen Kimball, but they never had any sexual relations that we have any record of. And the thing that they talk about is, first of all, read the scriptures and understand the sources, but also the most important thing is read from the actual wives of Joseph Smith. And Helen was grateful for the relationship of celestial marriage for eternity only with the prophet. And they understood sealing a lot different. Like, there were even men that were sealed together just so that they would be brothers for eternity. It was a little bit different.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah.
Colton Miller:It was kind of like a adoptive practice, but they go into that a little bit. And then the podcast that they did on race in the priesthood, I just absolutely loved. Because there's not even an ounce of racism in the prophet Joseph Smith from the history and the facts that we have, although there's a lot of different people around them.
Talmage Thayne:That are.
Colton Miller:That are really racist.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah.
Colton Miller:And. And you also have to understand, literally everyone in Christianity just about at this time believed that the mark of Cain was black skin from Genesis, and that the. The curse of Ham's son Canaan to be a servant of servants meant black people were supposed to be slaves. That was all throughout Christianity taught. And that was totally the normal interpretation of scripture. And they go into that. Then you have the government leaders not wanting there to be any type of amalgamation or.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah.
Colton Miller:Mixing of seed between whites and black people. And actually in Missouri, there's a lot of people that. Because the church came out with a statement that wasn't really. It was a mild statement about accepting free slaves and letting them come.
Talmage Thayne:Oh, yeah.
Colton Miller:And the people in the city that they were in got really upset because they thought, hey, this is. These guys are pro abolitionists. And at that time, like, the abolitionists weren't viewed as a good group of people. Yeah. At that time, they were this fringe group that, you know, wanted to inflict harm on white people to free slaves. And just understanding all of those different things makes a big difference. And respectable scientists at the time literally taught people that black people were inferior and lesser human. Human beings. And so that's what the church was born into.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah. I remember listening to the book Tarzan of the Apes, and it's a. It's an old book. I think it was written in the 1800s. But they, like. I didn't notice it until, like, my third time listening to it when I was older, but they talk about how black people were just a step above the apes, and then white people were a step above the. The black people. And I was just like, holy cow. One of the. One of the pieces of literature that everybody knows about that we've made Disney movies out of is, like, really racist.
Colton Miller:Yeah.
Talmage Thayne:It's crazy.
Colton Miller:Yeah. Different times, for sure. And so we just. Anytime you view or look into church history, you just, first of all, have to go into it with the mindset that you can't judge what's going on through the lens of your morals from our day and age and what we're growing up in. You got to be careful of presentism.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah. Whenever I got into, like, discussions like this, I would talk to people about, like, hey, what if someday everybody's vegan? And they discount every good thing you've ever done because you ate meat? And you. You were born into this, but you're still evil because you ate meat. And it just doesn't make sense to do that. And so we can't do that to somebody way back in the day. And. And when it comes to, like, black people in the priesthood and everything, something I've always like, the way I've looked at it is, it's. It's a tough topic to discuss, but. And I don't know why certain things were done how the Lord works, but I do know that it has been done before. Like Christ, when he was teaching the apostles, he's like, hey, don't take this to the Gentiles yet. This is just for the Jews. Later on, the Gentiles were welcome to accept the Gospel into their lives. But for a while, if we're looking at it as a racist thing, we'd say Christ is being racist. But we know that that can't be the case because he's the perfect man. And so while we might not know everything, we know that God does have a reason, and he's able to. And he'll fix every wound. He'll wipe away every tear. Everything will be made right in the end because there are things that have harmed people for sure.
Colton Miller:And I love that example that you brought up, too, because Peter knows and has been taught to teach the Gospel to Jew and Gentile, but he kind of gets cozied up with the Jews. And in Jerusalem, while Paul's out doing missionary work for 14 years. Yeah. And in Galatians, chapter two, Paul comes back and they're having lunch, and Peter won't even sit with Gentiles. And so. And he knew better, and he's practicing bigotry, and Paul has to correct him for discriminating and being hypocritical towards the Gentiles. And I think that story is important because it shows us that prophets are men and they make mistakes. And occasionally they can be products of their time and their worldview and what's going on around them. And it's not like prophets are having a conversation with the Lord like this every single day and being given exactly what to do and what not to do. And prophets are. Are fallible people, for sure. And there. There's many of them that have attested to that and, and confirmed that as well. And. But yeah, the. Those are. Are challenging things for a lot of people. And again, if that's something that you struggle with, I highly recommend checking out that podcast.
Talmage Thayne:But the church history matters.
Colton Miller:Church history matters. Yeah. It's so good. It's one of the best ones I've ever listened to on this. And then these guys know their stuff, and, yeah, they tell you all the dates and the sources and the quotes, and it's really good. But for me, the thing that kind of got me to kind of go over the edge and really doubt whether I wanted to stay in the churches. I had such a strong testimony of the priesthood from being a little, little kid and seeing that experience with my older brother. And I learned that, you know, we don't have any history or anything written down about Peter, James and John visiting Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery until like four or five years after it happened. And it's like, that seems like a pretty important thing. Why wouldn't that be? Why wouldn't they have gone straight home and wrote that down in their journals? You know what I mean?
Talmage Thayne:Yeah.
Colton Miller:And, you know, that's. That was something that kind of made me feel uncomfortable. And there's a lot of really good, faithful explanations for that. But I just, again, I got to this point where I was backed up against the wall or I was being pulled under, and I needed to do something to figure out where I wanted to be, what was true. And so, same thing, shaking my arm and my wrist as hard as I can. I decided, you know what? I'm going to read the Book of Mormon cover to cover one last time, and I'm going to take my own missionary invitation that I extended hundreds of times in Nebraska. And I got really specific with it, and I kneeled down and I would pray and ask if Joseph Smith translated it through a seer stone. I would ask if God truly called him to be a prophet, if God sent who he sent to confer priesthood authority to Joseph, and if President Nelson was still a prophet today. This was in 22 when this happened. And I just realized by the time I got through Mosiah and into Alma, I had forgotten so much of the contents of the Book of Mormon. The teachings, the story, the testimony. And I was overwhelmed with this emotion. I don't know exactly how to describe it, but I was just. I just felt so sad that I had neglected my relationship with the Word of God for so long, to the point that I forgot what was even in it. And that's what the adversary wanted me to do, is forget what was in it. Because then these voices over here are going to have a lot more credibility when you remove your experience with it and the experience that the Spirit has provided you through the words in the Book of Mormon and the teachings. And I came across those old passages that, you know, affected me so much the first time I had ever read it. And there was new ones that had never stuck out to me before that I came to love. And I just realized, Joseph Smith, no flipping way he could have wrote this thing in three months time. And I just knew, without a doubt, this is the Word of God. And everything that's taught in it measures up and is in perfect harmony with the teachings and the Gospel taught in the Bible. And so that's just kind of for returned missionaries. You just can't let yourself go. Like, think of section 4. Continue to lay up in store for yourself. Continue to thrust in your sickle with all your might and lay up in store those Christlike attributes, and continue to feed yourself spiritually, because there might be a point when the silo that you filled up with your harvest, you've just eaten off of it. And there's been a famine spiritually for a long time. And when you run out, you tend to do some. Or you potentially could do some really crazy things. And so that principle is just so important.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah. Dang. Well, I really appreciate you coming on and sharing all of this. And I found you through Instagram just some of your stuff Came up, started watching all of your videos, and I've loved it. You said that you. You started it with the intention just to kind of, I don't know, be a voice of defense. For this.
Colton Miller:Yeah.
Talmage Thayne:For your belief.
Colton Miller:I feel like a lot of members in the church. I don't know if it's a cultural thing, but we've just kind of put ourselves in this position where we can't defend what we believe on social media. And it's just a place for antichrists and evangelicals that are ignorant to what is even in the contents of the Book of Mormon and its teachings. And so I just decided, hey, I'm going to start correcting people that misrepresent my faith. And I want to share my story about overcoming pornography. And it's. I mean, it's been really humbling experience because I have people DM me every single day, and they're just like, you helped me, like, answer this question. Or I've been struggling in my faith and you've helped me, like, strengthen my faith. And, like, I'm going back to church. I've had people that aren't members tell me that they're going to start meeting with the missionaries and recent converts, reach out and just thank me for the videos. And I'm like, I'm kind of a dumb. Like, I'm really not a smart guy. If I. If I seem like I know a lot, I feel like I personally don't know very much. And what I do know or what I have learned, it's just been line upon line.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah.
Colton Miller:And it's just been through thrusting and thrusting with my sickle, with all my might, sometimes for just a little tidbit here or there. But.
Talmage Thayne:Well, I really appreciate it because like you said, it's. You kind of stumble into it on accident. When I first started posting stuff, I quickly realized I was. I don't know, there's not a ton of LDS creators that are defending the faith, and I was lumped into that group. And I'm like, wait, what? I've posted a few times about this kind of stuff and had a lot of antichrists reach out and make videos about me. And I thought it was kind of funny, but it kind of went to show that there wasn't enough people defending the faith. And this is probably a hot take, but they're using their. They have a discomfort for confrontation, and they use the excuse of turning the other cheek and not wanting that kind of conflict in their life.
Colton Miller:And.
Talmage Thayne:I don't think that that is an excuse to not defend your faith. I think we're called to defend our faith. Always do it lovingly, like President Nelson said, do it so you're not provoking anger or hatred for anybody. But you have to defend your faith and not be ashamed of it. And so I really appreciate what you're doing.
Colton Miller:I enjoy it, honestly. I have a lot of fun with it. And I've kind of just tuned out the comments from other people on there for the most part. And it's interesting too, because if you just post like something about, hey, I'm a member of this church, you're met with all these different lies and pieces of slander. But it's interesting because like some of my videos, my favorite ones that I like doing is I'll put like a comment that somebody said something just really dumb about the Book of Mormon.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah.
Colton Miller:And then I'll just quote a verse from the Book of Mormon. And it's funny how their tune changes as soon as I share something from the Book of Mormon. They're like, oh, well, all good. All counterfeits. All, all good. Counterfeits sound good. Or you just cherry picked the best verse out of there. Or that's obviously a plagiarized or copied part from the Bible. So there are good things in it, but it's only, it's funny. And then if I, I also just love biblically backing our faith because anytime I share something that, where the Bible backs what we believe now their comments are, well, you're just twisting scripture. Your isajesis is off or your hermeneutics are all wrong and all this different.
Talmage Thayne:Stuff, no idea what that means.
Colton Miller:And just like the lens that you view or read scripture through. And what I've learned is that people just say things like that because they're uncomfortable with their own understanding of scripture compared to what I just shared. And so they can't respond or continue the conversation. They just have to stop and say, well, you're just twisting scripture just because that makes them feel better, even though they're uncomfortable that I just shared something that made a lot of sense to them and that the Spirit's obviously backing. Mm.
Talmage Thayne:But yeah, no, well, I, I really appreciate it. And if people were to go find your page, where what's your at?
Colton Miller:It's just my, my Instagram's just at Colton B. Miller and then I'm just Brother Miller on TikTok. So awesome.
Talmage Thayne:Well, thank you again so much for coming on. If there were any last words that you could share with a returned missionary coming Home. What is the best piece of advice you would to give him or her?
Colton Miller:Let me just go back to kind of just dealing with pornography or just dealing with something that you're having a hard time overcoming or taking on. I feel like one thing that I really struggled with with pornography is I thought I could do it myself. I thought I could take the bull by the horns, and this was a battle that I could overcome. And there's something. I can't remember what chapter of the addiction recovery program this is in, but I just read something. I'll have to find it and send it to you. But it was basically, you just got to let go and just submit to heavenly Father. Submit your will to God. And when you do that, only. Only when you do that are you able to have it be taken care of. You can't do it on your own. And there's a. One of my new favorite verses is in Alma, chapter five, 59 and 60. That kind of explains this a little bit better. But Alma just says, what shepherd is there among you, having many sheep doth not watch over them, that the wolves enter not and devour his flock. And behold, if a wolf enter his flock, doth he not drive him out? Yea. And at the last, if he can, he will destroy him. And now I say unto you that the good shepherd doth call after you, and if you will hearken unto his voice, he will bring you into his fold. And ye are his sheep. And he commandeth you that you shall suffer no ravenous wolf to enter among you, that you may not be destroyed. And I just realized, I'm a sheep.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah.
Colton Miller:I can't take on the wolves. I've got to let him do it. He's the shepherd. He's the one that can drive these wolves away or destroy these wolves. I have to let go of my pride and thinking that I can do it all by myself or on my own and just let him and his power and his abilities and just let him take care of it and let him handle it. And that's something that. Not just with pornography, but with anything. You need to realize you can't do it on your own. There's a point where you have to submit and just tell them, I'll do anything that you ask me to do, but I need you to take care of this for me. Because I'm the sheep.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah.
Colton Miller:I don't have the power or the ability to fight a wolf.
Talmage Thayne:Yeah. Dang. I love that. Colton, thank you so much for being on the podcast again.
Colton Miller:Anytime.
Talmage Thayne:This was awesome. That's a great place to end. And we will see you guys next week. Thank you so much for listening to that episode of released. It was again, fantastic to have Colton on. He has such depth to his knowledge and he is so articulate and he has so many scriptures memorized, which is just impressive. So, yeah, I'm very grateful for Colton. I'm also very grateful for you guys for following on along and listening and sharing this with with your friends that might need it. Again, if you guys could rate and subscribe to this podcast does a lot and if you're on YouTube, please drop a comment. I'm currently in the process of finding new guests for the show and so if you know of somebody or if you are somebody that has gone on the mission, come back and struggled with something, but ultimately it's built your faith and you've been able to do something good with that, please reach out. I want to hear your story. I want to share it on this podcast. And remember, God is good and is planning on your success. And though you've been released from your mission, you've not been released from your ministry.
