Episode 123: Nathan Smith, RM, Mid 20’s, Psychology Major, Texan, Coming Back to Church, Unique

Summary: My friend Nathan Smith shares his journey growing up in Texas, learning all the messy church history in his youth, working with FairMormon to answer questions, serving in the California Fresno Mission with Cathy and Larry Gelwix as his Mission President, not really ‘fitting in’ during his successful mission where he reached people no one else could reach, becoming less active because of ‘social alienation,’ and now starting to attend Church again. Nathan wrote this post about his mission. It is helpful for me to read a post like this to help me understand how to help unique and needed members in our church feel they belong. https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10215415221908778&id=1084156888 Nathan is a unique and needed member of the Church. He has a deep understanding of our doctrine, Christ, and world religions. His blog can be found at: nathansmithbooks.com and his twitter is at: @NateSmithSNF. One of the most helpful parts of the podcast is his great relationship with his Mission President Larry Gelwix. Instead of requiring Nathan to become a ‘round peg’ so he could fit in, he embraced and valued Nathan’s ‘square peg’ Christlike attributes and gifts and used them to personally be teachable and help others come unto Christ. I hope all of us can become the kind of leaders the Gelwix’s are for some many of our members. Thanks for sharing your journey, Nathan. You are a great man with a wonderful future. I hope you find your way to stay in our Church. We need you. You can help us become the Body of Christ that we need to become.