Makenzie was 8 years old when I was released from my 13 month incarceration. The previous 3 years had been a nightmare roller coaster for Jill and the kids. It was especially hard on my oldest children, Tyson, Taylor and Makenzie. My choices were the cause of it all. My family was Ukraine and I was Vladimir Putin. My addiction and everything that came with it had taken a toll. With my release I immediately started the long road of repentance, restitution and recovery. With my new found confidence, rooted in a spiritual rebirth that started in a jail cell, I was determined to own it all and rebuild. Around that same time Makenzie wanted to be baptized. I’d been excommunicated from the church so I was definitely “unqualified” to do the baptizing. My dad stepped in and with the help of my father in law we got it done. I felt blessed to have two men who Makenzie loved be able to baptize and confirm her. Even though I wasn’t qualified to do the baptism I felt joy in just being there to experience it with her.

I started pouring cement with an old friend while I waited to see if the dental board would give me one last shot and issue me a probationary license. Eventually that probationary license to practice was granted. I wouldn’t be able to prescribe and I’d have to practice with direct supervision for 5 years. I found an office willing to take me in and off I went. For the next 5 years I drove to Layton to work. I felt so much gratitude for the dental board and the dentist who gave me a chance. I’m still forever indebted to them.

My recovery was first and foremost at the time. Without recovery everything else would disappear. I was going to multiple meetings every week and was preparing to be rebaptized. I had to give up a few more habits and confront and deal with other defects in my character. The summer after I got home I was baptized a second time by my good friend Tim. Slowly my life was coming back together. Within the next couple years and after working through some of my other addictive behavior I returned to the temple with Jill and the kids to have our youngest daughter Andi sealed to us. We were once again on the road to eternity and being a family forever.

I continued being extremely active in recovery. I was facilitating the LDS 12 step meeting weekly while still attending AA meetings and serving in our ward. Jill and I made the rounds to wards and stakes from Ogden to Logan. I think we spoke in every stake in Tremonton and a majority of the wards. Getting up and confessing my sins in front of large groups became second nature. To be able to share my “rebirth” was an honor and a responsibility. Step 12 of Alcoholics Anonymous reads, “ having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs. The 12 steps, prayer, meditation, service and Jesus, were the staples I focused on.

After 5 years of working in Layton we took a leap of faith and reopened our dental practice in tremonton. Slowly I was able to check off all the requirements put on me by DOPL, the dental board, DEA, HHS, insurance providers etc. My dental license was no longer probationary, I was back. I continued serving in various addiction recovery groups and got to know a lot of people at a real base level. No BS type of relationships, friends I could reveal all of my ugliest moments to and listen as they shared theirs. I still fought demons. Demons I seemed to have with me for as long as I could remember. At times I wondered if they came with me at birth, you know, a package deal. It felt like some of these defects were hard wired into my operating system, factory installed. The difference was now I knew where to go for the spiritual artillery I would need to win the war. I continued to look back on the lessons I learned in a god forsaken prison with a towel wrapped around my head pleading for guidance and peace.

I was called to serve in the branch presidency in the box elder county jail. It was surreal to go back and serve in a facility I had not long ago been locked up in. Around this same time I confronted some hard truth, I was losing faith and trust in the religious narrative I was taught in my youth. Being a representative of the church assigned to serve in the jail, stirred feelings of hypocrisy within my soul. Hypocrisy will drive an addict back to their addiction faster than anything. To be in recovery, real recovery, requires integrity. Your insides have to line up with your outsides. Wearing a mask and being inauthentic is a fast road to relapse. I asked to be released, not because I wanted to quit attending church, I just didn’t feel I should have a leadership position at that time.

I wanted to keep serving in the jail. I approached the staff and asked if I could continue coming in on my own. I found a program I felt would be beneficial for all inmates regardless of their religion. It was rooted in the idea of weaving the 12 steps in with Christianity. The program required exact honesty. Anyone who completed would have to review the whole of their life. Me included. I went with the desire to serve but found myself the recipient of service provided by those locked in a steel cage much of the time. I can’t express to you how wonderful it was to sit with men at their lowest of lows and feel totally at home with nothing but love. I’d see them come and go and many times come back again. As one of the people I served with said, “they find the Lord while they are in here but most forget to take him with them when they leave.” My service in the jail was frustratingly wonderful and will always be a memory I cherish.

During this time Makenzie decided she wanted to serve a mission. Honestly, I didn’t want her to go but I knew I needed to support her in her own spiritual journey. Soon she headed off to the Mexico City mission training center to learn Spanish. After a few weeks in Mexico I got a call from the president of the MTC. He said Kenzie was struggling and wanted to talk to her dad. She’d eaten something that caused food poisoning and it sent her into a bit of a tailspin. She debated coming home. We had a good talk and I encouraged her to give it a little more time. She decided to commit to another week and see how it goes. On the inside, I wanted to get her on the next plane home but I knew that coming home early would be hard on her mentally and spiritually. She agreed to give it another week and then reevaluate. A week went by and the president called me again. This time he just said, “I think she needs to come home.” I’m so grateful for the way he handled it all. I’m also grateful for the shift in how the church has changed the narrative on missionaries coming home early. It can be a real shame provoking episode in the life of a 19 year old kid if he or she feels they didn’t, “return with honor.”

After my service in the jail I found myself feeling a need to fill that void with something new. As difficult as it sometimes was to minister in the jail, it became clear to me that it was there that I felt the most like a disciple of Christ. Not that I felt more righteous or anything like that, it just was a place where you could really see the battle between good and evil up close. I liked being in the “trenches” doing my small part in possibly making a real, lasting, significant difference in someone’s life. I taught in the elders quorum for awhile but eventually started to feel an uneasiness with parts of the material I just couldn’t teach anymore, so again I asked to be released. Around this same time I noticed that when they asked for volunteers to help take the sacrament to the home bound, nobody really wanted to do it. I had an idea!! I could be the permanent “shut-in” guy. I asked if that would work and thankfully was given the job. Each week a different young man would go with me and we provided the sacrament for those who couldn’t make it to church. The sacrament has always been the part of my church experience that means the most to me. It’s a relationship between you and the savior. A time to reflect and re-commit.

Makenzie was now dating a young man and it was getting more and more serious. On a special night in front of a packed auditorium in ogden, he went full beast mode. He walked out on the stage with Kenzie and got down on one knee while everyone cheered him on. Straight legend status. It was time to start planning another wedding.

In the months leading up to the wedding I wrestled with a wide range of emotions. I was there when Tyson was married in the temple and I was there for Taylor as well. Things were different now and I didn’t know if I’d be able to be there for Makenzie on the most special day of her life. I had shared pieces of my disbelief with my stake president and bishop. There were certain questions in the interview process I’d have to say no to. Not worthiness questions but belief issues. The tree of my testimony had been pruned through the individual experience of my life. My tree of faith had lost its branches. All that remained was the unbreakable trunk. God the father sent his son. Through his son we can find redemption. He gave us commandments to live by. Sin is real and is the greatest destructive force on our earth. Jesus isn’t ‘part’ of the plan of salvation, He IS the plan of salvation.

With a month to go I agonized over what to do. Do I go in and say what they need to hear me say to get that piece of paper signed? I know others who have and I understand, the last thing you want in this culture of ours is to have people wondering what you did wrong to keep you out of the temple. This wasn’t about anything I’d done wrong, it was about my beliefs and disbeliefs. If I went in and was totally honest with all of it, I was sure they’d say no. Then what would I tell my family? “I tried but they won’t let me in.” I prayed for it to work out. Surely, someone in authority would know the desire of my heart and approach me to find a way. Im her dad! Why do I have to be interviewed to see if I qualify to sit in my rightful spot as her father? Some of the “qualified” in attendance that day would no doubt be strangers to Kenzie. They’d maybe met her once and some she’d meet that day for the first time. These people who had nothing to do with raising, teaching, nurturing, loving this girl were, “qualified” to be at her wedding. Her dad, who god knows made and continues to make many mistakes but clawed his way out of prison and the depths of despair to rebuild his family would be unqualified.

A week before the wedding I was standing in my driveway and heard the sound of an ATV coming down the lane. It was my bishop. Maybe my prayers were about to be answered. After a bit of small talk he said to me, “Makenzie came and saw me. She asked if I thought you’d come in and try to get a recommend to be at her wedding. I told her I don’t think so. I know your dad and he won’t tell me he believes something he doesn’t.” That was it. The door was shut. In retrospect, maybe I should have pushed back a little, plead my case. But I didn’t. I accepted the fact that I wouldn’t be able to see one of my baby girls get married. I wasn’t about to go in and try to nuance my way around the questions. Everything I’d been taught in AA and all my addiction recovery groups along the way was that nuance doesn’t work for me. Half measures accomplish nothing. It was more important in the long view to be a man of integrity. The morning of the wedding came and I received confirmation I had done the right thing. It came in the form of a text message. “Dad, I’m on my way to the temple. I love you so much. I’m proud to be your daughter. I respect what you stand for. I wouldn’t be here without you. See you in a bit.” Makenzie Lynn

I think back to my own temple wedding and all the people who didn’t “qualify.” Grandma, Grandpa, aunts, uncles, cousins. Does it really have to be like this? I understand that to participate in ordinances in the temple certain things need to be in order. One must qualify for sure. But why do we insist on separating families when it comes to watching a sealing. No father or mother should have to wait outside while their son or daughter makes the most important promise they will ever make. That father and that mother are usually the two most important people in, that son or that daughters life to this point. Joe blow who ran in to the bishops office at the last minute to get a recommend to go to a place he never goes unless, well, someone’s getting married or going on a mission, he qualifies? Parents above all others deserve to be there. Member parents, inactive member parents and even non-member parents. I can’t think of a better way to introduce someone to the temple and the church.

I hope and pray for change. I’ve got two more children who aren’t married yet and 7 grandkids (so far). I don’t want to miss anymore weddings. However, if I do It’ll be ok. My family and My God know the desires of my heart and that’s all that matters. Maybe I won’t qualify to be at their weddings but as Kenzie knows, when life gets tough and she looks around for help and none of the “qualified” can be found, her “unqualified” Dad will be where he always is, right by her side.