Trust me?

Do you trust me?

All?

Right?

Ever lead you astray?

Trust?

This is the truth, the only truth.

If anybody ever tells you to just trust them, don't welcome trust me.

The podcast about cults, extreme belief and manipulation from two non two by twos who've actually experienced it, and I am Lola Blanc and I am Megan Elizabeth, an actual former two by two Right here today, our guests are Abby and Mike Prusach, former members of Megan's childhood cult.

The two by two is also known as The Truth.

Or The Way.

Aby and Mike are the other two moderators of the x two by two Facebook group, alongside our previous guest Kyle and Cary.

Today, Mike and Abby are going to tell us about their upbringing in the mysterious church that has no name and no official building, how they met and got married in the church, and the simple question that led to them both leaving.

Mike and Abby were super generous with their time, so this conversation will be split into two parts.

Next week, we're going to talk about the FBI investigation of the church, the staggering number of perpetrators that have been named, and how rarely the sexual abuse was reported to authorities, and what's been happening to the group as a result of these bombshells.

Yes, it was time for an update on what has been going on in the two x two investigation and the aftermath of all of this stuff coming out, So you will hear more about it soon.

But also we'll hear just about Abby and Mike and their upbringings and how they fell in love.

Yeah, and how they you know, they fell in love in the combines of this high control cult.

So it's all very interesting stuff.

Indeed, Yeah, before we hear more about it from them themselves.

What is your cultiest thing this week?

Okay, So Alison mac she was in Smallville.

That's a CW show, not a cult, but she was the lead of this show on CW cult Small Belt.

Then she joined Nexium and she became one of the leaders of Nexium with Nary.

She got out of prison a couple of years ago, I think twenty twenty three.

She didn't serve her full time, she got out a couple years early, and she is now the latest subject of a CBC podcast called Uncover Alison after Nexium, where she talks about her experiences and a series of interviews.

The press release says that through raw interviews and revealing conversations with those who knew her before, during, and after Nexium, this season dives deep into the gray zones of influence, accountability, and redemption.

So I'm curious about this podcast.

Allison, you know, really falls into that gray zone for me, where it depends on what moment of the day I'm thinking about her.

Like, sometimes I'll be.

M hm, damn, what that poor woman, Like, how did she get coerced so far off the path that she like ends up leaving this career and living in a small town and like doing all this crazy shit.

And then other times I'm like they were branding women, you know, like almost cattle branding women with Keith's initials, but like one of the initials in there the women eventually discovered was Alison's.

And so then my brain is like, no, she's obviously like and then I just go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

But I'm curious to hear her side of the story.

I also, I hope we can interview her.

I hope so too.

I would love to speak to her because my gut reactions on her flip flops so much.

Yeah, which which I think is reasonable because like, how do we ever know where the balance is between when someone is a victim and a perpetrator at the same time, Like where is that line of accountability?

It's impossible to know.

I mean we kind of almost just have to draw it arbitrarily.

But she did serve time in prison for her participation, so yeah, it'll be really interesting.

Also, it's just like it's actually so crazy because we started this podcast five years ago and we were talking about Alison Mack then, and we were like, oh, she ever gonna wake up?

She's been arrested, you know, like, and she was the reason that Nexium was that Nextium, not the Nexium.

She's the reason Nexium was in the news so much because she was this like famous actress.

You know.

It was like the big reason for all those headlines because a lot of cults do crazy shit and they don't make it's not that big of a story in the news because it's just no one's heard of it because no one's famous.

She she brought a level of credibility with her fame that ultimately was its downfall ironically, totally.

Yeah, So I hope she comes on Alison please come on.

So any celebrities want to join the two by twos and then leave feel free?

Uh, it might help the processed movie ostigation.

Yeah, Lola, what about you?

What's your cultiest thing of the week?

Mine is dumb and it's a video that a couple people sent me.

Yourself included, which is a video this girl made about how Benson Boone like does backflips.

Benson Boone is a former Mormon and popstar turned.

Pop star popstar, and you didn't know who he was, so just for our okay, But like, I mean, I knew he existed.

I knew that Benson Boone existed.

But I went to the Spotify and I was like, this has two and a half billion plays and I have never heard this song?

How is this possible?

But you know, I guess I'm flirting with other genres.

Anyway, he did this backflip and apparently everyone's like, oh wow, Benson Boone's backflip.

But this former Mormon girl went online and is like, Mormon's do backflip.

Mormon boys do backflips.

That's how they attract attention.

It's their version of peacocking.

They don't drink.

They don't smoke, and she just shows all these videos of like Mormon boys doing backflips outside.

It's so funny.

Yes, yeah, I mean rightgular boys, regular boys, non Mormon boys also also do backflips.

But the ratio of high control the religious group backflips compared to none would be staggering.

Somebody needs to do a study on it.

Because even as I was telling you, like the two by two boys, Mike in this episode was like, yeah, a snowboard, And I was like, I bet Mike rips on a snowboard because, like the two by twos add an extra layer of like not having a television, which back in the day was a big deal because we didn't have iPhones or screens.

But back to Benson, yeah, I mean, you're not drinking at the party.

What are you gonna do?

You can't you can't go, Like.

The only way to attract attention, clearly is to do a backflip in the middle of the party.

There's no alternative.

Aha.

I was like trying to.

Remember if boys I grew up with did backflips, and I'm like, I feel like I vaguely remember it, but I feel like it was just like normal boys stuff I don't.

I don't have a recollection of like whether the ratio was higher was get I guarantee it.

Like I can do a double flip on the trampoline, not to brag, I can also do like very intensive tricks on the pogo stick.

I'm sorry what, I'm sorry?

The Yeah, I have fun in my garage right now.

And I took everyone out the other day and was like.

Showing them, you have to post a video of this.

It'll be like the two by two women version of the Mormon boy Back.

Yes you have to.

But I wasn't athletic enough for it to impress any boys.

Wow, I feel like Mormon girls.

It was just like piano.

Oh, like every Mormon girl I know got so good at piano.

Yes, I quit when I was a child, which is ironic because I'm the only one I know who actually ended up doing music for a living.

I have no idea to play piano.

But all the Mormon girls are so good at pianost like Christmas time, they fucking wit it's so good.

Wow it I mean it is.

It is interesting to just think about, you know, when you're forced into other options, what comes out?

And it's usually backflips, piano and pogo sticking.

The three necessities in life.

Okay, cool, and let's talk to Mike and Abby.

Welcome Abby and Mike prusak to trust me.

Thank you for joining us.

Thank you very much for having us.

I'm looking forward to digging in same.

We're so happy to talk to you guys, because we needed two by two updates so badly.

Meghan has told me all about the Facebook group, which y'all are the other admins of, in addition to Kyl and Carry who we had on previously.

Right, so can you start telling us a little.

Bit about both of your backgrounds and how you ended up in the two by twos?

Initially you want to go ahead and start.

Yeah, so my parents were converted in so I am just second generation, so not as I don't have the heritage that many people have that Mike has.

Wait, I want how did your parents get converted?

Because I thought nobody really converted.

Yeah.

I'm actually a little bit fuzzy on the details, but I know that they'd each had a previous spouse, and I think they were kind of looking for some stability, which is really the reason most people end up joining groups like this.

For one reason or another.

They're often in a place where they are seeking stability or safety or community.

And I know that my mom had been shopping around to different churches and just had never felt quite right with any of them.

And so I don't know what the exact story is.

I feel like they were broken down in the like another family that a lot of people know came and helped them, and that I could be wrong on that, but for some reason, that's in my head.

But basically, yeah, they were just converted in by another family and my mom went home and threw away all the TV's.

And wow, yeah this was before you were born or yes, okay, because I would say if you'd been born that, if you were a kid, that I'd be pissed.

And yeah, I had a couple of my siblings were born, maybe three, I can't remember.

At least two, possibly three.

I'm the youngest of five.

Okay, there were there were a few kids already, And yeah, I think that transition was hard for them.

Yeah, did she jump into the uniform dress and the hair immediately off the bat?

Yeah, And of course I wasn't around, you know, right at that time, but yeah, I kind of have this there is a certain type of person who converts in, who goes bullhog like, they try to prove themselves and really like fit in because people who convert in aren't really insiders, right, right, And so you do everything you can to like play the role of the insiders so that you're fully accepted into the middle, the center of the flock, you know.

So anyway, they really kind of worked hard at following the rules.

And I had probably a more strict childhood than some people did.

We really really tried to go stay inside the lines.

Can you give us, like a just a basic description of what your childhood in the two way twos was like?

And where were you living?

Yeah, so I when I was born, we were living in Astoria, Oregon.

But when I was five, we moved to northern Idaho, and that's where I consider most of my childhood.

I lived there through seventh grade, and then we moved to Grace Harbor, Washington on the coast for the rest of my middle school and high school years.

But my younger childhood was all in North Idaho.

So I don't know, I mean, I it's kind of hard because a lot of us want to say, oh, I had a pretty good childhood, you know, I was relatively safe.

Turns out there actually were a lot of instances in which I was not safe.

But I I think I had a pretty classic too.

By two childhood, we didn't have some of the like we didn't have the TV in our closet.

We were stricter than that saying I wore Yeah, I wore dresses all the time to school.

Now, there were exceptions for when I was you know, like riding the four wheeler at home and stuff like that, which I'm grateful for that I didn't just get stopped from doing those activities.

There were some things I did, some sports.

I think that it was hard to keep me still, so I think that was probably really good for me.

A lot of people were not allowed A lot of kids were not allowed to play sports.

Is that Yeah, There certainly are kind of two types.

I mean, there were I know quite a few families who did play sports, and then there were quite a few who did not, especially for the girls.

Because you would have to wear pants, you know, you would have to wear pants.

Are sure it's if you're oh is a modesty thing.

It's a modesty thing.

But also if it's not that you are going to miss meeting.

Yep, Like you're gonna have to go to a weekend thing, You're gonna have to miss a Wednesday Like I know people who could have been professional athletes who are their parents.

Really, you're not missing Wednesday night meeting?

Yeah?

No, I had to.

I had to tell my coaches immediately once I joined a team that like, I won't be at any Wednesday night practices and I won't be anywhere on Sunday morning.

So we would travel for like a basketball tournament, and even I was like a I was a very important player at this time that I'm remembering this specific tournament we went to Oregon for and we had a game on Sunday morning, but we went to meeting and then just like jetted out of there to the game.

But there was absolutely no way I was going to miss meeting, even for like a championship game.

Ever.

Yeah, ever, Wow, Really I've never been on a vacation where we didn't find a meeting.

Will be in a different country, a different whatever.

We are finding a house and we are going to ats house that doesn't even speak our language, and we're going to meet it.

How are you find how do you find them?

You just and you just walk in the door.

Really.

Wow, Yes, you don't even some houses have.

You know, the elder will stand there and maybe open the door for you.

But there are many houses in like especially I think when I was younger, I don't remember that happening so much.

I remember the elder sitting in the living room with everybody else.

So you would just have the address so you would contact your workers, I believe who would contact their workers if this is I'm remembering correctly, who would give you the contact information of the elders where you were, so you would get this address and then you would just go and walk in the door and sit in their living room.

Wow.

And for listeners who maybe haven't heard our other two by two episodes, this religion does not take place in churches.

It takes place in people's homes.

The services are in people's homes.

Megan, can you want to give just like a brief little yeah.

I mean Biblically, they are saying that Jesus said like, churches aren't buildings, and so we've they've taken we've bave taken that very literally to be like we're putting it in houses, and so the normal meetings the Wednesday Sunday morning meetings are in homes and then if there is a gospel meeting or a bigger meeting, it'll be in like a public place sometimes, but it's not usually a church.

It's usually a funeral home, like.

A community center or a school GM or something like that.

And the reason I asked how you knew where to go was because this is not a public facing.

There's not like a website, right because allegedly there's no name for the religion.

And then yes, it's all kind of a secret little network that is linking everybody to the correct meeting to go to.

And you're in a different place.

And workers means you're sort of ministers.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'd be in Mike if you want to give a quick worker rundown for a reminder for people.

Yeah, the workers are are the ministers, and they they go out in pairs to know whatever geographic region they're overseer assigns them to that year, and they live in the homes with the congregants.

So you know they'll they'll show up.

I mean they won't just show up, they'll usually like give people heads up.

Sometimes they show up not unheard of and they'll you know, hang out and live there for two to three days usually as kind of the standard.

But you know, in some places where there's not as many members, then it can sometimes be a week or even two weeks.

That's a lot of traveling.

I didn't realize that it was that short of stays.

I assumed it was weeks.

So yeah, I'm bouncing around.

Yeah, yeah, And it just depends.

You know, we grew up in kind of the Seattle area, so there there's a lot of people there, and so they didn't have to stay for very long.

They had plenty of houses to jump around from, whereas some places Midwest or on the East Coast, they might be you know, there might only be like ten people in the whole place.

Being on tour at all times, it is like being on tour at all times.

And in the Midwest, we got some of them on tour for months at a time because there wasn't that many people.

And it's hard for them, like of course, they don't have any privacy, they don't have a home, they don't have like I know, for me, I need a place where I can go isolate.

Yeah, sometimes I call it my sensory deprivation.

Chamber, turn off the lights, close the doors.

I need somewhere where I can cocoon, and they never have that.

Really, They're like not twenty four hours a day like forever, there's no Oh my gosh.

They do spend quite a bit of time in their bedroom when they're staying somewhere.

Often they will spend a lot of time in their bedroom studying or something.

From what I understand, for X workers, a lot of it is just like trying to survive, like trying to escape a little bit and just have some have some time to yourself.

Do they have to share a room with each other?

It depends, Okay, sometimes okay, Sometimes they share a bed, Sometimes.

They share beds.

So I have a story.

So my brother was a worker up until May of this year and realized that Mike, yeah, I think I think I can tell this story.

I hope Evan will forgive me if if it's not okay.

But yeah, So he went into a home one time and they just had a single bed in the bedroom and they had a baby crib as well.

So my my brother is on the shorter side, so he chose to sleep in the baby crib.

Somebody wouldn't have to share a bed with.

He's got like, you know, some old, quite old companion, I think, and because it's generally an older worker and a younger worker.

So there's a hierarchy in the ministry too, and you've got the overseers, which are like the older male there's one older male worker who's an overseer for the regent, and then the next step in the hierarchy is the the other older male workers.

And then you've got the younger male workers.

And then you've got the senior sister workers and then the junior sister workers.

So even if a if a male worker comes in day one, he still has like authority over or you know, he's higher in the hierarchy than the oldest sister worker who's been there for sixty years.

But yeah, so they generally go in Paris, you have a senior worker and a junior worker.

So he was likely with some older guy.

I would choose the crypto.

Yeah, I'm not sharing a twin bed with a hot man that I'm in love with.

I would still sleep in that cryp.

Mike, can you tell us a little bit about your childhood experiences in the religion.

Yeah, so when you talk about the two by Tea Cherch.

You always have to lead with what generation you were.

So I was fifth generation on my mom's side and fourth on my dad's.

Wow.

Yeah, so my mom's family had come in contact with the workers in Alaska bright right around the turn of the century.

I don't know, it might have been sometime between like nineteen oh five and nineteen ten.

Maybe the workers had come over to the United States shortly before that, and Alaska apparently was the place that they chose to make a bee line too.

And so yeah, a lot of my family started there in the church, and so that was kind of all that we knew for multiple generations.

I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, near Seattle, and interestingly fairly close to where Abby was, you know, just a few hours away.

So we were together at a number of church events, even though we didn't end up meeting each other officially until we were adults.

I will say right here, like people might be like, what's that you don't have a church?

There are something called conventions, which are yearly gatherings where everybody goes and basically camps for four days.

Every state has one.

You have to ask permission to go to one.

In a different state literally camping or yeah, some people are literally camping, and then there's storms and the situation in which you are living was fun as a child, but you are really roughing it.

And then there were also like kid get togethers.

A family, usually one with a farm or something, would host a bunch of kids so that we could meet each other, presumably probably so we would date each other in that right, you know.

Anyway, So I'm assuming that when you say like there were church events something like that is where y'all were crossing paths.

Yeah, conventions primarily.

We actually have a picture of us when we were kids, of like the big kids picture at the convention and there's like me on one side and Abby on the other and we had no clue.

Who each other was.

You.

I mean, you know, I mean, it's cute.

It's cute.

Cute, it's cute.

I wish it was in a different place, but it's cute.

Yeah.

What convention was that?

That one was Olympia, Washington.

I wonder if I ever crossed paths with y'all.

I did go to that one a few times.

My only convention I went to as a child was the Ventriloquis convention.

So every time you say convention, that's what she always WANs to bring up her room.

She just wanted to make sure you all remember that I can do ventriloquism.

That explains why I'm having troubles seeing your lips.

So, so y'all meet romantically at some point.

Yeah, so we met at a young kid to get together in Oregon and how young?

Well, so this would have been like for teenagers and early and like young adults.

Okay, so I was probably twenty and Abby was eighteen.

Okay that sounds right, Abby, Yeah, I think so cool.

And you guys were like, hey, what's up.

Let's date.

Well, it was like a it was it was a skiing snowboarding get together, of which I did neither, but you know, it was a chance.

I was in college and I kind of had my my own a little bit of my own freedom and so I could go anyway.

And yeah, I mean Mike definitely did snowboard, and so he was there for the actual reason and I was there to meet kids, meet guys, let's be real, and yeah, I mean it's kind of funny.

I mean I I had eyes on him like immediately, but he kind of didn't wasn't super reciprocated.

He only had eyes for the slow.

He did put his arm around me, Oh yeah, he did.

Like we were doing I was doing the crossword.

He helped me with the Crossford puzzle, and he put his arm around me the day we were leaving.

But then he put his arm around some other girls to get.

Together that night.

So come on, Mike, Yeah, I was two y two version virgin virgin virsion version.

Like getting everyone pregnant.

You were out there.

You're wild then, yeah, I mean putting my arm around her that was first base.

Well, but I mean the other girl asked him to have a Bible study in the back room, so that whoa saucy he had to put his arm around her, yoda to her.

Yeah, wait, so how how much did you each believe?

I have a couple of questions, like how fervently were you believers in the church at that time?

It's a really good question.

It is a really good question, and I feel like, at least for me, I was If you would have asked me, I would have said that I was a true believer and you know, all the things.

But in retrospect, I was a really good rule follower, and so I was following all the rules.

But you know, as we'll get to probably in a little bit, when it came to shedding our faith and having a faith crisis, there wasn't really that much belief really behind it.

It was it was a pretty surface level church attendance and participation kind of belief.

And I was not convinced that, you know, I was.

I don't know, it's really hard to get into my mind from that time.

Period, but interesting, yeah, I think so we people in the two I twos are the Truth.

I like to use the Truth still sometimes because that is the name that they typically use and it's very culty, and I don't necessarily want to always give them the out for having a normal name, So sometimes I use the Truth.

But people in the Truth are raised and taught to basically believe in the church itself.

And so in my opinion, that is the vast majority of the faith that we had was faith in this in the group, and so our faith in the actual like religious side of it was very thin, I think, and so that didn't take much to break.

And once you break that, we actually still thought that the group was still the safest place to raise our kids.

We had this discussion, like our faith in the group kind of maintained for a bit after our faith in the religion in general snapped.

And I think that's what it was like.

We felt like we were very devout, but our devoutness was tied to the church and not to actual religious.

Beliefs, almost more like just the rituals and the community and structure.

Yeah, and you're taught that it's the safe place and the world is the dangerous place.

You're taught this distinction so much that you can't like that is what the strongest faith in your head is that this group is the safest, the best.

It's it's a twisted sort of faith.

And when it goes right, it feels that way for real, like wholesome whole time.

Yeah, but you know there's a twists, as there always is in a cult.

So I just want to put that out there.

It's very Norman Rockwell, very and there's a twist there too, like his the Norman Rockwell painting.

All those things look very wholesome, and it turns out there's a different side of Norman Rockwell himself.

But have we talked about this, No, But say a little more.

There's another podcast.

I think Behind the Bastards did a podcast about Norman Rockwell, Oh Doucy, So yeah, the parallel is good.

Abby.

Can you explain, like, if women are to wear long dresses and presumably have children and you know, be mothers in their roles, how did you end up in college?

Was that typical?

What were you studying?

Yeah, it's it's fairly typical.

I don't know, it's it's not.

It's kind of strange because I think it's fairly typical for women to start college and then I I think it's also typical for them to maybe finish two years, maybe four years.

It's not very typical for them to go beyond that.

And I ended up not finishing.

I think I finished two years, but I didn't get a degree because that's not where I was going.

It was not for a two year degree, and I went in in a very approved direction, which was early childhood education.

So the nurturing roles are much more approved directions for higher education.

But I don't know very many women who pursued anything past the four years.

It's almost kind of this like obligatory to society type of thing, like we're not going to tell people not to get well, that's that's not true.

A lot of times they did tell women not to go to college, not to get higher education.

But at least in our area, it was common.

To get some interesting but you wouldn't typically see like a woman doctor or what not.

Usually yeah, okay, interesting, maybe a massage therapist.

Yeah is shorter.

How long is nurse school?

I don't know, but I should.

You should, but that is also a caregiving Yeah, so that kind of improved.

Yeah, Mike, did you go to college?

I went to a two year college and yeah, I got like a technical degree, but that's about it.

In my family, nobody else really had gone to college, and so I just kind of went along with what everybody else was doing, which was, you know, getting into the workforce pretty early.

It turned out okay for me, thankfully.

That's good.

I'm always interested in the level of isolation in a group that is interacting with the world quite a bit, Like did you guys have friends outside of the church or it was just kind of like you'd see him in class and then you'd go back to your church people.

Right, So our area had a lot of kids in the two by two church, and so that kept me from having a need to go outside of the church for many friends.

You know, in school, I had friends, but I pretty much would never see them outside of school.

It wasn't like explicitly said, like, oh, you can't have friends in school, but it was definitely an implicit kind of rule.

So I didn't hang out with people outside of school.

It's a really strange way to grow up.

Like I have really good friends in high school, and yet they never came to my house and I never went to their house.

Wow, which is super bizarre in hindsight, But at the time I was just like, well, they're just a little bit different than me.

They're not a part of the you know, the accepted one true way, and so you know, again, it wasn't explicitly said, but it was definitely the vibe was all those people are going to hell, so you really shouldn't spend too much time with them.

Don't get too attached.

Was that true of you too, Like did you go to friends houses?

I'm actually writing something about this right now because my mom had a baby when I was ten, and so they were over me.

I had to attend to a baby, So I got really lucky because there was one girl in school, Vivian Ritchie, who was like, come over and I was like, Okay, my parents are actually letting me do this.

And it changed.

The course of my life because my parents were like, please get away from us.

It was Vivian Ritchie.

It was Vivian Ritchie.

I loved that name.

I know, she's she's so cool.

HI have a van I love you.

Yeah, But like I got lucky in that, and that what am I looking for in that way?

Because I don't I don't know if I would have been allowed to do those sorts of things if my parents hadn't been very overloaded with other other stuff.

And I did feel a sense of like, you guys are so different, and was that the same.

For you Abby?

Yeah.

So when Mike says that we had a lot of kids in our area, he means that he he did despite only being a couple hours away from each other.

Where I was, had no kids.

There was literally nobody five years younger or older than me in that whole range.

So my parents did kind of have to let me have friends.

And I did a lot of activities.

So I did a lot of sports, I did a lot of music, and so I did know a lot of people, a lot of kids, and I made some friendships.

There was always a bit of a separation, but thankfully my parents didn't decide that I just had to be isolated completely, and they did kind of embrace some of my friends a bit, like they'd kind of come over here and there, and I could sometimes go over to their house.

But I was always different.

I mean, I had hair down to my butt, and I had you know, dresses, and I was I was always a little bit better right, like in my mind, which is embarrassing, but like, I don't blame myself either, So yeah, I mean I got to have more outside friends, but there was definitely a like it was kind of an arms reach type of thing, you know, you kept kept them at a distance a little bit, right.

I wasn't allowed to like hug my friends or call them my best friends because my best friend was god right and so like I was, I was explicitly kept at a distance from having like loving friend relationships.

It's so complicated to explain to people how much a part of the world we were and how much a part of it they kept us.

At the same time.

I think it's very unusual and it's easy to be like.

It sounds like kind of just like a normal offshoot group, but mentally you are in a prison that is so crazy.

And the reason I think they're able to keep you in that is that the whole doctrine is just fear.

So yeah, that's my opinion.

Yeah, there's actually something called mutual rejection that you probably are very familiar with this, but one of the ways that they keep hiking groups so insular without having compound walls is by everyone experiencing rejection mutually.

So they're all wearing dresses, they all have long hair, they all are very matro inly as children, they all, you know, can't go to practices on Wednesday nights.

They all have those things.

They go out into the world and they feel rejected by the world, and so then they all come together and they share this mutual rejection that bonds them.

And so even if you don't have walls, you can keep a group together by helping them to experience mutual rejection and othering the outside and it just keeps this tight bond.

We've not talked about that ever.

That's very interesting.

Yeah, makes sense.

Yeah, I think it's also something that Jehovah's witness experience a lot, because let's be real, who's joining the jdubs because somebody knocked on their door?

And so they get rejected at every single door that they go to.

And then they come back to their church and they're like, you know, I don't, I don't, I don't know what they do.

At least we have.

Each other, but they can bond over it.

Yeah, and it's easy to frame it as this is the persecution that the Bible was talking about.

Yeah, exactly.

It's such a I love it.

I love a persecution narrative, so classic.

Yeah, yeah, how did you go from the arm around Abby and another girl to getting married?

Let's see, after after that, we we just kept in contact.

And writing letters I assume.

Yeah, well we had bumped up to text messaging, but you know it was t nine word back in the day.

And so yeah, about a month later I made the trip over to where Abby was going to school, which was about five hours away.

You know, our first year and a half of our relationship was a long distant relationship.

And yeah, we we developed a relationship.

You know, we at a time I suppose, uh, going to kids get togethers, going you know, conventions, was another place that we could see each other and hang out.

Yeah, I don't know.

I'm trying to think is there anything else in there that I'm missing?

It?

It kind of seems like a whirlwind.

You know.

We dated for a year before we got engaged, and then and then another six months before we got married, and you know, again we were we got married at twenty one and nineteen, which is very very common in that church, and it's really you know, it's common because you're not allowed to live with anybody before you get married, and you're not allowed to have sex with them before we get married, right, and so what does a twenty one and nineteen year old do?

They do things that will allow them to Yeah, we also liked each other.

We did that too.

Yeah, we also did like each other.

No, obviously, I know it's you guys have a great synergy.

And that's so lucky, you know that, because sometimes people it.

Does not always s turn out that way.

Yeah.

Yeah, I want to know a bit about how you both came to question and this was something that was really interesting to talk to Kyle and carry about as well, Like as a couple, were you able to talk about any doubts that you were having or did you kind of were you worried that the other person might not be having them?

How did that work?

I don't know how it worked.

And we call it our little miracle, very sarcastically, but yeah, I mean, and we've kind of told this.

You probably have heard the story.

How like one night one of us just asked, and we don't remember who, like, hey, would you pray?

Do you actually hear something back?

Do you actually get a response?

And the other person was like, well no, And then we just I don't really remember our discussion past that, but we just tried really hard for a while, Like I just prayed really hard, and then I waited and I waited and I did all the things because I didn't want to, Like it's scary right to lose your faith, but it just seemed like instead of losing our faith, it seemed like one night we realized we never.

Had it right.

And yes, people inside or they have argued, well, maybe you never had it, but like I believed in the group, and that's what they do too.

Like in reality, a lot of these people that are struggling right now are struggling because they believe in the group, and the group has been shown to be unhealthy, and it's not necessarily yeah, because that's what their faith is in.

And so anyway, we kind of realized that our faith was based on our raising and our conditioning and not really based in individual circumstances, you know, And so we both were in agreement there.

I don't know what the heck the first person to say that was thinking, you know, that seems like a big thing to just drop on your partner when you hadn't ever talked about it before.

That's the thing that that a lot of kind of emphasize is that we up until that point, which was like two months into our marriage, we had never talked about anything that would be questioning our faith or even just about it in general.

Like it was just an unspoken thing like, oh, yeah, we're just going to do this for the rest of our lives.

And if you would have asked me a week before we had that conversation if I was going to be in it for the rest of my life, I would have said one hundred percent.

Wow.

All it took was a question, because once you know all the things about the church, your faith is complete, right, Like you don't have to discuss your faith in the church, and I believe that's what almost everyone's faith is in and you don't have to discuss it, you don't have to pick it apart.

You just have to attend.

You have to do the rituals, and then you know, you have to deny the rest of the world and then your set.

So what is there to really talk about?

And because people don't talk about it, there are a lot of differing actual spiritual beliefs, but they don't really address them.

So maybe in vague sermons, but they don't want to talk about it because that might make them have to.

Think about it and talk about it.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's no written doctrine, no, like like nobody even knows what the other person believes.

Really, wow, we have no idea what each other are talking about.

They're like there's still small voice of speaking to me.

And then like, yeah, I always let somebody had a voice in their head like telling them shit.

Uh, some people think they do, some people think that they do.

Yeah right, yeah, yeah.

Do any of you have examples of like realizing somebody believe something completely different from you?

Yeah, I mean.

Yeah, I mean so dinosaurs are ironically a really big, hot top divisive topic.

Yea.

Some people think the bones were put there mysteriously by God.

Some people think that dinosaurs were actually real.

They're within the two by two church.

There is I don't know how, I don't know what the percentages look like, but there's definitely people that believe in young Earth that's six thousand years old.

There's definitely people that believe in an old Earth and everything in between.

So like, for the most part, at least from the from the workers and the leadership, they believe that, you know, Adam and Eve were the first humans, and there is Noah's Ark and all of humanity got wiped out.

But then if you were to dig in, like member by member, their belief in the those things being the actual events very all over the board because they don't talk about it.

Yeah, what's talked about in church nothing.

Yeah, So actually I believe that that is one of the biggest simultaneously, the biggest failing of the church as a church, and the thing that keeps the church able to continue is that everything is vague and everything is a spiritualization of something.

Nothing is straightforward.

So when they say things, they have plausible deniability of what they meant.

And when they say things.

It's kind of I related a little bit to tarot cards, where you know, like you see what you want to see in tarot cards, right, Like so if you see a card and you apply it to your life in the way that you want or need to think about it, right and can be a really good meditation tool.

And I believe that that is what's happening with their sermons essentially just tarot cards.

It's like they will say something and different people in the meeting will get different meanings out of it, and they say that that is proof of the spirit, when actually it's just because they took a story about a cat and they turned it into a spiritual story that didn't actually say.

Anything, which is like how artworks.

I guess, like we take from it what we need to take from it.

But typically in a religion people would be on the same page about what they believe in.

That would just generally there's no pay.

I was taught that, like my upbringing was Young Earth and the dinosaur bones were put there either by God to confuse us or by I don't know why God would do that.

That seems pretty shady to me.

You know, either it was either God or Satan.

And if you can attribute an act to either God or Satan, you can't tell.

That's kind of a red flag, right.

Yeah, So I think that the reason that they like it doesn't bother them that people believe other things like religiously, is because they don't have faith in their religion.

They have faith in the church.

So as long as the people don't wear pants, and as long as long as they don't disagree on dress code, as long as they don't disagree that the world is scary, as long as they don't disagree that they should mean in homes, they don't care what else they disagree with, not really, as long as it doesn't affect their traditions.

As soon as it affects and their traditions, then they have a different religion than each other.

That's super super interesting.

Yeah.

In Mormonism, for all its flaws, at least we all kind of were like, we know what we believe.

It's very in fact, it's very specific.

There are three tiers, three tiers of heaven and the three tiers of the top tier of heaven, and there are very specific things you do to get into those tiers.

And it's always worth reminding myself and listeners and whoever else might.

Get Abby may be really.

With us relate to this, like I love that Mormonism has heaven and three cheers of heaven.

I don't think any of us thought we were going to heaven.

I did not feel that sense at all.

I was destined for hell, and everyone around me also seemed to feel the same way.

Was that your experience or did you feel quote unquote saved.

I never felt safe, that's for sure.

I didn't also didn't feel like I was going to hell, but the possibility was definitely always lingering out there.

Yeah, that's what keeps the fear in people.

Once you feel safe, you might start questioning, like why you have to do all of this?

So make sure that you feel extra unsafe outside of the group.

But inside of the group, you still can never really breathe, like you still can't quite get comfortable.

It's just constant uncertainty.

This concludes Part one of our conversation with Mike and Abby.

Please come back and join us next week for part two, where we'll discuss the allegations of child sexual abuse within the two by two church and the ongoing FBI investigation.

Lola.

This is the part where you usually asked me if I would join a group.

Obviously, I've already left this group, so there's not too much left to be uncovered here.

It's true, But thank you so much for listening.

Guys, we love spending another week with you.

Come again and listen next week, and as always, remember to follow your guts, watch out for red flags.

And never ever trust me.

Bye.

This has been an exactly right production hosted by.

Me Lola Blanc and Me Megan Elizabeth.

Our senior producer is Gee Holly.

This episode was mixed by John Bradley.

Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain, and our guest booker is Patrick Kottner.

Our theme song was composed by Holly amber Church.

Trust Me as executive produced by Karen Kilgarreth, Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer.

You can find us on Instagram at trust Me podcast or on TikTok at trust Me coult podcast.

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