Hailey Kynaston wasn’t sure what to do. During high school, she had noticed some feelings for girls different than what she felt for guys. In a sacred blessing by her father, she couldn’t remember what was said, but recalled, “We were both crying, and I knew that God loves me.”
While watching her brother prepare for a mission, Kynaston was struck by his personal change as she saw him “really get to know who Jesus Christ is.”
She wanted to experience what her older brother had, she recounted in Salt Lake City on Friday, Feb. 28, at the North Star conference, a community of Latter-day Saints navigating sexual orientation and gender identity who “desire to live in harmony with the teachings of Jesus Christ and the doctrine and values of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” North Star is, however, not affiliated with the church.
During a family trip to Latter-day Saint historic sites in New York, Kynaston felt a prompting that led her to serve a life-altering mission of her own among the deaf community in Anaheim, California.
More obedience, more joy
Halfway through her mission, Hailey Kynaston began seeing a passion, joy and sense of purpose in other missionaries that she struggled to understand. She asked a seasoned missionary, “what makes you so happy?”
“Well, just the blessings from being obedient,” she responded.
“What am I missing?” Kynaston wondered, since she felt like she was pretty obedient already.
She initially thought about “all the things that I wasn’t good at and that I wanted to improve on, and I was like, ‘how am I going to do this?‘” But her companion encouraged her instead to pray every morning and “tell Father one thing that you want to do better” and then to report to the Lord at the end of the night on her progress.
“Okay, I can do that,” she recalled. As she tried that daily practice, Kynaston began to experience a significant emotional change. “I started to see that joy that comes from putting work into being obedient to God.”
“That gave me so much love for my covenants,” Kynaston said, expressing gratitude for the “relationship that I have with Christ” in a presentation on “Unity, Covenants, and Belonging in Christ.”
“Even though I don’t know all the answers” in terms of sexuality, she described how yielding to these sacred commitments “brings me joy,” she said. ”There are so many blessings waiting for us as we stay faithful” and “rooted to Him and our covenants.”
Ty Mansfield, co-founder at North Star, said Jesus Christ is “our very personal, individual Savior.”
“I have a deep conviction of that, and I believe that he’s with us, and that he’s with you today in your very individual, unique journeys with your individual, unique questions,” he testified.
‘Wanting what God wants me to want’
Eric Snider described his journey, which included returning to the Church of Jesus Christ. The Lord helped him to see that coming back was the only option that felt good, he said.
“I didn’t do anything that I didn’t want to do,” he said in a presentation with his father, Rocky Snider entitled “Father and Son: United by Love and Law.”
Snider said it came down to knowing the church is true. “Joseph Smith was a prophet. He translated the Book of Mormon.”
“So even though I don’t have all the answers right now” and even while personal questions may remain, “none of that changes the fact that Joseph Smith saw God the Father and Jesus in the grove, and he translated the Book of Mormon.”
Various questions that remain, Snider said, have the same answer. He shared his assurance that God is the one who made the promises. “And I trust that he has answers in mind,” he said.
Seeing oneself differently
Each time a new challenge or question arises, speaker Ganel-Lyn Condie shared in her closing keynote, “I have a moment where I get to choose to either walk more with Jesus or sit alone.”
Condie emphasized identity.
“I believe that if the Lord were speaking to you directly, the first thing He would make sure you understand is your true identity,” said Condie, citing President Russell M. Nelson’s previous teachings. “You are literally spirit children of God.”
“I would even go so far to say,” Condie added, that if the Savior walked into this conference, “and He sat next to you, He would know your name, and He would call you by that name because He knows you. You’re not just one of billions. You are personal to Him.”
Challenges in the context of eternity
“The identities I choose profoundly affect what I believe about myself, what I believe I can do and what will make me happy,” Stephen Done shared in a break-out presentation. He recounted an earlier time in his life when he was misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder, but read all about the condition, dropped out of school and identified closely with the label.
“I came to believe that that disorder limited what I could do or be. I was miserable and believed little could change.” It was a decade later before he realized that diagnosis wasn’t accurate. At that point, he said, “I expanded what I believed I could do.”
When Done began to recognize feelings of same sex attraction, he was wary of imposing “artificial limits” on his own “abilities and potential for growth and happiness.” This perspective he said, “gave me freedom to see myself as more than just a label.”
As Done sought to stay aligned with his faith, he recalled “many people tried to tell me that I was lying to myself. They said the only way I could be happy is if I were to leave the church.”
He eventually learned to “stop letting the anger or opinions of others manipulate me” — and began practicing how to “think celestial in every decision I make.”
“This shift in perspective helped me see my challenges in the context of eternity, rather than as an insurmountable obstacles in the present.” He felt new courage to “to offer my life to the Lord, trusting that he gives counsel and commandments for my eternal happiness and that he knows the best principles to build on for eternity.”
“President Nelson taught me to root my identity in the truths that matter most,” Done said. “I am a son of God, a child of the covenant and a disciple of Jesus Christ, I learned that any identity other than these is artificially limiting and eventually leads to unhappiness.”
“Learning this helped me step outside of narrow conclusions and seek a broader, more personal understanding of what it meant to have same sex attraction,” he said.
Trusting Christ more than a future outcome
Latter-day Saint therapist Blake Fisher described times in his past when he put faith in “something in the future.” He described the impact of learning to “put my faith in Jesus Christ today, rather than in any outcomes.”
“If I am connected to Christ now, then that peace is here. I don’t have to think about what’s in the future.”
Weeping and seeking together
Describing her own grappling as a mother to know how to support her daughter’s questions about sexuality, Beth Young recalled “one of my amazing, saintly leaders saying ‘Sister Young, stay in step with the Brethren.”
Young said she knows that the church’s leaders weep seeking for direction. “I know my local leaders do. I know my sisters and brothers do. And I know that this is all part of God’s plan that we can have connection.”
Tanya Robinson recounted “an overwhelming sense of belonging” that came to her in navigating her participation in the church — recounting how “the Lord tells it to me all the time, ‘you belong in my church. You are my child, and I love you.‘”
‘Peace, be still’
Robinson said Jesus Christ was her close partner in her journey. “There were many times that I felt His guiding hand in things I chose to read and learn. Miracles, large and small, were present in my life. And angels have lent help as long as I have stayed close to the Lord; I have never felt completely alone.”
Reflecting on her mission, Kynaston cited a passage from Preach My Gospel. “As we rely on the Atonement of Jesus Christ, he can help us endure our trials, sicknesses and pain, we can be filled with joy, peace and consolation and all that is unfair about life can be made right through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.”
As a mother, Young says the account of the Lord rebuking the great tempest that arose is her favorite scripture — especially when Jesus said to the turbulent sea, “Peace be still.”
“And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm,” she quoted from the New Testament. “As we yoke with our Savior, we can have a great calm, even in the tempest.”
“I’ve experienced it.”