Leadership Session:
Leaving the Ninety and Nine:  Ministering to LGBTQ Saints and Families

with Ben Schilaty

This workshop invites leaders to reflect on Christ's example of seeking out, listening to, and loving those who may feel unseen or marginalized.

 Together, we will explore what meaningful, compassionate ministering can look like for LGBTQ members and their families.  

We will explore church-provided resources available through the Church's Counseling Resources website.

Ben Schilaty works as a clinical social worker and is an adjunct professor at BYU in Provo, UT. He speaks Spanish and Portuguese from his time living abroad in Mexico, Bolivia, Peru, and Portugal.

He writes a blog about his experiences as a gay Latter-day Saint at benschilaty.blogspot.com. He also cohosts a podcast “Questions from the Closet” with his friend Charlie Bird. Ben is a lifelong member of the Church and served as a missionary in Chihuahua, Mexico from 2003-2005. He currently serves as a High Councilor in his stake.

Listening Session

with Deborah Jenson Grizzell 

Deb is a native of Logan, Utah but has spent most of her life living elsewhere in the U.S. and Europe.  She is a lifelong member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Deb earned a bachelor's degree from Utah State University in Family & Human Development, and a master's degree in social work from the University of Texas at Austin.  She is in private psychotherapy practice in Naperville, and her clinical work focuses primarily with couples.  

Deb is currently serving as a Sunbeam teacher in the Fox Valley Ward and a Chicago Temple Worker.  One of her most spiritually powerful experiences in recent years was working with the Naperville Stake Council to develop an ongoing stake-wide LGBTQIA+ effort they named the Of One Heart Initiative.    The Grizzell family hosts a monthly gathering and potluck dinner for LGBTQ+ individuals, family members and others who want to support our LGBTQ+ members and their families on the 3rd Sunday of each month at 5:30 pm.  Her greatest joys in life come from her family relationships and her spiritual life. She and her husband, Matt, have six young adult children-- five of whom are LGBTQ+ persons. 

Parenting Queer Kids

with Allison Dayton

Allison started the Lift and Love Foundation to support LGBTQ individuals and their families in the Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Allison lost her brother, who was gay, to suicide at the same time her 17-year-old son was coming out. Looking for resources to help her family, she couldn’t find anything that embraced her religious beliefs and her son’s divine identity. Lift and Love has grown to fill that much-needed space supporting thousands of individuals and families as they navigate their unique journeys of protecting their identity or that of their precious children and integrating their new reality into their devotion to Jesus Christ. Allison is a writer, speaker, including at BYU Women’s Conferences. In 2022 she moderated an LGBTQ Conversation Circle at the UN Women’s Conference. Allison and her husband, Kenn, live in the foothills of Salt Lake City, Utah, have three grown children, a son-in-law and a granddaughter, Georgia, who rules their world. You can read more about Allison’s experiences in her recent LDSLiving article here: https://www.ldsliving.com/allison-grant-dayton

Transgender Journeys

with Michael Soto

Michael Soto’s is a name widely known and respected in the LGBTQ+ equality space. As the former director and now President of Equality Arizona, and as a political consultant for over 25 years intrinsically involved in the LGBTQ+ movement, Michael has watched the ebb and flow and now crux of policy change.

 With his generous, hearty laugh and impressive grasp of legislative history, Michael feels uniquely qualified to reach across the aisle and have these tough conversations. It doesn’t hurt that he himself identifies as a trans man and queer individual who knows what it’s like to have grown up in a conservative regional and religious environment before the internet, when the right terminology to describe how he had been feeling since he could walk was not within reach.

Navigating Family and Church as a Faithful LBGTQ+ Couple

Nathan Tenney & Thomas Smith

In this session, Nathan and Thomas share their experience as a married gay couple who remain active in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while striving to honor their faith and gospel covenants. Their journey is one shaped by deep devotion, personal wrestle, and a desire to belong fully in the Church of Jesus Christ.
 
Nathan and Thomas will speak openly about the duality they’ve experienced within their church community: moments of genuine love, acceptance, and Christlike support, alongside experiences of distance, discomfort, and exclusion. They will discuss the challenges of not being able to fully participate in all aspects of church life, including temple attendance, and how they have navigated those limitations while continuing to seek meaningful engagement in the Church.  

Through their story, Nathan and Thomas hope to foster greater empathy and understanding. This session offers a space for LGBTQ individuals, allies, and church members to reflect on what it means to love, include, and walk alongside one another in faith—even when the path is complex.