0:00

Hi everyone , I'm Scott Brandley .

0:02

And I'm Alisha Coakley . Every member of

0:04

the Church has a story to share , one that

0:06

can instill faith , invite growth and

0:09

inspire others .

0:10

On today's episode we're going to hear how

0:13

one man navigating the murky

0:15

waters of addiction found the love

0:17

of God while swimming the English

0:19

Channel . Welcome to Latter-day

0:21

Lights . Hey

0:31

everyone , welcome back to another episode

0:34

of Latter-day Lights . We're so glad you're

0:36

here with us today and we're really excited

0:38

to introduce our guest , greg Mockett

0:40

. Greg , how are you doing ?

0:43

I'm well , thanks , glad to be here .

0:45

Yeah , we're , glad to have you Glad you're here . So

0:48

when you told me your story , I was like man

0:51

, this is going to be a good one . So

0:54

I'm just going to tell all of our listeners go ahead

0:56

and sit down , get some popcorn

0:58

, put your jammies on . You're going

1:00

to want to stay tuned for this . You're going to want to be cozy

1:02

. Grab the kids , grab the

1:04

parents , grab the dog . It's

1:07

going to be a good one today . I just I know it so

1:10

very excited , thank you . Thank you . Yeah

1:12

.

1:14

Awesome .

1:14

I'm excited as well .

1:16

How did you find out about the show , Greg ?

1:19

I was just looking at podcasts

1:22

and video

1:24

the YouTube podcast

1:26

and video cast and

1:28

watching episodes . I do that at work

1:31

. I have part

1:33

of my job . I really have to think about what

1:35

I'm doing and some of the things

1:37

that I do at work . I don't have to think about what I'm doing

1:40

and so I like to throw something on

1:42

that's inspirational , instructional . So

1:45

I've studied everything from Middle East conflict

1:48

to various

1:50

yes song , lighted lights and

1:52

not other shows as

1:54

well . So that's how I found

1:56

out oh

1:59

, we're glad you're hanging out with us yeah

2:01

.

2:02

That's fun ? Yeah , absolutely

2:04

so . Greg , why don't you

2:06

tell the listeners a little bit about yourself

2:08

, like where are you from , family job

2:11

, like what kind of interests

2:13

you have ? Can you lick your own elbow ? I don't think

2:15

. I try . Well , let's see .

2:17

I was born in Macon Georgia 1965

2:22

. So

2:27

I'm older than most

2:29

dirt . I

2:33

went to school , out of BYU . I

2:36

left home at 17 from

2:38

Florida . I was born and raised most

2:40

of my life in Georgia and then teenage

2:44

years from Florida

2:46

. So I headed out to BYU on

2:48

a short lived scholarship

2:50

, suffered

2:53

senioritis through my first semester of

2:55

college and lost that scholarship

2:57

, went

3:00

on a mission after that

3:02

ill-fated first semester and

3:05

went to Oakland

3:08

, california , and served

3:10

the people there . I think my first area was in Napa . A

3:13

lot of people put that on their bucket list as a

3:15

place to go , so

3:17

started there and then went straight to downtown

3:20

Oakland . A

3:22

little bit of a switch , very

3:25

cool . Then I became a minister

3:28

of society . I think it's how Brigham Young

3:30

turned it . I

3:33

was 27 , 28

3:36

, 29 before

3:39

my wife decided

3:42

mercably to go to the

3:44

lost husband shelter

3:47

and kicked me out . She's

3:50

10 and a half years younger and

3:53

10 and a half times smarter and

3:55

10 and a half times better looking . So

3:58

I did all right . Lesson

4:02

in patience . We

4:05

have six children , five daughters

4:08

, and a caboose is

4:10

a little tyrannosaur we

4:12

call our son .

4:19

You know what I'm talking about .

4:22

We live in a small little house in a

4:24

small little town in Utah that's getting

4:26

bigger . We

4:29

are active in the church and

4:31

my wife is in

4:34

the primary presidency and I

4:36

conduct the music in Sacramento

4:39

, which is interesting

4:41

because I know nothing about music . My

4:44

wife she was the young

4:46

women's president at the time and she's in

4:49

ward correlation and they're saying we can't get anybody

4:51

to lead the music in

4:53

Sacramento . She raised her hand , my

4:55

husband will do it . So

4:58

she

5:00

was right . So the last three or four

5:03

years I've led the music .

5:06

Cool , nice .

5:07

That's kind of me from

5:10

a surface level .

5:13

So I'm going to throw my two cents in

5:15

for music , Greg . One of the

5:17

things that drives me nuts the most about

5:19

sacrament sometimes is when

5:21

people don't pay attention to the speed

5:24

, like the tempo of the hymn , and

5:26

then you're trying to like , come on

5:28

, you can do it , you can sing a little

5:31

faster .

5:33

Well , you'll be pleased to know , I'm

5:36

a firm believer in the hundred plus

5:38

, so

5:41

you know they give you the tempo of

5:43

the top of the hymn . So

5:48

in fact I struggle sometimes when our organist

5:50

decides to be slow . People

5:54

see me up there going . Okay , let's move

5:56

this along .

6:02

Well , that's good to know .

6:04

All right , greg . Well , we are all

6:06

excited to hear your story

6:08

. It has a lot

6:11

of twists and turns and dips

6:13

and dives in it , and so we're very , very

6:15

excited to hear more about

6:17

your experience

6:20

. Why don't you go ahead and take it away ?

6:22

Okay , I'd be happy to . I'm

6:25

going to start with what

6:28

I call the call . I was

6:30

an elder's quorum president and

6:32

I guess it started

6:34

in 2010, . Somewhere in September of

6:36

2010 , I think this

6:39

story starts in June I

6:41

had a small quorum of elders in

6:44

Spanish fork , september

6:47

2010, . I think is a

6:49

rough start point for that

6:51

, and by June I

6:55

was wrestling with some issues for

6:57

my quorum , my quorum , in my little

6:59

quorum and by little I mean we

7:01

were maybe 30 guys we

7:04

had unemployment , underemployment

7:06

, we had an

7:09

elder in jail , we had

7:11

a son of an elder in jail

7:13

, we had drug addiction , alcohol

7:16

addiction . We had a troubled

7:18

marriage where an elder was concerned . His

7:20

wife was going to leave him . It

7:23

was just really rough . I was very concerned

7:25

for them . I

7:28

don't know if you recall , but back

7:30

a ways , the elder quorum presidency

7:32

got to teach the first Sunday

7:34

. It

7:37

was going to turn my turn

7:39

to teach and I honored

7:42

and prayed on this for a week

7:44

. In

7:46

that week I went out to a rehab facility

7:49

and visited and

7:51

I had an elder call me at 2

7:55

o'clock in the morning I want to go for a drive , talking

7:57

about his family and life and wife

7:59

. This

8:01

was heavy stuff and it was on my mind as

8:05

I prayed about it . I felt very strongly that I need

8:07

to give them a lesson about how we

8:09

can do hard things . But it

8:11

was very specific that it

8:13

wasn't to teach that just we could

8:16

do hard things . But there

8:18

was a condition we could do

8:20

hard things if

8:22

we aligned with the will of God , in

8:27

that we were guaranteed divine

8:31

intervention , divine assistance

8:33

and help . But

8:36

it was that key being aligned as

8:39

I was giving that lesson . A lot

8:43

of wonderful experiences in that lesson

8:46

where I knew the Spirit was guiding

8:48

me to talk to particular elders

8:50

in that lesson . It was a beautiful

8:52

experience for me . I don't know how much it

8:54

impacted them , but

8:57

at one point in the lesson I

8:59

wanted to illustrate to them the

9:02

degree to which

9:04

God could help . I

9:07

paused for a minute and this

9:10

idea came into my head . I said hey

9:12

guys , I could swim about 45

9:14

yards If I

9:16

had to . I could go out and I could swim 45 yards , but

9:18

if God wanted me to , I

9:21

could get into the English Channel and swim

9:23

across that . There

9:27

were some chuckles right . And

9:30

the funniest thing happened as soon as I said

9:33

it . The

9:35

Spirit said you

9:38

make that promise . And

9:44

so I did . And so began

9:46

a journey that would take

9:48

six years , and most

9:50

of that was me running

9:52

as fast as I could away from that promise

9:55

. So

9:58

, all told , the time that I actually

10:00

worked on this was probably about

10:02

a year and a half out of that

10:04

, those six years .

10:07

So I'm just going to interrupt you for one second

10:09

. For those

10:11

who were like me , you

10:14

think oh , swim the English Channel , no big

10:16

deal , it's just a channel , it's just a skinny

10:18

little river thing . Tell

10:21

us a little bit about the

10:23

facts of how

10:25

many people can swim the English Channel

10:27

. What makes it so hard and so dangerous and

10:29

such a huge , impossible feat ? You

10:31

shared one thing about the English Channel versus

10:34

Mount Everest

10:36

, so tell the listeners

10:38

why this is a big deal .

10:41

OK . Well

10:43

, the reason it's a big deal and the

10:45

funny part about the story is when

10:48

I made the promise I was completely

10:50

ignorant of any of this and

10:54

I think if I had known any of this I

10:56

probably would have second guessed

10:58

making that promise . And the

11:00

Lord knew that . I think he had

11:02

me make that promise in front of those elders as

11:05

witnesses and

11:08

then gradually I learned more about

11:10

what I had gotten into . So

11:12

the English Channel is at

11:15

its shortest . Crossing is

11:17

21 and a half miles . That's

11:20

from a little beach south or

11:22

west depending on whether you're American

11:25

or British , they tend to want to describe

11:27

things differently there of Dover

11:31

and it goes to a place called

11:33

Cap Grinée in France . And

11:36

the interesting part is you have

11:39

some north-south

11:41

currents there . So if you're a slow swimmer

11:43

then

11:45

you're going to be drifting north

11:47

and drifting south and drifting north again

11:50

throughout your swim

11:52

. So the swim total

11:54

for me was 35 miles . I

11:56

think the physics works in

11:59

the favor of just saying it's 21 miles and

12:01

the currents do the rest . But the boat

12:03

track was 35 . But

12:06

this , in relation to the Mount Everest

12:08

climb , is considered much

12:11

more difficult . More

12:14

people have died in attempting this

12:16

English Channel swim

12:18

and most people failed . In

12:22

fact , the average channel

12:24

crossing takes two attempts

12:26

to make that happen . So

12:31

anyway , I didn't know any of this . I didn't even know how far across

12:33

it was . I

12:35

didn't know how cold it was . It's 58

12:37

to 60 degrees best

12:40

in that water , yikes . So

12:43

when you think about tap water

12:45

here in Utah , scott , it's about

12:47

55 degrees . I don't know where

12:49

it is , where you're at . Let me show you .

12:52

It's a little warmer in Texas .

12:55

I don't know , not right now , right now it's still chilly . We've

12:57

got that Arctic , so

13:00

what was the ?

13:01

promise that you made to the

13:03

elders .

13:06

That I would go and swim the English Channel . It

13:10

was just given as an illustration of the difficulty

13:12

in saying that God could support us

13:14

in that sort of thing .

13:17

So it wasn't like a bargaining thing , it wasn't like if you

13:19

do this , then I'll swim . It

13:21

was just I'm going to swim the English

13:23

Channel Unilateral baby . There

13:26

you go Wow .

13:27

Okay . So

13:31

the English Channel , I

13:33

think , didn't really dawn on me . It

13:36

didn't really . I

13:39

had no comprehension of it . So I think about

13:42

a week after that I went out to the Spanish

13:44

fork Reservoir . It's a little . I call it the

13:46

cement pond in honor of the Beverly

13:49

Hills . It's a reservoir

13:51

that's completely made

13:54

of cement barriers all the way around and they

13:56

throw some sand down on it . I

13:59

don't know if either of you've ever been out there and

14:02

I decided to . I'll just

14:04

swim across . And

14:07

so I started out and hit it across and

14:09

then , prophetically , about

14:11

45 yards in , I started seeing

14:13

stars and I couldn't

14:15

catch my breath and

14:19

so I thought , I thought this was going to

14:21

be the end . Honestly , I was truly

14:23

afraid and I decided

14:26

that I was going to roll

14:28

over onto my back and try to catch my breath . And

14:30

I was still seeing stars . I thought it was going to pass

14:32

out , and

14:35

so I started just kind of sculling

14:38

my way on my back towards the

14:40

closest side and

14:44

I caught my breath finally and I just

14:46

turned to a side stroke and started

14:49

side stroking back to the beach and

14:52

I thought you know , this is great

14:54

, I can side stroke and I don't have

14:56

to worry about my breath . I can breathe anytime

14:58

I want . And

15:01

so I started training to swim the English Channel

15:03

by swimming side stroke . And

15:06

the funny part of that story is that the

15:08

first one of my days

15:10

out at Spanish Earth Reservoir , I think I went out

15:12

maybe six , seven

15:14

times . Sorry , I'm having a hard time with this

15:16

thing . And

15:21

then there was an event out at

15:23

Deer Creek Reservoir it's a beautiful

15:25

Reservoir up in Provo Canyon here

15:27

in Utah and

15:29

then I rented some swimmers . They

15:31

were in I figured they were real swimmers because

15:33

they were in neoprene , these

15:36

wetsuit thingies that keep them warm

15:38

. And I'm in my baggies

15:40

which , by the way , that was one

15:42

of the last lessons I learned in Spanish Oats Reservoir

15:44

you can't swim distance in baggies

15:47

or you will walk funny for the next

15:49

week . So

15:52

we're , I get up to to

15:54

Deer Creek and

15:58

the day of the event and I remember

16:00

walking up to the table and

16:02

it's like a running event . They have the table and you have

16:04

numbers and stuff , but they write your number in

16:07

a black marker on your shoulder and on your

16:09

cap and

16:12

I'm sitting there looking at this guy . It

16:14

turns out it's a guy named Josh Green . Josh

16:16

is fantastic individual , Really

16:19

does a lot for open water swimming in Utah

16:21

and he didn't really

16:23

pay attention to me and I wasn't really paying attention

16:25

to him . I just asked him a question and I said , cause

16:28

I'd gotten up to three miles in those seven

16:31

or so sessions in Spanish

16:33

Oats Reservoir and I thought three

16:36

miles is that's a 5K , I'd

16:38

signed up for the 5K . I should

16:40

really probably be challenging myself . So I

16:43

said , can I sign up for the 10K ? Hey

16:47

, he just kind of looks happy , Cause

16:49

I think he knew I was a side stroker and he's like

16:52

you can do whatever you'd like , but

16:54

make sure you have good boat support . And

16:58

I didn't . I had my wonderful

17:01

brother-in-law and

17:04

I think it was his first time in a kayak . Just

17:07

before the starting gun was supposed to go off he flipped

17:10

over and took some people to get him righted . But

17:14

at any rate , I was out on Deer Creek

17:16

and doing the side stroke and

17:18

the thing that people need to understand

17:21

is that swimming is different

17:23

from running . So a

17:25

10K is

17:28

a decent run , but

17:31

it is an official swim marathon

17:33

. That's an equivalent of running the

17:36

marathon distance and I had no

17:38

idea 26 miles .

17:40

right , like a marathon , running is 26

17:42

miles 23.6, .

17:44

I think is that oh 23.6, .

17:45

okay , yeah , I knew it somewhere around there .

17:47

Yeah , no , you're basically spot on

17:49

. So that

17:52

swim I'd signed up for . It'd be

17:54

like trying to go and do a marathon

17:56

when you'd gone out and trained seven

17:59

times . So

18:01

I'm out on and I call this by

18:03

first channel and the reason I call it that

18:05

is not even

18:08

in in preparing

18:11

to be obedient . The

18:13

Lord is with us Because

18:17

he helped

18:19

me to finish that swim and

18:22

the only person left was

18:24

my brother-in-law and as soon as he realized I was safe

18:26

and I could probably put my feet down , he

18:29

jetted for the dock and he was out of there getting the

18:31

boat out . We were six

18:33

hours on the water and

18:35

the only person left in the event was Josh

18:38

and I think he was a little

18:40

perturbed and I kind of got the moniker

18:42

of a side stroke bob in

18:45

the swimming community so

18:49

. But I also realized I couldn't

18:52

swim the channel and I probably

18:54

ought to figure out how far across it is . So

18:58

that's where training

19:00

started to become more serious . I

19:02

started working on crawl and being able

19:05

to actually swim , and

19:09

so I won't bore you with any details

19:11

of the training process , but I

19:13

would say that , in the things

19:16

that I learned , you need to have

19:18

a swim base of six

19:20

miles a

19:22

day , basically , so you

19:24

need to be swimming , basically

19:27

a swim marathon a day , and

19:31

you need to do that for about a year before

19:34

you attempt the channel . And

19:36

then and the reason I share

19:38

this is , I think I think Heavenly Father works

19:40

with us in a specific

19:43

way . I mean , he wants

19:45

us to see him

19:47

there . And

19:49

so after that August side

19:52

stroke bob event , I

19:54

talked to my good

19:56

friend and then Bishop Taylor

19:59

, and I

20:01

told him I need to get back out to Deer Creek . I've

20:04

got to at least get a 5K in where I'm

20:06

, you know , at least swimming

20:08

like a real swimmer . And

20:10

so he took me back out in late September

20:12

and I got a 5K

20:14

in and I decided I needed the 10K

20:16

by the end of the year . And

20:19

so that December literally New

20:21

Year's Eve , the pool Provo

20:23

Pool Manager

20:25

, that's back when it was over behind

20:27

the high school there in Provo . She

20:31

allowed me to even

20:33

through free swim and program

20:35

to have a lane on the far end

20:37

of the pool and I did a 10 mile

20:39

swim there and not a 10K but

20:41

a 10 mile . So

20:44

I had made a huge progress . And

20:46

with that came Ubers

20:48

. I thought this

20:50

is going to be easy , I'll knock this out

20:52

. So

20:54

I didn't train very well

20:56

and wasn't

20:59

disciplined . I thought , well , let's just put this off

21:01

swim season and start

21:04

in . June First

21:06

swim is the

21:09

Great Salt Lake open

21:11

water marathon . We

21:14

call it the G-Slow . At

21:17

any rate , I'd signed up for

21:19

that . It's a limited number of swimmers

21:21

can sign up for that . The sign-ups usually on that New

21:23

Year's Eve , so the day I did the

21:26

10 mile for the first time , I

21:29

also did the sign-up

21:31

for that Salt Lake swim in June and

21:33

I literally really didn't swim again until

21:36

like in May . And

21:39

then it turns out I had to re-roof my house in

21:42

that time period before the , so

21:44

I didn't get any real training in

21:46

and I went out to swim

21:49

and it was a brutal swim . A

21:51

brutal swim , beautiful

21:54

swim . I

21:56

mean people don't realize

21:59

what beauty

22:01

is out there . We got started

22:04

on the South end of Antelope

22:06

Island and it's almost

22:08

Caribbean , like in

22:11

the water , and

22:13

the water of course is very different . Right , I

22:15

had Taylor yells from the boat and says can

22:17

you really just float ? And so I just

22:20

laid on my back and did nothing . Yeah

22:22

, but

22:24

it also presents as difficult . It doesn't make

22:27

the swim easier , it actually makes it harder . You're

22:30

faster because you're more buoyant . But

22:33

I remember one time Taylor handed me a drink and

22:37

I went to take the cap off and so I have both

22:39

hands up and just

22:41

trying to tread with my feet

22:43

right , which is no problem . You do that , you

22:46

know , and so . But

22:48

my feet got

22:50

displaced slightly

22:53

under me and back behind me and they shot

22:55

for the surface behind me . So I'm

22:57

diving forward into the water

22:59

and . I can't recover and I'm trying to hold

23:02

the cap and the bottle and try to . So

23:05

it's a different experience to swim

23:07

in the salt lake , but we covered eight miles there

23:09

.

23:09

What about the salt water ? Does it get in your ?

23:11

mouth .

23:11

The smell .

23:13

Yeah , so it doesn't

23:15

stink . Lisa out in

23:17

the middle , it's beautiful out there

23:20

.

23:20

Okay , so it's only by the shoreline

23:22

that it's super stinky .

23:24

Right and it can be really bad . I

23:26

don't know if you've seen Brinefly Scott . Have

23:28

you ever been out there ? They're so bad , brinefly

23:31

. Oh , it's like a thick film

23:33

of black or reddish black

23:35

on the water and

23:38

these are living little creatures that

23:40

you're gonna breathe them in . Yeah , so

23:46

I finished that swim . It

23:48

was a miserable experience and at the same time

23:50

beautiful . And when you're out in the middle

23:52

there's black lava

23:55

rock under the salt lake

23:57

, really , and pure

23:59

white sand is kind of intermingled

24:02

into that black rock and it's like flying

24:05

over the Rocky Mountains in

24:08

a snowy but not quite snow capped

24:11

period it's just gorgeous .

24:13

Wow , that's really cool .

24:15

So , but anyway , I

24:21

didn't really realize how

24:23

much work this was gonna be until

24:26

that point and I signed

24:28

up again for the Deer Creek Swim . Again

24:30

, I didn't get the discipline and

24:33

do the things I needed to do and

24:35

I actually popped

24:37

and I don't know how to describe

24:39

it any more than that both shoulders

24:41

in that 10 mile swim

24:44

at

24:46

Deer Creek and

24:48

it probably would have been wise

24:50

to be towed back in . But

24:52

at that point I had this idea that I needed

24:55

to finish Now

24:58

and so I suffered

25:00

these injuries in both shoulders

25:02

. I couldn't raise them any far , I

25:04

couldn't raise my arms any farther than this went

25:08

to the doctor and they said you could have surgery

25:10

or you can do the physical

25:12

therapy route . And we didn't have

25:14

really any

25:16

money . My

25:19

business was collapsing at this time and

25:22

taking a lot of time and

25:27

I kind of had this feeling

25:29

that okay , how many bother you

25:31

wanted me to do this . But now look what's happening to me and

25:33

I was disregarding my own responsibility

25:36

and this whole process and

25:40

I was starting to develop , with

25:42

the difficulty , I was starting to develop these

25:44

fears of failure and

25:48

for me that was a trigger and

25:51

we talk about it on the introduction that

25:54

navigating the murky waters of addiction

25:57

, and that

26:01

was me and that should have been added

26:03

to problems in that old

26:05

form pornography addiction and

26:12

when I was eight years old

26:14

I had a friend invite

26:16

me to look at some

26:19

things and within a

26:22

short amount of time I was addicted as an

26:24

eight year old . And so parents

26:27

when and that was way before

26:30

internet . So when parents

26:33

are considering when to talk about

26:35

some of these things early

26:38

, talk about it early , and

26:41

I couldn't really break this addiction

26:43

for 35 years . And

26:46

in this process I

26:50

developed this idea that I wasn't good . I

26:52

wasn't a good person , I

26:55

couldn't be good because only bad people

26:57

looked at pornography . And

27:00

so and I fought it . I

27:02

fought it hard . I would say that most

27:04

of my life I was not looking at pornography , but

27:07

I could never get away . I could never

27:09

disconnect or

27:11

, in particularly anytime

27:14

, things came up where

27:16

I couldn't feel good about myself

27:18

or I knew I was

27:20

gonna fail or I had failed

27:22

. Failure was my biggest trigger

27:24

. And so here I

27:26

am in the addiction recovery program

27:29

. I promised

27:31

my heavenly father that I would start

27:33

with that , and that was when

27:35

I was an Elders Quorum president . I was

27:37

in a period of sobriety . So

27:39

sobriety is not conquering addiction , it's

27:43

putting it off . You're

27:46

not healing . I

27:49

would say it's better than you

27:51

know .

27:52

Better than being in it right .

27:53

Exactly because at least you have an opportunity

27:56

for some light . So

28:01

and I'd gone on a business trip and

28:04

I had come

28:07

really close to just sliding to relapsing and I told

28:09

Heavenly Father , okay

28:11

, I must be an addict . I

28:13

kind of told myself and anybody else who would

28:16

listen if they ever

28:18

found out that I wasn't

28:20

an addict , and

28:23

so I promised I would start going to

28:25

these addiction recovery classes . And

28:27

so I think part of what happened in that Elders Quorum meeting

28:30

, when the Spirit said you do this , I

28:33

was like , okay , I'm gonna go to

28:35

the hospital . When the Spirit said you do

28:37

this , you make that promise

28:40

, I

28:42

was in the middle of really

28:44

trying to put my hands around step three

28:46

, where you turn your life and will over to

28:48

the Lord , jesus Christ and Heavenly Father

28:51

and you let

28:53

them drive . And so here

28:55

I recognize it as the Spirit

28:57

and I'm letting it drive , right

28:59

, and this

29:02

is a year removed from this and things

29:04

are difficult . Now I'm injured and

29:07

I was afraid , and so

29:09

I thought if I

29:12

just let it go away , then

29:15

I wouldn't have to deal with it , and

29:17

that's kind of the strategy I took . And

29:20

then the business failed all the way . I

29:23

was having a hard time finding work , lots

29:25

of things like this . And my

29:27

wife bless her heart . She always

29:29

wants to send me to the temple . You

29:33

know , go find a good place to pray

29:35

and ponder and come up with a good answer of why

29:37

we're doing this . And I looked at her and I said I'm

29:40

not gonna get an answer if I go to the temple . She

29:43

said look at how my that's a great place

29:45

, you know , you could feel the Spirit there . So

29:47

I know , but I'm

29:49

not keeping my promise to

29:51

my Heavenly Father . I'm

29:53

not gonna get any

29:55

direction and I

29:58

felt the Spirit when I said that . I was like okay

30:01

, and I looked at her and I said I gotta

30:04

do this . She just well , don't look at me , you're

30:06

the one who's making

30:09

excuses . So

30:12

it was back to training and then we're about a year and a half

30:14

out . I knew one of the things I had to do was to

30:17

actually set a date and

30:19

actually get in , get

30:22

it on the calendar , and

30:24

so I'm training

30:27

and I'm trying to

30:29

get up to

30:31

that six miles a day . And

30:34

if you think about it , if

30:37

you're trying to run a

30:40

marathon every day , then

30:43

you're , and

30:45

I am so stupid . Lacea

30:47

Scott , I am one of the dumbest people on

30:49

this planet because I

30:52

approach this thing as I'm just Greg . If

30:55

I had approached it as okay , you're now

30:57

an endurance athlete , I

31:00

would have asked myself what training

31:02

really looked like . What does nutrition

31:04

look like ? I'm

31:07

just Greg , I

31:09

swim six miles . I'll do it again tomorrow

31:11

and

31:13

my body starts to fall apart . I

31:16

think I'm still the only senior

31:19

class .

31:21

I was gonna say how old were you at this point .

31:25

Yeah , at that point I

31:27

think the

31:29

swim , I was almost

31:31

52 . So that

31:33

would have I'm over 50 in

31:37

this training and I

31:39

don't know . At least you probably

31:41

don't have sleep apnea . I probably never have

31:43

. And , scott , I'm not gonna put you

31:45

out , I'm not gonna put you on the limb .

31:48

No , my husband's had it and it

31:51

is scary , like my husband has it

31:54

, and there are times where I'm just like , are

31:56

you alive ? Breathe

31:58

? Yeah , it's

32:00

insane .

32:02

So you had that . Yeah , I

32:04

had sleep apnea and I had tried

32:06

a couple of years before I tried the CPAP machine

32:08

and it wasn't working . It would . Just it

32:11

gets locked on your cheeks here and

32:13

it just starts loving and

32:15

so it wakes you up as much as the

32:17

apnea did , and that gave me jaw

32:19

pain when I tried to tighten up to prevent that . So

32:21

I got rid of it . So

32:23

I'm not getting

32:26

the nourishment that I need . I don't

32:28

have a special diet . And

32:31

I'm trying to do this and I'm

32:33

not sleeping , I'm literally

32:35

dying . And

32:38

my doctor's telling me this and

32:41

always sends me back to the temple and

32:47

I remember sitting

32:50

there in the celestial room and pacing temple and

32:56

thinking you know , all these guys

32:58

in lamblet's form , what's the point ? The

33:01

guys , the how of these problems . They don't

33:03

have these problems , or at least not the same problems

33:05

. They've all worked through their

33:07

stuff . What do I have to prove ? Why

33:09

do I have to do this ? Can

33:13

I quit ? And the

33:16

spirit was like , yes , you can quit

33:18

, but you're gonna have health problems . And

33:21

I was like I really have health

33:23

problems . You know I'm dying

33:25

here . And

33:30

it was just . I won't

33:32

go through the details , but what

33:35

immediately transpired was

33:37

the understanding that I needed

33:39

to address things about my health , because

33:42

the apnea and

33:44

at least I'm sure your husband's doctor has

33:46

spoken at some length on this that

33:49

the apnea will kill you and

33:52

if you're not addressing it . And

33:56

so I have these things , I have to worry

33:58

about health wise , and I've just never done it . And

34:00

so I began that process

34:03

of finding a solution

34:05

to the sleep apnea and

34:07

I began working for a process

34:10

for nutrition and

34:13

in that process I learned a

34:15

lot of things about myself . There

34:17

were some answers to Holly's prayers

34:19

about my health and

34:22

I really won't spend a lot of time on that

34:24

. If

34:27

somebody wants that story , go

34:29

to my website , reach out to me , tell me you

34:31

can't buy the book , so I'll

34:34

send you the ebook

34:37

or I'll give you a link to the audio books if you promise

34:39

not to share them . So anyway

34:43

. But the point is there

34:46

were a ton of miracles in this process

34:48

, but the greatest miracle and certainly

34:50

back to a point I wanna make about how

34:52

Heavenly Father deals with us yeah

34:56

, I was at a point of pride and then

34:59

I was a point at fear , and

35:02

Heavenly Father wants me to know that

35:04

he's there . Right , what's

35:06

the point of making a promise

35:08

just from the English channel and then physically

35:10

preparing yourself to be able to do it without God

35:13

? What

35:15

message does that give anybody ? What

35:19

message does it give me With

35:21

? Failure is one of my huge

35:23

triggers in life . I've started

35:25

and shuttered many businesses that

35:28

didn't work out . It's

35:32

a big problem in my life . Here

35:35

I am facing this monumental

35:37

, one of the more difficult

35:39

things a human can try to do A

35:43

lot of fear . What does the Lord

35:46

do ? He decides

35:48

that I need surgery . I

35:53

have to undergo surgery . I

35:56

think it was March 31st . I was supposed

35:58

to swim in August . The base is you're supposed

36:00

to swim six miles a day for

36:03

a year . I

36:09

know that I'm not going to be able to breathe until

36:12

the surgery is done . I

36:14

know that if the surgery is done I

36:16

likely will not be able to swim across the channel

36:18

. I

36:23

have to have the surgery . I have the surgery . It

36:26

takes about three weeks before

36:29

you can build back up to

36:31

the base . It's just

36:33

incredibly hard to be

36:35

out of the water for two weeks to three weeks

36:37

and then try to go

36:39

out and swim six miles . It just doesn't

36:42

work that way . It

36:44

took me time to recover or ramp

36:46

back up . The

36:49

morning after my first

36:51

six-mile swim I'm

36:55

putting my socks on

36:57

. I realize that

36:59

I've got bruises in both

37:01

calves . I

37:04

was like that's really odd . How do I have bruises

37:07

in both calves ? I look at my calves . There are no

37:09

bruising . I can

37:11

feel them very pointed and I put my

37:13

fingers on each spot and

37:15

I can feel my pulse underneath those

37:17

bruises very painfully . I

37:21

realize I have blood clots .

37:23

Blood clots yeah , that's what I was just thinking .

37:26

I go back into my doctor and

37:28

he says , greg

37:31

, you've got blood clots

37:33

, not just one , you have a

37:35

lot . What are you doing differently

37:37

? I had been taking

37:40

heavy dose protein

37:42

in order to

37:44

repair and build muscle it

37:47

had been doing great . My

37:49

body , I learned , does

37:52

not process protein the

37:54

proper way . I

37:57

now have to be out of the water for another

38:00

three weeks while we wait for

38:02

the medication to break up those blood clots

38:04

so I don't get a pulmonary embolism

38:06

or something more exciting

38:08

. I'm

38:11

rolling into this summer

38:13

swim season and

38:16

I've lost a month

38:18

and a half of not being

38:20

at my base . Within

38:23

a month of that , my daughter gets married

38:25

. We have all the wedding events . I'm

38:28

literally out of the water like

38:31

two months out of the last

38:33

, a month and a half out of the last four , little

38:37

more than that . There's

38:39

no way I succeed . I

38:42

know that it

38:44

is weighing on me tremendously . In

38:47

fact , I knew

38:49

that

38:54

it was going to be a miracle if

38:57

I succeeded . I

38:59

knew it would be God

39:01

. That did not mean

39:04

I realized when we were over

39:06

in England that

39:11

Let me explain something really fast . You don't

39:13

set a date . I remember I told you

39:15

I wanted to put it on the calendar . We did . We put it on the calendar

39:17

. What you

39:20

do is you call or email a boat captain that

39:22

specializes in channel crossings . You

39:24

have to be authorized by Channel

39:27

Swimming Association or the CSPF

39:29

or Channel Swimming and Pile Day Federation in

39:32

order for the coast guard of Her

39:36

Majesty's Coast Guard to support your swim

39:38

, because that's the busiest natural

39:40

shipping lane in the world . Some

39:44

flow Utah

39:46

, it's over 50 out

39:48

there in the middle of the shipping lane is not

39:51

a good idea . The

39:54

Coast Guard there for England will

39:56

allow that , but they need to know who

39:59

you are , that you're with a registered pilot

40:01

or captain of a boat

40:03

and that they're in communication

40:05

with the Coast Guard and with those ships . It's

40:10

also weather dependent . The

40:12

channel can be extraordinarily

40:15

continkers . It's not a friendly body

40:17

of water . All the time when

40:24

you set a date you're picking

40:26

a tide , a neat tide , or a

40:29

period of time

40:31

when the high tide and low tide

40:33

is the lowest difference , because

40:36

that's going to have the least pull on you . It's

40:39

kind of like five days . I knew

40:41

I was going to swim . A certain window we

40:43

flew out to England and we're doing low training

40:46

swims on the beach and

40:48

in the Dover Harbor . Then

40:53

it came time for the pilot

40:56

to call and say it's time . You

40:59

don't really get to psychologically

41:02

brace yourself and say on

41:04

the 17th of August I'm

41:06

going to swim the English Channel . It's

41:11

a little more troubling

41:14

if you're an emotional

41:17

wreck like I was at the time . The

41:25

Channel swim had

41:27

to be Heavenly Father's doing

41:30

his success . I

41:33

knew that After

41:35

the pilot had told us we're going to swim

41:37

that night , which was really the next morning . Monday

41:39

morning it was Sunday We'd

41:42

gone to church there in England . Wonderful experience

41:44

. I

41:47

was in a graveyard of all my Mock-It ancestors

41:49

, which was fascinating . That the Lord

41:51

sends me to a place that my

41:54

family history is from . That's

41:58

where the pilot calls me Really

42:01

.

42:04

While you're in or surrounded by your ancestors

42:06

.

42:07

That is correct , wow . The

42:11

point I want to make is that I

42:14

woke up that Sunday morning we

42:16

didn't have a call slot

42:19

yet . We knew we were a slot one , but

42:21

we'd get the best conditions

42:23

on the tide we

42:26

didn't know when . That's

42:29

up to the pilot to figure out . We're

42:32

going to church . It's a

42:34

beautiful morning , absolutely

42:36

sunny . My friend Taylor

42:39

, who's been with me on all my training

42:41

swims , says that the first

42:43

one in September when I tried to break

42:46

out of my side stroke Bob-ness

42:48

Taylor

42:51

is with us in England and his wife

42:54

and my wife , taylor

42:56

, gets it into his head that he wants

42:59

to take this long , meandering

43:01

drive through the English countryside

43:04

there in Kent before we go to

43:06

church . All I have in

43:10

my head is

43:14

I need to take the sacrament . I

43:20

need to make sure I'm 100% right

43:22

with God . It

43:26

was a desperate , very

43:28

desperate need . I

43:31

found myself being angry with Taylor

43:34

for his touring

43:37

the countryside . We

43:40

pulled in I think it was right at 9 o'clock

43:42

. I bolted out of the car and

43:44

ran straight into the chapel

43:47

without anybody and realized they hadn't

43:49

even started the meeting . They were probably going to be about

43:51

five minutes late . Add

43:53

that attitude and unkindness

43:56

to lift the things I wanted

43:58

to present to the Lord during the

44:00

sacrament . The

44:02

Lord has a way of

44:05

making sure that

44:09

you're sure that

44:11

it's Him . I

44:14

was not on my base and

44:18

absolutely

44:20

convinced that I couldn't make this work . We

44:26

get into the swim later

44:29

that night . In the morning it's

44:32

pitch black . It's 2 am . You

44:36

need to understand . I also have a deathly fear

44:38

of the ocean . I grew up in Florida

44:40

. I can swim on alligators

44:43

. I have done so , it's

44:46

just not a problem . But

44:50

sharks are a different story and

44:54

the Discovery Channel was running ads

44:56

for Shark Week the

44:58

whole week before we flew to England . It's

45:01

like come

45:05

on . So

45:08

it's 2 am in the morning and

45:11

I don't even know how I'm going to start my

45:13

swim . I don't know if it's a beach , I don't know if it's

45:15

a rock . I swim up to a cliff and

45:17

put my hand against the cliff . It's a legal

45:19

start as well in

45:21

the channel swimming world . And

45:27

so I've got all this internal going and

45:31

I guess one of the deck hands

45:34

for the pilot comes up to me and looking

45:36

over the side and pitch black water and

45:40

he says

45:43

it's going

45:45

to get a lot more turbulent outside the harbor

45:47

. Could

45:51

you have said anything better ? I

45:53

mean , could you ? And then he looks at

45:55

me and he sees that I haven't engaged

45:58

in him at all and he says don't

46:01

worry . It won't be like that where you start . And

46:04

so , fortunately , fortunately

46:08

, Paul

46:10

, my pilot let

46:13

me off in where I was

46:15

going to swim short to a beach , and he puts a little

46:17

spotlight onto the beach . So the only thing

46:19

I can see are these gray little main

46:21

cliffs they're

46:24

the white cliffs of Dover , but they're

46:27

gray in the pitch back black

46:29

night and he's got the spotlight on the beach

46:31

and I can see the beach and

46:33

it's covered in rock

46:36

, but little smooth

46:38

, round rocks about the size of golf balls and

46:40

I was like , ok , at

46:43

least this is good . And the boat was going kind

46:46

of doing this up and down thing , right , and

46:48

moving with the swells and

46:52

anyway , all

46:56

my training I hadn't trained in the ocean . So

46:59

I'm getting out and I've got these shark

47:01

fears and I

47:04

get my grease on and

47:07

my goggles on over my cap and

47:09

they get the lights hooked up . So

47:11

I have a beacon on my back of my cap

47:13

and a beacon on the back of my shorts as

47:19

a safety precaution in case of fog , so

47:22

that they can find me , know which direction

47:24

I'm going in , and

47:26

I'm walking towards the ladder

47:29

and

47:31

there's just this quiet

47:34

resolve that I've

47:37

got to do this and

47:40

I couldn't let Holly down because it was so

47:42

hard for her , so hard

47:44

that I was doing this crazy thing that made no

47:46

sense to her . She

47:49

never , despite any of my prayers

47:51

or hers , got any kind of witness

47:53

that this was something I was supposed

47:55

to do . And

47:58

. But I owed her

48:00

this . I put her through

48:02

so much trouble . I owed her this , and

48:05

I owed Taylor for investing in

48:07

me , and I owed a

48:09

handful of friends who , at

48:12

the last minute , put up the money that needed

48:14

to happen for this to

48:17

transpire , and each

48:19

of them angels . And

48:22

as I'm descending the ladder , I

48:24

suddenly find myself with a calm

48:27

but this

48:29

realization that maybe

48:31

the most important danger is

48:33

the prop under the boat . Where's

48:36

the prop ? Is it in the center , is

48:38

it on the sides ? And how

48:40

am I supposed to get in the water ? And I thought your

48:43

pilot is not going to let you

48:45

go down this ladder without your

48:47

safety in mind . So I get in

48:49

the water and it's cold . It's

48:52

so incredibly cold . And

48:54

I thought I've trained in cold water . Why

48:57

is this ? And then I realized

48:59

in all my training I

49:01

had two methods of training for cold water . One was

49:03

the bath tub with ice cubes

49:06

. That proved helpful . The

49:09

walking into cold

49:11

water slowly and gradually

49:14

, controlling my breath . You don't

49:16

walk into the water off the back

49:18

of a boat . One minute

49:20

you're on the boat and one minute you're

49:22

in the water , and

49:25

so I thought to myself Greg , you , idiot

49:27

, you should have thought of this . So

49:30

this just gives you an idea of how naive

49:33

the whole journey has been . Even to

49:35

stepping off the back of the boat , it was completely

49:38

naive . So

49:40

the swim gets underway . There

49:44

are a lot of things that I could relate about

49:46

swim , but

49:49

there's one I really feel like that's important

49:51

, related to the

49:55

message that God is with us

49:57

and when we're

49:59

doing the things , when we're aligned

50:01

with his will , when we're doing what he

50:03

wants us to do . About

50:07

four hours into the swim , the

50:10

weather had changed

50:12

. The sea was

50:15

not calm like it was in the little

50:17

bay where I swam to shore and

50:22

I am swimming just outside the light

50:24

. They put a light

50:26

in the water . There's lights

50:28

under the water on the boat

50:30

and then there's a spotlight that let the

50:32

beach was now pointed down onto the water

50:34

next to the boat , and

50:37

I'm supposed to swim in the light . But

50:40

every time I turn to look

50:42

at the boat , that light shatters

50:44

through all the droplets on my goggles and

50:47

it's blinding . It's like somebody

50:49

hitting you with their brights in a rainstorm

50:51

while you're driving at night . You can't

50:54

see and you have to just trust . And

50:57

so I decided I would swim outside the

50:59

light just about a little ways , and

51:01

the weather started getting rough . The waves

51:03

were , I'd say

51:05

, two

51:07

feet , maybe foot and a half to two feet , and

51:11

that's not a big deal , except that

51:13

it's the ocean and I hadn't

51:15

really trained in waves , not

51:18

like that anyway . And

51:21

so it got bad . Enough

51:23

that you know how physics

51:25

you can have two waves meet at the top

51:28

and it's twice the height

51:30

, as if the waves had

51:32

met , one down

51:34

here and one high , one at the midpoint

51:37

, one at the high , or

51:39

they can meet at the bottom and

51:42

so it can be deeper

51:44

and higher than the normal

51:46

wave height . I was getting dropped four feet

51:48

. Coming

51:51

through a crest , I could drop four feet , and

51:53

then some I'd come through and it would be perfectly

51:55

level . And all of this

51:57

was confusing to me because it's

51:59

very hard to breathe and

52:02

real swimmers learn to

52:04

breathe on both sides . They breathe out

52:06

this side , they breathe out this

52:08

side , and

52:11

so for them , if they missed this breath , they

52:13

come back to the stroke and over here and catch

52:16

it there , so they're literally a

52:18

half second away from their next breath . I

52:22

never developed the ability to breathe

52:24

from both sides , so

52:26

I was right side only and if I missed this

52:29

one it was back here and

52:31

then back out this side the next time

52:33

around , and

52:37

sometimes I was getting maybe

52:39

one breath and

52:41

five . And

52:44

that's not only scary

52:46

because

52:49

you could drown right

52:51

. Yeah , it's scary

52:54

, but it's

52:56

frustrating because when

53:00

am I going to breathe , when am I going to get the next

53:02

breath ? And

53:04

so I'm really struggling with

53:07

this and I finally figure out a pattern . But

53:09

in order for the pattern to work , I have

53:11

to stay at a certain speed . If

53:14

I break that speed , I break the pattern and I'm back

53:16

into this confusing place of where

53:19

am I going to get my next breath ? At

53:21

least I knew which of

53:23

the next five breaths were

53:25

going to be successful Because

53:29

, as you can imagine , waves are breaking over your head

53:31

at the same time . It's not a rolling

53:33

wave , but it's kind of a

53:35

wave just kind of goes over you , not

53:38

breaking like on the shore . So

53:41

I'm singularly focused

53:44

in this most

53:46

trying part

53:48

of the

53:51

whole swim challenge at this point , and

53:54

I'm singularly focused on breathing . I'm

53:57

a little aware of the fact that the

54:00

roles of the waves are coming from my left

54:02

side because I'm

54:04

having a harder and harder time getting my left

54:06

arm out of the water and

54:10

it's having to lift a tremendous amount

54:12

of water on top of it . Well

54:15

, we're about four hours , five

54:17

hours into the swim and

54:20

it's time for a feed every

54:22

half hour . You go an hour

54:25

before first feed and then half hours after that

54:27

you get a feed and it's like

54:29

a drinking bottle that

54:31

you can squeeze . The

54:34

valve on top is a one-way valve so you're

54:36

not getting seawater in it while you

54:38

have to bring it down to the tread or whatever

54:40

. Coming

54:43

for a feed and Taylor yells from the boat you're

54:46

doing great . I

54:50

feel like you have no idea how hard

54:52

this is . And

54:55

Holly looks you're doing

54:57

great . Honey , keep it up . Are

55:02

they blind , you know

55:04

?

55:05

What are ?

55:05

they . You know , and I thought to

55:07

myself I can't do , I can't keep this

55:09

up . What are we ? Four hours in

55:11

? This is gonna go 16 hours . There's

55:15

no way I can do this that long . And

55:18

I'm letting that work in my thoughts

55:21

. And if that

55:23

thought's not there , then the thought is where's my next

55:25

breath ? Right or my

55:27

shoulder's hurting , my left shoulder's starting to hurt

55:29

now , and so it's . I'm

55:33

into this process and I

55:35

can't do this . I can't do this , and

55:37

the next feed comes around . So I've gone a half hour

55:39

and I decided that's

55:41

it . I just couldn't do it . And

55:45

the idea was , if you tag the boat

55:47

or you touch the boat or

55:49

support your weight in any way by the boat , then

55:52

your swim's done , and

55:55

so I put my head down and

55:57

swam for the boat and

55:59

I got to the side of the boat and I

56:01

smacked it hard

56:03

. I was angry , I was frustrated

56:06

, I was scared . I

56:09

wanted the safety of the boat . And

56:12

as I was swimming through the boat , everybody on the boat

56:14

knew what I was doing . They were up there yelling and screaming

56:16

, keep going , keep going , keep going

56:18

, and then I

56:21

hit the boat and

56:23

so then I just kind of came back like

56:25

okay , what's the process for getting

56:27

back on the boat ? And

56:31

they're all yelling

56:34

. None of them got the fact that I quit

56:37

, and I

56:40

finally heard one voice that said 10

56:43

more minutes , 10 more minutes

56:45

or 12

56:47

hours away , at least 11

56:50

. But

56:52

I thought , oh , maybe the

56:54

wave direction will change and

56:57

maybe it will light enough a little and

56:59

I'll be able to breathe better . I can do

57:01

10 more minutes . You

57:03

don't learn all the details , right ? I mean

57:05

, I'm in the water , I'm face down , I see the boat

57:07

and the water , boat , water , boat , water , boat , water

57:10

. But

57:12

the people in the boat see something different

57:14

right . And

57:16

so long after the swim I'm talking

57:19

to Taylor and he says why

57:21

did you quit ? I

57:24

said , wait me , why did I quit ? My arm

57:26

was hurting , I couldn't breathe , I scared the

57:28

death and you know it wasn't

57:31

. Oh , and

57:33

, by the way , paul had leaned over , very helpfully

57:36

, over the rail . The pilot Now

57:38

, and I said you don't know how hard this is

57:40

he leans over the rail , he says he's

57:42

a great conditions and

57:45

I just shot every ounce

57:47

of hope out of me

57:50

. Taylor's asking me after this one says why

57:52

did you quit ? You

57:54

were doing so well . I said that's just

57:56

what you tell me to try

57:58

and encourage me . He says no , I

58:00

had GPS track going . You

58:03

were swimming faster than you ever swam

58:05

in your life . You

58:09

were a hell of a wave You've never

58:12

seen before . We

58:14

thought it was a miracle that

58:18

you were still in it and

58:21

the message there is that

58:24

life is like that , addiction

58:26

is like that , but

58:29

if we're trying , we're

58:31

doing so much better than

58:33

we think we are . We just

58:35

don't have the perspective , we

58:38

can't see how well we're doing

58:40

. So

58:42

that in and

58:44

of itself demonstrated miracles

58:46

that I just wasn't even aware of . And

58:50

so I turned and

58:52

I headed back

58:54

towards France and

58:57

I'm swimming . What they meant was

58:59

they were going to put the support swimmer in , which , by the

59:01

way , is very disconcerting in England

59:03

, because in America , an open water swimmer

59:05

, we call the support swimmer a support

59:07

swimmer . And

59:10

in the first meeting with the pilot he says go

59:13

and rescue swimmer . And

59:16

suddenly it dawned on me why the

59:18

rules required that you had your support swimmer

59:20

, because their job was to get you out

59:23

of the water if something went wrong . So

59:28

this guy we picked up on the beach

59:30

in Dover . He

59:32

was training for a swim and he

59:34

said yeah , I'll come swim

59:36

with you . So that's what they

59:38

were doing . They were going to say Greg's alone

59:40

, we're going to put somebody in the water with him . But

59:44

they put him in the water outside

59:46

of my view . They put him on my left side . So

59:49

I was like oh okay , well , and

59:52

I had this thought . You know Steve

59:55

agreed to this because , a we're

59:57

paying him , but B he's never been in the

59:59

open ocean before . He wants to take his

1:00:01

crack at the English Channel later and I'm

1:00:03

doing him a huge disservice If I quit

1:00:06

now . He can't get his shot at swimming

1:00:08

in the water . So I can

1:00:10

go half hour for Steve , I can do it

1:00:12

for Steve . So

1:00:15

we're swimming along and probably

1:00:17

10 minutes I can't be more

1:00:20

. You lose track of time , but it

1:00:22

felt like 10 minutes . And I'm looking

1:00:24

over and the boat has stopped and

1:00:26

I'm like do I keep going ? Am I

1:00:28

supposed to stop , you know ? And I

1:00:31

keep swimming and I

1:00:33

see the back of the boat . Steve

1:00:35

is climbing up the back of the boat . Our

1:00:39

British rescue swimmer is not

1:00:41

in the water . What's , what's , what gives

1:00:43

with this ? I thought

1:00:45

, oh , these people , and

1:00:48

it wouldn't let me quit . But they're letting

1:00:50

this supposed British

1:00:53

rescue swimmer back in the boat . And

1:00:56

I had this thought if they don't care

1:00:58

if I die , then why do I care

1:01:01

if I die ?

1:01:02

Oh , my God .

1:01:04

And I've been swimming

1:01:06

along and I realized that I was doing just fine

1:01:08

again when I was worried

1:01:10

about Steve and

1:01:12

then it dawned on me . I

1:01:16

haven't been involving my heavenly father , that's

1:01:19

his swim , not mine

1:01:21

, and I'm leaving him out

1:01:23

of it . In fact it

1:01:25

was kind of funny because I said and

1:01:27

I realized I hadn't been talking to him for

1:01:29

a long time when have you been ? That

1:01:34

was in my heart . Where have you been ? You

1:01:36

know what I've been going through ? And

1:01:40

the impression was that

1:01:42

I've been here the whole time

1:01:44

. It's you who have left me

1:01:46

. And I

1:01:52

just felt so strongly that I

1:01:55

needed to reconnect and get back

1:01:57

to why I was there , and

1:01:59

that was to fulfill God's

1:02:02

purposes . Why was he wanting

1:02:04

me here ? And

1:02:08

I told heavenly father . I said you know I'm

1:02:11

here . I

1:02:15

don't believe that

1:02:18

I'm here For

1:02:20

whatever that counts for . I need

1:02:22

your help and

1:02:25

the spirit whispered

1:02:27

back give

1:02:30

me one problem at

1:02:32

a time .

1:02:35

Wow .

1:02:38

And I

1:02:43

said to my father . Well

1:02:45

, I

1:02:48

have lots of problems , but

1:02:51

I'm getting sick . So much stuff If

1:02:54

I throw up I

1:02:56

could drown and this

1:02:59

will be over , and if we're doing this

1:03:01

then it can't be over

1:03:03

. So

1:03:06

I need help . If

1:03:08

you take the

1:03:10

sickness away and I knew that

1:03:13

I was getting sick from

1:03:16

the salt and

1:03:20

I knew that

1:03:22

there wasn't much escaping salt and

1:03:25

so in my mind I

1:03:28

really needed heavenly father , to address

1:03:30

this . There's nothing I could do . And

1:03:33

the next feed the

1:03:36

bottle comes flying back out at me

1:03:38

and it's

1:03:40

thrown on a line . Taylor

1:03:44

holds one into the line and he throws the bottle

1:03:46

out . And this time they attached

1:03:48

a little baggy the

1:03:51

ziplock baggy on the tape

1:03:53

to the bottom of the bottle and

1:03:55

it had some little candies

1:03:58

in it . And

1:04:03

I wasn't thinking . If I had

1:04:05

thought about it I wouldn't even try , but

1:04:08

I squeezed down . You know you want to keep

1:04:10

going as fast as you can , so

1:04:12

you want to try and take 30 seconds or less

1:04:14

on your feed . So

1:04:17

I get that fluid in and then I

1:04:19

open the baggy and I just pop the

1:04:21

two gummies in my mouth and

1:04:25

I'm

1:04:28

chewing and chewing

1:04:30

and chewing is

1:04:32

getting stuck in my teeth . They

1:04:34

have . Who in the world had this

1:04:36

brilliant idea and I'm

1:04:39

trying to spit these gummies out while

1:04:41

swimming . You know I'm trying

1:04:43

to breathe and spit , and and

1:04:46

then it occurs to me that I

1:04:49

don't taste the

1:04:51

salt .

1:04:53

And .

1:04:58

The gummies were stuck in my teeth , so

1:05:01

it lasted for probably

1:05:04

10 minutes , maybe 15 , and

1:05:07

I was given a direct blessing and

1:05:12

with the flavor of salt going

1:05:14

away , that Triggering

1:05:18

of , of that kind of wanting

1:05:20

to retch I don't know if you've ever been in super salty

1:05:22

water , but it gives you the feeling this one throw

1:05:25

up , it's the taste that's doing that . I

1:05:27

had also taken on a lot of salt water

1:05:29

in my stomach and I was aware of

1:05:32

that because of all those waves and

1:05:34

trying to be able to handle that . But

1:05:36

the first miracle on the

1:05:38

water was the

1:05:41

gummies and Steve , or a rescue swimmer

1:05:43

, had brought the , the gummies

1:05:45

, as a little snack for himself

1:05:47

during that trip . I

1:05:50

thought it was a great idea . Yeah , give me

1:05:52

some of these . So

1:05:55

my naive wife

1:05:57

and swim manager Taylor decided

1:05:59

that was a good idea and they sent it out . So

1:06:01

so

1:06:05

that was the first and I won't go through the

1:06:07

rest . But there were four more miracles

1:06:10

where I directly

1:06:13

asked God for

1:06:15

help with a specific problem

1:06:17

and he answered

1:06:19

by giving me a

1:06:21

miracle and

1:06:24

I had the audacity to

1:06:26

ask God where he was . So

1:06:31

lots of difficulties , lots

1:06:33

of miracles . We

1:06:36

have to swim about three hours longer

1:06:38

because we missed the cap . I Think

1:06:42

first time that

1:06:45

I realized I was getting close to France

1:06:47

, there was a boat

1:06:49

I can't stop

1:06:51

for a feed . And there was another boat about the same size

1:06:54

as the optimist , which gloriously

1:06:56

was the name of my pilots boat , the

1:06:58

optimist . And and

1:07:01

so there was , and I could see a French

1:07:03

flag flying from there and

1:07:06

I was so exhilarated I thought I would crack a

1:07:08

joke . And so I said to my team

1:07:10

, when I , right before I grabbed

1:07:12

the feet , said what's this

1:07:14

? The French Coast Guard , you know , just kind

1:07:17

of tried it and they , you know

1:07:19

they , were worried , they're like , oh , he's , he's

1:07:22

losing it and and More

1:07:25

hallucinations . But

1:07:29

when I saw that boat , I turned and Looked

1:07:32

toward the coast and for the first

1:07:34

time I could see the coast of

1:07:36

France . And it

1:07:39

wasn't just and

1:07:42

only this tiny thin , you

1:07:45

know , gray line on the horizon , it

1:07:47

was a nice Smudgy

1:07:49

, brown and green thick line

1:07:51

and I

1:07:54

, I was so thrilled and

1:07:56

I remember Expressing

1:08:00

gratitude to

1:08:03

my heavenly father . But

1:08:06

we had a ways to go , because when it's the cap , we

1:08:09

had to ride turns north until

1:08:12

they would allow me to finish

1:08:14

swimming into shore . And

1:08:19

I remember the

1:08:21

impression that Somebody

1:08:24

else was driving the boat , if

1:08:26

you know that , or driving the bus , if you know that

1:08:28

expression . Right , because

1:08:32

there was no such thing as time

1:08:34

. Time was

1:08:36

irrelevant . I couldn't , I

1:08:38

couldn't tell you what a half hour was from an hour , from

1:08:40

a day . I

1:08:44

didn't feel cold anymore

1:08:46

there . There was a long spell in there where I felt

1:08:48

very cold , I didn't feel , I

1:08:52

just felt . Like you know , I surveyed things . I thought

1:08:54

, you know , I could probably go , I

1:08:57

could probably go , and that was several hours , I

1:08:59

could go , I could go until dark

1:09:01

, you know , and

1:09:06

about that time the boat stops

1:09:09

again and they , my

1:09:11

team , is yelling one more feed , one

1:09:14

more feed , which means that

1:09:16

somewhere in between

1:09:18

that half hour and

1:09:20

hour , you know , that's probably 40 , 45

1:09:23

minutes out . And the pilot

1:09:25

, paul , once again appears

1:09:27

over the rail and says no more feeds

1:09:29

. And my first

1:09:31

reaction was that's not very nice

1:09:34

, you

1:09:36

know what if I ? want that

1:09:38

other feed . And

1:09:41

then it dawned on me that we must be so

1:09:45

close to a half hour that

1:09:47

it wasn't worth doing

1:09:49

another feed . And

1:09:52

so I put my head down and started swimming again

1:09:54

, and I noticed that the

1:09:57

shore had gotten much

1:09:59

bigger , right , much taller

1:10:01

on the horizon , and

1:10:05

the boat stops again . And

1:10:08

I was like , why did they stop

1:10:10

? I thought we were going to be done by you know

1:10:12

, and I hadn't . You can't think

1:10:14

clearly , you have to really

1:10:16

struggle to process at

1:10:18

that point . And

1:10:23

they're leaning over the rail and saying this

1:10:26

is far as the boat can go . You

1:10:31

have to finish the rest on your own . And

1:10:35

so I once

1:10:37

again was flooded with fears because all

1:10:41

the while the boat was near

1:10:43

enough that I could you know . If I

1:10:45

needed to swim to the boat . I could swim to the boat

1:10:47

. But now there was a quarter mile of open

1:10:49

ocean . Apparently it was too shallow

1:10:52

for the boat to go , but I had to traverse that

1:10:54

. And

1:10:57

once again I saw Steve

1:10:59

, the rescue swimmer , getting

1:11:02

into the water and I realized

1:11:05

I'll have somebody with me . So

1:11:08

I turned and swam and

1:11:11

I had a very

1:11:13

great difficulty staying with the boat because my

1:11:15

left arm was completely shot . I

1:11:19

could no longer lift it out of the water . My

1:11:21

wrist stayed bent at

1:11:23

this angle and so even

1:11:25

when I went to spear into the water , the right

1:11:27

hand would spear into the water and then I could

1:11:29

create a push , a pull point and pull

1:11:32

the water with my right hand , but

1:11:34

I couldn't spear the water any longer with my left hand

1:11:36

. I could push it into the water and

1:11:38

then try to pull , and

1:11:40

so naturally what's happening is

1:11:42

I'm veering to the left . So

1:11:46

now I have no boat reference to try and correct

1:11:48

by . So the

1:11:50

funny thing is that I realized that

1:11:52

I'm not getting closer . I do alligator eyes

1:11:54

, you know , kind of put your head up and look , not

1:11:56

any closer . Why am I not any closer ? And

1:11:59

then it occurs to me that I'm veering to the left

1:12:02

and I'm never going to hit the

1:12:04

shore , and so I had

1:12:06

to pick a spot somewhere

1:12:08

in my two o'clock If

1:12:10

I'm just raising my head for

1:12:12

a normal breath I had to be able to see something , and

1:12:15

I picked what looked like

1:12:17

a giant gray

1:12:19

gun battery from World War

1:12:21

Two that

1:12:24

was up on the cliff over

1:12:27

the beach and I worked my

1:12:29

way in the shore with

1:12:32

that and in

1:12:35

your swim isn't over until the boat sounds

1:12:37

. It's horn , and

1:12:40

so they don't blow the horn . When

1:12:42

you're standing up in shallow water . They wait for you to clear

1:12:45

and you're supposed to raise your hands to let

1:12:47

them know you're clear . And

1:12:49

I'm raising my hands . I don't care about

1:12:51

this . Like , don't they see I'm out

1:12:54

of water and

1:12:56

Steve comes waiting

1:12:58

up behind me and

1:13:01

I go . He

1:13:03

starts to come up toward me and

1:13:06

they blow the horn . He's underwater

1:13:09

half the time trying to catch up with me

1:13:11

to get into shore , and

1:13:13

he heard the horn , but I didn't

1:13:15

hear it . I was deaf , I

1:13:18

couldn't , because some

1:13:20

French people had

1:13:22

gathered on the beach and

1:13:24

they had cowbells and white towels

1:13:27

that they were . They were clanging

1:13:29

the bells and waving the towels and

1:13:32

I started trying to steer clear of them because

1:13:35

you can't have any help Right , so

1:13:37

I didn't want them to touch me until I got all the

1:13:39

way out of the water . So anyway

1:13:44

. So Steve confirms for me

1:13:47

that that

1:13:49

the horn had sounded because

1:13:51

that they had , as he said

1:13:53

, they had honked the hooter . So

1:13:56

I'm standing on the beach . I'm

1:14:01

standing on the beach and

1:14:04

I finally let out this

1:14:07

guttural

1:14:10

I

1:14:14

don't know what you would call it . It had

1:14:16

been pent up for six years . It

1:14:21

was done , it was over . I

1:14:24

felt like I had been released from the

1:14:26

worst calling in the entire world

1:14:28

. So

1:14:33

I don't know how much more of the story you

1:14:35

want . There

1:14:38

are some thumb things that

1:14:40

lessons learned

1:14:43

from the beach , from

1:14:46

trying to get back to the boat after that , the

1:14:49

trip back to Dover , hallucinations

1:14:52

, all

1:14:54

kinds of fun things that are

1:14:57

part of the story . But

1:14:59

I think this is sufficient , probably to

1:15:01

illustrate the primary point

1:15:03

that you

1:15:06

can be an isolated

1:15:09

individual , perhaps

1:15:12

surrounded by an ocean of

1:15:14

indifference , and

1:15:17

you have friends that they seem

1:15:20

disconnected from you . They're on their

1:15:22

own journey , they're on

1:15:24

their own boat . The

1:15:27

one person you can count on is your

1:15:29

Father in heaven and your Savior

1:15:31

Jesus Christ , and

1:15:34

they are there . But

1:15:38

for us to realize

1:15:41

that and recognize that , we

1:15:44

have to let them prevail . We

1:15:46

have to stay on the

1:15:48

journey , stay in that wilderness

1:15:51

and do the things that

1:15:53

we know are aligned with

1:15:56

their will for us , and

1:15:59

as we do that , we

1:16:01

are guaranteed . This

1:16:04

is not the promise I

1:16:06

made to my elders' corn in

1:16:09

June of 2011 . That

1:16:14

guarantee is a promise of

1:16:17

having been safely transported

1:16:20

across the channel by

1:16:23

my Father in heaven and my Savior

1:16:25

. We are

1:16:27

guaranteed divine

1:16:29

intervention , divine help

1:16:31

and love as

1:16:35

we are on this journey , and

1:16:39

I'm not going to say that in

1:16:41

the name of Jesus Christ , wow .

1:16:44

Wow .

1:16:48

Greg , that was just

1:16:50

so incredible I

1:16:52

didn't even want to interrupt you there because I just kept

1:16:54

thinking of all of these other

1:16:57

lessons and these other analogies Just

1:17:02

the fact that you accomplished that . How

1:17:05

long did it take from

1:17:08

the time that you got in the water to the time that you finished on the

1:17:10

beach ? How long was that that you were swimming ? You

1:17:13

know on the way back to Dover

1:17:15

.

1:17:18

I'm leaning against the wall of the cabin

1:17:20

, facing the back of the boat , watching

1:17:22

France disappear and

1:17:25

storm clouds coming , and

1:17:29

Paul , the captain , leans up and

1:17:32

hands up a piece of paper

1:17:34

through the hatch

1:17:36

it's not a hatch , but it's a small doorway

1:17:38

and hands it up . I unfold

1:17:40

it and it has 15

1:17:42

, 39 , 46

1:17:45

. So

1:17:47

that's the answer to your question . 15 and hour is

1:17:49

39 minutes 46 seconds .

1:17:51

Oh my gosh , that

1:17:54

is insane . I don't think I could even

1:17:56

watch Netflix for 15 hours . I'm

1:18:01

just like wow

1:18:03

, oh man , how

1:18:06

was that like with your wife ? I'm

1:18:08

curious , you

1:18:11

know , what was that feeling for her

1:18:13

watching you accomplish

1:18:15

something this huge

1:18:18

? Did you share with her afterwards

1:18:20

, like where that moment

1:18:23

of freedom happened

1:18:25

to you , like were you able to talk to her about that ?

1:18:27

or Well

1:18:30

, we've talked often about

1:18:32

the channel . I

1:18:34

felt obligated and compelled

1:18:36

to write this all

1:18:38

down , and

1:18:42

she and Taylor , taylor's

1:18:44

wife Debbie , were invaluable

1:18:46

resources to sort

1:18:49

of fact check . We get impressions

1:18:51

in our lives about what happened and

1:18:54

what the facts

1:18:56

or the details are , and

1:18:59

that's our truth . But

1:19:01

other people have other perspectives , and

1:19:04

so it was really quite wonderful

1:19:06

to gather those perspectives

1:19:09

and to understand

1:19:11

what it meant to them to participate

1:19:14

in this as well . For

1:19:16

Holly , I

1:19:19

think it's best if she addressed that

1:19:21

someday on her

1:19:23

own . There is some small

1:19:25

addressing of that in the book , but I would be entirely

1:19:27

out of line to

1:19:29

speak for her , except to say

1:19:32

that she had opportunities

1:19:34

to

1:19:37

be led and taught

1:19:39

of the spirit in this process .

1:19:47

So how you felt this

1:19:49

experience has brought you closer to Heavenly

1:19:51

Father in Christ .

1:19:55

Well .

1:19:59

I think in my addiction .

1:20:00

I felt that I

1:20:02

was not lovable , I was

1:20:04

not a good person , I had

1:20:07

no hope for eternal

1:20:09

life , what's less anything in the celestial kingdom

1:20:11

, and

1:20:13

I was going through my life because

1:20:17

I couldn't conquer my addiction

1:20:19

. I was going through my life in the hopes that

1:20:22

my wife and girls would

1:20:24

be able to benefit

1:20:26

from all the blessings of the gospel and

1:20:28

that I would not somehow take that away from them

1:20:30

in

1:20:33

having given up . So

1:20:35

that was how

1:20:38

I felt about things , how I felt about myself . The

1:20:42

channel that

1:20:44

I had to cross was

1:20:46

that God did love

1:20:48

me , that he

1:20:51

is involved in my life . That's

1:20:53

the real channel , and

1:20:55

I had to give him , me all

1:20:59

of it , even willing to die

1:21:01

. That's

1:21:04

what . I had to give and

1:21:07

the blessings that continue to

1:21:10

come from the channel have

1:21:13

found me . The

1:21:17

allegories and lessons , the opportunities

1:21:19

to teach

1:21:21

and to share and

1:21:24

to testify , those

1:21:26

things are all

1:21:29

worth it . They're all

1:21:31

. I have no way

1:21:33

to describe that . My life

1:21:35

is entirely different , scott

1:21:37

, than the day I stepped into

1:21:39

the water and

1:21:42

my recovery was going well . I

1:21:45

was well on the way to healing . In fact , through

1:21:47

that whole period my recovery was strong

1:21:50

. I did not

1:21:52

have any relapse . Well , I take that back . I

1:21:54

did have relapses because part of recovery

1:21:57

and I think this is really important for people to understand who

1:21:59

have addictions or loved ones in addiction

1:22:01

One

1:22:04

of the hallmarks of a true recovery

1:22:06

is that you realize

1:22:08

that your addiction is

1:22:10

just one of the things

1:22:12

that need to heal . And

1:22:16

so then you go

1:22:18

through the 12 steps for another

1:22:20

weakness and another weakness

1:22:23

and another weakness , and

1:22:26

that process must continue

1:22:28

. And , yeah , there were

1:22:30

relapses in those other areas that I

1:22:32

was addressing , but

1:22:35

for the most part my recovery

1:22:37

was really really strong

1:22:39

through this whole process . So

1:22:43

the channel was

1:22:45

kind of like getting the Holy

1:22:47

Ghost after being baptized . I

1:22:49

don't know if that makes any sense whatsoever . It

1:22:53

was very , very much related

1:22:55

and yet entirely different

1:22:57

, and it's

1:22:59

a foundational point . It

1:23:01

tells me that I'm not a failure . It

1:23:05

tells me that I am worth

1:23:07

his time , that I

1:23:10

mean something to him , that

1:23:13

the people around me are

1:23:15

in that same boat . They're

1:23:18

worth his time and so they're

1:23:20

worth my time . Does that ? I don't

1:23:22

know if that makes any sense , but maybe

1:23:24

people arrive at that so much more

1:23:26

naturally than I did . It

1:23:28

just has become a

1:23:31

change in my DNA . How's that

1:23:34

? Is that better ? I mean

1:23:36

, is that a way that word that

1:23:38

might make more sense ?

1:23:41

Yeah , it kind of reminds me of the

1:23:43

scripture , like in

1:23:45

the New Testament , where I

1:23:47

remember in the scripture it

1:23:49

talks about how , when you're converted

1:23:51

, strengthen thy brethren , you

1:23:56

can testify of Christ and you can have your

1:23:59

testimony of everything of the gospel

1:24:01

. But there truly is

1:24:03

this power and conversion and it's in

1:24:05

that conversion

1:24:07

that you're actually able to strengthen

1:24:09

others . I love that

1:24:12

during one of the parts of your story you mentioned

1:24:14

how you were struggling

1:24:17

and you're like , why didn't you see me ? Are

1:24:20

you like I'm doing so horribly here ? And

1:24:22

they're like , are you kidding me ? You've never

1:24:24

swam this fast

1:24:26

or you've never dealt with this type of temperature

1:24:29

or this type of wave . Or like

1:24:31

we're amazed to

1:24:33

see how well you're

1:24:36

doing in getting through

1:24:38

all of this . And it didn't mean

1:24:40

that you you know who still didn't

1:24:42

want to quit , like it wasn't fun . But

1:24:45

I think that that's part of conversion

1:24:47

is that other people are able to see

1:24:49

, like how strong we

1:24:51

are , sometimes even more so than we can

1:24:53

see it ourselves , because we're in the thick of it

1:24:56

. You know , like we do have these obstructions

1:24:58

in front of us , like we have the waves crashing down

1:25:00

, we have all these other problems and

1:25:02

one of the things that also stood out

1:25:04

was it was it's pretty perfect

1:25:07

timing , because I was just having this conversation

1:25:10

a few hours ago with a friend

1:25:12

about how and I don't know

1:25:14

if you're this type of person , but I know

1:25:16

for me I'm the type of person who I've

1:25:18

got it , I'll do it , I'll

1:25:20

figure it out myself . I don't want

1:25:23

to rely on other people to

1:25:25

get things done . I'm happy if they want to help

1:25:27

, but most of the time I'm just , I'm

1:25:29

just bossy and I just , I

1:25:32

just want to control everything Right , like

1:25:35

I . Just I like that control and I like knowing that I

1:25:37

can depend on me to get stuff done . And

1:25:39

and then that doesn't leave room

1:25:41

for Heavenly Father . You know

1:25:43

like I schedule so

1:25:45

many things in in my day

1:25:48

and I'm always taking on a new project . I'm always

1:25:50

saying yes to this and yes to that and

1:25:52

it's like hold on . You know

1:25:54

like I I guess for

1:25:56

me it's almost like swimming my own emotional busy

1:25:59

schedule of an of an English channel . You know like

1:26:01

I've got all of these feats against me and I , and they're all good things

1:26:03

. It's like a great thing for me to want to accomplish , but ultimately

1:26:06

, if I don't remember

1:26:09

that my Heavenly Father is here by my side and

1:26:11

that I can trust him . When you said

1:26:13

that the Holy Ghost told you give

1:26:16

me one problem , you know

1:26:18

, it's like , like I've always

1:26:20

, I've always said this , that that I think that

1:26:22

Heavenly Father allows us to be in different places

1:26:24

in our life because he trusts

1:26:27

us . He trusts us to be able to

1:26:29

get through them and and to learn from

1:26:31

them and to experience them and to grow from them . But

1:26:34

I do think a lot of times we , we

1:26:36

can trust Heavenly Father in the grand , you

1:26:38

know , general scheme of it , but the little

1:26:40

things were like no , no , no , no , we got it , we

1:26:42

got it , we can do this , we can do this . And he's just like just give

1:26:44

me one problem , just give me one . And

1:26:47

he's like let me , let me show you what I can do

1:26:49

for you , let me show you

1:26:51

what kind of gummies I can give you , right ? And

1:26:54

so I just sorry , I know I'm kind of blabbering , but

1:26:56

, like I said , there was just so many things that popped

1:26:58

out in your story that really resonated with me and

1:27:01

I just I , I love that

1:27:03

you , you were able to share . I'm really excited

1:27:06

to read , you know

1:27:08

, your book , what ? What is

1:27:10

that called ? Is it published ? Is it out

1:27:12

yet ? Are you still writing ?

1:27:14

it . Yeah , we're self published . The

1:27:16

book is called let's

1:27:19

see if I can get that right Call it to swim

1:27:22

. That's what it . There you go . Oh , I love that

1:27:24

. And it's at the same name

1:27:26

of a website called to swimcom . So

1:27:29

I'm serious , if you know this . This

1:27:32

book has a purpose . God made

1:27:35

me write . I can tell you I loathe

1:27:38

writing as much as I loathe swimming

1:27:40

during their latter

1:27:42

part of their training . I'm

1:27:44

serious . If , if anybody wants

1:27:48

the book and it's not in a place that they can buy the

1:27:50

book , then there's a form

1:27:52

on the in the website contact the author

1:27:55

. Just send me your

1:27:57

email address and

1:27:59

I mean you don't have to say anything Just send me your email address

1:28:01

. They please send the ebook

1:28:04

and I'll send you a PDF

1:28:06

copy and you can read it . And

1:28:08

maybe maybe it'll be useful to you , but

1:28:12

anyway . So that's that's

1:28:14

at call to swimcom .

1:28:17

Well .

1:28:17

I can't wait to get it into read it .

1:28:19

That's amazing , you know

1:28:21

. I just , I have just loved having

1:28:23

you on as a guest . Thank you so much .

1:28:25

We really really appreciate it . Thanks for allowing me to come .

1:28:29

I appreciate , I appreciate your story

1:28:31

. I love the idea that sometimes

1:28:34

God allows

1:28:37

us to struggle so that we

1:28:39

can grow closer to him , and

1:28:42

a lot of times it's because of our

1:28:44

own stubbornness , right , or

1:28:47

just our own insecurities or fears

1:28:50

or triggers , whatever

1:28:52

the whatever the things are that stop

1:28:55

us . He allows us to go

1:28:57

through those things so that

1:28:59

, ultimately , we can become closer

1:29:01

to him through those challenges

1:29:03

and trials . And

1:29:05

I love your story because it just

1:29:07

it's an extreme version

1:29:10

of that . Right , like most of us aren't

1:29:12

going to swim the English Channel to to

1:29:14

find

1:29:16

God or to strengthen our testimony

1:29:19

or our faith in God , but

1:29:21

I love it that you did

1:29:24

, because through those

1:29:26

experiences we can all learn a lesson

1:29:28

. Yeah

1:29:31

.

1:29:31

And .

1:29:31

I really appreciate you sharing it .

1:29:34

Yeah , One of the things about suffering is

1:29:37

that I think in my case , the

1:29:41

Lord wanted to prove that

1:29:44

he was doing it . A lot of people say , oh , that's not fantastic

1:29:46

accomplishment , you know , you should be so pleased

1:29:49

about that , you know or they use a

1:29:51

different P word you

1:29:54

should be so proud of yourself . And

1:29:57

I I tell them that

1:29:59

I

1:30:01

just got in the water and moved my arms and my legs

1:30:03

and they

1:30:06

chuckle and

1:30:08

it satisfies them . But

1:30:11

, God and I know .

1:30:13

Yeah , well , thanks

1:30:15

, greg , thank

1:30:17

you to Scott . Yeah , absolutely I appreciate it , Lisa

1:30:20

.

1:30:20

thank you .

1:30:22

I'm going to thank everyone for for

1:30:24

watching the podcast and for for for for watching

1:30:26

and tuning in to hear Greg's story

1:30:29

. And if you want

1:30:32

to help us share it , go ahead and

1:30:34

and do that five second

1:30:36

missionary work . Hit that share button and let's

1:30:38

get Greg's story out there . There's people

1:30:41

that need to hear it . So let's do

1:30:43

some sharing and get

1:30:45

get this story out there .

1:30:47

Absolutely , and we'll be share . We'll be sure

1:30:50

to share the link for

1:30:52

for Greg's book called

1:30:54

to swim . If you guys want

1:30:57

to have a little bit more in depth I assume

1:30:59

you probably have a few more miracles

1:31:01

maybe in that book or if you know

1:31:03

some more details , definitely go pick

1:31:05

yourself up a copy or , like Greg

1:31:07

so generously offered , email him

1:31:10

if it's something that you can't afford , um

1:31:12

, and he's happy to to send

1:31:14

you a downloaded copy , or whatever , of the

1:31:16

book . So , uh guys , check the

1:31:19

check the description for the link for

1:31:21

that book called to swim and

1:31:24

leave a comment . Let us know what your favorite

1:31:26

part of the story was from Greg . Let us know

1:31:28

, uh , what stood out to you , what kind

1:31:30

of allegory in your own life , resignated

1:31:33

as Greg shared the , the beautiful

1:31:35

lessons that he learned from such

1:31:37

a huge accomplishment and a huge

1:31:40

struggle . Um

1:31:42

, with that , I think that's all we have for

1:31:44

today , guys . Um , scott

1:31:46

and I , we just wanted to say thank you so much . We really appreciate

1:31:49

all of your listeners , we appreciate you guys's shares

1:31:51

, um and your comments and your

1:31:53

loves and your likes and all of the good things . Um

1:31:56

, we feel very , very blessed to be able to be in this

1:31:58

position to to give others a platform where

1:32:00

they can share their stories , and it's definitely

1:32:02

something that , uh , I know personally

1:32:04

has strengthened my own testimony , being able

1:32:07

to hear from amazing

1:32:10

members of the church like Greg . So

1:32:13

we love you guys . Thank you so much

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for tuning in today Until next

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week . We hope you guys have a great one . See

1:32:19

you later .

1:32:20

Okay , take care , see you guys .

1:32:23

Bye .