A Bishop’s Family Questions Mormonism - Kelly and Kayla Mikesell - Mormon Stories 1438

When the Bishop’s Wife Stops Believing: The Kelly and Kayla Mikesell Story

In June 2021, during Utah Pride Week, John Dehlin released an episode of Mormon Stories that captured a particular kind of Mormon crisis. Not the dissent of outsiders or the casual drift of millennials, but the systematic unraveling of a bishop’s family from within. Kelly Mikesell spent years as the wife of a Mormon bishop while privately discovering that the church’s foundational doctrines collapsed under scrutiny. Her daughter Kayla navigated bisexuality from inside that same household. Their interview on Mormon Stories 1438 offers a rare look at what happens when local leadership becomes the source of institutional questions rather than its defense.

![Image 1: Kelly and Kayla M