A Mormon Bishop and His Family Face Excommunication - The Lusks Pt. 3 - Ep. 1133

Jared Lusk spent years as the model Mormon bishop in Farmington, New Mexico. He had the temple marriage, the six children, and the calling to lead 600 youth on a multi-stake pioneer trek. Yet the moment his faith collapsed came not in a courtroom or a council, but in his kitchen. A seminary teacher mentioned the Gospel Topics Essays to his children, and Lusk, a man his stake president had tagged as future mission president material, realized he had never heard of them. This is how a Mormon bishop faces excommunication in the modern church: not through sin, but through documentation.

Background: The Trek and the Model Family

The Lusks represented the orthodox ideal. After releasing Jared from his bishopric, local leadership immediately assigned the family to coordinate a five-stake trek through the mountains of New Mexico. The 2015 event became infamous when torrential rains turned the spiritual pilgrimage into a genuine rescue operation. Saturated ground caused trees to fall; mud made the trails impassable. Hundreds of cars