These are just bags and menus and stickers or business cards, just places we've been or lived. So, like Spam. Like, we used to live 40 minutes from the Spam museum. And factory. In Minnesota where they offer Spamples. My name is Tonya Baker Miller. I did my undergraduate degree in family science. Andy was kind of a happy surprise, like six months later, we're like, "Oh. Oh, I don't just have the flu. Huh. OK. Well, here we go." I'm Dylan Miller. I'm Andy's dad and Tonya's husband. Andy is amazing. He's loyal. He's brilliant. He's kind. He has always been everything that a parent could ask for. I love being Andy's mom. He's fabulous. He's triple majoring in international business, aviation management, and Spanish. And he works full-time. He's in our elders quorum presidency, and he's the best big brother. He's amazing. My name is Andy Miller. I'm 21 years old. I've been a member of the Church my whole life. And I'm gay. I hate saying that that doesn't define me, because it does. It's a big part of what defines me. But just like with any other person, gay, straight, or otherwise, there's so much more to me than that. Coming out is a process, and that's sort of really how I took it. There was no fanfare, no press conference. Andy coming out was completely pragmatic. Basically, he just wanted me to stop nagging him to date. And so we were driving one night, and he said something that made me say, "Oh, are you gay?" And he said, "Yeah." It, like, took her a sec to, like, register what I had said. I said, "OK." I had imagined this, like, theatrical, beautiful moment where she wraps her arms around me and says she loves me. I said, "Well, what about those girls that you seemed close to?" Her reaction was not what I expected. Super mom over here, right? Coming out is always awkward. There's no good way to do it. My son is baring his soul about this thing that frightens him but that is so a part of him. And then after that, of course, there is the question of "How does this affect my life?" And neither of us had a good answer at that point. The fact that she didn't know anything was a little scary for me. We planned our kids' lives long before they were even born, right? They're going to do this and this and this and this and this. And then you kind of get a curveball with any child. And you go, "Oh, wait. I'm not in charge, am I?" All you can give them is love. I don't have any answers. I want them. I ask all the time, like, "So, Heavenly Father, here's what I'd like to know today." Between Andy and Dylan and I, we learned to just laugh. And that helps. That absolutely helps.

It requires a lot of faith to sort of put your life in God's hands and say, "I trust you to sort of guide this as it needs to go." I don't think anyone who's straight could imagine the pain of somebody like Andy, who has a testimony, who can't connect the dots. And so how do I reconcile that? I went to the temple again and again and again and again and again and again and again. And mostly I left with nothing, no, like, "a-ha" moments. But my testimony's not going anywhere. And I think that that was the main gift for me from that time. My experience is mine, and everyone else's will be theirs. And for me, it was very much coming to understand the Atonement in a way I had never conceived before. My relationship has become much more personal with Christ through this experience. The scripture in Proverbs about "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart" became our mantra. And realizing that we didn't have all the answers and maybe wouldn't ever on this earth have the answers, but to go with what we know, which is that we do. We loved our son, and we knew Heavenly Father loved Andy. And I went to the temple constantly, and the question I took every time was "Why, why, why, why, why?" And I eventually learned it's not the question. The question that you can ask that I can help you with, from the Holy Ghost telling me this, is "How can I be the mom that this child of God needs?"

Every single person, every child, there is a plan for. And I don't know the answers, but He does. And when I reached that point that I could handle, OK, spiritual ambiguity is where I'm going to stay. And when I'm in that space, I can say, "How? How can I help?" We're all deserving of each other's love and support. And that, to me, is what Christ's Church would look like, and not just in the context of LGBT issues, but in others as well. Taking things a day at a time--not focusing on tomorrow, because we can't know what things will be like tomorrow, how we'll be feeling, what information we'll have that we don't have now, whatever it may be--just brings a lot of peace and allows you to make the most out of the present. Focusing on what I can control, what I know the most about, makes things better in the long run. So right now, Andy's--he's 21. He's active in the Church. Today he doesn't plan to change that. He's also wise enough to say, "I'm doing this day by day," and says, "You know, I don't know where I'm going to be in 20 years," just like the rest of us don't. My job as a parent is to love my children, no strings attached. It just is.

Nothing can change that. We are in a constant prayer about this, and that will continue. I can say that I will always love him and want the best things for him. Dylan and I love him. Nothing about that will ever, ever change. We will work out the details of his mission here on earth with Heavenly Father. And we're here to just support and love him day by day. We just do it one day at a time.