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Dr. Reynolds-Benns is a wedding officiant who, with the couple tailors weddings that meet or surpass the bride and grooms dreams of the perfect wedding day. Leslie Reynolds-Benns has dedicated a lifetime to personal growth-both her own and others. She has been a spiritual seeker/finder and an adventurer, while at the same time having a commitment to sharing what she has discovered. Reynolds-Benns has a PhD in Counseling and a Master's Degree in Applied Theology as well as being a certified spiritual director. After years of helping people in pain, as a counselor and hospital chaplain, she now performs weddings where she shares with couples in the lightness, joy and promise of a bright new future. She additionally leads workshops and lectures widely. Confession is Good for MORE than the Soul is her fourth published book. It was preceded by Mormons in Transition, in two editions, Spiritual Maturity:The Whole Elephant and Street People. She also has written several e-books. She married her best friend and ministry companion Robb Benns in 2000 and they now reside in Salt Lake City. Together they have twelve children, twenty-seven grand-children and five great-grandchildren. It took Reynolds-Benns a long time to get her identity as a writer. Her first published pieces were at age ten when she was invited to write a monthly piece on the activities at her school for the Salt Lake Tribune. In High School she was thrilled to be invited to join the Pep Club only to find that it was her writing ability more than her marching skill they wanted. She wrote the copy for the announcer to say during half-time. She backed out of a request to write for the school newspaper because a friend had so much more ability than she did. Very much overshadowed by her younger brother, Rodger, an English major, who truly is a wordsmith and now acts as her editor, she kept in the background. However, when she had things to say, she said them, being very much embarrassed by the way they were said. She’s published numerous letters to the editor, op-ed pieces in newspapers, other pieces in magazines, cover stories in weekly publications, a master’s project converted into a book, a PhD dissertation excerpts of which she gave up getting published when she had a stroke. She’s been busy, always declaring herself not to be a writer, just having things to say. It was only with Confession is Good for MORE than the Soul that Leslie became a writer. And this time, oddly enough, it wasn’t what she wanted to say but what she believes she was called to write.
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