Texas LDS deal with confusion

SAN ANGELO, Texas — Shortly after the raid began on the Fundamentalist LDS Church's YFZ Ranch, a group of Mormon missionaries sat down to eat at a restaurant here. A man shouted out "compound!"

"There was this guy. He held up a knife and yelled at us," said Elder Tyler Duffy from Orem.

Some of the fallout from the raid on the YFZ Ranch is being felt by members and missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While the FLDS Church is not connected in any way to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, some Mormon faithful have said they feel they are being found guilty by association.

"There are some people here that believe anything bad about Mormons and that's what they're going to do," said Charles L. Webb, who serves as president of the Abilene, Texas, stake.

The LDS Church's presence in this part of Texas is small. The Abilene stake covers an area 25,000 square miles in size with about 3,000 members. There are only two LDS chapels in San Angelo, but a number of Baptist and other evangelical Christian churches. It's the polar opposite of Utah, where the LDS Church is the dominant faith.

In repeated statements, leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have differentiated between the two faiths and expressed disappointment that some news media outlets have lumped the two together.

"Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, often called Mormons, do not practice polygamy and they have not practiced polygamy for over a century," Elder Quentin L. Cook, an LDS apostle, said in a video clip the church recently posted on YouTube. The LDS Church has said there is no such thing as a "fundamentalist Mormon," although an estimated 37,000 people who practice it consider themselves as such. Fundamentalists argue that the LDS Church has strayed from its original doctrine by abandoning the practice of polygamy in 1890.

Here in the Bible belt, many LDS members have had to explain the differences in their faiths — the practice of polygamy being the chief example.

Clinton Hudson, a student at Sonora High School, is a member of a Christian student fellowship. During a lunchtime meeting, he said one student said they should pray for the children taken in the raid. Another student said they should "pray for the Mormons."

"I approached her and said, 'They're not Mormons. They're fundamentalists. They broke off from the church' and described our history and how they broke off. It really helped a lot," Hudson said Sunday. "It was a great opportunity to get them to understand there's a difference between them and us."

Duffy said he was speaking with a man interested in converting to the LDS Church. After the raid, the man gave them back a copy of the Book of Mormon, saying he did not want to hear from them again.

As they go door-to-door, the missionaries have had to alter their introductions a little to clarify the differences between the two faiths.

"We're not from the church in Eldorado, but we share this message," said Elder Nicolas Librandi, from Murray.

Some have lashed out at the missionaries, blaming polygamy and allegations of child-bride marriages on the LDS Church. But some say there is more interest in the mainstream church, and its message.

"The purposes of God won't be frustrated," said Elder Ryan Bartley, from Carmichael, Calif.

Webb said he has discouraged members from helping out in the name of the LDS Church to avoid confusion between the two faiths, but said they should offer their services as individuals. The local Baptist congregations have contracts to provide relief services in disaster situations.

San Angelo 2nd Ward Bishop Jeffrey Bushman was contacted by a chaplain helping the FLDS women when they were being housed at Fort Concho. The women had requested copies of the Book of Mormon.

"They didn't have anything or bring anything with them, I guess, and they wanted some scriptures and they asked for the Book of Mormon," Bushman said. "I didn't mind. We don't ever mind giving out (copies of the) Book of Mormon to people."

[50 plus wives? That is a definite lie of commission.]

Yes, you should stop lying OldMountainMan. Apparently there were actually 55.

Brigham Young’s Wives and
His Divorce From Ann Eliza Webb

In 1868 Brigham Young, at age sixty-seven, married Ann Eliza Webb, an attractive twenty-four year old divorcee with two children. Young had already married dozens of other women. LDS scholar Jeffery Johnson, writing on Brigham Young and his wives, explained:

“Sixteen women gave birth to Brigham Young’s fifty-seven children; Emmeline Free had ten; six wives had only one child. The oldest child, Elizabeth Young Ellsworth, was fifty-two at Brigham’s death and the youngest, Fannie Young Clayton, was seven. Eleven of the sixteen women survived him. None of the women who bore him children canceled their sealings or remarried....

“The first documented divorce was from Mary Woodward on 13 December 1846, his wife of less than a year. In a brief but warm letter that day, he wrote: “In answer to your letter of yesterday, the 12 inst; I will say, you may consider yourself discharged from me and my counsel” and added that he would be glad to help her if she and her children were ever hungry (Brigham Young papers).

“Divorce records are sketchy for the emigration period, but two women who had been sealed to him in the Nauvoo Temple left him then to marry other men. ...

“On 18 June 1851 Mary Ann Clark Powers wrote from Kanesville, Iowa: “I wish you to release me from all engagements with you for time and eternity....” (Brigham Young papers). This request was granted.

“After the Church began recording divorces in 1851, Mary Ann Turley and Mary Jane Bigelow obtained divorces in 1851, Eliza Babcock in 1853, and Elizabeth Fairchild in 1855 (Divorce Certificates, Brigham Young papers). They were under twenty when they married Brigham Young and had never become part of his household. They all remarried; and Mary Jane, Eliza, and Elizabeth remained in Utah. “Almost twenty years later in 1873, Ann Eliza Webb applied for a civil divorce. The case came to trial in 1875, and the court ordered Brigham to pay $500 per month allowance and $3,000 court costs. When he refused, he was fined $25 and sentenced to a day in prison for contempt of court (Arrington 1985, 373). There is no record of application for a Church divorce, but she was excommunicated 10 October 1874 and devoted much of the rest of her life to publishing her somewhat sensational memoirs and giving anti-Mormon lectures.

“Twenty-one of Brigham Young’s fifty-five wives had never been married, six were separated or divorced from their husbands, sixteen were widows, and six had living husbands from whom divorces had apparently not been obtained. Marital information is unavailable for six.

“From a twentieth-century perspective, the polyandrous marriages seem most problematic. Three of these women (Mary Ann Clark Powers, Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner, and Hannah Tapfield King) were married to non-Mormons, which meant, according to the theological understanding of the times, that their salvation could not be assured. Mary Ann Clark Powers, married to Brigham Young 15 January 1845, later said she had not “bin a wife to” Powers after the sealing and expressed relief when Powers went to California. She received a divorce from Brigham Young in 1851 (Powers toYoung, 18 June 1851, Brigham Young papers).” (Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, (”Defining ‘Wife’: The Brigham Young Households,” by Jeffrey Johnson, 1987, Vol. 20, No. 3, p.62-63)

“Yeah, many of us can’t figure out why OMM is getting away with saying stuff that others could never get away with. I have no clue as to why there is this double standard. Maybe he gives a lot of money to FR, who knows?”

I think the reason is that if they banned everyone who made personal attacks on the FLDS threads, there wouldn’t be any posters left.

OR, they figured they were wasting their time trying to stop it.

The FLDS subject is one of the hottest I have seen, and contains all the RED FLAG Subjects in one place.

RAPE
GOVERNMENT ABUSE
CPS ABUSE
WELFARE SCAMS
RELIGION
AIRPLANES (yes, airplanes)
PRISON
INBREEDING
MENTAL RETARDATION
HOAX PHONE CALLS
THROWAWAY CHILDREN (the lost boys)
CHILD BRIDES
NAZI’S
POLYGAMY
INCEST
PEDERASTERY
PEDOPHILIA
HOMOSEXUAL RAPE
GOD
SATAN
WACO and the DAVIDIANS
The McMartin Case (whatever that is?)
UNMARKED GRAVES
GLOBAL WARMING (ok, I made that one up)

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