The Church's Ranch

Florida Trend Magazine ^ | 8 January 2002 alert from friend | By Cynthia Barnett

[Rubber Duckie]

The Church's Ranch

The Mormon church runs one of the biggest and most profitable cattle operations in the U.S. on a 300,000-acre ranch covering parts of Orange, Brevard and Osceola counties.

By Cynthia Barnett

Just after a September dawn on the Deseret Ranch in central Florida, cowboys on horseback crack long leather whips to set hundreds of calves charging toward a sprawling complex of pens and runs. Once corralled, the animals let loose a cacophony of moos and bays. The cowboys, too, holler out as they position themselves along a tall, wooden maze to sort calves by size and type into one of five pens.

One cowboy prods calves quickly through a gate. As each calf thunders down a narrow alley, another cowboy calls out a number, one through five. This tells the next cowboy, positioned atop a turnaround, which of five doors to swing open to direct the calf into the right pen. From the pens, the calves will be run through another alley onto a huge scale for weighing. Then they will be rushed along again onto 18-wheel cattle trucks idling nearby that will haul them to feedlots or pastures in Texas, Oklahoma or Kansas.

By 9 a.m., the men have sorted 500 calves. By the end of the day, they'll have moved a total of 1,944 calves weighing 963,710 pounds onto 20 trucks. "This is payday," says Kevin Mann, the cowboy atop the turnaround. "This is what we work toward all year long."

The ranch won't disclose financial information, but last year it moved more than 16 million pounds of calves -- they are sold by weight, not by the animal-- which translated into about $16 million in revenues. For a cattle ranch, those numbers are huge, and not just by the standards of central Florida or even the cattle industry statewide. Deseret Ranch is the largest cow-calf operation in the U.S., with 44,000 head of cattle on 300,000 acres. Seen on a map of Florida, the sprawling ranch dwarfs neighboring metro Orlando, stretching 50 miles long and 30 miles wide over parts of three counties: Orange, Osceola and Brevard. Its northwestern tip is 10 miles from Orlando International Airport. Its southeastern tip stretches almost to Palm Bay.

But despite its size and its stature in the nation's cattle industry, most Floridians have never heard of Deseret Ranch. "We like to keep a low profile," says general manager Ferren Squires.

That profile is in keeping with the business style of the ranch's owner, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormon Church. The fastest-growing church in the U.S., with a 4.7% annual growth rate, the church is also by far the richest per capita. While its media guide states innocuously that the church has a limited number of commercial properties and investments, a Time magazine financial analysis of the church in 1997 pegged its assets at a minimum of $30 billion. If it were a corporation, the magazine found, the church would fall in the middle of the Fortune 500, below Union Carbide and PaineWebber, but bigger than Nike and the Gap. Among others, the church runs media, insurance, travel and real estate companies along with agribusiness operations. In Florida, besides Deseret Ranch, the church also operates tomato and citrus farms in Ruskin, Naples and Clewiston.

The church's success in business is very much rooted in its history, scholars of Mormonism say. Members faced extreme ostracism and poverty before they made their trek from Illinois to Salt Lake City in 1847, the same year Brigham Young wrote that "the kingdom of God cannot rise independent of Gentile nations until we produce, manufacture and make every article of use, convenience or necessity among our people." Once in Utah, the Mormons' isolation forced them to build their own farms, factories and railroads. As they struggled through the Great Depression, they also began to build their famous welfare system, the largest non-public venture of its kind in the nation.

The church will not reveal precisely how it spends the money it takes in from its businesses and from members tithing contributions-- 10% of their incomes. But it says it uses the greatest portion to build churches. The rest is spent on worldwide humanitarian aid for which the church is well-known; its vast educational system, which includes Brigham Young University, and long-term investments in its private ventures.

Like its grain and other food-manufacturing operations, the church's agribusinesses, including Deseret Ranch, have another ecclesiastical role. Mormons believe that years of turmoil will precede the return of Jesus and that church members must prepare for self-reliance, storing long-term supplies, including food. In the future, Squires says, beef from the ranch could help feed people in case of a catastrophe. The church teaches its parishioners to always have on hand one year's salary and one year's food supply, so this is basically practicing what we preach, he says.

Church-going cowboy
Deeply tanned and covered in a fine layer of dust, Squires, 47, wears Wrangler jeans on skinny hips and drives his Ford F-250 at breakneck speed along the graded roads of the ranch. Down-to-earth and quick to smile, Squires seems like the prototypical cowboy. But he wears many other hats: A father of six, Squires speaks Japanese, a result of a proselytizing mission to Japan as a young man. He holds a masterfs degree in agricultural business from BYU, is a former official with the Mormons massive welfare headquarters in Salt Lake City and serves on the presidential council of the church's Cocoa stake, a Mormon organizational unit similar to a diocese.

Granting a rare tour, Squires drives along mile after mile of sprawling pastureland dotted with stands of palm trees and thick oaks. Only a sliver of the ranch, the eastern edge along the St. Johns River, is still densely wooded. Deseret is divided into 14 units, each with a couple of thousand cows and its own complex of pens, a barn and a cowboy office. The cowboys spend time on laptop computers as well as on horseback, entering every detail of their calves lives: The calves are born in January, February and March; summer is spent fattening them up and keeping them healthy; fall is the payday that Mann describes.

In the middle of the property, Squires pulls up to an old cracker house with hardwood floors, a stone fireplace and a wrap-around screened-in porch where ceiling fans turn lazily in the afternoon heat. The house serves as Deseret's history center and as temporary home to one of the five retired Mormon couples that volunteer on the ranch. The living room is furnished with brown leather couches, along with a stuffed Osceola turkey, wild boar and white-tailed deer. The book Florida Cowman shares the coffee table with The Book of Mormon. A stand in one corner of the room holds a handsome old saddle and whip; a stand in the other holds a guitar and songbook open to Mormon hymns. On the walls hang photos of famous Mormons, including a number of cattlemen.

After a visit to the Sunshine State in 1949, western cattleman and church leader Henry D. Moyle became convinced that Floridafs climate would make it an ideal place to raise cattle. (The key to the industry, as uncomplicated as it may seem, is growing grass.) Moyle pitched his idea for a Florida ranch to fellow members of the church's first presidency, the Mormons worldwide leadership council. The council bought the original 54,000-acre tract in 1950. In 1952, a dozen Mormon families sold their homes out west and moved to the property to help the church turn wetlands and tangled forests into roads and pasturelands.

It took nearly 50 years, but Deseret's managers eventually proved Moyle right. By cross-breeding cows for speedy growth, good reproduction and climate tolerance and by developing and perfecting grasses for central Florida, they have achieved some of the highest weights, and therefore some of the highest profits, in the industry. Deseret Ranchfs average weaning weight, a calf's weight at nine months, when it can be weaned and sold, has increased from 300 pounds in 1981 to 546 pounds last year. Statewide, the average is closer to 450 pounds, says Jim Handley, executive vice president of the Florida Cattlemen's Association.

Today's going market price is around 85 cents a pound, down from about $1 a pound earlier this year but up from 65 cents during an industry slump three years ago. According to Squires, Deseret spends about 62 cents to produce each pound it sells.

At the University of Florida in Gainesville, animal science professor emeritus Alvin C. Warnick says the church has achieved some of the highest profits in the industry because of its long-term commitment to the ranch . . .and its deep pockets. The ranch's heavy, healthy calves are a result of lots of years and lots of money spent on ultra-sensitive genetics and breeding work, he says. They have earned a reputation for calves that turn out good carcasses, grade well and do well in the feedlots, Warnick says. Their buyers are repeat buyers from all over the country.

The ranch's size and success help it attract some of the top animal-scientist graduates in the nation, Warnick says. Several of the cowboys hold bachelors or masters degrees. The church puts a premium on its workforce and manages with an employee-centered philosophy. Most of Deseret's 80 employees live on the ranch, which has 65 tidy homes scattered over its acreage. Pay is at or higher than the industry average, and the ranch offers profit-sharing as well as professional-development programs.

The Mormons, big on big families, are also big on family perks: The ranch hires employees children in a work program each summer and sponsors a pay-for-grades program that gives cash to employees kids on the A-B honor role. Other family amenities include horseback riding and an elaborate swimming hole with wooden docks, diving platforms, slides and rope swings.

Squires says while a good portion of Deseret's employees are Mormon, the ranch is an equal-opportunity employer. Still, non-Mormon employees clearly have to accept a work culture dominated by Mormons. There isn't a coffee machine to be found in ranch offices. No alcohol is allowed in common areas. Single employees canft have overnight guests of the opposite sex. And the swimming hole is closed on Sundays.

Back at the cattle drive, Kevin Mann, a non-Mormon cowboy who lives on the ranch, says Deseret's religious underpinnings made him leery of working there, but its reputation persuaded him to give it a try. Five years later, he says, he is glad he did, as much for the career opportunities as for the community that his wife and two young daughters enjoy. "You wonder if they're going to hound you, but they never have," Mann says of the Mormons reputation for proselytizing. The best side to it is that they're very family-oriented, so it's a great place to raise your kids even if you're not Mormon.

The ranch's neighbors, too, give it high marks. The ranch is among the biggest taxpayers in Osceola County. (The church pays taxes on all its private businesses and in fact has a policy of not accepting government subsidies, including farm subsidies. The policy is related to the church's welfare program, whose basis is individual self-reliance, not a handout that might rob the receiver of self-respect.

Osceola County Commissioner Chuck Dunnick describes Deseret as benevolent to the surrounding community, professional in its dealings with local government and a good steward of the environment. The ranch has its own staff of wildlife biologists and has worked with state and local agencies on a progressive wildlife-management plan, Dunnick says. "They've been very quiet over the years, but if they do want to talk about an issue, you know they're going to be highly professional and well-prepared," he says. They're great neighbors. If you could pick your own neighbors, I'd definitely pick them."

Ecclesiastical entrepreneurism
While the church is committed to stewardship of the land, it is just as committed to squeezing profits out of its private companies. And eventually, those two missions are sure to clash on this prime central Florida property. Real estate sources estimate Deseret's spread is worth some $900 million, though the assessed agricultural value is far lower than that. For decades, the family cattle ranches that once made up Osceola and outlying Orange counties have been gobbled up by housing developments, a pattern that is repeating itself throughout Florida and the nation. But because the church is so rich, it has not yet buckled to pressure to sell any of its Florida land to developers. Ten years ago, the church backed off a plan to develop 7,000 acres near the Bee Line Expressway under sharp criticism from environmentalists.

Often at odds in other parts of the country over issues such as animal waste and grazing, the tree-huggers and the cowpokes in central Florida have for now become allies. For example, environmentalists helped Deseret fight a huge landfill Brevard County wanted to put adjacent to the ranch. That area is also home to one of the largest bird rookeries in the state.

Squires says the church's long-term plans for the majority of Deseret Ranch are to keep it agricultural. But he acknowledges the business-savvy church will develop the fringes, particularly its property outside Orlando, as the land becomes more valuable. "The pressure is here," Squires says. "But we want to be responsible and be good neighbors." It is in his church's ecclesiastical and entrepreneurial missions to do so, he says.

[Elsie]

I guess I get a little tired of being attacked for my faith, and when I try to defend it, there is no rational discussion.

SURE there is!

But the LDS deceived mind can't grasp it.

[Elsie]

I'm largely ignorant about the Mormon Church...

Most people are: even Mormons!

[Elsie]

I do not know about the rather far-out teachings mentioned by one poster, but if tithing, and having an unpaid ministry, and owning one's own buildings is somehow unChristian, I guess we could start an Amish-bashing thread.

Nice list, but you left out the non-Christian stuff.

[Elsie]

I think you're defending what was never attacked.

You were not supposed to notice...

[AppyPappy]

It’s called “re-direction”.

[Elsie]

I think you're defending what was never attacked.

They can't defend what WAS 'attacked'!

[Elsie]

Actually, it's not that straightforward.

Actually; it is.

We believe that all who live, have lived, and are yet to be born are spirit children ...

Indeed you do; and it is NOT biblical.

[restornu]

MLM I don’t think there scam some people it come naturally and others just don’t want to apply the effort.

Insurance and real estate is build on the same concept only with MLM when some one breaks off you get a monthly thank you, where as in insurance or real estate you train someone and they break away, they become you competition with no thanks. All your leading corporation are build on this concept only in MLM you are not left out for you help.

Not saying that some individual don’t do stupid things a good company will discourage someone from trying to buy ones way up, because it doesn’t work that way.

Like every thing in life we have to earn it, but when you do earn your way in MLM it is very rewarding.

[restornu]

Good Lord, I have trouble from getting day to day like the rest of us do you really think that knowledge is on all our minds.

If folks took the honest time they realize that is what will happen to all those who lived righteous lives who are the children of the Lord.

The Bible testifies to it.

One of the first steps is to Love One Another

John 13

31 ¶Therefore, when he was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him.

32 If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him.

33 Little children, yet a little while I am with you. Ye shall seek me: and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot come; so now I say to you.

34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

[restornu]

I do; for I care about where their souls end up.

****

Really if that were true you would have and shown the Spirit of Love that Jesus Christ.

Only the spirit of the Lord aka Holy Ghost bears witness to the truthful things of the Lord, no amount of railing on another will do that, because the Spirit of the is unable to stay in a contentious soul.

John 13

34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

some have no faith to do the will of the Lord they prefer to their own will...

[Scoutmaster]

I compiled that list using Wikipedia and other sources in response to a post quoting Joseph Smith as saying "I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam."

I support the rights of Utah Girl and all other FReepers to their religious beliefs.

[restornu]

I support the rights of Utah Girl and all other FReepers to their religious beliefs.

***

I hear this all the time from you Scoutmaster as I feel something gently slip in my back....

If I am wrong I can only go by what I read down the line....

[Elsie]

Insurance and real estate is build on the same concept only with MLM when some one breaks off you get a monthly thank you,
where as in insurance or real estate you train someone and they break away, they become you competition with no thanks.

Golly!

Just like Mormonism!

---

With the Mormons (to be precise, the members of The Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - based in Salt Lake City) intent on being called “Christians” after so many years of eschewing that word, and despite the fact that there are so many fundamental theological differences between Christianity and Mormonism, I often wonder: 

How do members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints feel about calling the members of its various spin-off sects Latter-Day Saints, Christians, or Mormons? Or about those sects calling themselves Mormons or Latter-Day Saints? (There was an earlier campaign by LDS to have journalism style books use the word “Mormon” to refer only to LDS, and not RLDS, FLDS, or other LDS sects).

For a man who bragged about holding things together, Joseph Smith, Jr. doesn’t appear go have done a good job of it during his lifetime. Wycam Clark’s “Pure Church of Christ” spun off in 1831. This trend continued. There were six LDS sects spawned in the 1830s, eight in the 1840s, two in the 1850s, and seven in the 1860s.

Do those responsible for the “Mormons are Christians” campaign consider these denominations to be Mormons or Latter-Day Saints? Surely many of these denominations are much closer to mainstream LDS than LDS is to Christianity. Many stick to Smith’s teachings and old temple endowment ceremonies.

Short Creek Community
Latter Day Church of Christ
Apostolic United Brethren
Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
Church of the Firstborn of the Fulness [sic] of Times
Church of the Lamb of God
Church of the New Covenant in Christ
Confederate Nations of Israel
Righteous Branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
School of the Prophets
Centennial Park
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Kingdom of God
True and Living Church of Jesus Christ of Saints of the Last Days
The Church of the Firstborn and the General Assembly of Heaven

Blackmore/Bountiful Community
Restoration Church of Jesus Christ
Order of Enoch
Aaronic Order
Zion’s Order, Inc.
Perfected Church of Jesus Christ of Immaculate Latter-day Saints
Church of Jesus Christ (Bullaite)
Community of Christ
Church of Jesus Christ (Toneyite)
Independent RLDS / Restoration Branches
Church of Jesus Christ Restored 1830
Church of Christ (Lion of God Ministry/Clarkite)
Church of Jesus Christ (Zion’s Branch)
Restoration Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
Remnant Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
Church of Christ (Temple Lot) (Hedrickite)
Church of Christ (Fettingite) (Hedrickite)
Church of Christ at Halley’s Bluff (Hedrickite)
Church of Christ (Restored) (Hedrickite)
Church of Christ “With the Elijah Message” (Hedrickite)
Church of Christ (Hancock) (Hedrickite)
Church of Christ (Burtite) (Hendrickite)
Church of Israel (Hendrickite)
Church of Christ with the Elijah Message (The Assured Way of the Lord) (Hendrickite)
The Church of Jesus Christ (Bickertonite)
Church of Jesus Christ (Cutlerite)
True Church of Jesus Christ (Cutlerite)
Restored Church of Jesus Christ (Cutlerite)
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Strangite)
Holy Church of Jesus Christ (Strangite)
Church of Jesus Christ (Drewite) (Strangite)
True Church of Jesus Christ Restored (Strangite)
Pentecostal Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Whitmerite)

Or these defunct sects:

Pure Church of Christ (Clarkite)
Independent Church (Hotonite)
Church of Christ (Boothite)
Church of Christ (Parrishite)
Alston Church
Church of Christ (Chubbyite)
Church of Jesus Christ, the Bride, the Lamb’s Wife
Church of Christ (Pageite)
True Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (this one was particularly curious - started by William Law, editor of The Nauvoo Expositor, just one of many sects started in opposition to plural marriage)
The Church of Zion (Godbeite)
United Order Family of Christ
Church of the Potter Christ
Church of the Firstborn (Morrisite)
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Gibsonite)
Church of Jesus Christ of Saints of the Most High
Church of the Christian Brotherhood
Church of Jesus Christ of the Children of Zion (Rigdonite) Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ (Bickertonite)
Primative Church of Jesus Christ (Bickertonite)
Church of Christ (Aaron Smith)
Church of the Messiah (Adamsite)
Church of Christ (Wrightite)
Church of Christ (Whitmerite)
Church of Christ (Brewsterite)
The Bride, the Lamb’s Wife
Congregation of Jehovah’s Presbytery of Zion
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Gladdenite)
Independent Latter Day Saints of Nigeria
Independent Latter Day Saints of Ghana
Apostolic Divine Church of Ghana

Are members of those LDS groups “Mormons”? “Latter Day Saints?” “Christians?”

Do the folks in Salt Lake City have a problem with any of those groups, who believe in the restoration of the original church by Joseph Smith, calling themselves Mormons or Saints?

Most of these divisions in the Latter-Day Saint movement occurred over the issue of polygamy or succession of the Prophet. Sects broke off when Joseph Smith was still alive, and when Brigham Young was named prophet, because they didn’t believe in the practice of plural marriage – either publicly, or in some cases when it was practiced in private and denied in public.

Of course, there was the great split between Rocky Mountain Saints and Prairie Saints, when LDS members couldn’t agree on a successor prophet to Smith, Jr., and the church went to Utah, Missouri, Illinois, Michigan, and Pennsylvania under Brigham Young, Sidney Rigdon (senior member of the First Presidency), James Strang, Lyman Wight, Alpheus Cutler, William Smith, David Whitmer (a BOM witness), or Joseph Smith III (son of Joseph Smith, Jr.). Almost all of these individuals still has multiple sects in existence that date to an 1844 decision about who should be the next President/Prophet of the church.

The Prairie Saints split into sects over the issue of whether Smith practiced polygamy. Rocky Mountain Saints had many, many spinoff sects after the 1890 Manifesto – groups that still practice plural marriage.

======================================================================================================================================================

Thanks to ScoutMaster for all the hard work here!

[Elsie]

Only the spirit of the Lord aka Holy Ghost bears witness to the truthful things of the Lord, no amount of railing on another will do that, because the Spirit of the is unable to stay in a contentious soul.

Keep ignoring your HISTORY, restornu, as show the world just what a LOVING Mormon is!

---

---

Questions put to Joseph Smith: "'Do you believe the Bible?' [Smith:]'If we do, we are the only people under heaven that does, for there are none of the religious sects of the day that do'. When asked 'Will everybody be damned, but Mormons'? [Smith replied] 'Yes, and a great portion of them, unless they repent, and work righteousness." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 119).

Joseph Smith: "for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible" (from Pearl of Great Price 1:12). "What is it that inspires professors of Christianity generally with a hope of salvation? It is that smooth, sophisticated influence of the devil, by which he deceives the whole world" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.270).

 

 

 

Brigham Young stated this repeatedly: "When the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness" (Journal of Discourses 5:73); "The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God" (Journal of Discourses 8:171); "With a regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world" (Journal of Discourses 8:199); "And who is there that acknowledges [God's] hand? ...You may wander east, west, north, and south, and you cannot find it in any church or government on the earth, except the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.24); "Should you ask why we differ from other Christians, as they are called, it is simply because they are not Christians as the New Testament defines Christianity" (Journal of Discourses 10:230).

 

 

 

Orson Pratt proclaimed: "Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the 'whore of Babylon' whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent" (The Seer, p. 255).

 

 

 

Orson Pratt also said: "This great apostasy commenced about the close of the first century of the Christian era, and it has been waxing worse and worse from then until now" (Journal of Discourses

, vol.18, p.44) and: "But as there has been no Christian Church on the earth for a great many centuries past, until the present century, the people have lost sight of the pattern that God has given according to which the Christian Church should be established, and they have denominated a great variety of people Christian Churches, because they profess to be ...But there has been a long apostasy, during which the nations have been cursed with apostate churches in great abundance" (Journal of Discourses , 18:172).

 

 

President John Taylor stated: "Christianity...is a perfect pack of nonsense...the devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century." (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.167); "Where shall we look for the true order or authority of God? It cannot be found in any nation of Christendom." (Journal of Discourses , 10:127).

 

 

 

James Talmage said: "A self-suggesting interpretation of history indicates that there has been a great departure from the way of salvation as laid down by the Savior, a universal apostasy from the Church of Christ". (A Study of the Articles of Faith, p.182).

 

 

 

President Joseph Fielding Smith said: "Doctrines were corrupted, authority lost, and a false order of religion took the place of the gospel of Jesus Christ, just as it had been the case in former dispensations, and the people were left in spiritual darkness." (Doctrines of Salvation, p.266). "For hundreds of years the world was wrapped in a veil of spiritual darkness, until there was not one fundamental truth belonging to the place of salvation ...Joseph Smith declared that in the year 1820 the Lord revealed to him that all the 'Christian' churches were in error, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 3, p.282).

 

 

 

More recent statements by apostle Bruce McConkie are also very clear: "Apostasy was universal...And this darkness still prevails except among those who have come to a knowledge of the restored gospel" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol 3, p.265); "Thus the signs of the times include the prevailing apostate darkness in the sects of Christendom and in the religious world in general" (The Millennial Messiah, p.403); "a perverted Christianity holds sway among the so-called Christians of apostate Christendom" (Mormon Doctrine, p.132); "virtually all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ whom they vainly suppose to be a spirit essence who is incorporeal uncreated, immaterial and three-in-one with the Father and Holy Spirit" (Mormon Doctrine, p.269); "Gnosticism is one of the great pagan philosophies which antedated Christ and the Christian Era and which was later commingled with pure Christianity to form the apostate religion that has prevailed in the world since the early days of that era." (Mormon Doctrine, p.316).

 

 

 

President George Q. Cannon said: "After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon" (Gospel Truth, p.324).

 

 

President Wilford Woodruff stated: "the Gospel of modern Christendom shuts up the Lord, and stops all communication with Him. I want nothing to do with such a Gospel, I would rather prefer the Gospel of the dark ages, so called" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 2, p.196).

[Elsie]

I support the rights of Utah Girl and all other FReepers to their religious beliefs.

So do I!!!

I also support MY freedom to expose what those beliefs are built upon.

[Elsie]

If I am wrong I can only go by what I read down the line....

It mattereth not; for you READ what your chosen religion teaches and ignore it; why should ANYTHING a Christian has to say bother you?

[Elsie]

The Mormon church runs one of the biggest and most profitable cattle operations in the U.S. on a 300,000-acre ranch covering parts of Orange, Brevard and Osceola counties.

The ranch won't disclose financial information,   (Why Not?  Every other BUSINESS in the US has to!)

 By cross-breeding cows for speedy growth, good reproduction and climate tolerance and by developing and perfecting grasses for central Florida, they have achieved some of the highest weights, and therefore some of the highest profits, in the industry.

... the ranch offers profit-sharing as well as professional-development programs.

...the church has achieved some of the highest profits in the industry because of its long-term commitment to the ranch ...

While the church is committed to stewardship of the land, it is just as committed to squeezing profits out of its private companies.

 

 

I guess things have changed since the 'church' was INCORPORATED :

Fifth: Upon the winding up and dissolution of this corporation, after paying or adequately providing for the debts and obligations of the corporation, the remaining assets shall be distributed to a nonprofit fund,

 

 

 

 

[restornu]

You need help Elsie after all these years your pointing figure must be falling off...

[restornu]

gee Elsie just think that was in 2002 wow how much greater it is too day... LOL

[restornu]

gee Elsie just think that was in 2002 wow how much greater it is too day... LOL

Woo Hoo real cowboys in 2012!!

http://www.deseretranchflorida.com/welcome.html