BREAKING NEWS UPDATE: Authorities enter Eldorado-area temple (Fundamentalist LDS cult)

Local and state officials entered the temple of a secretive polygamist sect late Saturday, said lawmen blockading the road to the YFZ Ranch near Eldorado.

The action comes hours after local prosecutors said officials were preparing for the worst because a group of FLDS members were resisting efforts to search the structure.

The Texas Department of Public Safety trooper and Schleicher County sheriff’s deputy confirmed that officials have entered the temple but said they had no word on whether anything occurred in the effort.

The incursion into the temple caps the three-day saga of the state’s Child Protective Services agency removing at least 183 women and children from the YFZ Ranch since Friday afternoon. Eighteen girls have been placed in state custody since a 16-year-old told authorities she was married to a 50-year-old man and had given birth to his child.

Saturday evening, ambulances were brought in, said Allison Palmer, who as first assistant 51st District attorney, would prosecute any felony crimes uncovered as part of the investigation inside the compound.

“In preparing for entry to the temple, law enforcement is preparing for the worst,” Palmer said Saturday evening. They want to have “medical personnel on hand in case this were to go in a way that no one wants.”

Apparently as a result of action Saturday night at the ranch, about 10:15 p.m. Saturday, a Schleicher County school bus unloaded another group of at least a dozen more women and children from the compound.

Although members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or FLDS, have provided varying degrees of cooperation to the sheriff’s deputies and Texas Rangers searching the compound, all cooperation stopped once authorities tried to search the gleaming white temple that towers over the West Texas scrub, Palmer said.

“There may be those who would oppose (entry) by placing themselves between law enforcement and the place of worship,” Palmer said Saturday afternoon. “If an agreement cannot be reached … law enforcement will have to — as gently and peaceably as possible — make entry into that place.”

Sect members consider the temple, dedicated by then-leader of the sect Warren Jeffs in January 2005 and finished many months later, off-limits to those who are not FLDS members, said Palmer, who prosecutes felony cases in Schleicher County.

Palmer said she didn’t know the size or makeup of the group inside the temple.

The earlier refusal to provide access was even more disconcerting because CPS investigators have yet to identify the 16-year-old girl or her roughly 8-month-old baby among the dozens removed from the compound, Palmer said.

“Anytime someone says, ‘Don’t look here,’” she said, “it makes you concerned that’s exactly where you need to look.”

The girl told authorities in two separate phone calls a day apart that she was married to a 50-year-old man, Dale Barlow, who had fathered her child, Palmer said.

The joint raid included the Texas Rangers, CPS, Schleicher County and Tom Green County sheriff’s deputies and game wardens from the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife.

Although CPS and Department of Public Safety officials have described the compound’s residents as cooperative, Palmer disagreed.

Authorities removed 52 children Friday afternoon and 131 women and children overnight Friday. About 40 of the children are boys, said CPS spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner.

No further children have been taken into state custody since Friday, when 18 girls were judged to have been abused or be at imminent risk for abuse. CPS has found foster homes for the girls, Meisner said, and will place them after concluding its investigation.

Meisner declined to comment on the fate of the 119 other children and said authorities were still searching the ranch for others Saturday evening.

“They’re in the process of looking,” she said. “They’re literally about halfway through.”

I Said: The fact of the matter is that if God did not testify of the Book of Mormon, anti Mormons would be encouraging everyone to read it and pray about it, instead they typically try to tell people they don't need to read it and pray about it.

U Said: I encourage everyone to read the lies of the Book of Mormon. They then can compare it to the Bible, and see how the King James Version of the Bible was so plagiarized by the uneducated Joseph Smith (over 25,000 times).

You would be the first, in general, Anti's sputter about how a demon will answer a prayer to God, or how they tired it so you don't have to...

I Said: What we are all about? Simply put we are all about spreading the word that God is not dead, he has not turned his kingdom over to men, that he lives and speaks with men on earth today that he will respond to prayers and has much more than is in the Bible, instructions for today, helping people be righteous today and that everyone can have a testimony of him and his work, all you need to do is Put our religion to"the test"

U Said: I did.

It was weighed on the scales and found wanting.

So you weighed it and decided it was wanting? Surprise! Not. Did you ask God? U Said: The rest of your post was this diatribe that white shirted teens in really bad ties use when they come to the front door. I find they quickly start staring at their shoes when you ask them any of the hard questions that have been asked by the posters I have also pinged in my response.

Yeah, Yawn, I'm quaking in my boots. You do realize I have been asked all the "Hard Questions", and found they either had answers or were invalid questions. (an example of an invalid question would be please tell me the marital status of the number five) the looking at shoes is often an attempt not to laugh. Polite missionaries then make a graceful exit, knowing you refuse to learn.

U Said: I take it you used to do this?

Yes, 20 years ago, I had the privilege of serving in Taiwan as a missionary, so?

I Said: I just went and looked at your page... blank, so you appear to stand for nothing...

U Said: Now you are really getting strange on me. I let my responses on the forum speak for me. Do you really think the measure of one's character is how jazzy their FR page is? My gosh. Do you realize how childish you appear? I can cut and paste too.

Your responses, speak for you, OK, but most people on FR who have been here for a bit like to personalize their page with something... that is if they care about anything at all

The measure of one's character is not usually to be found on their web page, but on FR those with a passion for something usually have a page that talks about it.

as for Jazzy, I didn't go for lots of pictures myself, I went for content, go and see for your self, I won't tell.

I Said: Great! That just gives me more opportunity to testify, we get more converts this way than you would imagine...Grin.

U Said: I am going to give you a little bit of social advice.

Thanks, but I learned a long time ago not to take social advice from someone who has already made it clear they don't like you. besides, most free advice is worth exactly what you paid for it, if not less.

U Said: When you get nervous, you start with these Grin words in your posts. You come across as a chubby 12 year old boy who found his daddy's Playboy and is e-mailing all his friends.

Ahhhh, just the look I was going for (grin / Smirk).

U Said: I will say this though. You try in your posts. It is more effective than, say what Old Mountain Man does - which is leave insulting posts in people's FR mailbox accusing them of being a "DRUNK!" or a "GUTLESS COWARDS!" and then running away.

I must confess I was picturing a post with a smiley face running away, like this:

Sorry, I am cursed with an active imagination...

U Said: However DU - what you mostly post is span gibberish. Looooooooooong gibberish. Few probably read it - you just post too many words. Those that do are turned off by what you post.

The length is often determined by the posts I am responding to, yours for example will be relatively short.

U Said: But, please continue. You are making the point that the LDS religion is a cult.

Don't worry, I'll continue to post as I have time...

BTW, the cult thing has so been done, a Cult is basically anything that is organized enough to have a name, Catholicism, Cult, Methodism, Cult, Pentecostals, cult Baptist, Cult. The pejorative use of this word has been so overdone people don't even know what it means anymore.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.