Share The Light

I came from the society of the Fundamentalist LDS believing people. They make up many groups nowdays and are called by many different names. Too many of them in their fever to celestialize themselves prey on the little guy, like King David did to Uriah in the Old Testament. They will discredit and plunder their own faithful warriors in an effort to destroy them so they can enjoy the spoils, all the time tricking themselves into believing that there is something beautiful and right about that.  My reference has everything to do with those people. They have presidents, officers, bishops, etc. and my prediction is one for them. Over two hundred families of my friends have been destroyed by those officers, bishops, presidents, councillors. Enough is enough as far as I am concerned! I think that nothing is more useless than a police officer that is dishonest, or a president that watches porn by night and takes peoples families away the next day because they have looked at porn. A nasty bishop who wastes away the peoples means, a lying spokesman or an untrustworthy trustee who get their jollies by watching the very people suffer that support them and that they should be protecting and serving, are the ones that I make a reference to.

It has been just about a year since I was arrested. Our government broke their own law and hurt a lot of people in the process. The officer that did so was dealt with by the voice of the people. Our justice system seemed to work and proved it to be so. I have known some prejudiced police officers over the years. They made ugly jokes about the local First Nations community, they ridiculed us, and I was glad when they were transferred out of here. But their hurt was nothing compared to the thousands of people that have been hurt by our lost religious society. Lost boys, lost girls, lost fathers, lost mothers, lost grandfathers, lost grandmothers, lost decency, lost dignity, lost honor, lost money, lost truth!

I think it is time for LDS believing people to practice what they preach! It is definitely time for every Christian to stop looking for reasons to injure their neighbors. It is time for everyone to do better. Do you know what Bob? That includes me as well!

As for the Justice System. If you are a Fundamentalist practicing LDS person and involved in the Justice System of Canada or the United States then my prediction includes you as well.

Yes, those were the days. I quit because it took a lot of energy to predict a year in advance. I am much lazier now than back then. No really, I have learned how to live just one day at a time. It really isn’t that hard to make a few simple predictions but we need to give the credit to Jesus Christ. Here are a few of his predictions.

Anyone who lays a snare for his fellow will be taken therein. If you judge a person you will be judged the same way back. If you take away a persons family then you will lose yours. If you believe a lie that you know is a lie then you will be damned. Maybe I will make one prediction. Here goes.  This coming year will not be a good one for all you officers, presidents, bishops, counsellors, trustees,  spokespersons, or any other responsible persons that deliberately break up families, interfere with the free agency of men, women and children, and cause an attack or assist in an attack, religious or otherwise upon any person or his family. This year will be the beginning of your end and in the end you will be single, lonely, desolate and damned.

You folks that are so stuck on the One Man thing should be aware that Christ is the one man that you should be strictly obedient to and you should follow Him and no one else. He said if you build a church on the teachings of a man then you belong to the church of that man. When whole congregations bow to new teachings that contradict what Christ has already said then they are shifting their foundation from His church to their new man. Holy Cow! Why were we so dumb?

I certainly do enjoy Christmas, though I do not celebrate it in the traditional way. This year my family are doing a Christmas/New Years concert for anyone who wants to come listen. We have lots of friends and will advertise it for one day, the day we do it. We plan on singing our favorite Christmas songs along with some others. There are many people in my family and most plan on attending and participating.

We have so much of everything that we do not need to spend thousands of dollars on useless plastic toys or things that only keep the Chinese employed. Dad used to use Christmas as the time to get us all some socks, shoes, shirts or pants if that is what we needed. He came from a family that did the big tree thing and so he did. The fun left it all when he passed away in 74. My mom has a tree with all the lights, in her apartment. She enjoys it very much. I will put a small gift for her under it tomorrow night. And–on Christmas day we will surely eat lots of good things. Fruit, nuts, fresh baking, roast turkey, beef, ham and chickens. Lots of mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, and more pies than any fat Mormon should eat. I am getting tired of the annual same old Christmas shows that I have watched forty times, so this year I am watching something new. If there is a football or hockey game somewhere I will watch that.  Oh yes, the book. I plan on getting started on some book I have never read. I am not going to read any books that talk about sad abused FLDS or any other abused folks. Don’t plan on a romance novel either. I am going to let the Bible rest a day or two as well. Maybe I will add to Larry Kings fortunes by buying a copy of his book and reading it. I’ll let you know.

Yes, at the time in the world when all Christians take a few days, sing some nice songs, go to church and talk of Christ, I will as well. He is no baby and isn’t asleep in a barn anymore but those are sure sweet songs that help us remember that he once was. That memory hurt no one.

So Merry Christmas to all the Christian world! May you think, sing and act like Christ would even if it is just one day. Call your parents, grandparents, siblings! Renew your friendships, forgive your enemies and show kindness to the needy. Give to the poor, heal old wounds and act like a better person. Sing good songs until your voice is hoarse. Don’t forget to pray and have that prayer in your heart. You all will be glad you did.

I don’t know if I could sort that mess out for you. Let me start from the front. There is nothing dishonorable about widowhood. Having your husband die is a sad thing. As far as I know, a widow has every right to choose to marry again, but if she does not want to then she should not.

If a woman is married to a man that is abusive to her then she should try and help him get some counselling. If he physically hurts her then she should get some protection. He will also be hurting the children and she should make sure that he does not. I have told different people over the years to call the police and get some help against violence. No one needs to be afraid of their spouse. If there is nothing that can be done then do something else. Being divorced does not make a person dirty if they have kept their vows, and it also does not make them free to jump into bed with the next person that comes along either. If you are the partner that has maintained your vows while the other has forsaken theirs then you are still virtuous in the sight of God. I counsel couples that have loved each other to reconcile if they can, clean up their lives by faith, repentance, and baptism, and then recommitting if for nothing else than for their children. It is the hardest thing of all to do, but is still the right thing to do. That is of course, if the one who broke their vow promises to never do so again.

If a man or woman is married and courting someone else’s husband or wife or daughters, watches pornography and goes to the beach oogling the girls or men, then they should quit it. Being holy on Sunday and thinking you automatically have some divine communion with God(Priesthood) after doing all of that is silly. It was Christ who said, “he who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery in their heart”. That applies the other direction as well. Time will take a toll on folks like that and in the end they will have no one who wants them.

The Priesthood is the authority that God gives to ordinary men that they may participate in the saving principles of the gospel for their family. He also gives some men the authority to perform those saving ordinances for a community or a church. That tender sacred contract with God is kept alive in a man that builds his foundation on the teachings of Jesus Christ. The Holy Ghost, which must be present in the authorized man, is the spirit of God and the binding messenger sent from his presence. It will not abide with a man or woman that watches pornography, chases the girls, abuses his family and commits adultery. That is how it has always been.

The section on plural marriage is very plain indeed and is a fundamental doctrine of our great faith. The responsibility of entering into this eternal principle is shared between a husband and wife as paragraph 61 through 65 explain. The problem that the present LDS membership have to deal with is not so much the Manifesto, which I can kind of understand, well sort of, considering the tumultuous times and the age of the old brethren back then, but it is the attitude of the present leadership. When I was visiting with Larry King once, he told me that President Hinckley had told him that Plural Marriage was never a fundamental principle of our faith. I can’t imagine that Brother Hinckley had forgotten to read the D&C but maybe he had. I don’t know why the present leadership are so ashamed of something that meant so much to the early brethren that it must be discounted as never a fundamental principle. Oh well, that doesn’t matter to me because I am a Mormon fundamentalist and that is not what you asked.

I don’t really know how to convey my answer in a short space but I can give you some advice on what is not acceptable. Don’t try and convert someone else’s wife into joining you in a plural marriage relationship. Adultery won’t make your home more celestial. Teach your wife that plural marriage is a fundamental principle of our faith and help her understand that she also has a responsibility to live the fulness of the gospel. No matter how ready, willing and available some woman may be to join up with you, use the same caution and wisdom that you used in the first place. A woman that will leave someone else will also leave you. An unfaithful wife of someone elses will also be unfaithful to you. A person that does not have faith in God won’t automatically have faith because you do. The ultimate goal of any plural family is to have a friendly happy relationship of sharing caring staying people who will joy in each others joys, sorrow in each others sorrows, and love the faith that will glue them together forever. When you get that far you will know what I mean.

Plural Marriage has also lots of problems. For over 150 years the brethren have been battling with every nasty old battle axe that had an ugly life and cannot see anything decent about two or more woman and one man joined as a family unit. They will raise holy hell, make books, expose every ugly feeling that they had along the way and try and make those feelings credible of every plural situation. They cannot see virtue if they haven’t any, co-operation if they are selfish, beauty when they feel so ugly, and they refuse to believe that anyone could be bound by their faith, because they have no faith, and if they pretend to they have forgotten the basic teachings of Christ. If they had remembered Christ they would not carry on so. Then there is the LDS Church. Is it fair to say that if you started talking about Plural Marriage at your church you would soon not be a member? They used to all say that it was not practiced because it was against the law. It is not against the law for the lawmakers to intimately associate with who and how many, male or female. Dozens of Presidents and Prime Ministers have openly exercised the skeletons in their own closets, skeletons that were more than mere bones, all the while they planned on making more laws against someones basic fundamental religious principles, which by the way is against the law. I wonder what the church will then say to their members when polygamy is no longer illegal?  But, I don’t really care because the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is as old as eternity and the Prophet Joseph said that it was never changing, for he reasoned, if God was always changing, then who could ever really know if they were pleasing him? Faith in him then would no longer exist! The church should study our fundamental principles instead of putting their trust in the arm of flesh. That’s just my opinion.

The best way to get started is get busy. Dozens of lazy men want to be polygamists and generally for all the wrong reasons. Go to work and fall in love with your wife and then go help someone in need. Do what Christ said and help those who you can help whether they like you or not. Keep yourself virtuous, don’t have wicked imaginations, be selective about what you read and watch and take great care to not touch something either mentally or physically that you should not. Let virtue garnish your thoughts unceasingly, then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God and the doctrine of the Priesthood shall distill upon thy soul as the dews from heaven.  Plural Marriage is a Doctrine of the Priesthood so it stands to reason that a Priesthood that does not honor that Doctrine needs to re-look at their authority. Clean up your yard, your shop, your house, your life. Go to your meetings, socials and functions. Actually, you should go to somewhere where people have the same faith hopes and dreams as you do, then go to meetings, socials and functions. Keep yourself clean physically and mentally. Pay your tithing and help on the projects. It has been my experience that a man who helps and participates, brushes his teeth and is clean is far more attractive than a filthy lazy man and far more desirable. You don’t have to be tall dark and handsome either. Be a man of God and let your light shine before men and woman and they will see your goodworks and some will want to be a part of all that.

It has been my experience that the happiest plural marriage associations are not had in wealth or mansions. They are had by people who make no compromise for their faith, no compromise in their virtue, no compromise in their living habits, and take no chances with their salvation. If you have bad habits then get over them. If you have a tarnished past then repent and don’t look backward anymore. Dispose of your sins and don’t dig them up anymore. Be all that our faith expects you to be and you will be well on the way. What’s more! God will notice you first.

Please forgive me if I have given anyone the idea that I think I am so smart. I am not, but the spirit of the Lord is, and he has said that the gospel is so simple that even a child can understand it. I read the scriptures without trying to introduce a hidden meaning. That is what the Prophet Joseph did and that is what you should do.

The question is about Temples. The first temple ever was built in Kirtland, Ohio. It is beautiful and I have had the privilege of standing by it. It was used as a meeting house, endowment house, school, was a barn for a while and now finally is resurrected back into a temple that you can tour. Several revelations were received in it and several visions. I believe that Elijah appeared there, the one who broght the keys that would turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the children to their old fathers, and I mention it because it is the reason for temple work in the firstplace, to do work for our old fathers who had never heard the gospel.

The temples prepared to do ordinance work for those who had died before they had the opportunity of hearing and believing the gospel. The charge was given the faithful saints to seek out their dead and go and perform their baptisms, sealings, and other sacred work done for those dead relatives, making them saviours of their ancestors.  I went to a funeral a couple years ago for a man that was married to an LDS woman. He was anything but religious and was bad as they get when it came to the carousing category.  Well, the Stake President talked and he said, “boy do we have a surprise for him. We are going to do all his temple work for him and when he comes forth in the resurrection his salvation will be secure”.  Since I am so simple I just laughed to myself. He should have read the fourteenth Chapter of Ezekiel, which was often quoted by the Prophet Joseph.

The Book of Mormon teaches that all will be resurrected exactly as they have died. The filthy will be filthy still.  I don’t care how often you baptize a cutthroat in a sacred temple, nor how many times you marry them for eternity, if they were able to repent, had heard the gospel and refused to do something about their salvation while they were able, they will have to suffer the consequence.

I think over the last hundreds of years every relative known to have existed in our family whether good or bad has been temple worked to death. One of my sisters phoned me once and asked if she could do temple work our dad. It was after he was dead. I told her that I am sure that if it made her feel better then she may just as well.  I did not think it would make any difference to him.

Don’t forget that all the work that must be done in a sacred temple must be done by someone who enjoys the confidence of God so that what they do is respected and honored by him. That is what the Priesthood is. The authority from God to do sacred work for the living and the dead in a manner and fashion that he will approve of. Since he is the judge he won’t honor someone he has not sent. It also must be performed for someone who has forsaken their sins or has never heard the gospel plan in real time enough to accept it while they lived. Since all mankind will continue to be beyond this life what they were in this life, no amount of temple work can make something out of nothing for the living or the dead. That is a fundamental truth of Mormonism.

God will be the final judge of all. He alone knows the thoughts and intent of peoples hearts. He alone can make that call for those who have gone beyond this life. He alone knows whose work he will honor and who has not been given authority from him. Our biggest concern should be, have I done everything that I need to do to be accepted by God?

No, I don’t. I do have feelings about it though. I feel sad for the girl that was married to his brother and then taken from the brother and  put with Raymond in time for her to have such a hard time having a baby. I feel sad that Warren took time to write about the event in his dictations and did not take the time to get her some medical help. I feel sad that Allen  was dismissed from Texas but this time I was happy to read that his dictated crime was for questioning the age of a daughter wanted as a comfort wife.  Allen deserved better than that for defending his family. I feel sad that Merrill participated in all of this, and I am sad for Mike, Guy, Eddie, Tom and the other Allen, who were just as fine a people that you have ever come across. I am sad for LeRoy, Ron, Dan, Ben and my daughter Susie for not doing the simple thing of comparing what was being said by what the prophets have already said. It only takes a minute. I am sad for Jimmy, Ken, Ray, Brandon and my old brother Mac. I am sad for Kathy, Orval, and Kendal. Ken, your kids are beautiful. I am sad for Brian, Merrill, Mem and Mary.

But most of all I am sad for Willie. My good old friend Willie. I was so proud of Willie when he stood up and started talking. Now Willie please take some advice from an old friend and do some listening. Be Coriantumr instead of Shiz, who at least tried to make peace before all the Jaredites were killed. I don’t think it was any fun being the only person left.

I can just hear the scholars groan.  I will give you my simple answer.  Receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost is always associated with baptism, and baptism as an ordinance is defined in the Book of Mormon to be administered to those who have forsaken their sins and shown that they have by their works. They must show sorrow for their faults, correct their lives by disposing of their faults, and then wish to be baptized, seeking to take upon themselves the name of Jesus Christ, walking in his teachings and keeping his commandments.  In this repentant condition and after the ordinance of baptism they are in the proper mind frame for the “gift of the Holy Ghost” which will give them new vision, or the ability to see themselves as God sees them. If they keep the commandments of God then they will continue to have good judgement, justice, mercy, and they will love the truth, seek it out, not judge anyone on untruths, and in essence they will become a new person fashioned after the great example and giver of the gift.  The spirit of God(Holy Ghost) will be their companion and guide and lead them back into the presence of God from whence we all came.

The important part of it all is that if a person has not changed(repented) then baptism will do them no good really. You may just as well baptize a bag of sand for all the good that it will do them. It is just like an ordination to a responsible positon in the church.  You could gather in mass and ordain a nasty, sulking, aspiring man to be an Apostle of Jesus Christ, and what would you have? A nasty, sulking, aspiring man who did not have the Holy Ghost to verify his works, because, you can confer the Gift of the Holy Ghost upon anyone but they are the one person that must do the work to make it stay with them! Would they have authority through ordination? All the influence that you are willing to let them have in your life is what they have. If they have not had that change required by God in order to receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost, then they have no authority with God and every work that they do for you will be counted as dead works.

Dear brother, your problem is as old as polygamy itself.  Maybe six thousand years that we know about. Actually it is a monogamy problem as well. Sure, there have been lots of folks that have struggled in different ways, but few have reported the problem as honestly and bluntly as you have. I really don’t know how to answer your situation as I don’t know the personalities of the two. I will give you some different scenarios and what worked for others.

A certain man married two wives and had children with both of them. One was so abusive to the others children that something needed to be done. He had to find another home and divide his family. Still, the one would hurt her children to get back at him. Finally he had to juggle the children around to where they could be safe and things improved. Gradually life went on and his life became far better. So did the wives lives become better. It seemed to work with them.

Another man married two wives. The first had children but the second did not. The second was so resentful and miserable to the children that she was a danger to them. The man did not know what to do so he practically stayed up night and day to protect them. The second finally left and it was a good riddance as far as I am concerned.

Another man had a wife that would scream at him, curse him in front of his children and actually hit him. She threatened to leave him if he did not do just as she asked. She wanted to dine out, go on weekend trips, get roses everyday and you name it. She must have done nothing but read the goofy romance books and she wanted him to try all that stuff on her.  He worked long and hard to provide for his family and was exhausted more than not. If he didn’t comply with her wishes she would tear off in the car and he would have to go find her. Finally, he told her she may just as well leave and get it over with. That was no way to live. Guess what?  She left, didn’t like it, came home and started helping him raise their family.

Another couple wanted to have a sister come into the family. Finally it happened for them. The poor first wife wondered why on earth she had ever wanted a sister wife because she was no longer the center of the man’s world. It just didn’t seem as exciting as she had imagined it would be when the bedroom door shut and her husband was in there with another woman, his other wife.  She fretted, blubbed, read a romance book and tormented herself about what was going on. When the other lady was pregnant she had a fit, was offish, miserable, felt ugly, and a host of other feelings. She was none of the above. One night at midnight she called her Bishop and asked, “how do you keep from being jealous”?  I looked at the clock and asked her to just put it off until tomorrow and then call me back. I asked her if she had a child that she could go crawl in bed with and if so then thank God for that beautiful child, remember her faith, who she was, and let her own heart expand and God will bless her. She never called me back but next time I saw her she had a smile on her face and the two of them along with the busy guy that they married have been a good chapter in fundamentalist living.

Still, another past midnight call from a sobbing woman in a family of three woman. This woman was feeling humiliated because one of her “sisters” had thought that she had been having sex with her husband.  “So do I think that”, I said, “you have children”.  Her response was “oh wow, that is not what I meant”.  “I don’t think that any couple that have children need to be trying to hide the fact that they have had sex a time or two”, I told her.  Anyway, I told her to go have a drink of water, blow her nose, check on her children and go to sleep. In the morning she should get up and help with breakfast and get the kids off to school. Seemed to work for her as well.

I am sorry to bore you with all of this but try something different. If your folks need different homes then do it. Protect your children.  Most people that start laying down the law to their husbands and other family members are just looking for a reason to leave. Help them leave, make the best of the situation you have, and live in peace.  It really is worth it.

I don’t know what other groups have done along the way in the marrying department but I do know that in our group it was many times a miracle if a person even got married at all. I spent a lot of my time in the ministry trying to help those who thought that they had fallen through the cracks and would never be noticed.

I recall reading in the sermons recorded in the Journals about something along those lines being said by some of the old brethren. It seemed to me that it was in reference to the life hereafter though. It was along the lines that if a wife was unfaithful in this life then there were plenty in the other life that would be thankful for a husband, and I am sure that he said “all you want”.

It has been my observation over the years that there have been many folks that had far more wives than they wanted, or that wanted them, and many men and women should have just stayed single.