"FLDS: Inside the Secret Sect" Arnold Richter Interview Part 1"

you know your life's changed quite a bit in the last what six months um well since about January since about January what was it what happened to you what happened to me in January what what what happened why why were you asked to leave and what led up to that what led up to being asked to leave MH um probably what the biggest thing that led up to being asked to leave was questioning the leadership there asking questions and I don't think they were comfortable having anyone asking questions it it would erode their position of of authority to be questioned um and so for you know the last seven eight years I've had a lot of questions things that just didn't make sense and I expressed those questions not directly to the leadership because you express it directly to them you run the risk immediately of being deemed that you have lost faith or not worthy and being sent out to repent and I wasn't at a point where you know I would want that to happen to me but I voiced many of these questions on online Forums on online blogs and I guess it got their attention they didn't like that and I would usually sign most of what I wrote not with my name but with an acronym so I had a pseudonym name that I ran under on on those online blogs mhm and they figured that out and they were able to figure out who I was um Unfortunately they they figured it out through means that weren't necessarily legal in that I i' created an email address with that name for individuals to correspond with to you know to and from with me anonymously M and I don't know if I was viewed as a thread or they just wanted to know who this was that was inside of the church within the group who didn't agree with everything and had a lot of questions and in some ways probably exposing what they were doing and so they they hacked into that email to figure out who I was so they didn't like what they were reading apparently not because that that was that was grounds to uh to label me as the worst apostate and traitor since the days of Joseph Smith and uh and and asked me to you know not only not come to any of the meetings or be a part of the group but to walk away from my family and walk away from the commun so they didn't like what they were seeing on the blogs from you apparently not well what kinds of things were you questioning um well starting out the clear back when I probably first started blogging it was right at the heat of when Warren Jeffs was on the run and you know as a people were being told how persecuted we are and I looked at it and I said well you know it seems like most of what we're being told to persecution we're causing ourselves and says you know why why to use a metaphor are we sticking sticking our head in the lion's mouth twisting its tail and then we're mad when it bites our head I said it seems to me that most of the persecution is coming from seeds we've SE oursel if we don't like the persecution why don't we change what we're doing instead of trying to blame it on everybody else the Wicked World the mob Spirit whatever it is government that just wants to shut us down it it seemed to me pretty easy to to change most the persecution and so I voiced that online I said you know I said why why as a people should we feel persecuted when the persecution is merely a reaction to the actions that we're taking so words like Wicked in the mob what kinds of words do they use inside the church to uh to to kind of group the outside world into one little you know one bad entity what kinds of words are used in those meetings well I wouldn't say the entire outside world is grouped as a bad entity but the outside world is something that is not received the higher blessings of the Lord and so it's believed that eventually since we're taught the truth we're taught the only way to get back to God eventually we will go out and convert all those who will be converted to the Lord's way those that are not willing to of course will be destroyed wiped off the Earth um now there is what's referred to as Gentiles those are those are just those are individuals who've never been part of the group what am I you would be considered a gentile are would Gentile no no you're just a gentile you're someone who's never been a part of the group um you may be classified as a wicked Gentile if they knew you were a news reporter news reporters have a pretty low level within within the opinion of most people because they feel like the news reporters come in report and not necessarily favorably have have their own agenda and cast the people in a light that most feels very inaccurate and it causes problems and you know and they feel persecution from the outside world and so they would rather I don't know if they necessarily call you Wicked but very they they would classify you as annoying they would rather you not come around they they they they would be totally happy to live their life out in Colorado City or wherever their their Community is without any outside influence it's it's outside fluence that can be a concern anything that comes from outside of the group has the potential because you haven't been taught the truth to seow seeds of of evil or wrongdoing or things like that so maybe I'm misinformed maybe I'm you know misled or I mean as as far as why you'd be classified as Gentile or Wicked or Wicked um I don't even know if they if they'd say you're misinformed or misled you just never never been told the truth well you've been called wicked now you're the wicked wicked man I am considered the wickedest because I've been given so much and now I say I don't necessarily agree with all of this so as soon as you've been given and then you say you know I don't agree 100% with everything I've been told okay you're a traitor now and anything and everything you say is of the devil as soon as as soon as you turn away from the organization in any way you're not 100% for them they want to marginalize you they want to they want to in the minds of everybody one else in order to maintain their position over the group they want to say you know that person is evil they're apostate apostate is a very emotionally charged word if you're an apostate you're the worst of the worst you're someone who knew the truth you've walked away from the truth obviously you've walked onto the Devil's Ground the devil owns you you don't even have the ability to tell the truth anymore and so once once you're labeled as apostate now the worst of the worst apostates okay that I guess that's a special category and I I was told I was the worst of the worst you know the worst traitor and the reason I think they said I was the worst traitor was right near the end I put up online a list of questions that they were asking each one of the elders tell me those questions well I don't know the questions right off the top of my head what kinds of questions were what was so bad about them there's nothing really bad about the questions they if you look at the questions themselves they're fairly innate questions questions you know it's it's um things like is the is the love and peace of God growing within the family are you living according to the laws you've been given um there were some of them which dealt a little bit more you know are you living according to uh I I I I'm not even sure how it's phrased but you know are your marital relationships in accordance with the guidelines we've been given some of those things now if to just read the list you'd say okay what's wrong with that but if you'd been in the meetings and known what it is that those questions really mean it's not really a code but they're trying to to look into the aspect of the way you live how you live your very thoughts and every one of your actions not just your actions when you're outside of the house but your actions inside of the house how you work with your family how you work with each other how you work with your children and how husbands and wives interact with each other and my opinion was this is getting a little bit too invasive on these questions especially how my relationship is with my wife that's between myself my wife and nobody else if God wants to watch he can watch but I don't think he needs somebody else watching besides him so things were about things were changing in the last year um how how are they changing I don't know it's just the last year it's it's been a progression within the last year I think what what's really pushed hard is the fact that Warren is now into Texas Texas has custody of them since the raid they've been very concerned because when they when when the authorities came in the raid of Texas they took from the temple archives all of the priesthood records now for good or bad Warren kept very detailed notes of everything he did um unfortunately everything he did isn't what the image of Warren that was portrayed to the people happens to be they know that as meaning the leader ship they're very concerned about that um many times within priesthood meeting it was stressed very very explicitly you do not do not look at all at any of these priesthood records don't look at them at all you look at them you'll automatically turn traitor being an apostate and lose the you know lose your faith lose your priesthood if you lose priesthood naturally you cannot have your family or be part of the group and they said said in the priesthood mean you've got to be very careful of of of looking at any of these they've been stolen by the wicked apostates by the mob acats is the word they use the Peete mob referring to anyone who's trying to tear down the work of God and you've got to look back a little bit in history when when you say mob back in early Mormon history the mob it it literally was a mob in the early days the the people were driven from Nauvoo from Jackson County different areas back in Joseph Smith's day and after Joseph Smith was killed they were driven and under Brigham Young moved out to Utah um now the reason they were driven that's that's up for each person to decide as far as history when you review you can make your own decision but there was an influence and according to the the people faithful to the Mormon Creed at that time it was a persecution and driving and it wasn't pleasant it sometimes very brutal and so you read that history you're taught that history growing up in the flds so when you're told the mob is coming against us it's very emotionally charged and so it you say you know anybody if they're classified as the mob that's somebody to be feared you want to stay away from that that was good to that point but let's just wait for it okay so um so in other words I I guess getting back to what we were talking about um well we about at the we talking about temp records when did you first start seeing things change from when you were growing up I when you were growing up sounds like things were were pretty nice I mean things were more open how did things change when war and Jeffs got in I don't know if things things were more open but I think it's a combination of not only did things change a little bit through the administration of Rand Jeffs and into Warren Jeffs I changed I changed as a person and so I think it's a combination of my perspective of how I view things and of changes within the within the religion itself growing up the religion is very much about family family values the community really was one big happy family in so many ways at least from my perspective at that time now there were definitely Rifts within the community there had been a split within the leadership when I was very young and another group split off from the flds started their own group and you know I I sense some of that friction but the thing is we still to a degree associated with those people we didn't first totally just shun them or or say they were really horrible and one thing within my father's house which was different than some he never criticized anyone he he considered them to be good people and I thank him to this day for that type of attitude that even though they do not necessarily follow the prophet that we considered to be God's chosen man on Earth he still considered them very good man and so you know I'm I'm very thankful to have had that growing up that kind of a levelheaded response to to you know basically religious um Turf battles is really what it amounted to um growing growing up through high school things became you know a little more restricted when I when I went into High School up to that point marriages had been they were arranged marriages but a lot of times if a boy and a girl went and asked for each other quite often the prophet who put the marriages together married them would agree to that and say okay yes I'll marry you or if they'd gone out and been together done things together which were considered wrong he would send them away from the community for a year repent bring him back and they would be married now usually that was only for time they're only sealed for time they couldn't be sealed for time in eternity because the prophet hadn't put them together initially are you sealed for time and ET I'm sealed for Time and Eternity because the prophet made thec ision of who I was going to marry I didn't ask for my wife she didn't ask for me although we're very happy with each other we've known each other since first grade it was a great he did a good job but um starting starting about ninth grade it became a little more restrictive um ruling Jeffs at that time said you know you cannot go out and pick your own wife I'm drawing the line that's something that the prophet does no more choosing your own wife so it's a little more consolidation of power but I was fine with that I mean the prophet talks to God he's God's representative on Earth why wouldn't that be right so I really didn't have that many questions over it um I got married he married us I was fine with that that was great loved my wife still do um so there really weren't a lot of questions clear up in the first couple of years of marriage um this is coming up I was married in '97 and in '98 Ruland Jeff had a stroke which in so many ways made it so he had very limited ability to express himself or communicate M right around that same time the he had two counselors one of them was parley Harker the other one Fred M Jessup we call him Uncle Fred Uncle parley great man I really have a lot of love and respect for him and parley Harker died so now that leaves a position open mhm ruin Jeffs appointed his son Warren to feel that position of first counselor Warren had been very close to his father for years because he was principal of the Ala Academy up in Salt Lake City where his father lived and so he he had a connection and was very close to his father and did a lot of the research and putting together sermons and ideas for his father his father being ruing Jeffs relied on Warren to do a lot of his work for him figuring things out putting sermons together pulling resources together for teaching the people Warren is an excellent teacher I don't care what anyone says he is a very good teacher excellent at it researcher he's very good at that charismatic he is a very charismatic person and so it seemed natural seeing he was so close to his father to be put into that position well he moved down from Sal Lake to live next to his father and become okay right well Warren Jess moved down from Salt Lake and they built a house for him right next to his father's house he became what they term the mouthpiece for the prophet he spoke for the prophet he was one with the Prophet The Prophet's one with God so anything Warren says is what the prophet said which is what God Said So gave him tremendous ability and not really control initially over anybody but he became the one who did all the talking in the meetings for his father and he took the interviews at that time we were asked to as as Elders an elder being any man over the age of 18 that had been ordained into the mesic priesthood that's the higher priesthood you have to you have to be an elder to be married is asked to once a month come and check in with the prophet tell them what what you're doing how things are going if you got any questions ask them and you know used to be fairly informal visits I mean we went to the house it was usually one-on-one and you know if we had any question religious wise familywise anything like that we could ask it and receive an answer and I enjoyed those and after Rule and stroke he didn't have the ability to do that anymore so Warren because he speaks for his father took over doing the interviews so it was just natural this progressed up until 2002 and we were told that Rand Jeffs would be renewed that mean renewed means okay he's had the stroke he's been reduced in health greatly I mean there were many times you'd go to the hospital and amazingly when everyone even the doctor says he's going to die he didn't and so you know that was a great faith builder for the people he he keeps bouncing back obviously the Lord's taking care of him you know this is just a test on the people to make sure they stay faithful to the prophet through the sickness but the apparently it was told to us by Warren that his father had had a revelation where he was going to live another 300 something years I think it was into the Millennium and lead the people into the Millennium and so that was that was stressed nearly every Sunday and that Revelation I bought into it I sure that's great he's going to be renewed I mean we've seen times when his health got very bad and he came back again well 2002 he died like any mortal person dies and and I think that's really the start of when my faith was really rocked in with in the religion I said well how can this be he was promised to live for 300 more years that he would be renewed well the day that he died the people were assembled in church when he died and I remember the Elder that got up to say the final prayer after the people had been told that our Prophet had passed on he got up and he says he said Lord now we understand how you're going to renew the prophet I remember sitting there thinking um no he didn't renew him he just died that's not renewal that's death and but that's typical is that you will take an event a revelation if it doesn't pan out exactly how is supposed to happen twist it spin it a little bit and fit it into the the new reality because they're always taking an image and trying to put it into reality if it doesn't quite fit okay well we'll have to you know move it around a little bit until we get it into that reality and that's when Warren stepped in and that's well initially Warren didn't step in he said father is still in charge father's just in the other room I I am just here to do my father's will which is what he'd said for the Last 5 Years I'm here to do my father's will because okay's he's the spokesman for the prophet he's his right-hand man he's the first counselor that makes sense he's here to do the will of his father and usually before his father died in in in church his father would be sitting on the stand Warren would present he'd talk and a lot of times afterwards ran would say Warren has spoken exactly what I wanted said now whether or not he understood what Warren had just said or not I don't know there were times when ran would talk a little bit longer and contradict many of the things Warren said and Warren would have to get back up and say well here's what father really meant to say you know some of that was a little bit of a this seems of this seems odd or strange to me but things like that were easy to ignore to set aside we were told you know if you've got questions put them on the Shelf you don't want to compromise your faith over a few little questions that you don't understand just take that question put it in a little box ignore it set it on the Shelf pray about it eventually you'll get an answer if you don't get an answer immediately just ignore it what happened to your shelf well my shelf got stacked so high it broke and I couldn't put everything back on it and so I you know everything Spilled Out on the floor I began examining everything and that all started when Ru and Jeff's died um well how did it get progressively more controlling under Waring well Ruland died at the near the the end of 2002 going into 2003 then under Ru under Warren now he said you know all the celebrations we've got those are a distraction those really we don't need those he shut down everything as far as the events that we had we had one more Fourth of July celebration one more 24th of July celebration Fourth of July was a big event every year you know I mean this is this is a Pioneer not Pioneer day but Independence Day that was something we all looked forward to 24th of July was just as big that's Pioneer Day big parades you know get togethers we'd all gather at the meeting house at 700 in the morning we'd have a a flag raising the you know the Canon salute sing patriotic songs um you know it's just great it's just this big feeling of community everybody gets together he took that away it wasn't necessarily sanctioned of him it wasn't pointed towards him he didn't want the distraction also in 2003 there was an event where some of the higher up men some of the men who'd been in the community for years helped build the communities the barlos and a few others had built a monument in the little Pioneer Park there in the community to Leroy Johnson the prophet who had brought the people through the raid with on short Creek which had happened in 1953 authorities came in took all the people the women and children away so they built a monument to him big marble um Monument commemorating him apparently they didn't check in with Warren on this and he was very upset and so he got up in church right after that happened and and really said the Lord is very displeased with the people erecting monuments he likened it to the people of the children of Israel when Moses went up on the mountain making the golden cast we hadn't checked in with Warren we directed a golden calf so to say and he he told the people he says you are to take that Smash It To Pieces grind it to pieces and spread the pieces out in the Hills just like Moses had ground up the golden calf and made the people eat it he didn't make the people eat it but you know go scatter the pieces in the mountains he says and since the Lord is so displeased he says all priesthood blessings are removed right now so that means there's no more meetings no more baptisms no more marriages and that continued on for probably five or six months the meetings didn't come back but the marriages did but when I was married that was a big event I mean half the community came to marriage is great I mean we weren't really trying to hide anything everybody's there it's it's everybody knows who's marrying the other person in fact the whole most of the community knew who I was marrying before I found out Ru and J forgot to tell me so it it was just a big Community event under Warren half the time the parents weren't even there or if they were it wasn't the whole family it was just start with under underw right the the the family if any family was there there may be the father often the father was there sometimes the mother and that was about the limit of it it wasn't held at the prophet's house or at the house of of the man or the woman or his father a lot of times these marriages were held in little motels say in mosquite or kante Nevada somewhere else not within Utah Arizona Arizona had made laws against underage marriages that time so they're trying to get around those laws but the secrecy the extreme secrecy on all this that bothered me the fact that when Rand died died that went against his prophecy if it came from from Ruan that he was going to live that many years into the future that bothered you that really bothered me um and then when when Warren would get up and say well I'm just speaking for father okay well that's what he's done for years Father's just in the other room okay but pretty soon it was okay Warren is now the one man on Earth who holds the keys of heaven that's what they referred to the priesthood the keys the ability to seal people on Earth in marriage and and your blessing and it's sealed in heaven um according to our teachings that only one man on the earth at a time can have that which is the prophet um so you got so so Warren comes in he he says no more celebrations right he changes the way people are married mhm he takes his father's wives right he did now initially I didn't know about that but but these are all things kind of give me a list here of of how that progression went well so so so you can say so so so I have something in like 20 seconds here MH know just give me an give me an idea of what H what did Warren do and what was it that was going on in your head if you can give me just a list there well it's it's right off the Monday after his father passed away one day after Warren Gets up in our Monday morning meeting and he says I want all Elders of Israel To Know hands off my father's wives now that seemed really strange to me I said why would anybody be worried about Ran's wives why would he even say a thing like that but he took his father's wife right yeah well I didn't know that at the time that seems strange okay he became very inaccessible as far as being able to have appointments with him seen you know come to find out later it's because he was traveling all over the US finding new spots to build up little little enclaves of his chosen people um he shut down all the meetings that seemed very strange but the other thing that was very odd to me that didn't jive with any of the history or the way things had been done before is that he had never that we knew of been ordained to any kind of an apostleship position which is required to be the prophet now uh several months after his father passed away his younger brother and several of his father's wives were called on in meeting to explain how unbeknownst to Warren his father had told them that Warren was going to be the next prophet and that he had been ordained and set aside and then it progressed from there to where the Lord himself came and ordained Warren as the prophet did this seem orchestrated it well it was a bit orchestrated of course and and I could tell that and it seemed very strange I I said you know this this just doesn't jive with anything I've ever been told and how can if there's only one man on the earth at a time who holds the keys of priesthood how can Warren claim that he's got him and say that his father's just in the other room and has him now now that's two men on Earth well okay is is is Rand Jeff's dead well you said that he was renewed so he's still on the earth so Warr you can't be the keyh holder it's just is still your father right it never played out that was never explained that was just one of those things I said this is very strange and so at that point I said I I I want to get to the bottom of this I I I can't have a testimony that Warren is my connection to God and so I started doing some research about it and the more I researched going gone back what I come to the conclusion of is that overall a lot of the history that I was living under and been told my whole life was what I'd term a revisionists history things were manipulated around to portray a certain image to the people they weren't always told everything that happened big pieces were often left out or misrepresented or changed I said that's very strange if this is the Lord's work why would that be necessary why would we want to do that there was there was that and then the actions that Warren began taking didn't sit right with me the just the fact that the girls were getting married very young I didn't like that a lot of the men were going into hiding because they were being you know they're being pursued by the law you didn't like that either I didn't like that but that's when I said well hey if you guys don't want the law beaten on your doors it's easy to change don't marry the girl see them and that was one of the questions one of the main ones that I that I kept going back to I said you know and nobody never they never could show me they still haven't I said show me within the scriptures with any holy writ anything like that I said show me where it says that a girl of 13 14 15 16 17 is any more Pure or worthy than one that's older or even 12 years old or 12 well back then I didn't know about any of those I mean that floored me when I found those when I when I realized and and was made aware of some of those but just knowing even 15 16 17-year-old being married why can't we wait till her 2122 in in my heart I knew but I had to ask that question and no no one could give me a satisfactory answer on it you know why can't we wait till they're a little bit older we we're we're causing persecution to come upon us by marrying these girls very young that would be that would be easy to avoid if we just waited a few years and no one ever told you well they didn't they there's not an answer why do you think they knew well I think some of them knew it's I mean as a young age they're much easier to control than as you get older your view your perspective on life changes you become much more independent you don't want someone to become independent-minded they're very hard to control once they do you're independent minded I am probably an independent mind they don't want independent Minds within the organization do you think that's why they ask you to leave um among other reasons I'm sure that is let's talk about that day um then I mean do you want some water no I'm good okay um so so so you're called in and you're expected to do something that's completely unbelievable to me okay it's it's a two-part process here and I really haven't explained how it all works initially when my email was hacked into I realized it I I tried to log into my email couldn't get into it and so I went in through a back door through another email account realized someone else is in there had their IP addresses on on my email so I took a snapshot of that and this is Friday afternoon priesthood meetings on Sunday and so I figured you know something's up because I looked at the browse history of who had been in my email what they looked at they they' looked at all my chats all my contacts I'll received emails and I'll send emails now why would anyone do that it's not a spammer they didn't send anything for my email so whoever had gone into my email just wanted to find out who I was now this was an email set up under my acronym there are only two places in the entire um four years of history of that email that I know of that had my name anywhere in it but it did have my name and so when I walked into priesthood meeting two days later I was somewhat prepared I figured you know someone is looking to find out who I am and sure enough I walked in and they said Lyle Lyall Jeffs is the lead man out there he's the bishop and what's considered the first Elder so he's in control he's the one in charge they said Lyall wants to see you immediately okay and I had a pretty idea what he want wanted to see me for were you nervous not really and so they took me up up front there up front in the meeting house on on the on the North side and I waited for a minute and L came out with two other men Bill Chaplan John Wayman and they said you know come in the side room with us and Lyall presented me with a stack of papers probably an inch inch and a half thick right on the top of the paper is the acronym that I ran under on my email that I had corresponded an iously with with other members and non-members who had questions along with several blog sites listed that that I had posted you know my thoughts and ideas and questions on he said is this you I says yes that's my acronym and he said okay I want you to read this and he hands me the teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith and he asked me to read the section on betraying the Brethren and so I read it and he says so what do in light of this what do you what do you think should be done I says well I'm not the judge I'm not the one that makes those decisions what do you think should be done and I don't know he probably wasn't expecting an answer like that because he stood there for me he said well I'm not here to judge anyone either um let's let's start with probation I I I I want you to come and check in with me in a month but in the meantime just don't come to any of the meetings I I I can't have you to any of the meetings because you're questioning what the prophet is wanting done and so I agreed to that I mean what what else really could I do M and I left I wish I would have taken the papers or at least looked through the stack of papers to know exactly everything you had printed out all I saw was the top copy but it was it was my email address the acronym I ran under and I'd posted on three different blogs he had those three blogs listed on this cover sheet m um a couple of weeks later when I'm gone to work I usually am out of town and in Las Vegas on Wednesdays that's just a day you can almost always that I'll be out of town my my wife's father called up my wife and said are are you home she says yes he is Arnold at home no he's gone to work well he shows up and says I need to talk to you mean meaning my wife and so they go outside he says not not not by the children and he he explained to my wife he said you know your your husband has been running a website which is just absolutely trashing the people ripping down the prophet he has exposed all the church Secrets which I I found very interesting because I don't know if any church Secrets I've exposed I wasn't privy to a lot of the actual very inner workings of the church I didn't run a website but it's interesting all these things he says you know he's the worst traitor in apostate since the days of Joseph and if you want any chance of Salvation you know staying within the community being a part of things you've got to make your decision now whether or not you're going to leave your husband and stick with the priesthood and come under the control the control and direction of the priesthood and this is your wife's father so this is my wife's father correct psychological yes emotional uh way to do this I that's was she conflicted do you think well I'm sure she was I mean that's very difficult to have your father someone you love and respect come and do that to you she was prepared though because I told her that that is most likely what they would do so what did she decide well she said I'm not going to she I love my husband he's a good man he's the best husband I could possibly have I'm not going to leave him I'm not walking away from you that's wonderful that's very good let you say that again now okay I can see him you couldn't see him great part for Birds a little while ago there was a hummingbird just it's your angel there you go my guardian angel I never knew what it looked like thanks to Jim we found it yeah um so uh what did your wife tell her dad well I don't know word for word because I wasn't there but when she told me about it she said I just had to tell him my decision is to stay with my husband he's a good husband a good father and uh so she was reminded again well you've got to make your decision and he left before he left he said do not tell your husband about this conversation well when I got home of course she did I mean she was pretty emotional by the time I got home I mean that's very traumatic to have something like that come and happen sure and so she told me everything that happened and this is late at night this is 11 o'clock at night when I got home so the next morning 6:30 7 o'clock I called I called my father-in-law and says we need to talk mhm where can I meet you and he said um come over to my house and he came out and jumped in the truck with me and we talked for half an hour 45 minutes but I told him I says it it sounds like I'm getting credit for a lot of things I have not done he says well you admitted that he says you admitted that you did all that stuffff I says I don't know what I'm admitting to I say all I admitted to was that was my acronym and that those were some websites that I I've gone on I says that's all I've have admitted to M I would like that again okay um well let me ask you a different question here um at that point did you feel like you were the most wicked man since Joseph Smith no you didn't believe it no no yeah that's a big one it's going to be okay though we're doing all right no yeah it it'll cut the big on gives us a 45 second break huh yeah so that it's not terrible you do see a little bit of motion in the background soft yeah um so at that point did you feel you were the wickedest man on Earth since Joseph Smith as your father-in-law said no no what have I done that's such a traitor I've asked questions why is asking questions wrong and that's one of the things that I couldn't understand is that the whole Mormon religion started out as being a question Joseph Smith didn't know which religion to follow and he in James if any of you lack wisdom let him ask of God who gives to all men liberally and upth not so he went out into the Grove and prayed that's the story we've been told MH and the Lord spoke to him and that's that's how it started is being inquired of and we were taught as children the lord loves to be inquired of now if the lord loves to be inquired of I would think that he wouldn't mind you asking a question if you don't understand something but it got to where we were not to question at all we were supposed to have 100% obedience don't question if you question you're being unfaithful you have the potential to lose your priesthood your family and be sent away from the community if you question which is what happened to you which is well that's what happened to me that's what's happened to countless others for whatever reason the leadership decided they were not worthy to stay there were they a threat to the leadership in some way possibly had they had some of them committed actions which weren't right had been harmful to their families undoubtedly there were some of those but overall most the man pushed out it was to refine and consolidate the power within the leadership if you R viewed as a threat is not 100% obedient you were exiled from the community sent away from your family and you can imagine the emotional pressure that puts on an individual to do just about anything to come back into the community and be back with their family a few men have not very many but a few have and so that puts tremendous psychological pressure also which is amazing is how many men when Warren did his first major expulsion in 2004 I think there were 23 24 Men followed and did what he said they they they walked away from their families and you know people look at that and they'll say why why would why would a man leave his family walk away from his family well at that time I don't think and I've I've talked to some of these men they had no idea what Warren was going to do they thought it was removed from our family for a week or two humble ourselves pray about it come back in for an interview at the longest three months and then we'll be reunited with our family okay maybe we maybe we you know we're not perfect I don't think as long as we're alive I don't think we're perfect there's no way to be perfect as long as we're living in my in my opinion so we've all got our little demons we're dealing with you our lives so everyone you you know you could you could point out to anybody and say you know you've got some sins well of course you do it's impossible to be perfect that's not what life's about it's about trying to achieve a better position than you than you're at currently and so I can see where a lot of these men would say yes you know I've got some faults it did seem a little bit extreme to many of them to leave their families that they had no idea that Warren was intending on exiling them for the rest of their life taking their families assigning them to other men but once he'd started that precedent it be it it it stuck very few people stood up against it and said no this is wrong this isn't what we've been taught before this isn't how things ought to be and and so it started a precedent where if you were at odds at all with the prophet if you questioned what he was doing you could be sent away and and very few men if any really stood up against that or said no I'm sticking with my family and and so you know the further it went the more it became somewhat normalized within the minds of the people and I know a lot of a lot of folks say well why would anybody do that still even after they saw what he did the initially to the man not letting them back why why would any man agree why would any wife agree to leave her husband well the belief is so strong so strong within the church that God the prophet always do right if it comes through the prophet it's what God wants that is your ticket your your salvation is dependent upon that so they believe when Warren tells them to leave their families and they reassign this family to another man that it's actually God speaking through Warr absolutely and the other thing is is that most of the time it's very firmly believed and even some of the men believe well if I don't have priesthood I don't have the ability to save my family they they feel that they're making that sacri acfic so their family still has the potential to be saved if the family stays with a man who doesn't have priesthood they can't be saved that's the belief that's how they view things it's it's their view of the world and so it's very very difficult to say you know I'm not walking away from my family I'm staying here I I I don't want you know I I I don't want to follow what I've been told I want to stay with my family because you'll be you'll be compromising the salvation of all of your children that's what we're taught that's the belief and it's it's that view basically the religion it's not really totally a guide for how to live it's everything about living and in fact it's gotten it's gotten so to the point recently as far as the level of control how dependent the people are upon the religion to where they will get up in church this came directly from Lyall Jeffs he got up in church shortly before I was asked out and he said I want you people to know he says you're not to have a personal identity of your own you're not supposed to look act or even think what isn't organized orchestrated or given to you by the priesthood over you let's say that again that's really important I mean tell me that again you right before you right before you were kicked out M Lyall Jeffs made made a pretty statement he well it was it was what I already knew but I couldn't believe that he would actually say it Point Blank within church that he got up and I don't I've got a let's hold off for a minute that's a loud one too it's going to start in just a second so let's just wait till it leaves we can see himed by yeah if you've got it watch it if you don't call your TV provider to get hdet today if you've got it watch it if you don't call your TV provider to get hdnet today

Channel: HDNetWorldReport

Views: 264,261

Keywords: flds, polygamy, ploygamists, world report

Id: 56jd4Jzs1LI

Length: 47min 0sec (2820 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 14 2011