From Polygamy to Jesus: The Testimony of Susan Ray Schmidt

I guess first of all you know my story is just one of many many stories here that doesn't mean it's more special I know a lot of people who lived in polygamy who had it way worse than I did and as you listen to my story I want you to remember that God is victorious and he's my hero and he led me out of an amazing situation and and and you know chip said something today I don't know if I could quote him but he said something that I went through some things that I would probably wish I would have never gotten involved with well yes and no the know is because I have a lot of family still involved in it the yes because it certainly makes me grateful and thankful to my Lord and I don't know whether I'm more excited to be here with y'all today then then you're excited to be here but I sure feel mighty blessed anyway I'm just gonna kind of start at the beginning and I tend to get myself off on little bunny trails easily so I wrote down a few things to try to keep myself on line but I'm going to start just remind you that I am wonderfully okay today I think I have all my mental faculties pretty close together and in if any of you as I'm as I'm you know talking if any of you have a question and things aren't making sense to you feel free stick your hand up and I'll try to get back to my story after I answer your question and also if you have any questions at the end hopefully I'll get through this in time that you can ask him okay I'm just gonna start by telling you I was born into the LDS Church my mom and dad I was born in Richfield Utah not too far from here and my mom and dad were temple Mormons they had nine kids I was the seventh of the nine and I hate to tell you what year I was born but it was 1953 a long time ago when I was four years old I still remember the day that my mom and dad went to church and took all of their kids to church in I believe it was Marysville Utah and my dad my dad especially was having some major problems with the LDS doctrine different things changes of course I don't remember I heard about that after I grew up but but I do remember that we went to church this one Sunday and my dad caused a major fracas in the middle of the sacrament meeting because they had announced that they were planning to change the sacred temple garments they were going to be cutting them back from covering the wrist and the ankle back to being more user-friendly I guess you could say and my dad had a fit and he was kind of shouting around in the middle of the service and people were trying to get him to calm down and quiet down and anyway he gathered my mom and the rest of us kids up and marched us out of the building in the middle of the service and that that's stuck in my mind for some reason I think because I was sort of embarrassed that my dad acted like that but we went home didn't go back to church and so my dad and my mom were prime candidates for a new little church to send missionaries to their door two years later these new missionaries had converted my mom and dad to fundamental Mormonism and we joined the Church of the firstborn of the fullness of times which is one of the many Mormon splinter groups and we moved to Old Mexico lock stock and barrel everything we owned we hauled to Mexico and my dad got this little adobe home and added on to it so we had I don't know three rooms something like that in a little community called Colonia LeBaron we had a new prophet his name was Joel LeBaron he was one of five LeBaron brothers who had started this new little organization and Joel was the prophet of the five brothers I'm going to tell you just a little bit about where they got their priesthood Authority for those of you that are interested in that sort of thing Joseph Smith had I believe he was considered as an adopted son his name was Benjamin F Johnson well Benjamin F Johnson I believe was 18 about the time that Joseph Smith was killed and according to the LeBaron saga Joe Joseph Smith took Benjamin F Johnson aside and gave him in secret the keys to the priesthood and and told him not to tell anyone and and so Benjamin F Johnson was supposed to have been told by God what to do with these keys on further on down the road well from what I understand he never did anything with them but give them to his grandson who gave them to his grandson whose name was dare LeBaron and so Daryl a baron all of his children knew that he had the real keys and so they were given on to Joel LeBaron his son so Joel LeBaron received this revelation from God that he was to start a new church so he went to Salt Lake and incorporated a new church and this became the Church of the firstborn so my mom and dad were some of the first members I don't know how many members we had at the time that we joined but I would guess somewhere around 50 or 60 something like that yes I believe it was in 1953 but and that was the year I was born so it was just a new little church anyway so we moved to Mexico moved into a little adobe house down there and everybody in the little community was all part of Joel LeBaron Church it wasn't really a compound people could come in and out we had no problem with our neighbors you know friendly with our Mexican neighbors but we had no running water no electricity and get our clothes outside on a scrub board and I of course had no problems with any of this I was a kid and I thought it was all fun and my dad took a plural wife as was the reason for our going down there so we could live the fullness of the gospel I was 8 years old when he took a plural wife a little Mexican lady about 30 years his junior and she quickly began adding to my father's brood and he built her a little house out behind our house and so every other night my dad would spend at Maria's so you know polygamy was absolutely normal to me everybody in the colony pretty much had plural wives and the men were busily finding new ones so of course I grew up believing that Joel LeBaron was God's one and only math piece to the whole world and it was very easy to believe when you hear something like that throughout your growing up years of course you're gonna believe it just like many of you that have come out of the LDS Church you know that from the time your little children or you've seen the little kids get up and say I know that Joseph Smith is a true prophet of God and it becomes ingrained in your mind and that's how it was with me I knew that Joel LeBaron was a true prophet and then we had the only true church on the face of the earth and our mission as a church was to go out to all the world and to preach the gospel and everyone had to find their way down to Colonia LeBaron and be baptized into our church in order to get to the highest degree of glory in heaven and of course they had to live polygamy so yes yeah we got baptized at eight years old I remember the day I was baptized in my toe stuck out of the water and I had to be rebaptised so anyway I knew of course from a young age that I would be required to live polygamy and the thought didn't bother me everyone did it and I didn't see a whole lot of problem with it and so I was 13 when I got my first boyfriend and he was a married man he was 27 I believe and he had a little Mexican wife who hated my guts and this guy and he'd take me out to the movies occasionally and this and that and my parents had no problem with this that was fine with them well we were kind of expected yes I was 13 we were kind of expected as women to have a dream about who we were supposed to marry and in our particular little splinter group the women were not really told who they were to marry they were given the choice because the way they looked at it is you know women only got to marry once whereas men could marry over and over again so the women should be able to choose who they want to marry so I'd heard about other girls having dreams and I kept thinking one of these days maybe I'll get to have a dream you know about who I'm going to marry and sure enough I had a dream but it was actually a nightmare and and I I I still sort of remember it was you know it was full of snakes and evil spirits and and people grabbing at me and and then this man came and rescued me and hauled me off and he kissed me and said my name and I woke up with this amazing dream and all of a sudden I knew this has got to be the man that I'm gonna marry and so I told my mom and about it and I swore to secrecy and she told my dad about it and swore him to secrecy and pretty soon I had this man that I dreamed about come and asked my dad if he could court me and he was the president of our 12 apostles our church was set up just as the LDS Church is with 12 apostles and this and that we also had a patriarch of the church who was Joel LeBaron the prophet's brother Ervil anyway so this man the prophets youngest brother verlan he was 38 and he had five wives so he asks my dad if he can court me and my dad asked me would that be okay and I said sure the man of my dreams is asked I mean it was a revelation from God at this point so this man started writing to me and he didn't live in in Colonia LeBaron they were starting a new colony out on the Baja California peninsula and he and his families were over there pioneering this new colony so he'd write to me you know and I'd write to him and this was our courtship and he sent me a picture of him and I'd sit and stare at it for hours and daydream about this important mature man anyway I got this summons one day I was at school and and it was this friend of mine told me that that the patriarch of the church his name was Ervil LeBaron the younger of the prophets younger brother that he wanted to see me well I kept thinking what none wrong you know why would this man that I really don't know well at all other than he was a hell and damnation preacher why would he want to see me so I went to his home after school and he was sick in his bedroom and I went in there and he sat and talked to me for a little bit about told me about his basketball days and this and that nothing important couldn't figure out why he wanted to talk to me and as I was getting ready to leave he says please come again tomorrow I'd like to see you again tomorrow so and please don't tell anyone and if anyone knows that you're coming over here just tell them and I'm giving you endowments so I went the next day and long story short he finally got down to the point of why he was having me come to see him and he said you know you're just about of marriage able age Susan by this time I'm 14 he said you're just about of marriage will age I'm wondering if you have thought about you know who you might be interested in marrying and I didn't really want to tell him that his brother was writing to me that was kind of a secret you know and so I just said well you know I've thought a little bit about it and he says well do you have anyone in mind and I finally told him I says well I'm kind of your brother's courting me you know he's writing to me and he said well berlin's a good man he is you know his younger brother he's a good man but he says what if I were to tell you that the Lord has had a revelation that you are to be my wife you're supposed to be in my family and I freaked out you know I says you know no when he says I says I've had this dream about verlan and he says well who would you trust more your dream or my revelation so he convinced me that I should let him court me and he swore me to secrecy I wasn't to tell my parents wasn't to tell anyone and so this is kind of the way it went and he'd have me sneak over to his house and his wife of course knew all about it but I would go to his house and he would visit with me and Courtney and pretty soon he was kissing me and and it was really you know if I was a parent looking back I would have wanted to shoot man but this is what was going on but this whole time my parents of course knew nothing about this he had me write to verlan and break off our courtship and long story short he just about had me sealed to him in secret in fact I was supposed to have been sealed to him that very night and instead red flags were going up in my head because he wanted me to be sealed to him without my parents knowledge and so this was just to me I I just said you're kidding me you want me to be sealed to you in secret and my parents have raised me and I'm not supposed to tell them about this and he said well you know your parents don't necessarily like me and you know we'll just kind of break it in to him easily and so would you please come back here tonight and I stormed out and I praise the Lord today because Ervil ended up being a major problem and not just our church but in the world and I'll tell you about that in a little bit but anyway back to the storyline so verlan came back into town for our conference right shortly within days after the Ervil LeBaron thing happened to me and he found out I told him about Ervil and what he had done and he was very upset with his brother I couldn't believe that he tried to pull that a fast one on him by stealing his girlfriend and he had me sealed to him that weekend and married to him that weekend and with my parents full knowledge and approval and this was I was six days past my 15th birthday so I go on a two or three-day honeymoon that I won't bother to tell you the details of they weren't really pretty with with verlan and he moved me back to his home in Baja California and his his first wife picked us up at the bus station because we took a bus back over there and she was not a happy woman she had no idea that he was marrying me he I guess he hadn't discussed it with her because she was extremely jealous his second wife was at our ceremony she had come to conference with her husband and it was it was this woman second wife named Irene that took my hand and placed it in her husband's and stood witness as our Prophet Joel sealed Berlin as his wife for time and all eternity and this all just happened in a living room we didn't have a temple down there the plan was to get a temple someday but we didn't have one at that time so this is the way that our marriages took place anyway so he moved me into his family home in Ensenada and there were three other wives there one of them was a little Mexican lady and she wouldn't speak to me wouldn't look at me his first wife couldn't stand me I was a little 15 year old girl young nice-looking and I was a major threat and she was not happy with her husband anyway one of his wives his third wife was very sweet to me treated me nicely other than that I was just ostracized from the family so that began my married life and verlan had given me this little camp trailer out behind the main house to use as a bedroom and he instructed me to make myself useful in the main house with the housework and the care of his I believe it was 24 children at the time and so I started giving piano lessons to his kids and helping keep their hair braided and and you know just did my chores but then as soon as I was done helping in the main house I'd spend the rest of my time out in my little bedroom trailer more and more confused about what my role in life really was because my husband was constantly gone he was very rarely around being as how he was one of the leaders of the church he was either out in the States working to try to support his huge families or he was on church missions and so he his his habit was to come home to see his families about once a month and he'd spent two or three days and of course I wasn't wife number six so you can see I didn't have a lot of time with my husband yes his oldest son was a few months older than me and and then of course he had babies lots of him so it was you know a girl I don't know what I was expecting I think I was expecting my life with my husband to be an adventurer and I being as how he was in the leadership I really expected to be with him to share the gospel with the world and it was going to be a major adventure and and all of a sudden I'm a babysitter and and helping you know so it was really left a lot to be desired I was a married woman so therefore I was definitely off the dating market or the marriage market but yet I felt like a widow because I didn't have a husband and I would go out with some of Erland daughters okay pretty soon they got to be friendly with me the girls that were my age and but I was the married lady so they could have their their friends and their boyfriends and go to their movies but I being their age I was the married lady so it was kind of difficult you know anyway we ended up moving from the house in Ensenada on further down the Baja California peninsula to the new church colony it was called Los Molinos and it was just out on the flats out by kind of by the ocean about two miles from the ocean it was really windy there and there were just a few old trailers and you know and I ended up pregnant immediately and moved into an old trailer down on the los molinos flats and so he'd have you know a little wife here and there around us but four months after I was married to Berlin he immediately started the courtship of a another teenager girl who had men a childhood friend of mine and that became my first experience with jealousy my husband was yes her age I think she was 17 yeah when I knew that he was courting Lily this was her name striking brunette that's when I really started feeling jealous and I mean I'd been trained to look at men with nothing but respect you know as women we were definitely second-class citizens and the men were to be respected and we as women kind of tiptoed around them and served them and so when he started courting Lily I threw a fit in front of him you know and that was very uncalled for in his opinion and he didn't like it but he ended up eventually marrying Lily and so I got my first taste of having him marrying another woman and I suddenly realized why the wives before me didn't like me and so Lily became my competition and she was my competition all throughout my marriage to verlan berlin's first two wives were half sisters and they were from the Allred group in Salt Lake and he had married them and somebody had I don't mean to sidetrack myself I hope I don't get off on a major rabbit trail but Berlin wore garments because he and his first wife were members of the LDS Church and they had had a temple marriage and so when he left the LDS Church and joined his brother's new church he continued to wear his garments and wore them throughout the time that I was married to him I didn't really understand why he would wear garments of a church that he said was an apostate Church but he did but anyway back to my story let's see where was I right the first wives were half sisters and they were competition for each other constantly the second wife couldn't stand the first wife and there was little comments made and that's kind of how it was between lily and me and anyway so we're living down in Los Molinos well by this time there was a major another major problem going on in the church besides my marriage and my unhappiness and that was that that Ervil the younger brother who was the patriarch of the church he was also called the second grand head of priesthood he he wanted to be the leader of the church he didn't like he didn't feel that his brother Joel our prophet was a strong leader and he started wanting to take over the church well there was some things that went on that caused major division a major split and pretty soon Ervil split away from his brother Joel's Church and took part of the church fellowship with him one of these people was my my aunt my dad's sister and I was very very close to her and her family her kids were kind of they lived in Los Molinos during the time that I was there and they were my only real family there so when Orville split away from the church he took this family that was like my my new family with with him so it was heartbreaking for me to see this happen but Ervil started sending threatening letters to Joel to our prophet and and to other people in fact he sent some to the Allred group and from what I understand also to the head of the LDS Church saying that he was God's mouthpiece of the world he called himself Jesus Christ personal representative and wanted everyone to start paying tithe to him and to accept him as their new leader and when this of course didn't happen and everybody just kind of tossed his pamphlets in the trash we found out that he was extremely serious and how we found it out is he had our prophet his brother Joel murdered he didn't actually pull the trigger himself he had one of his his right-hand man do this and and I just remember the day and I was back in Colonia LeBaron when it happened and my husband by the way was supposed to have been killed at the same time that Joel was Ervil wanted to hit both of them at once because my husband was like one of the leaders at this point and and my husband just didn't happen to be where herbals people said they thought he was going to be he'd left we'd left a day earlier for conference in in Colonia LeBaron so a conference we had a semi annual conference in our church just like yes just like the LDS Church does two times a year Yesenia yeah we'd have them in usually in October and April just like the LDS Church so anyway so our prophet was murdered well this began my first real problem in my mind with with our church because I mean we'd been Todd and Joel had claimed that he was going to be on the earth until Jesus came again that he would be the one to assure in the millennial reign of peace so all of a sudden our prophet is dead and I remember verlan and I driving under colonial a baron on our way over to the General Conference and when we got there we received the news and it was in the middle of the night and the whole community and I don't know how many people we had at that time but probably there was probably a thousand members but not all of them were in Colonia LeBaron but the whole community was up and with torches and flashlights and and lanterns you know wandering the streets I mean just an absolute shock because our prophet was dead and we didn't know what to do you know and we thought that either the end of the world was upon us or that Jesus he was going to be raised up again as Jesus had been that's that's how strong our faith was in our prophet and of course when neither of those things happened we buried our prophet and my husband was made the new leader of the church not that he wanted it but he was the president of the Twelve Apostles and and it was thrust upon him so my husband from that point had to go into hiding a lot of the time because they were worried that herbal would come and hit him next and thus began what became a really a terrible time of blood atonement murders committed by Ervil LeBaron and his group yes yeah yeah yeah the FBI was involved right from the start and they were chasing Ervil LeBaron and they and he and his group had gone into hiding changed their names we didn't know where they were we just knew that I mean our communities both in colonial era in Los Molinos we had guards around our communities constantly watching out for what we now knew as the herbal lights so anyway so we lived in fear we did of ervil throughout the remainder of the time that I was down there but this is what started my questioning but first a little bit of question in my mind and I'm of course the General Authorities of our church they they justified our prophet being killed by saying well we probably were not righteous enough to have a man or a living prophet this man with us at this time or we just didn't understand and they tried to make excuses so my husband was the new leader and by this time I'd had I I had two children and I was pregnant with my third and Lilly and I had sort of become friends she I had nothing in my new home that verlan built me it was a little adobe house down in Los Molinos and I was so excited because I was finally going to have my own home and I finally got built and I had cement floors it looked like this and I had four walls and a roof and I had absolutely nothing to go on the inside well so Lilly had worked out in the out in San Diego area and had saved her money and gone to yard sales or somewhere and had picked up some furniture for her new home that she got just a little bit before I got my home which wasn't fair because she'd married him after me and so we had a major problem of that but she brought me over some furniture one day and said I just love you and I just want to share what I have with you and so that began me learning to care about my sister-wife and you know when you have a bunch of women who are all married to the same men man and they're all in the same boat basically no one has it really any better than the other one has it you learn to bond you might not like each other as long as your husband's home but you learned to work with one another and we tried to be respectful of one another of course tensions ran high but it's not impossible to love and care for another woman that married to your husband but you don't have to be married to the same guy in order to love another woman either but anyway so that's you know you hear nightmares of plural wives and I'm just here to tell you that most of it is an absolute nightmare but you do learn to work with one another and anyway right about that time verlan was gone for four months after Jill was was killed and he was in hiding for four months and I mean I was frantic not knowing if I would see my husband alive again and was constantly watching the the road for his truck to come and wandering when he wouldn't show up again and I finally saw his truck pull up onto the highway into Los Molinos and I was so ecstatic because I was going to get to see my husband again and I watched his truck drive around the colony from one of his homes to the other one waiting for my turn for him to get to my house and he finally came in my door and he patted my huge pregnant tummy and informed me that he had to leaving in that very night and so I said well why and he says well there's this girl up in the San Diego area that I'm interested in and I've got to go to her straightaway and convince her to marry me before she chooses someone else well I lost it again I had a habit of losing it I wasn't a very submissive wife and I screamed at him called him a skirt chaser for any of you young guys that don't know what that means figure it out but I just didn't understand and he told me that I needed to understand that this this new woman was God's will for our family and that I needed to learn to control myself and stop being so self-centered anyway so he leaves my home and I just was screaming at God Lord why do you love your men children so much more than you do your daughters why is it that they get to have so many wives to love them and want them and desire them and we women we have to sit at home with our children and be submissive and we give our men all of our love our very best food whenever they show up and our complete devotion all to our husband why is it fair why do we not have a fair God and I really battled with this and I told him I said I am so miserably unhappy in polygamy and I I need you to show me for myself I need a testimony of it myself and so will you please show me if it's right and if it is right I will continue to live it but if it's not right I want I want to get out of it so right after that we had one of the Brethren of our church announced in our church conference that he was going to leave us and he said that you know Joel's being Joel's being killed had shaken his faith and that he had started studying for himself and he wanted all of us to start at this from this point on to study for ourselves what we believed was true and stop relying on the teaching and the preachings of our leaders and then he started pointing at women and he says each of you ready for yourselves and know what your scriptures teach and stop relying upon your husband's to save you so I was so miserably unhappy and so confused and I knew that I had to do this well I had never studied the scriptures I mean you know I'd gone through Sunday School and this and that but as far as studying them on my own I never had so I went home that very night and I lit another lamp and I gathered together the four books that we considered Scripture and I looked taught myself to use a concordance and being polygamy being my biggest trial that's where I decided to start so of course I went right to section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants I had that one memorized and I read it through and I sure enough no question that was what was going to enable our men to become gods and we as women were commanded to live it on if we didn't agree to live it way we would be destroyed and so I thought well there it is no question about it and I picked up the Book of Mormon I had never read the book of warm than what it was taught what was taught to us in Sunday school and you got to understand that his women we were taught that as long as we were supportive of our husbands and submissive of our husbands that basically we would ride to heaven on their husband on our husband's coattails so we really didn't need to waste our time and take time away from our children and our duties to study on our own but so I picked up the Book of Mormon and I was just thumbing through it and I was just feeling choked up and upset and and I stumbled upon Jacob too and I read through it and where polygamy was an abomination in the sight of God and that God didn't like whoredoms and then it went on to say that that he was upset with the the men of his people who were breaking the tender hearts of his daughters and of course the whole thing had me I was just on my knees sobbing and the thing that hit me the hardest was that God actually cared about the tender hearts of his daughters that struck me more than anything but that began my real study and my real search and and from that point on I just knew that there was problems in our church because how could polygamy be wrong and at this point I was sure that it would be and yet the rest of our doctrine be on target so I knew there was trouble so I started studying and and it it took me I believe it was three more years and two more babies born to me before I finally got the courage to run away but I knew that I had to leave because I couldn't bear the thought of my little kids growing up and living the way that I had lived and seeing my little girls get married yes I was 23 years old and I had five little kids when I finally left but I had two and it was basically an escape my dad was heading out to Utah to see my older brothers and sisters that had never joined Joel's church when he did some of them were involved in the LDS Church and some just weren't really involved in anything but their lives and he was going out to to the states and he didn't have anyone going with him and I'd been watching for my opportunity so when I found he was going I asked him I said would you allow me and the kids to ride with you and just we just need a little trip just a little vacation and he said sure honey I think that'd be great I'd like the company so I packed up my suitcases and I knew that you know I wouldn't go back but packed up my suitcases and I didn't dare take much not that I had a lot to take but I prayed my way across the border and all the way to Utah and I didn't know what I'd be going to whether my brothers would turn me away and say hey you've made your bed now it's time you lay in it and we certainly don't want five little kids but they didn't do that my oldest brother I took him aside as soon as I got there took him into the bedroom and I just fell apart in front of him and said I don't want to go back and he said I will do anything anything to help you to get out of that mess so yes five yes I had two girls and three boys yeah and my oldest daughter was 8 and my youngest was I know about 10 months old so anyway he says well does dad know that you're planning to leave and I said no no he doesn't he's we need to tell him so we called him in and of course my dad was very upset with me because I was the leader of the churches wife and he had just helped me escape and he was feeling like I'd betrayed him by not telling him but he said you're gonna have to get on the phone and call Berlin right off the bat and and I knew I had to do it so I did and I tracked him down he had to call me back but he did and and I he says what are you doing in Utah and I told him I'm leaving you and he's oh don't be silly he said just have a nice little trip with your little with your dad and and enjoy your your brothers and sisters and I'll be there to pick you up on Saturday and I begged him not to come I told him it wouldn't do him any good that I'd made up my mind but he said no I'll be there on Saturday and so he showed up and he prayed promised me all sorts of things you know that he would divorce his first wife legally and marry me legally so that he could take me with him across borders and stuff like that but of course I didn't buy into that and then when when none of his sweetness worked he started threatening me that he was going to take my kids away from me and I had talked to my brother before he got there and my brother had told me that women have rights and that was something I didn't know so I threatened him with the law I told him you've taken me across state lines since I was 15 years old and I can tell the authorities this and you better leave me alone so he did he went away and it was a sad deal you know seeing my because I did I cared about the guy he was for for being a polygamist he was a pretty straight-up guy you know but anyway that's that was how I got away from there and you know I was completely naive I'd never used a microwave before I didn't have an education so the whole thing was new to me and I thank God for welfare my brother let me stay with him for a couple of months and I immediately got a job as a waitress and I started going back to school I got going to school night school and I got my high school diploma and so I did the best I could but I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't have had government help at the time so I was just totally lost didn't know what I believed in anymore truly didn't believe the the Mormons were right but I'd been taught something that that really messed me up from looking anywhere else and that was that all other churches are an abomination in the sight of God so of course I wouldn't look anywhere else I finally ended up getting baptized into the LDS Church but I didn't get baptized there because I believed it was right I just needed something to belong to that was the only thing I knew and started going to church there my oldest daughter was baptized there but I finally just quit going because it just was too painful I was hearing doctrines that I knew weren't right so I quit going there and it took me about three years before I yes yeah yeah absolutely the same as far as I'm concerned although we had a different prophet but we had the same teachings same books same belief system entirely other than the fact that we lived polygamy now and they had put it off to live for some future date so that was the difference yes well-being is how I was born in in Utah and of course I had a you know I had a legal right to be in the country my children were born in Mexico but they were my children the you know the children of a US citizen so they didn't give me any trouble whatsoever later on in life I took my kids in and got their papers fixed where they had dual citizenship pardon me yes and I spoke Spanish to I went to Mexican Mexico schools part of the time and church-run schools part of the time and so my education was really kind of a mess you know so it meant it meant a lot to me to get a high school diploma and then I went on for about a year of college but then I met my husband he was from California I never expected to meet a guy that would be willing to take me in a whole house full of little kids in but he did and he was a major blessing in my life he raised my kids they called him dad right from the start I'm not saying that we didn't have a few problems because I'd been used to being a single parent to my kids all of these years but it worked out so good and he really truly loved my kids and they did him and I lost him a couple years ago it'll be two years next month but we were together for 29 years and and about Oh a year and a half after we got married we moved to Idaho and he had a new friend that he'd just met in Idaho that it invited us to a to his church and so Dennis came home to me and he says this new buddy has invited us to go to this little church over in Feiler it's so it's a little Nazarene Church and I was scared to death to go to one of these abominable churches you know but I took my kids and thought what the heck I'll give it a try so we went and it was so strange I mean I just spent the whole first service just staring at all these weird people that that clapped in church and we're totally irreverent and and they invited us to come back the next Sunday and I really didn't think I would at first than I gave in and we went back and and I started listening the second Sunday first of the songs they were so beautiful and so worshipful and I kept thinking why are these people singing to Jesus why is every song they're singing to Jesus but you know it touched my heart so deeply and then the pastors started preaching and his whole message was cookie cutter made for my empty heart and sitting there listening to him I was sobbing sobbing into my husband's coat next to me and then when it was time for the closing songs you know we stood up again my legs were shaking so hard and I just didn't know what was wrong with me but I just was so convicted and I could hardly stand and my husband had his arm around me and I was just sobbing throughout the last songs and one of the little gals up front one was playing in Oregon one was playing a piano and one of the little gals came down and she could see me crying you know and she came and put her arm around me and she saw you okay do you need to pray about it and I said well I don't know you know and she says we'll come with me and she led me up front to an to the altar well I'd never seen an altar before I didn't know what they were for but she knelt there with me and the pastor came over and they prayed with me and let they led me through the sinner's prayer and I accepted Jesus as my savior that day yeah and you know it took me a long time to really know what I had done but I remembered back my husband's sister one about the only sister that he had that was part of Joel's church a name was Esther and she played the piano usually through our services but Esther was considered a very very righteous woman you know she did everything right and and everybody looked up to Esther and I heard one time not long after I was married to Berlin I heard that Esther had her calling an election made sure and she knew she would had been given this patriarchal blessing and she knew that she was going to be going to heaven and she was going to be able to spend eternity with God and I remember looking at her and thinking oh my goodness how would it be to have that knowledge and you know after I became a Christian it took me a while I don't know two or three months maybe before I realized and people showed me the scriptures that taught me that I could know that I was going to go to heaven that I could have that knowledge and that is when the weight of my mental scale of have I done enough good to make up for all of the bad things I've thought and done finally lifted away from me and I knew from that point on that I was going to go to heaven so that's most of my story you know I mean from there I've just eyes was a growth period a lot of time trying to yank the Mormon teachings out of my brain and to figure out which book was that scripture out of is that a biblical scripture or is that something I heard out of the pearl of great price or something you know so there was a lot of confusion for a long time and I just praise the Lord today that I am completely free and that I'm here yes I think I was let's see 27 yeah today I have yes yes I know what happened to him Ervil LeBaron was finally captured and he was captured for the murder of a rival fundamentalist leader in Salt Lake he was in Allred and it was one of my my aunt Thelma who had left and become part of ervil's Church it was her daughter so my cousin that was a trigger finger on this man she's admitted it but that was all really hell for me you know it got to the point when once I got away from Colonia LeBaron I didn't want to have anything to do with anyone for a long time couldn't stand to think about it but to answer your question yes I've been I was back down in Colonia LeBaron in 2004 and I took pictures for my book of course haven't told you everything couldn't begin to hear today but I've written about it in a book I called it his favorite wife yes well I got accused of being his favorite wife a lot yeah to say that I was his favorite wife is pretty ridiculous actually because I was a child he was an adult but I think that the reason I got accused of being his favorite wife is because he never felt secure with me I was never submissive like the other wives and I never seemed happy and he was constantly worried that I was going to leave him and so therefore he paid more attention to me I think than he did some of the other ones also I was one of the youngest ones and probably the the cutest one back when I was young so I got probably more attention than some of the other ones did but the subject who's so-and-so's favorite wife and oh I just know that she's his favorite wife that that conversation goes on a lot in polygamist communities so I thought it was a fitting title yes you know I've shared with several of you Jamie and some of the other ones if I would have had any idea that there was anywhere else to turn when I was a miserable little polygamous wife I would have listened I really would have because I I don't know personally mmm and this is just my experience I think that although the the polygamous people are more trapped in some ways because they have huge families and how are they going to support them I think they're also hungrier because they're so unhappy they don't have a normal life and I really think that if I would have heard the gospel someone to take me sit me down and show me that I could be saved and that I didn't have to live this way and that this was not required in heaven that God the Father in Heaven didn't live polygamy that it was a lie I think I would have escaped many years ago but I never did I never had anyone come to me and tell me that yeah yes you know everybody has their journey I had after I became a Christian I walked really closely with the Lord for some time and although my husband was never really that supportive he'd come to church with me once in a while I never had that walking with him experience that hopefully most of you have with your mate so I was kind of alone with my children doing this and then I had a real bad experience with a Christian pastor and his wife that I won't go into here but it really shook my faith for several years to where I just gave up on it I mean I didn't give up on God I gave up on my walk so I think you know some of us have gone through experiences similar to that I would say the last maybe 10 years I have just grown in love and closeness and it's been a good walk bounced a little bit around Church wise because we moved from one place to the next but more than anything the thing that's changed my mind and changed my life is joy fellowship with other Christians realizing that I can have a personal relationship with God and that I do have one and that I don't have to go through authority figures to get to the feet of Jesus that I can have this this wonderful personal relationship with him and that I can serve Him because I love him not because I have to in order to pay my way to heaven so that would be the the biggest thing and also the absolute knowledge that I'm saved that's the big deal you know I really think that throughout my my life as a fundamentalist Mormon not knowing whether all of my efforts every time I was nice to my sister wives and which was most the time and and subservient to my husband and doing you know everything that we were told that we had to do I never knew I never knew if it was enough and I always really didn't think that I was ever gonna make it the fear of Hell hovered over me all the time so not to have that hover over me anymore and to feel this joy and this knowing that if I were to die tomorrow that I would go to heaven has been the biggest change in my life yes that's okay you're welcome oh that's a major problem right you know I think that that a man is much much harder to deal with because I believe that the men are as trapped as the women are they've been taught that from the time they were small just like the women that they had to marry more than one woman and and by the time they're old enough to really start getting any knowledge into their heads they're pretty much trapped they've got women that they're responsible for and that they usually care about children bunches and bunches of them and they're trapped there just as trapped as I was how to deal with them I sure shared Jesus with them I share the truth with them just like we would with anyone you know let them know that that they Jesus is the way the truth and the life and I don't know anybody else have any ideas yes yeah man polygamists yes I I really believe that priesthood men are arrogant most of them they don't want to hear the truth and but but that kind of goes with in the ballpark of most Mormon and fundamentalist Mormon men yes yes okay yeah she brought up a good point that is a good one to share and this is this kind of answers your question over there the the gentleman you know after I left my husband and of course he for being applicants man he was pretty decent he didn't try to take my kids away from me he came to see him a lot of the times that he came to see them I really think that he was coming to see me hoping that he could convince me to go home and that that continued until I remarried but he came to see the kids right soon after I remarried my husband and my husband of course didn't like him much and so he was he was hanging out in the backyard and and verlan said Susan will you just promise me something and I said what and he said will you promise me that you will see that these kids find the truth out there in the world somewhere and that seemed like a really amazing statement to me at the time you know I was very uncomfortable having him there seeing my kids when my husband was not happy that he was there so I just couldn't wait for him to kind of shove him out the door but he did make that statement to me and I never forgot it I always thought you know he's questioning his own church now he's questioning back to Ervil LeBaron the the bad guy in the larin's the little woman that was in his home as he was courting me it was her home that he was staying in she was part of his group for many years during all of the murders that he committed and there were close to 30 of them throughout the country one of them was his own pregnant daughter who it was trying to defect from his group and he had her murdered and several of his children were shot killing each other it's a really a gruesome story if any of you want to read into it my book doesn't go into a whole lot of those details but there's another one that does it's called the four o'clock murders and you can find it online if you want to read it's all about Ervil LeBaron and his rampage of murder but anyway this wife yes just let me finish this this wife after Ervil was killed in or died in prison he died in prison in 1981 of a heart attack in at the point of the mountain his wives we of course we didn't know what had gone on with him but I heard through the grapevine sometime later quite a few years later actually that one of his wives had married Jim harm stone so she is still married to him today and I of course hadn't talked to her for many many years but I called her the other day and Jamie and I stopped by and saw her here in town and I'm planning to see her again and had quite a great conversation with her for the ten minutes I was with her but anyway it's I'm excited that I get a you know talk to her and reach out to her yes I through the years have gotten to know some of ervil's kids these are his young younger kids that never really were involved with his murdering people they used with just the little kids and I've got to know them and there's several of them that are amazing Christians today one of them is a speaker for women of faith and she's ervil's daughter and she's also the daughter of this woman that lives here in town so yes you had a question no no secret names and Colonia LeBaron we didn't deal in Lost Boys at all ours was a different splinter group and we valued our young men our young boys like my brother Jay that was just older than me he was told to go out into the world and convert himself his first wife and then after that he would be worthy to take a girl who had been Church raised for his plural Weiss so yeah lots of different splinter groups most of us believe a lot the same but but have different little you know directions that we went with stuff like that anybody else have a question yes what's your attitude towards Main Street Church it seems like the traditional the traditional Main Street Church is in some way responsible for all these breakout groups yes well I think that the mainstream Church is kidding themselves and they're they're their people by refusing to take any kind of responsibility for the polygamy groups that are out there because polygamy started with the mainstream Church started with Joseph Smith himself and was taught and lived by many of their presidents and many of their people and it's still in the Doctrine and Covenants today that polygamy is a must in order to get to the highest degree of glory in heaven and so for the LDS Church to try to pull away from the polygamy groups or to look down their noses polygamy groups for living their religion I think it's really pathetic and that's how I feel about that

Channel: Aaron Shafovaloff

Views: 89,275

Rating: 4.6553397 out of 5

Keywords: Polygamy, Susan, Ray, Schmidt, Ervil, Lebaron, Allred, LDS, Mormon

Id: QFKuYezZG7k

Length: 61min 4sec (3664 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 27 2010