If this is Heaven, Then Give me Hell

what are you willing to give up in the name of religion in hopes to live a better life in a better place Brenda's parents gave up a good job a house and all family ties so when I was about a year old my parents joined the FLDS and moved us from California to Utah and so the FLDS was all I ever knew and it's a very secluded group you only do with the people that are in the group we didn't play with the neighbors much or anything because we joined we didn't have family either and so we were a lot more secluded than a lot of the people may have been how much are you willing to endure and then once I got married and had my own children and we thinkin started getting a lot more restricted and at one point they had us move to Las Vegas and we lived there for about five years there the women and children were not supposed to go outside you weren't supposed to be seen as restricted as my childhood had been it was nothing compared to what my children were going through we were allowed to do so little it's hard to keep children happy and busy inside the four walls of a house 24 hours a day it started to be more and more of a struggle for me because I thought this is no life for my children how do you convince yourself to keep moving forward to stay on the straight and narrow without question or hesitation I watched my children be stripped of the joy of childhood a lot of that I felt like well this is temporary any day now we're all going to go to Zion and there will be freedom there won't be these restrictions we have to have these restrictions because we're living around these these wicked Gentiles but when the edict came out that if you weren't found worthy you couldn't keep your worthy children it was a lion I refused to cross Brenda was fearful of losing her children she could trust no one but it took time before I even dared voice things to David you don't know if they might report on you if they don't agree they could tell the church authorities and the next thing you know they just take you may be asking yourself how is all of this possible the truth is this did not happen overnight it took many years of isolation and homeschooling children the future parents of a congregation to reach this point and I was home-schooled until the seventh grade I started school of the church school and went through high school they didn't teach you the real versions of history the church dogma was in everything every class was designed to push the church ideas the pictures were changed in the books so really your entire life became what they told you that was all you knew lessons on even like vocabulary words to use and at one point in church it was mentioned that fun was an entertainment that you shouldn't have had that Zion which we were all supposed to be yearning to qualify for Zion and Zion will spell wor K you shouldn't be having fun religion controlled many aspects of their followers lives including where they lived Brenda's family had been assigned to live in Las Vegas for five years when they returned to their hometown the changes that had taken place were unbelievable they had taken down all the basketball standards now there's just the backboards with no hoops I would go to my father's house and he had little girls and they would take a piece of firewood or a brick or a can of soup and wrap it up in a towel and carry it around like a doll because they wanted to have a baby their whole lives they were told that the only ambition a girl could have was to be a mother in Zion and yet they weren't allowed to practice and have a doll the control and manipulation of people's lives did not end there it went to step further I think it was mid 2011 they started talking a lot about the United order and it was something we'd been taught about in church um and at school it was like more communal living where everyone gave everything they had to the storehouse and then you would get back on me what you needed you had to make a detailed list of everything you owned including like your rubber bands for your hair and once a month you turned in a new list where you had counted and you had to account for the differences in the numbers and the bishop would decide what you could keep and what you didn't need and their each the point where they said if you have anything in your home that you haven't used in two weeks you don't need it and you should turn it in the church had a building full of stuff donated by thousands of church members you would think no one would go without you know there are women that we're going to have a baby but they didn't need their baby stuff immediately and they would turn it all in and then when they had their baby the storehouse at Elmo we have nothing for you the Prophet informed his followers the Lord had given a deadline of January first to be found worthy it found not worthy you were no longer a member of the church and for people that don't understand what that means that meant that your your marriages your baptism all the things that matter in the church it was over it was null and void people were required to write confession letters where you told everything you had ever done wrong and then you would go at some point to be judged whether or not you were worthy on December 31st 2011 Brenda's family was called to be judged it was very hard for her family to wait for a call with their verdict when the Bishop's office calls and says we want to talk to your daughter we have a message for her she and two of your sons are worthy and they need to come together ordinances done and we were we were terrified that they wouldn't come back because part of the the idea that they let you know is that once you were part of this United order you belong to God your church property families were being torn apart the worthy would go to one church meeting the unworthy to another and where we weren't found worthy we didn't know what they would do so my husband took them up to get their ordinances done and waited in the van until they came out and that took till after midnight but even immediately it started affecting our family because we had the three who were worthy who had all these assignments and if I asked him to do something oh I can't because the church tells me I need to do this other theme some of us we have the one meeting and that I come home and get the restroom ready and send them their meeting but it got to where I'd send them off to meeting and make dinner and four hours they still weren't back six hours they still weren't back we'd go drive by the me house just to see if there were still cars there or if they had all disappeared all of that really started tearing the family apart one day Brendan noticed there was something going on with her worthy children that was seriously wrong and convinced her daughter to talk one day my my children came home from their meeting and we had dinner all set up and the three of them sat there at the table and just stared off into the distance and they wouldn't eat and I asked him is everything ok and they wouldn't really talk to me and but I knew him well enough to know that something was seriously wrong something was really really bothering him and so I finally convinced my daughter I talked when I told her I know that they've told you that you have to keep sacred things secret and I know that that means that you know they've told you you can't tell me what they say in meetings this is but I want you to understand that if you go to church and they asked you to do things that you're not comfortable with or they tell you to do things that you just can't feel at peace with you can come and tell me as she says I can't they told me I can't and I said you can because what they told you was you have to keep sacred things secret if it was sacred it wouldn't feel wrong and so if it feels wrong the rules don't apply what her daughter said next was to change their lives forever she finally broke down and told me that they had announced in church that the Lord had said that those who were worthy were no longer allowed to live with those who were not worthy and so they were going to start a cleansing process where they would take children out of unworthy homes and put them into a family that was worthy and she says so I I guess this means we don't get to live with you guys and I didn't say anything to her but I was like oh no I don't think so the following Sunday during church meeting it was announced the worthy can no longer live with the unworthy and father's could no longer provide for their unworthy family members I went to my meeting and they then announced anyone who was worthy could not let one penny of their money or any of their belongings go to the support of the unworthy and that fathers that were worthy needed to help their unworthy wives and children find jobs and ways to support themselves because they could no longer support them the phrase was used this is going to be like the biggest game of fruit basket upset ever well we take people and move them around and that we needed to get this done quickly and efficiently so we could get the flow of money going again this news had upset many mothers but not Brenda she had gone along with many other things because they weren't hurting anybody this will hurt my children and I won't do it I heard I could hear all these women in the room behind me just weeping and crying their eyes out and they were just uncontrolled because they knew they were haven't going to have their children taken away and they believed enough they didn't think they had a choice the thought of someone taking your children away terrifies and motivates you and I remember this making this statement if that's heaven give me hell we started figuring out how are we going to leave and David started looking for a job which was really hard because he'd never written resume in his life he'd never gone to a job interview and we started looking for a house we'd say we were going to Walmart and we drive into Saint George or Huracan and look at these houses to try and see you know from the outside did it look like it was going to work David and Brenda were horrified at the thought of someone finding out about their escape but then there's this new fear that cropped up and I kept thinking I hope that we get out before they show up at the door and tell me that they've kicked David out and they're now going to move us somewhere else or the phone call because that was happening all around worthy children were encouraged to report on their unworthy parents so when we finally had everything lined up and the plan was made we still hadn't told anyone no one of our family had a clue what we were doing I started telling I two of my kids a little bit of what we were doing because they were just so desperate the next Saturday morning he and I worked on packing more stuff we sent our kids off on projects like they always did and we had our first load ready to go just as it was starting to get dark and our daughter had come home but our son was still off on projects just as we're going to drive out of the driveway my nephew's drove in and dropped my son off and so he jumped in and we drove off and nobody realized what we were doing all night long Brenda's family worked in the shadows making sure no one knew they were leaving Short Creek through the night they would move out boxes they have the lights off if cars came by they stopped in the shadows it was incredible the mixture of feelings between fear that someone was going to notice what we're doing and try to stop us and and happiness that our plan was coming together and we were finally going to escape we are going to get free just as the Sun was coming up we took our last load and we got the house and it was like we did we made it here we are we're free finally and it was like this huge sense of relief is like the weight of the world taken off your shoulders but then it was almost immediately followed by this overwhelming feeling of being completely alone in the world this family had gained freedom at a very high price every family tie they had in the church had now been broken we knew when we walked away that this is what we were what was going to happen but now we'd sealed the deal no one would ever talk to us our families would not talk to us we everything and everyone that had been a part of our lives our entire community was gone after leaving the church Brenda and her husband took turns having their dark moments of doubt hopelessness and despair but even in the darkest of our moments it was never as dark as the feeling of hopelessness that you had when you're in the church and you knew you had no choices but what if we were wrong what if this was a mistake what if that really is the truth and we have walked away and and doomed our children to damnation once we got out we started to find out the truth of what the church was which was another whole level of betrayal because everything we had lived for everything we had sacrificed for everything we had done with our whole lives is pretty much a lie at this point she realized all her life had been devoted to a false religion it was now time for her to find new meaning in her life it was like a pivotal point that changed everything I started to realize that I had choices as to what I wanted to do with my life and not just for me but for my kids when we left it was it was amazing to watch them watch their first cartoon watch their first movie start listening to music and decide what they liked and didn't like just based on what they liked instead of someone telling you telling them that this is good music or this is what you can like and it's been incredible to watch them make choices and everybody's just doing really good brenda is now a student in college and activist and a blogger I gave myself permission to ask the questions to really seek after what was true instead of trying to believe what I was told the whole world opened up I've been to three hearings in the last month as there to be a voice for people who have no voice I was there to witness something that people aren't even being told what's happening and I took notes and I posted these huge long Facebook posts of everything that went on that I also wanted to actually see those men in some degree of captivity like what they have put thousands of people this time I was the one that was free looking at them in Chains it was really powerful and I did i sat there and i thought this is for all the people that you've hurt and i was one of those people and you can't hurt me now her family's brave decision to escape had finally paid off I can remember feeling happy for the first time I always thought I was happy I believed I was happy this is where I wanted to be this is my choice and it wasn't until we we escaped from that that your mind finally opens up to realize you never had a choice I had never known what happiness felt like and it was the most incredible thing when it's almost overpowering when you actually feel free and happy and I thought everybody should feel this way I would love to see my mother get out and I know that this may not be enough soon enough but if anything that I can do helps somebody's mother somebody's sister somebody's family then it's all worth it you

Channel: Judy Fuwell

Views: 1,408,026

Rating: 4.7377219 out of 5

Keywords: FLDS, Polygamy, Bravery, Family, Education, Religion, Freedom, Choices, Voice, Mothers Love

Id: SoittnX373g

Length: 21min 10sec (1270 seconds)

Published: Sun May 08 2016