The 34 Wives of Joseph Smith (And Their 11 Husbands), by Chip Thompson & Doris Hanson

first I want to thank the the pastors of the church here for opening this opening the doors to all of us to come in and share our heart with Mormon people with you guys this is awesome and secondly I want to thank all of you for coming and on behalf of all the ministries that are here I want to say you guys just bless our hearts because we love Mormon people we want to minister to Mormon people and to see this many people that are interested in learning how to do that more effectively is just an awesome thing so thank you all for coming my family and I we moved to Utah about eighteen years ago and we moved to Utah primarily because we had been to a camp in Utah and one of the pastors had challenged us on your way home driving down Highway 89 see how many Christian churches you can find okay I I didn't know that was a loaded question and we literally drove what 300 miles and didn't see one Christian Church went through 24 small rural communities no Christian churches and that just that broke our hearts literally we we came to Utah about a year and a half later as a result of that and moved into Ephraim Utah at that point in history there was hardly any Christianity in the whole county we the first year we were there we we met two older women that were Christians and that was all the Christians that were in our whole community and so we have been ministering there for the last 18 years our ministry right now is called tri grace ministries tri has to do with the Trinity and grace has to do with the gospel of grace which are the two main issues that we need to deal with with Mormon people the the Godhead the Trinity there as we understand the Bible teaches it and the gospel of grace so they need to try grace so we named our ministry that our ministry is primarily a seed planting ministry you know the parable of the sower sower went out to sow and he just sown seeds everywhere their fallen on the path their fallen in the weeds their falling all over the place and he just sown as many seeds as he can sow and that's our ministry is just sowing as many seeds as we can so so that some of those seeds will fall on good soil and we will see fruit and we have we have seen fruit over the years and it's been a great blessing my wife said you're not going to wear that t-shirt up there to talk are you and I said it's an illustration this is one of the seeds you know Christianity is not a religion Christianity is a relationship you want to see the shirt you can look at it later but but this is one of the seeds and you try to you try to pass a tract to a Mormon and most of them 90 99 percent of them will go right in the trash because their church has told them that they are spiritual pornography okay so do not open that stuff do not look at it but they can't throw this away all right and they read it I walk into Walmart and I see people reading out there looking at the back and reading the back and it's it's a message it's what we do another seed that we've spent a lot of time planting are the Living Hope videos and if you sat in on that last video Wow powerful and we've sown literally tens of thousands of those videos all over Utah and they are seeds that we are seeing produce fruit so if you don't if you're not familiar with the Living Hope videos I would encourage you to go over and talk to the men at that table and to purchase some of those videos if you can get a Mormon to watch those they're the most powerful seeds you'll ever plant in their hearts any tidbit of truth that you can plant in their hearts is a seed that God will use and I want you to know that that you never will I never have pastor Terry never has saved anybody we aren't in the business of saving people all we're in the business of is sowing seeds and when those seeds fall it's God that makes the seed germinate and it's God that makes the seed sprout and it's God that makes the seed grow and if they if their eyes get open up it's God opening their eyes and so that's our goal is to plant as many seeds as we can early on in our ministry we were told that the LDS people are unreachable you can't reach him there to brainwashed it's just too hard you're never going to convince them I've seen I know missionaries that have been in Utah for years and years they've never seen any fruit so your good luck is what they basically told us and I have a story to tell you to illustrate the fact that that's a big fat lie it is it's a big fat lie I was at the Manti pageant on the street talking to whoever wanted to talk to me and an elderly gentleman walked up to me and said they'll tell me who you are and tell me what you're doing here so I just told him who I was he said well I'm going to give you one minute tell me why you're here and what your message is so I said well I'm here because I love Mormons if I didn't love Mormons I wouldn't waste my time to come out on the streets and talk to you guys I love you guys and I'm here to share that the true gospel of the Bible with you and he said you know what I can tell that you are very very sincere but you're wasting your time and by God's providence at that very moment myths walk by and I said mitts come here I submits I want you to meet Joe Joe this is mitts mitts left the Mormon Church mitts tell Joe why you left and he's like you left the church yeah so she starts telling him about how she had has a relationship with Jesus now and while she's talking with him I see let me see what's my list I see Stacey who's another former Mormon she was here last night in fact and I said Stacey came here soon as myths got done talking to Joe it's a joke don't don't go I want to I want you to meet Stacey Stacey is a former mormon Stacey still tell Joe why you left so she starts telling Jill about how awesome it is to have have a relationship with Jesus Christ and while Stacey is talking I look around there is didi didi quick come here didi is Stacey's sister so I introduced Jo to didi and then I introduced Jo to Lana Stacy and Deedee's mom and then I introduced Jo to Chrissie and then I introduced Jo to Jenelle and very last one he got done talking with Jenelle and I saw a net some of you probably know uh net I'm just going to describe her for you she is the white version of Aunt Jemima she loves everybody and she will give you a big bear hug and she will just pour the love of Jesus all over you and that's the neck and I said Jill I want you to meet a net and she gave him a bear hug and he looked at me with eyes that big around and she just poured the love of Jesus all over him and when she when she got all done I said Jo we're not wasting our time I want to ask you how many of you are former LDS people converted to Christianity that's awesome that is absolutely awesome we are not wasting our time this is this is for sure all right what I want to do this morning is we're going to talk about Joseph Smith and we're going to introduce to you the man that I think today they say nearly 14 million people are following including the splinter groups that are polygamist groups and 14 million people are following the Prophet Joseph Smith Jr jesus warned us that there would be false prophets Matthew 28 or Matthew 7 verses 15 through 20 says this beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly they are ravenous wolves you will know them by their fruits do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles even so every good tree bears good fruit but a bad tree Bears bad fruit a good fruit cannot bear good a good tree cannot bear bad fruit nor can a bad tree bear good fruit therefore by their fruits you shall know them so what we're going to do today is we're going to look at Joseph Smith Jr and see if he was a prophet of God or not we're going to put the test that Jesus gave us on Joseph Smith to see if he was a prophet of God or not we're going to test him by his fruits and to test Joseph Smith's character as a prophet of God we're going to examine the historical facts surrounding his polygamy and I want you to I want you to know right up front because I want to be completely fair about this the issue is not so much his polygamy as it is his choice in women all right I'm going to I'm going to explain that to you in a minute it's not so much the polygamy itself it's his choice in women and I say that because there are men in the Bible in the Old Testament that practice polygamy that God calls very godly righteous men so it's not that I want to say I approve a polygamy I don't believe it has any place in the church age Jesus didn't allow for that but what we're going to be talking about is Joseph's choice in women first of all some facts just just to be fair about this because I don't want people to get the wrong idea that were somehow condemning Joseph for something that the people in the Bible did because what Joseph did was very different all right in the Old Testament from the earliest chapters of Genesis through the kingdom period of Israel polygamy was practiced in the Mosaic law the concept of polygamy is neither explicitly condoned nor condemned all right so it was practiced in the Old Testament we acknowledge that and the idea of polygamy itself is part of the Old Testament Scriptures in the New Testament however it seems clear that Jesus and His apostles initiated safeguards to keep the practice of polygamy out of the Christian Church I don't believe according to what Jesus taught that it was ever God's intention it was something that was man's invention man's idea and it never worked very well and so Jesus in the New Testament through the Apostles condemned polygamy didn't allow it to enter into the church age so I want to be really clear about that now let's look at polygamy from an LDS perspective and I want to show you just a little bit of some of the problem that the Mormon Church has with this whole concept of polygamy because in the Book of Mormon in 1830 Joseph Smith recorded the following it says the Word of God odd Birds me because of your grocer crimes for they seek to excuse themselves in committing whoredoms because of the things which were written concerning concerning David and Solomon his son David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines which thing was an abominable was which was abominable before me saith the Lord so in in the book of Jacob in the Book of Mormon David and Solomon are used as the prime examples of how horrific and horrible polygamy was alright now a few years later in 1843 Joseph Smith supposedly received a revelation from God which contradicted the prohibitions of polygamy in the Book of Mormon Doctrine and Covenants section 132 introduced a new and an everlasting covenant which commanded to make polygamy to be practiced in the church now get this now consider this contradictory statement David also received many wives and concubines and and also Solomon and in nothing did they sin saving those things which they received not of me David David's wives and concubines were given unto him of me I mean this is as blatant a contradiction as it could possibly be between the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants and then again in 1890 LDS prophet Wilford Woodruff say that three times fast supposedly received a new revelation from God which contradicts the commandments issued in dnc 130 132 this new revelation is known to the LDS people to Mormons as the manifesto which banned polygamy from being practiced in the LDS Church so from 1890 to the present anyone practicing polygamy has been excommunicated from the church which would keep them from ever being ever reaching the highest level of heaven for a Mormon and so you can see how the Mormon Church has flip-flopped back and forth on this topic depending on what the prophets decided was was okay for the time and I'm glad that in the Bible we don't have that kind of flip-flop going on in sacred loneliness is the book we're going to be looking at and this is a book that was written by an LDS historian named Todd Compton and he has the highest credentials in the Mormon Church he is he is a Mormon in good standing served a mission in Ireland is a graduate of ey University was awarded a Best Book Award by a couple different organizations that that examines the the plural wives of Joseph Smith he presently serves on the board of elders for the Journal of Mormon history so he's a well documented LDS historian still in good standing with the Mormon Church so the information we're going to share with you today is documented by Mormon history by morning Mormon historians it's a good source and you can come check it out later if you have any questions about that the facts surrounding Joseph Smith polygamy and I'm just going to give you an overview I gave you a handout an overview of Joseph Smith's plural wives and this information is in this handout okay 11 of the marriage is that Joseph Smith had a third of the wives that he married were two teenage girls ages 14 through 19 so 11 of the marriages were two very young girls 11 of the marriages were two women who had living husbands he married married women okay this is called polyandry or poly a poly and relationship one woman married to two husbands Joseph also married two sets of young sisters he married three sets of sisters but one two sets of young sisters and Joseph married two sets of mothers and daughters and so these are the historical facts surrounding Joseph Smith and so we want to talk just briefly about why that's a problem okay why is that a problem first of all polygamy was illegal in every state that Joseph Smith practiced plural marriage it was illegal back then and the reason in 1890 that they banned polygamy was because it was illegal so I'm wondering what the difference was you know why was it okay for Joseph Smith to break the law but then the Mormon Church decided they were not going to break the law so they banned polygamy so it it's kind of a disconnect there Joseph Smith also had an apparent taste for young flesh as he excuse me as he married eleven young women in pioneer days to be to be fair young women often did get married but to marry 11 young women was unheard of and today in the LDS Church are in in America it's not accepted a Warren Jeffs is in prison today for this very same sin this very same the breaking of the law okay some more problems the problem that deals with him marrying married women I think that's probably one of the biggest problems in his choice of women the question arises what exactly is adultery you're going to marry somebody else's wife and then you're going to consummate your marriage with that wife isn't that the exact definition of adultery and so I think that's a problem Todd Compton states this in case anybody wonders whether or not the LDS historians think that Joseph Smith was actually consummating his marriages Utah Mormons including Smith's wives affirmed repeatedly that he had physical sexual relations with them therefore there is no good evidence that he did not have sexual relations with any wife previously single or polyandrous and so the fact that he was sleeping with all these women is pretty much an established fact which is a problem number four the law of god forbids marriage to a mother and daughter and he married two mothers and daughters which is a complete breaking of the Old Testament law of God a one more significant problem is that a true prophet can't lie it's not part of the part of the puzzle for a true prophet to be able to lie but Joseph Smith one month prior to his death he had 34 wives at that time publicly proclaimed in a sermon that there were accusations being leveled at him in regard to his practice of polygamy that were false he said this what a thing it is for a man to be accused of committing adultery and having seven wives when I can only find one so that's a bold-faced lie he had 34 wives at that time at this time I'm going to introduce to you a very good friend of mine and one who we have worked with on many occasions going into polygamous communities and her name is Doris Hanson so I'm going to let Doris come up and tell you a little bit about her story she actually was raised in a polygamous community and her ministry is too polygamous women so Doris come on up tell them about your ministry and I want you to notice as we as Doris comes up we have the wives and husbands of their wives of Joseph Smith coming up when we did this in Manti we walked probably about three or four blocks from where the women got dressed and and they paraded down the streets of Manti and up the street and down towards where we were going to stand him in front of the the temple grounds and it was what it was an amazing visual to for the people to see all these many wives walking down the street and they all belong to one man these are the 34 wives of Joseph Smith and 11 husbands of the 11 married women that he married Emma was the only legal wife that he had and there are many many people who think that he had more than 34 wives actually these are documented for sure and so that's why we use the number 34 my name is Doris Hanson I was born and raised in the Kingston polygamy group I was threatened all my life that if I didn't live polygamy and accept it when I grew up I was going to be doomed to hell and damnation for eternity and I hated it and I got away I hated God for many many years after I got away but God let me run away from him long enough so I could run right into him and I did and I got saved and at that time I just had such a heart for the polygamous people and I just God just kind of laid it on my heart to know that some point in the future I was going to have a ministry - polygamous and so I started doing things behind the scene and and you know and then mailings and different things that nobody knew anything about but me and it took 20 years but God opened up an opportunity in 2007 when lifting the veil of polygamy was released and we opened up a ministry called a shield and refuge ministry the shield and refuge is that the polygamist people I'm a missionary to the polygamist now and the polygamist people who want to get out well you can know that God will be their shield and their refuge to them when they leave and will give them a safe place to go and help them get aligned back into real society tonight we're going first of all I want to say something that happened last night chip had mentioned some skeptics on a from a Mormon guy that wondered if anybody got out of Mormonism and were happy last night out in the foyer someone came up to me and he said does anyone ever get out of Mormonism and find happiness and find joy and I said I could heaven yes my goodness you know if you find Jesus you do if you don't find Jesus you may not and he we talked for a minute and then he walked off and immediately a girl came up to me and shook my hand and said hi how are you she says you know what I was a Mormon I got saved six or eight months ago and I'm so so yes you get joy joy abundantly tonight I want to talk about three of Joseph Smith's wives and I'm going to talk first of all about Helen mark Kimball Helen mark Kimball 14 year old Helen mark Kimball she was the daughter of Heber C Kimball and was approached by 37 year old Joseph Smith who taught her the mysteries of celestial marriage which is known as polygamy now Joseph Smith of course was the founder in the leader of the Mormon Church he was highly revered he was respected among all the church members he held a strong position of trust and they believed that everything he said was from the very mouth of God now the night before Joseph Smith's proposal to 14 year old Helen mark Kimball her father Heber C Kimball had a conversation with his daughter and asked her if she would believe him if he told her it was right for a married man to take other wives well according to Helens personal writings she said she felt like a small earthquake had shaken her emotions she loved her father and she really didn't think that he would lead her wrong but her sensibilities just kind of made it difficult for her to understand this and if she felt it very hard to believe that she didn't know quite what to think well the next morning after that Joseph Smith arrived at the home and he proposed to Helen mark Kimball at that day an illegal polygamist relationship asking her to be one of his plural wives he persuaded her to enter into a spiritual marriage not a temporal one now Helen couldn't have known at that time that her father Heber C Kimball and Joseph Smith had gotten together advanced and had planned this transaction for 14-year old Helen to become one of Joseph Smith's plural wives she said that Joseph Smith had told her that if she would agree to this marriage it would ensure her eternal salvation and exaltation and that of her father's household and all of her kindred and Helen said quote this promise was so great that I willingly gave myself to purchase so glorious a reward she actually thought that her marriage to Joseph Smith was only for eternity and that her time in this life would be your own and that she wouldn't belong to him here she seemed to relish the supposed independence that taking this step this step apparently was promised to her and as it turned out she discovered that she either misinterpreted Joseph Smith's intent or he may have purposely misled her about his intentions she later said to a close friend quote I would never have been sealed to Joseph had I known it was anything more than ceremony I was young and they deceived me by saying salvation of our whole family depended on it now she said they deceived her well her mother didn't deceive her mother didn't have anything to do with it but she's referring to Heber C Kimball and Joseph Smith they she knows they deceived her Helen must have been very surprised to discover that this marriage included time as well as eternity a physical union between this 14-year old girl and the 37 year-old man she hadn't even wanted to marry Joseph Smith but she considered that it was a very small price to pay for the guarantee of her eternal life and the eternal life of the ones that she loved the most now as church president Joseph Smith was in a position of special trust yet he practiced his deviant tendency to pedophilia as is proven by his polygamous Union not just a one fourteen year old girl as chip said but to seven girls 17 years old and younger and a total of 11 girls 20 years old and younger now let's put this in a contemporary perspective there was an article in the Deseret News last month that tells of the case of a man in American Fork accused of having a sexual relationship with a 16 year old student this man is a former seminary prophet he's 37 years old he faces 14 first-degree felony charges and one second-degree felony charge of several different kinds of rape and forced forcible sexual abuse prosecutors agree that the charges against him are enhanced because he held a position of trust over this young girl he had seduced and sexually molested her under the banner of being a special and trusted spiritual leader now let's compare this sent 37 year-old American Fork principal with 37 year-old Joseph Smith the American Fork principal seduces a 16 year old seminary student Joseph Smith seduces a 14 year old girl with an illegal polygamous Union mmm the American Fork principals charged with 14 first degree felonies Joseph Smith is considered a holy prophet of God and no one requires any accountability from him from his actions either then or now in today's courts with the evidence that's available Joseph Smith would have been convicted of child molestation and placed in a cell next to Warren Jeffs on the on the same page here we also don't want to leave out he receipt Kimball 51 year old Warren Jeffs was tried and found guilty of doing what Heber C Kimball did Warren Jeffs was charged with being an accomplice to rape when he arranged the marriage of a fourteen-year-old girl to her cousin in the FLDS polygamy group and this culture applauded his conviction yet Heber C Kimball arranged the marriage of his fourteen-year-old daughter to a polygamist and he's not held accountable either in fact he's called a holy apostle of God in these two events why wouldn't Josif Smith be as guilty of child rape as a Seminary principal and why wouldn't he bruh seat Kimball be as guilty as Warren Jeffs for arranging the marriage of his fourteen-year-old daughter Helen mark Kimball became a widow just one year later when Joseph Smith was murdered in 1844 she was then free to be romanced by and to be married by her longtime heartthrob Horace Whitney sadly however after they moved to Utah her husband Horace Whitney took two polygamous wives and by that time Helen was firmly accepting of and a hearty advocate of plural marriage what do I find heart-wrenching in these accounts of Joseph Smith's method of gathering to himself these pearl wives is that he consistently brought God into the proposition having been born and raised in a polygamist whole myself I'm painfully aware the use that they have when they use God in the teachings and threatenings of living polygamy we were constantly threatened that we comply or be damned except polygamy or be destroyed which is what Joseph Smith said in section 132 we were conditioned from the cradle when we grew up believing that it was God's requirement to become a plural wife we were brainwashed we were frightened into accepting it so I can understand being born and raised with the polygamous mindset when that's all you've known since birth it's natural to believe it but none of the plural wives of Joseph Smith's and early Mormons were born and raised in the polygamy culture they had not been brainwashed from birth like we were polygamy was not something they were familiar with it had nothing to do with salvation as far as they knew up until that point yet they believed what Joseph Smith claimed that it was a holy principle and required by God sadly they didn't study their Bible about it either and even if they had would they have been able to discern the truth that God really never required polygamy and most alarming to me is that many of these women hesitated at first like Helen mark Kimball did but later agreed to become a plural wife simply because she trusted the spiritual leadership of the Mormon Church several of these ladies asked God for confirmation and and they received some alarmingly profound spiritual experiences confirming to them that they were to embrace plural marriage and so they did with all their heart and soul of course we know that feelings are not a barometer for truth and spiritual experiences are not always from God some of these who did receive the spiritual manifestations were among those who became polygamy's most powerful advocates Helen mark Kimball had said that polygamy was a small price to pay for the salvation of her loved ones I wonder if she ever found out in later years that Jesus paid the price for salvation and no one else can well as you can imagine there's 34 women up here but there's also 11 men and for these men polygamy was a great pain for them as well created all kinds of turmoil inside of them and problems for them I want to introduce to you Miranda Johnson Brenda Leigh step forward and a Miranda and her family in 1833 moved to Kirtland Ohio where she met a dynamic young Mormon convert named Orson high dynamic young Orson Hyde's step forward there the next year Miranda and Orson were married and in 1835 just a short time after their marriage Orson was ordained an apostle of the LDS Church and just so for your information in the early in the early Mormon Church the Twelve Apostles were traveling missionaries which meant that Miranda spent a great time alone in her first years of marriage so she wasn't with Orson a lot because he was on his mission for the church evidently Orson struggled with this situation as well in 1838 he disaffected from the LDS Church and he wrote the the infamous accusation that if Joseph Smith was not stopped he would quote unquote be a second Muhammad to this generation in 1839 however he moved back to far west Missouri a repentant humbled man and wanted to return to the church a year later Orson and elder John epage were sent on a mission to Jerusalem can you imagine that back in the early 1800s going on a mission to Jerusalem in akhter in October of 1841 Orson Hyde stood on the Mount of Olives and consecrated Palestine for the gathering of Judah in the last days and I actually visited his park that set up there the Hyde Park that set up in honor of Orson High traveling all the way to Jerusalem in the early 1800s while Orson was on his mission however as he was returning from Reus l'm Joseph Smith took Miranda as one of his polygamous wives so while he was gone without his knowledge Joseph convinced Miranda who was a hot young pioneer woman to be one of his wives okay now we know she was hot because you're going to find out later that other men were after her okay so um while while Orson was on his mission Joseph Smith married her she was 26 at the time and Joseph was 36 and we can only guess at the shock of this that this exposure to polygamy was for her not to mention the fact that she was also entering into a polyandrous state where she already had a husband it must have given a Miranda great turmoil in her own soul Todd Compton says that nearly everyone who has commented on their first introduction to polygamy wrote that they at first looked at it with revulsion and shock and fought the idea for a time as Miranda was apparently in love with Orson Hyde polyandry must have been enormously difficult for her she and Orson had a good relationship when they were together and so there was no reason to think that she was dissatisfied with her relationship with Orson although there were conflicting reports as to exactly what happens it seems most likely that Orson did not know of the marriage and it was reported that he was extremely upset upon coming home from his mission to learn that Miranda had married Smith in his absence so at men can you imagine you know going on a mission a significant mission for your church and coming home and finding out that your young bride is now the life of the prophet of your church just shocking would be a shocking thing Orson however did not stop living with Miranda at this time he accepted because he accepted the Prophet Joseph Smith as a religious leader he accepted the the relationship in the situation and he continued to live with her Miranda continued to have children with Orson until 1858 so they lived together for a long time before his death in 1878 Orson also married eight additional wives and fathered 32 children so Orson bought into the polygamy idea and became a part of that as well next I want to talk talk about Joseph Smith's wives number 20 and 21 The Partridge sisters it's probably impossible to find a polygamy group anywhere that would prohibit a man from marrying sisters as plural wives and it isn't unusual for a man and to marry both a mother and a daughter I'd like to read from a Leviticus 18 just a couple of verses it says do not have sexual relations with both a woman and her daughter it is wickedness verse 18 do not take your wife's sister as a rival wife and have sexual relations with her while your wife is living Joseph Smith set the precedence in Mormon polygamy for violating these particular commands in Leviticus 18 he did he did marry mother and daughter and he was guilty of marrying four sets of sisters as plural wives the Lord sisters the huntingtin sisters the Johnson sisters and the Partridge sisters and they're the ones I'm going to focus on now there's 22 year-old Eliza Partridge and 19 year-old Emily he married the younger one Emily first on March 4th of 1843 which was the same day that he married teenage girl 19 year old flora Woodworth same day two girls the same day 19 years old and four days later he married Emily and Emily's older sister Eliza who was 22 years old so in four days Joseph Smith took three young brides to another 19 and one of them 22 and he was 37 years old at the time the sisters had known Joseph Smith since 1831 he had baptized their father into the Mormon Church Edward in fact Edward became the very first Mormon bishop in 1840 their father died her mother their mother remarried a widower and that widower just happened to be the father of the Huntington sisters whom Joseph Smith also took as spiritual lives at the time of their father's death Emily and Eliza went to live in the Smith home the sisters helped Emma out they were babysitters they helped her out with the housework and they also came increasingly to the attention of the roving eye of their benefactor Joseph Smith Emma was very kind to the sisters and no doubt she was very grateful for their help Emily said the Emma was a very kind good and Noble woman until polygamy came in the picture there must have been a severe change in Emily and I can understand that as she found her husband increasingly dabbling in polygamy which would be how I know it's hard to take I've seen it the sisters were comfortable they were content living at the Smith home at least in the beginning they would go horseback riding and have parties with with people their own age but in the spring of 1842 the warmth of their living arrangement diminished when Joseph Smith set his sights on these two girls as potential celestial mates Joseph approached Emily first she was alone in the room and he told her that if she could keep a secret he would tell her something for her benefit she assured him that she could keep a secret but there was no opportunity for him to talk to her at that point so he said if I wrote you a letter will you promise to burn the letter after you read it well there's a red flag but she said she said she would but then she later regretted it being sure that this wasn't proper so she told him that she could not take the personal letter from him and to let the matter drop so Joseph Smith didn't approach her again till her 19th birthday but by that time rumors have been flying around Nauvoo about the very subject that Joseph Smith wanted to talk to her about and that was polygamy one of Joseph Smith's plural wives was a mrs. Elizabeth Durfee she here mrs. Durfee well she was uh she married Joseph Smith is a polygamous wife she was fifty years old when she buried Joseph Smith and he was only 36 but Joseph Smith frequently would call on the older women like that to come and prepare some of the young girls for plural marriage to him she misses Durfee was already married and living with another husband when Smith married her well one day mrs. Durfee came and visited Emily and explained that Smith wanted to talk to her mrs. Durfee said she thought he wanted her to become his wife and by now emily had been mentally prepared for such a request well along with mrs. Durfee Joseph Smith had also used Heber C Kimball in his schemes to acquire wives and so one day mrs. Durfee invited Emily to go to Heber C Kimball home Emily had been helping Emma out with with a laundry all day long but she went ahead and went to visit the Kimball home anyway still wearing her work clothes that she'd been doing laundry in all day Joseph Smith was there and he told her what he had wanted to say earlier and that was he taught her the principle of plural marriage he said this principle had been revealed to him and he asked her if she would marry him and she consented on the spot and they were married then and there her old dirty work clothes was her wedding gown and Heber C Kimball performed the marriage Joseph then went home his way and Emily went home her way and they both went home to the same residence she later remarked this was a strange way to get married now eliza didn't know emily had married Joseph Smith but Emily knew Eliza could keep a secret and so she told her about it afterwards and then Joseph approached Eliza and taught her the plan of celestial marriage and asked her to marry him and she agreed but she said later quote it was a hard trial for me but I had the most implicit confidence in him four days later she became his bride as you can imagine emma smith his only one and only legal wife was also aware of the rumors that were going around smith was trying to talk emma into going into plural marriage and she didn't want to do it and finally after a couple of months she told Joseph Smith that she indeed would allow him to take a plural pearl wives if she could pick his wives two of his wives for him and lo and behold she picked Eliza and Emily for Joseph Smith to marry not even knowing that he had married them two months ago so a second plural marry ceremony took place and Emma never knew about the first one she had no way of knowing and Emily said from that hour Emma was our bitter enemy we remained in their house for several months but things went from bad to worse and after some troubling times Emily finally brought it to an end one day she sent for the sisters and as they came into the room they could tell that something was wrong and Emma clearly was in command and Joseph was looked looking much like a martyr Emma was upset and she said very harsh words she demanded that the plural marriages and they'd be terminated they find other husbands and she said that Joseph must give up the girls or blood would flow but she didn't say whose blood well the girls were a Dignan that Joseph Smith didn't stick up for them but later on they understood why he couldn't have done that and after Joseph Smith was martyred Eliza and her sister Carolyn married in a part of Massa Lyman Emily married Brigham Young and they all migrated West Emily died at age 75 Eliza died at 65 and she remained a defender of polygamy all her life all right I mean isn't this I mean I've heard this a lot it's just almost too bizarre to believe isn't it when introduced to you Henry Jacobs and his wife that he married Zena Huntington Huntington they married in 1841 and she lived with him until 1846 she bore him two children shortly after their marriage however Joseph Smith approached the newlywed couple he knew knew Zeena as a young girl and maybe had introduced the idea of plural marriage or at that time but he approached her and asked if they would consider this celestial marriage contract he said that the Lord had made it known to him that he that she Zena was to be his celestial wife Joseph however told them that they could continue to live together as husband and wife so he talked the couple into doing this surprisingly Henry Lee accepted this but Zena struggled with the news Zena remained conflicted until October when Joseph sent a message to her stating that he would lose his position as prophet and his life if she did not become one of his plural wives so what kind of pressures that to put on a young girl zina finally acquiesced she was married to the Prophet in October of 1841 Henry knew of the marriage and accepted it he believed that whatever the Prophet did was right so Henry accepted this relationship a polyandrous relationship with zina until the death of the Prophet in 1844 so she was wife to both husbands until 1844 following the prophets death one would think that Henry and Xena's marital situation should have simplified a bit because Joseph Smith is now out of the picture she and Henry who had never stopped living together as husband and wife probably expected to continue doing so now without a third member of the marriage triangle however it was shortly after Joseph's death that Brigham Young approached xena and she married him for time in september of 1844 is a very bizarre ceremony it would be too long to read to you this morning nonetheless she remained married and cohabiting with Henry it was not until 1846 the zina and Henry's relationship officially ended while Henry was on a mission for the church in England zina wrote him a letter telling him that she was now living with Brigham Young and no longer considered Henry to be her husband Henry returned from his mission and settled in California it's kind of interesting on their trip out west he tagged along kind of behind the wagon train and just you could the the stories of that are really heart-wrenching he was just was heartbroken that his wife had rejected him from being his her husband and couldn't understand understand it he then later moved to California but he was still in love with zina and now that one of the plural wives of Joseph Smith him young I'm Henry's letters to his wife zina were heart-rending on September 2nd 1852 he wrote oh happy ah ha ha oh how happy I should be if I only could see you and the little children bone of my bones flesh of my flesh I am unhappy Henry lame ended there is no peace from for poor me my pleasure is you my comfort has vanished Rosina can I ever will I ever get you again answer the question please and the answer was no he never was able to see his wife again and the final story tonight i want to talk about lucy walker joseph smith's 23rd wife his 22nd plural wife Lucy Walker of seventeen years old Lucy was smil sealed to Joseph Smith one day after her 17th birthday and he was 37 years old more than twice her age so again we see that Joseph Smith is attracted to and taking young teenaged girls as plural wives Lucy's father was converted to Mormonism when she was just six years old and her mother was converted six years or three years later eventually the walkers moved to Illinois Lucy Lucy's mother died in January of 1842 and then not long after her mother died Joseph Smith moves moves in through the manipulation here and sends Lucy's father away on a mission denying both the father and the children proper grieving time three months later when Lucy's 15 years old she and her brother are invited to move into the Smith's home Lucy was once asked how many people lived in this Smith home and she said the Lawrence sisters were living there the Partridge sisters were living there plus herself and there was some domestic help this was very convenient for Smith to avoid to these young marriage of our girls to move in and live with him under the guise of benevolence and it's very odd how so many of them became his plural wives Joseph Smith proposed to Lucy while she was staying at the Smyth home and she said that he asked to talk with her and told her I have a message for you I have been commanded by God to take another wife and you are the woman Lucy said this announcement struck her like a thunderbolt he proceeded to ask her if she believed if he was a prophet of God she answered well yes most assuredly she believed he was so he moved forward at that point to teach her the principle of plural marriage he promised that it would form a chain that would never be broken worlds without ends he asked what she thought about the idea and she hesitated how could she speak she didn't have a mother to turn to she didn't have a father to for counselor advice she had no one to ask so Joseph Smith offered some gentle persuasion he promised Lucy although I cannot under existing circumstances acknowledge you as my wife the time is near when we will go beyond the rocky mountains and then you will be acknowledged and honoured as my wife he played upon her sorrow and her sense of aloneness but then moved in for the device the decisive blow he warned her there was a time limit in which she had to respond this was a command from God he would give her until tomorrow to decide and if she rejected this message the gate would be closed against her forever well Lucy had some spunk and she filmed at this high-handed and threatening treatment and she said this aroused the very Scotch in her brains or in her veins and she said she stood toe-to-toe to Smith looking right straight in the face and she said she required a revelation before she would submit to this proposition well he promised her that if she would pray she would receive her own personal manifestation from God and so she did and she did she said she spent a restless sleepless night until early morning dawn drew near and she got her answer she said a heavenly influence and feeling of supreme happiness took possession of her she gave no other details about her spiritual experience but this was evidently enough for her as she told Joseph Smith yes she would marry him and on May 1st of 1843 while Emma was away shopping in st. Louis they got married the only witness was Eliza partridge and William Clayton officiated Lucy continued to live in the Smith home without Emma even ever knowing about the connection of with polygamy in with them in fact one day in a very pitiful statement was made to Lucy by Emma Emma said she hoped that Lucy would never make a married woman unhappy by marrying her husband there's volumes in that Lucy Walker considered it was her duty to give herself up as a sacrifice to polygamy to help establish celestial marriage on the earth the sacrificial duty was part of the brainwashing technique I'm here to tell you I've seen it a lot Lucy had been sworn to secrecy about her marriage to Smith and she'd never witnessed a secret plural marriage herself of others or or an M I knew nothing about the marriage either so she certainly didn't give her consent like section 132 said was supposed to so these deceits of the secrecy's are inherent in the practice of polygamy groups at one time Joseph Smith introduced Lucy to Heber C Kimball and Brigham Young as his wife but very few people really knew about it and she went by the name of Lucy Walker someone once asked her if she knew of any children fathered by Joseph Smith and she declined to answer the question after Joseph Smith's death has happened to many of the widows Lucy Walker was married to Heber C Kimball and Brigham Young performed the ceremony Lucy traveled west with Heber C Kimball and with several of Smith's wives she had nine children with Heber C Kimball but only five survived she died in Salt Lake City in 1910 at the age of 84 although many of Joseph Smith's wives seemed to be kind and thoughtful and caring women I can't help but reflect at the frustrations and the loneliness they suffered all the days of their lives as mere plural wives you see my father was a polygamist he only had two wives my mother was his second wife yet I vividly remember her tears sometimes emotional outbursts which at the time I didn't understand I remember one day as a child I snuck into her private diary there were no private information there she was just writing down her feelings her tireless efforts of trying to make God pleased with her and her sacrificial attitude towards life which the life of polygamy demands yet she deemed it worth it and I don't wonder that many of these polygamist women of early Mormonism would have had the same sacrificial martyr complex that my own mother had in their minds they were building treasure for heaven the painful sacrificial life of polygamy here was building that for them they lived hard for their beliefs and it was a very hard life I remember how difficult it was as a child growing growing up in a poverty-stricken polygamist home it that was nothing compared to the rough pioneer life of early Mormon polygamist women how sad to realize that when they did die they didn't wake up in heavenly glory to be reunited with their polygamist husband who had been crowned as it got laud God in glory but instead each one of them had to face wholly and all made mighty God with the question what did you do with Jesus what a tragedy that they all lived and died believing that their human husband was their Savior and that's the story of Lucy Walker thank you so much for inviting us here tonight or today and we do hope that we help to understand Mormon I want to ask you guys to be praying for us next week we will be going to two polygamous compounds with a mission team from Letourneau University doris will be joining us for those trips and just keep us in your prayers there's a lot of unknowns when you go into those compounds we've never had a problem doesn't mean there never could be a problem so just keep us in your prayers pray mostly that the Lord will open our the hearts and the eyes of some of these women to contact Doris and to be rescued out of these situations so thank you again thank you women and men for your for joining us we appreciate it

Channel: Aaron Shafovaloff

Views: 176,180

Rating: 4.1604939 out of 5

Keywords: capstone, conference, wives, polygamy, joseph, smith, warren, jeffs, Chip, Thompson, Doris, Hanson

Id: AfqNenhKdls

Length: 56min 54sec (3414 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 15 2010

Reddit Comments

[u/brotherKorihor]

Spreading the good word about Pedo Joe. Now, if only they could learn the good word about their own religion.

[u/AdmiralFoxx]

The wonders of time travel technology, bringing us all those people