Why I Left: The Dark Truth About Joseph Smith That Led Me to Abandon Mormonism
Join Megan Conner on a deeply personal journey in this eye-opening episode of "The Midlife Revolution" where she shares her transformative decision to leave the LDS Church. Explore the historical controversies of Joseph Smith's polygamous marriages, including his unions with teenagers, and delve into how these revelations sparked a profound crisis of faith. Discover the ethical dilemmas posed by these practices, the church's own acknowledgment in its publications, and the critical historical analyses that shaped Megan's path out of Mormonism. Whether you're grappling with your own faith, curious about religious history, or seeking understanding of one of Mormonism's most debated topics, this episode promises to challenge your perceptions and inspire reflection.
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this entire time.
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All of that stuff just has
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really disturbed me over
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the last couple of days.
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And I've kind of been in this rabbit hole.
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I would really like to have
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your opinion because I am
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I'm really having a hard time with this.
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And I'm really upset about
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just the entire dynamic of
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Like it feels like the
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church leaders have been
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lying to us all along and
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that they've covered it up
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this entire time.
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All of that stuff just has
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really disturbed me over
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the last couple of days and
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I've kind of been in this rabbit hole.
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I would really like to have
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your opinion because I am,
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I'm really having a hard
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time with this
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welcome to the midlife
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revolution thanks for being
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here everybody and thank
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you for your patience while
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i got everything settled
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outside of the closet
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um i think last wednesday we
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left off the episode about
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my faith crisis a little
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sooner than i wanted to
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because of my technical
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difficulties and so i
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wanted to finish um the
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video that i started out
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with i posted on tick tock
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a shortened version of my
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meltdown in the car where i
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was at a point where i had gotten
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so much information about
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some of the truth claims of
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the church that i didn't
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really know what to do and
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then i as i continued
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digging i found some
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information that disturbed
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me well here's what's
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interesting about it these
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are it's information that i
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knew for a long time this
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was nothing new to me
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um the difference is that
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when you are in the church
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and you are trying so hard
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to uh just live your life
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according to the teachings
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of the church lots of times
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when problems come up you
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sort of explain them away
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and what the saying in the
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church was that you're
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supposed to just put them
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on the shelf there was a
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famous talk that one of the
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women leaders gave when i was a teenager
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that said that just if
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there's something you don't
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understand or something
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that you are wrestling with
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or struggling with,
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and it's a question that
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can't be answered,
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just put it on the shelf.
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And then someday we'll know
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everything we need to know.
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You can ask God when you see
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him or God will reveal it
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to the prophets and you'll be fine.
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So that's why a lot of times
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when Mormons leave the church,
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they say my shelf broke
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because there were so many
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things on the shelf.
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I kept putting things on the
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shelf over and over and
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finally my shelf broke.
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And this is what happened to me as well.
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I had a lot of things on my
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shelf and the meltdown in
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the car was me taking
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things off the shelf and
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examining them and looking
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at them for the first time
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from the perspective of,
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critical thinking rather
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than magical thinking and
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trying to bring in facts
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where before there had just
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been feelings.
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And people will often
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comment when I talk about
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leaving the church that they will say,
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don't forget the feelings
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that you have because the
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church teaches us to,
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when we feel that burning sensation of,
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when we feel that burning in
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our heart that warm feeling
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that's supposed to be the
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holy ghost telling us that
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what we're hearing is true
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and so we rely on those
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feelings rather than on
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facts because the story of
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joseph smith is frankly
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unbelievable that god and
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jesus christ appeared to
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him and told him that he
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was going to be a prophet um so
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If you think about that
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story just from a factual standpoint,
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it doesn't make a lot of sense, right?
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You have to make a lot of
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room for conjecture.
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And what I have come to find
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is that the solution that
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requires the least amount
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of conjecture is likely the
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truest explanation for something.
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When I was in the church,
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I was told to just be faithful,
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just pray harder,
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just get a better witness, you know,
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just keep believing.
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No matter what you do,
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just keep believing.
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And that allowed me to look
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beyond a lot of facts and a
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lot of logical explanations
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because I was trying to be
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faithful and come at it
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from a faithful perspective.
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so i knew all about polygamy
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um or at least i thought i
00:05:19.707 --> 00:05:20.827
did growing up in the
00:05:20.847 --> 00:05:23.248
church i knew that polygamy
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was a practice in the
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church what i was told is
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that it was something we
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did a long time ago the
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church officially disavowed
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it it was a temporary thing
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and then you know when the
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church denounced it we
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completely moved away from
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polygamy and we'll never have to
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do it again in this life,
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and then God will explain
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why he did that later.
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That's what I was taught as
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a child and as a youth growing up.
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As a young adult,
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I came to understand that a
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lot of people believed that
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it was Brigham Young who
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instituted the practice of
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polygamy after the saints
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went to the Utah Territory.
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Then facts started to come
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out that said that actually
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Joseph Smith did institute polygamy.
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Then we were told he had a few wives,
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but it was after the revelation,
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section one,
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thirty two of the Doctrine
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and Covenants came out,
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which we're going to go
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over a whole timeline.
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And then that Emma knew
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about it and that she was
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fine with the revelation
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because it was explained to
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her from a faithful standpoint.
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then so much information
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came out about joseph smith
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being the one who actually
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instituted polygamy that
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the church started having
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to make some concessions
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for the historical accuracy
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of those accounts and there
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was a woman named sandra
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tanner who did a lot of
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research on not just
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polygamy but church history
00:07:07.347 --> 00:07:08.548
in general the book of
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mormon and she really was
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the pioneer is the pioneer
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of so much of this research,
00:07:16.672 --> 00:07:17.973
compiling the research,
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and she and her husband put
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out several books, pamphlets, essays,
00:07:23.616 --> 00:07:24.276
things like that,
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to help people have a true
00:07:28.799 --> 00:07:31.280
historical frame for Mormonism.
00:07:32.681 --> 00:07:34.641
So during this time of research,
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I had always known polygamy
00:07:36.843 --> 00:07:38.083
was a problem for me,
00:07:38.103 --> 00:07:39.084
it was an issue for me,
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and the idea that we don't
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practice it anymore really isn't true.
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Because when you get married in the temple,
00:07:48.681 --> 00:07:49.762
man and a woman get married,
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let's say the wife dies.
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Well,
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the man can be eternally sealed to
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another woman.
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Let's say a man and woman
00:08:00.687 --> 00:08:02.789
get married and the man dies.
00:08:03.489 --> 00:08:04.830
The woman cannot be
00:08:04.950 --> 00:08:07.291
eternally sealed to another man.
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So at this current time,
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there are two leaders of
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the church who are sealed
00:08:14.905 --> 00:08:18.208
to multiple women.
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That's basically polygamy,
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except for the fact that
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their wives did pass away,
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but then they married another woman.
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They were sealed to them eternally.
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So what they believe,
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the top two leaders of the church,
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Russell Nelson and Dallin Oaks,
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what they believe is that
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they will have both of
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those women as wives in the afterlife.
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So to say that we don't
00:08:39.184 --> 00:08:40.285
practice polygamy anymore
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and it's not part of our
00:08:41.205 --> 00:08:42.847
faith is not really accurate.
00:08:46.229 --> 00:08:48.511
So during this time of
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questioning everything and
00:08:49.692 --> 00:08:52.074
taking everything off my shelf, I finally,
00:08:52.194 --> 00:08:53.354
after this car meltdown,
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decided that I was going to
00:08:55.856 --> 00:08:58.759
attack polygamy from the
00:08:58.839 --> 00:08:59.819
standpoint of like,
00:08:59.959 --> 00:09:01.501
I just have ignored and all
00:09:01.541 --> 00:09:01.961
of this stuff.
00:09:01.981 --> 00:09:02.882
And I've been told so many
00:09:02.902 --> 00:09:03.342
different things.
00:09:03.382 --> 00:09:04.403
I don't know what's true anymore.
00:09:04.443 --> 00:09:05.824
So I'm going to go find out the truth.
00:09:07.361 --> 00:09:08.983
And I came across a lecture
00:09:09.023 --> 00:09:11.367
that Sandra Tanner was
00:09:11.427 --> 00:09:14.070
giving to a group of other
00:09:14.331 --> 00:09:15.312
Christian leaders.
00:09:17.114 --> 00:09:19.037
It was talking about why
00:09:19.257 --> 00:09:20.239
Mormons leave the church.
00:09:21.480 --> 00:09:23.984
And I would like to share it with you.
00:09:25.643 --> 00:09:27.003
How do you rationalize
00:09:27.043 --> 00:09:28.524
Joseph Smith approaching
00:09:28.844 --> 00:09:30.284
teenage girls and women
00:09:30.304 --> 00:09:31.124
that are married and have
00:09:31.184 --> 00:09:33.325
living husbands and telling
00:09:33.345 --> 00:09:35.466
them they have to go into polygamy?
00:09:35.726 --> 00:09:36.186
And by the way,
00:09:36.246 --> 00:09:37.006
be sure you don't mention
00:09:37.046 --> 00:09:37.906
this to my wife.
00:09:39.127 --> 00:09:40.867
And the Mormon scholars all know this.
00:09:41.347 --> 00:09:42.608
This is not a historical
00:09:42.628 --> 00:09:44.408
thing that they challenge.
00:09:45.369 --> 00:09:46.449
They just have to, well,
00:09:46.489 --> 00:09:48.209
this fellow I had dinner with,
00:09:49.490 --> 00:09:50.210
I said to him,
00:09:51.759 --> 00:09:52.683
How do you avoid the
00:09:52.723 --> 00:09:53.969
conclusion that Joseph
00:09:54.009 --> 00:09:55.475
Smith was a sexual predator?
00:09:56.611 --> 00:09:58.292
And he says, whoa, that's pretty strong.
00:09:58.392 --> 00:09:58.693
And I said,
00:09:58.733 --> 00:10:00.294
but how do you avoid that conclusion?
00:10:00.334 --> 00:10:01.615
If you look at the story,
00:10:02.696 --> 00:10:03.497
it seems obvious that
00:10:03.517 --> 00:10:04.437
that's what you have.
00:10:05.058 --> 00:10:05.898
And he says, well,
00:10:05.999 --> 00:10:07.520
I believe he was sincere.
00:10:07.820 --> 00:10:08.961
He thought he was following
00:10:09.001 --> 00:10:09.581
God kind of thing.
00:10:09.601 --> 00:10:10.102
And I said, well,
00:10:10.422 --> 00:10:12.484
David Koresh was probably sincere.
00:10:12.504 --> 00:10:15.186
And you could name all the
00:10:15.226 --> 00:10:16.307
polygamists are sincere.
00:10:16.347 --> 00:10:17.127
There's all kinds of people
00:10:17.187 --> 00:10:18.268
out there that are sincere.
00:10:19.049 --> 00:10:19.769
But that doesn't mean they
00:10:19.809 --> 00:10:20.830
may not be promoting
00:10:20.870 --> 00:10:21.591
something that's very,
00:10:21.631 --> 00:10:22.544
very wrong
00:10:23.131 --> 00:10:25.132
So when I heard Sandra
00:10:25.172 --> 00:10:26.853
Tanner refer to Joseph
00:10:26.893 --> 00:10:28.575
Smith as a sexual predator,
00:10:30.116 --> 00:10:30.996
it really caught my
00:10:31.036 --> 00:10:34.859
attention because I am a
00:10:34.899 --> 00:10:39.982
survivor of multiple types
00:10:40.122 --> 00:10:41.263
of assaults and abuse.
00:10:42.243 --> 00:10:45.045
And it was the first time
00:10:45.085 --> 00:10:46.106
that the cognitive
00:10:46.146 --> 00:10:47.967
dissonance of my survivor
00:10:48.007 --> 00:10:50.509
brain and my Mormon brain
00:10:51.374 --> 00:10:52.555
started fighting with each
00:10:52.595 --> 00:10:55.316
other because during my
00:10:55.696 --> 00:10:56.677
trauma healing and my
00:10:56.737 --> 00:10:59.618
recovery i finally learned
00:11:00.078 --> 00:11:01.759
the words that i needed to
00:11:01.799 --> 00:11:03.159
describe what happened to
00:11:03.199 --> 00:11:04.600
me i learned what a
00:11:04.660 --> 00:11:06.161
predator was i learned what
00:11:06.221 --> 00:11:09.082
grooming was i learned how
00:11:09.262 --> 00:11:10.643
manipulation and control
00:11:10.703 --> 00:11:14.585
happens and to hear sandra
00:11:14.625 --> 00:11:16.025
tanner refer to joseph
00:11:16.045 --> 00:11:19.247
smith as a predator blew my mind
00:11:21.294 --> 00:11:23.857
Because I didn't think that
00:11:23.897 --> 00:11:25.078
that was the case.
00:11:25.559 --> 00:11:27.701
I thought that all of his wives...
00:11:29.010 --> 00:11:30.851
had given consent and I
00:11:30.871 --> 00:11:32.052
thought that they had all
00:11:32.692 --> 00:11:33.713
agreed to do this.
00:11:33.753 --> 00:11:35.854
And I knew the apologetic
00:11:35.954 --> 00:11:37.975
argument that some of his
00:11:38.015 --> 00:11:39.676
wives were just spiritual wives.
00:11:39.696 --> 00:11:40.416
They were not,
00:11:42.057 --> 00:11:44.498
they were ceilings for eternity only,
00:11:44.658 --> 00:11:46.339
that he didn't live with any of them,
00:11:46.859 --> 00:11:48.460
that there was no offspring
00:11:48.500 --> 00:11:49.661
produced from any of these.
00:11:49.761 --> 00:11:51.942
And so all of these like
00:11:51.982 --> 00:11:54.063
conflicting ideas were just
00:11:54.103 --> 00:11:55.364
swimming around in my head
00:11:55.404 --> 00:11:56.745
and I was trying to make sense of them.
00:11:57.645 --> 00:12:00.007
so i decided to go look at
00:12:00.107 --> 00:12:01.608
some source documents and
00:12:01.628 --> 00:12:04.310
what i really wanted was
00:12:04.831 --> 00:12:06.512
the first-hand accounts of
00:12:06.552 --> 00:12:10.215
these women now i am not
00:12:10.795 --> 00:12:12.857
prepared to give a
00:12:12.937 --> 00:12:15.399
comprehensive explanation
00:12:15.619 --> 00:12:18.561
of polygamy so this is not
00:12:19.442 --> 00:12:24.005
intended to be a a just a definitive um
00:12:25.139 --> 00:12:27.380
the last word on polygamy, comprehensive,
00:12:27.940 --> 00:12:29.500
it would take such a long
00:12:29.540 --> 00:12:31.201
time to dig into all of that,
00:12:31.881 --> 00:12:33.242
that I really just wanted
00:12:33.282 --> 00:12:35.783
to give sort of an overview
00:12:35.923 --> 00:12:37.303
of the things that I think
00:12:37.343 --> 00:12:38.664
people misunderstand the
00:12:38.724 --> 00:12:40.804
most and the things that I didn't know,
00:12:41.484 --> 00:12:42.945
which when I discovered them,
00:12:43.345 --> 00:12:45.786
finally became the last straw for me.
00:12:47.201 --> 00:12:49.062
So after hearing just this
00:12:49.102 --> 00:12:50.703
snippet from Sandra Tanner,
00:12:50.743 --> 00:12:51.784
I didn't even listen to the
00:12:51.824 --> 00:12:52.905
rest of the lecture because
00:12:52.945 --> 00:12:53.985
my mind was so blown.
00:12:54.105 --> 00:12:54.486
I was like,
00:12:54.646 --> 00:12:55.906
I am immediately going down a
00:12:55.946 --> 00:12:58.308
rabbit hole to look for source documents.
00:12:58.728 --> 00:12:59.629
So that's what I did.
00:13:00.569 --> 00:13:03.231
And I think it would be
00:13:03.271 --> 00:13:04.392
helpful to just for you
00:13:04.412 --> 00:13:06.013
guys to go over just a
00:13:06.093 --> 00:13:10.315
brief timeline of polygamy
00:13:10.435 --> 00:13:12.217
in Joseph Smith's era.
00:13:12.273 --> 00:13:12.943
so the church
00:13:13.203 --> 00:13:18.125
was founded in uh so this
00:13:18.425 --> 00:13:19.946
is the timeline of how this
00:13:20.006 --> 00:13:21.967
all happened okay um
00:13:23.123 --> 00:13:24.864
In eighteen twenty was the
00:13:24.904 --> 00:13:25.784
first time that Joseph
00:13:25.804 --> 00:13:27.305
Smith wrote down about
00:13:27.365 --> 00:13:29.026
having a vision of God and Jesus Christ.
00:13:29.066 --> 00:13:30.707
But this all comes after that.
00:13:31.267 --> 00:13:32.728
So in eighteen twenty three,
00:13:32.948 --> 00:13:34.509
that's when and I'm going
00:13:34.529 --> 00:13:35.670
to put all this in quotes
00:13:35.890 --> 00:13:38.691
because this is what the claim is.
00:13:38.852 --> 00:13:39.112
Right.
00:13:39.272 --> 00:13:41.053
I'm not I'm not presenting this as fact.
00:13:41.821 --> 00:13:42.982
Moroni appears to Joseph
00:13:43.002 --> 00:13:44.704
Smith and quotes prophecies
00:13:44.804 --> 00:13:46.426
about restoring the sealing
00:13:46.466 --> 00:13:47.848
keys as part of the priesthood.
00:13:48.509 --> 00:13:49.710
In eighteen twenty seven,
00:13:49.770 --> 00:13:51.112
he marries Emma Hale,
00:13:51.832 --> 00:13:53.414
his first and only legal wife.
00:13:54.375 --> 00:13:55.396
In eighteen twenty nine,
00:13:55.416 --> 00:13:56.918
he translates the Book of Mormon
00:13:57.879 --> 00:13:58.940
in the book of jacob in the
00:13:58.960 --> 00:14:00.021
book of mormon there's some
00:14:00.101 --> 00:14:01.763
allusions to like when
00:14:01.783 --> 00:14:02.944
polygamy is authorized by
00:14:02.984 --> 00:14:04.486
god i'm not gonna dig into
00:14:04.566 --> 00:14:05.507
all of that right now
00:14:06.087 --> 00:14:07.248
that's for that's a rabbit
00:14:07.268 --> 00:14:09.370
hole for another time and
00:14:09.410 --> 00:14:12.493
then in june is when the
00:14:12.513 --> 00:14:14.275
church was restored and
00:14:14.315 --> 00:14:15.496
that was when joseph smith
00:14:15.696 --> 00:14:17.638
started revising the bible
00:14:18.649 --> 00:14:20.651
um and and the reason why
00:14:21.051 --> 00:14:22.132
these things are important
00:14:22.172 --> 00:14:25.075
to note is because this to
00:14:25.155 --> 00:14:27.037
me shows that it was a very
00:14:27.097 --> 00:14:29.158
methodical planned out
00:14:29.319 --> 00:14:31.360
strategy by joseph smith to
00:14:31.601 --> 00:14:33.683
little by little introduce
00:14:33.723 --> 00:14:37.266
the idea of multiple wives and polygamy
00:14:39.025 --> 00:14:41.327
If we look at it from the standpoint of,
00:14:41.668 --> 00:14:42.008
I think,
00:14:42.489 --> 00:14:45.492
all of these predatory situations,
00:14:45.972 --> 00:14:47.914
people who lead high
00:14:47.954 --> 00:14:49.836
control groups are in it
00:14:49.876 --> 00:14:50.777
for three things.
00:14:51.057 --> 00:14:52.839
And I learned this during my
00:14:52.879 --> 00:14:53.980
cousin Lori's trial.
00:14:54.561 --> 00:14:56.363
It really sums up so much of
00:14:56.403 --> 00:14:58.225
why people do anything.
00:14:58.785 --> 00:15:00.687
Money, power, and sex.
00:15:01.488 --> 00:15:02.449
And if you think about it,
00:15:02.869 --> 00:15:04.110
Joseph Smith already had
00:15:04.150 --> 00:15:05.571
the power because he had
00:15:05.611 --> 00:15:07.072
lots of followers at this point.
00:15:07.493 --> 00:15:08.613
He was starting to get a lot
00:15:08.633 --> 00:15:10.135
of money because people
00:15:10.195 --> 00:15:12.296
were making sure that he
00:15:12.336 --> 00:15:15.118
and his family were well cared for.
00:15:16.039 --> 00:15:17.280
His home in Nauvoo,
00:15:17.320 --> 00:15:18.941
Illinois was referred to as
00:15:19.021 --> 00:15:19.962
the mansion house.
00:15:20.042 --> 00:15:22.123
It was a very big house for the time.
00:15:22.204 --> 00:15:23.364
And if you've ever been to
00:15:23.404 --> 00:15:24.425
Nauvoo and seen like the
00:15:24.485 --> 00:15:25.406
other little houses,
00:15:25.846 --> 00:15:27.067
Joseph Smith was much bigger.
00:15:27.127 --> 00:15:27.968
He had plenty.
00:15:29.069 --> 00:15:30.790
And so this was kind of the third house
00:15:31.949 --> 00:15:33.790
rung to that stool right
00:15:33.810 --> 00:15:35.652
that that he wanted to find
00:15:35.732 --> 00:15:37.173
a way to have access to
00:15:37.193 --> 00:15:41.596
women so this timeline i
00:15:41.616 --> 00:15:43.117
think shows a very
00:15:43.177 --> 00:15:46.339
methodical lead up to being
00:15:46.419 --> 00:15:47.680
able to introduce that
00:15:47.880 --> 00:15:49.161
legitimate legitimately
00:15:49.181 --> 00:15:50.022
because he could have done
00:15:50.082 --> 00:15:51.063
it secretly but i think
00:15:51.083 --> 00:15:52.163
what he really wanted was
00:15:52.203 --> 00:15:53.364
for everyone to be on board
00:15:53.384 --> 00:15:55.106
with it and for him to be
00:15:55.166 --> 00:15:58.568
able to get exactly what he wanted so in
00:16:01.787 --> 00:16:02.988
Joseph Smith receives a
00:16:03.048 --> 00:16:04.608
revelation affirming that
00:16:04.648 --> 00:16:05.888
marriage is ordained of God,
00:16:07.189 --> 00:16:08.749
and then starts talking
00:16:08.789 --> 00:16:10.890
about the idea of plural marriage.
00:16:12.350 --> 00:16:13.611
In July of that year,
00:16:13.691 --> 00:16:15.031
he reportedly receives a
00:16:15.071 --> 00:16:17.532
revelation informing a group of elders,
00:16:17.752 --> 00:16:18.752
these are basically just
00:16:18.792 --> 00:16:20.313
leaders of the church in Missouri,
00:16:20.333 --> 00:16:21.053
that they should take
00:16:21.093 --> 00:16:23.134
plural wives among the Native Americans.
00:16:24.107 --> 00:16:26.029
that's again a rabbit hole
00:16:26.049 --> 00:16:27.269
for another time a very
00:16:27.350 --> 00:16:29.451
problematic part of mormon
00:16:29.491 --> 00:16:31.493
history is that they
00:16:31.513 --> 00:16:32.854
believed that they needed
00:16:32.894 --> 00:16:35.616
to help to tame the natives
00:16:35.936 --> 00:16:37.037
quote unquote these are
00:16:37.057 --> 00:16:39.179
their words and to
00:16:41.309 --> 00:16:43.370
turn them into a fair and
00:16:43.390 --> 00:16:44.391
delightsome people.
00:16:44.551 --> 00:16:45.471
There are parts of the Book
00:16:45.491 --> 00:16:46.632
of Mormon that talk about
00:16:47.492 --> 00:16:48.813
white skin being white and
00:16:48.853 --> 00:16:51.674
delightsome and black skin being a curse.
00:16:52.214 --> 00:16:53.755
And the Mormons believed at
00:16:53.775 --> 00:16:56.116
that time that if they took
00:16:56.477 --> 00:16:58.217
Indian women to wife and
00:16:58.277 --> 00:16:59.258
had children with them,
00:16:59.618 --> 00:17:00.459
that the children would
00:17:00.619 --> 00:17:02.640
gradually become whiter and whiter,
00:17:03.240 --> 00:17:03.960
and that would make them
00:17:04.000 --> 00:17:04.981
more and more righteous.
00:17:05.601 --> 00:17:07.042
If you've never heard this before,
00:17:07.222 --> 00:17:08.302
it is very shocking,
00:17:08.402 --> 00:17:11.383
horrible part of Mormon history that,
00:17:11.463 --> 00:17:11.824
again,
00:17:11.984 --> 00:17:13.864
not a lot of LDS people like to
00:17:13.904 --> 00:17:14.965
think about or talk about,
00:17:15.625 --> 00:17:16.785
but it's there.
00:17:16.866 --> 00:17:17.326
And again,
00:17:17.426 --> 00:17:18.666
it's a rabbit hole for another
00:17:18.706 --> 00:17:20.047
time that we will dig into.
00:17:20.087 --> 00:17:21.047
So that was kind of the
00:17:21.087 --> 00:17:22.488
first mention of polygamy
00:17:23.088 --> 00:17:25.189
was having elders or
00:17:25.249 --> 00:17:27.450
leaders in the church take
00:17:28.290 --> 00:17:30.431
Native Americans as wives.
00:17:32.728 --> 00:17:34.369
Then in eighteen thirty-two,
00:17:34.589 --> 00:17:35.669
Joseph Smith and Sidney
00:17:35.709 --> 00:17:36.910
Rigdon were tarred and
00:17:36.950 --> 00:17:39.711
feathered by a mob in Hiram, Ohio.
00:17:40.311 --> 00:17:41.131
Fifty years later,
00:17:41.171 --> 00:17:42.552
a source alleges that it
00:17:42.572 --> 00:17:43.932
was in retaliation for an
00:17:44.092 --> 00:17:45.113
intimate relationship
00:17:45.153 --> 00:17:46.153
Joseph had with a young
00:17:46.173 --> 00:17:48.694
woman and his future plural
00:17:49.034 --> 00:17:51.395
wife named Marinda Nancy Johnson.
00:17:51.915 --> 00:17:53.976
Now, as a child and a young adult,
00:17:54.156 --> 00:17:55.237
I was always taught that
00:17:55.277 --> 00:17:57.638
the reason why Joseph and
00:17:57.718 --> 00:17:59.058
Sidney suffered this
00:17:59.118 --> 00:18:00.699
horrible tar and feathering
00:18:01.699 --> 00:18:03.680
was because people didn't
00:18:03.720 --> 00:18:05.501
like Mormons and people
00:18:05.521 --> 00:18:06.421
didn't like the fact that
00:18:06.461 --> 00:18:07.822
Joseph Smith talked about
00:18:07.862 --> 00:18:10.363
seeing God in Jesus Christ.
00:18:10.383 --> 00:18:13.185
That's what I was taught as a child.
00:18:14.085 --> 00:18:15.586
Digging into the history,
00:18:16.166 --> 00:18:18.767
we find out that there was among the mob,
00:18:18.947 --> 00:18:21.408
a physician who they had brought along,
00:18:22.189 --> 00:18:23.369
the mob had brought along
00:18:23.669 --> 00:18:25.230
because they had asked him
00:18:25.290 --> 00:18:26.791
to castrate Joseph Smith.
00:18:28.541 --> 00:18:29.784
because the reason they were
00:18:29.824 --> 00:18:31.407
attacking him was because
00:18:31.447 --> 00:18:33.230
of this terrible affair
00:18:33.270 --> 00:18:34.653
that he had had with a young woman.
00:18:36.033 --> 00:18:36.893
That's the part of the
00:18:36.913 --> 00:18:38.754
history that I never got taught.
00:18:39.274 --> 00:18:40.774
Now, lucky for Joseph,
00:18:40.814 --> 00:18:42.415
the doctor decided at the
00:18:42.455 --> 00:18:44.335
last minute not to go through with it,
00:18:44.375 --> 00:18:45.556
that he couldn't stomach it.
00:18:46.256 --> 00:18:47.516
But just knowing that he was
00:18:47.556 --> 00:18:48.416
there and the reason for
00:18:48.476 --> 00:18:49.237
him being there
00:18:49.537 --> 00:18:51.197
corroborates this idea that
00:18:51.237 --> 00:18:52.618
he was being tarred and feathered,
00:18:53.098 --> 00:18:54.278
not because he was being
00:18:54.338 --> 00:18:55.578
persecuted for his faith,
00:18:55.618 --> 00:18:57.379
but because he had been
00:18:57.439 --> 00:18:58.779
caught doing inappropriate
00:18:58.799 --> 00:19:03.161
things with young women.
00:19:03.221 --> 00:19:04.801
So back to the timeline.
00:19:06.451 --> 00:19:08.211
according to mary elizabeth
00:19:08.251 --> 00:19:10.212
rollins leitner who had a
00:19:10.272 --> 00:19:12.452
lot of journal writings
00:19:12.492 --> 00:19:15.093
about this time period and
00:19:15.173 --> 00:19:16.273
others an angel with a
00:19:16.313 --> 00:19:17.554
drawn sword appears to
00:19:17.594 --> 00:19:18.634
joseph smith for the first
00:19:18.694 --> 00:19:19.834
of three times between
00:19:19.934 --> 00:19:21.015
eighteen thirty four and
00:19:21.095 --> 00:19:21.855
eighteen forty two
00:19:21.895 --> 00:19:23.695
commanding him to practice
00:19:23.735 --> 00:19:25.456
plural marriage isn't that
00:19:25.496 --> 00:19:28.156
convenient that an angel
00:19:28.196 --> 00:19:29.677
threatens him with death if
00:19:29.717 --> 00:19:35.158
he doesn't start marrying plural wives um
00:19:36.451 --> 00:19:38.472
So Joseph's first plural
00:19:38.512 --> 00:19:40.073
wife was Fanny Alger
00:19:42.014 --> 00:19:43.174
sometime between eighteen
00:19:43.214 --> 00:19:45.035
thirty three and eighteen thirty five.
00:19:47.296 --> 00:19:50.077
I want to go quickly to a
00:19:50.117 --> 00:19:53.079
biography of Fanny Alger.
00:19:53.551 --> 00:19:54.351
So this,
00:19:54.812 --> 00:19:56.172
and I also want to share with you
00:19:56.212 --> 00:19:57.953
the sources that I'm using here.
00:19:58.633 --> 00:20:00.454
This website is called
00:20:00.494 --> 00:20:02.615
josephsmithspolygamy.org,
00:20:02.795 --> 00:20:05.156
and it is a faithful website.
00:20:05.216 --> 00:20:07.477
This website was created and
00:20:07.497 --> 00:20:11.659
maintained by a couple who are
00:20:12.797 --> 00:20:16.161
very well-versed in church history.
00:20:17.042 --> 00:20:19.484
And they wanted to create a
00:20:19.524 --> 00:20:20.585
website that would help
00:20:20.625 --> 00:20:21.927
people frame polygamy in
00:20:21.947 --> 00:20:23.048
the right way so that you
00:20:23.088 --> 00:20:24.429
could understand the truth
00:20:24.569 --> 00:20:26.431
of the history of polygamy,
00:20:26.832 --> 00:20:27.913
but remain faithful.
00:20:31.482 --> 00:20:32.662
um so everything that they
00:20:32.682 --> 00:20:35.084
have posted here is done so
00:20:35.164 --> 00:20:36.484
under fair use because they
00:20:36.544 --> 00:20:38.406
don't make any money from
00:20:38.466 --> 00:20:40.146
running this website i
00:20:40.166 --> 00:20:41.347
highly recommend you going
00:20:41.387 --> 00:20:44.869
to it because i think that
00:20:45.629 --> 00:20:47.591
if you objectively look at
00:20:47.691 --> 00:20:51.893
all of the facts um that
00:20:52.093 --> 00:20:53.394
you even though they're
00:20:53.414 --> 00:20:55.495
writing this from a faithful perspective
00:20:56.988 --> 00:21:00.152
I think the conclusions that I came to,
00:21:00.232 --> 00:21:02.194
the conclusions that one would come to,
00:21:02.995 --> 00:21:04.637
even reading the faithful
00:21:04.697 --> 00:21:05.859
perspective of it,
00:21:06.920 --> 00:21:08.221
makes it really impossible
00:21:08.261 --> 00:21:09.483
to ignore that the way that
00:21:09.523 --> 00:21:10.704
this was done was very
00:21:10.764 --> 00:21:11.926
predatory in nature.
00:21:15.500 --> 00:21:17.640
I will also say that I get a
00:21:17.680 --> 00:21:20.621
ton of comments like this one.
00:21:21.241 --> 00:21:22.301
Thomas, one, two, three.
00:21:22.802 --> 00:21:23.782
Thanks for being here.
00:21:24.022 --> 00:21:24.502
Not sad.
00:21:24.542 --> 00:21:24.782
Why?
00:21:24.982 --> 00:21:25.822
Or sorry, not sad.
00:21:25.982 --> 00:21:28.023
Not sure why you would want
00:21:28.063 --> 00:21:29.263
to listen to someone talk
00:21:29.283 --> 00:21:30.203
about why they left the
00:21:30.243 --> 00:21:33.804
church if you are unhappy about it.
00:21:34.484 --> 00:21:35.304
But I get this.
00:21:35.564 --> 00:21:36.964
It's so sad that you traded
00:21:36.984 --> 00:21:38.545
your exaltation for leaving.
00:21:39.625 --> 00:21:40.345
Well, obviously,
00:21:40.385 --> 00:21:41.845
that's not the way that I see it.
00:21:42.205 --> 00:21:44.406
The way that I see it is that I...
00:21:45.813 --> 00:21:47.755
stopped listening to
00:21:47.855 --> 00:21:49.697
apologetics and started
00:21:51.058 --> 00:21:54.642
researching facts and so
00:21:54.702 --> 00:21:55.903
the way that i see it is
00:21:55.943 --> 00:21:57.264
that i traded magical
00:21:57.304 --> 00:21:58.385
thinking for critical
00:21:58.425 --> 00:22:00.608
thinking and i would rather
00:22:00.648 --> 00:22:01.248
know the truth
00:22:03.544 --> 00:22:05.346
um some people do not want
00:22:05.366 --> 00:22:06.686
to know the truth and
00:22:06.706 --> 00:22:08.728
that's okay some people
00:22:09.228 --> 00:22:12.030
want to remain in mormonism
00:22:12.070 --> 00:22:13.431
blissfully ignorant and
00:22:13.471 --> 00:22:15.173
that is okay i think
00:22:15.233 --> 00:22:16.994
religion is necessary for a
00:22:17.034 --> 00:22:18.895
lot of people and i'm not
00:22:18.995 --> 00:22:21.017
ever trying to cause anyone
00:22:21.097 --> 00:22:22.238
else to leave the church
00:22:23.299 --> 00:22:25.220
what i like to do is make
00:22:25.260 --> 00:22:26.321
sure that people have
00:22:26.521 --> 00:22:28.382
informed consent so if
00:22:28.422 --> 00:22:30.124
people do want to know the truth
00:22:31.283 --> 00:22:32.284
they learn the truth and
00:22:32.304 --> 00:22:33.925
then continue to stay that
00:22:33.986 --> 00:22:38.930
is perfectly fine it i my
00:22:38.970 --> 00:22:40.011
faith crisis was the
00:22:40.031 --> 00:22:40.892
hardest thing i've ever
00:22:40.932 --> 00:22:41.672
been through and
00:22:41.732 --> 00:22:42.813
considering what i've been
00:22:42.853 --> 00:22:44.074
through that is saying a
00:22:44.114 --> 00:22:47.838
lot um i would not wish
00:22:47.878 --> 00:22:49.539
that on my worst enemy i
00:22:49.559 --> 00:22:50.580
wouldn't want anybody to
00:22:50.620 --> 00:22:51.541
have to go through a faith
00:22:51.561 --> 00:22:54.884
crisis but being a truth teller
00:22:56.490 --> 00:22:58.031
I do not want to stay silent
00:22:58.071 --> 00:22:59.532
about my experiences and
00:22:59.552 --> 00:23:00.673
this is my experience.
00:23:01.293 --> 00:23:05.696
So I do get a lot of people telling me,
00:23:05.896 --> 00:23:06.156
you know,
00:23:06.196 --> 00:23:09.058
how sad it is to see where I am
00:23:09.098 --> 00:23:10.379
and how sad it is that I
00:23:10.419 --> 00:23:12.180
chose to be led astray and
00:23:12.220 --> 00:23:12.840
things like that.
00:23:14.001 --> 00:23:14.982
Those comments don't really
00:23:15.022 --> 00:23:18.804
bother me because they're not about me.
00:23:18.824 --> 00:23:19.664
They're about the person
00:23:19.685 --> 00:23:20.365
making the comment.
00:23:21.751 --> 00:23:23.031
The hard thing is when
00:23:23.071 --> 00:23:24.212
people leave the church,
00:23:24.492 --> 00:23:29.333
they become a mirror for people who stay.
00:23:29.353 --> 00:23:31.473
When someone sees a person
00:23:31.533 --> 00:23:32.274
leave the church,
00:23:32.574 --> 00:23:34.014
it forces them to examine
00:23:34.054 --> 00:23:35.694
their own shelf items and
00:23:35.714 --> 00:23:37.335
their own cognitive dissonance.
00:23:39.735 --> 00:23:41.996
And it makes us feel shame
00:23:43.696 --> 00:23:47.137
that if the person speaking is correct,
00:23:47.477 --> 00:23:48.698
it means that what I have
00:23:48.738 --> 00:23:50.618
believed for a long time is false.
00:23:52.110 --> 00:23:55.051
and it's it means
00:23:55.091 --> 00:23:55.932
confronting some really
00:23:55.972 --> 00:23:57.872
difficult truths so i
00:23:57.892 --> 00:24:00.413
appreciate anybody who's
00:24:00.453 --> 00:24:01.234
here whether you're
00:24:01.294 --> 00:24:04.975
faithful mormon or not um
00:24:05.075 --> 00:24:06.355
if you're here listening i
00:24:06.376 --> 00:24:07.536
appreciate you being here
00:24:08.476 --> 00:24:10.077
and if you hear something
00:24:10.117 --> 00:24:12.518
that offends you ask
00:24:12.558 --> 00:24:13.898
yourself why it offends you
00:24:14.479 --> 00:24:16.019
does it offend you because
00:24:16.079 --> 00:24:18.020
you think it's a lie or
00:24:18.060 --> 00:24:20.401
does it offend you because if it's true
00:24:21.777 --> 00:24:28.204
It means that threatens your worldview.
00:24:28.604 --> 00:24:29.165
It was really,
00:24:29.225 --> 00:24:32.428
really hard for me to admit
00:24:32.849 --> 00:24:35.211
that I had been duped and lied to.
00:24:39.775 --> 00:24:41.116
that was the hardest part of
00:24:41.176 --> 00:24:42.137
it for me because I
00:24:42.177 --> 00:24:43.658
considered myself to be an
00:24:43.718 --> 00:24:44.899
intelligent human being.
00:24:45.519 --> 00:24:47.881
And not only was I duped and lied to,
00:24:48.041 --> 00:24:50.343
but then I perpetuated it
00:24:50.643 --> 00:24:52.624
by teaching it to my children.
00:24:55.907 --> 00:24:56.988
And that was really hard for
00:24:57.008 --> 00:24:59.328
me to wrestle with as well.
00:24:59.328 --> 00:24:59.393
today.
00:24:59.413 --> 00:25:03.256
This is an interesting comment.
00:25:03.856 --> 00:25:04.757
At the time of the Bible,
00:25:04.797 --> 00:25:06.057
multiple wives was common.
00:25:06.238 --> 00:25:11.641
It wasn't common, but it was done.
00:25:13.765 --> 00:25:15.206
mostly in the bible they
00:25:15.266 --> 00:25:17.708
refer to it as concubines
00:25:18.809 --> 00:25:20.851
um and things like that so
00:25:20.991 --> 00:25:22.092
it's again it's a rabbit
00:25:22.112 --> 00:25:23.013
hole for another time i'm
00:25:23.053 --> 00:25:23.974
not prepared to have that
00:25:23.994 --> 00:25:25.495
discussion today but it's
00:25:25.595 --> 00:25:27.277
one that i commonly get and
00:25:27.437 --> 00:25:28.357
and it's one that's worth
00:25:28.397 --> 00:25:29.639
talking about so thank you
00:25:29.659 --> 00:25:31.640
for making that that comment
00:25:31.712 --> 00:25:34.154
So I want to go back to the
00:25:34.294 --> 00:25:36.776
josephsmithspolygamy.org.
00:25:36.936 --> 00:25:40.559
It's a very comprehensive site.
00:25:40.619 --> 00:25:43.201
It covers polygamy very well.
00:25:44.241 --> 00:25:45.102
There are some things I
00:25:45.162 --> 00:25:46.363
disagree with on the site.
00:25:48.305 --> 00:25:49.166
What I love is that they
00:25:49.206 --> 00:25:51.009
have biographies of all of
00:25:51.049 --> 00:25:52.170
Joseph's plural wives,
00:25:52.250 --> 00:25:53.452
and they very extensively
00:25:53.492 --> 00:25:55.094
cover the feelings of the wives,
00:25:55.134 --> 00:25:56.777
which is why I really like this.
00:25:58.179 --> 00:25:59.320
It's very comprehensive.
00:25:59.360 --> 00:26:00.762
So Fanny Alger was Joseph
00:26:00.782 --> 00:26:02.184
Smith's first plural wife.
00:26:03.149 --> 00:26:05.151
um and so benjamin f johnson
00:26:05.191 --> 00:26:06.132
a close friend of joseph
00:26:06.152 --> 00:26:07.373
smith beginning in the
00:26:07.413 --> 00:26:08.554
kirtland period recalled
00:26:08.595 --> 00:26:11.017
the circumstances in so
00:26:11.037 --> 00:26:12.078
they're clarifying that
00:26:12.118 --> 00:26:13.639
benjamin f johnson said
00:26:13.679 --> 00:26:17.023
this in regarding that time
00:26:17.203 --> 00:26:18.124
and this is what we call a
00:26:18.324 --> 00:26:21.707
late account meaning in he
00:26:21.747 --> 00:26:22.808
didn't immediately write it
00:26:22.848 --> 00:26:24.330
down this is him looking back on it
00:26:26.282 --> 00:26:27.844
So he says, now, as to your question,
00:26:27.884 --> 00:26:28.905
how early did the prophet
00:26:28.925 --> 00:26:30.226
Joseph practice polygamy?
00:26:30.706 --> 00:26:32.328
In eighteen thirty five at Kirtland,
00:26:32.488 --> 00:26:33.909
I learned from my sister's husband,
00:26:33.929 --> 00:26:34.790
Lyman R. Sherman,
00:26:34.930 --> 00:26:35.691
who was close to the
00:26:35.731 --> 00:26:36.692
prophet and received it
00:26:36.732 --> 00:26:38.353
from him that the ancient
00:26:38.433 --> 00:26:39.514
order of plural marriage
00:26:39.534 --> 00:26:41.216
was again to be practiced by the church.
00:26:41.676 --> 00:26:42.677
This at the time did not
00:26:42.757 --> 00:26:43.938
impress my mind deeply,
00:26:44.339 --> 00:26:46.701
although there lived then with his family,
00:26:46.741 --> 00:26:47.642
the prophet's family,
00:26:48.262 --> 00:26:49.904
a neighbor's daughter, Fanny Alger.
00:26:50.384 --> 00:26:52.006
so fanny was living in the
00:26:52.046 --> 00:26:53.708
home of the prophet and i
00:26:53.748 --> 00:26:56.691
believe she was helping emma keep house
00:26:58.142 --> 00:26:59.763
He says a very nice and
00:26:59.803 --> 00:27:02.043
comely young woman about my age,
00:27:02.103 --> 00:27:03.084
about my own age,
00:27:03.584 --> 00:27:05.244
toward whom not only myself,
00:27:05.284 --> 00:27:07.305
but everyone seemed partial
00:27:07.705 --> 00:27:09.786
for the amiability of her character.
00:27:09.926 --> 00:27:11.166
And it was whispered even
00:27:11.206 --> 00:27:12.847
then that Joseph loved her.
00:27:13.607 --> 00:27:15.008
The reason I think it's
00:27:15.048 --> 00:27:16.488
important to talk about
00:27:16.608 --> 00:27:19.009
this particular account is
00:27:19.049 --> 00:27:19.468
because
00:27:19.835 --> 00:27:21.115
If we frame it that way,
00:27:22.896 --> 00:27:25.737
And if we look at it from
00:27:25.777 --> 00:27:26.958
the perspective that Sandra
00:27:26.998 --> 00:27:28.098
Tanner just gave us,
00:27:28.858 --> 00:27:29.939
that he was a predator,
00:27:30.799 --> 00:27:31.980
it makes a lot of sense
00:27:32.180 --> 00:27:34.021
that someone who has
00:27:34.101 --> 00:27:35.621
narcissistic tendencies and
00:27:35.661 --> 00:27:37.642
who wants power and control
00:27:39.223 --> 00:27:41.504
would choose someone that
00:27:41.644 --> 00:27:45.945
everyone else wanted as his first wife.
00:27:46.866 --> 00:27:48.726
Because then that means if Joseph has her,
00:27:48.747 --> 00:27:49.607
then no one else can.
00:27:51.364 --> 00:27:53.525
Just my two cents on that
00:27:53.565 --> 00:27:55.007
particular topic.
00:27:59.471 --> 00:28:00.992
According to Mosiah Hancock,
00:28:01.032 --> 00:28:02.273
writing in eighteen ninety six,
00:28:02.313 --> 00:28:04.355
Joseph did not approach Fanny directly.
00:28:04.495 --> 00:28:06.357
Rather, he enlisted Levi Hancock,
00:28:06.777 --> 00:28:09.500
the brother in law of Fanny's father.
00:28:10.981 --> 00:28:11.582
So this would have been
00:28:11.622 --> 00:28:15.245
Fanny's uncle to serve as intermediary.
00:28:17.450 --> 00:28:19.250
Levi first approached Samuel Alger,
00:28:19.430 --> 00:28:20.191
Fanny's father.
00:28:20.291 --> 00:28:20.691
Samuel,
00:28:20.791 --> 00:28:22.371
the prophet Joseph loves your daughter,
00:28:22.391 --> 00:28:24.312
Fanny, and wishes her for a wife.
00:28:24.352 --> 00:28:25.012
What say you?
00:28:26.292 --> 00:28:26.932
Uncle Sam says,
00:28:26.972 --> 00:28:28.232
go and talk to the old woman,
00:28:28.412 --> 00:28:30.553
Levi's sister, Fanny's mother, about it.
00:28:30.573 --> 00:28:31.693
It will be as she says.
00:28:32.833 --> 00:28:34.374
Father goes to his sister and says,
00:28:34.434 --> 00:28:35.894
Clarice, brother Joseph,
00:28:35.914 --> 00:28:37.595
the prophet of the most high God,
00:28:37.655 --> 00:28:39.615
loves Fanny and wishes her for a wife.
00:28:39.635 --> 00:28:40.315
What say you?
00:28:40.975 --> 00:28:42.716
Said she, go and talk to Fanny.
00:28:42.896 --> 00:28:43.836
It'll be all right with me.
00:28:45.772 --> 00:28:46.833
So this is sort of a
00:28:46.873 --> 00:28:48.773
roundabout way for Joseph
00:28:48.793 --> 00:28:51.115
to get permission from Fanny's family.
00:29:17.595 --> 00:29:18.576
skipping on down a little it
00:29:18.596 --> 00:29:19.657
says things didn't go well
00:29:19.677 --> 00:29:21.818
for joseph and fanny in a
00:29:21.858 --> 00:29:23.079
letter from william
00:29:23.219 --> 00:29:24.500
mcclellan to joseph smith
00:29:24.741 --> 00:29:26.462
iii mcclellan recalls
00:29:26.502 --> 00:29:28.704
details of an conversation
00:29:28.724 --> 00:29:29.924
with emma smith where emma
00:29:29.985 --> 00:29:31.526
acknowledged that in the
00:29:31.566 --> 00:29:34.528
spring of she missed joseph
00:29:34.588 --> 00:29:35.829
and fanny alger meaning she
00:29:35.849 --> 00:29:36.910
didn't know where they were
00:29:37.670 --> 00:29:38.811
she went to the barn and
00:29:38.871 --> 00:29:40.352
saw him and fanny in the
00:29:40.372 --> 00:29:42.674
barn together alone which
00:29:42.734 --> 00:29:44.255
would have been very very
00:29:44.415 --> 00:29:45.857
unusual for this day
00:29:46.864 --> 00:29:47.905
She looked through a crack
00:29:48.005 --> 00:29:49.185
and saw the transaction.
00:29:49.866 --> 00:29:51.527
She told me this story, too,
00:29:51.707 --> 00:29:52.667
was verily true.
00:29:53.688 --> 00:29:55.729
What Emma witnessed is not specified.
00:29:56.169 --> 00:29:57.250
Whether it was the plural
00:29:57.270 --> 00:29:58.150
marriage ceremony,
00:29:58.270 --> 00:29:59.491
an exchange of affection,
00:29:59.631 --> 00:30:01.692
or even sexual relations,
00:30:01.772 --> 00:30:02.733
we are not told.
00:30:02.813 --> 00:30:03.413
Regardless,
00:30:03.953 --> 00:30:05.254
it is obvious Emma did not
00:30:05.294 --> 00:30:06.294
believe the ceremony was
00:30:06.335 --> 00:30:07.475
valid and concluded the
00:30:07.515 --> 00:30:08.836
relationship was adulterous.
00:30:10.729 --> 00:30:11.690
Oliver Cowdery,
00:30:11.850 --> 00:30:12.871
who Joseph summoned to
00:30:12.911 --> 00:30:15.132
diffuse the situation, sided with Emma,
00:30:15.312 --> 00:30:16.733
discounting the validity of
00:30:16.773 --> 00:30:17.974
the polygamous marriage and
00:30:18.014 --> 00:30:20.876
later referring to it as a, quote, dirty,
00:30:21.057 --> 00:30:22.798
nasty, filthy scrape.
00:30:24.619 --> 00:30:24.799
Now,
00:30:24.999 --> 00:30:27.901
if you go and you look up what the
00:30:27.942 --> 00:30:31.344
word scrape meant in that time, it was,
00:30:32.145 --> 00:30:34.066
quote, unquote, a low word.
00:30:35.067 --> 00:30:35.227
So,
00:30:36.204 --> 00:30:37.084
there are a lot of
00:30:37.324 --> 00:30:40.525
apologists who say well we
00:30:40.565 --> 00:30:42.785
don't have any proof that
00:30:43.365 --> 00:30:44.265
joseph did anything
00:30:44.305 --> 00:30:45.426
inappropriate with fanny
00:30:46.566 --> 00:30:49.206
and later oliver cowdrey
00:30:49.226 --> 00:30:51.887
was excommunicated so he
00:30:51.927 --> 00:30:53.247
wasn't faithful so we can't
00:30:53.287 --> 00:30:54.547
trust anything that he said
00:30:55.347 --> 00:30:56.748
well why do you think he
00:30:56.768 --> 00:30:59.548
was excommunicated one of
00:30:59.588 --> 00:31:00.848
the reasons listed for his
00:31:00.988 --> 00:31:02.049
excommunication was
00:31:02.109 --> 00:31:03.769
disloyalty to the prophet
00:31:05.937 --> 00:31:08.218
so it could be that oliver
00:31:08.378 --> 00:31:10.199
was talking about this
00:31:10.239 --> 00:31:12.060
affair with fanny alger and
00:31:12.100 --> 00:31:13.220
the prophet did not want
00:31:13.281 --> 00:31:14.661
him talking about it so he
00:31:14.801 --> 00:31:15.942
excommunicated him because
00:31:15.962 --> 00:31:17.743
in the mormon church s
00:31:17.783 --> 00:31:20.344
communication immediately
00:31:20.384 --> 00:31:21.704
means a loss of credibility
00:31:22.725 --> 00:31:24.666
and and even now people who
00:31:24.706 --> 00:31:27.107
leave the church have no
00:31:27.147 --> 00:31:28.588
credibility with people who
00:31:28.628 --> 00:31:31.149
are in the church because
00:31:33.351 --> 00:31:33.972
we've left.
00:31:34.032 --> 00:31:35.373
So we're not loyal anymore.
00:31:35.593 --> 00:31:36.433
We're not listening.
00:31:37.254 --> 00:31:39.536
And people will say, oh,
00:31:40.176 --> 00:31:42.998
if you have apostatized,
00:31:43.018 --> 00:31:44.439
meaning like you've left the church,
00:31:44.640 --> 00:31:44.880
right?
00:31:44.920 --> 00:31:46.061
You're speaking out against
00:31:46.101 --> 00:31:47.382
the church and its leaders,
00:31:48.002 --> 00:31:49.083
then you've lost the Holy
00:31:49.123 --> 00:31:50.844
Ghost and you've lost the
00:31:50.884 --> 00:31:53.126
ability to have truth
00:31:53.927 --> 00:31:55.047
spoken to you by God.
00:31:55.948 --> 00:31:58.410
So nothing you say counts.
00:31:58.610 --> 00:31:59.591
Nothing you say can be true.
00:31:59.764 --> 00:32:00.324
So anyway,
00:32:00.544 --> 00:32:05.365
I wanted to just get back to this idea.
00:32:11.387 --> 00:32:12.988
Oliver's vitriol may have
00:32:13.028 --> 00:32:14.970
been intensified due to his
00:32:15.010 --> 00:32:16.751
frustrations from recent
00:32:16.811 --> 00:32:17.952
leadership changes that
00:32:17.992 --> 00:32:20.034
diminished his overall importance.
00:32:20.754 --> 00:32:23.837
And I believe that his
00:32:23.877 --> 00:32:25.017
importance was diminished
00:32:25.058 --> 00:32:26.999
because he was threatening
00:32:27.039 --> 00:32:28.981
to expose the truth about
00:32:29.021 --> 00:32:29.881
Joseph's polygamy.
00:32:30.382 --> 00:32:33.964
So as a consequence of this, you know,
00:32:34.064 --> 00:32:35.866
Emma coming in and finding Joseph and
00:32:35.941 --> 00:32:37.222
Fanny, together.
00:32:38.362 --> 00:32:39.543
Emma immediately turned
00:32:39.603 --> 00:32:41.864
Fanny out of the house.
00:32:41.904 --> 00:32:42.504
Subsequently,
00:32:42.544 --> 00:32:43.585
both women were severely
00:32:43.625 --> 00:32:45.786
traumatized and Oliver Cowdery alienated.
00:32:45.946 --> 00:32:46.466
In addition,
00:32:46.567 --> 00:32:47.867
rumors of adultery quietly
00:32:47.907 --> 00:32:48.788
spread among the saints,
00:32:48.888 --> 00:32:49.628
although they were never
00:32:49.728 --> 00:32:51.509
loud enough to reach the local media.
00:32:51.989 --> 00:32:53.450
The first mention of the
00:32:53.470 --> 00:32:54.511
relationship in any known
00:32:54.551 --> 00:32:55.972
manuscript occurred in January of
00:33:05.518 --> 00:33:05.778
Anyway,
00:33:06.479 --> 00:33:08.020
so this was Joseph's first
00:33:08.780 --> 00:33:11.602
experience with having a plural wife.
00:33:12.843 --> 00:33:14.764
I want to go back to the
00:33:15.184 --> 00:33:16.645
timeline here for a second.
00:33:17.186 --> 00:33:19.507
So that was between eighteen thirty three,
00:33:19.527 --> 00:33:20.228
eighteen thirty five.
00:33:20.268 --> 00:33:21.829
We don't have the exact dates.
00:33:22.289 --> 00:33:23.810
And then summer of eighteen thirty five,
00:33:23.870 --> 00:33:24.811
the first edition of the
00:33:24.851 --> 00:33:26.472
Doctrine and Covenants is published.
00:33:26.492 --> 00:33:27.593
And for those of you who are
00:33:27.633 --> 00:33:29.294
not familiar with it,
00:33:30.014 --> 00:33:31.275
the Doctrine and Covenants
00:33:31.335 --> 00:33:33.056
is a book of scripture that
00:33:33.116 --> 00:33:35.158
was published as.
00:33:36.498 --> 00:33:40.019
a collection of Joseph
00:33:40.039 --> 00:33:41.179
Smith's revelations.
00:33:42.160 --> 00:33:43.900
And what's interesting to me
00:33:44.080 --> 00:33:46.601
looking at it now is that,
00:33:47.661 --> 00:33:48.821
especially in the beginning
00:33:48.861 --> 00:33:49.961
of the Doctrine and Covenants,
00:33:50.081 --> 00:33:53.262
it appears that Joseph is
00:33:54.703 --> 00:33:56.483
using this connection with
00:33:56.563 --> 00:33:59.424
God to pray to God about
00:33:59.464 --> 00:34:00.864
very specific things and
00:34:00.884 --> 00:34:01.964
then get very specific
00:34:02.084 --> 00:34:03.625
answers about what other
00:34:03.645 --> 00:34:04.965
people are supposed to be doing.
00:34:06.124 --> 00:34:07.925
And from time to time,
00:34:07.985 --> 00:34:08.786
there are things that
00:34:08.846 --> 00:34:10.087
Joseph is supposed to be doing,
00:34:10.127 --> 00:34:11.228
but there also are
00:34:11.268 --> 00:34:12.449
instructions to his wife
00:34:12.529 --> 00:34:13.450
and to the other people
00:34:13.470 --> 00:34:14.631
that Joseph has appointed
00:34:14.671 --> 00:34:15.791
as leaders of the church.
00:34:16.772 --> 00:34:18.533
So it would be very easy for
00:34:18.594 --> 00:34:20.435
someone who is just
00:34:20.535 --> 00:34:23.637
manipulating people to say, okay,
00:34:23.737 --> 00:34:24.818
I'm going to take this to God.
00:34:24.838 --> 00:34:26.099
I'm going to pray to God about it.
00:34:26.760 --> 00:34:32.084
And then God is going to tell me something,
00:34:32.124 --> 00:34:33.044
but it's obviously going to
00:34:33.064 --> 00:34:34.886
be whatever I want that thing to be.
00:34:35.447 --> 00:34:36.789
This is why I think the idea
00:34:37.009 --> 00:34:38.751
of I speak directly to God
00:34:38.851 --> 00:34:40.834
is really dangerous because
00:34:41.194 --> 00:34:43.116
people who are unscrupulous
00:34:43.557 --> 00:34:45.299
can very easily use that to
00:34:45.339 --> 00:34:46.240
manipulate people.
00:34:46.461 --> 00:34:48.403
This is also called spiritual abuse.
00:34:49.164 --> 00:34:50.966
I'm telling you that God told me,
00:34:52.136 --> 00:34:53.376
that you're supposed to do this thing.
00:34:53.396 --> 00:34:54.397
And if you don't do it,
00:34:54.417 --> 00:34:56.798
there are gonna be consequences for you.
00:34:57.418 --> 00:34:59.338
Not only right now in the
00:34:59.378 --> 00:35:00.519
here and now of you're not
00:35:00.559 --> 00:35:01.739
gonna get to retain your
00:35:01.759 --> 00:35:02.659
leadership position,
00:35:02.719 --> 00:35:05.841
but also in the future, in the afterlife,
00:35:06.301 --> 00:35:08.101
eternal consequences for your soul.
00:35:08.181 --> 00:35:09.802
And if you sincerely believe
00:35:10.402 --> 00:35:12.163
that this person is a prophet of God,
00:35:12.203 --> 00:35:13.364
then you do sincerely
00:35:13.404 --> 00:35:14.565
believe that your eternal
00:35:14.605 --> 00:35:15.866
salvation is in danger if
00:35:15.886 --> 00:35:16.967
you don't do what they say,
00:35:17.027 --> 00:35:17.967
which is why I have a
00:35:18.027 --> 00:35:19.068
problem with Joseph
00:35:19.649 --> 00:35:21.650
approaching young women and telling them,
00:35:21.730 --> 00:35:22.751
God told me that you're
00:35:22.771 --> 00:35:23.792
supposed to be my wife.
00:35:28.555 --> 00:35:29.416
I really just want to put
00:35:29.456 --> 00:35:30.576
that out there for people
00:35:30.596 --> 00:35:32.658
to understand that that's
00:35:33.238 --> 00:35:34.939
what Joseph did.
00:35:34.979 --> 00:35:39.863
So going back to the timeline,
00:35:42.974 --> 00:35:44.336
So the first edition of the
00:35:44.356 --> 00:35:45.698
Doctrine and Covenants was published.
00:35:45.718 --> 00:35:47.982
This includes the section one thirty two,
00:35:48.142 --> 00:35:50.526
which is the section that
00:35:50.586 --> 00:35:51.928
talks about plural marriage.
00:35:53.266 --> 00:35:54.868
then in eighteen thirty six
00:35:55.208 --> 00:35:56.910
elijah the prophet from the
00:35:56.950 --> 00:35:57.951
bible appears in the
00:35:57.991 --> 00:35:59.553
kirtland temple and bestows
00:35:59.573 --> 00:36:01.695
sealing keys upon joseph
00:36:01.715 --> 00:36:02.856
smith and and oliver
00:36:02.876 --> 00:36:05.419
cowdrey which going back to
00:36:05.479 --> 00:36:06.940
a comment that someone made
00:36:07.541 --> 00:36:08.762
i wonder if they were
00:36:08.802 --> 00:36:10.064
dabbling in psychedelics
00:36:10.104 --> 00:36:11.045
because that's what i
00:36:11.085 --> 00:36:11.966
always think like when
00:36:11.986 --> 00:36:13.107
there was a second person
00:36:13.167 --> 00:36:14.348
involved in some of these
00:36:14.368 --> 00:36:15.489
visions and things like that
00:36:16.090 --> 00:36:17.630
It makes me wonder how
00:36:17.690 --> 00:36:19.711
Joseph accomplished getting
00:36:19.751 --> 00:36:20.911
someone else on board with that.
00:36:21.011 --> 00:36:22.191
Although in some instances,
00:36:22.251 --> 00:36:24.092
we know that the other
00:36:24.252 --> 00:36:25.392
quote unquote witness was
00:36:25.512 --> 00:36:26.872
either not in the same room
00:36:26.932 --> 00:36:27.592
or not in the same
00:36:27.612 --> 00:36:30.633
proximity or that they saw, for example,
00:36:30.673 --> 00:36:31.493
the golden plates
00:36:31.633 --> 00:36:32.594
underneath a sheet and
00:36:32.634 --> 00:36:34.474
didn't actually see the
00:36:34.514 --> 00:36:35.354
plates themselves.
00:36:35.774 --> 00:36:36.794
So there's a lot of
00:36:37.655 --> 00:36:38.975
strangeness around
00:36:39.095 --> 00:36:41.876
witnesses that saw and
00:36:41.936 --> 00:36:43.616
experienced the same things as Joseph.
00:36:44.515 --> 00:36:46.476
um in eighteen forty joseph
00:36:46.496 --> 00:36:47.976
started teaching others
00:36:48.016 --> 00:36:49.016
about plural marriage in
00:36:49.056 --> 00:36:50.977
private and made vague
00:36:51.037 --> 00:36:52.397
public hints at it
00:36:52.497 --> 00:36:53.558
eventually becoming a
00:36:53.598 --> 00:36:55.138
practice so i see this as
00:36:55.178 --> 00:36:57.379
him really laying down the
00:36:57.419 --> 00:36:58.219
the groundwork and the
00:36:58.299 --> 00:36:59.480
foundation for this over
00:36:59.520 --> 00:37:00.880
the course of several years
00:37:01.740 --> 00:37:03.821
and just so that the whole
00:37:04.241 --> 00:37:05.821
community would be on board
00:37:05.841 --> 00:37:07.942
with it um i also just want
00:37:07.962 --> 00:37:09.142
to mention this site is
00:37:09.182 --> 00:37:12.203
called warmandr.org i don't
00:37:12.243 --> 00:37:13.624
have time to go into
00:37:15.060 --> 00:37:16.100
everything about this site
00:37:16.140 --> 00:37:17.541
but i i believe it to be a
00:37:17.581 --> 00:37:19.822
reliable resource if anyone
00:37:19.862 --> 00:37:21.203
knows differently i would
00:37:21.443 --> 00:37:22.523
i'd love to be informed of
00:37:22.543 --> 00:37:24.224
that um but i wanted to
00:37:24.264 --> 00:37:25.564
just make sure that i share
00:37:25.664 --> 00:37:26.865
the sources that i'm using
00:37:26.905 --> 00:37:29.266
here so in eighteen forty
00:37:29.386 --> 00:37:30.606
one then joseph smith is
00:37:30.666 --> 00:37:33.888
sealed to louisa beeman um
00:37:33.968 --> 00:37:36.029
this is the first wife in nauvoo
00:37:38.381 --> 00:37:40.902
And then later, a couple months later,
00:37:40.962 --> 00:37:41.962
he starts introducing
00:37:42.002 --> 00:37:43.142
plural marriage to the
00:37:43.182 --> 00:37:44.463
members of the Quorum of the Twelve.
00:37:44.483 --> 00:37:45.563
This is the greater
00:37:45.623 --> 00:37:46.603
leadership of the church,
00:37:46.703 --> 00:37:49.504
including Brigham Young, John Taylor,
00:37:49.864 --> 00:37:50.964
and Heber C. Kimball.
00:37:51.444 --> 00:37:52.184
Brigham Young and John
00:37:52.224 --> 00:37:53.405
Taylor would later become
00:37:53.485 --> 00:37:54.605
presidents of the church.
00:37:56.926 --> 00:37:58.346
And then in eighteen forty one,
00:37:58.506 --> 00:38:00.927
Joseph is sealed to Zina Huntington,
00:38:01.267 --> 00:38:02.607
the first of about a dozen
00:38:02.647 --> 00:38:03.887
women who had legal
00:38:03.927 --> 00:38:05.468
husbands at the time of
00:38:05.488 --> 00:38:07.068
their sealing to Joseph.
00:38:09.096 --> 00:38:10.797
So just so that you know,
00:38:11.338 --> 00:38:13.879
Joseph was sealed to women
00:38:13.919 --> 00:38:15.080
who are already married.
00:38:15.621 --> 00:38:21.245
Joseph was sealed to other young women.
00:38:21.505 --> 00:38:23.166
He was sealed to old women.
00:38:23.246 --> 00:38:24.107
He was, you know,
00:38:24.147 --> 00:38:26.188
he had over thirty wives by
00:38:26.208 --> 00:38:28.170
the time that we get through with it.
00:38:28.182 --> 00:38:29.505
I think it's really
00:38:29.865 --> 00:38:32.066
interesting to go to Wikipedia,
00:38:32.106 --> 00:38:32.907
although I know it's not
00:38:33.007 --> 00:38:35.748
always the most reliable source.
00:38:37.970 --> 00:38:39.791
They do have an interesting
00:38:40.071 --> 00:38:41.572
layout of Joseph Smith's
00:38:41.652 --> 00:38:43.213
wives and their ages.
00:38:44.246 --> 00:38:45.806
And it's pretty comprehensive,
00:38:45.866 --> 00:38:47.407
so I want to show it to you.
00:38:48.400 --> 00:38:49.331
So they have this.
00:38:49.631 --> 00:38:50.792
They have a chart here on
00:38:50.812 --> 00:38:52.652
this site and let me share it with you.
00:38:54.217 --> 00:38:55.078
that I think is really
00:38:55.118 --> 00:38:56.419
interesting to look at
00:38:57.199 --> 00:39:01.562
because I'm a visual person.
00:39:01.622 --> 00:39:03.043
And so this really puts it
00:39:03.143 --> 00:39:04.304
into perspective for me.
00:39:04.725 --> 00:39:05.145
By the way,
00:39:05.365 --> 00:39:07.066
I do give to Wikipedia because
00:39:07.126 --> 00:39:08.247
I do use them from time to
00:39:08.307 --> 00:39:08.827
time for things.
00:39:08.847 --> 00:39:10.188
But I always try to check
00:39:10.609 --> 00:39:12.670
what's on Wikipedia with another source.
00:39:12.750 --> 00:39:14.251
And I look at the footnotes
00:39:14.291 --> 00:39:15.772
very carefully when I'm
00:39:15.792 --> 00:39:17.334
doing this kind of digging.
00:39:18.474 --> 00:39:19.795
So this chart,
00:39:19.812 --> 00:39:22.464
this tells you women
00:39:22.544 --> 00:39:24.085
who were also married to
00:39:24.125 --> 00:39:28.226
another man are in a red square or red.
00:39:28.286 --> 00:39:29.946
They're designated with the color red.
00:39:31.707 --> 00:39:33.527
Blue means they were previously married.
00:39:33.647 --> 00:39:35.548
Green means they were single at the time.
00:39:37.209 --> 00:39:38.289
A circle means the marriage
00:39:38.309 --> 00:39:39.789
date is known and a diamond
00:39:39.809 --> 00:39:41.770
means the marriage date is estimated.
00:39:44.501 --> 00:39:46.082
Um, on the right side over here,
00:39:46.162 --> 00:39:47.383
it shows the age gap
00:39:47.443 --> 00:39:49.385
between Joseph and the
00:39:49.425 --> 00:39:50.686
woman that he was marrying.
00:39:52.587 --> 00:39:54.328
And then the age of the
00:39:54.348 --> 00:39:57.371
women at the time of marrying Joseph.
00:39:58.071 --> 00:39:59.973
So the oldest woman was
00:40:00.073 --> 00:40:02.034
around sixty and the
00:40:02.074 --> 00:40:04.956
youngest was fourteen.
00:40:06.778 --> 00:40:08.559
At the time that he married
00:40:09.159 --> 00:40:10.420
this fourteen-year-old girl,
00:40:10.941 --> 00:40:12.402
he was thirty-seven years old.
00:40:15.210 --> 00:40:15.870
And we're going to talk
00:40:15.890 --> 00:40:17.131
about her in just a second.
00:40:18.671 --> 00:40:20.352
So this to me really puts a
00:40:20.392 --> 00:40:22.013
visual perspective on it.
00:40:24.054 --> 00:40:25.754
The fact that he had so many
00:40:25.794 --> 00:40:26.955
women that were already
00:40:26.995 --> 00:40:27.895
married to other men.
00:40:28.055 --> 00:40:29.576
And I believe two of them
00:40:29.716 --> 00:40:30.736
who were pregnant at the
00:40:30.776 --> 00:40:33.866
time that he married them.
00:40:33.866 --> 00:40:35.750
so zina
00:40:35.770 --> 00:40:37.391
huntington is the first of
00:40:37.431 --> 00:40:39.091
a dozen women who had legal
00:40:39.111 --> 00:40:39.872
husbands at the time of
00:40:39.892 --> 00:40:40.752
their ceiling that was in then
00:40:46.372 --> 00:40:47.694
Joseph receives a revelation
00:40:47.734 --> 00:40:49.215
from Miranda Nancy Hyde
00:40:49.535 --> 00:40:51.277
that may contain veiled
00:40:51.337 --> 00:40:52.418
instruction for her to
00:40:52.478 --> 00:40:53.539
accept plural marriage.
00:40:53.579 --> 00:40:53.779
Guys,
00:40:54.200 --> 00:40:56.482
go in here and look through all these
00:40:56.502 --> 00:40:56.902
footnotes.
00:40:57.062 --> 00:40:58.563
It is really fascinating.
00:40:59.682 --> 00:41:00.963
dig into it it said the
00:41:01.003 --> 00:41:02.423
revelation said this let my
00:41:02.463 --> 00:41:03.764
handmaid nancy miranda hide
00:41:03.824 --> 00:41:04.844
hearken to the counsel of
00:41:04.884 --> 00:41:06.605
my servant joseph in all
00:41:06.685 --> 00:41:08.825
things whatsoever he shall
00:41:08.865 --> 00:41:10.866
teach unto her and it shall
00:41:10.886 --> 00:41:12.287
be a blessing upon her and
00:41:12.327 --> 00:41:13.967
upon her children after her
00:41:14.528 --> 00:41:15.728
mirinda recalled that this
00:41:15.908 --> 00:41:17.369
revelation was given to her
00:41:17.429 --> 00:41:19.369
specifically in the context
00:41:19.409 --> 00:41:20.450
of joseph smith teaching
00:41:20.510 --> 00:41:23.011
her about plural marriage late in
00:41:27.801 --> 00:41:28.902
Joseph Smith purportedly
00:41:28.942 --> 00:41:29.862
writes a letter later
00:41:29.902 --> 00:41:30.583
referred to as the
00:41:30.623 --> 00:41:32.424
happiness letter to Nancy Rigdon,
00:41:32.944 --> 00:41:34.205
which reads as an argument
00:41:34.225 --> 00:41:36.246
for justifying plural marriage.
00:41:36.846 --> 00:41:37.086
Now,
00:41:37.667 --> 00:41:44.111
I want to point out that church
00:41:44.171 --> 00:41:46.352
leadership has quoted this
00:41:46.852 --> 00:41:47.693
happiness letter
00:41:48.825 --> 00:41:50.525
to basically say that the
00:41:51.046 --> 00:41:51.986
whole design of our
00:41:52.146 --> 00:41:53.606
existence is happiness.
00:41:54.166 --> 00:41:55.327
They quoted this letter for
00:41:55.367 --> 00:41:57.627
a long time while they were
00:41:57.667 --> 00:41:59.188
still denying that Joseph
00:41:59.208 --> 00:42:01.048
had practiced this type of polygamy,
00:42:01.388 --> 00:42:04.149
especially during the Nauvoo period.
00:42:04.189 --> 00:42:05.250
But let's go back and look
00:42:05.550 --> 00:42:07.670
at what the letter says,
00:42:07.710 --> 00:42:08.730
or at least part of it anyway.
00:42:12.858 --> 00:42:14.238
the the text of this letter
00:42:14.278 --> 00:42:15.779
first appeared in the
00:42:16.139 --> 00:42:17.779
sangamo journal as per as
00:42:17.799 --> 00:42:18.640
purported copy of the
00:42:18.680 --> 00:42:20.120
original forwarded by john
00:42:20.160 --> 00:42:21.420
c bennett who was joseph
00:42:21.440 --> 00:42:23.341
smith's right hand man for
00:42:23.361 --> 00:42:26.102
a very long time until he
00:42:26.202 --> 00:42:27.742
crossed joseph and then he
00:42:27.782 --> 00:42:29.063
got excommunicated are you
00:42:29.103 --> 00:42:29.943
seeing a pattern
00:42:31.743 --> 00:42:33.785
When anybody disagrees with Joseph Smith,
00:42:33.805 --> 00:42:34.867
they get excommunicated.
00:42:35.587 --> 00:42:36.428
It essentially says that
00:42:36.468 --> 00:42:37.850
whatever God commands is right,
00:42:37.910 --> 00:42:38.911
regardless of whether it
00:42:38.951 --> 00:42:40.633
appears logical or right to
00:42:40.653 --> 00:42:42.375
those who receive the commandments.
00:42:42.797 --> 00:42:43.176
hi there
00:42:43.256 --> 00:42:44.696
letter daily digest good to
00:42:44.736 --> 00:42:46.637
see you as well um thank
00:42:46.677 --> 00:42:48.878
you so much i really want
00:42:48.898 --> 00:42:49.938
to go watch that episode
00:42:49.958 --> 00:42:51.118
that you have with peter i
00:42:51.158 --> 00:42:52.279
enjoyed his commentary
00:42:52.319 --> 00:42:53.079
during nemo's
00:42:54.219 --> 00:42:55.700
excommunication episodes and
00:42:55.780 --> 00:42:57.040
i love nemo i think he's
00:42:57.060 --> 00:42:59.422
amazing um i love it okay
00:42:59.762 --> 00:43:01.303
so let's go back to the
00:43:01.363 --> 00:43:03.944
happiness letter some scholars
00:43:05.576 --> 00:43:06.836
question the authenticity of
00:43:06.856 --> 00:43:07.716
the letter because of the
00:43:07.776 --> 00:43:08.877
uncertain provenance of
00:43:08.917 --> 00:43:10.037
Bennett's reproduced
00:43:10.097 --> 00:43:11.037
version of the letter,
00:43:11.217 --> 00:43:12.037
as well as Bennett's
00:43:12.117 --> 00:43:13.417
unreliable allegations on
00:43:13.537 --> 00:43:15.518
other matters related to Joseph Smith.
00:43:16.018 --> 00:43:17.378
If the letter is authentic,
00:43:17.458 --> 00:43:18.318
then it could provide
00:43:18.378 --> 00:43:19.398
insight into Joseph's
00:43:19.438 --> 00:43:20.479
rationale for the moral
00:43:20.519 --> 00:43:21.679
basis of plural marriage,
00:43:21.739 --> 00:43:22.819
although plural marriage is
00:43:22.879 --> 00:43:26.580
never explicitly mentioned in the text.
00:43:27.282 --> 00:43:29.061
The actual happiness letter,
00:43:29.543 --> 00:43:30.404
Okay, here it is.
00:43:30.624 --> 00:43:32.085
Happiness is the object and
00:43:32.125 --> 00:43:34.587
design of our existence and
00:43:34.627 --> 00:43:36.068
will be the end thereof if
00:43:36.108 --> 00:43:38.449
we pursue the path that leads to it.
00:43:39.230 --> 00:43:41.272
And this path is virtue, uprightness,
00:43:41.292 --> 00:43:42.412
faithfulness, holiness,
00:43:42.452 --> 00:43:44.494
and keeping all the commandments of God.
00:43:45.074 --> 00:43:46.956
so that's the part that the
00:43:46.996 --> 00:43:47.957
church leaders like to
00:43:47.997 --> 00:43:50.759
quote all the time b.h
00:43:50.799 --> 00:43:52.061
roberts as editor of
00:43:52.121 --> 00:43:52.962
history of the church
00:43:53.042 --> 00:43:54.703
included the letter in the
00:43:54.803 --> 00:43:56.645
in the compilation with the
00:43:56.665 --> 00:43:57.866
following note it is not
00:43:57.906 --> 00:43:59.428
positively known what it
00:43:59.488 --> 00:44:00.389
what occasioned the writing
00:44:00.429 --> 00:44:01.930
of this essay but when it
00:44:01.970 --> 00:44:02.991
is born in mind that at
00:44:03.031 --> 00:44:04.332
this time the new law of
00:44:04.392 --> 00:44:05.253
marriage for the church
00:44:05.293 --> 00:44:06.314
marriage for eternity
00:44:06.414 --> 00:44:07.655
including plurality of
00:44:07.695 --> 00:44:09.217
wives under some circumstances
00:44:09.637 --> 00:44:11.098
was being introduced by the prophet,
00:44:11.158 --> 00:44:12.958
it's very likely that the
00:44:13.038 --> 00:44:14.159
article was written with a
00:44:14.219 --> 00:44:16.220
view of applying the principles here,
00:44:16.980 --> 00:44:18.221
expounded to the conditions
00:44:18.281 --> 00:44:20.201
created by introducing said
00:44:20.762 --> 00:44:22.104
marriage system.
00:44:22.104 --> 00:44:24.497
I would encourage you to look up,
00:44:24.517 --> 00:44:25.877
and I'll put in the show notes later,
00:44:26.078 --> 00:44:27.198
and read the happiness
00:44:27.218 --> 00:44:29.599
letter in its entirety, because
00:44:30.579 --> 00:44:32.622
I like to think of it in the
00:44:32.682 --> 00:44:34.744
context that the person
00:44:34.804 --> 00:44:36.886
receiving it would have received it.
00:44:37.040 --> 00:44:37.921
I think it's important
00:44:38.121 --> 00:44:39.442
always for us to consider,
00:44:39.462 --> 00:44:40.403
and that's the whole reason
00:44:40.483 --> 00:44:42.746
I started this perspective,
00:44:43.467 --> 00:44:46.190
is because I wanted to hear
00:44:46.250 --> 00:44:48.313
it from the perspective of the women
00:44:49.464 --> 00:44:51.766
Did they feel like they were preyed upon?
00:44:52.426 --> 00:44:54.028
And what were the
00:44:54.468 --> 00:44:56.169
circumstances surrounding
00:44:56.290 --> 00:44:57.771
the alleged proposals and
00:44:57.831 --> 00:44:58.752
all of those things?
00:45:00.033 --> 00:45:01.434
So B.H.
00:45:01.474 --> 00:45:04.016
Roberts is considered to be
00:45:04.636 --> 00:45:06.998
a faithful Mormon historian.
00:45:07.799 --> 00:45:09.040
He was appointed by the
00:45:09.060 --> 00:45:10.781
leadership of the church to
00:45:10.821 --> 00:45:12.162
be a historian.
00:45:12.743 --> 00:45:14.464
He did come across a lot of
00:45:14.584 --> 00:45:16.186
problems with the Book of Mormon,
00:45:16.386 --> 00:45:18.608
and he presented that to the church.
00:45:19.473 --> 00:45:21.073
And they sent him on a mission.
00:45:21.133 --> 00:45:22.249
So all right.
00:45:22.589 --> 00:45:24.661
I want to go back to the
00:45:24.701 --> 00:45:26.134
timeline real quick.
00:45:26.141 --> 00:45:26.321
Okay.
00:45:26.541 --> 00:45:28.482
Happiness letter, eighteen forty two.
00:45:29.068 --> 00:45:29.648
In May.
00:45:29.808 --> 00:45:30.289
Well, actually,
00:45:30.309 --> 00:45:31.209
we should back up a little bit.
00:45:31.349 --> 00:45:32.850
In March of eighteen forty two,
00:45:32.890 --> 00:45:35.352
Joseph Smith became a Freemason.
00:45:36.413 --> 00:45:37.774
He joined the
00:45:39.615 --> 00:45:40.756
group of the masons that
00:45:40.796 --> 00:45:41.917
were in the area at the
00:45:41.957 --> 00:45:43.558
time where he would have
00:45:43.618 --> 00:45:45.079
learned a lot of masonic
00:45:45.260 --> 00:45:46.961
ceremonies and then two
00:45:47.001 --> 00:45:48.542
months later he introduces
00:45:48.582 --> 00:45:49.683
the endowment ceremony for
00:45:49.723 --> 00:45:52.205
the first time which can
00:45:52.245 --> 00:45:54.527
anyone guess very closely
00:45:54.587 --> 00:45:56.428
resembles the masonic
00:45:56.468 --> 00:46:00.463
ceremonies so there's that
00:46:00.483 --> 00:46:01.744
um come to your own conclusion there
00:46:02.697 --> 00:46:04.117
we'll talk about the temple
00:46:04.177 --> 00:46:05.378
ceremony in a in a
00:46:05.398 --> 00:46:06.318
different video it is
00:46:06.358 --> 00:46:07.378
definitely a rabbit hole
00:46:07.398 --> 00:46:09.438
for another time um then in
00:46:09.638 --> 00:46:11.579
in at the end of well just
00:46:11.599 --> 00:46:12.879
a couple weeks later church
00:46:12.939 --> 00:46:14.639
leader and navu mayor john
00:46:14.679 --> 00:46:16.219
c bennett is excommunicated
00:46:16.259 --> 00:46:19.040
for adultery um with a
00:46:19.060 --> 00:46:22.301
footnote it was publicly
00:46:22.341 --> 00:46:23.321
announced in the times and
00:46:23.361 --> 00:46:25.281
seasons because i believe
00:46:26.001 --> 00:46:27.522
joseph wanted everybody to
00:46:27.582 --> 00:46:29.020
know what was happening
00:46:29.020 --> 00:46:31.007
The accusations of his
00:46:31.127 --> 00:46:33.548
adultery were chronicled by
00:46:34.068 --> 00:46:34.729
Andrew F. Smith,
00:46:34.749 --> 00:46:36.569
who did a biography on John C. Bennett.
00:46:37.450 --> 00:46:39.311
And it's a fascinating thing
00:46:39.351 --> 00:46:40.631
to dig into as well.
00:46:41.992 --> 00:46:46.414
If you look at it from the lens of, again,
00:46:46.494 --> 00:46:47.534
everything that I started
00:46:47.594 --> 00:46:48.755
researching at this point,
00:46:48.875 --> 00:46:51.636
I wanted to look at it from
00:46:51.676 --> 00:46:55.138
the lens of what conclusion
00:46:55.198 --> 00:46:56.718
requires the least amount
00:46:56.738 --> 00:46:57.779
of conjecture from me.
00:46:58.510 --> 00:46:59.931
It's the sort of principle
00:47:00.171 --> 00:47:02.173
of does it make more sense
00:47:02.233 --> 00:47:05.935
that X or does it make more
00:47:05.995 --> 00:47:08.177
sense that if Y then
00:47:08.257 --> 00:47:11.219
possibly Z and maybe a third option.
00:47:11.760 --> 00:47:14.203
The more I have to do what
00:47:14.243 --> 00:47:15.003
they call the mental
00:47:15.043 --> 00:47:16.424
gymnastics to make those
00:47:16.484 --> 00:47:18.846
square pegs fit into those round holes,
00:47:19.951 --> 00:47:21.052
the less likely it is for
00:47:21.092 --> 00:47:22.332
that thing to be the
00:47:22.372 --> 00:47:24.733
correct true explanation of that thing.
00:47:25.513 --> 00:47:27.573
Also going through trauma
00:47:27.613 --> 00:47:29.454
therapy and learning how to
00:47:29.494 --> 00:47:30.834
defend myself against
00:47:31.435 --> 00:47:33.175
manipulators and predators
00:47:33.475 --> 00:47:36.059
and liars helped me to
00:47:36.119 --> 00:47:37.320
frame all of this
00:47:37.360 --> 00:47:38.780
information in a much
00:47:38.820 --> 00:47:39.900
different light and look at
00:47:39.940 --> 00:47:41.141
it from a much different lens.
00:47:42.285 --> 00:47:44.627
once you know that you've
00:47:44.667 --> 00:47:45.847
been manipulated and lied
00:47:45.887 --> 00:47:47.849
to and you want to protect
00:47:47.869 --> 00:47:48.729
yourself from it,
00:47:48.889 --> 00:47:49.990
it's very difficult to
00:47:50.050 --> 00:47:51.191
remove that lens from your
00:47:51.311 --> 00:47:53.032
eyes and give people a pass
00:47:53.072 --> 00:47:54.833
for something.
00:47:55.133 --> 00:47:57.155
And what's interesting is as
00:47:57.175 --> 00:47:58.756
a mother and as a teacher,
00:48:01.510 --> 00:48:04.852
I was very able to put that
00:48:04.892 --> 00:48:06.733
frame of mind on when I was
00:48:06.793 --> 00:48:09.035
hearing stories from my
00:48:09.095 --> 00:48:12.037
students about why they didn't do X, Y,
00:48:12.057 --> 00:48:13.217
Z or why they missed this
00:48:13.257 --> 00:48:14.859
assignment or whatever.
00:48:17.080 --> 00:48:19.081
It was very easy for me to
00:48:19.141 --> 00:48:20.142
think critically in those
00:48:20.162 --> 00:48:21.003
situations and go,
00:48:21.063 --> 00:48:22.644
that's just not likely to be true.
00:48:24.303 --> 00:48:25.544
And to do the investigation
00:48:25.564 --> 00:48:27.766
that it takes to prospect
00:48:27.806 --> 00:48:29.367
verify when it came to my
00:48:29.427 --> 00:48:32.249
students I had a wild story
00:48:32.469 --> 00:48:33.590
once my very first year
00:48:33.610 --> 00:48:34.630
teaching in the classroom
00:48:35.251 --> 00:48:37.372
where It was a requirement.
00:48:37.452 --> 00:48:38.873
I required my students to go
00:48:38.893 --> 00:48:39.433
to the concert.
00:48:39.474 --> 00:48:40.394
That was a grade for them
00:48:40.414 --> 00:48:41.515
They had to perform that
00:48:41.535 --> 00:48:42.295
was part of what they're
00:48:42.335 --> 00:48:43.216
supposed to be learning.
00:48:43.636 --> 00:48:45.558
I was a choir teacher and I
00:48:46.474 --> 00:48:47.495
they knew that if they
00:48:47.555 --> 00:48:48.756
missed the concert and they
00:48:48.796 --> 00:48:50.797
didn't have some kind of an
00:48:50.857 --> 00:48:52.759
emergency or an excuse of
00:48:52.779 --> 00:48:54.960
that kind that they were
00:48:54.980 --> 00:48:56.321
going to get a failing
00:48:56.341 --> 00:48:58.803
grade and so they would of
00:48:58.843 --> 00:48:59.864
course sometimes come up
00:48:59.884 --> 00:49:01.425
with silly explanations of
00:49:01.445 --> 00:49:03.526
why they weren't there my
00:49:03.566 --> 00:49:05.007
very first year teaching my
00:49:05.027 --> 00:49:07.009
very first concert this
00:49:07.029 --> 00:49:07.910
girl did not come to the
00:49:07.970 --> 00:49:10.371
concert and then she didn't
00:49:10.411 --> 00:49:13.354
come to class for several days and
00:49:14.620 --> 00:49:15.801
when she did finally come to
00:49:15.841 --> 00:49:17.162
the club to come to class
00:49:17.942 --> 00:49:20.904
um i said to her why did
00:49:20.944 --> 00:49:22.064
you not come to the concert
00:49:22.084 --> 00:49:24.746
and she said oh my dad died
00:49:24.786 --> 00:49:25.867
just very matter of fact
00:49:25.907 --> 00:49:28.008
like that and while i
00:49:28.148 --> 00:49:29.669
understand that different
00:49:29.709 --> 00:49:30.889
people grieve in different
00:49:30.909 --> 00:49:33.011
ways of course i was very
00:49:33.051 --> 00:49:35.212
suspicious of that and i
00:49:35.252 --> 00:49:37.413
said i'm very sorry to hear
00:49:37.453 --> 00:49:39.214
that and i just went on
00:49:39.675 --> 00:49:40.915
with class and finished
00:49:40.935 --> 00:49:41.636
class and everything
00:49:42.654 --> 00:49:44.317
When I got to my conference period,
00:49:44.597 --> 00:49:46.380
I called her mother and I said,
00:49:46.520 --> 00:49:48.943
I'm so sorry to hear about your loss.
00:49:49.524 --> 00:49:50.706
And the mother said, what loss?
00:49:52.689 --> 00:49:53.230
And I said, well,
00:49:53.290 --> 00:49:55.233
your daughter told me that
00:49:55.333 --> 00:49:56.515
her father passed away.
00:49:58.252 --> 00:50:00.593
And the mom was exasperated,
00:50:00.893 --> 00:50:01.633
to say the least.
00:50:03.494 --> 00:50:05.495
So it seems pretty obvious
00:50:05.535 --> 00:50:08.116
to most people that that would be a lie,
00:50:08.136 --> 00:50:08.816
although it's kind of a
00:50:08.936 --> 00:50:10.676
wild lie to make up just to
00:50:10.977 --> 00:50:13.117
not get a bad grade on a choir concert.
00:50:13.778 --> 00:50:14.998
But that's how I feel when I
00:50:15.018 --> 00:50:16.178
look now at some of these
00:50:16.238 --> 00:50:16.979
apologetics and
00:50:17.039 --> 00:50:19.319
explanations for polygamy in Mormonism.
00:50:19.380 --> 00:50:21.080
It's like we've been asked
00:50:21.120 --> 00:50:23.021
to explain away the most logical thing.
00:50:23.985 --> 00:50:25.747
because we don't want to
00:50:25.767 --> 00:50:27.528
believe that Joseph Smith
00:50:27.788 --> 00:50:28.649
had poor character.
00:50:29.790 --> 00:50:31.431
So I'm sorry for the digression.
00:50:32.032 --> 00:50:34.734
I just wanted to explain my
00:50:34.774 --> 00:50:35.935
frame of mind as I was
00:50:35.975 --> 00:50:36.976
going through these things.
00:50:37.156 --> 00:50:39.418
Having been a faithful member for,
00:50:40.679 --> 00:50:42.120
you know, forty five-ish years,
00:50:43.382 --> 00:50:44.302
I think I mentioned that I
00:50:44.382 --> 00:50:45.583
started to be disaffected
00:50:45.603 --> 00:50:46.985
with the church in twenty fifteen,
00:50:47.905 --> 00:50:49.567
but I was still very, very faithful.
00:50:51.101 --> 00:50:53.143
all the way up until just
00:50:53.183 --> 00:50:56.586
prior to my divorce is when
00:50:56.726 --> 00:50:59.008
I stopped going to church
00:50:59.088 --> 00:51:00.549
every single Sunday and
00:51:00.569 --> 00:51:01.751
doing every single thing I
00:51:01.791 --> 00:51:02.451
was supposed to.
00:51:03.012 --> 00:51:03.892
And oddly enough,
00:51:04.193 --> 00:51:05.073
I didn't stop paying
00:51:05.094 --> 00:51:07.416
tithing until after the
00:51:07.436 --> 00:51:08.517
pandemic was over.
00:51:09.057 --> 00:51:11.619
So I considered myself to be
00:51:11.960 --> 00:51:14.502
a very faithful temple recommend holding
00:51:16.193 --> 00:51:18.375
mormon my recommend expired
00:51:18.415 --> 00:51:19.597
in twenty eighteen but i
00:51:19.617 --> 00:51:20.577
was still worthy of a
00:51:20.678 --> 00:51:22.499
recommend for a very long
00:51:22.539 --> 00:51:23.420
time after that i would
00:51:23.440 --> 00:51:24.361
have passed the interview
00:51:24.421 --> 00:51:25.462
except for the fact that i
00:51:25.482 --> 00:51:27.304
was questioning leaders so
00:51:27.324 --> 00:51:28.425
there was that that's i
00:51:28.465 --> 00:51:29.046
probably wouldn't have
00:51:29.146 --> 00:51:30.387
gotten a recommend at that
00:51:30.407 --> 00:51:32.129
point anyway i digress
00:51:32.169 --> 00:51:33.971
again back to the timeline
00:51:35.112 --> 00:51:37.895
i'm trying to stay on track um
00:51:39.273 --> 00:51:41.274
So in July,
00:51:41.654 --> 00:51:43.074
Joseph Smith is sealed to Sarah
00:51:43.114 --> 00:51:44.474
Whitney in the presence of
00:51:44.534 --> 00:51:45.795
her parents with her father,
00:51:46.315 --> 00:51:46.995
Newell K. Whitney,
00:51:47.015 --> 00:51:48.576
who also later was a polygamist,
00:51:49.016 --> 00:51:49.976
performing the ceremony
00:51:50.056 --> 00:51:51.136
using words that were given
00:51:51.176 --> 00:51:53.584
to him in a revelation from Joseph.
00:51:53.604 --> 00:51:56.225
Joseph Smith in handwrites a
00:51:56.265 --> 00:51:57.185
letter to Elizabeth and
00:51:57.225 --> 00:51:58.425
Newell K. Whitney and their daughter,
00:51:58.465 --> 00:51:59.086
Sarah Ann,
00:51:59.106 --> 00:52:00.546
who was recently sealed to Joseph,
00:52:00.686 --> 00:52:01.746
asking them to visit him
00:52:01.786 --> 00:52:03.347
while he's in hiding from
00:52:03.407 --> 00:52:04.207
Missouri lawmen.
00:52:05.665 --> 00:52:07.186
So by the end of August,
00:52:07.246 --> 00:52:08.007
eighteen forty two,
00:52:08.047 --> 00:52:09.168
Joseph is sealed to about a
00:52:09.228 --> 00:52:11.489
dozen plural wives and then
00:52:11.589 --> 00:52:12.510
no additional plural
00:52:12.550 --> 00:52:13.491
marriages were performed
00:52:13.531 --> 00:52:15.361
for about the next six months.
00:52:15.506 --> 00:52:16.406
In October,
00:52:16.626 --> 00:52:18.207
The Times and Seasons published
00:52:18.247 --> 00:52:19.188
an official statement from
00:52:19.208 --> 00:52:20.349
the Nauvoo Relief Society
00:52:20.389 --> 00:52:21.810
condemning John C. Bennett
00:52:21.870 --> 00:52:23.271
and denying the existence
00:52:23.331 --> 00:52:26.593
of the secret wife system.
00:52:26.654 --> 00:52:28.535
So at this time,
00:52:30.180 --> 00:52:30.480
I just,
00:52:30.640 --> 00:52:32.041
we're going to have to skip over
00:52:32.081 --> 00:52:33.061
some of this stuff because
00:52:33.101 --> 00:52:34.701
there's just so much information.
00:52:34.741 --> 00:52:36.742
There are a couple of things
00:52:36.762 --> 00:52:37.762
that were particularly
00:52:37.822 --> 00:52:39.403
important to my personal
00:52:40.563 --> 00:52:43.664
experience digging into polygamy,
00:52:43.764 --> 00:52:44.504
and those are the things
00:52:44.524 --> 00:52:45.464
that I want to touch on.
00:52:46.185 --> 00:52:47.745
In May of eighteen forty three,
00:52:47.945 --> 00:52:49.406
Joseph Smith was sealed to
00:52:49.466 --> 00:52:50.346
his youngest wife,
00:52:50.486 --> 00:52:52.727
fourteen year old Helen Mar Kimball.
00:52:53.807 --> 00:52:57.228
And I want to go now to talk about
00:52:59.468 --> 00:53:02.931
Helen's own experiences from her own words,
00:53:03.951 --> 00:53:06.013
because this really,
00:53:07.074 --> 00:53:09.356
really struck me when I
00:53:09.416 --> 00:53:11.157
realized how young she was
00:53:11.417 --> 00:53:14.105
and I thought about her experience.
00:53:14.135 --> 00:53:15.859
So Helen's parents,
00:53:17.359 --> 00:53:21.962
joined the church and Helen's father,
00:53:22.002 --> 00:53:23.583
Heber C. Kimball was called
00:53:23.623 --> 00:53:24.444
as a member of the Quorum
00:53:24.484 --> 00:53:25.305
of the Twelve Apostles.
00:53:25.325 --> 00:53:26.486
So he was very high up and
00:53:26.526 --> 00:53:27.826
well-respected in the church.
00:53:28.747 --> 00:53:30.488
She was baptized at age eight.
00:53:31.230 --> 00:53:34.193
And then she was introduced
00:53:34.213 --> 00:53:35.634
to the idea of polygamy at
00:53:35.694 --> 00:53:36.735
first by her father.
00:53:37.416 --> 00:53:38.216
I think what's really
00:53:38.296 --> 00:53:41.158
important to pay attention to is
00:53:42.358 --> 00:53:45.948
her very first reaction to this concept.
00:53:46.414 --> 00:53:48.096
So this is her own words,
00:53:48.136 --> 00:53:48.876
with all the false
00:53:48.916 --> 00:53:49.957
traditions in which we were
00:53:49.998 --> 00:53:51.179
born and in consequence of
00:53:51.199 --> 00:53:52.640
the degenerate tide with
00:53:52.680 --> 00:53:53.661
which the human family has
00:53:53.681 --> 00:53:55.303
been drifting for generations past,
00:53:55.723 --> 00:53:56.684
and as the Lord had no
00:53:56.764 --> 00:53:58.165
organized priesthood on the earth,
00:53:58.606 --> 00:53:59.927
it is not to be wondered at
00:53:59.967 --> 00:54:01.669
that in our ignorance of his ways,
00:54:01.729 --> 00:54:02.950
the feelings of our nature
00:54:02.970 --> 00:54:04.051
should rebel against the
00:54:04.111 --> 00:54:06.373
doctrine of a plurality of wives.
00:54:07.114 --> 00:54:08.355
I remember how I felt,
00:54:08.976 --> 00:54:09.996
but which would be a
00:54:10.036 --> 00:54:11.498
difficult matter to describe,
00:54:11.538 --> 00:54:12.799
the various thoughts, fears,
00:54:12.859 --> 00:54:13.699
and temptations that
00:54:13.740 --> 00:54:14.780
flashed through my mind
00:54:14.800 --> 00:54:15.681
when the principal was
00:54:15.721 --> 00:54:17.643
first introduced to me by my father,
00:54:18.423 --> 00:54:19.564
who one morning the summer
00:54:19.584 --> 00:54:20.405
of eighteen forty three
00:54:20.445 --> 00:54:21.826
without any preliminaries
00:54:22.006 --> 00:54:23.167
asked me if I would believe
00:54:23.207 --> 00:54:24.949
him if he told me that it
00:54:24.989 --> 00:54:26.310
was right for married men
00:54:26.350 --> 00:54:27.611
to take other wives.
00:54:28.199 --> 00:54:29.500
Suffice it to say that the
00:54:29.560 --> 00:54:32.321
first impulse was anger,
00:54:32.382 --> 00:54:33.622
for I thought he had only
00:54:33.702 --> 00:54:35.143
said it to test my virtue.
00:54:35.844 --> 00:54:38.285
My sensibilities were painfully touched.
00:54:38.865 --> 00:54:41.247
I felt such a sense of personal energy,
00:54:41.447 --> 00:54:43.128
injury, and displeasure,
00:54:43.768 --> 00:54:45.369
for to mention such a thing to me,
00:54:45.529 --> 00:54:46.550
I thought altogether
00:54:46.650 --> 00:54:47.931
unworthy of my father.
00:54:48.591 --> 00:54:49.792
And as quick as he spoke,
00:54:49.892 --> 00:54:51.913
I replied to him shortly and emphatically,
00:54:52.073 --> 00:54:53.034
no, I wouldn't.
00:54:54.504 --> 00:54:55.745
I had always been taught to
00:54:55.765 --> 00:54:57.126
believe in a heinous crime,
00:54:57.686 --> 00:54:59.128
improper and unnatural,
00:54:59.628 --> 00:55:02.457
and I indignantly resented it.
00:55:02.457 --> 00:55:03.967
she goes on to talk about
00:55:04.067 --> 00:55:06.849
how her father was pleased
00:55:06.889 --> 00:55:08.811
with her reaction, but then also
00:55:10.900 --> 00:55:13.361
related to her that this had
00:55:13.401 --> 00:55:14.641
been told to him by the
00:55:14.701 --> 00:55:17.422
prophet of god and that it
00:55:17.462 --> 00:55:19.162
does seem shocking but it
00:55:19.222 --> 00:55:22.003
really it's okay again a
00:55:22.043 --> 00:55:23.323
fourteen year old girl
00:55:24.364 --> 00:55:25.504
we're talking about a
00:55:25.564 --> 00:55:26.664
freshman in high school
00:55:27.704 --> 00:55:29.245
sometimes as you know
00:55:29.825 --> 00:55:30.905
eighth graders are fourteen
00:55:31.385 --> 00:55:33.386
years old somebody who
00:55:35.149 --> 00:55:36.049
has had very little
00:55:36.129 --> 00:55:37.850
experience in relationships
00:55:37.890 --> 00:55:40.251
with anyone outside of her
00:55:40.371 --> 00:55:42.611
own family and her own small community.
00:55:43.932 --> 00:55:46.643
And at a time when young
00:55:46.683 --> 00:55:48.584
people at this point relied
00:55:48.684 --> 00:55:50.625
so heavily on their parents
00:55:50.645 --> 00:55:51.965
and believed their parents
00:55:52.425 --> 00:55:54.106
so heavily that to go
00:55:54.166 --> 00:55:55.486
against your parents in
00:55:55.526 --> 00:55:56.526
this time of history,
00:55:56.546 --> 00:55:57.507
in this period of history
00:55:57.567 --> 00:55:58.827
at that age would
00:55:58.867 --> 00:55:59.988
definitely have been
00:56:00.248 --> 00:56:01.308
outside of the normal.
00:56:01.832 --> 00:56:04.604
um then the next day the
00:56:04.644 --> 00:56:05.885
prophet called at our house
00:56:06.485 --> 00:56:07.626
and i sat with my father
00:56:07.666 --> 00:56:08.646
and mother and heard him
00:56:08.686 --> 00:56:09.727
teach the principle and
00:56:09.767 --> 00:56:11.587
explain it more fully and i
00:56:11.627 --> 00:56:12.988
believed it but i had no
00:56:13.028 --> 00:56:15.449
proofs only his and my
00:56:15.509 --> 00:56:17.390
father's testimony i
00:56:17.430 --> 00:56:18.551
thought that sufficient and
00:56:18.591 --> 00:56:20.152
i didn't deem it necessary
00:56:20.232 --> 00:56:20.952
and did not deem it
00:56:20.992 --> 00:56:22.853
necessary to seek for any further
00:56:23.282 --> 00:56:24.942
Richard Anderson, who's a historian,
00:56:25.042 --> 00:56:25.482
observed,
00:56:26.503 --> 00:56:27.704
Helen says several times that
00:56:27.744 --> 00:56:28.464
her father took the
00:56:28.504 --> 00:56:29.565
initiative to arrange the
00:56:29.605 --> 00:56:31.047
marriage and very possibly
00:56:31.087 --> 00:56:32.668
he did so with a view to
00:56:32.708 --> 00:56:33.508
committing her to the
00:56:33.549 --> 00:56:35.370
prophet before her budding
00:56:35.450 --> 00:56:36.651
social life produced a
00:56:36.711 --> 00:56:40.077
choice or a proposal from someone else.
00:56:40.077 --> 00:56:42.354
This made me really sick to
00:56:42.394 --> 00:56:43.896
my stomach when I read this
00:56:43.936 --> 00:56:45.677
the first time and when I
00:56:45.857 --> 00:56:47.999
absorbed this idea for the first time.
00:56:48.513 --> 00:56:51.216
because i i will elaborate
00:56:51.236 --> 00:56:52.317
on this a little bit more
00:56:52.837 --> 00:56:54.078
but looking at it from this
00:56:54.158 --> 00:56:55.919
perspective and this is
00:56:55.959 --> 00:56:57.360
what it always bothers me
00:56:57.400 --> 00:56:59.422
when apologists will say
00:57:00.342 --> 00:57:01.543
but there was no sexual
00:57:01.583 --> 00:57:03.144
relationship between joseph
00:57:03.164 --> 00:57:04.986
and these young women this
00:57:05.026 --> 00:57:06.367
was a spiritual ceiling
00:57:07.507 --> 00:57:08.368
which first of all,
00:57:08.868 --> 00:57:10.749
it's pretty wild to claim
00:57:11.010 --> 00:57:12.871
that Joseph Smith taking on
00:57:12.911 --> 00:57:14.152
multiple wives had nothing
00:57:14.192 --> 00:57:16.654
to do with sex because part
00:57:16.694 --> 00:57:17.815
of the revelation talks
00:57:17.835 --> 00:57:18.875
about multiplying and
00:57:18.915 --> 00:57:20.036
replenishing the earth.
00:57:20.416 --> 00:57:20.737
Okay.
00:57:21.277 --> 00:57:22.238
And y'all,
00:57:22.438 --> 00:57:23.879
we can't do that without the
00:57:24.099 --> 00:57:24.820
sacred powers of
00:57:24.880 --> 00:57:26.441
procreation being involved.
00:57:26.761 --> 00:57:27.021
Okay.
00:57:27.982 --> 00:57:29.383
So please don't try to tell
00:57:29.403 --> 00:57:31.645
me that there was no sex
00:57:31.685 --> 00:57:32.605
involved whatsoever.
00:57:33.526 --> 00:57:34.627
Then to try and say,
00:57:36.047 --> 00:57:39.408
And I honestly don't know which is worse.
00:57:40.068 --> 00:57:41.308
As a victim and a survivor,
00:57:41.408 --> 00:57:42.568
I don't know which is worse.
00:57:43.228 --> 00:57:48.330
Is it worse that Joseph
00:57:48.350 --> 00:57:49.390
violated a young woman?
00:57:50.630 --> 00:57:54.231
Or is it worse that he took their lives?
00:57:56.031 --> 00:57:56.711
When I say that,
00:57:56.851 --> 00:57:57.851
I mean he took their
00:57:57.911 --> 00:58:00.772
ability to have a normal life.
00:58:02.727 --> 00:58:04.028
Heber C. Kimball teaching
00:58:04.088 --> 00:58:05.989
his daughter the practice
00:58:06.129 --> 00:58:07.970
of plural marriage at a
00:58:08.050 --> 00:58:10.652
young age before she had
00:58:10.692 --> 00:58:11.972
the chance to form an
00:58:12.012 --> 00:58:13.733
attachment with another
00:58:13.753 --> 00:58:16.675
young man that she might
00:58:16.695 --> 00:58:17.776
have fallen in love with
00:58:18.256 --> 00:58:19.237
before she had another
00:58:19.277 --> 00:58:20.237
prospect or another
00:58:20.297 --> 00:58:22.940
proposal is disgusting to me.
00:58:24.129 --> 00:58:27.092
He took their lives.
00:58:27.752 --> 00:58:29.073
Every single one of those
00:58:29.133 --> 00:58:31.015
young women had their lives
00:58:31.335 --> 00:58:34.418
severely altered because
00:58:34.438 --> 00:58:36.139
they would have been doing other things.
00:58:36.680 --> 00:58:37.240
They would have been
00:58:37.320 --> 00:58:39.983
enjoying normal life as young women.
00:58:40.563 --> 00:58:41.104
They would have been
00:58:41.144 --> 00:58:44.146
marrying men who had only
00:58:44.186 --> 00:58:47.233
them to devote their time and energy to.
00:58:47.333 --> 00:58:48.474
I want to read it to you
00:58:48.494 --> 00:58:49.675
from Helen's own words.
00:58:50.483 --> 00:58:52.044
She writes this beautiful poem,
00:58:53.225 --> 00:58:55.107
which I think you should go and read,
00:58:55.928 --> 00:58:57.669
but I'm not going to read
00:58:57.710 --> 00:58:59.211
it here for the sake of time.
00:59:00.364 --> 00:59:01.685
one year after writing this
00:59:01.725 --> 00:59:02.945
poem above where she talks
00:59:02.985 --> 00:59:04.366
about her distress and the
00:59:04.426 --> 00:59:06.346
feelings that she had it
00:59:06.446 --> 00:59:07.867
obviously poetry can be
00:59:08.227 --> 00:59:09.248
interpreted in different
00:59:09.268 --> 00:59:10.148
ways which is why i would
00:59:10.188 --> 00:59:10.948
like you to read it for
00:59:10.968 --> 00:59:11.929
yourself and come to your
00:59:11.989 --> 00:59:14.069
own conclusions one year
00:59:14.129 --> 00:59:16.010
after writing this poem she
00:59:16.070 --> 00:59:17.411
elaborates during the
00:59:17.431 --> 00:59:19.772
winter of there were plenty
00:59:19.812 --> 00:59:21.672
of parties and balls some
00:59:21.712 --> 00:59:22.853
of the young gentlemen got
00:59:22.893 --> 00:59:23.933
up a series of dancing
00:59:23.973 --> 00:59:25.174
parties to be held at the
00:59:25.214 --> 00:59:26.194
mansion once a week the
00:59:26.234 --> 00:59:27.715
mansion was joseph smith's home
00:59:28.795 --> 00:59:29.896
I had to stay home,
00:59:30.556 --> 00:59:31.537
as my father had been
00:59:31.577 --> 00:59:33.238
warned by the prophet to
00:59:33.258 --> 00:59:34.918
keep his daughter away from there,
00:59:35.579 --> 00:59:36.719
because of the black legs
00:59:36.759 --> 00:59:37.500
and certain ones of
00:59:37.540 --> 00:59:38.640
questionable character who
00:59:38.701 --> 00:59:39.261
attended there.
00:59:40.318 --> 00:59:41.979
i felt quite sore over it
00:59:42.179 --> 00:59:43.139
and thought it a very
00:59:43.239 --> 00:59:45.540
unkind act in father to
00:59:45.580 --> 00:59:47.000
allow my brother to go and
00:59:47.040 --> 00:59:47.821
enjoy the dance
00:59:47.901 --> 00:59:49.201
unrestrained with others of
00:59:49.241 --> 00:59:50.702
my companions and fetter me
00:59:50.742 --> 00:59:52.822
down for no girl loved
00:59:52.902 --> 00:59:54.343
dancing better than i did
00:59:54.863 --> 00:59:56.044
and i really felt that it
00:59:56.064 --> 00:59:58.084
was too much to bear it
00:59:58.144 --> 01:00:00.005
made the dull school still
01:00:00.225 --> 01:00:02.066
more dull and like a wild
01:00:02.106 --> 01:00:03.446
bird i longed for the
01:00:03.486 --> 01:00:05.427
freedom that was denied me
01:00:06.207 --> 01:00:08.428
and thought myself a much abused child
01:00:10.485 --> 01:00:11.746
and that it was pardonable
01:00:11.846 --> 01:00:12.827
if I did murmur.
01:00:14.952 --> 01:00:16.213
I'm not going to apologize
01:00:17.554 --> 01:00:22.963
for being emotional because it's a crime.
01:00:22.983 --> 01:00:23.803
This young girl,
01:00:24.364 --> 01:00:26.466
all she wanted was to have a normal,
01:00:26.746 --> 01:00:27.407
happy life.
01:00:28.459 --> 01:00:29.680
She wanted to go to dances.
01:00:29.720 --> 01:00:31.282
She wanted to hang out with her friends.
01:00:31.963 --> 01:00:34.566
Can you imagine a freshman
01:00:34.586 --> 01:00:37.529
in high school being denied
01:00:39.592 --> 01:00:41.754
the opportunity to
01:00:41.814 --> 01:00:43.116
socialize with her friends
01:00:43.576 --> 01:00:45.719
because secretly she's
01:00:45.779 --> 01:00:49.143
married to a thirty seven year old man?
01:00:50.598 --> 01:00:51.959
And people like to say, oh,
01:00:51.999 --> 01:00:53.439
it was common back then for
01:00:53.819 --> 01:00:55.060
people to get married young
01:00:55.120 --> 01:00:56.100
and young women married
01:00:56.140 --> 01:00:57.081
young men all the time.
01:00:57.381 --> 01:00:58.982
No, it was not common.
01:00:59.542 --> 01:01:01.002
It did happen from time to time,
01:01:01.022 --> 01:01:02.203
but it was not common.
01:01:03.063 --> 01:01:05.684
According to the eighteen thirty census,
01:01:06.445 --> 01:01:08.025
which the eighteen forty
01:01:08.065 --> 01:01:09.066
data would not have been
01:01:09.106 --> 01:01:10.526
available yet at this time,
01:01:11.567 --> 01:01:13.488
according to the eighteen thirty census,
01:01:14.588 --> 01:01:18.830
the average age for women to marry
01:01:19.725 --> 01:01:22.326
was nineteen and when they
01:01:22.426 --> 01:01:24.267
did get married at nineteen
01:01:24.747 --> 01:01:25.967
they were marrying other
01:01:26.287 --> 01:01:28.128
nineteen twenty twenty one
01:01:28.168 --> 01:01:30.309
twenty two year olds not
01:01:30.689 --> 01:01:32.089
thirty seven year old men
01:01:33.990 --> 01:01:35.611
and yes i'm sure we all
01:01:35.631 --> 01:01:37.752
have an anecdotal instance
01:01:38.392 --> 01:01:40.012
of someone in our lives of
01:01:40.072 --> 01:01:41.313
some relative in the past
01:01:41.353 --> 01:01:42.373
who married young married
01:01:42.393 --> 01:01:45.034
another person young that
01:01:45.054 --> 01:01:46.075
doesn't mean it was common
01:01:46.135 --> 01:01:47.035
it was not common
01:01:48.584 --> 01:01:49.245
And also,
01:01:49.645 --> 01:01:51.007
Joseph Smith was the only one
01:01:51.047 --> 01:01:51.908
running around marrying
01:01:51.948 --> 01:01:54.130
multiple people at this time in history,
01:01:54.731 --> 01:01:55.011
right?
01:01:55.532 --> 01:01:57.814
And trying to justify it by
01:01:57.874 --> 01:02:00.018
saying that God told him
01:02:00.058 --> 01:02:02.584
that this is what was meant for them.
01:02:04.816 --> 01:02:05.857
After leaving the church,
01:02:06.137 --> 01:02:07.439
dissenter Catherine Lewis
01:02:07.499 --> 01:02:08.960
reported Helen as saying,
01:02:09.641 --> 01:02:10.722
I would never have been
01:02:10.802 --> 01:02:12.183
sealed to Joseph had I
01:02:12.223 --> 01:02:13.685
known it was anything more
01:02:13.725 --> 01:02:14.686
than a ceremony.
01:02:15.956 --> 01:02:17.498
Assuming this statement was accurate,
01:02:17.518 --> 01:02:18.379
which is not certain,
01:02:18.419 --> 01:02:19.420
the question arises
01:02:19.500 --> 01:02:20.581
regarding her meaning of
01:02:20.641 --> 01:02:21.642
more than a ceremony.
01:02:22.659 --> 01:02:24.740
While sexuality is a possibility,
01:02:24.840 --> 01:02:25.500
a more likely
01:02:25.540 --> 01:02:26.760
interpretation is that the
01:02:26.800 --> 01:02:28.260
ceremony prevented her from
01:02:28.360 --> 01:02:29.461
associating with her
01:02:29.501 --> 01:02:31.601
friends as an unmarried teenager,
01:02:32.181 --> 01:02:33.782
causing her dramatic
01:02:34.082 --> 01:02:37.457
distress after the sealing.
01:02:37.497 --> 01:02:42.138
This is what needed to sink in for me.
01:02:42.258 --> 01:02:44.359
Is that even if
01:02:46.184 --> 01:02:47.645
Joseph Smith was a prophet
01:02:47.685 --> 01:02:49.125
who was called of God.
01:02:49.899 --> 01:02:52.200
Doing this kind of thing to young women,
01:02:52.660 --> 01:02:54.601
it's not something that God
01:02:54.621 --> 01:02:57.062
that I believed in would
01:02:57.082 --> 01:02:57.883
have been okay with.
01:02:58.794 --> 01:03:01.795
This was a pretty big straw for me.
01:03:04.013 --> 01:03:04.433
Um, and,
01:03:04.674 --> 01:03:06.574
and there was one more account
01:03:06.995 --> 01:03:08.796
that I alluded to earlier
01:03:08.836 --> 01:03:11.318
that I would like to share with you.
01:03:11.358 --> 01:03:14.559
But when my parents and I
01:03:14.599 --> 01:03:16.100
had a conversation about me
01:03:16.160 --> 01:03:17.301
leaving the church and some
01:03:17.341 --> 01:03:19.234
of the reasons why, um,
01:03:19.254 --> 01:03:20.434
this was one of the things
01:03:20.454 --> 01:03:21.995
that I talked to them about
01:03:22.335 --> 01:03:23.256
because my daughter,
01:03:23.276 --> 01:03:24.576
my youngest daughter right now is.
01:03:25.537 --> 01:03:27.438
At the time we had this conversation.
01:03:28.679 --> 01:03:31.121
She was thirteen.
01:03:31.201 --> 01:03:32.342
And I said to my dad,
01:03:32.862 --> 01:03:34.663
what if it was my daughter?
01:03:35.064 --> 01:03:36.905
He used her name.
01:03:36.945 --> 01:03:39.046
What if the leader of some
01:03:39.587 --> 01:03:41.548
group came to her and said,
01:03:41.728 --> 01:03:42.569
God has told me
01:03:44.223 --> 01:03:46.825
xyz um what if it was the
01:03:46.865 --> 01:03:48.746
bishop of my ward that said
01:03:49.146 --> 01:03:50.787
god has told me that
01:03:51.767 --> 01:03:52.708
polygamy is going to be
01:03:52.908 --> 01:03:54.669
reinstituted the prophet
01:03:54.709 --> 01:03:55.790
has already said it's going
01:03:55.810 --> 01:03:58.191
to happen and he's told all
01:03:58.211 --> 01:03:59.412
of the bishops to go choose
01:03:59.452 --> 01:04:02.854
a wife and i choose you
01:04:02.895 --> 01:04:03.635
what would you say to
01:04:03.675 --> 01:04:07.077
felicia my daughter in in that case
01:04:08.372 --> 01:04:10.493
and you know oh wow that's
01:04:10.633 --> 01:04:11.533
you know it's a different
01:04:11.553 --> 01:04:12.233
thing it's not going to
01:04:12.273 --> 01:04:14.294
happen like all of the
01:04:14.334 --> 01:04:16.035
apologetic answers and i'm
01:04:16.095 --> 01:04:17.715
sorry but if you can't put
01:04:17.735 --> 01:04:19.676
yourself in those shoes and
01:04:19.756 --> 01:04:20.836
say what would i do in this
01:04:20.876 --> 01:04:22.217
situation if it was my own
01:04:22.257 --> 01:04:24.537
child if it was my own
01:04:24.577 --> 01:04:25.638
granddaughter if it was my
01:04:25.698 --> 01:04:28.039
niece any of those things
01:04:29.919 --> 01:04:31.860
this is the way that predators operate
01:04:33.192 --> 01:04:34.352
And I'm going to go back to
01:04:34.433 --> 01:04:35.673
Sandra Tanner for a moment
01:04:35.713 --> 01:04:37.194
because I did finally go
01:04:37.234 --> 01:04:38.314
back and listen to the rest
01:04:38.374 --> 01:04:39.655
of her lecture after I went
01:04:39.695 --> 01:04:40.975
down this little rabbit hole.
01:04:42.916 --> 01:04:45.097
And I want to share with you
01:04:45.537 --> 01:04:47.298
what finally solidified it
01:04:47.418 --> 01:04:50.322
in my mind to put these two
01:04:50.362 --> 01:04:53.583
things together and to make
01:04:53.643 --> 01:04:54.924
it pretty absolute for me.
01:04:56.045 --> 01:04:57.131
more on the dinner I had
01:04:57.151 --> 01:04:58.418
with this Mormon historian,
01:05:00.837 --> 01:05:01.818
one of the things that I
01:05:01.938 --> 01:05:06.120
asked him in our long conversation was,
01:05:07.160 --> 01:05:07.920
well, I have to tell you,
01:05:07.960 --> 01:05:09.041
this was when I was working
01:05:09.121 --> 01:05:12.182
on the newsletter that we just put out,
01:05:12.742 --> 01:05:14.583
Sacred Marriage or Secret Affair.
01:05:14.663 --> 01:05:15.964
And I'd just been working on
01:05:16.044 --> 01:05:17.084
all of that and going
01:05:17.104 --> 01:05:17.785
through all the stories of
01:05:17.805 --> 01:05:19.025
Joseph Smith's wives and
01:05:19.065 --> 01:05:20.686
was fairly appalled by the whole thing.
01:05:21.326 --> 01:05:22.667
And so I'm having dinner
01:05:22.687 --> 01:05:23.907
with this guy and I said,
01:05:24.828 --> 01:05:25.808
how can you avoid the
01:05:25.828 --> 01:05:27.409
conclusion that Joseph
01:05:27.429 --> 01:05:29.530
Smith was a sexual predator?
01:05:30.933 --> 01:05:32.017
And he said, well, you know,
01:05:32.057 --> 01:05:34.787
that's... He was sincere.
01:05:35.209 --> 01:05:35.410
But...
01:05:38.230 --> 01:05:39.391
I said, no,
01:05:39.511 --> 01:05:41.191
I don't think that's the way you get it.
01:05:41.252 --> 01:05:44.173
Because, for instance, in the newsletter,
01:05:44.733 --> 01:05:46.694
I tell about the case of Lucy Walker.
01:05:47.415 --> 01:05:47.555
Now,
01:05:47.595 --> 01:05:49.576
here's a young girl where she's in a
01:05:49.616 --> 01:05:51.637
family of ten children.
01:05:52.897 --> 01:05:54.958
The family converts to Mormonism.
01:05:54.978 --> 01:05:56.819
They end up moving to Nauvoo.
01:05:57.439 --> 01:05:59.661
But the mother gets malaria
01:05:59.761 --> 01:06:00.821
in Nauvoo and dies.
01:06:00.941 --> 01:06:02.562
And then one of the children dies.
01:06:02.742 --> 01:06:04.123
So now we're down to nine kids.
01:06:05.067 --> 01:06:07.248
And Joseph Smith's solution
01:06:07.268 --> 01:06:09.489
to this family's situation
01:06:09.569 --> 01:06:10.789
is to send the father on a
01:06:10.849 --> 01:06:13.390
two-year mission to the East Coast,
01:06:13.930 --> 01:06:15.831
divide up the children into
01:06:15.871 --> 01:06:17.452
different homes and take
01:06:17.492 --> 01:06:19.352
the teenagers into his home.
01:06:20.173 --> 01:06:21.293
So now he has this
01:06:21.353 --> 01:06:22.513
sixteen-year-old girl
01:06:22.774 --> 01:06:23.754
living in the home with her
01:06:23.814 --> 01:06:25.274
brother that's a year or so
01:06:25.374 --> 01:06:25.955
older than her.
01:06:26.995 --> 01:06:28.816
He starts privately going to
01:06:28.856 --> 01:06:29.656
the sister to try to
01:06:29.696 --> 01:06:31.837
convince her to become his plural wife.
01:06:32.849 --> 01:06:36.212
and um she's praying about
01:06:36.252 --> 01:06:36.852
the whole thing she don't
01:06:36.872 --> 01:06:37.673
know what to make out of it
01:06:37.773 --> 01:06:39.254
well then it turns out that
01:06:39.715 --> 01:06:41.976
joseph's wife emma and the
01:06:41.996 --> 01:06:43.458
brother go on a shopping
01:06:43.498 --> 01:06:45.139
trip to st louis and while
01:06:45.159 --> 01:06:47.120
they're gone joseph gets
01:06:47.160 --> 01:06:49.502
the girl to marry him and
01:06:49.542 --> 01:06:51.584
she's just that date the
01:06:51.604 --> 01:06:53.245
day before turn seventeen
01:06:53.746 --> 01:06:54.826
when she marries him in
01:06:54.907 --> 01:06:56.568
polygamy behind emma's back
01:06:57.439 --> 01:06:59.060
She later wrote in her own
01:06:59.121 --> 01:07:00.222
story of her life.
01:07:00.382 --> 01:07:01.703
What a devastating thing and
01:07:01.763 --> 01:07:02.864
how hard this was for her
01:07:02.904 --> 01:07:04.746
to do She said here I was
01:07:04.766 --> 01:07:06.007
without mother our father
01:07:06.047 --> 01:07:08.269
to consult no one around to
01:07:08.309 --> 01:07:10.531
go to to talk to And yet
01:07:10.551 --> 01:07:11.692
being presented with this
01:07:11.772 --> 01:07:13.934
great issue And of course
01:07:13.954 --> 01:07:15.235
she prays and finally feels
01:07:15.295 --> 01:07:16.196
god spoke to her and told
01:07:16.216 --> 01:07:17.457
her to do this and she goes
01:07:17.517 --> 01:07:19.399
into this plural marriage but
01:07:20.059 --> 01:07:22.000
So I'm talking to this historian.
01:07:23.881 --> 01:07:25.341
This shows a deliberate
01:07:25.781 --> 01:07:27.702
effort of isolating this
01:07:27.802 --> 01:07:29.903
girl from her family,
01:07:30.063 --> 01:07:31.304
from everyone around her,
01:07:31.344 --> 01:07:33.125
from any support system in
01:07:33.165 --> 01:07:35.546
a time of grief and loneliness.
01:07:35.886 --> 01:07:37.146
To put that kind of pressure
01:07:37.186 --> 01:07:40.368
on her is signs of a spiritual predator.
01:07:40.808 --> 01:07:41.848
I don't see how we can
01:07:41.908 --> 01:07:44.609
excuse this kind of behavior and say,
01:07:44.689 --> 01:07:45.530
well, he was sincere.
01:07:46.523 --> 01:07:47.923
You wouldn't give that kind
01:07:48.043 --> 01:07:49.404
of leeway to someone that
01:07:49.424 --> 01:07:50.804
approached your sixteen
01:07:50.824 --> 01:07:51.544
year old daughter.
01:07:52.365 --> 01:07:54.185
If your pastor came to you
01:07:54.725 --> 01:07:55.726
to your sixteen year old
01:07:55.766 --> 01:07:57.666
daughter behind your back
01:07:58.506 --> 01:08:00.247
and proposed something like
01:08:00.307 --> 01:08:02.847
that to her and you found out about it,
01:08:02.867 --> 01:08:04.428
you'd be so mad to try to kill a guy.
01:08:06.672 --> 01:08:08.753
So why does Joseph get a
01:08:08.793 --> 01:08:10.093
pass on these things?
01:08:10.433 --> 01:08:12.274
I don't understand how they
01:08:12.314 --> 01:08:14.435
keep saying it's okay.
01:08:15.095 --> 01:08:16.995
And if you read the story of
01:08:17.035 --> 01:08:18.056
the different wives,
01:08:18.196 --> 01:08:19.336
they all are horrible.
01:08:20.557 --> 01:08:22.797
Going to young teenage girls and saying,
01:08:22.857 --> 01:08:24.498
God sent an angel with a
01:08:24.538 --> 01:08:25.718
drawn sword that was going
01:08:25.738 --> 01:08:27.419
to kill Joseph Smith if he
01:08:27.459 --> 01:08:28.799
didn't go into polygamy.
01:08:28.839 --> 01:08:29.799
If she didn't marry him,
01:08:29.859 --> 01:08:30.920
God was going to kill him.
01:08:31.870 --> 01:08:35.191
And the struggle,
01:08:35.351 --> 01:08:35.991
the weight of
01:08:36.031 --> 01:08:37.272
responsibility this would
01:08:37.312 --> 01:08:38.632
put on a teenage girl,
01:08:38.652 --> 01:08:40.573
how can I be responsible
01:08:40.613 --> 01:08:41.713
for the prophet's death?
01:08:42.753 --> 01:08:43.754
Then he would also put the
01:08:43.814 --> 01:08:45.154
responsibility on these
01:08:45.194 --> 01:08:48.075
young girls that if you consent to this,
01:08:48.175 --> 01:08:49.235
it will ensure your
01:08:49.295 --> 01:08:51.536
parents' eternal salvation.
01:08:51.936 --> 01:08:54.337
They will have exaltation.
01:08:54.397 --> 01:08:56.117
How can a girl say, no,
01:08:56.177 --> 01:08:56.857
I'm not going to help my
01:08:56.917 --> 01:08:58.438
parents have eternal life?
01:08:59.390 --> 01:09:01.613
And so she finally submits to this.
01:09:02.534 --> 01:09:03.355
But to me,
01:09:03.415 --> 01:09:05.437
it clearly is the pattern of a
01:09:05.517 --> 01:09:06.358
sexual predator.
01:09:07.739 --> 01:09:09.581
But this fellow feels the
01:09:09.722 --> 01:09:11.564
Mormon church does more good than harm,
01:09:11.624 --> 01:09:15.428
and we're here now,
01:09:15.548 --> 01:09:18.972
and that's where his family's at, and,
01:09:19.492 --> 01:09:19.893
you know...
01:09:21.114 --> 01:09:22.415
Of course, he's not living in Utah,
01:09:22.475 --> 01:09:24.456
so it's much he's got a lot
01:09:24.496 --> 01:09:25.616
of non-Mormons around him.
01:09:26.036 --> 01:09:27.537
And so he doesn't feel the
01:09:27.557 --> 01:09:28.637
same pressure as you would
01:09:28.677 --> 01:09:29.858
if you were here locally.
01:09:31.599 --> 01:09:32.619
But we see this more and
01:09:32.639 --> 01:09:35.160
more with the scholars of this.
01:09:39.951 --> 01:09:41.492
Moving away from any truth
01:09:41.532 --> 01:09:42.892
claims and everything
01:09:42.932 --> 01:09:44.813
becomes relative Doesn't
01:09:44.853 --> 01:09:46.274
work for you if it's
01:09:46.314 --> 01:09:47.655
working for you stay there
01:09:47.675 --> 01:09:48.515
if it's not working then
01:09:48.535 --> 01:09:51.116
look for something else and
01:09:51.156 --> 01:09:55.318
so Our heart is that they
01:09:55.358 --> 01:09:56.359
come to see truth is
01:09:56.399 --> 01:09:57.839
important what we do with
01:09:57.879 --> 01:09:59.080
our lives is important and
01:10:00.619 --> 01:10:03.244
The lies of Joseph Smith do affect people.
01:10:03.926 --> 01:10:05.749
They aren't just innocent
01:10:05.769 --> 01:10:08.034
things that don't touch other people.
01:10:08.655 --> 01:10:10.438
Because of Joseph Smith's polygamy,
01:10:10.899 --> 01:10:12.362
we have all the polygamists today.
01:10:14.487 --> 01:10:15.288
Mormons will say to me,
01:10:15.328 --> 01:10:16.588
but look at the fruits of Mormonism.
01:10:16.868 --> 01:10:17.249
I say, yeah,
01:10:17.269 --> 01:10:18.950
the fruits of Mormonism are
01:10:19.010 --> 01:10:20.070
sixty thousand people
01:10:20.110 --> 01:10:21.892
living in polygamy today.
01:10:21.912 --> 01:10:23.633
That's the fruit of Joseph Smith.
01:10:24.333 --> 01:10:25.254
Those people wouldn't be in
01:10:25.294 --> 01:10:27.055
those situations had it not
01:10:27.115 --> 01:10:28.636
been for him privately
01:10:28.676 --> 01:10:30.457
going to teenage girls and
01:10:30.497 --> 01:10:32.678
coercing them into plural marriage.
01:10:33.944 --> 01:10:35.025
So I don't think it gets a
01:10:35.065 --> 01:10:37.527
whole lot more clear than that,
01:10:38.207 --> 01:10:40.429
putting that into that perspective.
01:10:40.909 --> 01:10:43.491
And for those of you who are
01:10:43.632 --> 01:10:45.493
still having a hard time
01:10:46.854 --> 01:10:48.395
putting yourself in the
01:10:48.435 --> 01:10:52.618
position of this particular situation,
01:10:53.819 --> 01:10:55.501
take it away from religion for a second.
01:10:56.562 --> 01:11:00.925
Let's say that you are a middle-aged man.
01:11:02.172 --> 01:11:03.593
and you have a wife and
01:11:03.613 --> 01:11:06.796
family and you get a job at
01:11:07.157 --> 01:11:08.939
a corporation that is
01:11:09.099 --> 01:11:10.760
growing really fast and
01:11:10.780 --> 01:11:11.981
let's say that the ceo of
01:11:12.001 --> 01:11:13.803
this corporation is is
01:11:14.103 --> 01:11:16.005
really young successful guy
01:11:16.806 --> 01:11:19.709
and let's say tragically
01:11:19.749 --> 01:11:23.172
your wife dies and the ceo
01:11:23.532 --> 01:11:25.194
of the corporation comes to you and says
01:11:27.172 --> 01:11:29.094
know what you really need is
01:11:29.134 --> 01:11:30.957
a change of scenery if you
01:11:31.037 --> 01:11:34.841
stay here you know near the
01:11:34.861 --> 01:11:36.904
corporation you're going to
01:11:36.924 --> 01:11:38.485
just get so depressed that
01:11:38.505 --> 01:11:39.146
i think it's going to be
01:11:39.186 --> 01:11:40.127
terrible for your mental
01:11:40.167 --> 01:11:41.329
health and i really think
01:11:42.249 --> 01:11:44.671
that you should relocate to
01:11:44.852 --> 01:11:45.812
a different area.
01:11:47.574 --> 01:11:48.915
I'm going to give you a job
01:11:49.156 --> 01:11:51.878
in our office that's five
01:11:51.898 --> 01:11:53.299
or six hundred miles away from here.
01:11:54.000 --> 01:11:54.741
And I'll tell you what,
01:11:54.901 --> 01:11:56.262
because I think you need
01:11:56.322 --> 01:11:59.886
time to grieve and time to
01:12:02.010 --> 01:12:04.411
get, you know, into a better health,
01:12:04.931 --> 01:12:06.232
mental health place.
01:12:06.452 --> 01:12:07.773
I think you should go alone
01:12:08.393 --> 01:12:10.214
to that other location.
01:12:11.034 --> 01:12:12.195
And what I will do for you
01:12:13.035 --> 01:12:15.336
is I will take in your oldest children,
01:12:16.457 --> 01:12:17.998
your oldest sons and daughters,
01:12:18.478 --> 01:12:19.998
and I will call them my own.
01:12:20.038 --> 01:12:21.679
I'll treat them just like my own kids.
01:12:22.640 --> 01:12:23.840
I'll give them a place to live.
01:12:23.880 --> 01:12:25.361
They'll have everything that they need.
01:12:25.661 --> 01:12:27.722
You won't have to worry about them at all.
01:12:28.462 --> 01:12:29.503
You just go and heal.
01:12:30.238 --> 01:12:33.920
So middle-aged man accepts the position,
01:12:34.020 --> 01:12:35.121
goes away on the transfer.
01:12:35.681 --> 01:12:38.903
His oldest kids go and live with the CEO.
01:12:38.923 --> 01:12:39.684
Then one day,
01:12:40.741 --> 01:12:42.922
the CEO's wife takes the
01:12:43.022 --> 01:12:45.483
oldest son of this man out
01:12:45.523 --> 01:12:47.624
of town on a trip.
01:12:48.545 --> 01:12:49.285
And while they're gone,
01:12:50.206 --> 01:12:52.307
the CEO goes and
01:12:52.347 --> 01:12:54.988
propositions the oldest of the daughters,
01:12:55.048 --> 01:12:55.809
who's seventeen.
01:12:56.635 --> 01:12:57.936
How would you feel as that
01:12:57.996 --> 01:13:00.078
middle-aged man when you
01:13:00.118 --> 01:13:02.100
come back from your
01:13:03.281 --> 01:13:04.622
assignment at another
01:13:04.642 --> 01:13:06.283
location working for this
01:13:06.323 --> 01:13:08.445
corporation and you find
01:13:08.485 --> 01:13:10.407
out that the CEO has been
01:13:10.447 --> 01:13:11.227
messing around with your
01:13:11.508 --> 01:13:12.228
teenage daughter?
01:13:12.910 --> 01:13:14.332
Would it matter the reason
01:13:14.372 --> 01:13:15.613
that he claimed to do it?
01:13:16.406 --> 01:13:17.906
because that seems to be
01:13:17.946 --> 01:13:19.487
what a lot of the mormon
01:13:19.507 --> 01:13:22.088
apologists say is that they
01:13:22.168 --> 01:13:23.868
excuse this behavior of
01:13:23.908 --> 01:13:25.989
joseph smith because they
01:13:26.049 --> 01:13:27.769
say that the revelation
01:13:27.809 --> 01:13:28.929
came from god that he was
01:13:28.949 --> 01:13:31.690
supposed to do it the
01:13:31.750 --> 01:13:33.011
reason wouldn't matter to
01:13:33.051 --> 01:13:36.331
me it wouldn't and you do
01:13:36.391 --> 01:13:37.532
sort of have to remove
01:13:37.552 --> 01:13:39.672
yourself for a moment from
01:13:39.712 --> 01:13:40.913
the religious perspective
01:13:41.013 --> 01:13:42.533
in order to really put this
01:13:42.633 --> 01:13:45.634
in the right place in your mind because
01:13:47.371 --> 01:13:49.532
when we believe that someone
01:13:49.872 --> 01:13:52.232
speaks for god we do excuse
01:13:52.412 --> 01:13:53.693
all of their behavior we
01:13:53.733 --> 01:13:54.473
say well there must have
01:13:54.493 --> 01:13:56.713
been a reason for it you
01:13:56.733 --> 01:13:58.734
know the god that i
01:13:58.774 --> 01:13:59.954
believed in would never
01:13:59.994 --> 01:14:01.434
have been speaking to a man
01:14:01.554 --> 01:14:03.477
like joseph smith and the
01:14:03.517 --> 01:14:07.038
apologetics of oh you know
01:14:07.078 --> 01:14:08.999
they would never let the
01:14:09.039 --> 01:14:10.639
prophet lead the church astray
01:14:11.562 --> 01:14:12.663
it's just something that we
01:14:12.723 --> 01:14:14.183
tell ourselves because we
01:14:14.223 --> 01:14:15.964
can't believe their
01:14:15.984 --> 01:14:18.706
behavior was so terrible
01:14:19.707 --> 01:14:21.007
and so we we explain it
01:14:21.027 --> 01:14:22.068
away by saying there must
01:14:22.088 --> 01:14:22.888
be some other kind of
01:14:22.948 --> 01:14:23.969
explanation that god is
01:14:24.009 --> 01:14:26.028
good with so again we're
01:14:26.309 --> 01:14:27.529
we're adding conjecture
01:14:27.589 --> 01:14:28.650
upon conjecture upon
01:14:28.690 --> 01:14:30.931
conjecture to excuse
01:14:31.371 --> 01:14:32.872
terribly bad behavior
01:14:33.792 --> 01:14:35.193
because we want to believe
01:14:36.496 --> 01:14:37.737
that it really was God
01:14:37.977 --> 01:14:39.058
speaking to Joseph Smith
01:14:39.078 --> 01:14:40.398
and not just that he wasn't
01:14:40.519 --> 01:14:42.740
a narcissist who decided to
01:14:42.780 --> 01:14:44.661
form his own religion so
01:14:44.681 --> 01:14:46.082
that he could have power
01:14:46.242 --> 01:14:48.524
and money and access to young women.
01:14:49.664 --> 01:14:52.857
This is how predators behave.
01:14:52.877 --> 01:14:54.538
They isolate their victims.
01:14:56.139 --> 01:14:58.160
They gather trust in the community.
01:14:59.601 --> 01:15:01.422
They appear one way in
01:15:01.583 --> 01:15:03.564
public and another way in private.
01:15:05.147 --> 01:15:06.267
so that people don't
01:15:06.307 --> 01:15:09.248
question their authority, their judgment,
01:15:09.288 --> 01:15:10.129
their character.
01:15:10.689 --> 01:15:12.089
So that when people do start
01:15:12.109 --> 01:15:13.190
to make allegations,
01:15:13.350 --> 01:15:15.511
everybody questions the victim instead.
01:15:16.411 --> 01:15:18.872
Because we all say things like, oh,
01:15:18.932 --> 01:15:19.832
not Bill Cosby.
01:15:20.312 --> 01:15:21.913
He has such a great reputation.
01:15:23.753 --> 01:15:25.054
Oh, not Larry Nassar.
01:15:25.294 --> 01:15:26.074
He's a doctor.
01:15:26.454 --> 01:15:27.595
He would never abuse women.
01:15:29.255 --> 01:15:31.176
Not this person who has such
01:15:31.196 --> 01:15:32.956
a great reputation in the community.
01:15:33.417 --> 01:15:34.317
That's why it takes
01:15:35.653 --> 01:15:37.415
two and three and seven and
01:15:37.535 --> 01:15:38.736
eight and twelve and twenty
01:15:38.776 --> 01:15:40.578
five reports before someone
01:15:40.638 --> 01:15:42.079
finally listens to the
01:15:42.139 --> 01:15:44.942
victims instead of
01:15:45.002 --> 01:15:46.384
listening to the predator
01:15:47.114 --> 01:15:48.855
we see this over and over
01:15:48.915 --> 01:15:50.037
and over again in our
01:15:50.077 --> 01:15:52.679
society victims get blamed
01:15:52.859 --> 01:15:54.221
and shamed when they're the
01:15:54.341 --> 01:15:56.283
ones who call out the predator
01:15:57.265 --> 01:15:58.866
And I hear this all the time too.
01:15:58.986 --> 01:16:00.987
Oh, there's false reports all the time.
01:16:01.368 --> 01:16:02.588
Women always make false
01:16:02.628 --> 01:16:03.729
reports trying to ruin the
01:16:03.749 --> 01:16:04.750
reputation of a man.
01:16:05.370 --> 01:16:08.132
That is not true.
01:16:08.152 --> 01:16:10.993
The statistic that is correct,
01:16:11.274 --> 01:16:13.715
which is put out by an
01:16:13.815 --> 01:16:15.636
organization who researches
01:16:15.696 --> 01:16:18.258
these reports says that
01:16:18.298 --> 01:16:21.861
between six and ten percent of reports
01:16:22.917 --> 01:16:24.678
of sexual abuse or sexual
01:16:24.718 --> 01:16:26.520
assault between six and ten
01:16:26.560 --> 01:16:27.941
percent turn out to be
01:16:28.001 --> 01:16:30.903
false claims when law
01:16:30.983 --> 01:16:32.464
enforcement is involved and
01:16:32.504 --> 01:16:33.705
the woman is reporting it
01:16:33.805 --> 01:16:35.086
or the man is reporting it
01:16:35.146 --> 01:16:36.567
to law enforcement that
01:16:36.647 --> 01:16:38.368
number drops to three
01:16:38.388 --> 01:16:41.699
percent so my challenge to
01:16:41.739 --> 01:16:43.721
you is to believe ninety
01:16:43.781 --> 01:16:44.781
seven percent of the
01:16:44.821 --> 01:16:48.324
victims believe the victims
01:16:49.347 --> 01:16:51.128
And this is why I go off on
01:16:51.168 --> 01:16:52.808
a tangent because in my case,
01:16:54.589 --> 01:16:56.009
my personal experience,
01:16:58.210 --> 01:16:59.670
one of my predators passed
01:16:59.710 --> 01:17:02.231
away before I even had the
01:17:02.291 --> 01:17:03.591
opportunity to think about
01:17:03.831 --> 01:17:05.792
filing a police report.
01:17:05.932 --> 01:17:09.173
It took me nearly
01:17:09.213 --> 01:17:11.014
thirty-five years before I
01:17:11.054 --> 01:17:12.754
felt like I deserved to
01:17:12.814 --> 01:17:14.655
speak up against this predator.
01:17:15.774 --> 01:17:17.415
Because of teachings in the
01:17:17.435 --> 01:17:20.096
church that teach us that
01:17:21.139 --> 01:17:22.780
if we put ourselves in a bad position,
01:17:22.820 --> 01:17:24.681
then what happens to us is our fault.
01:17:26.842 --> 01:17:28.223
One of my other predators,
01:17:28.883 --> 01:17:29.923
I will never be able to
01:17:29.943 --> 01:17:32.845
make a police report about.
01:17:32.865 --> 01:17:33.865
For various reasons,
01:17:34.045 --> 01:17:35.586
I won't get into the specifics.
01:17:36.715 --> 01:17:40.037
But just knowing the
01:17:40.077 --> 01:17:42.098
circumstances of what happened,
01:17:42.798 --> 01:17:44.919
and who that person is and who I am.
01:17:45.780 --> 01:17:48.101
And knowing now having been
01:17:48.121 --> 01:17:49.802
through the process of making reports,
01:17:50.343 --> 01:17:51.283
I will never be able to
01:17:51.323 --> 01:17:51.943
hold that person
01:17:51.983 --> 01:17:55.006
accountable for what they did to me.
01:17:55.086 --> 01:17:57.608
So it is not too far of a
01:17:57.648 --> 01:17:58.928
reach to say that Joseph
01:17:58.948 --> 01:18:01.670
Smith was a predator.
01:18:01.830 --> 01:18:04.712
And if that is true, which I believe it is,
01:18:04.952 --> 01:18:05.913
I believe the evidence
01:18:05.953 --> 01:18:07.954
clearly shows that he
01:18:07.994 --> 01:18:09.535
deliberately isolated
01:18:10.709 --> 01:18:13.511
his victims in order to get
01:18:13.571 --> 01:18:15.876
what he wanted from them.
01:18:15.996 --> 01:18:17.217
And that he kept it secret,
01:18:17.277 --> 01:18:18.558
he kept it private only
01:18:18.618 --> 01:18:20.059
between the people that he really,
01:18:20.099 --> 01:18:22.581
really trusted for a very long time.
01:18:23.502 --> 01:18:24.823
And as you can see,
01:18:25.343 --> 01:18:26.404
he was successful at it.
01:18:26.624 --> 01:18:27.705
For a very long time,
01:18:28.125 --> 01:18:29.086
nobody talked about the
01:18:29.106 --> 01:18:30.067
fact that Joseph Smith
01:18:30.087 --> 01:18:30.987
practiced polygamy.
01:18:31.127 --> 01:18:33.275
It was all blamed on Brigham Young.
01:18:33.335 --> 01:18:34.515
So if you believe
01:18:35.583 --> 01:18:36.643
if you can frame it in the
01:18:36.663 --> 01:18:38.304
way that Joseph Smith was a predator.
01:18:39.245 --> 01:18:41.326
Do you believe that he
01:18:41.346 --> 01:18:42.246
really spoke to God?
01:18:42.506 --> 01:18:43.426
Do you believe that God
01:18:43.466 --> 01:18:44.587
continued to speak to him
01:18:44.667 --> 01:18:45.467
after this happened?
01:18:47.308 --> 01:18:48.268
I was taught as a young
01:18:48.288 --> 01:18:49.669
woman that Joseph Smith was
01:18:49.689 --> 01:18:51.089
carted off to jail on
01:18:51.149 --> 01:18:52.690
trumped up charges and that
01:18:53.270 --> 01:18:54.451
he was martyred.
01:18:55.011 --> 01:18:55.451
In other words,
01:18:55.491 --> 01:18:56.852
he died for what he believed in.
01:18:57.529 --> 01:18:58.810
It wasn't until later that I
01:18:58.850 --> 01:19:00.110
found out that the reason
01:19:00.150 --> 01:19:01.751
he was in jail is because
01:19:03.249 --> 01:19:04.550
the Nauvoo Expositor,
01:19:05.130 --> 01:19:06.550
which was a newspaper that
01:19:06.570 --> 01:19:07.911
was printed specifically
01:19:07.951 --> 01:19:08.991
for the purpose of
01:19:09.071 --> 01:19:10.392
reporting on Joseph Smith's
01:19:10.772 --> 01:19:12.393
illicit activities with young women.
01:19:13.733 --> 01:19:14.433
And Joseph Smith,
01:19:14.453 --> 01:19:15.974
who was the mayor of the town at the time,
01:19:16.114 --> 01:19:17.595
ordered the printing press
01:19:17.635 --> 01:19:19.936
that printed that paper to be destroyed.
01:19:20.736 --> 01:19:23.738
And so he was sent to prison for that.
01:19:25.184 --> 01:19:25.384
So
01:19:26.637 --> 01:19:28.058
It was the only thing that
01:19:28.158 --> 01:19:31.780
pulled me out of my Mormon
01:19:31.820 --> 01:19:34.082
delusion was listening to
01:19:34.202 --> 01:19:36.603
Sandra Tanner frame
01:19:36.823 --> 01:19:39.785
Joseph's behavior as predatory.
01:19:41.146 --> 01:19:42.447
And having been through that
01:19:42.527 --> 01:19:43.647
as a victim myself,
01:19:45.048 --> 01:19:46.509
it finally woke me up.
01:19:47.492 --> 01:19:49.973
was literally the snap that
01:19:50.674 --> 01:19:51.995
that brought me out of that
01:19:52.035 --> 01:19:54.196
delusion and allowed me to
01:19:54.256 --> 01:19:55.496
start framing everything
01:19:55.636 --> 01:19:56.797
else that i knew about the
01:19:56.837 --> 01:19:58.018
church and church history
01:19:58.859 --> 01:20:00.720
in the correct way in the
01:20:00.760 --> 01:20:02.100
right light to stop making
01:20:02.160 --> 01:20:03.741
excuses and conjecture for
01:20:03.801 --> 01:20:05.922
people and to start looking
01:20:05.982 --> 01:20:08.844
at the truth and the facts and
01:20:10.066 --> 01:20:11.126
think it's pretty obvious
01:20:11.167 --> 01:20:12.547
the reason why i continue
01:20:12.587 --> 01:20:14.008
to talk about it because i
01:20:14.048 --> 01:20:15.428
believe in informed consent
01:20:15.548 --> 01:20:18.149
i believe in people knowing
01:20:18.169 --> 01:20:19.130
what they're getting into
01:20:19.730 --> 01:20:20.910
and i know as i've
01:20:20.950 --> 01:20:21.891
discussed on my channel
01:20:21.911 --> 01:20:22.691
before that the
01:20:22.731 --> 01:20:24.152
missionaries will not tell
01:20:24.172 --> 01:20:25.672
you these things when
01:20:25.692 --> 01:20:26.513
you're investigating
01:20:26.553 --> 01:20:29.794
mormonism and your seminary
01:20:29.834 --> 01:20:30.994
teacher will not tell you
01:20:31.034 --> 01:20:32.355
these things and your
01:20:32.375 --> 01:20:33.375
sunday school teacher will
01:20:33.415 --> 01:20:34.296
not tell you these things
01:20:34.316 --> 01:20:35.456
your bishop will not your
01:20:35.496 --> 01:20:37.257
relief society president will not
01:20:38.591 --> 01:20:39.992
I just think it's important
01:20:40.432 --> 01:20:41.512
to speak the truth.
01:20:41.652 --> 01:20:43.033
For anybody who is
01:20:43.153 --> 01:20:44.213
investigating the Mormon
01:20:44.253 --> 01:20:45.614
church or for anybody who's
01:20:45.634 --> 01:20:47.255
in the middle of a faith crisis,
01:20:47.915 --> 01:20:48.975
when you go to your bishop
01:20:49.015 --> 01:20:50.976
and say that you're having a faith crisis,
01:20:51.336 --> 01:20:52.717
he doesn't start pointing
01:20:52.757 --> 01:20:54.898
you to the gospel topic essays.
01:20:55.238 --> 01:20:57.139
He tells you to rely on the
01:20:57.199 --> 01:20:59.100
spiritual experiences that you've had
01:20:59.640 --> 01:21:00.801
to have greater faith,
01:21:00.841 --> 01:21:02.463
to fast and to pray and to
01:21:02.523 --> 01:21:03.403
read your scriptures and to
01:21:03.463 --> 01:21:04.584
come to church every Sunday
01:21:04.624 --> 01:21:06.706
and just keep doing the faithful things.
01:21:07.147 --> 01:21:08.788
And eventually these doubts
01:21:08.828 --> 01:21:10.849
and these questions will go away.
01:21:10.869 --> 01:21:12.270
So I came to the conclusion
01:21:13.211 --> 01:21:14.792
after all of this research,
01:21:15.053 --> 01:21:16.434
I think I went down this
01:21:16.494 --> 01:21:19.276
rabbit hole of reading the
01:21:19.336 --> 01:21:21.098
firsthand accounts of these women and
01:21:22.324 --> 01:21:25.307
And I think what did it for
01:21:25.347 --> 01:21:27.808
me too was that as a young woman,
01:21:28.449 --> 01:21:31.430
when I was,
01:21:31.490 --> 01:21:33.091
I think I had just turned nineteen,
01:21:33.952 --> 01:21:34.772
and I got into a
01:21:34.792 --> 01:21:35.833
relationship with a much
01:21:35.973 --> 01:21:38.114
older man who told me that
01:21:38.174 --> 01:21:39.435
he was a much younger man.
01:21:40.416 --> 01:21:41.797
And I believed everything that he said.
01:21:43.097 --> 01:21:44.638
And if you read my diaries
01:21:45.399 --> 01:21:46.259
at the time that this
01:21:46.299 --> 01:21:47.460
relationship was occurring,
01:21:48.540 --> 01:21:50.381
It's just so clear that I
01:21:50.441 --> 01:21:52.162
wanted to believe everything he said.
01:21:52.242 --> 01:21:53.623
And so if you read it,
01:21:53.643 --> 01:21:54.724
you would think that's a
01:21:54.764 --> 01:21:56.005
consensual relationship
01:21:56.045 --> 01:21:57.325
between two adults.
01:21:57.405 --> 01:21:58.566
I was, you know, nineteen,
01:21:58.606 --> 01:22:00.287
so I was over the age of majority.
01:22:02.008 --> 01:22:04.509
But ladies and gentlemen,
01:22:04.569 --> 01:22:07.231
children cannot give consent.
01:22:07.251 --> 01:22:08.252
Children under the age of
01:22:08.312 --> 01:22:10.613
eighteen cannot give consent.
01:22:11.849 --> 01:22:12.969
And if their parents gave
01:22:13.009 --> 01:22:15.490
consent on behalf of the child,
01:22:15.810 --> 01:22:19.486
then they are complicit in their abuse.
01:22:19.686 --> 01:22:22.367
I hope that what I have said
01:22:22.407 --> 01:22:24.488
tonight has helped you look
01:22:24.528 --> 01:22:26.008
at some things in a new light,
01:22:26.208 --> 01:22:27.048
at the very least.
01:22:28.889 --> 01:22:29.889
Trafficking is real.
01:22:30.289 --> 01:22:31.209
It really does happen.
01:22:34.379 --> 01:22:36.440
I started speaking out the
01:22:36.480 --> 01:22:38.620
very first time that I
01:22:38.681 --> 01:22:39.941
started talking about my
01:22:40.001 --> 01:22:43.022
experiences as a survivor
01:22:43.062 --> 01:22:45.103
of trafficking was right
01:22:45.143 --> 01:22:47.344
around the time that I
01:22:47.404 --> 01:22:49.285
published my book about a
01:22:49.325 --> 01:22:51.265
year and a half-ish ago or so.
01:22:52.105 --> 01:22:53.006
Coincidentally,
01:22:53.386 --> 01:22:55.146
my book was released on the
01:22:55.207 --> 01:22:56.727
same day that the Sound of
01:22:56.767 --> 01:22:58.187
Freedom movie was released.
01:23:00.328 --> 01:23:00.868
At the time,
01:23:01.228 --> 01:23:03.109
I already knew who Tim Ballard was,
01:23:03.229 --> 01:23:04.930
and I knew a lot of the
01:23:04.970 --> 01:23:06.251
allegations against him
01:23:06.391 --> 01:23:07.792
that you're just seeing now
01:23:07.832 --> 01:23:08.792
come out in the news.
01:23:11.014 --> 01:23:12.415
With multiple women filing
01:23:12.455 --> 01:23:13.375
lawsuits against him,
01:23:13.415 --> 01:23:14.276
claiming that he is a
01:23:14.316 --> 01:23:15.496
predator and claiming that
01:23:15.556 --> 01:23:18.858
he has abused and assaulted them.
01:23:18.878 --> 01:23:19.919
The pattern fits.
01:23:22.193 --> 01:23:22.353
Now,
01:23:22.434 --> 01:23:24.914
he has not been charged with a crime
01:23:25.054 --> 01:23:25.835
in a court of law.
01:23:25.915 --> 01:23:27.035
He's not been convicted.
01:23:27.715 --> 01:23:28.976
These lawsuits are pending.
01:23:29.876 --> 01:23:33.338
He has denied any wrongdoing, of course,
01:23:33.778 --> 01:23:36.839
but the pattern fits.
01:23:36.919 --> 01:23:37.900
And where did he learn it?
01:23:37.920 --> 01:23:40.293
He's been a Mormon his whole
01:23:40.313 --> 01:23:42.874
life until he was very publicly executed.
01:23:43.914 --> 01:23:45.256
Excommunicated, sorry.
01:23:46.077 --> 01:23:48.880
Or the crime of allying
01:23:48.920 --> 01:23:50.482
himself with one of the
01:23:50.522 --> 01:23:51.463
leaders of the church and
01:23:51.504 --> 01:23:52.565
making the church look bad.
01:23:53.506 --> 01:23:54.147
It's a pattern.
01:23:54.946 --> 01:23:55.787
It's a pattern that was
01:23:55.827 --> 01:23:56.828
taught by Joseph Smith.
01:23:58.053 --> 01:24:00.535
And I think I said this on
01:24:01.435 --> 01:24:04.017
my episode last Wednesday as well,
01:24:04.677 --> 01:24:05.978
is that the church leaders
01:24:06.038 --> 01:24:07.559
always told us to stay in the boat,
01:24:07.779 --> 01:24:08.560
just stay in the boat.
01:24:08.600 --> 01:24:09.961
I know you have doubts, but it's okay.
01:24:10.241 --> 01:24:11.402
We're all in the boat together.
01:24:11.442 --> 01:24:13.143
We're all sailing to the promised land.
01:24:13.623 --> 01:24:14.724
If you just stay in the boat,
01:24:14.744 --> 01:24:15.745
you'll get there with us.
01:24:16.185 --> 01:24:17.205
And then all of this is
01:24:17.245 --> 01:24:18.987
going to be resolved and
01:24:19.007 --> 01:24:22.123
you'll be happy and it'll be fine.
01:24:22.163 --> 01:24:24.345
But what I found was that
01:24:25.349 --> 01:24:26.830
boat was not in an ocean it
01:24:26.850 --> 01:24:28.412
was just stuck on the same
01:24:28.472 --> 01:24:29.352
rock that it's been on
01:24:29.432 --> 01:24:31.194
since and when i climbed
01:24:31.274 --> 01:24:32.635
out of the boat i found not
01:24:33.115 --> 01:24:34.577
a deep and scary ocean full
01:24:34.617 --> 01:24:36.678
of monsters but a wonderful
01:24:36.878 --> 01:24:38.780
wide world full of all
01:24:38.820 --> 01:24:40.161
kinds of possibilities
01:24:41.022 --> 01:24:41.963
where i could start to
01:24:42.003 --> 01:24:43.384
consider the thoughts and
01:24:43.524 --> 01:24:45.046
feelings and ideas of
01:24:45.266 --> 01:24:47.027
non-mormon people as valid
01:24:48.188 --> 01:24:49.309
rather than dismissing it
01:24:49.389 --> 01:24:50.310
and saying all that you
01:24:50.330 --> 01:24:52.973
just don't know the truth it's a pattern
01:24:54.040 --> 01:24:55.801
Joseph Smith established a pattern.
01:24:57.582 --> 01:25:00.604
And when Sandra Tanner said
01:25:01.125 --> 01:25:03.406
that the Mormon historian,
01:25:03.987 --> 01:25:06.748
his response to her
01:25:07.069 --> 01:25:08.349
assertion that Joseph Smith
01:25:08.369 --> 01:25:09.090
was a predator,
01:25:11.091 --> 01:25:13.012
he didn't refute that
01:25:13.032 --> 01:25:14.393
Joseph Smith was a predator.
01:25:15.454 --> 01:25:17.475
The first thing out of his mouth was, no,
01:25:17.515 --> 01:25:18.936
Joseph Smith was not a predator.
01:25:20.277 --> 01:25:22.539
What he said was Joseph Smith was sincere.
01:25:23.534 --> 01:25:24.434
meaning Joseph Smith
01:25:24.494 --> 01:25:26.636
sincerely believed that he
01:25:26.676 --> 01:25:27.696
was going to these young
01:25:27.736 --> 01:25:31.399
women on an errand from God.
01:25:31.419 --> 01:25:32.880
When that's your answer,
01:25:33.100 --> 01:25:34.080
rather than saying, no,
01:25:34.140 --> 01:25:37.402
he wasn't a predator, then you know,
01:25:38.102 --> 01:25:39.783
you know you can't make that claim.
01:25:40.343 --> 01:25:41.484
You know he was,
01:25:42.204 --> 01:25:43.805
because otherwise you would say that.
01:25:44.859 --> 01:25:46.700
look at the fruits look at
01:25:46.720 --> 01:25:48.740
what he's done yes exactly
01:25:48.800 --> 01:25:49.880
as sandra tanner says the
01:25:49.920 --> 01:25:51.381
fruits of his labor are
01:25:51.441 --> 01:25:53.041
sixty thousand people stuck
01:25:53.121 --> 01:25:55.782
in polygamy being abused
01:25:56.182 --> 01:25:57.682
and having their lives
01:25:57.722 --> 01:26:00.274
stolen from them and when
01:26:00.294 --> 01:26:01.014
you have the current
01:26:01.034 --> 01:26:03.015
leadership of the church
01:26:03.055 --> 01:26:03.755
breaking the law
01:26:04.696 --> 01:26:06.096
objectively that's the truth
01:26:07.514 --> 01:26:09.535
they broke the law they were
01:26:09.575 --> 01:26:10.696
fined by the securities and
01:26:10.756 --> 01:26:12.317
exchange commission because
01:26:12.357 --> 01:26:14.418
they didn't believe that
01:26:14.458 --> 01:26:16.499
they had to fill out those
01:26:16.539 --> 01:26:18.320
forms correctly they didn't
01:26:18.340 --> 01:26:19.280
believe they had to answer
01:26:19.320 --> 01:26:20.421
those questions correctly
01:26:21.221 --> 01:26:22.402
when asked how much they
01:26:22.442 --> 01:26:23.643
had in their fund they said
01:26:23.663 --> 01:26:24.583
a million dollars when they
01:26:24.623 --> 01:26:25.604
clearly knew that wasn't
01:26:25.644 --> 01:26:27.965
the case that's a lie it's a flat-out lie
01:26:29.137 --> 01:26:30.738
When I read about BH Roberts
01:26:30.798 --> 01:26:32.419
presenting to the entirety
01:26:32.439 --> 01:26:33.480
of the church leadership,
01:26:33.520 --> 01:26:34.501
a hundred and forty one
01:26:34.561 --> 01:26:35.681
typed pages with the
01:26:35.741 --> 01:26:37.643
problems with the
01:26:37.723 --> 01:26:38.824
historicity of the Book of
01:26:38.864 --> 01:26:41.005
Mormon and the anachronisms, for example,
01:26:41.085 --> 01:26:43.046
having horses and steel and
01:26:43.126 --> 01:26:43.927
silk and things that
01:26:43.987 --> 01:26:45.548
wouldn't have been here at that time.
01:26:46.389 --> 01:26:47.629
Their response was not to
01:26:47.689 --> 01:26:50.151
refute the claims of BH Roberts.
01:26:50.671 --> 01:26:52.032
Their response was to stand
01:26:52.072 --> 01:26:54.134
up and bear their testimony and to say,
01:26:54.514 --> 01:26:55.495
well, I know it's true.
01:26:55.775 --> 01:26:56.996
I've had a personal witness.
01:26:57.536 --> 01:26:58.937
so whatever these problems
01:26:59.057 --> 01:27:00.777
are they'll just go away
01:27:00.937 --> 01:27:03.298
because i know it's true
01:27:04.298 --> 01:27:05.739
when you want to spot a
01:27:05.799 --> 01:27:07.479
liar or a manipulator one
01:27:07.499 --> 01:27:08.460
of the best things that you
01:27:08.480 --> 01:27:09.940
can do is just listen to
01:27:09.980 --> 01:27:11.221
their response to your
01:27:11.301 --> 01:27:12.741
accusation or your
01:27:12.821 --> 01:27:14.863
allegation if they don't
01:27:14.963 --> 01:27:16.863
immediately refute what
01:27:16.903 --> 01:27:18.444
you're saying chances are
01:27:19.344 --> 01:27:21.285
that your accusation is accurate
01:27:23.530 --> 01:27:27.355
when somebody says you know
01:27:28.456 --> 01:27:29.698
if i were to ask someone
01:27:30.319 --> 01:27:31.640
when was the last time you
01:27:31.660 --> 01:27:34.464
watched pornography and
01:27:34.504 --> 01:27:35.745
their response was to say
01:27:36.466 --> 01:27:37.708
that's an odd question why
01:27:37.728 --> 01:27:40.431
would you ask me that then
01:27:40.451 --> 01:27:41.933
you know that they have right
01:27:43.461 --> 01:27:44.862
but for them to come back later and say,
01:27:44.942 --> 01:27:45.803
I never have, well,
01:27:45.823 --> 01:27:47.184
that wasn't your first response.
01:27:47.204 --> 01:27:48.305
So why would that have not
01:27:48.345 --> 01:27:49.406
been your first response?
01:27:49.486 --> 01:27:51.388
It's just interesting to listen,
01:27:51.968 --> 01:27:54.190
to listen to people with
01:27:54.550 --> 01:27:57.853
that filter that allows you
01:27:57.893 --> 01:28:01.116
to be clear headed and
01:28:01.156 --> 01:28:05.282
logical about what makes the most sense.
01:28:05.382 --> 01:28:05.522
So
01:28:07.145 --> 01:28:08.225
want to come back around to
01:28:08.245 --> 01:28:09.101
a couple of things
01:28:09.179 --> 01:28:10.659
um i noticed that there was
01:28:10.679 --> 01:28:13.060
someone in the chat named
01:28:13.180 --> 01:28:14.720
lee here and i don't know
01:28:14.740 --> 01:28:16.221
if you're still here but
01:28:16.261 --> 01:28:19.001
there was some um pushback
01:28:19.061 --> 01:28:20.122
on this comment that lee
01:28:20.142 --> 01:28:21.442
here made i believe
01:28:22.321 --> 01:28:23.881
that what i from what i read
01:28:24.101 --> 01:28:25.642
lee here was supporting the
01:28:25.662 --> 01:28:26.882
things that i was saying or
01:28:27.022 --> 01:28:29.123
at least early on um and
01:28:29.163 --> 01:28:31.043
this comment i guess caused
01:28:31.083 --> 01:28:32.304
some consternation he says
01:28:32.504 --> 01:28:33.944
lds was a step up for women
01:28:34.524 --> 01:28:35.684
as the bible taught how to
01:28:35.724 --> 01:28:37.485
take women as slaves and
01:28:37.525 --> 01:28:38.505
how to pay the father of
01:28:38.545 --> 01:28:40.706
someone you are and then
01:28:40.746 --> 01:28:41.786
take them as your wife as a
01:28:41.846 --> 01:28:42.946
solution for their loss of
01:28:42.986 --> 01:28:45.407
virginity objectively this is true
01:28:46.639 --> 01:28:49.160
bible did teach this right
01:28:49.741 --> 01:28:52.162
and so lds was a step up
01:28:52.202 --> 01:28:54.003
for for women from this
01:28:54.063 --> 01:28:56.864
perspective saying that you
01:28:56.904 --> 01:28:58.425
know oh we're going to
01:28:58.765 --> 01:29:00.085
honor women and we're going
01:29:00.125 --> 01:29:01.126
to give them a relief
01:29:01.166 --> 01:29:03.127
society where they can do
01:29:03.167 --> 01:29:04.187
things that are valuable
01:29:04.207 --> 01:29:05.428
make valuable contribute
01:29:05.468 --> 01:29:06.428
contributions to the
01:29:06.448 --> 01:29:08.389
community so i don't think
01:29:09.470 --> 01:29:11.271
that lee was intending to
01:29:13.134 --> 01:29:16.556
be disparaging of women and say, oh,
01:29:16.576 --> 01:29:17.536
you should be grateful this
01:29:17.576 --> 01:29:18.596
was a step up for you.
01:29:19.157 --> 01:29:20.637
I think this is the way that
01:29:20.677 --> 01:29:22.138
the church leadership saw it,
01:29:22.518 --> 01:29:24.639
that Mormonism was a step up for women.
01:29:25.019 --> 01:29:26.780
If I'm incorrect about that,
01:29:26.820 --> 01:29:28.100
I'm happy to be corrected.
01:29:28.260 --> 01:29:29.141
I just wanted to,
01:29:29.941 --> 01:29:30.762
I know that some people
01:29:30.802 --> 01:29:32.922
were upset by this particular comment,
01:29:32.942 --> 01:29:33.963
but when I went back and
01:29:34.003 --> 01:29:35.123
read some of the other
01:29:35.143 --> 01:29:36.784
comments while Sandra Tanner was talking,
01:29:37.464 --> 01:29:39.025
it looked as though Lee
01:29:39.065 --> 01:29:41.306
here is in support of the position that
01:29:42.443 --> 01:29:44.284
this was wrong of Joseph Smith to do this.
01:29:44.784 --> 01:29:48.587
So I just wanted to clarify that.
01:29:49.632 --> 01:29:51.233
And yes, I believe this is true as well.
01:29:51.273 --> 01:29:52.353
Women were trafficked by the
01:29:52.393 --> 01:29:53.654
early missionaries from Europe.
01:29:53.694 --> 01:29:54.715
Missionaries were sent to
01:29:54.795 --> 01:29:55.935
Europe and they were
01:29:55.976 --> 01:29:57.596
specifically explicitly
01:29:57.636 --> 01:29:58.857
told by Brigham Young to
01:29:58.877 --> 01:30:00.178
bring back the pretty ones
01:30:00.218 --> 01:30:01.118
and not keep all the pretty
01:30:01.178 --> 01:30:02.019
ones for themselves.
01:30:03.096 --> 01:30:04.537
They were to be brought back
01:30:04.757 --> 01:30:08.918
into Mormonism in the Utah territory,
01:30:08.978 --> 01:30:11.559
not knowing that polygamy
01:30:11.599 --> 01:30:12.599
was being practiced.
01:30:13.319 --> 01:30:14.619
And then once they got here,
01:30:14.659 --> 01:30:16.400
they didn't have a way to get back.
01:30:16.940 --> 01:30:18.421
They couldn't afford to go back.
01:30:19.401 --> 01:30:21.081
And so, yes,
01:30:21.221 --> 01:30:22.302
there is a very interesting
01:30:22.342 --> 01:30:23.562
episode on Mormon Stories
01:30:24.082 --> 01:30:25.723
about the trafficking of
01:30:25.763 --> 01:30:27.563
women with lots of evidence, receipts,
01:30:27.603 --> 01:30:28.003
and proof.
01:30:28.143 --> 01:30:29.204
And I would encourage you to
01:30:29.244 --> 01:30:30.224
look at that as well.
01:30:30.821 --> 01:30:33.365
um so i i just want to
01:30:33.445 --> 01:30:34.866
finally at the very end
01:30:34.906 --> 01:30:36.167
address this last comment
01:30:36.207 --> 01:30:37.308
by kelly kells that i
01:30:37.348 --> 01:30:38.289
promised i would get back
01:30:38.309 --> 01:30:41.211
to do you believe anything
01:30:41.271 --> 01:30:42.893
now i was raised christian
01:30:42.973 --> 01:30:43.913
and not really sure if i
01:30:43.953 --> 01:30:45.174
believe in all what the
01:30:45.194 --> 01:30:46.575
bible says because it was
01:30:46.615 --> 01:30:48.357
written by a man i still
01:30:48.397 --> 01:30:49.818
have an unwavering belief in god
01:30:51.262 --> 01:30:54.004
in my gut um i just wanted
01:30:54.044 --> 01:30:56.125
to i wanted to address this
01:30:56.165 --> 01:31:00.047
comment because i have i
01:31:00.267 --> 01:31:01.428
i've addressed this before
01:31:02.368 --> 01:31:04.389
but i just want to give you
01:31:04.409 --> 01:31:05.850
some perspective the short
01:31:05.930 --> 01:31:07.411
answer to this question is
01:31:08.031 --> 01:31:10.733
i don't know i don't know
01:31:10.773 --> 01:31:12.514
anything for sure and i
01:31:12.614 --> 01:31:14.495
actually really love that space
01:31:16.285 --> 01:31:18.466
because it allows me to explore,
01:31:18.826 --> 01:31:20.227
it allows me to wonder,
01:31:20.827 --> 01:31:22.408
it allows me to look at all
01:31:22.448 --> 01:31:23.849
kinds of different ideas
01:31:24.429 --> 01:31:25.609
and weigh them against my
01:31:25.689 --> 01:31:27.931
own experiences and against
01:31:28.031 --> 01:31:29.971
science and against all of
01:31:30.011 --> 01:31:31.372
the other things that are
01:31:31.472 --> 01:31:34.467
out there that it's possible to believe.
01:31:34.527 --> 01:31:36.648
But after this faith crisis,
01:31:38.009 --> 01:31:39.889
I think that I was able to
01:31:39.929 --> 01:31:42.851
really quickly deconstruct because
01:31:44.722 --> 01:31:46.004
I had already deconstructed
01:31:46.084 --> 01:31:47.326
so many things in my life
01:31:47.426 --> 01:31:48.568
by the time I got to this
01:31:48.628 --> 01:31:49.830
point in Mormonism.
01:31:49.870 --> 01:31:50.551
And this, by the way,
01:31:50.671 --> 01:31:54.417
was just in January of last year.
01:31:54.978 --> 01:31:56.480
So it hasn't yet been two
01:31:56.540 --> 01:31:58.904
years since I resigned from the church.
01:31:59.853 --> 01:32:00.954
And up until that point,
01:32:01.014 --> 01:32:05.016
I think I've shared that I was,
01:32:06.776 --> 01:32:08.957
I was just in flux of,
01:32:09.117 --> 01:32:10.138
and I had gotten to this
01:32:10.218 --> 01:32:14.280
place where I just believed
01:32:14.340 --> 01:32:15.781
that Mormonism was true and
01:32:15.921 --> 01:32:16.921
I didn't fit in it.
01:32:18.182 --> 01:32:19.903
And the God that I believed
01:32:19.963 --> 01:32:23.124
in knew that I was faithful
01:32:23.164 --> 01:32:25.405
to him and knew how much
01:32:25.565 --> 01:32:28.707
work I had done for him faithfully.
01:32:29.910 --> 01:32:32.651
And knew my heart and knew
01:32:32.691 --> 01:32:34.052
that I wanted my life to be
01:32:34.112 --> 01:32:35.212
acceptable to him.
01:32:36.227 --> 01:32:38.408
And knowing that and knowing
01:32:38.428 --> 01:32:40.229
that or believing that he
01:32:40.289 --> 01:32:42.370
loved me for who I was and
01:32:42.450 --> 01:32:45.532
not the version of me that
01:32:45.612 --> 01:32:46.892
fits in Mormonism.
01:32:47.993 --> 01:32:48.733
I had just come to the
01:32:48.773 --> 01:32:49.774
conclusion that Mormonism
01:32:49.794 --> 01:32:50.814
didn't work to me for me.
01:32:50.854 --> 01:32:51.615
And there's more than one,
01:32:51.995 --> 01:32:52.775
one path to God.
01:32:52.835 --> 01:32:55.176
And, and I don't know,
01:32:55.816 --> 01:32:56.857
I guess I'll figure it out.
01:32:57.814 --> 01:33:00.495
But having this crisis and
01:33:00.535 --> 01:33:02.196
being able to put away the
01:33:02.236 --> 01:33:03.277
possibility that Joseph
01:33:03.317 --> 01:33:04.137
Smith was actually a
01:33:04.197 --> 01:33:06.198
prophet of God opened my
01:33:06.238 --> 01:33:07.919
mind to so many possibilities.
01:33:08.479 --> 01:33:09.379
And the first thing that I
01:33:09.419 --> 01:33:11.961
did was I zoomed out and I
01:33:12.021 --> 01:33:14.002
looked at the area of the
01:33:14.042 --> 01:33:17.604
world in which the Bible was written.
01:33:17.704 --> 01:33:19.345
And I looked at what a tiny,
01:33:19.405 --> 01:33:21.406
small population of people
01:33:21.446 --> 01:33:23.927
that is in comparison to the whole world.
01:33:24.917 --> 01:33:27.239
and i thought well the bible
01:33:27.279 --> 01:33:29.200
survived because there were
01:33:29.240 --> 01:33:31.742
people to pay to have it
01:33:31.782 --> 01:33:33.003
transcribed and to have it
01:33:33.043 --> 01:33:33.784
survive and to have
01:33:33.824 --> 01:33:35.025
versions of it continue to
01:33:35.065 --> 01:33:37.274
be passed down um and when
01:33:37.375 --> 01:33:39.276
i think of that i think of
01:33:39.356 --> 01:33:40.177
all the other faith
01:33:40.217 --> 01:33:41.678
traditions in the world
01:33:43.423 --> 01:33:45.325
that didn't have a written
01:33:45.385 --> 01:33:46.746
record of what they believed.
01:33:46.806 --> 01:33:49.168
It was passed down by oral tradition.
01:33:50.349 --> 01:33:51.490
And then I started to think
01:33:51.510 --> 01:33:54.053
about the tradition of
01:33:54.113 --> 01:33:55.054
religion in general.
01:33:56.139 --> 01:33:58.060
and the idea that i think
01:33:58.200 --> 01:33:59.741
the native american idea of
01:33:59.781 --> 01:34:02.423
the great spirit and the
01:34:02.503 --> 01:34:05.524
idea of the buddha and all
01:34:05.585 --> 01:34:08.546
of these other ideas about
01:34:09.387 --> 01:34:11.768
what or who god is and so
01:34:11.808 --> 01:34:13.469
many religious traditions
01:34:13.509 --> 01:34:14.830
have more than one god and
01:34:14.870 --> 01:34:15.730
so many religious
01:34:15.750 --> 01:34:17.271
traditions have a very
01:34:17.311 --> 01:34:18.372
different version of god
01:34:18.812 --> 01:34:19.913
than what's in the bible
01:34:21.230 --> 01:34:22.871
And I came to the conclusion
01:34:23.251 --> 01:34:25.871
that from the beginning of time,
01:34:26.151 --> 01:34:28.392
from the beginning of human existence,
01:34:29.472 --> 01:34:32.053
we human beings have had to
01:34:32.113 --> 01:34:35.355
create God to explain the
01:34:35.395 --> 01:34:37.142
things that we can't explain.
01:34:37.202 --> 01:34:37.882
For example,
01:34:38.562 --> 01:34:40.443
imagine as an early human
01:34:40.483 --> 01:34:42.583
being having an entire
01:34:42.623 --> 01:34:44.604
village wiped out by a tsunami.
01:34:45.901 --> 01:34:47.442
do you explain that well
01:34:47.462 --> 01:34:48.563
there must be somebody in
01:34:48.603 --> 01:34:49.983
the sky who controls the
01:34:50.023 --> 01:34:52.285
waves and so i'm going to
01:34:52.305 --> 01:34:53.646
give offerings to that
01:34:54.646 --> 01:34:56.427
being in the sky so that
01:34:56.467 --> 01:34:58.588
the waves won't consume my
01:34:58.628 --> 01:35:01.098
village and then if you
01:35:01.118 --> 01:35:02.539
fast forward that through
01:35:02.739 --> 01:35:04.700
through time my conclusion
01:35:04.740 --> 01:35:07.042
was that we human beings
01:35:07.082 --> 01:35:09.243
can never really know
01:35:10.814 --> 01:35:12.055
whether there is a god or
01:35:12.155 --> 01:35:13.676
what god is even like
01:35:13.877 --> 01:35:16.659
because we are humans we
01:35:16.699 --> 01:35:19.401
have a limited minds we
01:35:19.461 --> 01:35:22.224
cannot comprehend deity
01:35:23.124 --> 01:35:25.046
really so we have to do the
01:35:25.066 --> 01:35:26.627
best that we can if we want
01:35:26.647 --> 01:35:27.968
to use that as a tool for
01:35:28.008 --> 01:35:29.189
facing our existential
01:35:29.229 --> 01:35:31.471
fears of meaninglessness
01:35:31.491 --> 01:35:33.453
and of death and of the unknown
01:35:34.405 --> 01:35:36.226
And my conjecture is that
01:35:36.326 --> 01:35:38.328
any time human beings get
01:35:38.388 --> 01:35:39.588
involved with trying to
01:35:39.688 --> 01:35:41.149
explain the unexplainable,
01:35:41.870 --> 01:35:42.910
specifically deity,
01:35:43.150 --> 01:35:44.251
they're going to get it wrong.
01:35:45.272 --> 01:35:46.533
Because we're fallible human
01:35:46.573 --> 01:35:48.274
beings and everything that
01:35:48.314 --> 01:35:51.676
we produce has our footprint on it.
01:35:52.843 --> 01:35:53.704
We can't help it.
01:35:54.284 --> 01:35:55.405
Everything that I produce
01:35:55.425 --> 01:35:57.406
comes through the lens of my experiences.
01:35:58.386 --> 01:36:00.527
And so if I were to, you know,
01:36:00.547 --> 01:36:02.689
write some kind of an idea
01:36:02.729 --> 01:36:04.050
of what I believe that God is,
01:36:04.150 --> 01:36:06.751
it's going to be flawed by
01:36:06.811 --> 01:36:08.292
my experiences and it's not
01:36:08.312 --> 01:36:09.152
going to work for every
01:36:09.212 --> 01:36:12.074
person on the planet.
01:36:12.094 --> 01:36:13.495
When I think of the idea,
01:36:14.175 --> 01:36:15.656
the arrogance of Mormonism
01:36:15.696 --> 01:36:17.777
to think that their way is
01:36:17.877 --> 01:36:19.518
the only way that you can
01:36:19.639 --> 01:36:21.099
possibly get to God and be
01:36:21.159 --> 01:36:21.880
saved in heaven.
01:36:23.233 --> 01:36:26.035
so arrogant because look at
01:36:26.255 --> 01:36:27.235
all of the different
01:36:27.315 --> 01:36:28.656
experiences that people
01:36:28.716 --> 01:36:32.178
have and the uniqueness of
01:36:32.318 --> 01:36:33.759
everyone's journey on this
01:36:33.799 --> 01:36:35.720
planet there's no way that
01:36:35.740 --> 01:36:36.960
there's just one solution
01:36:37.464 --> 01:36:39.337
and also just the idea
01:36:39.477 --> 01:36:41.839
that i think almost all the
01:36:41.879 --> 01:36:42.999
religions that have ever
01:36:43.059 --> 01:36:44.320
existed have been created
01:36:44.360 --> 01:36:46.161
by men or at least the tradition has
01:36:47.256 --> 01:36:48.356
There are a couple of
01:36:48.376 --> 01:36:49.397
religions that are based on
01:36:49.437 --> 01:36:51.538
women as gods and women as
01:36:51.938 --> 01:36:53.378
the storytellers and the
01:36:53.418 --> 01:36:54.439
keeper of the sacred
01:36:54.699 --> 01:36:55.839
traditions and things like that.
01:36:55.859 --> 01:36:57.460
But whether it's men or
01:36:57.480 --> 01:36:58.980
women is immaterial to me.
01:36:59.020 --> 01:36:59.820
It's human beings,
01:37:00.081 --> 01:37:02.021
human beings putting a very
01:37:02.101 --> 01:37:04.622
limited worldview onto
01:37:04.662 --> 01:37:05.622
something that is supposed
01:37:05.662 --> 01:37:06.943
to be expansive and eternal.
01:37:07.003 --> 01:37:07.903
I just don't think it's ever
01:37:07.943 --> 01:37:09.564
going to work.
01:37:09.604 --> 01:37:09.784
So.
01:37:10.871 --> 01:37:11.832
thing that i love and
01:37:11.872 --> 01:37:14.113
appreciate now is that i
01:37:14.153 --> 01:37:15.174
can explore lots of
01:37:15.214 --> 01:37:16.534
different ideas and i can
01:37:16.575 --> 01:37:18.316
become educated by lots of
01:37:18.796 --> 01:37:20.017
different people's ideas
01:37:20.057 --> 01:37:22.438
about god and religion and
01:37:22.518 --> 01:37:23.659
there is something within
01:37:23.699 --> 01:37:24.760
me that wants to believe
01:37:24.780 --> 01:37:27.521
there's a god there is and
01:37:27.601 --> 01:37:28.822
i think that's a very human
01:37:28.862 --> 01:37:31.002
thing um but am i ever
01:37:31.022 --> 01:37:33.984
gonna know like i used to
01:37:34.024 --> 01:37:35.745
say as a mormon that i know
01:37:36.325 --> 01:37:37.006
absolutely not
01:37:38.950 --> 01:37:39.590
don't think i'm ever going
01:37:39.610 --> 01:37:41.691
to know the other thing is
01:37:41.971 --> 01:37:44.512
that when i look at the god
01:37:44.792 --> 01:37:46.053
of the old testament and
01:37:46.093 --> 01:37:46.753
the god of the new
01:37:46.793 --> 01:37:50.254
testament um i don't really
01:37:50.354 --> 01:37:52.395
like him if that's really
01:37:52.435 --> 01:37:53.735
what god is like is that a
01:37:53.775 --> 01:37:55.136
being that i would want to worship
01:37:57.209 --> 01:37:58.231
I guess the beginning of my
01:37:58.251 --> 01:38:00.194
faith crisis started in two
01:38:00.234 --> 01:38:01.356
thousand and eight because
01:38:01.556 --> 01:38:03.199
I was struggling as a young
01:38:03.239 --> 01:38:05.022
parent to find good
01:38:05.082 --> 01:38:06.785
examples of good parenting.
01:38:08.995 --> 01:38:11.998
And I decided that I was
01:38:12.038 --> 01:38:13.859
going to look at the Bible
01:38:14.159 --> 01:38:16.201
and I started a blog called
01:38:16.241 --> 01:38:17.863
God is the only perfect parent.
01:38:18.423 --> 01:38:19.484
And I wanted to look at the
01:38:19.504 --> 01:38:21.646
way God treats his children
01:38:22.527 --> 01:38:24.369
and and then maybe model my
01:38:24.409 --> 01:38:25.470
parenting after that,
01:38:25.510 --> 01:38:26.391
because I didn't really
01:38:26.451 --> 01:38:27.332
have a good example of
01:38:27.352 --> 01:38:28.693
healthy parenting as a child.
01:38:29.798 --> 01:38:31.559
And I think I wrote two blog
01:38:31.619 --> 01:38:34.399
entries and then almost had
01:38:34.439 --> 01:38:35.480
a faith crisis right then
01:38:35.500 --> 01:38:36.380
and there because I was like,
01:38:37.040 --> 01:38:38.881
this God is not a good parent.
01:38:39.861 --> 01:38:41.962
He's not loving towards his children.
01:38:42.182 --> 01:38:44.883
Like even in the New Testament, he's not.
01:38:45.003 --> 01:38:47.243
It's like either worship me
01:38:47.544 --> 01:38:48.724
or you're damned forever.
01:38:50.638 --> 01:38:51.839
I would prefer to believe in
01:38:51.879 --> 01:38:53.860
a God that gives room for
01:38:53.900 --> 01:38:54.961
the fact that people are
01:38:55.001 --> 01:38:56.522
going to have different experiences.
01:38:56.542 --> 01:38:57.382
And there might be a very
01:38:57.422 --> 01:38:59.863
good reason why they don't
01:38:59.984 --> 01:39:02.305
know you or don't want to worship you.
01:39:02.725 --> 01:39:04.466
And I think about my own parenting too.
01:39:04.486 --> 01:39:05.447
There was a time when one of
01:39:05.507 --> 01:39:07.128
my kids needed space from me.
01:39:08.528 --> 01:39:09.629
I think the God of the old
01:39:09.669 --> 01:39:10.330
Testament would have
01:39:10.370 --> 01:39:12.191
probably struck them dead at that point.
01:39:12.871 --> 01:39:13.131
Right?
01:39:13.251 --> 01:39:13.431
Like,
01:39:13.511 --> 01:39:14.992
I don't want to be near you right now.
01:39:15.212 --> 01:39:15.713
Oh, okay.
01:39:15.773 --> 01:39:17.053
Well, that's it.
01:39:17.093 --> 01:39:17.534
You're cooked.
01:39:18.552 --> 01:39:21.734
So having to reexamine the concept of God,
01:39:23.335 --> 01:39:24.315
if there is a God,
01:39:24.475 --> 01:39:26.116
I hope that he is the type
01:39:26.156 --> 01:39:28.097
of God who is a loving parent,
01:39:28.758 --> 01:39:30.278
who does make room for the
01:39:30.318 --> 01:39:32.560
individual experiences of his children,
01:39:33.080 --> 01:39:35.441
who does care about suffering,
01:39:36.362 --> 01:39:40.204
who does care about trying
01:39:40.244 --> 01:39:41.905
to make the world a better place.
01:39:42.972 --> 01:39:43.312
You know,
01:39:43.552 --> 01:39:46.674
if the president of the
01:39:46.694 --> 01:39:47.634
Corporation of the Church
01:39:47.654 --> 01:39:48.335
of Jesus Christ of
01:39:48.375 --> 01:39:50.395
Latter-day Saints is actually a prophet,
01:39:51.376 --> 01:39:53.017
where was he on September eleventh?
01:39:53.437 --> 01:39:54.698
Where was he for all of
01:39:54.738 --> 01:39:56.038
these school shootings?
01:39:56.218 --> 01:39:57.959
Why are their children in
01:39:57.979 --> 01:39:59.620
their own church with food
01:39:59.660 --> 01:40:00.920
insecurity suffering?
01:40:02.741 --> 01:40:07.063
And that's the whirlpool
01:40:07.083 --> 01:40:08.324
that I get swirled down
01:40:08.424 --> 01:40:10.465
into because I can't
01:40:11.755 --> 01:40:14.397
fathom a divine being who
01:40:14.877 --> 01:40:17.238
wouldn't try to spare his
01:40:17.298 --> 01:40:21.761
children from unnecessary suffering.
01:40:21.781 --> 01:40:23.122
I think that sometimes our
01:40:23.162 --> 01:40:25.303
suffering can be a lesson for us.
01:40:25.463 --> 01:40:27.004
And I think that is part of
01:40:27.084 --> 01:40:29.466
our purpose in life is to
01:40:29.566 --> 01:40:30.887
experience suffering and
01:40:30.947 --> 01:40:32.528
yet be able to find joy in
01:40:32.548 --> 01:40:33.508
the ways that we live.
01:40:34.569 --> 01:40:37.271
If I do have a religion, that's it.
01:40:38.760 --> 01:40:41.041
it's to realize that joy
01:40:41.081 --> 01:40:42.322
comes in these tiny little
01:40:42.362 --> 01:40:43.303
moments that we have to
01:40:43.343 --> 01:40:45.705
learn to savor i think
01:40:45.745 --> 01:40:47.226
it's hard to it's hard to
01:40:47.266 --> 01:40:48.627
think about a god that
01:40:48.687 --> 01:40:50.808
would allow their children
01:40:50.868 --> 01:40:52.329
to suffer needlessly
01:40:53.049 --> 01:40:55.151
because kids don't need to
01:40:55.171 --> 01:40:57.372
be hungry in order for them
01:40:57.412 --> 01:40:58.312
to learn the lessons of
01:40:58.372 --> 01:41:00.694
life kids don't need to be
01:41:00.754 --> 01:41:02.955
senselessly killed in order for them to
01:41:03.664 --> 01:41:05.225
learn to be a good person or
01:41:05.725 --> 01:41:06.786
learn how to live in this
01:41:06.906 --> 01:41:09.941
earth it's just that's the
01:41:10.021 --> 01:41:11.241
ongoing question for me
01:41:12.342 --> 01:41:15.584
what i love is engaging in
01:41:15.644 --> 01:41:16.884
discussions about different
01:41:16.924 --> 01:41:18.685
versions of spirituality
01:41:19.225 --> 01:41:21.086
for people and for me my
01:41:21.146 --> 01:41:24.048
spirituality is in nature i
01:41:24.088 --> 01:41:27.350
have such a strong connection to um
01:41:28.756 --> 01:41:29.877
to the natural world.
01:41:30.037 --> 01:41:33.520
And water is something that I'm drawn to.
01:41:33.720 --> 01:41:36.142
I feel a sense of awe when I
01:41:36.883 --> 01:41:39.104
think about the power of water.
01:41:39.905 --> 01:41:42.223
And when I'm in nature,
01:41:42.303 --> 01:41:44.625
I'm the most able to savor
01:41:44.685 --> 01:41:46.487
beautiful moments and beautiful things.
01:41:47.828 --> 01:41:48.989
I love the colors and the
01:41:49.049 --> 01:41:50.410
sounds and the smells and
01:41:50.490 --> 01:41:51.410
everything about it.
01:41:51.931 --> 01:41:53.332
So for me, for right now,
01:41:53.372 --> 01:41:54.153
that's my church.
01:41:55.075 --> 01:41:55.716
is in nature.
01:41:56.256 --> 01:41:58.478
I feel a sense of wonder and
01:41:58.679 --> 01:42:00.741
awe there more than I ever
01:42:00.781 --> 01:42:03.403
did sitting in a Mormon church building.
01:42:05.621 --> 01:42:07.241
I have rambled on for a very
01:42:07.281 --> 01:42:08.322
long time this evening.
01:42:08.362 --> 01:42:09.643
It was much longer than I
01:42:09.703 --> 01:42:11.644
expected it to be or wanted it to be.
01:42:12.224 --> 01:42:13.485
But I love being here with
01:42:13.505 --> 01:42:14.765
you beautiful human beings.
01:42:14.865 --> 01:42:15.526
And I hope that you've
01:42:15.546 --> 01:42:16.826
gotten something positive
01:42:16.986 --> 01:42:18.687
out of this episode.
01:42:19.468 --> 01:42:22.729
And if you have, please like the episode.
01:42:23.150 --> 01:42:24.850
Please share it with someone
01:42:25.351 --> 01:42:27.652
who needs to hear what you heard.
01:42:28.512 --> 01:42:29.593
And if you're able...
01:42:30.496 --> 01:42:31.677
please subscribe.
01:42:32.098 --> 01:42:33.139
And if you have the means,
01:42:33.199 --> 01:42:34.400
please become a member.
01:42:35.862 --> 01:42:36.762
I had a lovely,
01:42:37.063 --> 01:42:39.045
wonderful group coaching
01:42:39.085 --> 01:42:40.426
session this morning with
01:42:40.466 --> 01:42:41.507
some of the beautiful
01:42:41.547 --> 01:42:43.649
humans who come and visit my channel.
01:42:44.390 --> 01:42:45.371
It was a free session.
01:42:46.332 --> 01:42:47.333
because group coaching is a
01:42:47.393 --> 01:42:48.494
new thing that i'm starting
01:42:49.055 --> 01:42:49.936
i would love to have you
01:42:49.976 --> 01:42:51.297
join us for a free group
01:42:51.337 --> 01:42:52.978
coaching session it was so
01:42:53.018 --> 01:42:54.700
wonderful to connect with
01:42:54.780 --> 01:42:55.701
other beautiful human
01:42:55.741 --> 01:42:57.102
beings and just talk about
01:42:57.583 --> 01:42:59.204
some of our experiences and
01:42:59.264 --> 01:43:00.526
talk about the way that we
01:43:00.566 --> 01:43:02.227
think about things and
01:43:02.928 --> 01:43:05.230
engage in the idea of just
01:43:05.250 --> 01:43:06.651
changing one small thing
01:43:06.691 --> 01:43:07.652
that can make our lives a
01:43:07.672 --> 01:43:08.313
little bit better
01:43:09.756 --> 01:43:11.277
If you are so inclined,
01:43:11.417 --> 01:43:12.437
I also do one-on-one
01:43:12.477 --> 01:43:14.218
coaching and you can go to my website,
01:43:14.298 --> 01:43:16.279
third-verse.com and sign up
01:43:16.299 --> 01:43:18.240
for a free consultation
01:43:18.760 --> 01:43:19.921
where we meet one-on-one
01:43:19.961 --> 01:43:21.301
virtually and just see if
01:43:21.341 --> 01:43:22.822
we're a good fit to work together.
01:43:25.363 --> 01:43:26.484
One of the things that I
01:43:26.524 --> 01:43:28.425
love the most is connecting
01:43:28.485 --> 01:43:29.725
with other beautiful human
01:43:29.745 --> 01:43:30.646
beings and hearing your
01:43:30.686 --> 01:43:33.247
stories and finding ways
01:43:33.447 --> 01:43:35.468
that my experiences can
01:43:35.528 --> 01:43:37.709
help you to make your life better.
01:43:39.105 --> 01:43:40.486
I'm so grateful for the
01:43:40.506 --> 01:43:41.547
conversation that has
01:43:41.567 --> 01:43:42.708
happened here tonight,
01:43:43.789 --> 01:43:46.010
and I'm grateful for you for being here.
01:43:46.190 --> 01:43:47.952
Thank you for listening to
01:43:47.992 --> 01:43:51.254
me talk about my experience
01:43:51.854 --> 01:43:53.175
in journeying away from the
01:43:53.215 --> 01:43:53.916
Mormon Church.
01:43:54.957 --> 01:43:56.158
It has been very hard,
01:43:57.098 --> 01:43:58.499
and it will continue to be hard,
01:43:59.500 --> 01:44:02.042
but I am happier now than I
01:44:02.122 --> 01:44:02.843
ever have been.
01:44:04.784 --> 01:44:07.606
I am living a shame-free life.
01:44:08.454 --> 01:44:10.655
meaningful life.
01:44:10.855 --> 01:44:12.776
And I think I'm probably
01:44:12.836 --> 01:44:14.317
doing more to help people
01:44:14.377 --> 01:44:16.978
now than I ever did when I
01:44:16.998 --> 01:44:18.438
was serving in the Mormon church.
01:44:21.780 --> 01:44:23.000
I have so much beauty in my
01:44:23.040 --> 01:44:23.661
life right now.
01:44:23.681 --> 01:44:25.682
And so if you're going
01:44:25.722 --> 01:44:27.222
through any kind of a faith
01:44:27.262 --> 01:44:28.223
transition or you're
01:44:28.263 --> 01:44:29.383
struggling with your faith,
01:44:29.423 --> 01:44:31.004
I want to reassure you that number one,
01:44:31.084 --> 01:44:32.545
it's one hundred percent normal.
01:44:33.565 --> 01:44:35.726
It is totally normal for human beings
01:44:36.559 --> 01:44:37.620
to have faith crisis.
01:44:37.821 --> 01:44:39.263
It happens all the time, every day.
01:44:40.505 --> 01:44:41.687
And I just want to encourage
01:44:41.707 --> 01:44:42.489
you that it gets better.
01:44:43.851 --> 01:44:46.235
It gets better and you'll be happy again.
01:44:46.255 --> 01:44:47.216
You'll find peace again.
01:44:48.750 --> 01:44:50.311
and you have all of these
01:44:50.351 --> 01:44:51.531
beautiful humans to connect
01:44:51.571 --> 01:44:53.072
with this channel can be a
01:44:53.132 --> 01:44:54.593
resource for you please
01:44:54.633 --> 01:44:55.533
reach out i would love to
01:44:55.573 --> 01:44:56.414
plug you into other
01:44:56.454 --> 01:44:58.255
resources and coming up
01:44:58.335 --> 01:44:59.135
over the next couple of
01:44:59.175 --> 01:45:00.396
weeks will be episodes with
01:45:00.476 --> 01:45:01.476
other beautiful human
01:45:01.496 --> 01:45:02.817
beings who have
01:45:02.877 --> 01:45:03.977
transitioned away from the
01:45:04.017 --> 01:45:05.998
mormon church and talking
01:45:06.038 --> 01:45:07.399
about their reconstruction
01:45:07.419 --> 01:45:08.760
their faith journey now
01:45:09.680 --> 01:45:11.141
what their lives look like now.
01:45:11.501 --> 01:45:13.302
And I'm so excited to share
01:45:13.322 --> 01:45:14.342
those stories with you.
01:45:14.462 --> 01:45:15.603
I hope that you will join us.
01:45:16.243 --> 01:45:19.905
Be good to each other, but most of all,
01:45:20.045 --> 01:45:22.914
be good to yourself.