I hope things at BYU-I have changed since the days of Ricks College.

I speak of the marvelous president (Bednar at the time) who went door to door checking up on sabbath day observances. While President Bednar (he insisted on being called Elder because he believed it was a higher title) was harassing the students to be dressed in Sunday best clothes and holding their scriptures up high for all to observe their holiness and fresh scrubbed faces, I was charged with a different task.

Believe it or not, students at Ricks College actually got robbed, raped, assaulted, bullied, and impregnated. I tried incessantly to instill upon students to lock their doors, always, not just at night. I tried to get landlords to make sure student housing always had functioning locks on student apartments. I tried to keep the students aware of the fact that not all people living and traveling though Rexburg were Mormon. And even Mormons could do harm to other Mormons.

Did I get any help on my quest to keep students safe? Nope. The higher powers felt that everything that had to do with the Lord's Holy College should APPEAR clean, safe, holy, and well groomed. Never got much backup from on high. I think they did install emergency call boxes at some point or am I dreaming because I've seen them on so many other campuses?

Huh?

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/church/leader/david-a-bednar?lang=eng

How could he have gone by "Elder"????

This needs to be explained or I think this is just making things up.

"While President Bednar (he insisted on being called Elder because he believed it was a higher title) was harassing the students to be dressed in Sunday best clothes and holding their scriptures up high for all to observe their holiness and fresh scrubbed faces, I was charged with a different task."

How would any Mormon get to be called "Elder" without being an apostle or missionary? It would be extremely disrespectful for Mormons.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/10/2019 12:28PM by Elder Berry.

You just described BYU-Provo! Same thing. I had an attempted rape, while getting my mail at Cannon Center. He wrestled me to the floor and had broken my arm, by the time some football player friends of mine heard my screaming, and pulled the perp off of me, and dragged him away.

You're right about "Mormons could do harm to other Mormons." I wish I had learned that lesson. I got married in the temple to a smiling, "gentle giant" RM, who was related to a GA. The GA and the rest of his family had kept his criminal history hidden from me and my family. He beat me, for several months, and almost killed me, before I finally divorced him.

Why do people think there are locked lockers in the Mormon God's temple?

On the BYU campus, I never ventured out alone at night. I was raised in the city, and I knew better. Still--going to my religion class, I was chased by someone who jumped out from behind the bushes, and tried to grab me. (I was a fast runner). Another time, on my way to a 7:00 am science lab, I was accosted by a flasher, who had a reputation, and was called "The Whistler". My bicycle was stolen the first day at BYU--and I had carefully locked it. When I had a car, the three times I forgot to lock it, everything was taken out of it--books, clothes, whatever was in there. Strange, but I've attended 2 other universities, and have negotiated several big cities, and have never had one thing stolen, or one person attack me! Only at BYU.

The BYU girls bathrooms had shelves for books, by the mirrors, and I left my books there, and they were stolen. I got wise, and took everything with me into the little toilet stall, which was very awkward and cramped, so I laid my books on the floor in front of me. Some hands reached under the stall door, and grabbed my books! So, it was books on my lap, from then on. A friend put her books under her desk in a classroom, and those were stolen, by the person sitting behind her.

Roommates were assigned, for first-semester freshmen in Helaman Halls, and my roommate was a religious fanatic that read the BOM every morning and every night, and she was also jealous, and a nasty gossip. Many of my possessions went missing, such as money, my high school graduation watch, and other jewelry, and even clothes, so I was always careful to lock the room. At the end of the year, my roommate confessed that she had stolen all those things, and the bishop would not let her go on a mission, unless she paid me back. I told her those things were priceless, were not there when I needed them, and that her gossip was just as hurtful to me and my friends.

BYU campus security did nothing to help us. I will be forever indebted to those football players who rescued me. By the way, the guy who broke my arm was engaged to the girl across the hall from me in the dorm! My niece's roommate's fiancee raped her, and got away with it. He asked to come into the apartment, and wait in the living room, for his fiancee to come home, and they were alone in the apartment. My niece became anorexic, and left BYU, and went to another nursing school, and graduated from there. The fiancee was never prosecuted, and my niece got the blame, for letting him into the apartment!

I don't know about emergency call booths at BYU-I, but I know there are a lot of them, all over the BYU campus, with more lights--and I'll bet these get used a lot! Kids have cell phones, and I wonder if those help dispel assaults and rapes. I doubt it, as campus security never shows up, anyway.

I went to youth conference at BYU and, after that, even though I had never planned on college, I could never have gone to a church college. I didn't think much of BYU or Ricks anyway. My sister went to BYU. I guess she liked it. She hated USU because it was so "wild." She's the one who is still going to church, but not much of a believer. She went back to USU after she got married.

I moved to Provo for a week once. My sister coerced me into it. She even found my apartment for me. I had a missionary leaving and she set it up for me to move there the week before he left. The first roommates didn't want me, so they moved me to another apartment. Her roommates took me for the afternoon and evening. I was extremely homesick. So when they took me back to the apartment after dark, the key didn't work and no one would answer the door. What would I have done if I didn't know someone? The people running the apartments also didn't answer the door.

They weren't going to give me back my deposit, but BYU actually had a list of the owners of all mormon approved apartments and gave me his address, and he returned all my money. I went home. Went to work at the evil company named Thiokol in Promontory. No good mormon girls worked there supposedly. I did. A manager treated me poorly because he didn't think I should be there. He was a patriarch. Most of the mormon men I worked with were wonderful. There were those few who were jerks, asked me why I wasn't married yet. I wasn't avoiding the appearance of evil working at Thiokol. Loved working there.

I met my current boyfriend there. I didn't marry him because he wasn't mormon, though the mormon men I liked loved him. One of them got us back together.

I didn’t like the feeling I had on the couple of occasions I visited BYU. I look back on it now and it feels somehow evil. Ironic, that until I visited I was really hing up on going there, which would have been impossible as a single mother from the UK.

What I do remember is staying in Utah. We were allowed to stay in a members house while they were away. It was this huge mansion in the mountains, but part of a neighbourhood of similar homes. All these people always left their homes unlocked because there was no crime and they felt safe. It really struck me as something, given the wealth.

I like to think I checked and locked up at night. I don’t remember. But is this a thing in some places in Utah?

Was it a gated community? I don't leave my doors unlocked. I live in a lower middle class neighborhood and we have had things stolen many times. Being a single mom with anxiety, I had my house locked down at night. I had boards in the window runners, etc., and dead bolts on the doors.

I remember when I was really young, people didn't lock their doors or their cars.

SLC has a lot of people who steal things out of cars, steal cars, steal things off the porch. SLC has shootings and stabbings daily. We have some horrible crimes in Cache Valley, which isn't a big city.

I'd be surprised if there are all that many people who don't lock their doors in Utah.

But I also never got a good feeling at BYU. I can't put my finger on what it is, but USU is a lot friendlier. My TBM daughter also was not in the least bit interested in going to BYU.