I was out over the weekend and I didn't get a chance to reply to this.

"So Cheryl and Elder Berry have family that became part of polygamy, specifically the AUB?
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,978074,978898#msg-978898

I Elder Berry have a sister and all her kids in the AUB.

"That's your connection to being an expert about it?"
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,978074,978898#msg-978898

That is my connection. I am an expert on my life I think and someone with experience with my sister that I like to share.

Here are some details which will probably help you know who my sister is.

I know her eldest two daughters are married and I believe her eldest does not have a sister wife yet those she has a few kids of her own now.

I know her third eldest daughter (via family gossip) is now the second wife of a man I believe 10 years her senior.

As to being an expert I do not claim that at all. I don't know where this accusation came from here.

I've spoke with my sister a few times about her cult and it seems to me to be one. Incidentally, I think when she finds out I think she is in a cult, she may not want to speak to me anymore. We aren't close or in touch much anyway.

What I know is they have ankle and wrist length garments. She never cuts her hair. She lives a communal lifestyle. She wears pants. She oversees a lot of her household and is the manager of it by being the first and legal wife. She works and others wives have childcare responsibilities. The wives all have to agree on what I call a "Sex Schedule" which is my brother-in-law's sleeping arrangements. She recently erroneously texted another sibling of mine about her most recent sister wife who apparently left my BIL who was like 25+ years his junior. Her cult believes in 2 prophets - one for the world and one for the "higher laws." The reasoning behind all this has to do with a pamphlet they (sister & BIL) let me read talking about Woodruff's Arizona revelation and John Taylor's son's priesthood.

And a bunch of other details I've glean that I don't want to type.

Fascinating stuff. But they also stole millions (AUB) from some lady that stashed her cash with one of their members and I think that Owen Allred was cool with that. They maintain a low profile and my sister claims to believe Hinckley was a prophet (at the time I talked to her.)

I never heard of the underage marriages. My sister was adamant about 2 things - No under 18 marriages and No government assistance.

Now you REALLY will know who my sis is when I tell you this - she and my BIL decided to join the AUB instead of her grandfather's FLDS because the FLDS was more "restrictive." When I pressed her she was honest - her husband didn't want to agree to no recreational (non-procreative) sex.

Let me know how my "expertise" is off here. I'm sure it will be interesting how ever this plays out.

Mormonism and its perverse mutations are a plague on mankind.

May I ask a personal question? How does it feel to observe this all going down? I'm not sure I wouldn't get involved...

s4711 logged out Wrote:
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> May I ask a personal question? How does it feel to
> observe this all going down?

I was basically reconverted on my mission. I needed help living to get off wanting to be high all the time. I decide to live at home again since I knew if I ever went back to my old ways as an adult, I would be totally on my own. So I cleaned up and after moving back into my parents home at 19 I got intense pressure to go on a mission. Left for Spain at 20 and 1/2.

I found out on my mission that my sister whom I loved more than every one of my other siblings had joined the "Allred Group." I was devastated. I knew then that her controlling husband had her completely and any relationship with her and I was basically over. At that time I loathed polygamy. I've always had an idealistic view of marriage even in the face of my parent's strange and strained marriage.

My sister was a taboo subject for awhile after I returned home. I saw her but didn't talk to her much. I never liked her husband. Fast forward to 10 years ago. I was married and had kids and I found out my ancestor Zina had married Joseph Smith while she was married to Henry Jacobs. My testimony finally imploded. So I found a book about it and read it - "In Sacred Loneliness." I was excited to share this book with my sister. I thought it would cure her of polygamy and maybe she would divorce her husband.

At my grandfather's funeral (the second husband of my grandmother who was Rulon Jeff's exwife) I brought up the subject of the book ISL. My sister had already read it a couple of times and loved it. It really helped her testimony. I was crestfallen.

We kept in ok contact after this for a little while and when her and my BIL found out I wanted nothing to do with the church they had me read their pamphlets and wanted me to investigate their cult. I politely told them that I wasn't interested and our contact faded till it was what it is today - nonexistent.

It was a hard time for me personally. It seems from my perspective, Mormonism is all about stuff that forces people like my ancestor Zina into trials of faith and loyalty tests. If you don't pass them, you just become like the rest of the world which is fine by me. It is too myopic and restrictive.

I also was told and read that this cult doesn't allow sex with minor children under age 18. This rule was a result of a sex scandal a few years ago when some of the men admitted and were in trouble for having sex with very young girls. There were newspaper articles and TV news replays linked here at RfM.

But X_aub said in said that young girls often do marry in that cult. So even though they have the best PR and claim to be better and allow more choices and respect for individual decisions and personal freedom than any other plyg group, I guess they're still quite draconian about foisting sex on young girls and calling it good.

The 18 year rule might be purely a PR ploy with little meaning or perhaps it's a goal with many exceptions depending on what the parents and leaders decide.

The plygs I knew in that group when I was a kid were Marvin Allred, his wives, and their kids. I did meet Rulon and Owen, and others and attended some of their meetings. I have many blood relatives still mired in it. My brother and his first wife left it and joined the mainstream mormons, but many of their children and grandchildren are still in it and might be married to your relatives.

Marvin's second wife, Edith, and her kids lived in our home for months. Some others came for a couple of weeks now and then when the authorities were following them and planning possible crackdowns or when there was possible violence threatening at time of big power grabs.

Other groups and plyg families also spent time in our home and of course the prophet my parents followed parked trailers for some of his wives on our farm.

Weird that someone would accuse people of not being "experts" when they never claimed that questionable distinction.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2013 03:46PM by Cheryl.

Cheryl Wrote:
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> Weird that someone would accuse people of not
> being "experts" when they never claimed that
> questionable distinction.

My guess is X_aub is still a believer. I think they are young. I know my nieces and nephews have lots of computer access and the older ones have smart phones.

It is Holy United Order communal so, the shunning from leaving might be very very hard. Their restrictions seem more about "higher laws" and so it is Mainstream Mormonimdoubleplus which is probably impossible to live a technological life outside this protective context without a replacement lifestyle.

I bet the crossing from AUB to LDS and back is more frequent than FLDS to LDS. From what I've glean from the FLDS, it is nothing like Mainstream Mormonism. Once you leave it, you probably leave Mormonism.

the 18 year old sex rule.

I didn't think about that but yeah.

The feedback I got about my niece who became a second wife is that she sees it as a joke. Of the three of them, she looks the most like my BIL. My sister has always been considered good looking. When she started dating my BIL (he was an RM divorcee who had married, fathered a child and divorced a woman he converted on his mission) she started to wear makeup - something she had never done.

A little background about the two siblings a few years older than me. My a few years older than me brother and sister don't like each other. But they were growing up the most devoted people to LDS Inc. I knew. My sister never wore pants to High School, befriended the most socially ostracized people and never said a bad word about anyone.

She starts dating at Ricks this guy 7 or more years her senior who is kissing up to my parents and coming across to me like a salesman (later he would sell my parents lots of Melaluca products.) My sister transforms herself into what I thought looked like a Tammy Faye face. He basically covered her natural beauty in goo.

Anyway, they married because their bishop told them to basically. They had kids of which they had three daughters in succession. The two older girls are beauties like my sister. The youngest of them looks exactly like their father. I think she lucked out of being a first wife because of her looks. Who knows what happens to less influential and beautiful girls in the A. not U first, U. B...

Questions from a non-Mormon...Isn't Christine Brown (of TLC's Sister Wives) from the Allred family? Is there any truth to the rumor that Kody was pressured into marrying her?