156: Backstory on the Keith Erekson Fireside – An Invitation to Do Better

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Helena’s Questions, Email, and Response

Transcript

[00:00] Michelle: Welcome to 132 Problems revisiting Mormon polygamy. Two weeks ago, I aired the panel discussion that I held regarding the Keith Erickson fireside that so many of us found to be so Troubling and upsetting and difficult to understand. As a result of that episode, I have been contacted by multiple people who were actually in that state where that fire site was held and some who were in attendance. I have had some phone conversations with some of them, and I have asked them to come and join me in a discussion to share their stories to help us understand more about the context. Behind that meeting and the experience that some people had, it was, it was Amazing learning these things. And I am so thankful to Nan and Erin Ellsworth and to Helena Chamberlain for being willing to come and share their extremely painful, vulnerable stories with the rest of us to help us understand more of why these things matter so much. I also have been contacted by multiple people who were in, um, who are in a stake in Australia or keep. Eriksson did a fireside in December, and apparently, many of them have had similar experiences and reacted in similar ways to this fireside. I, it is important to me to express my motive and my reason for sharing these things. I am not at all wanting to be adversarial to my church that I love. I think you will see that from this conversation, but my hope is that perhaps, um, Many of our church leaders, both on the local level and, and, and on more general levels, will be willing and able to watch these conversations and understand the impact of the, the decisions that are being made of how to engage on this topic. I desperately hope and pray that, um, that things can be a little bit different going forward. And it is in that spirit that I’m sharing this, this. Just in the hope that, um, people can listen with empathy and compassion and seeking the spirit, rather than with defensiveness or, um, divisiveness, seeing, seeing this as an adversarial stance. That’s not, that is cer I certainly don’t want to be, um, adversarial to the church, and I don’t believe my guests do either. So with all of that being said, thank you so much for joining us for this extremely important conversation. Welcome to this episode of 132 Problems. I am So looking forward to this conversation, I have to introduce you to our panel here and give a little overview of why these 3 guests are here and why I am so profoundly thankful that they are here and that they are willing to bring you their story that I think everybody needs to hear. So first, this is Manan Ellsworth and Erin Ellsworth, and um I tried to get them together on the bottom so we just decided it’s a diagonal love map. So they’re across from each other, but they are married and they’re diagonal. Yep, and then Helina Chamberlain, who was also in the ward. And um what is so fascinating here is that these are 3 members of a ward in far west Missouri where the recent Keith Erickson fireside took place, and they all 3 reached out to me. A few other people did as well, but I ended up having a phone conversation with Helena that blew me away as she explained. Some of the background of um of this fire site and what the impact has been particularly for you three but I think for many more in the state as well and and then also then Manon reached out to me and I’ve had a conversation with her. I I just and I’m meeting Erin for the first time but you guys have got to hear this story and my hope is that um. People in our church who are in the history department and who are in leadership can hear these stories and I’m sorry I’m already, I told them I’m already a mess today because this story is just um. It’s, it’s, it, it needs to be brought to attention so that people can understand the impact and the fallout of the way that things can be handled and in the hope of the way that things sometimes have been handled in the hope that they can be handled much better. That’s what we’re just trying to present a better way. So would you, that’s a bit of an introduction. Would you guys mind kind of telling us a little bit about yourselves? Maybe we can start with um Manon and Erin and then Helena just kind of tell us the backgrounds we need to know to get into this.

[04:53] Manon: Um, well, uh, we, we moved to Missouri about almost 4 years ago now, and, um, I have, uh, 2 degrees in, in clinical psychology, and master’s in clinical psychology and counseling, and I had, and I still have a practice. Um, I’ve been counseling for 12 years and um we felt in uh you know, inspired to move from Colorado to here um. You know, back in what was it, honey, 2021, was it 2021? Yeah. Yeah, and, um, and so, yeah, we, we just, we, we got here and then Um, what else would you like to know?

[05:35] Michelle: Oh yeah, yeah. Well, so, um, so just, so you have, do you have 34 children, did you say? Yes,

[05:41] Manon: we have 3 young girls, um, and so, uh, ages 1410, and 7, and so we were just, um, we’re very active church members, had, you know, temple recommends, current, always had a current temple recommend our whole lives. Um, so, you know, all this happened just in just a flood of, of kind of shock.

[06:05] Michelle: Um, so, so I do wanna ask, so let’s let Helena introduce herself, and then I kind of want to ask you guys, how you, how your, um, Your understanding of, I guess specifically we’re talking about polygamy, right? How your understanding of polygamy shifted when that happened, you can give us kind of an overview of that and then we will get people caught up on the full story. So, um, Helena, tell us a little bit about your background and relationship with the church.

[06:31] Helena Chamberlain: So my name is Helena Chamberlain. Uh, my family moved here last July. Um, my, my family of origin actually moved to this area in Missouri when I was 15, so about 30 years ago, um, my family moved here and I finished high school here. And then I went to BYUI when it was Rick’s College and. After I graduated from there, I moved to Utah and met my husband there. And so I’ve lived in Utah for the last 24 years. And so my family, with 3 of my children, I have 5 children, we just moved to this area, um. Last July, so, um, and moved into the ward that the Ellsworths were in, and a few weeks after I moved into the ward, I was called in to be an adviser in young women and work with Manon. She was the young women’s president at the time.

[07:30] Michelle: OK, so Minan, when were you called to be the young women’s?

[07:35] Manon: I was called in April last year and so I had, um, you know, had, there had been a break and I had been in the primary presidency and the ward split. And so then the ward split and um I was called to young women’s president. And so, um, so that was about April, so, you know, um. What else would you like?

[07:58] Michelle: Well, so I do wanna, I do want to just, I, I am since I am hoping that people can hear this, I want to point out that all three of you are, um, lifelong, very faithful contributing members of this church who have been. Um, you have, you have been a benefit to the church, right? You’ve been, you’ve made huge contributions to the church. You are the kind of members we want in the church. I would say.

[08:21] Manon: We, we have a strong testimony of the gospel. Like I said, you know, at one point that, um, we never would, would leave. In fact, when all this went down with the polygamy thing. Um, you know, Holy Father, you know, I’ve been praying a lot, and Holy father said, just let them, don’t remove your records. He said, don’t remove your records because they were, they were kind of, we felt a little intimidated. They were, uh, I say they, the mistake was kind of intimidating us because um of the polygamy issue. Um, as a prime as uh uh young women’s president, I, I guess we could, if we backtrack two years prior. Um, I really didn’t have polygamy on my radar. Uh, polygamy, I just believed the narrative I’d always been told that Joseph Smith did it, and, you know, and I just believed that narrative, but in 2022, I ended up reading a book called, um, it’s Fannie Stenhouse book, uh, you know, Tell it all, yeah, Tell it all woman in, uh, a woman in Mormonism or something like that and so. I had read Fannie Stenhouse’s book and during this reading of this biography of hers, um, I just, the Holy Ghost kept impressing on me and over and over, it was just burning my soul and my heart and telling me in my mind, Manon, you know, this is not, um, polygamy never was of me. He kept saying, God kept saying polygamy never was of me, Manon. Do you understand? Polygamy never was of me. And then halfway through the book, I opened to a section that she recaps Jacob 2 in there. And I knew before I turned the page, Holy Ghost told me specifically, you know what you’re gonna see on the next page. You don’t even have to look at it. You’ve never read this book before, and you know what’s gonna happen. And I turned that page and I knew she was going to recap Jacob too, and I started bawling because then God said to me again, polygamy never was of me. Do you understand Manon? And I said, yes, God, but what do you want me to do with that? And then he says, Well, I want you to teach it. And at this point, I didn’t have a calling. I didn’t have a teaching. And I go, and I was a little bit nervous because we’ve been told our whole lives that it’s from Joseph Smith. And I thought, I can’t do that, God. I don’t have any evidence. And in 2022, God, when he says to me, he’s done this to me in the past, he says, Well, OK then. And as soon as he says, OK, then, I’m a little bit alarmed because I know what’s coming. He’s gonna give me what I asked. OK. And that’s exactly what happened. Subsequently, month after month, I, you know, was given evidence and then I go uh research, you research your research. I used to be an English teacher as well, and, um, I know how to research my research, meaning you research the author who wrote it, what’s their character, what political side are they on, everything. And you know, you know, how to research your research. And so I did that with these articles that I was learning and um I went, tracked it back to Joe Smith papers and they’re actual documents written by Joseph Smith, Hiram, minute meetings, I mean, everything. And I was shocked. I was astonished, and God would say, see, see, I didn’t command this. See, see, and it was just over and over and it was burning my whole soul. And I knew then, after about a year and a half of that, that OK, I have all this evidence. And then the war got split, and I got called as young women’s president. And then God says, now I want to teach, I want you to teach it to the young women, but with time, because young women, that’s about the age where they enter seminary and it’s age appropriate. You, you shouldn’t be teaching these kind of concepts to not age-appropriate kids. They should be 13 and above, at least. No, no primary kids. should be, that’s too deep and heavy of a topic, polygamy talking about it with young children. But, you know, so God said, you’re going to teach it to the young women. But first, this year, before, I don’t want you to talk about it at all until it gets to next year’s DNC because you know, this is

[12:15] Michelle: this comes up, when it comes up when

[12:17] Manon: it’s age, when it’s appropriate and do it very. And but in the meantime, he wanted me to teach the children the, the youth, the girls, and, and have my advisors teach them about heavenly mother, and we teach the, the, the, you know, the theme that they say, and he, he, you know, the Holy Ghost said, hey, I want you to stop just reciting this as a mantra. I want you to take it apart and actually, you know, apply it and discuss it in a more pondering way. And so we would take a section. And I would say, do you realize what this means? That means we have a hem we are daughters of our heavenly parents. We have a heavenly mother. She values us and heavenly father told me this, or, you know, the Holy Ghost told me, I want my daughters to know their value, that they’re so valued and that they need to know that first before you get to polygamy, because if, if you just dive into polygamy, it, it’s just overwhelming. It’s like diving in a deep end. But if you realize that you’re valued, the polygamy thing narrative doesn’t make sense. It just doesn’t.

[13:23] Michelle: So you were not, I don’t want people to hear this and think, oh, she was gonna teach it like you were centering your teaching on the individual worth of. Each of these girls that you had been called to have stewardship over. And the inspiration from God to you in this stewardship was, these girls need to know how I, God, see them, feel about them and value them. That was the message, right? And you were being prepared to give that message to that girls and, and to those girls. And can I just say, isn’t that what we all want our teenage girls to be taught by their leaders, so beautiful. And then And then when you would get to polygamy, you would follow the spirit to be able to help them understand it in a sensitive age appropriate way. I do not get the impression from you that you were gonna say the church is wrong, this is, you know what I mean? Like you were just going to help these girls understand. And what Joseph Smith said, what the scriptures say, and let them think about it. Am I, am I interpreting that correctly? 100%. OK. And I wanted to go into that because, um, because these are such, um, divisive topics and we have been. Strangely put in a position sort of by the church curriculums that have been coming out to be forced to address them head on because we are being given curriculums for our primary children as well as our young people that are saying this is of God. God commands this this is how you know which which sort of forces our hand more than maybe we would have like you know we’ve gone through. Decades of 132 not even being addressed other than just the eternal marriage parts.

[14:56] Manon: It’s true. I didn’t even know half of it until about 10 years ago, yeah,

[15:01] Michelle: so I just thank you for spelling that out because I think it’s important for people to, um, at least for me, it’s very helpful for me to understand this was God preparing you. Spirituually and intellectually and, um, scripturally for the calling you were going to be given because God values these girls. That’s how I’m hearing that 100%. And so, and I also love you sharing that you came to this organically, like, even though there’s so much content being this has become such a hot topic, you were not aware of any of that, but you just out of curiosity readanny Stenhouse’s tell it all. And the Lord impressed, so, so it’s like I, I love that testimony as well because I keep saying to people that are fighting against us, like, you may as well stick out your puny hand to stop the the Mississippi River from flowing as try to stop God from distilling truth upon the saints, right? Because you cannot, you can’t stop this because it is pouring down on so many different independent people, right? And then after you’d already been introduced to God, I’m assuming that that’s when you Read Whitney Horning’s book, started watching videos, seeing more things to be able to validate what God was telling you with evidence that people had done. OK.

[16:14] Manon: Yeah, I saw Rob Fatheringham and Himnos first. I didn’t know, yeah, I didn’t know who Whitney Horning was until later and then I found, found her and I got her book and, you know, and she, you know, interprets or injects her, her uh her opinion some, but if you take the actual articles that she uh Um, uses and, and I do my research. I track them and make sure they’re legit. She is they’re actual documents, not by her, but by the church itself. It’s by our our prophets, Joseph Smith and the minutes and the, you know, all that. And so they’re, you know,

[16:49] Michelle: it gives you the keys of what to go research like we all are doing. I, I, I want everyone to be doing our own research. We’re just trying to provide additional tools and sources and, you know, questions and. So, OK, so yeah, were you the first one that came to this that like like Erin, were you worried your wife was falling off the deep end, like what, how did this go for you guys?

[17:14] Aaron: Right, so for me, um, Man, I knew that Manon had been reading that book, and one day she came upstairs into my office and she was in tears and she told me about her experience where Uh, she was reading it and she was just thinking in her mind because she’d been telling me bits and pieces of this book and how the polygamy was just, just ruining the lives of the, the early saints in Utah. And how miserable the experiences were for them and how there were so many families that were just living in, in the poorest of poor conditions and some of these husbands with multiple wives, they would have like one wife and and family and stuff like that in a nice house with with a nicer setup and other women were just just in these terrible, terrible living conditions. And then Brigham Young was always in one or more mansions, like everyone else is living in these little tiny huts, mud huts, and he’s living in a mansion at the time. And, uh, so I, I’d been hearing at night, every night, some of the stuff as to the experiences. Well, Manon came up and she told me her experience where God’s, uh, where she was wondering, you know, how could this this be or, you know, why is polygamy so bad if it’s, if it’s a commandment of God or something. I forget the exact wording. And then she told me that her experience where God said it never was of me, Manon. And when she told me that, the Holy Ghost has confirmed that is true to me as well. And so that was my first testimony and it it was kind of like an eye opener, a shock because I’ve been taught my whole life that it was true and, and so, but all of a sudden things started to click and my brain started started thinking and wondering and being like, well, no wonder why this when the topic comes up. Seminary teachers and institute teachers want to say, well, let’s just put a pin on it. Let’s just put that on the shelf. Let’s not talk about that because. Yeah, well, anyway, it just started to make sense. So like Manon said, we, we started looking up for more. Information and evidence to back this up because we had this testimony, but we didn’t have any proof, any evidence to to back it up and so we spent a while looking for those types of videos, um, and found the, the video that was either from Rob Fatheringham’s or or Hemlock Knots, I forget which one we watched first, but it was basically about, you know, who introduced polygamy first, Brigham Young or Joseph Smith. And that unlocked a whole lot of keys and then we were able to find the actual sources and get on to Joseph Smith papers and and actually see things and uh that unlocked the door. Well, when the new ward was created later on, we had had been finding all of this stuff and Manon got her calling and right about the exact same time, it was within a week, I was given a calling to teach a steak adult religion class, uh, where they cover like an institute manual, and they, they teach the class. So I was supposed to be the teacher in one of these steak classes, adult religion classes.

[20:12] Michelle: Can

[20:12] Aaron: I

[20:12] Michelle: ask, was this a Sunday class or was this kind of like an institute for adults?

[20:17] Aaron: It’s like an institute for adults. Uh, it was gonna happen during the week and it, uh. It didn’t have institute credit, but it was definitely covering an institute manual, and they asked me which of the manuals, which of the lessons I would like to do, and I said, well, I’d really like to do the uh church restoration manual, uh, for the, for the year for the lesson. And that was because God had been telling me this calling is so that you can teach. And so I, I, I asked and confirmed and asked and confirmed because, you know, this is a big thing, like, do I wanna cover this? And one of the lessons later on is on plural marriage in the, in the church and stuff like that. I’m like, do I wanna, wanna cover this? And God says, yes, this is why I wanted you to, to have this calling. So, I started preparing my lessons, and most of my lessons were going to be focused on. Here’s some information. Pray and get answers. Here’s some information. Pray and get answers and just re-going through all of the, the church history for every single lesson. Uh, it didn’t matter what the lesson was, that was gonna be my, my focus was pray, get answers, pray, get answers, and, and just kind of the testimony as we go. Yeah, I that that’s what, what, what God was basically telling me to do was to focus on, on that type of stuff. And then my plan was when we got to the uh plural marriage chapter or a lesson is I was going to present a whole bunch of of uh Joseph Smith’s writings and stuff like that, and show the timeline of when he supposedly got the revelation for section 132, and then everything he did subsequently after that, that was very much against and not in alignment with polygamy. Uh, you know, he was excommunicating people, he was trying to actually, you know, prosecute them, uh, with the law and publishing article after article, and then, uh, Hiram Smith’s, uh, speech, uh talk at uh the general conference where he’s saying, and these words were, were absolutely key, and I definitely wanted to, wanted to share this was when Hiram Smith says. God has never commanded plural marriage, like historically

[22:38] Michelle: has never commanded any man to have more than one, yes, uh-huh. And

[22:44] Aaron: then I was going to, to, to show in class that for some reason, this speech, this talk has been removed from Josephsmith Papers.org and you can only get to it using the Wayback machine or or whatever, uh, that type of website. And then again, I, I even had the PowerPoint all all done up and like 3 or 4 times throughout the PowerPoint throughout that slide deck, it was pray and get answers, pray and get answers. Don’t trust anything that that any one person is saying. Don’t trust just what you find evidence of and stuff like that, pray and get answers because it’s really gotten the, the Holy Ghost that are that are teaching us all of all this, um. So

[23:22] Michelle: you had a whole year of classes outlined. You had already put in this much effort and work to, to be this thoughtful about this calling you’ve been given. OK.

[23:32] Aaron: Yeah, I, I, at the very least I had an outline. I, I only had something like 5 or 6 actual lessons prepared to the detail. Um, I had only actually given 11 class, one lesson in in class, and it went over very, very well, you know, we were. We’re very, it was a it was a big group, a nice group, and we’re all talking about how. We need to have, you know, dispel rumors and, and, and, uh, pray, pray and get answers about, about everything. So it was, it was wonderful. Uh,

[24:03] Michelle: it was very well. I, I, I want to pause on this for just a second to again point out um. Like you say, I only had 5 or 6 lessons prepared to the detail, but I had the full year of the outlines done. I, I just, the, the jokes, the tropes we have of the elders quorum being like, oh, who was supposed to teach today? Do, do you know what I mean? Like that is not who you are. Again, I guess I’m just, um, so people know where this is going, like I see you guys as such a huge um. Um, blessing to the church. Do you know what I mean? that you would take these callings, be this prayerful, this thoughtful, this inspired, put this much effort into trying to elevate the people around you and improve their and help them develop connections with God, which is exactly what we want everyone in our church to be doing. I’m amazed by just feeling your spirits, hearing your stories, and the dedication. That you have given to the church your whole lives. It comes through so clearly. So I’m sorry to interrupt. I just, I, I want people to really understand, like, would you guys not all, everybody listening, would we not all love to go to Erin’s class? That’s amazing, you know, it’s OK.

[25:17] Aaron: Well, there’s not a whole lot to to add after that, so I’ll, I’ll just go ahead and end there because I was released from the calling after just, just one lesson, uh, basically we, yeah, Bishop said we, he doesn’t want us, want us teaching, so we, we were released from our callings and so that was the end of it.

[25:36] Manon: And that was subsequent to me going to the war council um and Having a, you know, a problem there. There was, you know, do you want me to discuss

[25:45] Michelle: that? Yeah, I want to get to that. I kind of want to bring Helena in now because I think she becomes relevant as we talk about the ward council as I understand the story. So Helena, can you give us a little bit of your, um, because I know you gave a talk in church, which I’ve done, which ruffled some feathers. So I kind of wanna know a little bit of your um history with these ideas as well and what and what happened with that story.

[26:11] Helena Chamberlain: Um, back in, let’s see, it would have been 2020. One, well, 2020 was a wake up for me. And Um, just everything that happened with. With the pandemic and all of that, and the way that it was handled to me, um, just, I was like, what is going on? Why, why is this the response that we’re getting from our leaders? Um, and that, that just, it, it just got me started to thinking. And I’ve had an experience a few years before that had, that had kind of started that a little bit, but then 2020 really like was so Um, Profoundly Different than anything that we had experienced as a nation, as church members, as anything for what happened, and I am thankful. All the time that the pandemic happened. I, I am so grateful that God allowed that to happen and that he allowed me to be in a place when that happened that I was ready to go, what’s going on. So, um, We were, we moved into a new ward in 2020. We moved into our house in February of 2020 and went to our ward twice before the shutdown. We were living in Saint George, Utah. We moved 3 miles and it was 22 stakes over. And so we then had um Months of Going every 3rd week and and all those things and masks being required and. And that was something that our family really struggled with because we were not. Um, We had different views on it than a lot of people and so we didn’t, we chose not to wear masks. We still went to church and, and that was difficult, but as, as I started to seek answers for What was going on and as directions came out to us and I was getting a different answer than what. I was being told. It caused a lot of confusion for me. Like why, why are my leaders telling me this and why is God telling me this and. So I just started studying more and praying more and reading more and trying to figure out with my husband, like, what are we gonna do for our family, what are we gonna do for, you know, church? What, what, what are we gonna do for school? And so we pulled our kids out of public school and started homeschooling, which was not part of my plan. I mean, we had thought about it, but I was very much like, I don’t have the time, I don’t have the brain space. I don’t have, I’m not smart enough. I’m not good enough to teach these kids like, how am I gonna do this? And, and God provided a way for me to do that. He gave me people, He gave me resources, and so then as far as the, the church went, we were active in our ward, um. We We’re doing all the things and I had a friend on Facebook, um, someone. That I’ve known for probably 20 years and she posted something. She posted Whitney Horning’s book and I was like, well, that’s interesting. And I’ll tell you that in my adult life, I’ve read about two subjects the most, and those two subjects are World War 2 and polygamy. Um, and my husband is like, why are you interested in these things? You’re morbid. And I said, well, my grandfather was, uh, my mother’s father was a, a B-17 bomber pilot. In Germany during World War II, and he was shot down over Germany and spent a year in a prisoner of war camp and then was liberated at the end of the war and went on to have a family after the war. And so I guess that’s my fascination with World War II Germany and I have just always had this other fascination with polygamy and I’ve read. I’ve read dozens and dozens of books about women’s, mostly women’s experiences in polygamy. And up until 2022, I had read all about fundamentalists experiences, so people that were not part of our church anymore. But lived between uh mostly more modern, more modern stories and living in Saint George, there were a lot of polygamists that live in Southern Utah and so I would see them in Walmart or at the fabric store or wherever it was, I saw polygamist families and polygamous women a lot. And my best friend actually married to uh a man who was raised in polygamy who was Kicked out as a, as an adult man, um, left that religion. Um, he was FLDS. And so then I had that best friend that we’ve been best friends for 18 years. She’s been married for about 8 or 10 years to this man. And so, I’ve just, I’ve had a lot of interaction with it. So when this book came up, I was like, well, that’s really interesting. Uh this is something that I read about, so I read it and it took me It took me quite a while to read it because I’d read it for a little while and then I’d just be like, how could this be? Like how could I not know this? And so then I’d put it down and then I’d pick it back up. So it probably took me at least 6 months to read it. But I was so fascinated by what I was reading because I had always struggled with. I never, I don’t know that I really struggled with the idea that I would be asked to live in a polygamist situation marriage because I didn’t think that me and my husband were righteous enough to. You know, bring someone else into our situation. Does that make sense? Like, because it was always the most righteous people, and I thought we’re not the most righteous people, so that’s never gonna be our, our thing, but I was. I, I just, yeah.

[32:56] Michelle: Was that a relief to you? Like, it’s interesting to hear different people’s relationship with it that for you, it was like, no, polygamy’s right. I’m just not good enough, right? And

[33:05] Helena Chamberlain: so, I’ll never be good enough for that.

[33:08] Michelle: OK. OK. All right. So that’s where you were with it. And, and you kind of, so when you’re studying of the fundamentalist groups, were you kind of like, oh, they’re, they’re wrong because they’re still doing it and they’re not supposed to, and that’s why things are going bad? Is that kind of how you interpreted that?

[33:24] Helena Chamberlain: Yes, and I just, yeah, because I read about the Le Barons down in the colonies in Mexico and the all the murder stuff that was going on with them back in the, was that in the 60s?

[33:37] Michelle: 80s were still happenings happen here.

[33:43] Helena Chamberlain: I, I read some of that. I read people that had left the FLDS communities in um Southern Utah. I’d read about group, you know, people up in the Salt Lake area. Like I just have read so many different stories. I just was like, how could this be? I think even how could this be from God because I wasn’t seeing good fruits from it. And I never had read anything that was like, this is wonderful, people wanna do this. Like it was always like. They got assigned to it or they, yeah, just that people didn’t want to do it and then that. The situations they were in were difficult and not even just difficult, but like horrible. Horrible situations that people were in.

[34:40] Michelle: So, OK, OK, so, so you came to this independently while you were still in Saint George, it sounds like,

[34:47] Helena Chamberlain: yep, yeah, so this was in 2022, 2021, 2022, and then, um, after I read Whitney Horning’s book, I, um, I reached out to the same friend that had posted this because she was also living in southern Utah. So we actually met when She was young, married, and I was. Young married like. In Missouri, she lived in this state in Missouri 20 years ago, and I, um, yeah, so she was living in southern Utah also, and I had, um, seen her a few times and so I called her one day and was like, I don’t know what to do. Like I, I’ve read this and I don’t even know what to do with it, and I don’t know who to talk to because when I would bring it up, I even brought it up to my mom. Um, one time and. I remember at the end of the conversation, she said, well, that’s really, that’s a lot. And I know that you’ll figure it out. And so I. It was difficult because I didn’t feel like there was anyone that I could talk to inside the church. People didn’t wanna hear it. People didn’t understand. And then on the other side you have people that have left the church over it. And so there, they didn’t feel like there was a, a safe place or a good place because I did bring it up with people as the subject would come up, I would be like. Well, I read this. What do you think about this? And people would be like, you’re crazy. Like, what are you talking about? Or I’ve never heard anything like that. You, what do you, you know, and it then it then it feels like, um. People think that you’re looking at anti-Mormon stuff or like you’re looking at apostate stuff and I’m like, no, I’m, I’m looking at this information that the church has provided and the scriptures and prayer and Now what? Now what do I do with, with this?

[36:59] Michelle: It is so isolating. That’s one thing I also want to pause on that because I’m sure all of us can relate to this. Mean and Erin, I’m so glad you guys had each other. But, um, I relate so much to what you’re talking about, Helena, the, um, isolation and the desperate need to talk about it. Like, I’m learning these things. My mind is blown. I don’t know what it means. The fallout hasn’t has, like, I don’t know how to process this, and nobody will talk to me about it. And anyone that I try to talk to me about it judges me and it hurts my relationships and I feel alienated. So you, you know, I mean, that is why I started my Facebook group because I was like desperate to talk about this with people when I was learning it in the scriptures. And there is no, like, that’s what that’s. Part of what the space I’ve been trying to provide, like, I know, I think the landscape has changed a bit now where there are more avenues to talk about it with, but yeah, in our local wards and families, I hope that we can all strive to do better at letting people talk about things that they are navigating, even if they involve faith without getting this kind of um. Oh no, they’re going anti, they’re apostate. They’re asking questions that we shouldn’t ask, right? And so we’re leading people astray or anything, you know, it’s just, yeah, you’re right, yeah. So, OK. So when you, you eventually moved to Missouri, yeah, continue.

[38:23] Helena Chamberlain: Yeah, OK, so, um, I did have my husband that I could talk to. He would listen and he hasn’t, it’s not really something that’s interested him, so he hasn’t looked at it so much, but he has at least given me space to pursue that. Um, so in 2024, July of 2024. We actually sold our house in the spring of 2024, um, and we felt like we needed a change like our. My, our ward in Saint George was just really difficult for us. Um, and we have some really wonderful friends there, but it was also It was also it was hard and um we were homeschooling our kids and we were self-employed so we just decided you know what, let’s let’s go somewhere else let’s do something different so

[39:23] Michelle: as we looked around the country so I’m sorry, just coming brand new into that world during the shutdown, having alternative views in that shutdown, then home school your children. I can understand just being like we’re a little too counterculture and we don’t feel like we ever. Integrated I guess yeah, I can relate to that as well. So it wasn’t that you were doing anything wrong. It was just this was a mess. The whole shutdown was a mess that wreaked havoc on yeah, OK, so, so that’s when you went to Missouri. OK,

[39:51] Helena Chamberlain: so we moved, um, we live about 15 minutes from my parents and 3 of my siblings. We’re not in the same ward, but we’re in the same state. Um, we found a place that we love out here and so. So we picked up our 3 youngest kids and moved moved across the country and we left our two oldest daughters in Saint George doing school and work and. And that, uh, yeah, so we moved into this ward in July. Um, I think the first time we went to church was like the 2nd or 3rd week of July and we got, I got called in young women’s 2 weeks after we moved into the ward. So I was called as an advisor. And And I’m gonna say that right off the bat, um. I could tell that Manon. She was like me that she believed some of the same things that I did, and that was not because she was sharing those things. There was just a sense of, of that, um, and even with the young women’s theme, we didn’t say it all the way through every time we met. One week we said it all the way through and the next week we, we read one of the paragraphs cause there’s 4 paragraphs and we discussed it. And there were just little things that I don’t think anyone else would have picked up on. But because I was in the same space and because we had daughters, her oldest daughter and my youngest daughter are the same age, and they became fast friends. And because of those things, we had a really quick connection and And I, I knew there was something about her before she had before she ever said anything. I just knew that I had found a kindred spirit.

[41:39] Michelle: Oh, that’s, that’s wonderful. So, did you know Helena when you called her in? Was that by inspiration? Was it? Oh, there’s a new body in the board, like how did that?

[41:51] Manon: Uh, I, I saw her and I needed an extra advisor and I met her and um my first impression of her was she was, she was kind of guarded. And, and I, I just, I knew I was like, I’m like, I don’t know, I just felt like she’s gonna be perfect. And then my daughter and her daughter got together and my daughter is telling me these shock. Things. Oh my gosh, we talked about our moms and our moms talk, you know, research the same stuff and I’m like, you know, OK, so, so I knew after already being inspired to call her, I was like, I’m gonna call this this girl this and so, um, I was like, I couldn’t quite believe it because you you start to realize there’s nobody in this space or you think there’s no one. And so I was like, I don’t know really if she’s on what I knows what I know, but, but, you know, it was alarming some of the things she was talking about, you know, and so, you know, my, my daughter was repeating, I mean, just certain things that, you know, like, you know, talking about, um, you know, the jab and stuff like that. And so, and so we were, we were aligned on that same thinking and I thought. Who is this chick? You know, who’s this girl? You know, but, but yeah, so I just felt inspired at that point. Well, we’re gonna call her. I don’t know who she is and it’s gonna be good because that’s what Holy Ghost tells you.

[43:18] Michelle: Yeah, so perfect. OK, so that’s how you’re in, you’re serving in young women together and you guys found each other again, independent people coming to these ideas and then, you know, you move in, you move it to be closer. Family and you meet, OK, so like-minded people. All right, so then do we fast forward now to the to being asked to speak in church?

[43:39] Helena Chamberlain: Yeah, so it was like 2 weeks after we I got called. We’re brand new in the ward and we were asked to speak in church. So my husband and I are given the topic of steadfast faith in Jesus Christ. And so we both gave talks. Um, we talked about some of our, we, so our talks were based in scripture and personal experience. And one of the, one of the experiences that I shared in my talk was about a time. Um, around 2017, 2018 where I was really struggling in my marriage and in my relationship with my husband and I was serving as primary president at the time, and I had gone in and met with my bishop and I had felt to do something. Like I’d, I’d had a prompting to do something. And when I went in and talked to my bishop about it, and I had met with him several times, um, he advised me not to do that thing that I had felt prompted to do. And so I didn’t do it. And Then it came up with my husband. My husband was like, maybe you should go do this thing. And I said, no, I already talked to the bishop and the bishop told me not to do that. So I’m, I’m not gonna go do that. And then the prompting just kept coming that I needed to do this thing. And I finally was like, OK, I’ll go do it. And it blessed my life more than words can say. Like this thing that I had been told not to do had helped me, like in the end helped me so much and gave me the support that I needed in that, that time in my life. Um, and I actually went back to my bishop, and I, I was still meeting with him occasionally. I was still the primary president, and I went back to him and I said, you, you were wrong. Like, you should be, if, if anybody brings this to you and says, I’m thinking that I’m supposed to do this thing, you should be like, yes, go do that, that will help you. And um And it, and that’s the context that I gave in my talk. I didn’t go into a lot of detail beyond that about what it, what exactly it was that I had been prompted to do. Um, but after that talk, um. we were brought up in council.

[46:12] Aaron: Well, actually, if, if I could just add one thing to to her talk is after she gave that example, she mentioned the, I think it’s 2 Nephi scripture of not trusting in the arm of the flesh,

[46:22] Helena Chamberlain: yeah, not trusting in the arm of the flesh. Yeah, I did. I talked about, so I talked about taking everything to God, not just, not just, um, Not just relying on what someone else tells you, even if they’re a leader, take those things to God and verify them and, and sometimes God is gonna tell us something different than what some what a leader might tell us and that’s OK, but we need to have that relationship with with the with. With God to. Be able to make sure that we are doing the things that he needs us to do, and I think if I wouldn’t have done that thing. Would there have been another way for me to receive the growth that I received by doing what I did? And I don’t know, I don’t know, because I can’t take that back, but Um, But I did say in my talk that I still respected that bishop. I still, I’m still friends with his wife and him, and when we moved from Saint George, they hosted a going away party for us. And the last time I saw him, they had, we had moved and they had moved, but, um, out of the word that he was bishop of, but I went up and I went to shake his hand. To to tell him goodbye and he put his arm around me and gave me a hug. And he hadn’t been my bishop for 4 years when that happened, but I was still grateful for what he had um, counseled me. And that he was willing to to be humble enough when I went back and said this has blessed my life so much. That he was willing to say, I’m glad that you did that, even though I, I, I was wrong and, and that that was just an opinion that I was giving.

[48:19] Michelle: I love that story. Thank you for giving the context of that because I do think that’s, I mean, I’m, I’m sure I have had that exact experience of having powerful revelation and having my bishop very intensely counsel me differently, a bishop that I loved that I, he, he unfortunately passed away, um, but I will always love that bishop and have the best feelings toward him. But it, it. tore me apart at that time, but God was using that to teach me the lesson that you were trying to teach to your ward that if these things come into conflict, we have to do the work to, to have the trust to know where our reliance should be. So, OK, beautiful message to share. All right. So then that gets brought up in ward council, which Manon is in as the young women president. If I with the story so far? OK.

[49:08] Manon: So. So those, those talks get brought up and in fact, the, the day Helena gave those talks, I was at home sick with a cold and I was still recovering for 2 or 3 weeks with this cold. And um, so anyway, so I was taking, I, I watched her talk on Zoom and then I got up in between cause um she, her husband Brett also gave a talk and um you know, right after. So they were discussing in war council of these, these two talks. They, they brought them up and kind of uh condemning them and it was just And edge kind of started first before the talks. It started first with um the release ID president um saying how do we get rid of the people that have requested the records to be removed and still show up to release SID or still show up to church. And I was bothered by that kind of speech. I was bothered that we, we, this attitude of we need to kick them out and they can’t even come to learn and grow and, and You know, be a part, uh, and I just don’t believe Jesus Christ would be that way. That’s not how Jesus Christ works. And so I was really bothered by that kind of rhetoric and so she asked the bishop that in front of all of us, how do we get rid of these, these people um that come to church that are, you know, have their records removed and. And so that kind of got thrown around and then the talks came up somewhere in there about, and they didn’t ever mention um their names, of course, you know, but you know who they’re talking about. And I was kind of dumbfounded. I, I, I naively said, well, I don’t really understand what was wrong with those talks. I wasn’t here that Sunday. So what was

[50:47] Michelle: wrong. So the talks came up in a way. So, so if I’m understanding this right, and maybe I should back up and also let like maybe Erin or someone tell us, you guys have helped me understand that your steak has some unique things in it. There is some fundamentalism, there’s some, there’s some interesting dynamics. Yeah,

[51:03] Manon: they have a polygamist groups around here and, and once in a while I’ve heard, I’ve heard, I haven’t seen it, but once in a while these polygamist people will show up, maybe the married couple will show up in the in the wards. Um, and that causes some, some issues, you know, having actual polygamy people that believe in, and they’re doing it and they have two or three wives or whatnot show up, that is a problem. And so my assumption when we got into that, which I’ll explain, was that’s who they were. Talking about later too. But so we go from like the let’s kick people out that removed the records to let’s talking about the Chamberlain’s talks and how they’re not, they were judging it so much that we um that, you know, one, high priest next to me said that um the bishop’s not the arm of the flesh and um because of that arm of the flesh comment, you know, of the scripture that came up. And then they said that, you know, the rules should be to um follow your leaders first, and so, and, and, and kind of setting the president in so many words saying that you should follow your leaders before God. And I was kind of taken back by that because I’d always been raised with You know, we, we follow our leaders there, but they’re human and they’re just like you and I, and I have had such amazing bishops growing up. That’s, you know, I have nothing against following your, your leaders, but when God tells you something else, cause there’s people that are not perfect that may do nefarious things that God might say no, you know, you need to do what I asked you to do. And, and so they were saying it’s better to follow the leaders than to not, you know, so you need to just follow the leaders. So,

[52:47] Michelle: can I interject two things because first, I think that is such an important Point that I think has been debated for a long time in our church. This idea, I know I, I, one of my older sisters, I’m the youngest of a big family, and one of my older sisters was called in one of her interviews. I think what came up in a Temple recommend interview and the bishop said something about, OK, if I told you to do this, what would you do? And she said, Well, I’d pray about it. And I think it was something like, if I say, It’s time to move back to Missouri. I think it was one of those things. What do you do, you know? And, um, that, yeah, I thought you guys would get a kick out of that. I didn’t want to

[53:20] Manon: come

[53:20] Michelle: here and my sister said, Well, I wouldn’t say about it. And the bishop was like, No, no, if I am like, like, basically you don’t like it, like I, I am the voice of God to you and I’ve had a state president in a ward council, um. Uh, say, um, like, like, like he actually went because he was saying we are representatives of Jesus Christ, and he actually went the next step of saying, so when you are sitting across from me in my office, it is as if you were sitting across from Jesus Christ. He actually went that next step and said that, which You you’re just like, whoa, and, and as like my dad was the bishop and I adored, um, my dad. Like I, I miss my dad a lot. He passed away when I was quite young, but, um, but I know that he had so many opinions. You know, being his teenage daughter, I’m aware of the, the opinions he held that he would really believe were absolutely true. I mean, no more than any other dad, I don’t think, you know, but, but I would never. What I, I, I just, I just think it’s such an interesting debate that it still had about like, like I’ve heard leaders say if you follow the leader and um and it was wrong then the leader is accountable and I’m like what are you talking about? I have to suffer the consequences and I am accountable to the voice of God. That is what the scriptures say everywhere. I am accountable for following God. I can even, I’ve, I’m sorry, going to go off on this. It’s just such an important issue, but like even with Nazi Germany, we tried, you know, that had to be tried in a court of law. Are people innocent from committing atrocities because they were following orders and we decided, no, they’re not, right? So, and that’s how we get to Mountain Meadows massacre is, is they were taught you follow your leader, even if it means. Shooting women and children, right? Like, like, like, so, so this is such an important idea to pause on and then also the other thing I just wanted to address quickly is this challenge board councils can be so wonderful, but there is this challenge of them sort of descending into a gossip fest, which, you know, because everybody’s opinions and I know I’ve been the subject of those I’ve, um, Helena, I’ve homeschooled for, you know, my entire parenting career and um and. My gosh, it’s so interesting. When, whenever you do something different, it’s the reason for everything. So when I’ve had very precocious children who read very early, oh, they’re homeschooled, or if I’ve had children who have learning disabilities and were slow, oh, they’re homeschooled, right?

[55:50] Manon: Yeah, that too, we homeschool,

[55:52] Michelle: OK, OK, so you guys get this and so and so sometimes, um, things that have been. Brought up in ward council about, you know, like about other people or sometimes about me are so pain it’s so painful to be the subject of when words council descends into kind of a gossip fest which it sounds like happened. There was no reason for the ward council to talk about talks that were given in church. If there was a concern, the bishop could have called you in and said, can we talk about this. Helena, and, um, I can’t remember your husband’s name, right? Like, like Brett, Brett, yeah. So, so anyway, I just, I’m, I’m glad that you were there, Manon, and we’re willing to do the really hard thing of being the one person in the room, especially as a woman in the minority who was willing to say, OK, wait, what are we doing? You know, so continue with that story. I just really wanted to pause on those couple of things because they’re so important. They cause so many problems.

[56:49] Manon: OK. I didn’t really have much fear because the Holy Ghost is like yelling in my, I’m, I’m yelling to the Lagos, 00, God, what’s happening here? Please help me because this looks like a, uh, an attack fest, kind of, you know, it feels like that. And, um, you know, so I was kind of in my head screaming, Help me, help me. And so I just, and I didn’t, I don’t really have any, um, How do I say this? Uh, you know, I was raised to, to, to be obedient and to follow the Lord and, and then leaders that follow the Lord. So, but I, I’m not really an idolized kind of person on positions. So I didn’t, I didn’t, it doesn’t scare me to speak up. I, you know, you’re a person, I’m a person, even though you have a label of bishop, I’m just gonna question and ask what’s going on, you know what I mean? It’s just Uh, I treat them as equals, you know, they are equals in, in God’s eyes, and so I started asking the there was a high counsel, um, guy. Uh, because he started saying, well, there’s people that we need to be aware of in, in reference to the talks. So the talks had just been discussed how, you know, people need to like, cause they were judging Helena’s uh wording about not following her leader before, you know, and so they that she needed to follow a leader. That’s the rule of thumb is to follow your leader. And then they go from that that this high councilman said, we need to be concerned and we’ve talked about in state because he’s a steak guy. He says, we’ve talked about it in in steak meetings that we need to be concerned with these certain groups that need to be flushed out and that they’re in hiding. And again, I’m naive in thinking, just who are these groups? I’m, I’m questioning that in my head, and so I ask it out loud. I said, what exactly are these groups? Because my first conclusion and thought was the fundamentalist, uh, polygamists that come into the church every so often and then bring their wives or have an air of arrogance that that, you know, they should be doing this or whatever. So I’m thinking, are we talking about polygamists? And I say that out loud. I say, are we talking about the polygamist groups. Because the stake leader is not really defining what group. He’s not defining what exactly, what type of people these are. Because I told him, I said, if you’re talking about polygamists, I agree, you know, because I, I think that’s a little bit nerve-wracking to have that around my children and you know, that example. So, you know, if you, if you’re talking about polygamist, then I agree with you, but what exactly are you talking about? What group are you talking about? And he says, I’m not talking about just polygamists. And he says, I’m just talking about others, you know, and I think he uses the word dissenters or dis you know, those dissenting groups. And I don’t really, and still don’t really understand what dissenters are dissenting groups. And so I said, well, who are those? And so then it just, just, you know, he just deflected over and over my questioning and um he said those that are in hiding. And so we need to flush out those that are in hiding. And the Holy Ghost at that moment, I’m sitting there in just shock because the subject changes back to questioning Helena Brett’s Bishop, previous bishop. So they are now talking about how we need to question, did you question uh the previous bishop and all this, but I’m sitting there thinking and, and, and the Holy Ghost is saying, Manon, you know what group they’re talking about. And I said, I thought to myself, oh my goodness, they’re talking about polygamy deniers or, you know, monogamy affirmers or whatever you want to call it. They’re talking about you, Manon, and the leo says, you know what groups they’re talking about Manon, you know. And I was just dumbfounded. I was like starting to cry like I was like, oh my gosh, I need to hold this together, and I said, oh God, please help me hold this together because I’m gonna lose it. Once I realized what it was, I was starting to cry and the meeting wrapped up pretty after the hour, and it was at the end of the hour this all kind of happened and um It wrapped up and I was crying during the prayer. I couldn’t stop. I was just bawling in the prayer, so the prayer was said, and I was just crying. And so I had to try to get it together. And then I, after I left the war council meeting, I ran to the handicapped bathroom and locked myself up and just fell on my knees in the bathroom there and said, God, please help me. Because all I am doing is what you asked me to do. You asked me to teach these, these girls and, and, and I’m only doing what you asked me to do, but in, in moderation, moderation in all things, it was with time and here I’m, what you’re telling me is they’re trying to kick us out. They’re trying to get rid of people and, and I prayed to God to help me, please help me. And I just got this overwhelming feeling that Manon, this is what you’re here for. And I was just like. OK, I don’t know what that means, but even as an example to the stake and the bishopric, even in being kicked out. And, and when we eventually got kicked out, um, we, we thought about it. Erin and I discussed at one point, should we remove our records because they’re just harassing us with now stake meeting and all that. And, and that’s after I made a blunder with the bishop. Later on, I, I was really bothered by that, that more council meeting. So I went back to the bishop, a day later or two days later and I said, I’d like to talk to you, but I’m just worried about how that meeting went in attacking the Chamberlains, you know, and, and I just felt like it was an attack, you know, I said, we shouldn’t be worried about who we’re kicking, we shouldn’t be concerned with kicking people out. I feel like we’re judging these people or anybody that comes into this area. That we’re just they’re coming in from Utah because that at one point says was was set in ward council. They’re coming in from everywhere and we need to flush them out, you know, and so the word fleshed out in that meeting by

[1:02:54] Michelle: the by the council and um talking about. Your new friend that had moved in who was now serving in your young women and then you realized it was talking about you and um and I even I have to just I know this is a little bit off topic but I have to even say that um just this idea of who we’re not going to let into our meetings is a is a tricky one. I do think like I understand. I mean, because even if polygamists want to attend our meetings, are we supposed to kick them out? And I guess it goes for everyone with the attitude they bring if they’re disruptive, if there’s uh arrogance and a dismiss, you know, like I can understand that, but, but if it’s like anyone who just wants to come and participate, I would hope our doors are open if they’re not, I mean. Of course, if someone who has left the church is going up and taking over testimony meeting or if they’re, you, you know, like, like being disruptive in some way, but I don’t, I don’t get the impression that’s what Helena, like Helena, it makes you scared to even speak in church to accept an assignment that you were not, you were invited to speak in church. You shared your testimony of Jesus Christ, and then you became the subject. And then Manon, that’s when you learned that there’s an, there’s an active desire to flush. Helena and you and Erin and like people like you out, OK,

[1:04:11] Manon: and they thought, I think they assumed Helena and Brett were of that group, you know, the polygamy deniers

[1:04:17] Michelle: or Helena, are you in? Is there like like let’s just pause on this for a second. Are you like in a different because I, I’ve been accused by some people of being like part of different groups and I’m like, I, I don’t know what they’re talking about.

[1:04:36] Helena Chamberlain: So I’ll let you come right here. I’m not a part of any group. The only, yeah, I’m not a part of a group. I’ve just learned some things on my own and have been trying to navigate that and yeah, it’s interesting though. After we gave our talks, we had so many people that came up and like we’re like, thank you so much for what you said. Thank you so much, like more than I’ve ever had after giving a talk. And someone came up to me and my husband and said, that was very brave of you to give a talk like that in this state. And I was like, what? Like I, I was like I don’t, I didn’t know what they meant by that. Now I do know what they mean by that, but at the time I didn’t know what they meant by that. I was like brave, like all I did was share scripture. I shared personal experience, more scripture, and I bore my testimony at the end of Jesus Christ, like I didn’t. That’s, that’s the talk that I gave, and I’ve actually shared, I’ve had people that are like, well, I wanna read your talk and so I’ve shared my talk with many people since then that were like, I don’t understand. What did you say in your talk? So I’ve, I’ve shared it with family and and friends that have been curious. Well, what did you say in your talk? Um.

[1:06:01] Michelle: Would you,

[1:06:01] Helena Chamberlain: I’m not a part of any group.

[1:06:04] Michelle: OK, I just wanted to clarify that this, these biases are so interesting. Like, like if we hold an idea, then all of a sudden it’s like you have to be categorized as you’re doing something nefarious and you are, it’s, it’s like this reverse conspiracy theory that’s so strange.

[1:06:19] Helena Chamberlain: Like, well, and, and also we didn’t come to Missouri. We came here because we have family in the area and because we wanted a change and we could buy land out here. Where we couldn’t buy uh a we were on an acre in Saint George, which was a huge piece of land for Saint George, but we were able to buy a piece of land here that we can have animals on we can, you know, do all the things that we wanted to do, yeah, and so that’s why we didn’t, we didn’t come here going, oh, we’re gonna try to infiltrate, we’re gonna try to do anything like we just came here to live and to. To go to church and to,

[1:07:00] Michelle: yes, thank you for answering that question because it is, it’s kind of like the the like fear is never a good motivation. God has not given us the spirit of fear but of power and of love and a sound mind, and it sounds like in like with this fake leader there was maybe some fear of like there are infiltrating forces. Yeah, it probably was. And, and, and so we need to be aware of that like we don’t make our best decisions based in fear, right? And suspicion and so, OK, thanks for sharing, thanks for sharing that. So yeah, back to the, um, OK, so Manon, you experienced that um ward council meeting which ripped you apart. So you tried to talk to your bishop about it afterward and instead of being met with um. Empathy, compassion, understanding, curiosity, and maybe some humility. It sounds like that did not go very well.

[1:07:48] Manon: No, I, I, he’s, I felt, I felt like he started out kind of um placating my worry cause I had, I said, hey, I just, I’m concerned that we’re maybe possibly judging these people coming in from whoever, wherever, whether it be Utah, California, whatever. And we’re judging people we don’t even know. Why don’t we actually try to get to know them first and, you know, and, and so he said, oh, he agrees and he, he said all that, um, but at the end, I forgot to mention at the end of war council, uh, the prophet, uh, and concerning with the talks, the prophet got brought up of that we should follow our leaders and one of the, the bishop uh counselors said, We should, um, always follow the prophet no matter what. And I said, and I said, uh, the prophet’s still human, you know, as long as he’s following God, and we should check in with God, basically. So I was about to say that. I said, all I said was, uh, he’s still human, and I got cut off. And then he, he said, no, a prophet will never lead us astray or he would be killed off. So I didn’t even finish my explanation that I’m more than willing to follow the prophet, for sure, but we need to verify some things have to, we need to check in with God about, you know, and that was the only thing I was gonna explain. But he cut me off and said, no, a prophet will never lead us astray or he’d be killed off. And, um,

[1:09:17] Michelle: it’s a death sentence. If you get that calling, then all of a sudden, if you ever make a, like, don’t say a single thing that is off base at all because it is a death sentence. That, that’s a steep. That’s a steep penalty.

[1:09:29] Manon: So when I went to the bishop and we’re talking about judging others or whatever, and he agreed, oh yeah, I don’t want to come across that way. At the end of the, the talk, just before I was going to leave, he asked me why did I feel, you know, why did I say what I said about the prophet to his other counselor, you know, and so that was brought up. And I said, and I was still sick with a cold, you know, I was coming off of this cold, so I was kind of just saying everything. And so I just said, well, that’s because some prophets have made mistakes in the past and I brought up Brigham Young. And I,

[1:10:04] Michelle: and I don’t think you need to use, I, I don’t think that you need to have a cold in order to say that, like, right.

[1:10:14] Manon: Yeah, and so, so, but what I had slipped in the, in the process of explaining Brigham Young, I said, well, for an example, you know, we have Brigham Young’s all his revelations, uh, practically have been reversed and even at the end of our on the church website. It’ll say a disclosure under his, his discourses, and it’ll say, we don’t follow this Adam God theory anymore. We don’t believe that blacks should be denied the priesthood or, you know, and all these revelations, supposed revelations by Brigham Young have been disavowed. And so I, I said that and I said, including, uh, and so, and so I had brought up, I said, and he also has the, uh, adultery. I said the word adultery instead of polygamy, so I slept in being sick. But adultery and polygamy, you know,

[1:11:04] Michelle: didn’t differentiate. I don’t think God differentiates. Yes, exactly.

[1:11:08] Manon: And that put the, the bishop’s guard up. I mean, immediately he put emotional wall up and I said, you got to understand, and I, oh, I said, I just don’t think, I think this is how it got got brought up as I said, I don’t believe that Brigham Young got revelation for everything because of his adultery is what I said per se. Because I said we have to watch and pray and make sure the, the revelations that the prophets give us align with God. And so I explained how as a counselor, I, I’ve taken in couples and done done couples counseling and there have been LDS ones and non-LDS ones. And the one thing that I’ve noticed, and I, I backed this up with my personal experience as a counselor, watching these sessions, the one thing they always lack is getting being able to get revelation because they have cheated on their spouse. And so they’re so frustrated that their spouse doesn’t trust them anymore, and I’m not doing that, and, you know, and they, they can’t pray very well. They have a hard time just, they’re, they’re always confused and they don’t get answers to their prayers. And I have to, you know, conclude from patterns that it’s because they’re still in the process of repenting or they haven’t fully repented. And so I took that back to see how Brigham Young with him doing the adultery, all the many, many polygamy wise that he’s done. How can he get revelation on blacks in the priesthood, on whatever revelations afterwards if he’s still sinning like that. So I’m explaining this in a logical, methodical sense here, but the bishop’s not even having any of it. He’s just not listening, complete block. And, um, he says, I don’t want you to bring this up at all to anyone. I said, well, I haven’t, but this will come up next year when we discuss 132. And he says, What are you talking about 132? And he hadn’t even read 132. So he didn’t know what.

[1:13:01] Michelle: I know the same experience. Yeah, people don’t know what is section 132? Uh-huh.

[1:13:05] Manon: So I said, well, when the youth, you know, you know, well, it’ll be have to be discussed in the lessons and the youth will, will be discussing 132. And so he’s like, what do you mean 132? So he just cracks open DNC 132. He hadn’t read it. And so he just points to a little passage that says, Theeth the Lord. And, and so he’s just, he’s just angry at me and he says, this is the Lord speaking. And he said, and then he tried to, it felt like try to trap me in something of saying that this was not from the Lord’s, you know, the scriptures. And I said, Well, wait a second. I said, and the Holy Ghost kind of guided me with this. He’s like, OK, he’s trapping you here. And so So I said, this 132 was written after Joseph Smith died. And so if we take this, either Joseph Smith actually wrote this or Brigham Young did, or, you know, Brigham Young scribes, you know. So it’s only one or the other. And if we’re going to go back to adultery is one of the 10 Commandments, this doesn’t match that, you know, it doesn’t go along with Jesus Christ and God’s commandments. And who wrote this? We don’t know who wrote this, you know, um. And so I was trying to logically just discuss it, but he was just madder than Hades, and he was just like not having it. And he says, well, I have to pray about this, cause I asked him, I said, he, he said he hadn’t read it, and then he admitted, he kind of backed off, admitted that he hadn’t done much church history. He said, I haven’t done much church history. And so then he said he was gonna pray about it, and I assumed naively that he was actually gonna go research them and then pray about this 132. I don’t think he even read it after that, even. I mean, after that, so what he was praying about which I figured out later was how to get rid of me, you know,

[1:14:47] Michelle: the problem of, yeah,

[1:14:49] Manon: and I just didn’t realize I naively thought, well, he’s going to really find out from God, at least something to compromise and work. Let’s work together and And so I had mentioned, so he, he tried to shut me down and say, you’re not to tell anybody. So I agreed, I’m not gonna tell anybody right now until we get to next year’s lessons and then we have to somehow figure something out, you know, because I wanted the girls to find out for themselves, you know, read it. You know, and maybe go to Joseph Smith papers and read these other documents by Joe Smith and Hiram and compare and decide for yourself. That doesn’t mean we all have to be kicked out. Just, just decide for yourself. That’s, that doesn’t harm the atonement. The Book of Mormons is still 100% true. The core testimony of the gospel. It’s not changing that

[1:15:33] Michelle: and I know Erin, you wanted to, so Erin, I’ll let you say something that what you had wanted to add something for and then I’ll give a a thought that I have as well. Is

[1:15:41] Aaron: that covered it. It’s all good.

[1:15:45] Michelle: OK, but I, I also, it’s so, can I just add one thing here because it’s so interesting, this, um, again, this fear, this wall, this, you can’t say that. And I understand, like here we have our book of scripture, it’s our candidate scripture, and you’re saying that this thing in my scripture isn’t scripture. How dare you say that, right? So I understand the emotional reaction. But what I struggle with is the unwillingness to acknowledge what an absolute disaster polygamy has been for our church. How many tens if not hundreds of thousands of people have left just over the last decade or two over polygamy, over what has come out, over now the churches. Stance like the church published essays. I, I, like, people are leaving the church because of this narrative that the church is now saying. And so this, and, and I cannot begin to tell you how many people I know who like got rocked to the core by reading, um, Richard Bushman’s book and left the church as a result. Like this narrative destroys testimonies. Like nothing else, polygamy has kept people from even considering the Book of Mormon and has turned more people against the church and then in the process, often against the Book of Mormon and the Restoration and against the existence of God, right? It is an incredibly destructive thing. So while I can be sympathetic to a leader hearing this information, it’s harder for me to, um, To get on board with, yeah, let’s shut this down because it could damage the church. I’m, I’m like, we need to wake up and see what the real damage is. The real damage comes from this narrative, which, hey, great news. All of the evidence we’re seeing shows that the narrative is false. We don’t have to cling to this incredibly damaging narrative because it’s not true. That should be great news. And that’s what I struggle with in this, is that your, like, like I understand the defensiveness, but my gosh, what if What if that bishop, if could have like given you another chance to have a conversation and you could have said I shouldn’t have said adultery. I wouldn’t have chosen that word. I wasn’t feeling well. Let’s have a conversation. Do you know what I mean? They should be allowed a little tiny slip up of a wording choice, but and then. That could happen if there were any opening, if there were any, um, love. I’m sorry, I’m just gonna say like, like, can I see this person who I have stewardship over who’s part of my flock, a very productive part of my flock. She’s serving as my young women’s president. Can I try to understand what it is that she is experiencing and feeling and believing and ministering to her, rather than saying, Oh, no, there’s a threat. Get her out. Get out, flush them out, flush them out, flush them out. That, that’s so unfortunate to me. I, I just, that I, I really hope our leaders can do that a little differently. Erin, did you want to say something? Is that?

[1:18:30] Aaron: Yeah, so, uh, when the new ward was created and the bishop was first called, From my point of view and in my opinion, I was watching the callings that he was making and even having conversations. I mean, we even went out on a, on a double date and had conversations with him and it was apparent to me that he was, he was new to his calling, he didn’t, he hadn’t ever been a bishop before, and he was relying on, on God. He was praying all the time for everything. Who do I call for here? Who do I call for that, you know, and he even told uh uh. Not in detail, but he told a brief story of how at one point he felt prompted to do something and he did something else. He just used his own judgment instead, and then he had to repent of that and actually correct it and go back to what God had told him. And so when the war was first created, and he hadn’t had any stake training yet, he was praying all the time, he was following what, what God was telling him to do. And where it switched was after he got his stake training. And that’s when the stake, I’m, I believe, and praying about it, God’s kind of confirmed this to me that he was taught and trained by the stake to identify anybody who denies polygamy and isolate them and get them out. Uh, the same flush them out type of a training that the high councilman was was saying in the, in the ward, which is why when he had this conversation with Manon later, as soon as she mentioned that and started talking about this, uh, Polygamy 132, he was immediately on guard because that’s exactly what he had been trained to do verbatim, and he followed the book that he had been taught after that. So, love, compassion, any of that type of stuff that you’re talking about, it was, in his case, it was out the door because it was against what he had been told that he, he should

[1:20:22] Michelle: do. I have experienced that. Exact same dynamic, seeing an incredibly humble, um, sort of almost bewildered bishops striving for answers. Do you know what I mean? Um, receive some training and show up incredibly differently, right? Like, like, show up with like, this is what we’re doing. This is what it’s gonna be. And this, you know, and it, it’s, it’s quite jarring to see that. Unfortunate change. Like, I want there to be training, but not in, not in the way of, oh, these are now the enemies, you know, and I don’t need to rely on God anymore. And that, that is that, I guess that’s that same problem of follow the leader, right? Like, oh, my leader told me what to do. I don’t need any more answers.

[1:21:02] Manon: So maybe, maybe explain, so after that meeting, we get called in two weeks later, just both of us together, maybe explain that. And he did. The reiterate, the bishop did reiterate, follow the leaders that he was going to follow his leaders no matter what. But

[1:21:17] Michelle: yeah, so is that the next part in our story. So you have the meeting you don’t know this is going on at the time other than your conversation with so.

[1:21:26] Helena Chamberlain: Yeah, Manon, and I didn’t, hadn’t even had a conversation before this about polygamy. Um, that Sunday of ward council, she and I during the second hour went into a room and she was asking me some more information about my talk. She was asking me what the situation was, where I’d gone to my bishop, and so I shared that all with her. And then we were going over some training. And at that point was the very first time. She didn’t tell me about what was going on, what had gone on in ward council that day. She did not tell me that. But in that room, we figured out that we both were monogamy affirmers and um that we uh aligned on that, that point. Yeah, it was before. So I did, she, she wasn’t as this started to happen, she wasn’t sharing with me like what had happened until a little bit, a little bit later because. She, yeah, she didn’t come out and say, oh, this happened in ward council today, like she kept those things private until after she was released.

[1:22:38] Michelle: OK.

[1:22:40] Aaron: OK. So yeah, so about. It it was about 2 weeks later that the, the bishop called us in and spoke with both Mannon and I just before uh young women’s. So we, you know, we get there early and we, we have a little meeting with the, with the bishop before and in this, this meeting. Uh, he explains that she’s released from, from her calling, and we were like that was, that was it first thing, like after, after we said prayer and stuff like that, he’s like, right, because of this conversation, Aaron, do you know what the conversation was that been on and I had? And I said yes. He said, All right, well, because of that, um, I’ve, I’ve prayed about it and we’re gonna release you from your calling. We’re calling all all new, uh, young women’s presidency and stuff like that. And

[1:23:32] Michelle: you’d only been in a few months, right? So this was a dramatic.

[1:23:35] Manon: I was dumbfounded. I was just because I had assumed that he was going to pray about it. We were, because that’s what he said. I’m gonna, I’ll talk to you about it later. And to me, I kind of felt it was dishonest because there was no, no discussion and compromise. There was no treating me like an equal because I wasn’t out to like Damaged the ward or talk about these things or, you know, I just was following what, you know, God had asked me to do later on the following year, but you know, so yeah, I was, we were dumbfounded. But

[1:24:07] Michelle: going back to the previous um Erin, what you were sharing before also that the bishop had prayed so hard to know who to call, right? That’s. Kind of hard. OK. So

[1:24:16] Aaron: yeah, and we, we did ask at one point, you know, what, what changed? Because Manan hasn’t changed any of her beliefs from the time that she was called to now, and we still have the same promptings. And so Manon asked what, what has changed? And the bishop’s answer was, I’m obviously paraphrasing, but it was to the effect of Yeah, but now she’s teaching it to the kids or being willing to teaching it to the kids or isn’t willing, you know, it’s come up and she’s not willing to say that she’ll be silent on, on the topic and on the issue. And so that was

[1:24:50] Manon: in that moment, I felt strongly impressed to like the Holy Ghost kept telling me, you tell him and be honest. And I said, so I told him, I said, God has asked me to talk about these things in the appropriate time with my other counselors and Advisors together as a group appropriately. Basically, I can’t disobey God. So that’s what I said. I cannot disobey God. So he’s asking me this to not talk and disobey God. And God kept saying you’re to speak. And so, and

[1:25:19] Michelle: also just the dynamic of, again, a woman called as a leader of young women talking about how God values women. Being told by a man in leadership over her that she’s not allowed to say that. I’m sorry, I just, um, these are challenging, troubling dynamics. You know, it’s really like, like, our leadership structure works out really well when it works out really well, but when we bump up against things like this, and Manon, you’re saying, God has shown me this, God has shown me how. God values women, girls, right? And, and I’ve been told to share that with other women, and I’m being told by a man that I have to not follow God but follow him and not share how God views women. Like, so, so yes, I mean, and, and then also I do, I’m Erin, I’m, I, I’m assuming you were feeling this too like Manon. I can, I imagine you were already feeling very traumatized. You’re, you’re, I love how you expressed your reaction to that word council. That was already traumatic, right? And then the meeting afterward, and now you and your husband are being called in together. Erin, you’re being dragged in, you know, like, like along just for the, I guess the guilt of being married to Manon, right? This is a traumatic thing. When people haven’t experienced these things, I think it’s hard for them to understand how traumatizing it is. It’s really hard to, um, want to stick in there, you know, like it took me a long time to heal over some of my interactions with my bishop at one point over a talk I had given in, um, and really, I mean, in, in sacrament meeting. And, um, it takes a long time to feel like you are even, you can even go in that space again because you’re so traumatized.

[1:27:08] Aaron: Yeah, I, I’m not good at talking about feelings and emotions and stuff, but I will say that it, it was a very difficult experience, very difficult time going through all of it, and uh. You know, praying and getting confirmation and God saying, yes, do this, and then, and, uh, you know, stand firm, stand firm with the testimony that that he he’s given us, and then being told, yeah, you’re not allowed to, allowed to talk about it and being called in. I mean, we’re talking like stomach ulcers and stress and anxiety and sleepless nights and it just, just difficult. I again, I’m not good with words to put it to, but it

[1:27:47] Michelle: was a very difficult time. Yeah, yeah. And so, OK, so. Released Erin, were you released at this time as well, or did that come later? I guess Helena was released as well. So that Sunday, I’m assuming you were all released from young. OK.

[1:28:03] Aaron: Yeah, so there was, there was more to the conversation afterwards. So after Bishop said that, um, I said, well, I would like to at least tell you about our journey as to how we got here to this knowledge and understanding in this testimony. And um, as I started, Manon interrupted me and said, I God’s telling me that he’s not open. You can look and see by his demeanor, he’s completely closed off, he’s he’s not willing to listen. He said that he’s, he’s gonna listen to, to what we have to say, but he’s completely closed off to actually learning anything and and being open to the spirit on, on anything that we’re about to say. And so I’ll, I’ll very quickly summarize. I talked about Brigham Young and how I, I gave some examples of things that he had taught as gospel doctrine as revelation, as he claimed the Adam God theory, the blacks in the priesthood, um, I gave one another example. tell me thank you. That was the other one. And then I mentioned how uh I, I had a copy of the 1835 edition of the Doctrine Covenants and then the, the modern edition, and I compared the old uh section 101 on marriage to 132.

[1:29:16] Michelle: Oh my gosh, this is so valuable. You came to this meeting calmly, but with like this here, let me show you some things. This is beautiful. OK, continue. So I love this.

[1:29:25] Aaron: And then we read just a couple of of of key verses from the old section 101, marriage is between a man and a woman. And while we were there in the meeting, we actually saw Manon pointed out and, and saw that there’s even a little verse in there that says, because the church has been accused of polygamy or or something like that, of

[1:29:43] Michelle: fornication and polygamy,

[1:29:44] Aaron: uh-huh, yes, uh, and it’s basically saying that, you know, God’s church has nothing to, nothing to do with that and um. Anyway, so, so I basically bear my testimony. And I let him know that just like all the other things that Brigham Young taught have been canceled and been proven to be not doctrine according to to the church. It’s very, very possible that Section 132 may be replaced and go back to this because, uh, I think it was Gordon B. Hinckley did the Proclamation family to the world, which is very, very similar language to Section 101 of the old uh old 1835 doctrine covenants. And so,

[1:30:24] Michelle: And also went on national television and said polygamy is not doctrinal right as the president of the church, he declared what is doctrine and what is not doctrine. OK, yes, keep, keep going.

[1:30:36] Aaron: So after I bear testimony, I then say, so one of these two is of is of God, um, or maybe, maybe, maybe both, but I’m like one of these two are of God, and I would invite you to let’s all three of us just kneel down and pray. And pray about it to know if this is true, if monogamy is the the commandment of of God. And um he went silent for a moment. And this is where I say that I think that his stake training had been kicking in throughout this, this whole meeting because he wasn’t listening. And he said, he, when he finally spoke, he said, you’re not gonna like my answer. But I’m not going to pray because I already have my answer. And he refused, refused to pray, and then, then, then he started saying that, you know, I can’t pray about doctrine for the church, and I’m like, and I was saying, it’s, I’m not saying about doctrine for the church. I’m saying for your own testimony, you’re allowed to pray what you believe in and what God, God will tell you your, your answers. And uh anyway, the the the the meeting didn’t really go very far after that, it was just, just back and forth of the same stuff. Uh, he refused to pray at one point he said he was gonna, oh yeah, there, there’s a few things to cover, I guess, so. Later on in the, or shortly after that, after we invited him to pray and stuff like that, that was when he, he again went silent for a moment and he says, so are you guys going to stop? Teaching this to anybody. We’re like, well, we haven’t really had very many conversations with anybody. We’ve never spoken about this in any kind of a church setting, but God has told us that we should share this information. um, and so we’re going to do what God says, and that’s when he goes silent for a little bit and he says, OK, I’m revoking both of your temple recommends, you can no longer go to the temple. And that was kind of a crush for us because You know, we’ve been talking even just a couple of days before and in the week, we hadn’t been feeling good because of the stress of this whole situation, but like, we should go back to the temple. And uh so he told us then and that was another, another crushing blow to our heart. But then, then at one point, he says, I’m following my my leaders and, and, and I, I mentioned that I hope that he’s right for his sake, for his, his soul. I hope that he’s right about all this because it’ll be bad for him if not, if he’s not willing to pray and he’s not willing to get these answers and stuff. And I’m messing up my paraphrasing as to how I actually said that, but that was the idea that I was trying to convey. And his response to that was. As long as he follows his leaders, he won’t get in trouble. He won’t have any consequences for any of this. And after the fact, I’ve had the Holy Ghost. I, I’ve been praying and I’ve had the Holy Ghost confirmed to me. I’ve had God confirm to me that that is not true. As you mentioned, there’s a lot of things in the scriptures that say that we are responsible for our own actions. And I’ve also had God tell me that my bearing testimony to him, and then I’m confirming it, our testimony to Him. God told me that that is recorded in the book of life. And that the Holy Ghost, the, the spirit of God was trying to confirm that to him as well at the time. Um, Yeah, I don’t have a whole lot to to add to that, but that was, that was about how the meeting ended. And uh yeah.

[1:34:16] Michelle: OK, so, um, so it wasn’t a contentious meeting and you were really trying to share your heart, and Manon, you were, I assume both with your training and experience as a counselor as well as with the spirit, just aware that there was not an opening, you know, that he, that, but still you went ahead, Erin, and shared and just brought the receipts, just those couple of receipts that could open a conversation, but um He refused because of, I mean, I just, so many scriptures come to mind about who are you to say we have need to repent. I have no need to pray. God has already told me everything and we are.

[1:34:57] Aaron: Well, it’s funny because like, somehow miraculously within the next week, uh, I happened to stumble across another verse of scripture that says, uh, I’m, I’m paraphrasing it, I know I’m gonna get the wording exactly wrong, but Uh, the evil spirit teaches the man not to pray. And, and I’m like, it, it right there. Why wouldn’t, why won’t you just pray because God is not gonna upbraid us for asking a question whether we, we think we know the answer or not. Why not just pray? God’s not gonna lie to us, so.

[1:35:31] Michelle: And again, that shut down of fear, right? Like it is that fear that made him, that was the evil spirit that God hath not given us the spirit of fear. That comes from a different source, the same source that teaches us not to pray out of fear, right? And even though I can, again, I can sympathize with, um, a bishop being like, OK, whoa, what’s happening? This is my young women’s president and a teacher and they’ve got these wackadoodle ideas and they’re not agreeing that they’re gonna to my gag order. I’m trying, you know, I can understand that. But at the same time, um, a willingness to just say, God, what do you want me to do here? OK, let’s have a prayer. OK, I, I’m concerned. Can we, can we meet again? Do you know what I mean? Like this, like, like to all of a sudden remove you from your callings and revoke your temple recommends is so. Violent. It’s it’s so, it’s so harsh and and meaningful. OK, so

[1:36:29] Aaron: then that night after that, that young women’s, um, Helena and Manon spoke, and it was about a, a couple of days later, so this all happened on a Tuesday, I believe, and I was planning on teaching my, uh, my, my steak class lesson on Friday. And I got a text Thursday night or Friday morning saying that I’d been released from that calling as well. So yeah, there was that, but they can tell you about the conversation that that they had that was, I believe when Man on mentioned everything about the the ward council meeting and everything.

[1:36:59] Michelle: OK, yeah, and, but I am going to say I’ll bet that both of those releases when you guys were so invested in these callings are just daggers to the heart. Like you’ve within the course of a week, you’ve both been released, you’ve lost your temple recommend. I just Oh man, it was

[1:37:14] Manon: devastating. I mean, and shocking because you go from good standing your whole life and you have such a strong testimony of everything, but this one thing, there’s factual evidence and God is telling you evidence that, you know, polygamy is not of God. It just is, it was just shocking because I, you know, dumbfounded, you know, I just, so I mean, I, I guess I don’t know if You want to discuss this or not, but I don’t know if you know the strengthening committee, whatever. Um, I started getting some, some hearsay from people that there were church spies in this state. In this particular state, there’s the, they call them, you know, the strengthening committee people that are given this calling, but they’re not official calling, you know. And so it, it just started kind of feel that way, that, that we were um cause a few days later, we got, was it called in or we got a request to meet just on the phone. Like he got, I think Erin got a text and asked to come, have us come in to see the state president. And at this point, weary had prayed a ton and gotten confirmation that this, that meeting was pointless at this point. At this point, with all the information we were hearing about other people removing the records because of fear of being, they were being harassed and chased out with letters and all kinds of stuff. And so we decided not to meet. We needed to process this, pray more, and just think this over. So we sent, he sent a text back saying we respectfully decline.

[1:38:47] Michelle: To be traumatized again, yes, I, yeah,

[1:38:50] Manon: and so we just didn’t want to meet, yeah, I mean, yeah, we were just like we need some, you know, process time that same day. I, I was friends with, um, the steak, one of the state people’s wives at 1.6 months ago, and but we hadn’t really talked for 6 months, and we were in the same ward. And we just hadn’t, um, reconnected to do anything. But I, so I thought it was odd that same day she wanted to get together and, and go to dinner. And I just, I thought that was odd. So and it was about 5 or 6 hours after we declined the meeting. And later that evening or afternoon, she’s like, hey, we should get together. And then I was warned that there’s these church spies, you know, and whether she was that or not, you know, maybe it’s just a coincidence, but it’s, it’s ironic that it’s her husband that was the one that said flushed out.

[1:39:42] Michelle: Oh, so,

[1:39:44] Manon: so that puts a lot of more context to it and it kind of validated to me that. You know, she was being told to, hey, find out what those Ellsworths know or what they’re, you know, whatever. And so again, that’s assumptions. I have to make that assumption. And it could be not true. It could be just that she wanted to be friendly, but being that it was her husband that said that we can’t, we said no that same morning to meeting, and then later that evening she just strikes up a conversation and she hadn’t talked to me for 6 months. I mean, that’s

[1:40:14] Michelle: odd. OK, so I want to, I want to like play the devil’s advocate here, or maybe the, the church’s advocate, you know, like, like, OK, is there a possibility that the state president was like, um, Hey, I want to minister to you. I wanna hear, you know, that, that might be possible, but the problem is when we are in a, um, I don’t know what the term is, like a closed society, a totalitarian society. I hate to say that, but it’s reminding me of like Informants, government informants, and when you don’t have the freedom of speech, and you don’t have the freedom of thought, and you don’t write, and then, and then they have spies, like it sounds you in the Soviet Union when like 30% of the people or something were government informants, right? Or in um Communist China, when you get benefited by by informing on your neighbor, it feels, it feels that way. So even if that was maybe going to be administering, you don’t feel safe when you are surrounded by informants. You can’t trust because you like, like in those government regimes, maybe the, maybe the you’re being called into the government to, you know. To have a conversation or maybe you’re being called in to be incarcerated or executed, right? You don’t know and so, so anyway, so I just wanted like like like we don’t know if they stre gonna get the benefit of the doubt that they were trying to reach out, which sounds a little bit like I, I, I would tend to agree with you that that’s less likely from everything we’ve heard about the steak and everything that happened subsequently. I, I guess I just want to say that like we need to create, um, communities where people feel safe. This, this culture that we have, which I didn’t know it was happening in Missouri, I thought it was more of a Utah part of church culture where you go complain to your bishop about someone in your ward, and then the bishop calls that member of the ward in and says someone has complained about you. That is so unsettling, destabilizing. It, it ruins all. Trust because that person then sits going who’s who’s informing on me, you know? And I wish that we instead, I, I, I, I just, I wish instead that we could do like the scriptures again, teach if you have art against your brother, go be between him and you privily. If someone goes and complains to the bishop, I wish the bishop could say, oh, have you brought this concern to them? Yeah, like, like, direct them. I hate that we have this like kind of emotional. stunted culture of I can’t handle my own stuff. I have to go to the authority figure and ask him to handle it for me. That puts the bishop in a horrible situation as well. But we are adults, right? And we’re supposed to be Zion. Like, we need to learn to grow up emotionally and either take things to the Lord, and then if we need to deal with it personally rather than either just letting it go or praying for inspiration, then we need to grow up and learn. Learn how to just have a conversation with someone and say, hey, can I talk to you about this because it’s, you know, I’m a little concerned, right? Like, OK, sorry, I just wanna, I want to point that out too because that is part of this story that this culture is not good. We, we should not be in a in a culture of informants of Latter-day Saints because

[1:43:21] Manon: not everybody is a church spy or a part of that committee, but you don’t know now that you’ve been kind of attacked or you feel attacked, you know. So

[1:43:30] Michelle: and you don’t know who they are, so it feels like it’s everyone. How can you trust anybody? Yeah,

[1:43:34] Manon: OK, so. So, and then, you know, shortly after that we, we, we got a letter to have an official meeting, you know, the uh steak

[1:43:43] Michelle: letter to disciplinary counsel. Yeah,

[1:43:46] Manon: at that point I talked to enough people to say that’s a formality. You’re, you’re on the chopping block, you know, and we, I prayed about it and we just felt strongly that it would just cause more emotional trauma to us at this point. We were so, we had 3 little kids that were bawling their eyes out. I mean, Um, I’m just sitting in the, the bathroom with my little girl as she’s sitting on, on the toilet just crying and she’s only 9 years old and so upset that she says, now we’re not a part of primary and we don’t have friends, and they’re homeschooled, so church is their friends, you know. So that’s really hard for a mother to have to deal with. So dealing with all that, I wasn’t gonna go in and be re-traumatized, especially when the Holy Ghost said, don’t bother going in. So, they had their, their meeting and that that’s a really another traumatic story. Maybe Earn should say when they delivered the letter to us, you want to

[1:44:42] Aaron: Yeah, so I, I’ll, I’ll be quick about this, but uh they delivered the letter to us, the two letters, one for each of us that says that here’s your ward membership council meeting, uh, at this date and time, please attend. And uh it was 10:15 at night, 10:15 p.m. Manon and I were on the other side of town. We were actually there was a chance to see Aurora Borealis even in Missouri at that time. So we’re out there trying to take a look at that, and our 13 year old calls us up on the phone. She was 13 at the time. She calls us up on the phone saying, there’s somebody here. They’ve opened up the glass storm door, they’ve tested the doorknob, they’ve banged on the door and they’ve rang the doorbell. They’re freaking me out and just terrified our daughter. And uh so we hop in the car and we’re racing back into town. We’re only about 1 mile away, but we’re racing back into into town and I’m talking to her on the phone trying to calm her down. I’m like, it’s probably just some people from the from the church. It’s it’s OK as long as they’re not trying to kick the door open or something like that, you’re you’re gonna be OK. And uh yeah, just completely traumatized our our daughter like she wouldn’t want to babysit for us for months after that. Uh, still has a, has a hard time with it just because somebody came to the, to the door at 10:15 at night.

[1:45:59] Michelle: And banged aggressively, didn’t. Oh my God, and then

[1:46:02] Aaron: the doorknob.

[1:46:05] Michelle: What in the world? OK. Oh my goodness.

[1:46:10] Manon: OK. So, so they left those letters and then, you know, we didn’t go to the meeting and and then they. They send us the formal letter saying we were completely.

[1:46:22] Aaron: Excommunicated for apostasy.

[1:46:24] Manon: Yeah, for apostasy, you know, so it’s right there and

[1:46:27] Michelle: so this all happened in the course of less than a month,

[1:46:30] Manon: 3 weeks, 3 weeks, 3 weeks from the time they, yeah, they. Sent the first phone call, I guess, you know.

[1:46:37] Michelle: Oh my goodness.

[1:46:37] Manon: OK. I mean, they didn’t even, if you want to be on the compassionate side or to think like if if I were them, if I, I always try to put myself in their place, if I was scared to meet, why not send them a letter? You know, why not write them a letter, but there was no compassionate letter of, hey, can you write me back and at least tell me your feelings? And we would have written letters probably. If they had been willing to be open to that, but they,

[1:47:02] Michelle: they were just collecting evidence at that point. It really sounds like because also they could have like, like the state president could have kindly knocked on your door, especially if he had any report or reputation of being this way to knock on your door and say, I would love to talk to you guys. Can you help me understand? Do you know if they, if they could approach it with can you help me understand rather than I need to get dirt on you or I need to investigate you. That would be a very different thing. OK, so you guys, I cannot, I just, I don’t even know what to say of how heartbreaking and devastating the story is for. Each of you personally, for your family, for your word. I mean, like for the church, this is a huge loss all around that um that I think is so sad. So thank you for being willing to share all of that. I hope that um I, well, I know that God has had you. But I’m so sorry for the stress you’ve had to experience, and I hope that things have settled to some extent, you know, you’ll, we’ll we’ll have to come back. I kind of wanna switch bases now because the reason this was so important is this is the context and the backdrop to the Keith Erickson fire site. Correct. So, so, OK, so you guys are now all of a sudden go from being temple recommend holders, leaders in the church to being excommunicated and completely isolated. And, and then Helena, I guess you’ve been released and have been watching this happen in horror. And probably some degree of fear because you can’t believe it’s happening and could you be next? You know, you know, they already, so, so I imagine that’s the space you’re in, and why didn’t you take it from here.

[1:48:46] Helena Chamberlain: So I didn’t know, I mean, besides the talks that we gave, I didn’t know, you know, they didn’t know that I had the same beliefs about polygamy as the Ellsworth. Um, so I was, when I was released from Young Women’s, the bishopric counselor called me and said, you’re being released because we wanna give other people the opportunity to serve, but we We could extend a calling to you in nursery and I said. I’m gonna have to think about that and get back to you and pray about it and get back to you. And the next week, we had state conference, and then the next week, we had general conference. So this was mid-September when we were released. So we had two weeks of not going to church, like in our ward. And I decided that I, I, I was upset. I was upset about what had happened. I was scared and so I decided I, I’m not gonna, I don’t wanna be a nursery. I don’t wanna be shoved into nursery where like I can just, like, that’s what it felt like to me is like, we’re gonna stick you here where you can’t hurt anyone. Um, and so I, yeah,

[1:49:59] Michelle: you can’t teach one that isn’t of God, right? So, OK.

[1:50:04] Helena Chamberlain: I declined the calling in nursery, um. And then fast forward to um. Uh, should we fast forward to the, the fireside? What happened with the fireside. So, um, the, I went out to Utah over the Christmas break to see my daughters that still live there. And while I was there, I had some conversations with some friends. And I had, um, I decided in, well, I was, it, it got me to thinking. Um, maybe I should go in and talk to the bishop. My husband had had a conversation with him, our bishop, and the, the bishop had conveyed a concern towards me in that conversation with my husband. And my husband shared that with me right before I went out to Utah. So while I was there, I’m thinking about this, you know. This conversation and should I go in and have a conversation with my bishop about. What’s going on because the bishop said that he was, his concern was because he knew I was hurting because I’ve been released from young women’s. And so, um, over the course of being in Utah and talking to some friends, I came back and I still was like, I don’t know if this is the right thing for me to do. And on Friday, the 10th of January, I was listening to a podcast and the, an LDS podcaster, and they in the podcast said Do what is right, let the consequence follow, and I’m in my bathroom cleaning my bathroom, listening to this podcast in my earbuds, and I was like, OK, I need to do this. So I texted the bishop and I said, My husband told me that you’re concerned for me and I’m willing to come in and have a conversation with you if you’re, if you’re willing. And he almost immediately texted back and said, absolutely, you know, as, uh, whenever you wanna come in. So I’m, I immediately made that appointment for that Sunday. Um, just a couple of days later. Um, and in the meantime, that our steak had sent out the information about this fireside, so I had spent this week, um. Formulating questions to send in for this fireside, this Keith Erickson fireside that was coming up and so I had been working on an an email to send in my questions for the fireside. Oh,

[1:52:32] Michelle: so you knew about fireside before your bishop told you about it. It had been advertised.

[1:52:37] Helena Chamberlain: Yes, yes, I did. It had been advertised for I actually knew about it when I was in Utah. I think they’d been advertising it for several weeks in advance, and so I had been pondering on this. What kind of questions do I want to ask? And, and it, and when I, when I had that thought or when I had that prompting to reach out to the bishop, I um. I’d, I decided I’m gonna go meet with him. Like I had the option of that Sunday or the next Sunday, and I thought, I can’t, I can’t wait a week because like the anxiety of this is so much like I can’t even function. So I just need to get this over with. So I made the appointment for that Sunday. I went in and, um, and I’d already, yeah, I’d already been thinking about questions to ask in the fireside, but I went in and met with my bishop and

[1:53:27] Michelle: Can I, can I pause for one second, because there’s one question that I should have asked, and then I, I want to remember where we are in the story, but, um, what was the fallout in the ward after the Ellsworth’s excommunication? Was there much Could you feel tension? Did it, after your excommunication, did people come and knock on your door, reach out to you? Did you feel kind of isolated? Like, I kind of just wanna touch on that really quickly, the, the fallout.

[1:53:53] Manon: I think people were curious. There was a few curious ones cause they, no one really knew new, you know, at least not everybody. Um, so there was curious ones. So I didn’t, I’m not, I don’t know, I didn’t, we were still emotionally recovering. I didn’t really want to advertise it. But, you know, we had, um, you know, someone we knew came up and asked us at our door. She, you know, she got eggs cause our daughter sells eggs and so I just told her, I said she wanted to offer. Um, to take my daughter to young women’s, because now I wasn’t young woman’s president. And so, um, this was before the official letter and I said, um, I said, no, I, I think that’s, it’s better not, you know, because, um, we’re going, they’re going to probably us, you know, and so this is like right before the letter and then right after, she never talks to me again. So it seems like it’s that word is a real brainwashed. Mind control, if you have the word excommunication on your shoulders, whether you did anything bad or not, it’s a mind control to have people to shut people down to even associate with you. So she, there’s been a lot of people that just stopped. There was a lot of love bombing at first before they realized, and then when it kind of got around, it was like, no. And, um, so that was the hard thing. It’s hard to, to take that in when You know, people don’t know. But that being said, there are a couple of people, and I’m not gonna mention who, but there was, there are a couple of people that randomly once in a while will send me a text just out of kindness and stuff like that. So that

[1:55:23] Michelle: that is sweet and so. Lina, did they announce it in the ward or I guess I could ask, OK, so they didn’t, I’m glad of that. I’m glad they didn’t do a public announcement about the excommunication. OK. All right,

[1:55:35] Helena Chamberlain: they did not, um, a couple weeks, so I told you they were released. We had the state conference and general conference, and then, so we’re until October and partway through October, we had a high councilman come and speak in our ward, um, and he Um, he, he talked about it without talking about it, and he, he cautioned everybody from listening to podcasts and, um, and looking into things and just, just, just, you know, keep your eyes forward, just listen to your leaders, and, and then they did, uh,

[1:56:19] Manon: That’s probably it was,

[1:56:20] Helena Chamberlain: it was bizarre. It was bizarre.

[1:56:23] Manon: It was probably because right recently, right around that time, my interview with the Clarity podcast came out and so I’m sure they saw that, you know, because they have these spies in the certain Facebook groups that notify people and so, um, so they were doing kind of damage control, I think, you know, just from my observation of trying to keep people from watching or finding out really what happened to us.

[1:56:48] Michelle: And I think that this has become a big issue in You know, like there are a lot of podcasts talking about this issue, so I’m, I’m assuming it was kind of the broad the broad spectrum of don’t look into church history podcast.

[1:57:03] Manon: No, yeah, they didn’t want anyone looking at because then that leads you to this and then Whitney Morning’s book and then, you know, and then you start actually finding actual evidence.

[1:57:12] Michelle: They, they also needed to say don’t read Fannie Stenhouse’s book because that’s what started.

[1:57:18] Manon: I love that woman. I’ve never met her.

[1:57:20] Michelle: I know, I know I have so many heroes that like Jenny Anderson, Stenhouse, they are amazing others, yeah, OK, so Helena, back to you meeting with the bishop pull in that week and So you’re preparing your questions for the fireside. This is all on your mind, and you go meet with the bishop. OK,

[1:57:37] Helena Chamberlain: so I submitted my questions before I went and met met with the bishop, and I just, when I went in, I just told him that I didn’t feel safe in this ward. I said, and I brought up the Ellsworth, I said. I have some of the same beliefs that they have, and I feel very unsafe here. I feel like I’m being spied on. I know that I’ve been talked about behind my back, and I don’t, I don’t feel wanted, welcome or safe here. And um it was a hard, it was a really hard conversation to have and Um, part of one of the things that he said to me is he thanked me for trusting him to come in and have that conversation, and I said. I don’t, I don’t trust you. I didn’t come in because I trust you. I came in because I feel like the Holy Ghost prompted me to do this. I, uh, I, I just, I, I don’t feel safe and I don’t, I don’t feel safe with you. And I said, I’m not trying to be rude. I’m not trying to be disrespectful. I’m just trying to be honest that I don’t feel safe in this ward and I don’t feel safe. In general here and I said, I love it here. I love living here. I love where I’m at. My struggle is just with the, the church community that. I, I had no idea that I was gonna experience this in coming here

[1:59:00] Michelle: and because you had just moved in and this was your first, OK,

[1:59:04] Helena Chamberlain: right, and I, I, I, I do know some of the people here because some of the people that live here are I went to seminary with when I was a teenager, and they’ve, they’re, they’ve moved back here like I have. And so I do know some of the people and some of the families here, but not, I don’t know everyone. And I, so I just I, I didn’t come into it knowing a lot of people and having a lot of friends here. I came into a new area, a new ward, and, and I haven’t made a lot of friends yet.

[1:59:36] Michelle: Did you feel like the bishop was kind of compassionate and ministering, or was he trying to find out what you believe as well? Like, had he kind of Did he have the same concerns about you that he did with the Ellsworths?

[1:59:49] Helena Chamberlain: Um, I feel like he was compassionate. Um, he did validate my feelings. He, he was, he was very kind and, and, uh, he did validate my feelings and, and said that he understood why I would feel that way even because of what happened. And, and then he asked me if I wanted to share what my beliefs were with him. And I, at first, I said, I don’t, I don’t think so. Like that hasn’t, uh, people think I’m, I’ve Lost my mind or I’ve like gone off the deep end when I, when I share that I don’t believe polygamy is from God. And so, um, I sat there for a minute and I was like, you know what, I, I will share. And so I shared with him that I didn’t believe polygamy was of God and that Joseph Smith, it didn’t originate with Joseph Smith, but originated with Brigham Young. And we did have a conversation about that a little bit, and he did, um, He He said, you know, I don’t, I don’t know. I don’t understand, but, but Christ does, and he can help you. And I said, yeah, he has, he definitely has helped me with this. Like I said, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t be here today if he didn’t, because when, um, when my husband shared with me that the bishop was concerned about me, it actually, I was very angry. I was extremely angry because I was like, he Because I blamed him. I said, well, he’s the one that did this, and so it’s his fault that I’m angry instead of saying, you know. Anyway, um, but that day that my husband shared that with me, I, that evening, I got down and prayed and I said, I said, God, you have to help me with this. I cannot, this is, this is more than I can carry. I can’t, I can’t be angry with, with the bishop about this. And, and uh. I immediately felt peace and had. Um, just peace and comfort about that. And was the, the next day after that happened, I was able to, we went to their house. It was before Christmas and took treats to their family and interacted with him. And, and I didn’t, I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t like, you, you hurt me, you did this. I was, and so I, I actually shared that with him that I had had that experience of being angry and, and praying about it and receiving that peace and comfort about it. And I said that’s the only reason that I’m here is because I’ve had that and because I felt like I was supposed to come in and, and share this with you. And then I felt like at the end, he was a little bit grasping at like, I don’t know what to tell her. I don’t know how to help her with this. And I, and, and he said, do you still believe in the Book of Mormon? And I said, I absolutely believe in the Book of Mormon. And he said, well just keep, keep reading the Book of Mormon. And, and he, he told me when I, when I shared with him that I, um. I was I felt unsafe because I felt like I could be excommunicated for having the same, same beliefs as Es worse. He told me that I would not be excommunicated if I did not proselytize my beliefs. Like, I’m even allowed to have conversations with people, but I’m not, I don’t know. I’m not allowed to proselytize what my beliefs are. So, That after we met, um, we, I met with him for a little over an hour and then I came home and my husband had gotten called into work that day, so he wasn’t there, um, when I met with the bishop. Um. But he got home from work and um the bishop had texted me and let me know about the fireside. And that I could ask questions if I wanted to, and I let him know that I would be there and that I had asked questions. And then my husband and I went to the fireside together that evening.

[2:03:49] Michelle: OK. OK. So I want to pause on this for a minute too, cause I find this to be so interesting that the bishop was able to show up with so much compassion. And desire to minister to you after showing up so differently to the Ellsworths. And I find that to be, like, I, I wonder, um, do, do, I mean, I guess it could be because you were in a calling of leadership, and on, and so it felt more threatening, or it could be that he felt somewhat repentant afterwards.

[2:04:20] Manon: I think he thought we, because we would, would say. No, if it, if Lord prompted us to speak up, we’ll speak up. I think he took that as proseliding, you know what I mean? Yeah,

[2:04:32] Michelle: but that’s, I understand, but it’s still pre-crime. You haven’t prose. He was, he was concerned that you may prosely. So I, I think I I like I would have preferred it would have been so much less damaging if he said. I understand those are your views. I don’t agree, and I have some concern, but, um, but I don’t feel, um, like, like, as long as you don’t prosely, we don’t, we won’t take action against you. If they had just left it there instead of making you promise that you wouldn’t at any time, do you know what I mean, kind of like like that could have been handled. I, I just, I just, I just I’m looking. At the fallout for your family and it’s like it could have been different, you know, and so, and so like he could have even said, OK, um, if, if you feel inspired to share it, would you be willing to talk to me about it and let me know that you’re going to or have that and let me have that like, like some

[2:05:26] Manon: I would have loved to compromise like that. So we could just, you know, discuss it with prayer. And with the Lord, you know,

[2:05:34] Michelle: and I want to be overly critical of your bishop because I know hindsight is 2020 and it’s so easy for me to sit here an armchair quarterback, you know, but I think it’s the reason I think it’s helpful is because there are so many, so many people are coming to these beliefs from so many avenues, right, that this more and more bishops are going to be dealing with this and we are wanting to like help. Help learn from both bad and good examples, you know, like, like what are the best practices, and I think it is tragic that you were excommunicated for pre-crime.

[2:06:08] Manon: Yeah, I mean, I mean, and, and, and is it really if we were to think about it in the, in the Lord’s terms, is it a crime to do what he asked you to do? I, I just, it’s hard to comprehend that we’re so used to following a cultural system of policies that we, we, the Lord is on the back burner. It’s kind of like when Jesus Christ came to the Pharisees and the Jews and he said, I’m here to change the law. It’s the exact kind of concept, you know, we need to listen to Jesus Christ first and, and it feels like it’s not happening that way. It’s just the system. Yeah,

[2:06:42] Michelle: there could even be like a bishop, would you like I’m not intending to talk to. But when, when this lesson comes up and would you like to come to that lesson when I teach that topic? Or I mean, I’m trying to think of ways that this could happen rather than you’re

[2:06:59] Manon: out then we’re still coming to the same conclusion, which is alarming to me that the church is still gonna say that polygamy. is from God and I don’t, I don’t know how to get around that. Like when I know with the surety, it’s as good as I knew the Book of Mormon was true. It’s as good as I know Jesus Christ has resurrected and died for us. As good as I know I was supposed to marry Erin, those answers are solid and that’s the same solid.

[2:07:24] Michelle: Let’s put it in this context. If the church had come out in their manual with a lesson for the primary children and the young men and young women and all all of the ages that said. The priesthood ban was of God, and black people, people of African descent were less faithful in heaven, and this is church doctrine, and do you know what I mean? And we said, I don’t believe that. I don’t agree. God tells me that that is not only not true but is reprehensible and no, I don’t want to teach that. Right, like, like, I’m, I’m trying to communicate to them. That is how we feel about polygamy.

[2:07:59] Manon: It’s the same thing, you know, right?

[2:08:01] Michelle: It’s like racism is not OK. Sexism is not OK. We can, we have to stop accusing God of being either racist or sexist, and I’m sorry. Polygamy is straight up sexist, right? The, the way that um it’s verses in 132 talk about women as possessions to be taken and given as came up in the Keith Erickson fires, right? So that’s, I’m just trying to help our leaders understand that we’re not trying to be. Aggressive or rebellious or difficult, we are saying these things are not true and you can’t ask me to teach them. And now that they are put in the manuals, the issue is being forced, so it’s coming to a head and it’s and it’s creating challenges all around. So, OK, all right, so so the Keith Eriksson fire site, so you. Um, Helena, in this space where you were so vulnerable with your bishop to be willing to tell him I don’t feel safe, and I, I share these same ideas, which that that had to be terrifying to say, right? And, and but you still submitted. That was the space you were in. You had heard the exact word flesh out. You had heard these exact words, we have to get rid of people and you’re good friends, you’d watch this happen to their family. And so you are traumatized, secondary trauma, right, as well as terrified. I tell me if I’m getting this right. I’m just trying to paint the context of the questions that you submitted. OK. Yeah,

[2:09:26] Helena Chamberlain: yeah, and, and that’s, that’s exactly why I wrote the question the way I did was because of the experience that I had gone through and the, those words. That’s why I used, I was very thoughtful. I wrote a whole page of questions, but I was very thoughtful. This wasn’t just something that I threw out there in 5 minutes. I spent days pondering on how to word these questions. And so I started an email and I wrote them down and then Each day I would go in and revise and and work on the wording of these questions because. I, I I kind of didn’t, I kind of thought it would go the way it did, but I wanted to give the benefit of the doubt, and I was hopeful that, that there would be answers instead of what, what happened. Like I was hopeful that, that there would be good answers.

[2:10:22] Michelle: OK, so and and that

[2:10:23] Helena Chamberlain: and that the questions because it, it said you could ask any questions that we’re gonna answer any questions, even the hard ones. And so I was like, well, I’ve got some hard questions. I know that. I know that these are hard questions, so that

[2:10:36] Michelle: you were trying to do what you were supposed to do. This was the purpose of this meeting. Um, Helena, would you be, um, you sent me your list of questions. They are beautiful. I, um, have the 132problems.org website where there’s a, would you be OK if, if we share your list of questions and put a link to it below so people can read your questions. OK. And then if you want to also share your talk, we could put your talk that you gave in church that you’ve shared. You can decide if you want to share that too because we could put both of those up. And I think people would love to read, to read the house your heart comes through in these questions. You can see how hard you worked in them on them. So, OK, so the Keith Erickson fireside is still up. People can watch the entire thing. I just want to play the section when he starts talking about polygamy and yours is the very first question that he read. So let me go ahead and um. And show that.

[2:11:33] Keith Erekson: OK, now. Now it’s gonna get real. I’m gonna read this whole thing. Is there a place in the church for members who are faithful to their covenants but are now discovering through extensive research of the scriptures, the Joseph the papers, prayer that polygamy is not ever commanded by God, that Joseph Hira and Emma fought polygamy and Brigham Young and others like he. Kimball Willard Richards altered the narrative after Joseph was murdered to fit with what they were doing, or do these individuals need to be flushed out, punished and excommunicated for their beliefs? OK, that’s how it was typed up right for us. Did you hear that? Did you hear the really strong either or talking about somebody else’s sex life?

[2:12:21] Manon: Oh my

[2:12:22] Michelle: gosh. Helena, you were sitting there in that meeting when that happened.

[2:12:29] Helena Chamberlain: Yes,

[2:12:29] Michelle: can, can you, um, I, I’m just, I just, again, I wanna say I’m so sorry. Can you share your experience?

[2:12:41] Helena Chamberlain: Well, I would, I. I was dumbfounded. I, I was like, he just read my question, like I was sitting next to my husband and I elbowed him like when he started reading it. I was like, this is my question. This is my question. And I, it felt so gross, like the way that he read it and the way that his tone was like. Dismissive and um

[2:13:08] Michelle: minimizing and shaming yeah you

[2:13:12] Manon: you

[2:13:13] Helena Chamberlain: hear it in his tone when he’s reading it like she’s, you know, asking about the Joseph Smith paper scripture and prayer, like the way that he says that

[2:13:22] Michelle: it’s like she had like papers and scriptures, this woman,

[2:13:28] Helena Chamberlain: yeah, right. Yeah, and, and I just, I, I, I, I was in shock. I was like. Oh my goodness. Like when he started to answer it but didn’t answer it, like he, I’m just a guy, I, you know, talk to your state president and I, I just, I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe that he had read it to begin with and then that, that he answered it in. You hear that really strong binary that concerning someone else’s sex life and I was like, what? Like no, that’s not, no, that’s not what it was, yeah. Yeah, so, um. I, I, yeah, I was just in shock and disbelief, the, the way that he answered it. Um, it, it didn’t feel good.

[2:14:24] Manon: When you, uh, realized like he didn’t get to the questions, Mr. Ericson didn’t get to the questions for at least 40 minutes. In the beginning, he’s setting up his audience. He’s doing a lot of double talk and if you, if you know what double talk means that you know, there’s a Cambridge dictionary says um the language. has no real meaning and it’s always uh twisted to to hide truth. And so he does some drop words in there in the beginning to really set the audience up to cancel mentally what you he’s going to set up as this is, this question is stupid or this question is ridiculous. So he drops these words like binary, conspiracy theorists, uh, antagonists, errors. I mean, he drops all these, these words,

[2:15:09] Michelle: you know, and they’re hiding things, they’re hiding things. He’s

[2:15:12] Manon: he’s building a framing and priming a case so when you get to those questions, you’ll immediately cancel that person and go, yeah, I’m not gonna listen to that person. So you don’t even get to think about what the question is referring or really, you know, in depth do some critical thinking as an audience. As an audience, he set up at least a certain amount of the audience to emotionally cancel those people. And that was the whole point. I think he had, he had two audiences to, to cater to. One was the audience that was gonna follow their leaders and hasn’t done much research, and then he has the audience that have done. The research and are asking these questions, so he wants to scare those people from asking any more questions and the other audience to believe him, whatever he says, you know, that we’re extremists or whatever.

[2:15:58] Michelle: That is so well analyzed because what he’s doing is making a Helena feel completely isolated, publicly mocked and demeaned and shamed and humiliated, and So, and, and so sharing that vulnerable question turns into let’s all judge this person together, right? And, and so Helena, did you say you were, I, I like when we talked on the phone, you said you went and got a drink and you were shaking and you were gonna leave and just like, like tell us a little more of how this affected you. I can’t, I cannot imagine you were glad at that point that you had put so much thought into your concussions and gone to the fireside.

[2:16:37] Helena Chamberlain: Right, yeah, he also in that question was, um, he just said that I was wrong. You’re just wrong. So, and being, being wrong is hard like we all, um. It’s not a sin, but you’ve been misled and you’re wrong. Um, humility is hard. I know it’s much easier to say. I discovered this thing on this website. It’s appealing to pride. It’s appealing to fear, but you’re just wrong. And so after this question, I sat there for a little bit longer and then I was like. I, I’ve, I’ve gotten into the habit in the last year, um, when things are really difficult in church that I just, I’ll get up and go out and get a drink or go to the restroom or go, sometimes I have to go all the way outside the building, um. And so I got up thinking that I was just gonna go out and walk, um. And I got out the back door as far as the drinking fountain, and I had a drink and I, I just said to my, I just, I just had this. This thought, like, I gotta go back in there. I can, I can do this. Like I can go sit through this. It’s not gonna do me any good to go be out in the hall this time. Like I just need to go sit through this and, and hear everything that I, that he has to say because maybe, just maybe it’s not, the whole thing isn’t gonna be like this. So we’re almost halfway through at this, at this point, a little less than halfway through the meeting at this point. When I get up and walk out and, and then come back in and sit down. And my husband actually seems kind of surprised when I come and sit back down next to him. But um yeah, it was, it was so difficult um because like Manon was saying, he had set up the whole, the whole 1st 30 minutes of the meeting just Talking about all these things to just. Yeah, And I thought I thought, well, that was my question, but how are other people gonna feel when their question is read and it’s just ripped apart and they’re just told you’re wrong. You’re wrong, you’re wrong, you’re wrong, and you’re prideful and you’re fearful and you’re wrong. And um, Yeah, so I, I went back in and and sat back down and and. And it, and it just, it continued over and over. Every question was mocked. It was the, even in his tone of voice that he was being dismissive in his tone of voice and, and all of it. Um, it just I, I, it was surreal. I, I was just like, I can’t believe that this is happening. I can’t believe that he’s doing this, that he’s treating us. He, he treated the whole room as if we were ignorant. We hadn’t even ever opened our scriptures. We’d never researched anything. We’ve never taken it to God. Like we were just a bunch of dumb, dumb. Individuals that had never looked into anything and which the shocking part about it is. How would anyone have come up with a question that was worth reading if they hadn’t done any work behind it to To try to understand these things like. If you went there. My, my husband actually said, I have more questions now than I had walking into that meeting. I more questions now that I sat with that, and it just felt horrible to, to be treated in that way.

[2:20:22] Michelle: And what he painted as a binary was you quoting actual words that had been used in this exact context, and he accused you of being. You know, and then, and then also he didn’t ease your concerns. He was like, talk to your state president. Like, I mean, it was so, so troubling that. Like he had to listening. Yeah,

[2:20:50] Manon: he set her up to be an extremist and act like no one ever flushes out from the church. Well, they did. They did exactly that.

[2:20:59] Aaron: And so,

[2:21:02] Manon: yeah, and whether he knows that conversation actually took place in the real sense, who knows,

[2:21:07] Michelle: but you don’t get a handle questions this way. Yeah. Yeah.

[2:21:13] Aaron: So, just like Moan and I have kind of analyzed the way that he conducted this entire fire site, um, he’s literally Like, the reason why he can take any hard questions, as I mentioned in the in the email going out, is because he’s using a strategy that really politicians would envy. Um, he’s, he starts off by conditioning the entire audience for about 30 minutes or so, uh, and in that conditioning, he, uh, and then he continues to use priming, framing, uh, he, he builds rapport and then he uses double speak. And I’ll just very quickly cover each of those things because if you rewatch his, his thing, you can see him doing every single one of these things. With the report building, he starts off looking very nice. He’s got the, the sweater under underneath stuff. He, uh, starts talking by appealing to the average family man, you know, showing a picture of his family. It’s one of the only bits of evidence that he actually shows on the projector the whole time. Uh, with his voice, the way that he’s modulating it and stuff like that, he’s upbeat and high energy whenever he’s talking about his stuff or he’s mocking in his tones to make us think that, you know, this is a, a, a stupid person at, at, at that point for asking the question. Um, and then later on at about, yeah, and, and later on at about the, the 30 minute mark, he uses a subconscious trigger phrase, and this is again building rapport where he says something to the effect of we’ve been friends now for half an hour. And it’s like, so again, it’s, it’s, it’s a subconscious trigger to uh to get you to like him. Um, all of that results in the audience liking him because he’s a good guy, because what they’re seeing is the sheep’s clothing, the facade that he’s trying to, to put on. But then he also uses priming, and during that 30 minutes, he’s talking about, uh, uh, priming psychologically, it’s, it’s a technique where you introduce one sort of a stimulus and use that to influence how people respond to subsequent stimulus. So, the, the example of priming is he spends a long time explaining his meaning, his definition of binary, so that it will influence the way that we think, the way that we process the other information that he shares later on. And so by the time he uses the the word bright binary later on, we are thinking, well, obviously he’s pointing out this is an example of this, so it’s obviously a flawed question, flawed or incorrect. And and that type of stuff. So he’s, he’s priming us with that, and then every time he gets into a question, he ends up framing it. So, at the very, very end of of Helena’s question right there, he reframes it not to be about polygamy, not to be about the question was, is there a place in the church for me, even though I believe this. He immediately reframes the question to be about, see how there’s a binary about a question of somebody else’s sex life. Yeah, completely framing it. And Helena. Yeah, Helena

[2:24:18] Michelle: has this very bad way of thinking. She’s bad. She’s see, she’s trying to be divisive and she’s obsessed with someone else’s sex life. That is what he did right there. It was, it was insane. It was crazy making, and that’s just for me as an observer. So when, oh yeah, OK. Wow, I’m glad that he didn’t have the picture of the person who submitted the question up on the,

[2:24:45] Helena Chamberlain: on the very manipulative.

[2:24:48] Manon: What got me is, you know, watching that whole the fireside, he has a projector behind him and he could have put up anything from Joseph Smith papers, actual documents, but he showed nothing, nothing, and I thought. When they had the projector in the beginning, I thought maybe he’ll actually show some documents. I, you know, you get brace at least, you know, but once he started 30 minutes of psychological mumbo jumbo, I was like, no, he has another agenda. He’s framing this for questions later.

[2:25:15] Michelle: I was heartbroken by that, yeah, to, to also to just say to anyone, you’re wrong. You’re wrong. Like, how does that go over in a marriage? Like, you know, if you’re if if like if my husband comes to me, it’s like, Michelle, um, we’re over budget this month, you said you’re wrong. You’re wrong. You know what I mean? I mean, whatever topic when it’s like here I’m I’m looking at this evidence. I have this, no, you’re wrong. Yeah, I mean, it’s so unbelievable that anybody would engage this way, but let alone a professional who and and this is what floors me is that his actual employment. Is the outreach of the church history department, which I assume means, I mean, I don’t think he’s paying his own plane tickets and hotel stays to do this, and he said in it that he’s being paid to do this as his employment. He he I’ve, I’ve had several people from Australia reach out to me who were at a fire site he did in Australia in December, just before this one, who are sharing exactly the same experiences. I’m hoping that some of them will want to come and talk about it as well because like, like I’m, I’m just, the reason I want to talk about this and bring attention to it is because this is not the way to handle this. This is so counterproductive and, and, and it’s just a bad look and it and it’s destructive, you know. So I, the fact that he is being paid as well as, um, you know, the way provided for him to go do this, like they say in the beginning of the fireside that it was set up by the Um, general authority over the church history department who is recommending like this, this is not a good strategy at all. They have the projector show the documents. Let’s have a conversation. Helena, I wanna ask you how did this go over like listening to it I was horrified. I want to know, did you feel like you were the only one there going, what’s happening? And everyone else was right on board?

[2:27:17] Helena Chamberlain: I felt like the way that at the very beginning, he was, he was talking about conspiracy theories. I was like, he’s already alienated like 50% of the people in the room at least. And so I feel like if people were feeling like I was feeling, which I’ve talked to quite a few people, well, I’ve talked to several people since the fireside. And I’ve only had one person that said that they thought it was good and the other people that I’ve talked to were like. This was really bad or I’m where I did have someone that couldn’t quite put their finger on it, but it’s because they haven’t studied any church history, so they didn’t know when we got into the question and answer part that they were being lied to. They just knew that that uh that the whole beginning of it felt really manipulative and um. And and bad. At at the beginning, when he first, the first time he made the joke about, oh we’re hiding things, this is where we’re hiding it in the app. There was a little bit of, of chuckling and you can hear, um, but as he kept bringing that up and joking about that and over and over again, there were only a couple people that that laughed at it again and, and one of the people that kept laughing at it, I, I was like. That individual is very like it was almost like a nervous laugh like they laugh at everything and so that’s kind of how I took that is that it was uncomfortable, so we’re gonna laugh at this again even though. I don’t even think that they thought it was funny at that point, like the, there were, there were about 200 people in that room. There were twice as many people in that room as were in church on Sunday in our ward. We have a, a rather small ward and There, my, my guess is that there were about 200 people in that room from where I was sitting in the room and how full it was in front of me and behind me and Um, another thing you should understand is that geographically, our stake is really large and we have 15 units in our stake, and so people had to travel, um, the people that are furthest away from the building that this was held at live 30 to 30 minutes to a little bit over an hour away from this building. And so, Even my family members that are that live only, you know, 5 or 10 minutes further away from that building chose to watch it on Zoom, so. I think that they had a much larger audience that watched this than were in the seats in that chapel that Sunday because, because geographically and it had been really cold too, we had a, a really big snowstorm the week before. And so we had a foot of snow that wasn’t fully, it just barely finished melting and so it was really cold that week too. So I think that was another thing that kept people from coming out on a Sunday night to watch it in person. With Zoom, people are like, oh, there’s a Zoom link. I can stay in my pajamas. This is, I will stay in my pajamas and watch it at home. So,

[2:30:33] Michelle: there were at least

[2:30:34] Helena Chamberlain: 200 people. There were also a lot of kids in the room. I was surprised how many teenagers were there. It was well attended. was well attended. OK, but you and that to me that shows that there’s a lot of people that have questions,

[2:30:49] Michelle: but the feedback that you have heard has not been positive.

[2:30:52] Helena Chamberlain: it has not been.

[2:30:54] Michelle: Have you had another conversation with your, like, it sounded like your bishop was optimistic that this would be helpful. Have you heard, have you talked to him about it? Did you send any feedback in about this meeting?

[2:31:07] Helena Chamberlain: I have not talked to my bishop about it, um. Uh, I, I actually met with him the next Sunday very briefly, but I didn’t bring it up. I met with him about uh calling.

[2:31:21] Michelle: But he didn’t bring it up either. He didn’t

[2:31:23] Helena Chamberlain: say I did a when I He did not. We only had about 15 minutes. He did not ask me how the fireside was. I, I wish I would have asked him. Um, cause he was, he was there, he was there with his wife. I wish I would have asked him and said, hey, what did you think of that? But I, but I didn’t, I knew we didn’t have a lot of time. Um, I did, I did send a letter to the Stake leaders about my experience in that meeting. Um, and I have not, I, I did receive a reply from the, the high counselor that received that email. He thanked me for giving feedback and validated um how difficult it, that, the situation is, and said that he would pass it along to the state presidency, but I haven’t. heard anything back from that. Our, our state president is very sick. He has cancer and so he is not doing very well right now. And so he, I, I, I can understand that. That, uh, it, it maybe is not high on the priority list with, with circumstances as they are right now with our state president. So,

[2:32:39] Michelle: OK. OK. If, if you’re OK, we’ll also share your letter, um, uh, that people with the link below so that people can read your interactions

[2:32:49] Helena Chamberlain: and just. Just so everyone knows, when I submitted my questions and my letter, I submitted them anonymously. I created an email address, so I’m coming out. I’m, this is me. I’m the one that wrote the email and the questions. So I, I, I wrote them anonymously because of being afraid of what would happen to me if I, if I spoke out on it. So,

[2:33:14] Michelle: so can, OK, can we just again, pause here? Um. This is what’s so hard. I get the strong impression that, um, Manon and Erin, you had no desire to leave the church, right? You had no desire to take your children, your family, leave the church, and Helena, I get the impression that you not only that you have no desire to leave the church and are actually Quite afraid of possible negative consequences because you don’t want to be out of the church, right? And so, and so I feel

[2:33:47] Helena Chamberlain: the. OK, I love the church. It’s the church that I’ve been raised in. It’s, it’s hard for me to see. Things that are being taught like this, it’s, it’s extremely difficult to see them. I, I would much rather see things be corrected than see, then come to a point where I need to, I feel like I can no longer stay because of these things.

[2:34:12] Michelle: Mhm. So I am very hopeful. I’ve been so hopeful that we were maybe turning over a new leaf and weren’t flushing people out, you know, and so it is, it’s been painful to hear this story and to see that it that it unfortunately does happen, you know, and I’m hoping. Just I’m desperately hoping that this can stop, that that we can understand that there is a ton of evidence that people are just not aware of. Like your bishop just wasn’t aware about Section 101 or the emergence of 132 or the extensive record of Joseph and Hiram and Emma’s adamant campaign against polygamy, right? And the fact that there is not a, there is not a shred of evidence of Credible evidence of them being involved in it. And if we could even just sit down and go through the scriptures, because the scriptures are what convinced me, it was going, like, like if we could just help our leaders understand, the Book of Mormon is the most hands down, by far the most anti-polygamist book of scripture in our entire canon. They like it, and it’s not even just limited. Well, first of all, it’s Jacob 1 through 3, the entire sermon and and preview to the sermon, but it Not limited to that. It goes on throughout the Book of Mormon. I’ve done so much work on pointing it out. The second most anti-polygamist book of scripture, polygamy book of Scripture, is the Doctrine and Covenants, Section 42, that is the law of the Lord revealed to the law to the church, right? It was God’s law revealed to the church and right there, verse 22, please read it, right? What, what it says that we and then we do have a lot of evidence in the Bible as well that The bishop has to be the husband of only one wife, right? And then read Section 101. Look at this evidence, but at the very least, if people are not interested in looking at the evidence, please, please hold space for those of us who are the opposite of lazy learners who have dedicated hundreds and in some, I know in my case, thousands and thousands of hours. Into extensive research into the word of God, into the scriptures, into the historical documents. And like you all three have said, in prayer, and working with Lord, the Lord and asking sincere questions, like, is this really what we want to have happen? I, I, the evidence is so strong that at this point, I cannot help but feel a great deal of confidence. That at some point this is going to change, right? Just like the priesthood ban, the temple ban, the racist ban had to change. It couldn’t continue, right? At some point, this also will change. And what do we want the fallout to have been? What, what, what role do we want to have played in these challenging years of trying to change a narrative? It’s hard for everybody, but we have to allow space for one another to To have these conversations, right? Like, like what, what has happened is such a sad, sad story that if we could just rewind and undo this, I think everybody would want to, like, not have this have been the Ellsworth’s family’s experience, right? And Like, where does it go from from now? We always talk about if you leave the church, that’s generations, and I always want to say the same thing to the church. This is generations of impact on how this was handled and, and I, I strongly feel that Helena, if you were not such an incredibly humble person, I, I, I think a lot of people who submitted a sincere question. And had it treated this way, that would be a final straw for many, many people. I, I think that these firesides, if they continue, are going to continue to lead many people out of the church, right?

[2:38:24] Helena Chamberlain: I, I agree,

[2:38:25] Michelle: yeah. Which is what we’re all actually, even, even Manon and, um, Erin, even with the trauma and the really the violence that you have experienced, the emotional violence of what has happened. I still get the impression that you want what is in the best interest of the church, that you want that, you know, you don’t want other people to experience

[2:38:46] Manon: no, not at all. I just want them to, if we could just have the truthful discussions, that’s it. And, and what’s the harm in that? Jesus Christ came and taught in the temple to Pharisees that had different, you know, theologies, and he didn’t kick them out because they were culturally brought up in a certain way. Well, they kicked Jesus out. I’m saying it’s the reverse, yeah, yeah, in reverse, but you see what I mean, it’s like Jesus Christ didn’t act like that, you know, so why are we doing that? You know, we haven’t left the gospel, you know, we, we believe in the court and even if we didn’t, you allow investigators to say more than than us that have a testimony. I don’t get it, so.

[2:39:27] Michelle: And, and that’s the other thing I’ve, I’ve, I know I, uh, maybe I have said this before, but I like, oh my gosh, I, I want our church leaders to hear this. um, Manon and Helena and Erin, and, and I’ll throw myself in there. And me, I think that we are exactly the people you want because we are the people who have gotten in and understood like. And a like minutely the I mean the specifics of church history and we are still in the church and sincerely, sincerely in the church. We are not these whatever these secret conspirators that need to be fleshed out, right? We are sincere members of the church who, like you said, Helena, love the church, have given so much service to the. Church continue to give so much service to the church and we are not, um, feeling like, look, if, if we, I, I mean I there’s this idea that if you if you study polygamy, you have to leave the church or you know what I mean this protective stance that Keith Erickson is having what I’m saying is we are showing the way to navigate this with testimonies and full church activity intact. I, I desperately wish our church leaders would be reaching out to us and utilizing us to help other people find the answers that we’re finding, right? I, I feel like we could be so powerful in this effort if they would utilize us instead of fighting us.

[2:40:53] Manon: Yes, I agree 100%,

[2:40:55] Michelle: yes. OK, is there anything else that you guys want to say wrapping up? I, this has been so, um, I don’t know, this has been a beautiful conversation. I, I really appreciate you guys sharing. So vulnerably with these incredibly difficult topics, and, and I’m hoping that people will listen to this, but I want to give you guys each an opportunity to share your thoughts or your final. Last things you want people to understand.

[2:41:23] Aaron: Well, the only thing that I’ve really got to, to, to share to add to the conversation is the the scripture comes to my mind where Jesus is speaking and he says that if you’re neither warm nor cold, I’ll spew you out of my mouth and it just goes to exactly what you’re doing, where you’re, you’re sharing. sharing is as much of this information and and trying to move the needle and trying to uh teach the truth and I hear a lot about uh some people that are staying within the church and keeping their head down and uh you know, just trying to, to, to, to not say anything and not rock the boat, but At, at, at the same time, it was something that we didn’t really have much of an opportunity to cross a light. I mean, we, we were gonna try to share some of the things out of, out of like Whitney Horning’s book. I didn’t get around to actually sharing it. We, uh, did get to went on on one podcast and, and stuff like that, and now it’s, it’s done and over for us, but, uh, we’re still doing what we can to try to, to try to share. So that’s it. Just, God doesn’t want us to coast. He doesn’t want us to just sit around and and let let the world go by. He wants us to take action.

[2:42:34] Manon: Again, like you, just to reiterate, Michelle, what you said earlier, we don’t want to leave people out of the church. We want them to know the truth. It’s exciting. It’s just exciting. If you know the truth, you could have more confidence instead of be when you find out about whatever the church has said, or at least old history has said that Joseph Smith did this. A lot of people just go and leave completely and kind of become and what’s it called atheists even. They won’t, you know, once you’ve had I, I see it this way. I tell my friend, once you’ve had caviar, which is this discharge, why would you go back for chicken? You know, and so you, you, everything else, you know, because the gospel, core gospel is true, and we know that, you know, so we don’t want to lead people away from that, you know, the plan of salvation, the Book of Mormon, the scriptures, the Bible, those are all true. And so why would we want to lead people out? And we’re not interested in joining some other church either. It’s just not. You know, but we just want to have discussions. Like, what, how amazing it would be to go to Sunday school and not be afraid to discuss and and say, hey, I, I learned this through scripture. What do you think? You know, it doesn’t mean that you have to agree with that other person or they with you, but you can have these discussions as, as diplomatic people, you know, so

[2:43:50] Michelle: is that such a beautiful, beautiful vision of what it could be where we could actually think and speak and Share it’s and be just be mature, right, and confident. Yes, I love that. Thank you for sharing that.

[2:44:04] Helena Chamberlain: That’s. I want to share that I, this, this experience of learning that polygamy isn’t, was never commanded by God. And everything for me that has come along with it has been. Has It’s been, it’s, it’s been really painful. Not, not learning that polygamy wasn’t from God, but everything that brought me to that place, um, and realizing that what I believed was, was wrong, that, that’s what was wrong is that I believed that God was a God of many wives and concubines. Um, But I am so grateful for what I have gained by going through this extremely hard experience of the last 5 years of, of Of awakening to what God needed me to know. And the, the cognitive dissonance of it has been so hard and it’s been so hard to navigate. But I’m so grateful to now. Trust in And love the god of not many wives and concubines, the god of monogamy, the god that loves his daughters. The same that as he loves his sons. I don’t believe in a God who believes that men are better than women. I don’t believe in a, in a god that doesn’t want the chastity of women. I believe in the god of monogamy and the god that equally loves his daughters and. Um, one of the things that Brother Ericsson talked about was. The the couple that came to him and. And the husband was like, my wife has a problem with plural marriage, and so he realized that she didn’t know that God loved her the same as he loved his sons. And I’ve always known that God loved me the same that he loved his sons, which is why it was so hard for me to understand why God would allow polygamy and why. I had a hard time understanding why Emma didn’t go west with Brigham and the the church after Joseph died. It just created so much like. I don’t understand why she, why, and it all makes sense now. It all, it, it has, has become so much more clear for me to know that God is a God of monogamy. God is a God who loves his daughters as much as his sons and That he He is bringing me on this journey and he is allowing me to learn so much through the things that I’ve gone through and he is teaching me how to. How to trust in him over anyone else and how to um. How to just come closer to him and And, and it’s been hard. I’ve been through some very difficult experiences, but he, he’s, he lives. He is the bread of life. He is the living water, and the only way is through him and through his sacrifice on our behalf.

[2:47:51] Michelle: That’s so beautiful. Thank you. Yeah, I thank you for sharing that. I will echo that, that for anybody. I, I desperately wish Aaron and Manon that your bishop had been willing to take you up on the invitation to join you in prayer. Right, and, and, and it’s not too late. I am hoping that more people will be willing to seek the truth. I quote all the time, 3rd Nephi 26, where we are told that we, we are under condemnation because we have not believed the things which we have received in the Book of Mormon, which is reiterated in Doctrine Covenants 84. Right, that the church is under condemnation and the reason we are not, we cannot receive more that we are told is that our, it is to our condemnation if we don’t, is because we have refused to believe the things that have been given, namely the Book of Mormon. And this is, I find it fascinating that the Book of Mormon has so much to say about God’s establishment of marriage. It when we read into it, I won’t go into the details here, but, but I have done many episodes and I’m sure that anyone in Manon and Helena’s and Aaron Stake, I’m sure you guys would be willing to talk to anyone about it. It is a primary reason of why Lehi was commanded to leave Jerusalem because they were practicing polygamy. It is. A primary reason that they wanted to kill him is because he was willing to speak out against that that practice. That is an abomination, right? It is Lehi was commanded in no uncertain terms that men and women should live one on one the way God always establishes every time God wants to establish a covenant people, which is the only way that God can raise up seed unto Himself is through a covenant, is through me. Adam and Eve, right? Noah and Noah’s wife. There were 8 souls on the ark, 4 men, 4 women. Soraya and Lehi, who were adamantly commanded. We, we read in um in um 1 Nephi 7:1 that the reason the boys were commanded to go back to get Ishmael and his daughters was so that the Lord could raise up seed unto Himself, the exact same language as Jacob 2:30, right? And with monogamy in monogamy, if you look at the numbers you can do it and it is 11 to 1 perfectly just like the arc and and Jacob, we have to get Jacob 1 and Jacob 3 in there too because that’s where we learned that God commanded Lehi. That they should only live monogamy and that the Lamanites were more righteous than the Nephites even though they were the people of the covenant. Why should it surprise us that that history replays itself, right? If the Nephites could step into polygamy, but then repent and still be God’s chosen people, we can too, right? We are not saying that the church just like God always honors repentance. What a. blessing it has been to all of us that Wilfred Woodruff had the courage to do the unthinkable and contradict the previous leaders and and polygamy in the church. And even if it was only gradually, he did that, right? How amazing was it that President Kimball ended the priesthood ban, which was also thought to be unthinkable. Guess what? The church not only survived those, those changes, it thrived. It went on to thrive every single time because it was repentance, right? Like stopping doing something wrong is repentance, and we have that same opportunity to to do that. And it, and if people will really take these things seriously, take them into their hearts instead of just shutting it down and saying I’m going to follow follow my leaders, I’m going to stay in this mindset I have, which is exactly what the people who contributed to. The crucifixion of Jesus did. They said this is something new that I haven’t heard before. Jesus says that all the time. Moses, you have Abraham you have. But if you hear something new, oh no, shut it down, apostasy. We are just watching the same thing happen that has happened every time God has established a people, right? God’s people get things wrong and God calls them to repentance, and those who are willing to repent come closer to God and those who are not willing to repent. Sometimes unfortunately persecute those who are willing to repent. And I’m hoping that that we can, um, that more and more people can just be aware of what’s happening, that it’s all happened before and it’s right there in the scriptures for us to see. So you guys, I, I just, I hope that everybody in our audience will keep, um, these, these families in their prayers because I know that the Ellsworths have a difficult road to continue to hoe to figure this out. You know, like, how to, I, I mean, I love that your testimonies are intact and that, you know, I, I, I have so much trust that God has got you guys right. Write it, you know that you are completely known and and taken care of and being used by God in important ways and Helena, I’m just also asking that people will keep you in your prayers in our prayers that um that things can go well for you going forward, even having had the um courage to follow the invitation to come onto this podcast. So, um, I. have so much hope for the church. I have been told by God that there is so much reason to hope, and I will continue to hope, and I, and I just want to invite more people in this space to join us in the pursuit of truth with full faith in God and in Jesus Christ and the gospel of Jesus Christ and the restoration of the gospel. Good things are coming. Thank you so much, you guys are awesome, and thank you everyone for tuning in. We’ll see you next time. I want to, again, sincerely thank Helena and Erin and Mean for coming on and sharing their stories. I hope that you got as much out of that conversation as I did. I was so touched by each of their testimonies and their spirits and their goodness and their desire for truth and for righteousness. I hope desperately going forward, that these kinds of tragic situations can be minimized and avoid. I hope there can be space for honest exploration of the Word of God and the history of our wonderful church. So thank you so much to all of you who have stuck in with this conversation. Please, please consider sharing this if it’s one that you think would be helpful for leaders to hear. I, I would like as many leaders as possible to be prepared in advance for these topics and these situations and discussions. That most likely will come up in their words and stakes as this truth keeps spreading and these ideas keep growing. I, I hope that we can be prepared to engage in the best possible ways, both, both, um, the people coming to these ideas and the people in leadership and stewardship in boards and stakes stakes and the church in general. So, thank you so much, and I will see you next time.