69: Ongoing Abuses of Polygamy with Tonia Tewell | 132 Problems: Revisiting Mormon Polygamy

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Transcript

[00:00] Michelle: Welcome to 132 Problems revisiting Mormon Polygamy, where we explore the scriptural and theological case for plural marriage. I am so excited to bring to you the second episode in this series on helping us understand the actual experience of polygamy. I think we have to see this part of it to really understand what it is and where it comes from. Um, Tanya Toole is an amazing human who I’m so excited to have gotten to know. And to let all of you get to know. Also, I think that it’s really important to understand the direction that the polygamy is going and the problems are going. It’s not what I wanted to hear. And also, please stick around to the end so you can learn some ways that you can help. For anyone who feels inspired to. Um, first of all, I just want to ask everyone to start praying for our brothers and sisters that are still trapped in this awful system. I have to give the caveat. I know that this is a little bit of a controversial. Title because not everybody in polygamy feels like a victim or feels like they are victimized. I acknowledge that. I understand it, but there are many, many who do, and, um, they need God’s help and they need our help, and we need God’s help to know how to start to fix these terrible problems that are still existing in our communities. So thank you so much for joining us as we take this next deep dive into the actual experience of plural marriage. Welcome to this episode of 132 Problems. I am so happy to be here with Tanya Toole, who is just a gem that I am so excited to meet and connect with, and the work that she is doing and has been doing in our community is amazing and so critical and essential. So Tanya is the founder and executive director of Holding Out Help. Holding out help for families, which, oh, I’ve read a little bit on the website and I’ll let you tell us about it, but I know that what it’s it’s main purpose is to help people, children and women, and I believe also men who are coming out of polygamy and trying to acclimate and learn how in the world to live in this world that they have been so sheltered from. So Tanya, thank you so much for agreeing to do this. And can you correct anything that I left out of your introduction?

[02:26] Tonia Tewell: You did actually really well. I was gonna say, I don’t know if I can do it much better. So, no, it was great, Michelle, you know, we just, we started this like what, 15 years ago, just seeing a need in our community in our backyard here in Utah and. So we do, we provide all the necessary resources for somebody who’s transitioning out of the culture. We do help people who are still in as well but we specialize in those who are shifting out and don’t really have any idea on how to navigate mainstream society and so we just felt we needed to do something a little bit more.

[02:57] Michelle: OK, I have, so we’re gonna go so many directions. I have so many questions for you. But first of all, I would love to, and I have things that I’ve said in the past, um, and a past episode that I’m gonna have you that I was happy to have you correct me on. So we’ll go, we have a lot to talk about. But first, you are not and have never been a member of the LDF LDS Church, is that correct?

[03:17] Tonia Tewell: That’s correct. No, I’m not from here, so I’m from Nebraska, even though I’ve lived here, gosh, I wanna say like 25 years. And so I’m a Christian, but just not part of the LDS Church. And so, yeah, no, I’m not. And it’s funny because I listened to a couple of your podcasts over the weekend just trying to get a feel of who you were and I was very fascinated and really related to you on the Topic of truth and love and and so I, I, I, I love what you’re saying. I don’t know all the ins and outs of the doctrine and covenants that you know on the LDS side so I don’t have the same opinions, but I just love that connection that we have. I have so many questions in my church that if they wouldn’t ask, I wouldn’t be a part of, so I really respect you for that.

[03:59] Michelle: Oh good, thank you. I, that’s that’s I I appreciate that. What I, what I think I love is um so I’ve done a lot of study into early Utah. I did some episodes on Um, the early women of Utah, who also were non-members who were helping the polygamist women clear back with Jenny Anderson Froy. So I find it fascinating that we have this long tradition of good Christian women seeing a need kind of from the outside and coming in to help. And so I, I kind of love that connection that you are really in the footsteps of Jenny Anderson Froy doing the same work, which I think is beautiful.

[04:35] Tonia Tewell: I know who she is, so I’m gonna have to look that up. You’re gonna have to text me her name because I, I’ve heard some of others in the past, but I have not heard of Jenny and so no, you know, it was, it was interesting because when my husband and I were moving here, I had followed him all over with his corporate job. And I remember him saying, you know what, we’re being transferred to Salt Lake City. And I was like, that’s the one place I will not go. I don’t want to go. I heard there’s polygamy there, and then I would joke around with him like, you’re gonna take another wife? or. And so we, we would laugh about it and then we land here. And I guess we just didn’t, we didn’t realize how prevalent it was. Like there’s so many here. And, and I think they do a good job of just keeping on the outside and not letting people really know they’re around. But when we, yeah, when we learned more, we just had to do something, so.

[05:22] Michelle: Yeah, and I want to hear that story. I growing up in Salt Lake, it’s interesting because I think it’s so separated from us in the mainstream LDS church that, you know, like you’d be somewhere and you’d see the people in their dresses with their braids and be very aware, oh, and it was just so strange that we didn’t know how, you know, they definitely didn’t want to interact with us and and and I didn’t like I remember being ice skating one time. At a birthday party and seeing a man sitting up with his two wives high up, and that was maybe the first polygamist I had ever seen. Just I was like, what’s that’s so weird, you know, and so I, I guess growing up in it was not in it. I mean growing up and seeing it occasionally. It was very separated, very distant and very strange, and I didn’t have the awareness that I needed to or could help. Does that Makes sense. So I think it’s beautiful to bring kind of your fresh eyes as an adult to this, to be able to see it in ways that I didn’t see it growing up here.

[06:22] Tonia Tewell: Well, you said that very well. Like, it’s not really anybody’s fault that more hasn’t been done because they do isolate themselves and nobody is aware. The only reason I am privileged now to understand how vast it is in Utah is because I’m in the thick of it day in and day out. Otherwise, I wouldn’t know either. And, and it was somebody, I, I think I was here probably 10 years, and by the way, I love Utah, you’re never getting me out of here. It’s my home now, but I was here probably 10 years when um the uh the first family. Landed on our doorstep and we’re like, oh, this really does exist because it was out of sight, out of mind. Really didn’t think that, you know, it was going on as I was told in the past. And so it was just a real shocker to find out that there’s so many. And you, a lot of them dress just like you and I dress. Like it’s, you know, we know it’s the ones with the flag hair and the dresses, but a lot of them are just like you and I and just living around us in our neighborhoods, and you wouldn’t know it unless you hear this podcast cause hopefully by the end I’ll educate everybody a little bit more so.

[07:23] Michelle: Right, right, that’s, that’s what I learned as an adult. I told this story before that my mom is a children’s music composer and her music would be sold in in homes. So I would go to parties, you know, and I, that’s how I got into the polygamist communities as an adult because a lot of the polygamists were raising their children the way I was raising my children and we had a lot of connection, a lot in common, and I would go into their homes and Show them the music and they explained to me their theology, how they made the connections with the LDS Church and how they believed they were called to be separate for a time to keep this principle on the earth that had been Revealed never to be removed. And for me as a young LDS mom, I was like, oh, that completely makes sense. That’s beautiful. I, and you guys are raising your family the way I want to raise my family and I really gained, uh, you know, I, I have shared before that I am, my grandmother was the oldest daughter of post manifesto polygamists but fully active in the church. So it’s rather close to me and I was raised with a testimony of it and then having those confirmations as an adult and then getting into seeing a little bit more of how prevalent it was because those women I became friends with did just dress just like me except maybe long sleeves instead of short sleeves, you know, but you would never know. Were they and so

[08:38] Tonia Tewell: were they part of a group or were they more the so there’s so people need to know there’s like 15,000 independents which where we work, the kids go to the same schools, they’re in the same grocery stores and stuff. You wouldn’t know any different. I mean, they’re just like us and so do you know if they Right.

[08:53] Michelle: Yeah, so the, the women, the, the one girl. Really became my friend who I we spent some time together. She was in the all red group, and I think that most of them were, but the other thing is there’s a lot of intermingling between groups as well. There’s a lot of um and, and so people will break off and kind of form their own group or a lot of people are come to it on their own, like, like how, like get into the old Brigham Young sermons and become converted and start living it on their own without a group. So it, and, and you know, so they tend to sometimes know each other from my understanding. But they’re not necessarily, yeah, you know, it’s, it’s really an interesting sort of, I, I don’t want to call it underworld in a demeaning way, but it is kind of an underworld that we’re not really aware of that’s going on.

[09:38] Tonia Tewell: Absolutely. And I think, and I think you’re the people who watch this podcast need to know they’re kind, they’re loving, they’re God-fearing, right? It’s not that they’re different from you and I, and I think where we see some of the devastation piece of this is just the system that they’re actually under, right? And these closed. You know, environments and some of the teachings that they have. But I mean, they, they are, they’re just like you and I and people are always like, what do we do? What do we say if we see the story? I’m like, just treat them like you would anyone else and say hi.

[10:09] Michelle: A smile goes a long way. A smile goes sometimes, sometimes they can be very stern and standoffish, you. You know, and, um, not want like they’ve been many of them have been scared, trained to be scared of the outside world and very very judgmental and hateful toward the outside world as well. But many of them, like, like I guess polygamists are just as different as individuals and groups as any of the rest of us, right? And so, um. So some of them I think are like honestly some of the most beautiful humans that, you know, some of the people I’ve met are gentle and loving and striving, and then I, I just did an interview with Flora Jessup, and you know, she sees a much darker side of it, particularly the closed societies where things are not. Resolved and you know, abuse has a way of just twisting people into abusers and so there definitely can be this really dark side with a lot of people. And and these levels of control, but it’s not like every polygamist husband is a, some of them are like really good guys trying their best to do an impossible living under an impossible system and many of these women are the same.

[11:23] Tonia Tewell: Absolutely and we took in our fan so when we started this, we had an email that came in said, would you be a safe house for people leaving polygamy? We happened to say yes and what we, we, our house was packed for 3 years straight, never had a break and. One of the families that came in was a husband and a wife and all of their children. I think there was like 7 children, um, at that time and then they had another one later, but he was the kindest, most caring man and I remember so they lived, we have a rambler and so um the plists live in our basement and we live upstairs we have a a divide and then we share all the outside space. This is in the past we don’t know, but it was interesting because I came, uh, downstairs just to knock on the door and just to make they were. They were new. They didn’t know me very well just to make sure they were doing OK. And I hear come in. And so I opened this door and I mean I could have cried, Michelle because there he is. I think he was reading the Bible or the Book of Mormon. I’m not sure which and all of his children, one of them was maybe 18 months old, were all gathered around their father. I mean, looking up with just awe, and he turns around and he gives me this grin and of course I’m like, don’t cry, he’s gonna think I’m weird. I’m, I mean, I was ready just to weep and and um. And when we get done when he gets done, he kind of stands up and he said, Tanya, he said, thank you. And I said, for what? And he said, I’ve never been allowed to be a father. And now I get to be a father and I get to watch my kids grow up and I got to watch the first steps of my little boy, and he said, I just can’t thank you enough for taking this in. And so he was still in love with his first wife, so he had two wives and it was interesting because they both wanted the first wife to also. Be a part of their family and, and we knew she was struggling too in there and so we sent a a gift basket with love notes tucked underneath and we had someone deliver it to her house in Colorado City and and I guess she opens the door and they said this is from, you know, I’ll make up the names here. I’m not gonna say real names but like Joe and Susie, and she just cried and cried and cried, but she was on the list to be married to War Jeff when he got out of prison, so they were gonna take. His first wife from him and reassigned to Warren Jess and she was like I’m, I’m supposed to stay in so she never left but just I mean he was a great great man and I think that they lived with us for a full year and it was so interesting because we would come home and our house got kind of run down with, you know, all the people living it we just didn’t have time to keep up and I mean he was always out fixing things. OK, there’s a squeak in the door so he’s fixing the door and he there. one of our doorways where they went in and out of they had their own um entrance and exit and the doorway was kind of falling apart and so he got this phone stuff and I thought, and he just phoned the whole thing and I thought, well, we’re just gonna deal with the phone for now. I wonder what our neighbors are. We’re like, it’s OK, we’ll replace it later on because we want him to relax and just be kids, but he was so kind and just fixed up our house any way he possibly could to get back. I mean, who does that, right? He was a gentle,

[14:29] Michelle: beautiful. So

[14:31] Tonia Tewell: I want people to hear the other side. Everyone thinks that men are mean and, you know, nasty, and, you know, they’re, they’re on the same treadmill that these women are on, right? They’re on. Yeah, I can’t get off of,

[14:41] Michelle: so that’s what I really try to keep the focus on. It’s the father of lies is the villain here, right? It’s, it’s, it’s not the people that are the villains. It’s the bad ideas that are the villains and that people are stuck in and and that’s, you know, the people are just people like us, and I, you know, like we can just be thankful that we aren’t stuck in that dishonest system and that falsehood that they are because it Does not serve people well. It does, it just doesn’t.

[15:11] Tonia Tewell: But that’s why Michelle, it’s so important when you said earlier like they’re taught that outsiders are evil and gonna use them up immediately. They usually say within a week you’re gonna be used up rape, you know, whatever that is. And so it’s so important for us to show them that it’s something different. So a simple smile or gosh they’re $5 short of the, you know. When they’re checking out and someone just slips it, you know, whatever that is, or you might have a neighbor that again you finally realize so for example, let me give you an example so you know what I’m talking about. So the Kingston polygamist group, they dress like we dress and so they’re living in normal neighborhoods kind of representing themselves as single moms. They have a lot of kids, but they won’t come to the neighborhood barbecues. They’re not gonna sit and hang out and chat with you. But what difference does it make when you bring over a thing of cookies? or you realize that the kids, they might not be having the nutrition that they need and need, you know, drop an empty, not an empty, but an unidentified box of food, not saying who it’s from, you know, just little things to show that the outside world is not what they were taught, right? We, we’re In one of the most giving states, philanthrop philanthrop, I don’t know how to say that word state that we could ever philanthropic, yeah, thank you, philanthropic state you’d ever be in. You can cut that part out, but, um, but I mean we’re an amazing state and they need to see that people out here are loving and kind and caring and they don’t care if they’re from polygamy or not, right? We need to show them another side, so.

[16:39] Michelle: Oh, I love that so much. That’s one of the things that I love about our people is that I, you know, I feel like I was, I’ve been taught to just pray every morning, Lord, how can you use me today? What do you want me to do today? And as soon as we plug in a mindfulness of Lord, are there people in this system that are suffering or struggling that I can help, that I can bless and You know, I think like if we just add that awareness to our prayers, I think it’s amazing what the Lord can do with us.

[17:07] Tonia Tewell: It’s interesting because those are my same prayers in the morning. How can you how can you use this soul that I know is not the best all the time, but I’m willing, and with you, I can do anything, right? So

[17:19] Michelle: yeah, I know I love that. So I, I guess I just wanted to add the polygamist piece for the rest of us who haven’t been, who have lived here our whole lives and not been as aware. So I want to know how you got started. How did you get that email and that first family showing up on your porch and what, you know, so you, you were out of the state and had a perception of Utah that there was polygamy and then moved here and lived here for 10 years and then Yeah,

[17:47] Tonia Tewell: and then it was strange because some lady had walked into the church that I go to and had asked one of the pastors, hey, is there, um, anybody here that would be willing to be a safe house? And I had been, uh, uh, there’s a larger story behind it why I do what I do, but I had been dealing with cancer and so we moved in this larger house to have a living to help me and my children and I was well. I was doing really good at the time. And so we had this. Basement that we didn’t need we didn’t use and so our family responded and said we would be willing and it wasn’t until probably about I wanna say a year a year and a half maybe where we got the call that said you know we have this family who um is going to be coming to your home on a Saturday and it was a family of 62 adult women, 4 children and so we were preparing for Saturday and then we got the call to. Tuesday prior where this gentleman, um, was going to kind of scout out where she lived. It was she’s from the old red group, by the way. And, um, he was driving by her house. And when he drove by the house, he saw the husband that was trying to get in the doorway. I guess he had come home from a trip early, and the mother was in, uh, the master bedroom just waiting for anybody who was driving by to help her. And so he’s like, Oh my gosh, of all, I mean, I just think it’s such a godsend that he was just driving by to check it out for that Saturday and so he was smart enough to call the police and the police showed up and they held the husband at bay, but that of course the house was in his name and so the wife didn’t have any rights to be there and so she wasn’t legally married to him. She was a spiritual wife. I think she was #4 in his home. And so he just said, gather what you need and I will make sure you get away peacefully, but you, you have to leave the property essentially. And so she threw the kids’ clothes and garbage bags and thank goodness those children were at, I don’t know if it was a friend or a neighbor’s house. The father didn’t know where they were, so she packed up her van. Um, she was a teacher by trade, so she packed up some books and drove to get her kids and. She was leaving her community and she says, I just remember she’s very stoic. And I just remember her saying that tears just started flowing, you know, out of my eyes, and she said, I just realized I walked away from everything and everyone I’d ever known. I lost my friends, my family, my entire social structure. She had walked away probably from her religion. She realized at that point and she was landing on strangers. We had never talked to her. Landed on a stranger’s doorstep, taking a chance and a risk that we were going to be a. Safe place to land. Like we could have harmed them, you know? And so she lands with the four children. Um, her mother came later, but at probably 10, 10:30 at night, we were frantically, you know, whipping up beds and oh my gosh, they’re coming. And I remember her wrapping her arms around me, and she whispered in my ear that she told the kids they were on, I don’t remember she said a journey. She didn’t say the word vacation, but a journey and I was like, OK, and I’m thinking, what does that mean? And so. We put them in the basement and the kids were all happy to be there, so they weren’t scared because they hadn’t dealt with what she dealt with on the back end. She’s such a good mom, the way she protected her children. And so I was like, OK, I guess I’m entertaining. I was a stay at home mom at the time and I was like, I have time. I’m just like, do I have enough money to do what they, I think that they need? and came to realize that they didn’t really have a lot of toys. They didn’t have, so they were glad. with my swing set and my trampoline out that they thought they had landed at a resort. And, I mean, my bikes and my scooters, and they would just ride all day with my kids. And the, my kids were in the same age range as their kids. Like, it was the most beautiful situation. And then her mom landed, who left the same night from her husband later on that evening, and they were more educated than I’ve ever seen since, so they had come, well, I’ll just say I, I should be careful what I say. I don’t wanna point out who they are, but um, where they came from and landed, they, I think she was like probably 10 or 11. They came from another place, I’ll just say, another state that they landed and they wanted to marry everybody into polygamy and um. I, I don’t remember my point behind that other than, you know, she was essentially told that this is the only way for you to live in order to be able to reach the celestial kingdom in order to be in the presence of God. And so she did what she was told, but that her father when he um met her husband said, you have to promise to get her educated. That’s the only thing I’m asking that you make sure she’s educated. So she did get her, I believe her bachelor’s degree when she landed with us um, her and her mom decided to go back and get their master’s and they’re actually very prominent members in our community but don’t want people necessarily to know because they fear they they they fear the judgment of um society which can happen and so yeah it’s a beau it’s a beautiful story so their kids are all raised they’re doing great.

[23:00] Michelle: Oh, that’s amazing. Oh, go ahead.

[23:02] Tonia Tewell: Yeah, and I think you asked me how we got started. And from that point on, our house was packed with like, we were like, well, we have this home, we have this space. I’m doing well. So, I mean, we just kept taking in families, but that first family sat my husband and I down one night and they just said, you know, would you guys be willing to start a nonprofit? There is no safe place for us to land here in Utah. And, and I said, you know, why us? Like, what? Give us, you know, behind the. and she said the people that showed up was which were neighbors, people that we know in business, our church family, family members, it was every walk of life that stepped up and dropped things off whether it was clothes, whether it was cleaning supplies, whether it was food, you know, to help support this family and she said what we felt was so different from where we came from because people were serving us but they had zero expectations of us. And so she’s, and I said that’s called unconditional love. And she said, yes, it is, and she said that is the type of organization that we need. And so really at that point, again, 10 years of a stay at home mom, I was in banking and finance prior and I remember patting my husband on the back on, babe, you know, you’re gonna be great at this. I mean he’s a corporate guy. And he’s like, honey, I, I, I’ve got a wife that’s sick off and on. I’ve got 3 kids and I’m working, you know, 80 hours a week. You know, trying to provide, he said, I don’t have time to do this. And so I remember thinking, I don’t have the ability, like it’s, I, I was terrified of failure and with my history and my past, very insecure, and I thought, there’s no way. And I thought, but you know, God can do it even if I can’t. And so we decided to open just up our home, being a tiny small nonprofit, um, and we We did get our 501c3 and it kind of took on a life of its own. So the first year we had 30 people, the next year is 60 people, the next year is 120, and we were like, OK, we’ve got to do something because we’re drowning and so we just reached out to community members and it took on a life of its own and here we are 15 years later so it’s kind of cool we now serve anywhere between 150 to 250 people per year so.

[25:15] Michelle: That’s amazing. That’s amazing. OK, it’s such a beautiful story. I think one other thing I want to add to the story of the woman coming to you and anyone coming out of polygamy, it’s, it’s not even just leaving their religious community because I think in polygamy from my Standing there’s much more of a negative religious idea of like you’re going to hell. It’s not just you won’t be exalted, but you’ll be in the, you know, you’ll be in a beautiful place. It’s you’re going to hell if you don’t obey everything we tell you to. And so the existential terror isn’t even just for losing every single familiar thing in this life, it carries on to eternity as well, and I think that’s that’s hard to even comprehend what these people experience.

[26:02] Tonia Tewell: It is, you know, they come out and when you come from a closed society where essentially most decisions are made from you, right? You really don’t own anything. You, you don’t even have a bank account. Right, the money is distributed the way the leaders see fit, and they come out and you think, oh, this is all the, you know, the physical things that they need. But the worst thing they deal with is the mental bondage from where they come from because they are told they believe when when they land on my doorstep, they know they’re going to hell or out of darkness. It’s, it’s that simple. And so the hope is so low, and that is why it is so important the way. We set up our agency to just meet them as humans and care for them as human beings whether they believe my way or your way or not, right? Like, OK, so what can we do to get you from point A to point B? And the biggest piece is dealing with first the basic necessities, which is food, clothing, shelter and safety. You cannot move forward until you settle that nervous system down and know that their basic needs are met. And then. You know, the mental bondage, we have 2 counselors, we have 2 neurofeedback clinicians, not gonna go into detail what that is. We need a third one. We have 23 people on the wait list. It’s horrific. And the reason it’s horrific is because it’s the difference between life and death, right? They’re landing, they’re certain they’re going to hell, so why would I want to remain here? And they’re suicidal quite often and so. Getting them into counseling if they’re willing, we don’t force it. They’re taught that counselors are evil and they’re gonna brainwash them against their community and their people and their faith. And so they’re really terrified of that. And so it’s just kind of a slow when they usually come in to do an intake, um, usually at that point I’ll, I’ll put a little bug in one of the counselor’s ear and say, hey, could you just come in and introduce yourself? And, and just that first interaction just makes them relax and go wow. She’s really nice. And then I said, yeah, she’s one of our counselors here. So if you ever need to talk or you’re having intense anxiety or, you know, whatever it is you’re dealing with, it’s a safe place where you’re not gonna be judged. She’s never gonna share information outside of that room, not even with us. And um you, you can talk about anything and they’re like, huh, OK, maybe, maybe I should try it. And I’m like, if you try it, just do one session. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to go back. And so it is so important with what we do that we give them. And that voice they’ve never had that voice, right? And so they get to say yes and it’s OK to say no where they come from, it’s not OK to say no. There are severe repercussions if you say no. You could lose your family, you could lose your community, you could be condemned to hell. And so it’s, it’s so much bigger and I don’t even know where to take it from there, but it’s so much bigger than any of us can imagine and that’s why it takes our entire community of people out here to understand that and to step up alongside and support these folks.

[28:57] Michelle: Oh wow. I love how you talk about that because really building the trust, there is so there’s so much fear, so much so much fear and suspicion and distrust. So letting them have that voice is powerful. The last thing they need is to be told what to do again, right? And I love how you’re talking about that, because also letting her learn what unconditional love is because that’s something that most of them never experience either. It is so conditional. Even the love of God is conditional in their understanding.

[29:28] Tonia Tewell: Yes. And you’re, you’re absolutely right. You know, we have something called host homes, and these host homes are families like yours and mine. We used to get a lot of kids dumped, so. A lot of minor children and the parents would sign over rights or we’d go to court and get guardianship and, and it was interesting because early on, I didn’t know what I didn’t know either, right? So I’m sure I made every mistake you could make in the book, um, and it’s how I, I’ve grown to where we are today, but one of the host families called and they had a little kid, I wanna say 1415 years old that they were raising as their own and they would walk alongside. And and they would say, you know, every time you sit down to have kind of a, a family meeting on, you know, what’s working and what’s not, and I, they say the kid just kind of goes into the fetal position and shuts down and I’m like, huh, OK, well tell me like what are your dialogues about? And she’s, she would explain it was nothing scary that would happen to us. OK, great, your chores weren’t being done. So what are, what are the ramifications gonna be if, if you don’t get your chores done? And so. I said, all right, he said, do you mind if I pick him up and take him out for lunch? And I can always get them to talk over food. It is the craziest thing and I, and I wonder if it’s because it was so structured in there. And so I, I took this young man out for a burger and, and I had a pretty good relationship with him and I said, you gotta tell me like what is going on in, you know, this family and why you shut down. when they’re having a family meeting. And he said, Well, Tanya, that’s called a correction where I come from. And I was like, OK, talk to me a little bit more about what these corrections are. He said, when you sit down face to face with someone, you’re getting corrected and afterwards, you get a severe beating. And so they tell you what you’ve done wrong and then they beat you into submission. And I was like, oh my gosh. And so, I tried to explain to the family when you’re having a dialogue, take him for a drive in a car, so you’re side by side. Don’t, you know, look head on, um. Or shoot baskets or go on a hike or walk side by side. But one of the other things is they were so frustrated because the kid, the kids always said, I don’t know, every time they’d ask him something, he’d say, I don’t know. And they took it as disrespect, like he’s being disrespectful and refusing to respond. Well, what we learned was he was not being disrespectful. He legitimately did not know. And so I would teach these homes that you’re like, hey, do you want steak or chicken? And He’s like, I don’t know. You give him a piece of each. And then you watch him eat it, and then you say, So tell me, which one did you like better? Again, giving them their voice back because they’ve know. And, and then I tell them, if he comes to you, because they’re gonna, he’s gonna naturally want you to make his decisions because that’s all he knows. And so if he, if he comes to you and says, Gosh, do I wanna play soccer or do I wanna play basketball in school, you sit down with him and do the pros and cons list of. Each you let him make the decision and you back them 100% and let him deal with the natural consequences of life. Like we’ve taught our children since they were young kids. And so it’s just there’s so many nuances dealing with this community that again, I’m sure I’ve made every mistake in the book, but oh, and I, and I don’t consider myself an expert in this field by any means, but we’ve learned a lot and that’s why I think it’s so important when people get like we’ve got a lot of people, families call us and go. Somebody dropped this kid off and we decided to take him in and it’s like an alien in our home and we, we don’t know what to do. And we’re like, we got you. We’ll walk alongside of you. We understand all these nuances that this child is going through. So there’s just so much to this. There’s, we could go on for hours, Michelle.

[33:04] Michelle: OK. I love, I love hearing you talk about it because it’s so helpful. And I love even you saying I’ve made every mistake in the book. I’m just thinking, well, that’s parenting, right? Like, like we’re doing, but look at how much good you’re doing. So I love the fact that you don’t have to be the perfect, you don’t have to be perfect to be a parent, and you don’t have to be perfect to step in and help and be an angel to some of these people. I am curious to know how your children did, because that can be hard to have a bunch of very different kids in their space, on their trampoline, in their home, taking their mom’s attention. How did you ever was that ever a struggle?

[33:40] Tonia Tewell: Absolutely. Um, I, I would, yeah, be a fool to say no. So my children loved it. And they saw they were super little when we started at first off what you need to know and and when we got the first family and the kids were between the same age ranges, I mean our our community was the one where the mom was at work we went to pick up the kids from their schools and then we did after school play dates or we go down to the swimming pool or um whatever and the kids loved it because they had so many friends and you’ll hear this with polygamous families. They loved their childhood because there was always somebody to play with, right? And so that was good. As they got older, and I think they came to the realization of the, um, I’ll just say the safety issues that went around with what mom and dad did, right? I mean, these leaders would love to see me killed and, and off the face of this planet. Um, when, when,

[34:33] Michelle: let me, let me pause on that for a minute if that’s OK. That’s a big statement you just threw out there. Like, you, this like beautiful human doing all of this good and The control mechanism does not want an escape for the people. That’s why I think, you know, the early church, Brigham Young came to Utah thousands of miles of hostile wilderness to be able to have strict control. And um that’s, you know, like you being a way out for. These people, what have you experienced in threats and what have you had to do to protect yourself? Yeah,

[35:09] Tonia Tewell: that’s a good question. So we, I mean, we’ve been followed. Um, I intercepted blogs where they found my children, where they went to school, and so we would have to have the, um, sorry, I’m gonna cry just because the way I affected my kids. Um, and so we had to go to the school. We were in a small little Christian school, and that we had to say, you know, you’ve gotta walk my kids to and from when we drop the kids off, they can, can’t be outside alone. You’ve got to get better protections in the school, and they were so great. They got gates, they got cameras, they got a security system to go in and out and so um. There was a lot of that and when you hit my kids, you hit them on as hard as you can imagine. And so, you know, we haven’t really, so we learned, and here’s what we learned, um, a little bit later, but, um, that helped us a ton is that they are terrified to be on video and so. We got, I mean, my, my home’s a fortress, so we have cameras everywhere. The location where we’re at our main hub, cameras everywhere. Our other locations where we, we have housing, you know, for clients, we have cameras, um, and so we had to learn very early on, but in the meantime. You know, there were times where a threat came in that said you have, you have 24 hours before we take you out. And because they didn’t use the word kill or that, you know, the Draper police and I live in Draper we’re very aware, um. But because they didn’t use certain terminology and we weren’t sure who was on the other end of the phone because they use burner phones, um, you know, we slept, I mean with guns under the pillows and, you know, made sure kids were tucked in and everything was locked and um we wouldn’t always tell them that there was something that could be coming down the pipeline because we didn’t want our kids to live in fear, but they’re not dumb when you say, hey, by the way, the teachers need to walk you out to mom’s car, and, and by the way, mom needs to walk you in every day, you know, it, it’s They sense they pick it up, um, but you know, outside of that, I think it, you know, God is so gracious, Michelle, because one of the very first cases we had was, um, with the Kingston polygamist group, and it was one of the leader’s daughters and well it was the leader’s daughter, and we had this big, I know it was, and I didn’t know what I was doing again, completely naive and so I was relying on the stage.

[37:29] Michelle: I just know how much the Kingstons in particular care about blood, so the leader’s daughter is the is like. Their highest commodity. They are not allowed to leave. They will fight hard to keep those girls in.

[37:40] Tonia Tewell: OK? And so now you know what I’m, I’m up against. And I don’t know, like, I don’t know, um, how, I guess, I’m gonna be careful what I say there, but I don’t know how dangerous they really are at this point. OK. So I’ve got this girl, and I start realizing how dangerous it is. She, the father, I, I was the dumb one that called the mother to say, you know, she landed on. Doorstep. Here’s what’s going on, you know, um, we’re, we’re going to court and um then my phone just started ringing off the hook and I remember one time she said, let me just talk to my father, Paul Kingston, the leader, and, and she’s, she’s out on the phone and I get a phone call. I’m not gonna say who from, but a state agency saying they’re tracking her call. Hang up, pull the battery out and get her out of there. I’m like, what? And so again, I am clueless what I’m doing, so I walk outside. And I don’t want her to think I’m like I give her privacy. I don’t want her to think I’m trying to control the situation. She wants to go home, she can go home. Like, there’s no one holding her against the will and her will, and when I said the phone call that came in, she Panicked, I mean panicked, and she’s like, get me out of here, get me out of your shoes is hysterical. And so we did we dumped the phone we, you know, we got her out of there, um, but we, you know, we had to, it was interesting because the state initially said you have to drop her back off. The parents had promised not to be in her life and you’re dropping. Her off at an uncle’s house. Well, what we didn’t know is the 60 year old uncle was planning to marry the 17 year old girl, and so we had literally dropped her off at a predator’s place, but the father I guess was around the corner, so I had to pull up in front of this Kingston home. All these people are out in the front lawn. I have no idea if I’m safe or not, um. I called law enforcement for backup. They were sitting on the outside of the neighborhood, but I think they thought, well, I know they thought I was pro polygamy like I was one of them and so they, they were really rude to me at the time and they said, we won’t let you come in. I said I’m pulling off my license plates. I’ll give them to you. I’m just around the block, but I don’t need them to track me. And so I, when I pulled up, I mean, they were very hostile. They said, drop her stuff and then. Middle of the road. My car was full of stuff. No one helped me. So I’m dropping it in the middle of the street. I get in my vehicle and I turn around to leave. Um, she just grabs on to me and she is so bad. And she’s like, Don’t leave me here. Do not leave me here. Don’t leave me here. And I’m holding her saying, love you. It’s gonna be OK. I’ll see you in court. We still have a court hearing and um. And I drive off and I’m just devastated, right? I’m devastated. And I, I find out that her father was around the corner, picks her up, and she used the word, I don’t know the details, accosted her until 20 something in the morning. Thank God I had given her a track phone and I’ve given her $200. I put it in your bra because they search everything. I mean, they control everything to a T. And somehow, at like 2 something in the morning, she told the father that she just needed to get out and go for a walk. And so he let her walk around this park while he was right nearby and it was dark enough that she pulled it out and called me and said, here’s what’s happening. They’re making me go down to the courthouse tomorrow. They’re making me withdraw my emancipation papers. I don’t know what to do and I said I’ll meet you at the courthouse. And so, I flew down. I’ve never shared this story live. I’m just trying to make sure I’m not getting myself in trouble, but it was all legal. So I, I went down to the courthouse and I explained to them what was happening that she was being forced to withdraw her emancipation papers. She had called me in the night. Um, I, when I went down to the courthouse, I sat down in this little waiting area and I said I just need to talk to whoever, you know. She’s gonna be walking in here and I need you to get her alone so you know what’s really happening. Well, here she comes with her mother down the hallway, and the mother knows who I am. I’ve got another girl sitting next to me, and I, I literally lay my head on her shoulder cause the mom sits across from me. There’s only one tiny waiting room. I pull the hair over my face. I act like I’m sleeping. And the, the lady um got the girl behind closed doors. Um, I got a text on my phone that said go through the front doors. So I get up, but in the meantime, I heard her on the phone with Paul. I heard her on the phone saying they took her back behind closed doors. I heard that people were on the way to the courthouse. Um, I went through the doors. This poor lady, she’s a single mom, I was trying to help and really understand this, and she said, I can’t take this case. The Kingstons have threatened to bomb the courthouse before. We’re shutting the courthouse down. We need to sneak you out the back door and get you safely away. And I’m thinking, what? This is, I’m new. Like I am just stay at home mom, right? Just trying to help make a difference and I’m thinking, is this legal? Am I, like, is this normal? But OK, wait, they’re all officials telling me what steps to take. And um they um the girl ended up running. Um, it’s a long story, ended up running. She stayed in hiding until the actual court hearing, and when we went to court that day, every head of every state agency in the state of Utah showed up, which made a statement to the Kingston’s like, you mess with Tanya, you mess with these clients, the state’s gonna take this seriously and they’re gonna step up and they’re gonna do something about it. And so I feel like that was one of my saving graces and, and I don’t. Don’t like, do I worry? Yes, but I’m not gonna stand down because I’m fearful of them. I’m gonna do what God calls me to do that I feel is right. Again, do I make mistakes? Absolutely. Um, but, you know, for the most part, I’ve got lawyers. I’ve got, you know, I make sure that I’m following that line and I’m doing everything legally. Um, so it’s been a lot. So my kids, long term, I have one child, um. Who suffered from severe anxiety. Um, I had, I never talked about this before either. I, my youngest child for the first two weeks when we had a family and had, I mean, I’ll just call it what it is, adversarial stuff. Like she would say that there was, um, like she would use the word Satan, which we never talked about. We never talked about like spiritual warfare or anything like that in our home, and she would see things for about 2 weeks, the 1st 2 weeks of having someone in there. And, um, we just finally Taught her how to pray. We’re like, OK, we could rescue her and bring her into her bed as, as a mom, what I wanted to do. But I just said, you know, you, you, our God is more powerful than anything else in the world. And you just need to pray. And she, and so like a month down the road, I said to her, Hey, does this, you know, whatever this being is still visit you. And she said, Yeah, mom, still visits, but I just pray out loudly go away. And I thought she was like 3 or 4 years old. And I was like, unbelievable, but her faith. is so strong as a believer because of that, um. My other one has had intense therapy to work through the anxiety. My oldest was just a tough girl. Like she’s in Georgia in PA school and just rocking life and not scared of anything. And so it affected a lot. And, and mom was busy a lot, right? But I, I really tried to make sure I did most of my work when they were at school. And then I was a mom, you know, moving forward, I would sometimes have kids in my car, but I would always make sure they were number one priority. At least I did my best to, so.

[45:16] Michelle: Thank you so much for like giving us such a good such such a good explanation and answer to that question because it matters. I know that’s something we’re concerned about. I think that the other side of that is your, your children grew up sacrificing to some extent, right? sharing their space and experiencing this. But seeing that example and becoming that kind of people, like, while it was hard for them, I can’t even think of a better gift you could have given them than that example and that experience into making them amazing people. Thank you.

[45:48] Tonia Tewell: And you know, they’re very compassionate, and they all give back to their community, even to this They’re all going into the medical field and they all work down at, you know, one of the free clinics and, you know, are working behind the scenes doing things. They talk about doing mission trips, you know, out to third world countries and so they really have, I think, learned that that compassion component, but I don’t know if I would have ever necessarily gone down that road again due to my fear of failure and my anxiety that I dealt with on a regular basis. And so that just has a funny way of working. things up. And, and the, the fear was released for me when I got terminal cancer, you know? And it was like, wait, I’m gonna see, I have the audience of one. I’m gonna have to go meet him soon, and I’m really gonna not do something because I’m worried what everyone else around here thinks of me. And I thought, no, I don’t care anymore. And so I just went boldly forward, but we still have that now. It creeps up on you the longer you’re away from facing death. But, you know, I’m still a human being at the end of the day, so.

[46:52] Michelle: Yeah, that’s absolutely. I love, I love seeing how God has His hands on each of us to prepare us for the next work or the next adventure, right? The next mission that we’re given. And I think, I think it’s so easy in this day and age, especially, you know, as a parent to see our kids just living life for themselves, just thinking, this is what’s important, this is what matters, this is what I want, this is, you know. And to allow your children to see real actual suffering, but like, allowing your children to see what these children and these women were going through probably would help them to never be ungrateful or, you know, like that dose of reality is so important and beautiful for our kids.

[47:40] Tonia Tewell: I agree. I mean, my husband and I both grew up very poor and very dysfunctional families, and so we knew. As we chose to break that cycle and raise them in a different way, you know, how do we not raise them to be spoiled children at the same time and overcompensate the other way? And so it’s been kind of a natural balance. My husband’s a really hardworking, you know, corporate guy and still owns his farm back in Nebraska and works that as well. And so they’ve learned he’s, he’s made them work. He takes them back to the farm, you know, he, we don’t hand them things on a silver platter if they need something, we said, what can you do in the need to. You know, permit. And so, yeah, it’s been kind of cool running a nonprofit, you know, raising your children and that to see that they are very fortunate compared to most people in this world. And so it’s, it’s been cool. Yeah, it’s been cool. It’s been a privilege, honestly.

[48:28] Michelle: That’s great. That’s, I’m obviously trying to help answer the questions that people are having as they’re considering, could I help? Could I step in and help? Am I in a situation where there’s so much need. It and it and it sounds to me that now in your ministry, I guess we could call it in your work that you spend um a lot of time helping other, um, what are they volunteer families like, like, you know, like you’ve talked about how you’re helping train them to know how to help these, these families coming out of polygamy. So do you spend equal times still do you still house your own. Families and do you spend a lot of time tutoring and training other families?

[49:08] Tonia Tewell: Well, so honestly right now at this time we usually, I think we only have like 5 host families. um, we’re not getting children dumped as much. Instead of the FLDS they send them to repentance homes now and so they’re not just getting rid of them. They know that they’re getting a wonderful life out here and I’m not sure they really want that. I think they want them to come back into the fold and so. Um, we don’t have as many, and then we had, um, some generous donors purchase a 10 bedroom old polygamist home actually crazy, and we have another house where we do the young adults. But really right now I think our biggest need is host families like ours that have the extra basement space like we have probably have 4 moms with just 1 or 2 children that need a safe place while they’re finishing their college degrees. While they’re getting intense counseling to deal with their trauma, um, and yes we walk very closely with those families and meet with them on a weekly basis if the if the parents are like, oh my gosh this is the issue in the home we don’t know how to deal with it we even allow them to sit down with our counselors and have counselors navigate those conversations because our biggest goal is, you know, not to have them mold into our family units but what can. We be for them in order to be successful in our environment, right? So they’re going from a close they come out here to the competitive environment which is completely different. They’re paralyzed making decisions so how can we equip them like we did our children to be able to take on the world, so to speak? And so that’s what we do mostly walking alongside of the families that currently have our young adults so they don’t have most of them don’t have children anymore, so.

[50:45] Michelle: OK, OK, that’s really helpful to understand, man, it’s so sad to see how. What they do to keep their people in is really painful to understand. And I also, I have some compassion for a lot of these women that are just like, I don’t want my children. You know, that seems like such a harsh thing for a woman to say, but when you consider that it wasn’t her choice, it’s like I have a large family and it’s hard and exhausting and a lot of work. And if you were forced to do that with no other choice, and it’s not in your makeup and in your desire, I have, we have to have compassion. And there too that these women weren’t wanting this life. They didn’t choose it necessarily.

[51:25] Tonia Tewell: I would love to sit and chew on it for just a minute because it is so important that people understand in this culture when a child is born, you are very aware that that child is not yours. That child is the property of the church. It’s God’s child and they believe their prophet hears from God, right? And so if you think, for example, one child is doing negative behaviors in the home and the leader says, you gotta get rid of that one child for the good of the whole to be able to go to heaven, you’re gonna do the most loving thing you can do to save the flock as a whole, right? And so they don’t want this. They love their kids. It’s, if, if people think that they don’t. It’s a life from the pit of hell. Now the fathers don’t have as close a relationships with their children, but again they’re on this treadmill, right? They’ve got their multiple families and all these children and they’ve got to work to provide and by the way, you’ve got to bring in so much money for the church and oh by the way you have your church duties, right? And I feel like it’s a way to keep them off kilter as well and by the way with these men. And these mothers, your children make one mistake, they will tell you that is a direct reflection of you and you could also lose your family. You could lose your community and you could lose your salvation. And so it’s just so important that for people to understand really the intense dynamics and if you and I, Michelle, we’re born in that same environment, it could happen to us. I don’t care how bright we are. They are some of the smartest, most compassionate, wonderful people. People I’ve met, it could happen to any of us when it’s all you know, and the slow systemic brainwashing that happens all along the way. So

[53:04] Michelle: absolutely

[53:05] Tonia Tewell: really want your people to understand that who are listening to this.

[53:08] Michelle: Yeah, absolutely. And your story about them coming after your children, knowing that they can control you by threatening your children, is very much part of that community as well, that the women If you love your child too much or let that be seen too much, you are giving them a tool to use against you cause they can hurt your child to control you and to get back at you. And they like if so if you have one child that misbehaves, you could have another child and when I say punished, like brutalized, right? Really terrorized and brutalized and and and so you when like this control that these, these women are just as desperate and afraid as their children are, they’re not in a position to defend and protect their children necessarily while they’re still in that community.

[53:56] Tonia Tewell: And and in the in the FLDS not long ago, we had a whole Family that left and one of the girls who was technically an adult said I, I, I don’t wanna go. So the family had been separated prior. The parents were both, it’s called Forever sent away, so go off in opposite directions. You’re no longer married. And so this girl, the parents came to me, they found each other again. They had gotten a phone call from one of their daughters that said, we’re being horrifically abused and neglected. They called me and like, we don’t have the money to go rescue them. Can you go rescue them? And I said, they called you, not me. I’m the deaf. They’re taught on the devil. I said, I will give you a gas card, you go rescue. And so they went to get their kids, and the one girl stayed behind and she called later on and said she was tortured, like taken out into the woods by men and tortured on behalf because the whole family left. And so then that was her next call, right? And she’s like, Oh my God, this is what happened to me and you, you know, the dad calls me again. Hey, I need you to go get my daughter. I said, No, I will get You the gas money, you go get your daughter. And so now they’re all together, but what they have to endure, and that was the example they had to make to the rest of the community. This is what’s going to happen if you grab your children and you run. And so it’s just, it’s absolutely such a, a mind-blowing thing that I, I don’t know if I, I mean, I’d probably do the same thing, right? And there, I, it would, it would be really hard not to do exactly what you’re told for the sake of your children. It’s the best way to say it.

[55:26] Michelle: And God commands it. This is, this is not, this is not us controlling you. This is God. We speak on behalf of God. It’s, it’s just tragic.

[55:37] Tonia Tewell: It’s tragic. And, and the, and where I as the leader of my organization, there’s checks and balances in place for me as I have a board of directors who can keep me accountable and can fire me any day, right? And so I answer to others and they make sure that my programs are aligning with what are. is whereas in these communities you have a patriarchal society. It’s one man at the top. There isn’t this board of directors making sure is he really hearing from God? And what do we compare that to whereas for me, if my pastor gets up and he says something, and I’m like, gosh, is that true? I have written documents to go back to to go, is that really a God? OK, that’s not. And I’m gonna call him out on that, you know what I’m saying? Like I have to compare. To they don’t they make it up as they go along, a lot of them do. And so they, they listen to them. I mean, they think that they’re hearing from God. And you and I know when you have sex trafficking, child labor laws being broken, I mean, you know that’s not from God, right? They don’t know that. They think, oh, it’s been blessed and ordained by God, so I guess we have to go off and work at the age of 8. I guess I’m gonna get married at age 12, you know, they don’t know any different, so they think they’re the chosen.

[56:52] Michelle: Yes, yeah, it, it’s really this strange. I always, I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Book of Mormon, but it actually preaches very adamantly against polygamy and the sermon, the main sermon, Jacob chapter 2 combines in that sermon pride and polygamy, and they do go together absolutely. We are better than everyone else. They’re all going to hell. They all want to destroy you. They’re all corrupt. We are the only. Blessed ones, so submit to us and do whatever we tell you to do, and we will abuse you in every way possible, but you can’t leave and there’s not even a vehicle to stop or report abuse, even if some leader isn’t abusing someone in the in the line, the dad, the brothers can be doing horrible abuse, the mothers, the sisters, you know, and. And there’s nothing, you just have to keep if you say something, you’re the problem. You’re the one making waves. You’re the one destroying the peace in the family, right? So it’s always, it’s always the victim’s fault, always.

[57:52] Tonia Tewell: It really is. I just need them to take out the Doctrine and Covenant section 132 for me. That’s my pod.

[58:01] Michelle: It’s called 132 Problems. That’s what we are dedicated to. Yeah, that would be, that would be great.

[58:07] Tonia Tewell: I know it’s the manifesto. I get it. I know there’s a separation. LDS is completely different. I get it. But I’m like, just take that one piece out for me. Can you do that? It would make my life so much easier trying to explain this.

[58:19] Michelle: OK, talk about that more. I want to hear more about how having 132 in the Doctrine of Covenant still affects you in your work.

[58:27] Tonia Tewell: Well, I mean, at at the end of the day, you have the fundamentalists is what they, they want to be called fundamentalist Mormons. I refer to them as fundamentalists. I don’t wanna, you know, harm or upset my LDS friends and neighbors and uh volunteers, but, um, you know, they’re like, they’re the ones in the wrong, right? It’s, it’s still in their doctrine and covenant section 132. It’s a Ordained by God, it was a revelation and I would say, but then there was the manifesto and the manifesto reads that where you promise not to practice future plural marriages you need to read that. I don’t know if you’ve read that. And so they’re like, so see they weren’t saying that you couldn’t practice polygamy, so they, they justified it essentially in their in their head. And so when I go out and speak, it’s so interesting because I do law enforcement conferences, you know, I talk to counselors, hospitals, whatever, and I really have to. Make that distinction, but because it’s still in the doctrine and Covenants 132, everybody wants to talk about that. And I don’t feel like I’m equipped necessarily to speak about it. I’m not LDS and anything that I have, you know, to say might be, you know, taken the wrong way. And, and so I don’t say a lot other than there’s a manifesto and, and it was secretly still practiced for a while and then there was, I call, I refer to it as the great divide, right? Like they’re not doing it. Now I will say. Michelle, I think I mentioned on our preliminary conversation that there are some people that are part of the church that are practicing it quietly and secretly because they do believe because that doctrine and covenant Section 132 that they have to practice that in order to reach the celestial kingdom and, and that’s the issue, right, because it

[1:00:04] Michelle: does talk. So they’re active members of the church attending the temple, attending church practicing polygamy secretly and you know you’ve mentioned, you know. Quite a few people like that. Yes,

[1:00:15] Tonia Tewell: I’ve had lunch with them. I’ve had, you know what I mean? I, they, they’ve come to me to meet me and I’m like, I don’t, like, I don’t, I honestly don’t want to be in the middle of any kind of a divide. I, I think that, I think we’re all gonna be very surprised when we get to the other side, uh, you know, in heaven of realizing who’s actually there. Like, do we understand what Christ did for us? Do we understand the sacrifice? Do we understand that we fall short and that is why he, you know, If we and if we understand that, I believe there’s gonna be people from every walk of life. And so I really try to bring together like let’s focus on what we have in common more than what we separate, but I get the question every. I get the, I get the person in the audience so let’s talk about what the let’s start with the LDS Church, and I’m like, oh God, and I literally go over and go, OK, who is up on the panel with me? That’s LDS you get that one. OK, so

[1:01:06] Michelle: I volunteer because I’ve studied this in depth, call me in the future if you want to, and I will come and talk about because there are some basic things if people understand about section 132, how it never was revelation of God. It was never in the original doctrine of covenants. It was added all of these little facts that you can that that, you know. That’s why I think God is using me this way, because I used to so strongly believe in polygamy, right? And then when you really get into it and realize nothing that Brigham Young taught, nothing that the early Mormons did had anything to do with Section 132. They didn’t even follow it. It doesn’t follow anything that polygamists are doing now, right? There’s, there’s no truth in it anywhere and you can point out just all of the problems to make people understand. 132 absolutely absolutely should not be in our scriptures. It shouldn’t be. And

[1:01:59] Tonia Tewell: I would love to learn a little bit more about that. Like, I, how do I, my, my relationship with people from the LDS culture is my human connection, right? And as humans. Oh my gosh, you’re some of the most dear people in my life. And so I don’t know the integral, you know, details and, and I haven’t really cared to know because I don’t want to get in the middle of that conversation because you’re still gonna have that person out in the audience that says that’s crap. You know, and they’re gonna go to the church, and I just disengage and I always say, you know, you might wanna call, you know, the church and have those questions asked. I just don’t wanna get in the battle. I really don’t, but I’m fascinated by what you just said because I’ve never heard that, never

[1:02:39] Michelle: heard that. Yeah, well, that’s what this podcast is dedicated to, is to helping LDS people like me understand the history and the scriptures on this topic. And so I always, in my introductions usually ask people to start at the beginning just That reason, because at the beginning episodes, I start breaking down scripture by scripture and showing how we got all of this. And, you know, there’s so much more that I could do. It never can be perfect or comprehensive, but it does make the case that I think is useful for people to understand.

[1:03:08] Tonia Tewell: So I need to know more about it only because I wonder if when I’m opening up and trying to explain to people why, why these people live polygamy, why they’re so devout. And I, I, it’s really Quick how I brush over it, but I’m like, well, the doctrine and Covenant section 132, blah blah blah. But then there was the manifesto and then they had the great divide. And so if I’m and I always say it starts with Joseph Smith, but then, you know, they had another, I don’t, I, I wouldn’t call it a revelation, but the manifesto. And so if I am saying that incorrectly, I need to make sure what I am representing as far as the LDS Church goes is correct. You know what I’m saying? It’s very important for me, my integrity and. So we’ll talk and

[1:03:51] Michelle: and it’s really tricky. Yeah, we can follow up and talk about it, but I do just want to say that like the standard narrative absolutely with everyone is that it started with Joseph Smith, but that’s an interesting history. So I’m not asking you to like, like believe that Joseph didn’t start it or jump on that bandwagon, but it is good to at least know the history to understand where those claims come from and why it is claimed that Joseph Smith started it. So that you could say most people believe it started with Joseph Smith. Some think it started with Brigham Young, so you could even just throw that little piece in to start allowing because it like I used to when I started out the podcast, I was just talking about what’s from God regardless of what Joseph Smith did or not. What does God want, right? And, and I really thought that’s all that matters. But as I’ve gotten into it more, I’ve realized actually the question of Joseph Smith is important because um. If Joseph Smith started polygamy, people who are LDS and have a testimony of the Book of Mormon, and you know, it’s gonna be way harder for them to let go of it. Does that make sense? Where when you can and when you can show like I just did. A series of episodes a little while ago on the priesthood ban and the racism in the church and showed very distinctly how that was not Joseph Smith. It was Brigham Young and the later leaders who attributed it attributed it to Joseph Smith, and that should be something that can help people understand, you know, Brigham Young brought a lot of problematic doctrines into the church. We already know that polygamy is just another one of them, and that is. I,

[1:05:25] Tonia Tewell: I wanna know like what is your church think of your podcast? Like are they welcoming this dialogue or is this like, shut up, Michelle? Yeah, it depends on

[1:05:35] Michelle: who you’re talking to. I definitely, so the, the very polygamist loving members have have actually some of them have actually tried to get me excommunicated. You know, I have, um, beautiful, um, local leaders who who know me and understand me and understand what I’m doing, who have told me that absolutely is not going to happen. So, you know, so and, and I think that um it’s just a matter of I I just don’t like the toxic family thing where we keep the family secrets quiet. We don’t talk about problems, we don’t, you know, I think it’s so much more important to bring things into the open. And truth matters more than loyalty to a lie, right? Loyalty matters, but not loyalty to a lie. And so, um, so I think that, and there’s definitely, it’s in everybody’s interest to think that Joseph is a polygamist. That’s the most controversial thing I’ve, I’ve said is when I did that deep study and came to go, oh my gosh, Joseph wasn’t a polygamist, and now the more I studied it, the more, the more absolutely I know that. Did you know what I mean, the more convinced I have become of it. And um and so that’s the most controversial thing that I have said. But um I and but I think there was a point I was going to make about that. Um, let me remember what it was. Well, I lost it. There was a reason I was going there, but I think that, um, the reason, like I said, the reason it matters is because we shouldn’t fault the attribute there sorry, go ahead. There was a point I was going to make and I’ll get back to it, but, um, what was the question I was answering.

[1:07:11] Tonia Tewell: Fallout from like Oh yeah,

[1:07:14] Michelle: so yeah, so that’s the main thing that people just kind of, I lose credibility with that perspective. That’s what I was going to say. It’s in everybody’s interest to claim Joseph was a polygamist. The LDS Church wants to have Joseph as a polygamist because they think that affects their line of authority, where You know what I mean it had to have come from Joseph Smith, where I think, look at how many things of Brigham’s we’ve dropped. We’ve dropped blood Atonement, we’ve dropped the racial teachings, we’ve dropped the Adam God theory. We’ve like every one of Brigham’s doctrines, we have disavowed and rejected. It doesn’t hurt us to add polygamy to that list, right? But um. But so, but the LDS Church is committed to have polygamy be from Joseph. Um, the fundamentalists absolutely are. Those who have left the church or are hostile to the church, anyone who’s anti-Mormon, it’s in their best interest to have Joseph be a polygamist because that’s. The main thing they have against him are these claims he was sleeping with 14 year old girls. But when you start to understand just a few things, like, for example, the earliest claims we have of Joseph’s polygamy start in 1869. Joseph was killed in 1844. So a full 15 years later, when Brigham had had them here steeping, the leaders had them here being trained to tell what they had to tell, to say what they had to say.

[1:08:36] Tonia Tewell: Do you know Carolyn Pearson at all?

[1:08:39] Michelle: Uh-huh. I’ve had her on the podcast.

[1:08:41] Tonia Tewell: I was gonna say cause I, I, so I go to LDS activities occasionally with friends and I went to some, I, it was so long ago night and I knew what I did, and they’re like, you need to come here this one. I believe it was her speaking and then. She spoke two doors down from me and accidentally some lady came to my door and was like, Is this where Carolyn Pearson is? I’m like, No, no, she’s 2 doors down. And they were like, and they were like, Why don’t you have numbers on your house? I said, Well, I help people out of polygamy. They don’t really like me. And she was like, grabs my hand and goes, You have to come down to this, this house and here with Carolyn and she was talking about her book, um, the Ghost of Polygamy. Ghost

[1:09:18] Michelle: of eternal polygamy.

[1:09:19] Tonia Tewell: OK, ghost of eternal polygamy, but I wonder, like, and I, and they were reading out of journals. Maybe it wasn’t her, but they were reading journals way back in the 1800s of people who lived lived polygamy, and I just wondered, like, again, I assumed based off of that night they were relating it all to Joseph Smith at the time and they talked about how they had flowed away from it. I, I just found it interesting, fascinating, so I did, I know and

[1:09:43] Michelle: and just 11 thing I wanna clarify, we call them journals. We call them journals. There’s not a single journal. they’re reminiscences. They’re writing as older women. About those years we have not a single stroke bit of evidence of anybody. Like even the day they were supposedly married, there’s nothing in their journal. There’s nothing in it was and you know how polygamists are trained to say what they need to say. God wants you to say this. They’re so controlled that the fact that all of these like the fact that all of these there are these claims of women much later in life under. The control of the church. I mean, we think polygamists are kind of desperate and hopeless now. Imagine being in Utah, like you were so isolated. There was no hope, and it was a death sentence, you know. And so, and you were trying desperately to have your needs met, have God approve of you like you were desperate to do what you needed to do. So we shouldn’t be that shocked that women were willing to make these claims when they were told to by the church leaders. So it’s just something to consider. I know it’s a really controversial topic, but I think that as here’s what’s interesting, the more, the more the more access we get to documents and to history, the stronger the case becomes for Joseph’s innocence, the weaker the case becomes for his guilt. Like, even all of these claims that Brigham Young made that Emma tried to kill him, that she was the most wicked woman, that he was betraying her constantly. You can read the letters between Joseph and Emma.

[1:11:21] Tonia Tewell: And I will say if that’s true, right? Again, I don’t know, but if that is true, you understand and, and hopefully your followers understand one of the number one reasons people are leaving the church is over this topic of living. I get a to that volunteer here and if that was resolved and that was what you said it was, that might change everything for the LDS folks. Just saying.

[1:11:47] Michelle: I, you’re absolutely right. And I do also want to clarify that a lot of people will say, see, you want to believe this. Like this is not motivated reasoning for me at all. I was very, um very content to have Joseph be a polygamist. That’s what I thought forever until I started getting in and doing the research. And um, you know, we’re there’s, if you, if you care to engage with the podcast, you know, you’ll see some of what I’ve learned, but it is the case is compelling and becoming more and more so every day. It’s just that people like Carolyn, you know, I didn’t talk to her about it at all. She, before the interview, found out that I had said that I. Didn’t know if Joseph was a polygamist. I thought he wasn’t. I wasn’t. I hadn’t been convinced yet and she wanted to cancel the interview. She was so offended by, by, I mean, she, we, we worked it out and resolved it and had a good, good discussion, but people are very committed to he’s the bad guy, you know, and Brigham was just carrying on what Joseph did. And I think that that actually we need Brigham Young needs to be accountable for what he did. We can’t let him just be following in the footsteps of Joseph Smith because he is the one that did this, you know, if that makes sense, like he did a lot of negative things. So yeah, so that’s what.

[1:13:01] Tonia Tewell: I was, I was remembered when we were first talking, so you were like, what are you scared of Tonya? What are you scared of? And I’m like, can I ask, are you LDS like with everything that you’re doing, you’re like, oh, I am. I’m, I’m devout. And I was like, OK, she’s safe. Like I was trying to make sure this wasn’t a Mormon bashing conversation that I didn’t want. And so I really do appreciate how you navigate things and you’re looking for truth. I, I again, I, I. I tell people that if my church wasn’t open to that, I, I wouldn’t be there because I had so many, my husband’s so analytical and so many questions. My kids are bright. They’ve had so many questions, and I just believe it brings me closer to the savior, right? It just brings me in my relationship when I that’s it. OK, I get it now. So

[1:13:44] Michelle: that’s exactly, I think that our testimony in the Book of Mormon, like the Book of Mormon itself condemns that. for not paying attention to what it says, for not believing it and listening to it, and isn’t it interesting that we ignore everything it says about polygamy because of these tra it also warns us of the false traditions that are handed down. So we are living out like everything we’re experiencing is further confirmation of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon for me, you know, it’s really interesting to see that happen. So speaking of the church, and I really am, I was thankful that you are careful to not bash the church. I just, I don’t like, I love my church and I’m quite defensive of it, you know,

[1:14:25] Tonia Tewell: I can tell, and I’m really glad to hear that. I just didn’t want to align with somebody that was on. I will never do the Mormon bashing thing. It’s not my heart. I love the. I have so many friends. It’s not my thing.

[1:14:35] Michelle: And see, I so appreciate that. Thank you for coming and doing the work and not letting your heart get turned against. Oh, Mormons and polygamists, like your love is just beautiful to experience. So thank you.

[1:14:47] Tonia Tewell: I am curious. So it goes both ways. You’re accepting me, so we’re good. Thank you.

[1:14:53] Michelle: So, um. So I have a couple of questions. Um, when I spoke with Flora Jessup, she has been in this work for a long time, you know, she’s, um, she’s feisty and great, and, um, she was so frustrated by the systems, how she felt like they were working, they were not adequate to help in this very unique situation of polygamy. Like, for example, them returning the girl to the Kingstons. That’s just tragic, right? And so, so I have that question and then so I don’t forget it. I also want to talk about she also expressed frustration that the church, she felt like she was working against the church and they weren’t helping, but you said that actually the church has started to help. And so would you mind talking about those, you can talk about the church first and then the sort of the system if you want to.

[1:15:43] Tonia Tewell: Yeah, you know, I think, um, I mean, I think they will. I knew I probably was an LDS way back when and I, I think they watched me for a long while to see if I was going to blame them for what’s going on today and you know, they have since probably about 5 years ago I wanna say um they give us a grant they help us with, you know, bishop storehouse orders and DI vouchers. We have very good relationships with the humanitarian division, um, I think it’s technically the North North American humanitarian. Division, um, and they also volunteer with us so we have, we have Eagles before you all left the Boy Scouts. I was like whenever that whole thing fell out we had groups here all the time. We had relief society events all the time. They would do drives for us. Um, I feel like we have a very good relationship with the church and a lot of our volunteers we’ve had people work here that are LDS and so um. I think the system as a whole, sometimes I feel like does fail to protect these folks, but I don’t think it’s because they don’t want to. I think it’s because they don’t have enough proof, concrete proof and evidence to be able to say no, we’re not gonna do this. It’s interesting as of late because the right, I, I think you maybe you saw the press conference where a whole bunch of women got up there and said, my children are missing. And it’s, it’s been very interesting because we had our, we have pro bono attorneys, so our attorneys will take on one of these people, they will go to court and they’ve been citing more and more based on the latest revelations that have come out from um the FLDS stating that to consecrate the children back to the church. That they’re going to die within 5 years and become translated beings and and so I think because of that evidence the judge has been given more tools to work with to say OK we are gonna give an emergency order to get those kids returned back to the and so. You know, it’s, it’s just hard to know. So like I never want a bad mouth, like, for example, law enforcement, they’re doing the best they can with the information that they’re given. They’re also overworked and underpaid. They have all kinds of issues in our community and it’s not that they don’t want to help. I will say I’ve run across very few, very few, some that because of the topic of polygamy, they also don’t want to engage because it’s in the history and, you know, I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for that. I’m like, OK, that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re not talking about polygamy, we’re talking about abuses that are happening. I, uh, we try to remain neutral on the topic of polygamy, um, and so, yeah, I understand her concern because it’s been very frustrating with me and that’s why we’ve developed our own team and our way of working around the system here in Utah legally. We do it by the book, um, in order to get the kids the care that they need. So my first conversation is always calling the parent and I, and, and I have. Compassion for those parents. So I’ll say, hey, you know, Junior just landed on my doorstep and he does not want to go back home. And I, I know immediately whether they’re gonna be amenable to work with or not. And if they say he’s my kid and I’m coming to get him, I’m like, you’re absolutely right. He’s your child and you have every right to your child. I just need you to know that if your child refuses to go like he’s refusing right now, then I’m gonna have to call the state of Utah. Um, I’ll have to make a, you know, file a police report and, you know, DC Festival. Called in and it’s really interesting because some will say fine, I’m still coming to get my kid and if they haven’t abused their child, then they have every right to their child, right? If they’ve abused their child, almost instantly they’re like, we, what do you need us to do? I’m like, I just want to invite you into the process. Like, I want you to be in your child’s life. I want dealing to occur. I want you to pick this host family that they’re gonna live with. I want you to decide on the school they’re going to attend. I want you to be a part of your child’s life, um. And they will come down and I’ll put them up in hotels and they engage in the conversation and I respect them as that. They’re the parents, right? And so that’s kind of how we’ve gotten around so-called the system, um, and just depending on what we know, I mean, if they’re, if they’re abused, abused, I have to report it. I mean, there’s no way to get around it, but we have a situation already and the parents it’s. Signed documents saying they’re good guardianship this family can have guardianship, then we keep them out of the system and going into the foster care part of this and so which can be really harmful to them. So I kind of jumped around but I hope that’s quasi answered, but I understand Flora’s frustration. It’s been the same frustration over the years. The more I. Engage law enforcement. The more I talk to the attorney general’s office and the FBI, the more I understand how difficult of a situation that they’re in to actually do something. We got empower them to do it, right?

[1:20:32] Michelle: Right. OK, so that’s so interesting because the, like some of the polygamists are so tricky and sneaky and learn how to work every channel, right? And so in a way like um decriminalizing polygamy because I also that’s where my heart is. I’m like, let’s not prosecute persecute people for their religion, but at the same time it makes it tricky because abuse is hard to do. I, I mean, I’m, I’ve always really disliked DCFS and kind of hated it. I was a homeschool mom of a big family and I know that it’s not good to feel under threat, you know. And so, but this is so such the opposite side where it’s interesting because like is an arranged marriage for an 18 year old considered abuse? Do you know what I mean? There are so many tricky things, so it’s almost like decriminalizing it made it harder to help people and sort of empowered them.

[1:21:27] Tonia Tewell: So now I’m accused of 3 years ago when Decriminalization was on the table. I knew that um a certain organization had worked behind the scenes for an entire year to get everybody on board, and I, but I had clients calling me going, do you know what’s gonna happen when they decriminalize? And I’m like, I’ll go down and make my two minute statement, you know, on behalf of my clients who aren’t brave enough to stand up and I got accused at that point that I’m, you know, against polygamy and I was. Like that’s not what I said when I was up there I said, if you don’t deal with the crimes within polygamy, you’re going to embolden these perpetrators and every crazy is gonna come out of the word work essentially and that’s exactly, exactly what has happened over the last 3 years. It’s been an absolute nightmare and of course they’re not gonna look at it. I sent um Deidre Henderson, hey, do you wanna talk about what’s happened? And he never even got a response and I’m like, of course they got the they got it passed. They, they got whatever they wanted out of it. In the meantime I have children being trafficked for labor and you know, sexual purposes and kids are vanishing and you know, like frauds going on more than it ever has and and I’m like wake up, we have to do something about this and so um. It, it’s difficult. I know, well, I was gonna say we have a meeting with somebody, but I’m not gonna say who, but in law enforcement to really talk about this issue and, and if it’s a part where they don’t have the manpower to help find all these kids, then let us start a division. You know, and, and let them be trained under this, you know, area of law of what to do and not to do, and no one ever engages. They find if they find these children then they partner with law enforcement who actually goes in and gets the kids released, but we have to do something because in 5 years they’re gonna be drinking the Kool-Aid and they will drink that Kool-Aid they promise. because they can become celestial beings. And then we’re gonna have these devastated moms going, why didn’t the state of Utah step up and do anything? We have the ability to do something more right now. And so that’s, that’s gonna be my plea um, moving forward in the next couple of weeks I’ve got a meeting that I’m really hoping will, you know, because I wanna work alongside of them. I’m not. I think they have a very tough job and I think they’re doing the best they can with what they’ve got. And so how can we do even better and how can our agency help them do better, right? Does that make sense?

[1:23:48] Michelle: Yeah, and I think with your, with your statement about, like, I can’t imagine being a mother wanting my children knowing that they are being, they are experiencing extreme parental alienation. That’s parental alienation is something that’s become more in the topic in the in the world with divorce and, you know, but when you like polygamists do it like nobody else because those children are being taught, your mother is filled with demons, she’s evil. If she’s nice to you, it’s because Satan wants to deceive you by pretending to be nice. Every like The the the way that these children are trained to despise and distrust not only the outside world but particularly the apostates and particularly their mother or, you know, is so destructive to them and yet that’s what they are absolutely experiencing day in and day out and that’s why they get so. Yeah, you know, when you see firsthand the way that kids who have experienced this treat their parent, it’s terrifying. It’s, and what that does to a kid, I can’t even imagine.

[1:24:50] Tonia Tewell: And the best statement, and I’m gonna blow this and, um, is, is if you ever read the book, The Body Keeps Score by Bel van der Kolt. OK. There’s a paragraph that discusses what happens and essentially when a caregiver is emotionally absent, consistent, violent, neglectful, they form this insecure attachment pattern where they can’t trust that the external environment is going to provide any kind of relief. And when that stress gets so intense is when they have this severe anger when they Have the longings to be taken care of, but, but they disassociate because they can’t handle it or they have self-defeating aggression, um, where our kids may grow up with a secure attachment pattern of we’re secure, we’re seen, you know, can’t think of all the words even

[1:25:38] Michelle: sooths. We’re powerful, we matter

[1:25:40] Tonia Tewell: like and politically they’re emotionally is isolated. They have to learn to comfort themselves. Others are not safe and they’re insecure. Sure that’s what we’re doing to these children and it’s again we’re keeping them off kilter so they’re like OK if I just follow over here if I just follow over here I’ll be OK and it’s as I often describe this it’s the perfect storm, right? You’ve got the patriarchal society, the one man rule what he says is from God and you’ve got to obey. You’ve got a closed community so you don’t know really what’s on the out. Outside whether all this is true or not, you have no checks and balances in place. You got fear of outsiders. You have to live the plural lifestyle with at least 3 wives to reach the celestial kingdom, and I believe 6 wives in order to have your own planet. You, the more you suffer on earth, the more blessings you’re gonna have in the eternal life. Like they’ll suffer a lot through abusive marriages and rapes and all kinds of things because they know this is a clicker. And the rest of eternity is, you know, forever and ever. Um, they believe the prophet hears from God and then, you know, anything negative in your family, there’s such severe consequences that you, you really logically do not have a choice but to obey. And so we we’re messing with these kids long term and that’s why if they don’t get in a healthy environment right from the get-go, they’re in drugs, sex, and alcohol, all that self-defeating aggression because they have no hope. We’re seeing a suicide at least 1 every 6 months right now for people that flee from that community. I think in 15 years our agency, we’ve been able to keep it from happening, but we’ve probably seen 3 but they, it’s when they said, you know what, we’re good now, we’re gonna go off on our own a couple of years later, they take their lives and so it’s just heartbreaking and how do we as a society wake up and try to do something more to make a difference so they do have hope. See that there is unconditional love and people that care about them and there aren’t all these expectations, right? And that’s what the ultimate goal should be. It’s not about polygamy, it’s about the abuses that are happening within polygamy and sorry, the structure that has been set up under this guise of polygamy and religion to abuse these people power, sex, money control. How do we stop it?

[1:27:57] Michelle: Absolutely. OK, man, it’s hard to hear. Ah, it’s hard to hear that it’s getting worse. He’s 2020, we did and now we’re going the wrong direction. It’s just. Like, it’s unbelievable to know that, I mean this really is slavery. Like there’s no, you know, sex trafficking, child trafficking, slavery, like like they have nothing on us and we’ve put all of these efforts into preventing suicide in other areas with other issues and yet this is completely ignored and empowered and emboldened and Excused away because we have this uncomfortable relationship with it where they’re kind of doing what we’re supposed to be doing because we still have 132. We haven’t disavowed the teachings and you know, and even when you start getting in and learning what these people are taught, how racist their views are because they believe all of the Brigham doctrine, how, you know, like we think it’s bad if parents won’t accept their LGBT children. Like then we’ve got to look at polygamy because they’re not we’re, they’re not even in the same universe of what those children are forced to do and accept.

[1:29:08] Tonia Tewell: Yeah, absolutely. Well said, Michelle, I do have to say that. Maybe this is the mess before it does level out and what they did, you know, on Capitol Hill by decriminalizing it. Well, it’s the same as a traffic ticket. It might work out. The, the whole premise was maybe they’ll come out of the shadows and they’ll have relationships with us. And I was trying to explain, no, no, no. Part of the control is keeping them in the shadows. Like that’s not gonna work. I could be wrong. When I left, when I left that hearing, I was like, huh, maybe I’m wrong. Like, I really believe like maybe I’m wrong in the last 3 years, I’m just like, if somebody would have just stepped up and listened. It’s not OK for 12 year old girls to be taken and raped and trapped. Like it’s just not OK.

[1:29:56] Michelle: No, and the leaders don’t want connection. It’s not, we’ve got to look at these leaders almost as mob bosses, right? Like they, they parade the women who are willing to lie, like all of the women in the Warren Jeff’s raid lied. Those weren’t their children. Those have been taken from other families. They lie like they need to, like, I believe our ancestors were forced to do, right? What we really need to look at are these leaders who are the mob bosses who are just using this, and they would love nothing more than to not be prosecuted. They’re certainly not going to let their people mingle with society because that gives them an easy out, which is not what they want for them. They have to have the control. Abusers isolate. They rely on isolation,

[1:30:39] Tonia Tewell: and they

[1:30:40] Michelle: are

[1:30:40] Tonia Tewell: abusers is taught. Lying for the Lord is taught, and they believe that it is justified by God. That’s the reality. So if your leader says lie, I remember one of the Kingston girls saying she was helping me with that. She was on the panel of the law enforcement conference I was doing, and she said, I was taught at a very early age. I remember being 5, and saying if a social worker comes to the door and has a gun to your head, you answer them nothing. If they say tell me or else, you answer them nothing you let them shoot you. This is how these children are going.

[1:31:13] Michelle: Which also is teaching them that a social worker is going to put a gun to their head and shoot them. That I mean it’s establishing the fear of the social worker and the depth of the commitment to the lie.

[1:31:25] Tonia Tewell: Well, it’s interesting because something you may not know is there’s apostates, and there’s what’s called bitter apostates, and the bitter apostates, oh yeah, there’s a level that in the bitter apostates, there’s no hope whatsoever. And they are the ones that go and talk to law enforcement, they go to media, they go to an agency like mine. Um, so there is a worse level. It’s, it, it’s really interesting. Me because it really is a caste system. I don’t know if you know that it’s a caste system. If you’re a jets Kingston, man, you are the groom and the crop and you have the pure blood of Jesus Christ flowing through your veins. But if you’re, if you have a beautiful daughter that’s at the bottom of the totem pole and that daughter can marry into the Kingston, you know, lineage, then the whole family gets to move up through the ladder, so to speak, like it’s just a weird. It’s just a really sad, weird system that is set up, and I don’t remember I was going with that. But anyway, yeah, great conversations, Michelle. I, one of the questions like, and we could, we could probably talk forever, but I,

[1:32:27] Michelle: I do want to know. I just want you to let us know what help you need and how, you know, I like all of us, our lives are full. We’re all doing, you know, but I do it. I hope that people will just open up to saying, Lord, is there some way you can use me in This, do you, you know, and, and the inspiration comes with the Lord telling you you can do this, you can do this, you have, you know, or talk to this person who maybe is just like someone talked to you and asked you to help. So tell us what help you need and how people can help. I’m How they can donate or what other help they can offer.

[1:33:01] Tonia Tewell: So I will say the very first thing is, obviously prayer is great. I mean, like, where do we need to go next, but talk to your state representatives, please. Talk to them, um, fill them in on the realities of what is going on. If you have a basement apartment, we again, we have 4 moms in need. If you want to donate financially so they can rent a place, you can donate at holdingouthelp.org. There’s a donate button. Um. You know, we are in desperate need of a counselor, so if you have any counselors that we can train on our end that can donate, you know, 10 hours a week or even 5 hours a week or so I can take 2 clients on full time, you know, anything like that is helpful if you are an accountant and you say you can come in and do trainings to teach them how to do their own taxes but it’d be. So surprised at, you know, you might have the exact skill set that even one client needs, one client needs and make a massive difference for them. So I would just, I would say those are my probably my main things, talk to people, let them know what they heard on the podcast, you know, invite people into dialogue, spread the word, spread the word, spread the word. We need help.

[1:34:09] Michelle: That’s excellent. So I, I’ve, I’ve for a long time been feeling I want to like. Call for a day of fasting and prayer just like for our polygamist brothers and sisters. So maybe we can work together and try to organize something in our religious communities and just let there be. Like, like, try to invoke our faith on behalf of these people to have God help us. Well, do you know what I mean that that that we can ask God to help these people that that need help to like right the wrongs of our ancestors. It’s really, really a heavy weight that we that we bear. And so,

[1:34:46] Tonia Tewell: even something like that would be, I mean, honestly, it would be massive. It would be massive. So, you know, anything you. Michelle.

[1:34:53] Michelle: OK, well then I’ll, let’s let’s connect and I’ll invite a few other people that are, and, and let’s let’s plan that. Let’s commit to it right now and we’ll put something together. Is that right? There we go, there we go. So we can look forward to that. Keep us, keep us honest. So Tanya, I am just overwhelmed. I’m so amazed and thankful with the amazing work you do and you’re such a beautiful person. Thank you for coming and talking to me and sharing this and Of course your website will be linked in the description box so people can go look at it, um, there are stories there’s a blog, there’s a lot more information you can that um you can find on that. You can find out how to donate and how to contact and get in touch with Tanya if you know people who need help or if you are in a position to offer any sort of help. I know that this this really is kind of like. You know, the, what is it, the blood and sins of our generation, you know, we kind of are all carrying the weight of this to some extent, and if there’s something we can do to help, then that is a beautiful thing.

[1:35:55] Tonia Tewell: If we call ourselves followers of Christ, then how can we serve in some way, right? How can we make a difference? And so we have, we have quite a few LDS homes that have stepped up as well, but we need more. So just now though, if you do step up, you can’t. Have the ulterior motive of trying to convert. It’s in our training and not push religion, um, at all, but I mean if somebody has a, a space, we would welcome it and we’d be so grateful to have that space. So yeah, we just appreciate you bringing awareness. We really do, Michelle. It’s, it’s amazing to be able to be on this platform and, um, to get to share in front of hopefully thousands and if there’s anything that you need from me or we need to re-engage, let me know. Perfect.

[1:36:38] Michelle: OK, we’ll be in touch, please, everybody listening, share this episode. Let’s help spread the word and help help these people. It’s, it’s, it’s such important work. So, OK, thank you, Tana, Tanya, I hope to talk to you again soon.

[1:36:52] Tonia Tewell: Thank you, Michelle. Have a great day.

[1:36:55] Michelle: This was such an eye opening interview in so many ways. I hope that you learned a lot and I really hope that many of you feel the same. Desire that I do to try to help to see what we can do. Um, first, I do again just want to invite everybody to start to pray for these people and for this issue that people can come to Truth. And, um, also what we can do to help. I want, I wanted to make a big announcement, but we’re still working out some of the details, but I do. I want to let you know that we are officially setting aside July 23rd. It’s a Sunday right before the 24th of July, so it’s very symbolically important. But we are inviting anybody who feels so inclined to join us on July 23rd for a day of fasting and prayer, to just try to help these people who are trapped, who are being Their families are being separated still. They are being taught these ideas. I hope you really understood what she was saying about mothers who leave and they’re not able to get their children and within just a little bit of time, their children are fully convinced of how wicked their mother is and they stay when, um, if those mothers know those mothers feel so strongly if they could get their children out sooner, they could save them. There are so many things happening that, um, we just need God’s help in these, these are hard problems. I am not. All for persecution or prosecution of families or people living their faith. And at the same time, when children are being taught these horrible things, it is just really hard and really sad. So the only thing I need to do know to do is to seek God’s wisdom and help and direction. So anyone who feels to join us, please do. We’ll, we’ll have more information coming forward. Anyone who feels inclined to help, maybe put an event together. That’s what we would like to be working on, please let me know. And, um, also, there will be links in the descriptions below for ways that you can contact your representatives to let them know if you feel like sending them this interview or giving them Tanya’s information so she can talk to them. Also, Tanya said there’s a real need for things like gas cards and just basic things. So there will be a lot of information in the description box below for anybody who feels inclined to start seeing how they can help. And then, of course, anything that you feel inspired to do or that’s your own creativity, share with us your Ideas because, um, these are our brothers and sisters. I loved also Tanya’s insight about just being kind, just smiling and being welcoming and trying to reduce some of that fear that they are taught so that they do feel a little more, um, empowered that they have options. So thank you again for joining us and for joining us going forward in these exciting things to hope that we can be an instrument in the hands of God in some small way. So I will see you next time.