Warren Jeffs' trial will kick off in nine days, with jury selection. When the trial gets underway, Jeffs' sermons and lessons (remember, he was the principal at Alta Academy, an FLDS school) will be sliced and diced by attorneys on both sides of the case.
What sorts of lessons might be scrutinized? Here is an example.
Warren Jeffs gave this lesson, obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune, to the Alta Academy home economics class on March 13, 1998. At the time he was the school's principal and first counselor in the FLDS church.
It was titled, "Specific Duties and Counsel to the Mothers; How to Become One with Your Priesthood Head; A Woman Never Has the Right to Correct A Sister-Wife."
As in many of his lessons, Jeffs quotes the Bible, early leaders of the mainstream LDS Church, FLDS prophets and their teachings. In this lesson, he tells the young women they are to submit to their husbands, to not fight with sister wives and that husbands are never to use force or act unkindly. Here is the talk:
I desire Heavenly Father's spirit to be with me to bring to your minds the real purposes of life and the goals of priesthood marriage. To begin with, I would like to present to your minds how it should be.
The goal of the Priesthood way of life is oneness, oneness, part of an eternal order that will never end.
And being part of an eternal order and blessings, you will never come to an end, but always dwell in that happiness and peace.
The Lord on purpose has sent us into this world to meet the two opposite powers, and we must choose. And I testify to you young ladies the right, the eternal way, is Priesthood. If Priesthood is not involved in something, we should not want it.
The holy Priesthood is the eternal power where God himself places his nature into a man. The women do not bear the holy Priesthood, but they have the power of that Priesthood in them through their husbands or their father if they are unmarried.
And when you are sealed to a man, you become part of him. I emphasize, ''part of him.'' You don't become all of him, but part of him.
The woman who wants to be everything, will seek to rule over her husband. And it's our job, each one, to find our place in this oneness as part of the work of God.
In this world today there are great battles between men and women and their rights.
So I remind you of what the Prophet said: ''It takes a man and a woman to make a man. It takes a man and many women to make a man.'' And the only real way to be a woman and fulfill your calling as a woman is to be in oneness with the Priesthood bearer you will become part of.
The truth of oneness is, ''If you are not for me, you are against me. If you are not with me, you will scatter abroad.''
Today, you are taught to resist every temptation, you are taught to withdraw from every male with an improper connection. You are being raised up as though there is a natural resistance, the bars are up. When you enter into the Celestial Law, you will still keep all those bars up, all that resistance to all male people except the one man you are given to.
And that one man, your husband, you must do just the opposite with. You don't keep the bars up toward him. But you give your will, you confide in him, your all centers in him.
You wake up each day yearning to please him. You rejoice in his will towards you. You pray for him, you seek his counsel. In your life there's no secrets you keep from him, but you keep his secrets. You keep sacred your relationship with him, and all this as a oneness with your Priesthood head.
We have had you read and study the duties of the father. His first loyalty is to Priesthood and to the Prophet. And because he loves God and the Prophet, he is able to love you and lead you right.
For the woman, her desires shall be to her husband and he shall rule over her. Brigham Young in this quote describes 'The very nature of women is their desires shall be to their husband. But the part they must accomplish to perfect their lives is to completely submit, where he shall rule over you.'
I remind you that Priesthood government is persuasion through love. It is not force.
The father, the husband, his duty is to persuade through love. Chastening is part of love, and even that is done in kindness. And so you ladies, to fulfill that command of the great Jehovah that, ''Your desires shall be to your husband and he shall rule over you,'' it requires you willingly submit.
Don't hang back waiting for your husband to come gather you up and tell every little thing you should do. And it requires you to watch him, listen to him, ask the right questions. And when you are not right there by him, seek inspiration, ask that Heavenly Father's spirit will guide you to do the will of your head.
If you are not part of this oneness, you will one day be shut out. Those who go to the Celestial Kingdom are one, filled with the same spirit. Their desires go the same direction. All selfishness is sacrificed and overcome.
I say again, it is with some experience I have had and watching so many people. I know what you are going through right now, to the degree where you put a resistance up toward so many people. But with your husband, there can't be the resistance.
You have the special gift, you young ladies, of the desires of your heart, and you have your agency — you can choose where you center those desires. But heartstrings bind fast. When you start tying your heart to something, it would be hard to remove those heartstrings. You have reserved yourself for the prophet's appointment.
You have kept away from men and boys. You are anxious to do it the Lord's way. And when the prophet appoints, something will happen inside of you.
Those heartstrings, just like real strings, reach out and start tying to that Priesthood bearer you will be given to. But you have a lot of heartstrings, a lot of desires, a lot in a living person and many ways of life. And every way of life, you must tie your heart to your Priesthood head.
We are to have faith on the Lord Jesus Christ as our great strength, and we tie our heartstrings to a Priesthood bearer only as far as he obeys God. And so, the part of that commandment that he shall rule over you has a condition. That condition is: The woman obeys the man only as far as the man obeys the prophet.
But how can you tell? You must read and study the Gospel. You must have a testimony of your own and seek to be guided by that same spirit of God your husband should have.
Now what if you detect that he might have a weakness? Maybe you have come from a good father, and perhaps you would be given to an inexperienced man or a man who has great weaknesses, or you think so. What should you do?
For sure, if a woman rules over the man, both will lose the spirit of God. If a man only does good because you tell him, both of you don't have the spirit of God, you both lose. Pray for him, seek his counsel in faith on the Lord Jesus Christ, our Heavenly Father. When you approach your husband, always do it with a prayer in your heart, asking the Lord to guide you through that Priesthood bearer. Revelation comes through Priesthood, through proper authority. And what do many people do?
They run to their friends or someone they think can give them counsel. You run anywhere else besides your Priesthood head, you could run into trouble. There have been instances where the Prophet says, ''You can go counsel with that person. They'll teach you like I do.''
But when you get married and you keep running back to your old girlfriends for counsel, confide in them the secrets of your marriage and your intimacy, you are going to run into trouble. That's a separation. That's not becoming one with your head.
These quotes at the first of the chapter gave a lot of warnings. It even says a woman who is rebellious and tries to rule over her husband will remove herself out of this work.
I am approaching this lesson toward the path of success, not just the warning of failure. And the success is to give yourself to your husband -- mind, body, soul, with a living faith in God that the Lord will guide him right in teaching you and training you.
The bond in marriage is the spirit of God. If it's just a physical bond, you won't be very close. The closeness is a oneness of spirit, both keeping sweet, both obedient. If this is true between you and your husband, then, as the prophet Brigham Young said, a mother or wife who has the spirit of God will never intrude on the rights of her husband. She will never go beyond her bounds and try to rule over him. Don't try to step out ahead, say the Prophets.
In my relationship with our prophet, I find I must be very, very careful. When I go to him, give a report, I must be very careful that I am not seeking to dictate, and thus him become offended at me. Before I ever approach him, before I enter his office to talk to him, I always must have a prayer going.
''Heavenly Father, I want to do right, guide me through your Prophet.'' And then if I have the same spirit upon me that he has, I will recognize what he is thinking, I will feel it. Sometimes he will say, ''What is happening here or there?'''and I must be careful. I must, through love, give a report. But I must approach my head always with the attitude, ''Thy will be done. I am ready to be corrected and taught and trained,'' or else I am not in oneness with him.
One of the pitfalls in the home that some women fall into is the thought that, ''Oh, my dear husband just doesn't see everything like I do. My dear husband just doesn't see what so and so is doing and what they are saying and what they are feeling.''
And then the wife is tempted to step out and criticize here, complain there, try to set the house in order, even sister wives. So set it down, ladies. Mark it in your heart that it never be erased. A sister wife never has the right and authority to correct another sister wife.
And I mean through criticism, complaining, through fighting and anger, you never have that right. You are wrong if you fight. You’re wrong. The only right you have is to love one another, and, through your obedience, be an example for your sister wives, reacting in kindness and peace if they’re not sweet.
That is how you will help them keep sweet better than all your fighting and criticism. And I want you to remember, when you step out to criticize or set in order a sister wife, you are seeking to rise above your husband, and you are not one with him.
If he hasn't chosen to correct that other woman, and you step out to do it ahead of him, you are seeking to rule over your husband.
So when the prophets say, ''Beware. Don't try to dictate your husband,'' you must realize it could happen in any area of life where you haven't on purpose sought to become one with him. And oneness means submission, ''Thy will be done.'' It's a living faith in God that He will lead you through your Priesthood head, your husband.
Seek out this oneness early in your marriage. Don't withdraw. Don't rely on your girlhood friends to guide you in your marriage, but rely on Heavenly Father and that He speaks through Priesthood.
The next part of your reading was concerning women turning their children to the father and your duty toward the children. I would like us to memorize page 286, an assignment for next Friday where the teacher will start you off with this quote and you will make it part of you.
This is ''A Woman's Relations With Her Sister Wives.'' It starts in the middle of a sentence. The bolded part is what I want you to memorize.
''. . . If you women who are living in the Celestial order will work with yourselves until you can embrace one another every morning and before you go to bed at night, and have that feeling of love toward one another as you have for your child, that is the kind of love the Lord requires. (Leroy S. Johnson, May 15, 1966)''
You can memorize more if you want. He talks to the men next.
''That is the kind of love required between men. They should be able to meet and embrace one another with that holy embrace the Lord requires -- brother to brother. Then we can begin to become that people the Lord requires for the establishment of His work. Remember that Zion cannot be redeemed only upon the principles of the Celestial Kingdom.''
The great work of turning your children to the father is done by you turning your heart to your husband and becoming one with him. All day long a woman can say to her child, ''You obey, you obey, you obey,'' but the child will always do as you do. They won't always do as you say, but they will do as you do.
The great ability of a woman to turn her children to the father is to have her heart first turned to the father or husband. And the way a woman does that is her all is centered in him. The children coming forth through the mother and always being around the mother, it has a natural love for its mother, will mimic and copy, it will have the emotions, movements, talk like you, so many ways be like you. And you have the power of God to turn that child any way you want.
And so a woman must be careful that her heart is right, her example is turning those children toward the father. One of the most destructive things in a child's life is to hear the mother voice a complaint against the father. You even say a complaint, you could plant a doubt, a fear in that child to make it not want to obey.
Your next reading is Brigham Young's ''Responsibility of Mothers.'' . . . Your first quote here is the famous -- I call it ''famous'' because of how often it is read . . . This is one that President Jeffs reads so often. It is recorded in his sermons.
True womanhood is attained through Priesthood. Motherhood, womanhood, is glorified, honored and blesses others through Priesthood. All your connection with other women should be through Priesthood, through your head. All your conversations with other women should be to please your head. Your secrets, the desires of your heart, should be centered in him. And that takes some doing.
It requires you to abide the law of sacrifice,''They will be done,'' in all things. If there is any area of your life that you don't do that, the tests of life will be such that you will eventually have to do it if you want to go with your Priesthood head to the Celestial world.
Well, I know I am planting thoughts in your minds where you are not having to apply it yet. Your marriage is yet ahead of you. But I hope these words of the prophets will be in you so that when you need it, the spirit of God will remind you these truths. My effort on these Fridays is to just summarize the training.
Ladies, this has to be in you, not just in the book, and that is the effort we are putting forth here.
Labels: Alta Academy, Warren Jeffs
