Mormon True

Valarie Clark Miller seemed to have it all. Smart and beautiful with a wealthy, successful husband and growing family, Valarie appeared to be the picture-perfect Mormon wife. But it was all a façade. Inside, she was crumbling from the pressures of long-repressed memories of a childhood filled with sexual and physical abuse.

Joseph Smith's observation that "by proving contraries, truth is made manifest" has become a beloved aphorism of Latter-day Saint thought. Both Things Are True is an experiment upon these words. Most aspects of a covenant life are lived in the tense space between contrary ideas that are equally valid but individually incomplete. When we learn to hold true things together in their natural tension, we find our hearts and souls stretched wide. The process can be challenging, even painful, but the spiritual rewards are great.

Defying both civil authorities and the Mormon establishment in Salt Lake City, the renegade leaders of these Taliban-like theocracies are zealots who answer only to God; some 40,000 people still practice polygamy in these communities. At the core of Krakauer’s book are brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a commandment from God to kill a blameless woman and her baby girl. Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this appalling double murder, Krakauer constructs a bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, polygamy, savage violence, and unyielding faith.

Travis Alexander was a handsome, hard-working, practicing Mormon who lived in Mesa, Arizona. His good looks and easygoing manner made him popular with everyone, especially the ladies. So when he was found with a bullet wound in the face and his throat slashed, the brutal murder sent shock waves throughout his community. Who could have done something so sinister? But soon a suspect was singled out-Jodi Arias. A beautiful, aspiring photographer, Jodi had been in a long-distance relationship with Travis the year before.

A novel based on the life of Ellen Breakell Neibaur, a Victorian-era pioneer who, despite unending trials, kept trekking forward. Ellen has made the most reprehensible choice of her life and must abide by the consequences. But when strange dreams lead her and Alexander, the Prussian dentist, to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, she wonders if there might be a measure of hope for her—if she works hard enough. Persecution, sacrifice, and loss flood her life like the River Ribble in a squall, and Ellen must decide if love and faith are worth losing everything she’s ever ...

Determined to pursue his passion for undercover work wherever it led, Stallworth finally lands in Salt Lake City, UT. Once again, he’s an outsider–not only as a Black man on a mostly white police force but also an unapologetic non-believer in a state dominated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. But soon after his first drug bust in the Beehive, Stallworth makes a startling discovery–Bloods and Crips are infiltrating Mormon Country, threatening to turn the deeply conservative community into a hotbed of crime.

In 2007, Dr. Martin MacNeill - a doctor, lawyer, and Mormon bishop - discovered his wife of 30 years dead in the bathtub of their Pleasant Grove, Utah, home, her face bearing the scars of a facelift he had persuaded her to undergo just a week prior. At first the death of 50-year-old Michele MacNeill, a former beauty queen and mother of eight, appeared natural. But days after the funeral, when Dr. MacNeill moved his much younger mistress into the family home, his children grew suspicious.

For twenty-five years, the trusted family doctor in a small Wyoming town had been raping and molesting the women and children who most relied on him. Mostly Mormons, the naive victims sometimes realized on their wedding nights the truth about what had happened in Dr. Story's office.

On the morning of November 4, 2019, a caravan of women and children was ambushed by masked gunmen on a desolate stretch of road in northern Mexico controlled by the Sinaloa drug cartel. Firing semi-automatic weapons, the attackers killed nine people and gravely injured five more. The victims were members of the LeBaron and La Mora communities-fundamentalist Mormons whose forebears broke from the LDS Church and settled in Mexico when their religion outlawed polygamy in the late nineteenth century.

At the core of this book is an appalling double murder committed by two Mormon Fundamentalist brothers, Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a revelation from God commanding them to kill their blameless victims. Weaving the story of the Lafferty brothers and their fanatical brethren with a clear-eyed look at Mormonism's violent past, Krakauer examines the underbelly of the most successful homegrown faith in the United States, and finds a distinctly American brand of religious extremism.

In May of 2013, Max and Joyce Eliason entrusted their estate valued in excess of $250 million to the LDS law firm of Kirton McConkie located in Salt Lake City, Utah. They did so with the belief that their estate rich in oil properties was just as safe as the millions of dollars they had paid in tithes and offerings over the 59 years they were married. What has followed is the most criminal and heinous display of corruption which has led to Kirton McConkie and the leaders of the LDS Church unable to account for $1.00.

She had no choice in the matter - none of the girls did. Her mission was to give birth to and raise many children in devoted service to a shared husband. Susan was 15 years old when she became the sixth wife of Verlan LeBaron, one of the leaders of a rogue Mormon cult, who was engaged in a blood feud with his brother that from 1972 to 1988 claimed up to two dozen lives. In this gripping and eloquent book, Susan Ray Schmidt tells the story of growing up on the inside and of her ultimate escape with her children from an oppressive and violent life.

My thesis is simple: “If The Church Is True, Then Why Doesn't Sunday School End On Time?” Let me unpack that quote. First, this is not an anti-Mormon book, but “inside baseball” for faithful members. And who is my audience? Normal members: people like you. A note on spelling. I used the King James Version of the Bible, and I retain the archaic spelling.

He runs his own business and coaches Little League. She drives a minivan, and she'd be lost without her trusty BlackBerry. They go on date nights. Their kids attend public schools, play sports, and take music lessons. They live in a roomy house in the 'burbs. They're about as mainstream as families come. They're also polygamists. The Dargers move the conversation away from child brides, Warren Jeffs, and the FLDS to more mainstream polygamists who willingly enter into plural relationships as adults.

Brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty insist they were commanded to kill by God. In Under the Banner of Heaven, Jon Krakauer's investigation is a meticulously researched, bone-chilling narrative of polygamy, savage violence and unyielding faith: an incisive look inside isolated Mormon Fundamentalist communities in America, this gripping work of non-fiction illuminates an otherwise confounding realm of human behaviour.

Chris Thomas is not yet 30 years old when he finds himself managing the immense pressure, eccentric personalities, and extenuating circumstances of an international story, where one small misstep could adversely impact the search for a missing teenager and the reputation of her family. Now, 20 years later, Thomas takes listeners behind the scenes, providing new details, perspectives, and commentary on finding Elizabeth Smart.

Diamond Dust is the memoir of how a young person’s talent ran away with itself, careening off into one unexpected adventure after another. With humor and introspection, it is a story of hubris and redemption, of talent and conscience, of art and absolution—and how life can lead us to second chances—at finding our better selves.

Emotionally battered and neglected by her personality disordered parents—and manipulated by Mormon beliefs—16-year-old Sarah was convinced her boyfriend Michael would save her. When her parents discovered that they’d committed the sin of premarital sex, the aftermath left the teenagers irrevocably bonded.

At the end of World War II, John Christiansen, a Mormon soldier, was visiting the Vatican when the Pope singled him out. “You must be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I’d like to talk to you.” John found himself in the very rare position of having a private audience with Pope Pius XII. What did the Pope want to know about the Mormon church? This fascinating account comes from a recording discovered on an old reel-to-reel tape.

Then, when tragedy strikes again years later and his father is murdered, Brock’s faith and capacity to forgive are put to the ultimate test. The Other Side of Fear is an uplifting, personal memoir filled with humor and gut-wrenching honesty that serves as a convincing statement on the power of the atonement to heal and to comfort.