Mormon Women

"I was one of 28 children born to my dad and his three wives. Indoctrinated to believe that the outside world was evil, and that I resided among the righteous, I was destined to marry a man chosen for me by the Prophet. I would then live in harmony with my sister-wives, bear many children, and obey and serve my future husband in this life and throughout eternity. But my innocence didn't last long." Flora goes on from there to tell the dramatic true story of how she ultimately escaped and has been rescuing women and children from the FLDS.

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.

In The Priesthood Power of Women, author Barbara Morgan Gardner explores teachings of the living prophets and scriptures to increase our understanding of God's power as it operates in the temple, the Church, and the family. Her well-documented research demonstrates that women have more authority and power in all those settings than they may have previously supposed.

The revealing and inspiring memoir of a woman forced into polygamous marriage in FLDS Church and her brave struggle to protect others from the same fate. Rebecca Musser grew up in fear, concealing her family's polygamous lifestyle from the "dangerous" outside world. Covered head-to-toe in strict, modest clothing, she received a rigorous education at Alta Academy, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' school headed by Warren Jeffs.

Laurie Lee Hall’s growing-up years were defined by the conflict between her physical condition as a boy and her inherent identity as a girl. Unable to explain or resolve her gender dysphoria, she committed to living her adult life as a male. She joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, eventually becoming chief architect of its temples and an ecclesiastical leader. In her church and community, rigid adherence to gender roles is not only the norm, but the defining issue of a faith that doctrinally declares one’s gender as an “eternal identity.

In this first-of-its-kind guide, “Consider Yourself as Eve” seeks to illuminate these doctrines by considering how we may live the temple’s template of spiritual development, especially as women. Along the way, we discuss many other questions, including: What specifically is the temple designed to teach us? What do the symbolic signs, laws, and tokens presented in the temple endowment ceremony represent in our everyday lives? How do we receive transformative grace through the atonement of Jesus Christ?

While the women in the Book of Mormon are mostly unnamed, there are surprisingly more women included than most people think. In this book you will meet 47 women, or groups of women, who teach valuable lessons about peacemaking, gaining a testimony, perseverance, discipleship, and creating lasting conversion to the gospel of Jesus Christ. With gorgeous photographs and insightful analysis, add depth to your study of the Book of Mormon by discovering how the women of the Book of Mormon add their voices to another testament of Jesus Christ.

The central conceit of this book is that it is an oral history that women passed down from generation to generation, based on inspiration by God instead of genetic relationships or priesthood authority designations. The book is given to Christ at the end of the two volumes, when he appears to righteous Lamanites and Nephites waiting for him.

In 1825, in rural Pennsylvania, Emma Hale marries an itinerant treasure-digger, a man who has nothing but a peep-stone in his pocket and a conviction that he can speak directly to God. His name is Joseph Smith and in a few short years, he will found his own religion, gather zealous adherents by the tens of thousands, and fracture Emma’s life and faith.

Imagine everything you have ever known fading away, all around you. In this gripping memoir and powerful workbook, Angel Lyn recounts her upbringing as a devout member of the Mormon church, a dedicated housewife and loving mother of five sons in southern Utah. As challenges within her marriage unfold, she discovers a warrant for her husband's arrest that causes her to undergo an epic spiritual transformation, moving away from a deeply religious mindset to a more profound and spiritual approach to life.

From the creator of the New York Times best-selling Sad Animal Facts series, Brooke Barker, comes a quirky, hilarious memoir-in-essays about her journey from a childhood in the Mormon church to a Jewish adulthood, and all the wonder and weirdness of faith.

To her contemporaries, Amy Brown Lyman was a leader, admired for her dynamic personality, her inspiring public addresses, and especially for her remarkable vision of what Mormon women in the Relief Society could achieve. Yet today her name is barely known. This volume brings her work to light, showing how the accomplishments of Lyman and her peers benefitted their own and subsequent generations.

In 1851, Olive Oatman was a 13-year-old pioneer traveling west toward Zion, with her Mormon family. Within a decade, she was a white Indian with a chin tattoo, caught between cultures. The Blue Tattoo tells the harrowing story of this forgotten heroine of frontier America. Orphaned when her family was brutally killed by Yavapai Indians, Oatman lived as a slave to her captors for a year before being traded to the Mohave, who tattooed her face and raised her as their own.

Polygamous wives were participants in a controversial and very public religious practice that violated most 19th-century social and religious rules of a monogamous America. Harline considers the questions: Were these women content with their sacrifice? Did the benefits of polygamous marriage for the Mormons outweigh the human toll it required and the embarrassment it continues to bring?

Get ready to laugh. Get ready to be outraged. And get ready to see polygamy as no one has ever revealed it before. Joanne tells their crazy story with humor and honesty. You'll share her angst over sharing her husband. You'll meet her "sister wives", a prophet calling himself a "celestial stud service" who seeks divine guidance on threesomes, and apostles who dress in weird robes to curse the White House. You'll fume at gut-wrenching tales of racism, sexual abuse, fraud, and manipulation.

A pioneer in the Mormon exposé, Deborah Laake recounts her strict Mormon upbringing and two disastrous Mormon marriages that left her a pariah in the church. Laake chronicles her life from innocence to full initiation. Married at 19, she describes the voodoo-like rituals and behaviors revealed to her on her wedding day—and the male dominance, strange teachings, and "divine" revelations characteristic of her religion.

What does killing houseplants, cowpie cookies, ugly feet, and lost keys have to do with The Book of Mormon? Everything! Women Read Scripture: 365 Daily Devotionals from The Book of Mormon offers a daily companion to The Book of Mormon, accompanied by relatable stories and poignant anecdotes that illuminate the scriptures' timeless wisdom with every excerpted verse.

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.

Beside every beloved prophet, there is a strong, incredible woman that works and sacrifices alongside her husband. Meet Abi, the brilliant, capable wife of Alma the Younger, and experience the events of the Book of Mormon through her unique lens as a wife and mother. From Korihor’s trial to the war with Amlici, “ABI” allows you to see and feel your favorite stories of the scriptures through the eyes of the families and heroines you never knew.

What’s worse? Frying your brains all summer in the desert? Or paying the toll to stay cool in the north? What’s the toll? Helping three ghostly women solve their own murder and escape their confines.