Texas LDS deal with confusion
Missionaries, members feeling fallout from raid
A man shouted out "compound!"
"There was this guy. He held up a knife and yelled at us," said Elder Tyler Duffy from Orem.
Some of the fallout from the raid on the YFZ Ranch is being felt by members and missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While the FLDS Church is not connected in any way to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, some Mormon faithful have said they feel they are being found guilty by association.
"There are some people here that believe anything bad about Mormons and that's what they're going to do," said Charles L. Webb, who serves as president of the Abilene, Texas, stake.
The LDS Church's presence in this part of Texas is small. The Abilene stake covers an area 25,000 square miles in size with about 3,000 members. There are only two LDS chapels in San Angelo, but a number of Baptist and other evangelical Christian churches. It's the polar opposite of Utah, where the LDS Church is the dominant faith.
In repeated statements, leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have differentiated between the two faiths and expressed disappointment that some news media outlets have lumped the two together.
The LDS Church has said there is no such thing as a "fundamentalist Mormon," although an estimated 37,000 people who practice it consider themselves as such. Fundamentalists argue that the LDS Church has strayed from its original doctrine by abandoning the practice of polygamy in 1890.
Here in the Bible belt, many LDS members have had to explain the differences in their faiths — the practice of polygamy being the chief example.
Clinton Hudson, a student at Sonora High School, is a member of a Christian student fellowship. During a lunchtime meeting, he said one student said they should pray for the children taken in the raid. Another student said they should "pray for the Mormons."
"I approached her and said, 'They're not Mormons. They're fundamentalists. They broke off from the church' and described our history and how they broke off. It really helped a lot," Hudson said Sunday. "It was a great opportunity to get them to understand there's a difference between them and us."
Not everyone is interested in hearing their explanations.
Duffy said he was speaking with a man interested in converting to the LDS Church. After the raid, the man gave them back a copy of the Book of Mormon, saying he did not want to hear from them again.
Recent comments
I am of the Mennonite faith and I have Mormon cousins and they are...
Dawn | April 26, 2008 at 4:08 a.m.
The FLDS church has rejected what the living prophet at the time...
Uhm | April 25, 2008 at 5:54 p.m.
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