Continued from “Pt 34-G: The Mexico-LeBarons: Button, Button, Who’s Got the Button?“

“I hold the patriarchal keys of Joseph Smith’s house. My mother’s still alive and she never favored me. My father gave me these keys and told me to go ahead with the patriarchal work in his stead. I have two witnesses.” [1]

Continued from part 34-G:
I left off in the last blog saying: All my grandfather’s seven sons by Grandma Maud McDonald LeBaron expected/wanted/claimed, at one time or another, to hold their father Dayer’s supposed “scepter of power” — in other words, “The right to rule the world”!

Most of them claimed their father passed this “right” — the right of the Firstborn/ the Johnson mantle/ the patriarchal keys of Joseph Smith’s house/ “the keys” — on to them, exclusively, when he, Dayer, died — just whichever son proved worthy enough was the son Grandpa supposedly gave his special priesthood keys to — his scepter of power! (If that doesn’t beat all!) [2]

Yet, none of his sons knew for sure to whom, if anyone, their father had passed this special “Priesthood Power” — “the Johnson mantle”! (LOL!) Joel had to go pray about it to find out!

His sons by his ex-wives Barbara Bailey and Onie Jones got “left out” … no doubt ’cause Onie and Barbara divorced him … though Ma did say her pa told his contending sons he might even decide to make his oldest son Adrian (Barbara Bailey’s son) heir to his scepter of power!

What?! Oh, sure! And how was he to do that? For starters, Grandpa Dayer had, had NO contact with his firstborn son in umpteen years!

For finishers, he had enough trouble with one of his sons (Floren?) placing his incapacitated hands upon even ONE accessible son’s head, so as to pass on his “Mantle” … before passing on, himself.

Making things more convolutedly crazy: At one time, Grandfather Dayer AND his mentally-deranged son Ben — for a number of years — BOTH claimed, concurrently, to be “The one mighty and strong prophet”/ “God’s mouthpiece on earth”/The Pontiff come to set the house of God in order and prepare the way for the second coming of Christ”!
(Cont. in next week’s blog.)

[1] https://holyorder.org/2017/08/26/ross-lebaron-interview-to-dale-van-atta-1977/

Year of Polygamy Podcast

AUGUST 14, 2018/ ANTÔNIO TREVISAN TEIXEIRA

In the latest episode of the Year of Polygamy podcast, ANTÔNIO TREVISAN TEIXEIRA (Scholar and Historian/Researcher) was interviewed by Lindsay Hansen Park about Ross LeBaron and his Church of the Firstborn. Listen to this very interesting Podcast Interview at the following link:
https://www.yearofpolygamy.com/year-of-polygamy/episode-160-ross-lebaron-and-the-church-of-the-first-born/

[2]. One concerned member of my extended family sent me this elequent bequest:

“Maybe you could add that Floren really was quite different from his other brothers?
He NEVER tried to usurp “the Johnson mantle” or take any praise, recognition, or honor to himself — or seek a following. 

Floren could have started a church or picked up the COTFB [Church of the First born] and taken off with it. He didn’t!

Over the 25 years he was my father-in-law, I saw men come and go who would have loved to start it up with him, who tried to get him to do baptism, ordinances, marriage sealings, and confer priesthood. But he never would! He severely rebuked them for even asking him to.

Once, when discussing religion with a group of several men who had come from Chihuahua and the USA to visit him, as they were pressing him to take the lead in starting a “Bishop’s storehouse” and United Order, he stood up at his kitchen table where they were seated and slammed both fists down hard, and said:
“I’D RATHER BE SHOT AT SUNRISE THAN TO TAKE A STEP IN THAT DIRECTION WITHOUT A “THUS SAITH THE LORD!”

He was such an honorable man. People can be 100% convicted, dedicated, and completely sincere, and still be completely wrong. Consider the Muslims.”

*My Rebuttal:
I respect your sentiments, but need to point out Floren was around 67 years old when you married his son — around 50 before you were even born; I was around 30; 9 years old when my parents started investigating Joel’s “Church;” 11 when they joined it. MUCH water and many changes had flown beneath the bridge by the time you entered upon the Mexico LeBaron religion-making scene.

I recall when Uncle Floren (long before you were born) broke away from Uncle Verlan’s group and formed a gathering place of his own because he believed the others weren’t doing it right … and HE knew how it should be done and carried out.

But somewhere along the line — perhaps in his failure to build a stable following and stronghold, and his losing a number of wives in his attempt to create a new gathering place/Zion — he took a different bend … an honorable turn in the road; the one you knew and loved so much.

I hate to be “The Bad-News Bear-er,” but here’s another discrepancy: Floren’s taking Joel to “Farmington Canyon, Utah,” etc., was never heard of between 1955 and 1967 — the years I was affiliated with the CotFotFoT. It’s part of the revised version/the re-written story of how “Joel said” he was appointed to be the “one mighty and strong.”

In other words, you grew up with the revamped CotFotFoT’s so-called “documented history.” People who were there at the start of the Church of the Firstborn of the Fullness of Times, yet refute what I’ve said, are part of the fabrication-factory — the spin mill that has colluded to white-wash the LeBaron story; ie, remake the history of the Church of the Frstborn!

There’s more on this topic in my previous blogs … and blogs to come. Meanwhile, people must do their own reading — and much research. However, most people believe what they want to believe; read and listen only to what agrees with what they believe.

Continued May 3, 2019: “Pt 34-I: The LeBaron Madmen: Button, Button, Who’s Got the Button?”