becoming plural – Speaking of Polygamy…

I grew up in Los Angeles, California during the seventies and eighties. It was a wonderful time to be there. I could not have asked for a better childhood, even with the trials, struggles, triumphs, and successes. At 16 years of age, my father taught me about Isaiah 4:1. That was my first thought of plural marriage.

I served an LDS mission at age 19 in Cleveland, Ohio. I left the West for the first time in my life and went to the Midwest to teach about Jesus Christ and the restored Gospel.

My parents moved the family to Salt Lake County in Utah in the early nineties, and I left behind my first life, starting the second life. I was ready for a new adventure but missed the world I once knew. I was always excited for grass, dirt, trees, and nature. Utah provided that for me when we first moved.

I was ready to start a life and went to school and worked. By the age of twenty-one, I was dating a girl, ready to marry her. In 1993, we were married in the Jordan River LDS Temple for time and all eternity. I was excited for that part of my life. I knew there would be speed bumps and trials that I would face, but we would face them together and succeed.

(I will not go into the struggles that we faced; that is between her and I.)

In 2011, we were living in West Jordan, Utah and a woman called me. I was a deputy with the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office. She called me because of a law enforcement issue, which turned into a life changing incident the next day. After talking with my wife, we decided to offer her a place to stay while she went through her divorce and found safety. My wife and I both had known her for over a decade, and we felt strongly about providing for her, even for a brief time.

After a few months, I helped a friend move to Northwest Missouri. He had forty acres of land and offered to sell me ten acres for a small price. I thought it was an amazing deal and when I got home, I looked at the prices of land. Shortly after, we, as a family decided to go out to Missouri to look at land and see if we could make a purchase. Prices of homes were going up in Utah and we had lost two homes already due to the low income of law enforcement.

The first property we looked at, we bought. After a quick turnaround, we moved to Missouri and the woman living with us, Melanie, decided to move with us to Missouri. This was the end of my second life and the start of my third. Utah life taught me good things, but also showed me that I could not progress anymore if I stayed.

By this time, we were looking into plural marriage and what it entailed. My first wife was good with having Melanie live with us and do things with us, if there were no relations between her and I. Then the LDS Church came after us for living polygamy. We were questioned, to the point of harassment. We had to give up our temple recommends unless I made Melanie leave our home.

I chose Melanie over the LDS Church, my wife did not. She chose to stay with the church and its beliefs. We divorced in 2014 and I married Melanie. I desired to continue living plural marriage. Melanie was unsure as she was hurt by the previous relationship and saw the pains I went through.

In 2016, we met new friends, and one of them was Tracy, a single mother with older children. Tracy and Melanie became friends and Tracy was impressed by the way that I treated Melanie, especially while they watched Melanie’s pregnancy with our daughter. Soon Tracy decided to join our family after I talked to her about plural marriage. Tracy had concerns from previous relationships and issues from her personal life.

In 2020, I had been looking for a third wife, someone who I felt was missing in our home. I had a mental picture of her, but it was blurry in my mind. I was going through Facebook profiles, searching for someone, not knowing who she was. One day, I found a woman, whose last name was familiar, but she did not look familiar. I sent her a DM and she responded. After talking, I decided to get off Facebook permanently. I offered her to contact me via cell phone texting but thought it would not happen. When I received a message from Stephanie, I was elated and there started our relationship. Stephanie joined our family that year and moved from Utah to our farm in Missouri.

We have had tough times and many wonderful, exciting experiences. I am currently a deputy with the local sheriff’s office. I have been in law enforcement for 26 years: 15 years in Utah and 11 years in Missouri. In 2022, I was contacted by a Missouri Highway Patrol detective who said they were notified about an officer living bigamy. After interviewing Stephanie, then me, then Melanie, they took their information and wrote a report.

The Prosecutor decided that the charges did not apply, and nothing was filed through the courts. (I may speak more about this incident another time.)

I have found that the story I share is much like others who are trying to live plural marriage. There are trials, but that is the fire that bonds us together. If there are no trials, I dare say there is no bonding. We learn to live with others and their habits that are not familiar, or that bother us, or confuse us. We learn to be patient when others talk loudly, or quietly. We learn to eat differently, shop differently, and celebrate life differently.

I do not recommend living plural marriage to anyone unless they are willing and ready to go through the fire. It is hard to bond with someone and have them leave. It is hard to share intimate thoughts, feelings, and touches, only to have them turn negative when there is a split. I do not hate my ex-wife. I just wish we could get along, especially since a child is still involved. I cherish my emotionally tough experiences; I just wish it would be understood that I love despite the pains felt. Sometimes I must pay a price for what another man has done to my women. But I get to pay the price to heal, whereas that man is not able to see growth and progress. To see my women take such a new view on life, a freedom from sin and sorrow, brings me joy and happiness and makes it all worth it. I love each woman differently and I love them no less than the other.

God did not call me to live plural marriage, I was given a choice. I saw what I wanted and where I wanted to go. I saw that in order to get there, I would have to choose this path. So, I did.

My best friend Melissa was in a crisis, and she and her 3 teenagers moved in with us. Immediately God started working to prepare me for Joshua marrying Melissa. Plural marriage had never been in any of our plans, and believe me when I say I had a long way to go.

One day, not long after Melissa had moved in with us, these hoodlums started walking past our house on a regular basis. We lived near a skate park, and it was usual for teenagers to walk past our house. But there was something different about these teenagers.

For one thing, they were coming past during school hours. Why aren’t they in school? I wondered. I thought about calling the truancy officer at the local high school, but I didn’t want to be that nosy neighborhood lady, always worrying about everyone else and never looking hard enough at her own life.

They were also dressed in a rough manner. Wearing hoodies even in the beautiful April weather. The classic baggy pants down around their knees. Baseball caps worn backwards. The sorts of things that bother nosy neighbor ladies.

There wasn’t any destination nearby except for the skate park; none of these hoodlums was headed to work or school.

It wouldn’t have bothered me as much if there was just one teenager going past, to meet his friends at the park. It was the sense of a gang: several hoodlums roaming the neighborhood made me nervous.

Sometimes I watched them saunter past our house. We lived on the corner and it seemed like they were always turning that corner and heading up the hill, going past both our front and back yards. I never saw them go into a house.

I was secure from them, inside my locked house, spying on them, but I had three small children, and I liked to let them play outside. The neighborhood always felt safe enough, until those hoodlums showed up and started going past the house what seemed like several times a day.

This went on for a week or two and was really starting to bother me. I didn’t know how to handle it and I started praying, asking Father in Heaven for help, asking Him to send away the hoodlums, asking him what I should do about this problem, telling Him I wanted my babies kept safe and I want to live in a place that would allow us to continue our lives without fear of hoodlums.

While I was praying, the answer that came to me was shocking: “I will get rid of the hoodlums after you get rid of the hoodlum in your heart.”

What??? Get rid of the hoodlum in my heart? Do I have a hoodlum in my heart?

I got really honest and looked deep into my heart and realized that, indeed, there was a hoodlum in my heart. I hadn’t realized it, but there was a rebellious piece of my heart that didn’t want to share my husband with another woman. I thought I was willing, I thought I was happy to do it, I thought I was ready. But it turned out that wasn’t thorough enough, and I had to repent on a deeper level.

Once the hoodlum in my heart was spotted, it was up to me to get rid of it. I repented. I got rid of the hoodlum in my heart. And then… God got rid of the hoodlums in my neighborhood.

Those teenagers who had been going past my house multiple times every day stopped coming. I never saw them again.