#eastidahonews #flds #polygamy
MONTEVIEW - The mother of a teenager who has been missing for over three weeks believes her daughter ran away to re-join members of The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in southern Utah.
Elintra Fischer, 16, left her Monteview home on Jan. 1 in her mother’s gray Honda Civic. The car was later found at a gas station but Elintra is still missing.
Elizabeth Roundy, Elintra’s mother, was a member of the FLDS church until 2020. She’s worried for her daughter and in an effort to bring her home, Roundy agreed to sit down with EastIdahoNews.com to share her story publicly for the first time.
In part one of our conversation, Roundy spoke candidly about growing up in a polygamous family, her arranged marriage, how FLDS leaders forced her to leave because she had a miscarriage and why she ultimately chose to abandon the faith three years ago. The second part of our interview and story will be posted Tuesday.
Growing up FLDS in eastern Idaho
Roundy grew up in Monteview with 25 siblings. Her father had eight wives and she was her mother’s sixth child.
After being excommunicated from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Roundy’s dad and their family joined the FLDS Church. It was led by Leroy Sunderland Johnson, Roundy’s great-grandfather, until he died in 1986. Rulon Jeffs then assumed the position of prophet.
“We had a good life growing up. All of our family got along pretty good and all my siblings loved each other as if we didn’t have different mothers,” Roundy explains. “I had a very good father who taught us the gospel. I’m very grateful for my good parents.”
As Jeffs’ presidency progressed, Roundy says he began implementing rules claiming they were commandments from God. The color red was banned because Jeffs said Jesus would be clothed in red when he returned and members wearing it was a “mockery to the sacredness of his coming back.”
Roundy never dated, even though her father said it was ok once she turned 18.
“He would have let me if I wanted to and would not have stopped me,” she says. “Once we turned 18, he told us we had our own free agency and it was my choice because he believed that was the correct way to do it.”
One day, when Roundy was 24, her father was milking cows in the dairy barn when Jeffs called and asked to meet with his daughters.
“My father didn’t have very good hearing and the milk pump was going. He couldn’t hear very good and there was a misunderstanding,” Roundy recalls. “My sister and I were actually supposed to be going to get married and we didn’t know that.”
Roundy, her 25-year-old sister and their father traveled to Salt Lake for what they thought was a meeting but in reality, their new husbands, who they had never met, were waiting for them with their other wives.
“Our husband’s sisters were there and they came running out. They said they were so excited and asked us if we wanted to meet the men,” Roundy says. “We had no idea that we were supposed to be getting married and then, when they realized there was a misunderstanding, there was kind of a little bit of a scuffle.”
Roundy and her sister insisted they talk with Jeffs and explain they weren’t ready for marriage. The president finally agreed to see them and the young women asked if they could have some time to go home and pray about whether they should get married.
“He wasn’t very happy with us but he did allow it. He acted like he was very disappointed in us for not just going ahead with the marriage that day, but we were not ready,” Roundy explains.
The family returned to Idaho but one week later, the sisters, who had never held a boy’s hand, went to Hildale, Utah. It was February 1999 and Warren Jeffs, Rulon Jeffs’ son, performed the marriage ceremony for Roundy and her new husband, Nephi Fischer. They were never legally married as Fischer had another wife named Dorothy.
Read the rest of the story here: : www.eastidahonews.com/2023/01...
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23 июл 2024
