Mormon Women

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.

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.

Have you ever noticed in the scriptures men are always going up into the mountains to commune with God? Yet in the scriptures, we hardly ever hear of women going to the mountains, and we know why, right? Because the women were too busy keeping life going; they couldn't abandon babies, meals, homes, fires, gardens, and several responsibilities to make the climb into the mountains! As modern-day women, we may feel like we are never "free" enough from responsibilities, never quite enough, or holy enough to have the type of communion we want with God.

A stunning and sure to be controversial book that pieces together, through more than two dozen 19th-century diaries, letters, albums, minute books, and quilts left by first-generation Latter-day Saints, or Mormons, the never before told story of the earliest days of the women of Mormon "plural marriage", whose right to vote in the state of Utah was given to them by a Mormon-dominated legislature as an outgrowth of polygamy in 1870, 50 years ahead of the vote nationally ratified by Congress.

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.

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?

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.

As president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and Utah’s first territorial governor, Brigham Young (1801-77) shaped a religion, a migration, and the American West. He led the Saints to Utah, guided the establishment of 350 settlements, and inspired the Mormons as they weathered unimaginable trials and hardships. In this new biography, historian Thomas G. Alexander draws on a lifetime of research to provide an evenhanded view of Young and his leadership.

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 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?

Sarai was a child of ten years, wise for her age but not yet a woman, when she first met Abram. He appeared before her in her father's house, filthy from the desert, tired and thirsty. But as the dirt of travel was washed from his body, the sight of him filled her heart. And when Abram promises Sarai to return in ten years to take her for his wife, her fate was sealed. Abram kept his promise, and Sarai kept hers. They were wed, and so joined the royal house of Ur with the high priesthood of the Hebrews. So began a lifetime of great joy together,

Secret Ceremonies is the story of the awakening of Deborah Laake. A devout Mormon, she attended Brigham Young University, received good grades, was popular - but most of all, she found the One, the man who declared that his claim to her was a matter of divine revelation. Thus, while still in her teens she was married in the sacred chambers of a Mormon temple. From there, her life began to disintegrate.

From the moment Sariah and Lehi’s family arrived in the promised land, their prophets warned that the people would face destruction if they failed to trust in Christ. Centuries later, Mormon witnesses the fulfillment of this dark prophecy. He witnesses his own people hewn down in open rebellion against God. Crying out from the depths of his heart, the prophet reflects on what went wrong and how it might have been avoided. Through it all, hope in Christ abides.

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.

"These stories sink deep and rise high. And along the way, they gleam with love." —Lavina Fielding Anderson The female protagonists of these fourteen short stories are daughters of devout Mormon women. Some choose to leave the family faith; some choose to stay. All hum the hymns of their forebears. They are women of the American West, but some have also journeyed a bit beyond those borders. One swims in a tributary of the Colorado; another dips her elbow into the Ganges. Each finds her own way to ask (not answer) the big questions. They represent four distinct families. They are separated...

Diana Cannon-Ragsdale was born into a Mormon dynasty. Her father Ted Cannon was a local celebrity in Salt Lake City, and her family’s ancestors were contemporaries of Brigham Young—and they had many dark secrets to keep. In Loose Cannons, Diana traces her rebellious 1970s girlhood—amidst her father’s multiple suicide attempts and remarriage to her mother’s sister. As she and her siblings barreled into adulthoods they weren’t ready for, they tried to rely on each other while reproducing broken relationships of their own.

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.

The road to adulthood is as rocky as the trail heading west. Asenath Wilcox was only a baby when her family was expelled from Nauvoo by vicious mobs. Now she is sixteen, and her family has since established a prosperous farm in Iowa. But being the only Latter-day Saints for miles and miles, their isolation has come at a cost. Asenath is certain she will die a spinster, especially with an overprotective older brother who chases away any suitors. When the first shots of the Civil War are fired at Fort Sumter, Asenath’s father finally decides to sell his farm and join a company of Saints ...

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.

Meghan Decker is a woman who is attracted to women. She is also married to an amazing man, and together they are each committed to their faith, their covenants, and their testimony of Jesus Christ and his church. Growing up, Meghan could not see how her deep spiritual faith and her attraction to women could coexist. But after decades of shame, denial, and hiding, Meghan came to accept this part of herself. She realized that while she can't decide to change her sexual orientation, she can decide how to respond to the circumstances of her life.