The United Effort

The United Order, the economic order of Heaven, the effort of men and their families living in a community with all things in common; is the highest order between men ever established on earth. There is but one example of lasting success in history, and that is the Ancient City of Enoch. The Apostles in Jerusalem started to live it after the days of Christ. The Nephites lived it after Jesus came to them. But eventually these orders failed.
In order for men to live with all things in common they must overcome most every sin and weakness within them. Men have to devote their lives to God and the Priesthood more than they require their wives to devote themselves to them. It creates a family organization between men who have united families. Absolute sacrifices is required, absolute trust, absolute conversion, and great faith. Happiness comes from knowing you are doing Gods will.

The United Effort Plan was formed at the direction of the prophet John Y Barlow in 1942. This was a legal trust created to provide a sanctuary for the United Order. The original 600+ acres in the trust was land owned by Leroy S Johnson. He refused to take his property back from John Y Barlow at the failure of the first attempt by several men to hold their property in common. The UEP Trust was a document that Brigham Young spoke about:

"It is a matter that I am paying particular attention to, with some of my brethren, to see if we have skill enough to get up an organization and draw up papers to bind ourselves together under the laws of the United States, so that we can put our means and labor together and join as one family. As soon as we can accomplish this, and get an instrument that lawyers cannot pick to pieces and destroy, and apostates cannot afflict us, we expect to get up this institution, and enter most firmly into it" (JD 16:122)

The property was to be divided up into individual lots for the members of the church, designated by the trustees of the Trust. When a member of the church went to the trustees with his just wants and needs, he was given a lot as a stewardship, to build up the church under the Trust. Any building put onto the property became property owned by the Trust. In essence, it was a donation to the church , and thus to the United Effort Plan, by the men building on the property.

The purpose of the Trust being held as a Trust was to keep anyone who left the church from staying there and using their influence to attack the leadership of the church from the UEP property. And to preserve and protect the Unity of the men and women who would stay from the influences of the apostates and the world.

But bitter men, when they feel that they are injured, never assume they could be in the wrong. When they leave the “wrongs” of the church, they feel like they should be repaid everything they gave to the church through building upon the Trust lands. It is akin to demanding all of the tithes and offerings from any church a follower leaves. But a good man would leave in a moment if he felt like he needed to seperate from those who did not believe as he did. A good man would be glad to leave if he left for a good reason. A good man is a defender, not an attacker.

Brigham Young left behind several houses when he was persecuted in the east and driven to Utah. When the President of the United States sent the Army to stop the Mormons from wrongs that didn’t exist in 1857 30,000 Saints boarded up their homes and started to move away, some with straw on them ready to burn them down. When Leroy S Johnson and others finished building seven houses on Dayer Labaron’s property in Mexico, he freely left them when Dayer refused to let them live in them unless they accepted him as the head of the Kingdom of God. And recently after a judge confiscated the UEP to "help" the FLDS people, several men have walked away from very large and expansive homes. The keys are in Bruce Wisan’s pocket.

The FLDS trustees of the UEP did not evict anyone unless they had a place to go. The purpose of the trust was to preserve the unity of the faithful followers, those who no longer wanted to follow were expected to find somewhere else to live. But no one was evicted who did not have accommodations arranged for themselves elsewhere. The eviction notices were most often for those who moved away but tried to give the home to another dissadent. When Milton and Lenore Holm left the church, Milton’s brothers (my uncles) went to him and volunteered to help him pay for a new place off of the UEP anywhere he might want one, even up in Idaho where his mother and step-father (who had left the church several years earlier) lived. When the famous “historian” Benjamin Bistline moved off of the UEP property, he moved into a home in Cane Beds, AZ that the FLDS gave to him and refurbished for him. His wife said it was the best house she ever lived in. He was never evicted from the shack he lived in on the UEP, even though he had become embittered over ten years earlier. The only eviction notices ever given by the FLDS trustees were to those they knew had homes and accommodations elsewhere. No family was ever thrown on the street by the FLDS.