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Workers installed sheathing Monday around the first two floors as a third deck is added to the FLDS temple at the YFZ Ranch. Large circular footers being erected on the buildings corners suggest a departure from the design of the original LDS temple at Nauvoo, Illinois, the building many FLDS observers believed Prophet Warren Jeffs would try to duplicate here. Instead the building may more closely resemble the St. George Temple, the first of the LDS Utah temples that stands today a mere 42 miles from Colorado City/HIldale, the FLDS stronghold on the Utah/Arizona border.

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YFZ parents greet arrival
of newborn baby

The population of the YFZ Ranch, which fluctuates up and down along with the ebb and flow of construction activity, grew by one permanent resident this week, following the arrival of a newborn baby. Confidential sources close to the family tell the Success that the child was delivered last Thursday evening in a San Angelo hospital emergency room. Neither of the two San Angelo hospitals would confirm the event due to federal privacy rules.

The Success has learned, however, that the 18-year-old mother-to-be was accompanied to the hospital by family members, including the baby’s father and paternal grandparents.

Representatives of Child Protective Services were reportedly contacted by hospital personnel when the baby’s parents would not provide the health care workers with adequate information. CPS spokesperson Marleigh Meisner said that she was aware of developments at the YFZ Ranch but would neither confirm nor deny her agency’s involvement in connection with the newborn infant.

Prophet gets another summons

FLDS Prophet Warren Jeffs is being served yet another summons to appear in court by one of his former followers. In 2002, Shem Fischer brought a lawsuit against the FLDS Church, several of its leaders, and a cabinetry firm owned by FLDS members, after he was discharged from his job for no longer adhering to the fundamentalist Mormon faith.

Fischer’s attorney’s have been attempting to serve Warren Jeffs with a summons to appear and answer the charges. This week, U.S. District Judge Dale A. Kimball ordered notices of service by publication to be published in three newspapers, including The Eldorado Success (see notice on Page 6), advising Jeffs that he has 20 days to respond to Fisher’s lawsuit. The notices will also appear in The Spectrum in St. George, Utah and The Cortez Journal in Cortez, Colorado.

Similar notices were previously published in two other civil lawsuits. So far, Warren Jeffs has responded to none of them.

Big building gets bigger

Construction of the new FLDS temple at the YFZ Ranch near Eldorado continues its rapid pace. Early in the week workers were busy sheathing the building even as crews continued laying down the floor joists for the building’s third story.

Meanwhile, circular footers are being poured from concrete at each of the building’s four corners, leading some to speculate that spiral stairways will be erected on each of the corners. That is similar to the design of main-line Mormon temples in several cities, including St. George, but represents a departure from the original Mormon temple at Nauvoo, Illinois.

It was widely believed that Prophet Warren Jeffs would try to emulate, if not duplicate, the appearance of the Nauvoo temple, because it was the temple he most admired. Now, some FLDS-watchers say that Jeffs might try to blend several elements from the Nauvoo temple with those of other temples, such as the one at St. George. The St. George temple was the first temple built by Mormon pioneers in Utah, even before the Salt Lake City temple, and is located a mere 40 miles from Hildale/Colorado City, the FLDS stronghold on the Utah-Arizona border.

The Eldorado Success invites Warren Jeffs and/or other leaders of the FLDS church to comment on this or any other story surrounding the FLDS and the YFZ Ranch.