Phillip P. Savage Phillip P. Savage
Click here for my wife's testimony
Hello, I am Phillip P. Savage. I am pleased that you should want to take time from your life to learn something about me here on the TLC Web Page, and while I am the oldest man in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, I have not the longest number of years in religious activity. I would like to tell you something of my history so that perhaps you may identify with some of the events in my life which led me to the present time where I am active in establishing the real Zion society, preparing the earth for the return of Jesus Christ, and redeeming Israel from its decadent state.
I was born in 1924 of "goodly parents" in Michigan where I was raised and spent the first 47 years of an eventful life. Neither of my parents were members of any church; in fact, my father had served for a while as a lay-minister for a Presbyterian church, but soon became discouraged as he (being a man of integrity) witnessed guile, dishonesty, unrighteous dominion, and greed among those who were supposed to be men of God, and he became disenchanted with organized religion. Dad and Mom knew that there was a God but He seemed to be hidden away somewhere. We sometimes visited a church congregation but there was insufficient "meat" there to satisfy them. Thus, you see, I was blessed not to become entrenched in one of those sects which taught the precepts of men for the doctrines of God -- for, seemingly, that is all that was available to them for spiritual direction and strength.
Well, I recall that every Sunday morning Dad would tune the radio in the garage to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Program while he worked on the car, or fixed some household thing. This was about as close to a formal religious training as I received until many years later. And so, I grew up being taught righteous principles by good parents, but without the influence of a preacher teaching the philosophies of men mingled with scripture. Of course, this has turned out to be a great blessing for me. God has been watching out for me all of my life, and I am eternally grateful.
I married my High School sweetheart during the World War II years, and later I established my own retail jewelry store in a small Michigan town. But God was mindful of me, and He knew that I needed to progress along a certain path of experiences so as to eventually be prepared to assume certain important responsibilities in His Great Work of the Last Days. Of course, He kept that all to Himself, and I simply lived out the events of my life trying to make the most sense out what ever happened.
In 1952 I was led to become associated with a Mormon family from Oregon who taught to me the Gospel of Jesus Christ as presented by the Latter Day Saints Church; it was in 1954, while we were on a combined family trip from Michigan to New York State, at which time we visited the Joseph Smith Farm and the sacred Grover where the boy, Joseph Smith, Jr., in 1820 was visited by the Father and the Son. I was overwhelmed by the Spirit there in that sacred place -- The witness of God bore witness to me and I knew that the Joseph Smith story was TRUE. I was ready to be baptized in that little stream there on the farm, but such was actually delayed for over a year as I insisted that my wife, Joyce, join the LDS Church with me, and it required that much time for her, a gentile, to be willing to accept the Gospel. Inasmuch as there had been no children provided to grace our home, we began adopting unwanted older children -- the total became eleven by 1978. In the ensuing years I held most of the offices in the local LDS Ward which a man may hold: Scoutmaster; Sunday School teacher; Sunday School Superintendent; Seminary teacher; Ward Clerk; Second Counselor; First Counselor; Acting Bishop; Bishop; Stake High Councilman; Gospel Doctrine teacher; High Priest Group leader; Teacher Development Instructor, and lastly Meeting House Librarian. I had become a real "mainstream Mormon", having been well taught by them to "follow the Brethren", and the LDS General Handbook of Instructions -- the real LDS Bible!
By 1965 I had established a camper and trailer sales business, and I had other business enterprises as well. Surely I was following the examples of the Mormon leadership in becoming a "prudent man" of the world. Indeed, I was very much involved with the ways of Babylon. But God caused a certain stirring within me as I inherently sensed that there was a great deal more to God's ways than was being revealed to me in the Latter Day Saints Church in Michigan.
In 1971, after much prayer, we sold out all of our Michigan holdings and moved to Mesa, Arizona where I expected to find many godly men and women of the Mormon faith, and to learn the true meanings of the Mormon Endowment -- for there is a Temple in Mesa where such would be revealed to me -- I thought! What I found were many social religionists who simply "sucked up" to their leaders -- who didn't know what God was all about either! Five years later God led me to make another move, this time to a mountain plateau in Arizona to a small Mormon town called Snowflake.
In this town I became accepted and was given some responsible positions in the Latter Day Saints Church. But I realized that there was something greatly lacking. Where, indeed, was the Spirit of God? -- for this community was just as worldly as non-Mormon towns! What happened to that "Mormon Glow" in the faces of these people? Where was that "Royal Priesthood"? Where was that pure people of one heart and one mind? This wasn't Zion ...... but, if Snowflake, Arizona -- which often led the entire Mormon Church in statistics of activity -- was not Zion, what happened? Had I been deceived all this time? By Christmas 1987 I couldn't tell a Mormon by looking at one from any other person of any other sect -- or of no religious persuasion at all!!!! What a dilemma I was experiencing -- after all,where was the Truth ?
Now, at this time is when I knew that God was God and that He was guiding my life for some worthy purpose; for into my hands came a couple of revealing books by non-Mormon authors. I learned that the leadership of the Latter Day Saints Church had, for the most part been lying to the membership for more than 100 years! I learned that the early Brethren taught principles and doctrines quite different from what were acceptable to the current prophets and brethren. And when I began to learn the teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, WOW! at last this was the real thing -- I knew it as surely as I knew that the Sacred Grove at the Smith Farm was where God appeared to Joseph Smith, Jr.!
Needless to say, these new truths turned me away from the LDS Mainstream. I found other LDS friends in Snowflake were also asking similar questions, and soon an assortment of disenchanted Mormons gathered together in Snowflake, Arizona. It seemed that God placed me as the "leader". It was now an obsession for me to learn more and more truth, and as this occurred, I became more and more at odds with the local LDS leadership. But, the sweetness of finding Truth was so powerful that I could only continue the search for it. I recommend this same course to you, dear reader, if you yearn for Truth in your life.
One day while returning from Salt Lake City I was driving through the Navajo Reservation in Northeastern Arizona when I found myself contemplating "Just who am I, and what does God want for me to accomplish in my life?" when I suddenly received a revelation to my mind as clear as if it had been shouted at me --
As I gazed out my window considering my lack of knowledge on these questions, all of a sudden, in a split second, in my mind, I was shown a strange symbol, something like an Egyptian hieroglyphic. As soon as it was displayed to my mind's eye the interpretation was given to my understanding "You are to be instrumental in the establishment of Zion where your organizational skills will be used!"
I was shocked, to say the least! I asked myself; "How could this be? I am nothing in the leadership of the Latter Day Saints Church. I have been reduced to the calling of Meeting House Librarian so that I cannot influence others. I am not even allowed to teach the Gospel Doctrine Class anymore! There is no way that I would ever be considered by the Mormon Church to be instrumental in the establishment of Zion".
I increased my study and my associations with other "concerned" Mormons who also seemed to be awakening to the terrible conditions which were becoming more and more evident in the LDS Church. Each of us careful to avoid stirring up any of the local LDS officials. When we met we did so away from the open ears of others.
It was in 1989 that I decided to investigate further into the mysteries of Godliness, one of the forbidden things that a Mormon in good standing must avoid at all costs!; I had to know of some of the things which had happened in Mormon history, but which were kept secret from us as members -- and so I decided to visit a newly found friend in Utah, a polygamist!
It was on that trip that I had one of the most powerful spiritual experiences of my life, and the greatest of all up to that time, notwithstanding my LDS Church leadership experiences. God revealed to me in a powerful spiritual manifestation that the Principle of Plural Marriage was, indeed, true, and I must live it if I was to be pleasing to God, my Heavenly Father! The Spirit of God descended upon me with a power which I had never before experienced! My whole being was afire!!! It actually hurt, but at the same time it was very sweet, and very desirable. It lasted a long while, and I continued to sit and read and ponder as the Baptism of Fire consumed me. The Baptism of Fire! -- and I "knew it not" -- I had no idea exactly what was happening to me, I just knew that it was of God, that it was a witness for me of the truthfulness of the Principle of Plural Marriage. God had "done a number on me" and I knew it -- that witness would stay with me from then on for sure -- and it has never left me.
On New Year's Day in 1994 I was excommunicated from the LDS Church because I had, several times, attended the "Models Seminar" presented by James Dee Harmston in Manti, Utah. Then the ostracism accelerated from people who had been my friends. My wife, Joyce, refused to move with me to Manti. My children and family rejected me (all except one daughter who came to visit me in Manti with the avowed purpose of "saving" me from this awful apostate group here in Manti). Joyce and I divorced, and I walked away from a 40 acre property in Snowflake valued at $300,000.00, from which I have never received a dime. The Prophet Joseph Smith said in the Sixth Lecture On Faith : "For a man to lay down his all, his character and reputation, his honor and applause, his good name among men, his houses, his lands, his brothers and sisters, his wife and children, and even his own life also, counting all things but filth and dross for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ, requires more than mere belief, or supposition that he is doing the will of God, but actual knowledge: realizing, that when these sufferings are ended he will enter into eternal rest; and be a partaker of the Glory of God."
I bear a solemn testimony to all that whatever God requires is right; and that what I have sacrificed in order to do His Work in the Last Days is of little consequence compared to the joy and satisfaction which I have received as a member of the True and Living Church of Jesus Christ. I would not return to my former life or associates in Snowflake, Arizona. I will not deny the God of Israel for He has provided all that I need, and He has more than made up for anything which I lost in leaving the Latter Day Saints Church, including giving to me a very fine wife, a true Israelite woman of the character of Rachel, or Bathsheba Smith! And I now have four sons of the Priesthood who love God and His ways much more than anything that Babylon offers, and they love me as their father, and I may have more. What did I lose?
Now I understand the True Endowment, and I benefit therefrom. I have friends of such a high caliber that I thank God every day that they love me and associate with and bless me unselfishly. I cannot begin to count my many blessings for they are so numerous.
It has been my good fortune to have been constantly associated with the Quorum of the Twelve in all that has been accomplished in these ensuing years as the True and Living Church has been returned to the earth to fill prophecies from all the Holy Scriptures. I testify that they are a Godly group of Priesthood men, who are striving to live the Commandments of the Living God and to keep their Endowment Covenants.
God has set His Hand again the second time in this Dispensation to recover Israel, to establish Zion, and to provide an earth suitable for the return of its true inheritor, Jesus Christ --whose servant I am. I invite you to ask God, the Eternal Father, if my testimony is not true, for if it is true, and if you ask with a sincere heart, nothing doubting, God will reveal the truth of my testimony to you by the power of the Holy Ghost, for I tell you that it is true and faithful. God will bless you. Amen.
Email: psavage@tlcmanti.org