We located other people who shared our beliefs; The Assembly of Yahweh in Rochester Missouri. They placed less emphasis on prophecy and direct communication than we did, but the constraints were similar. The Assembly Of Yahweh put out a publication, The Master Key, which was distributed free of charge across the country and even to South America and the Philippines. They sent us a box of back issues and got us signed up for current issues, and we spent much time reading these magazines. My mom sometimes said that Yahweh had revealed deeper truths to her which these people hadn't been shown yet, that she had a direct line to Yahshua which they did not, because she had actually seen him. There was another Assembly in Pennsylvania led by Jacob O'Meyer. Jacob O'Meyer was something of a fruitcake; even we could see that. He believed that Jerusalem was actually located in the United States, specifically, in Pennsylvania, and more specifically, in the exact location of his church, and that he was a prophet. He spent a lot of time showing how the Old Testament prophecies were actually referring to him and his church. We found his publication interesting but preferred the one from Missouri, which was more grounded.

There was also a local Assembly of Yahweh in Spokane, Washington. We visited it once or twice. They were fairly charismatic. The pastor's wife was a tiny woman who wore 6"+ heels to try to make herself look taller, had her hair done up like a T.V. evangelist's wife, and wore too much makeup. We didn't believe in wearing any makeup. Dennis said it was a legacy of the prostitutes of Babylon and that makeup was only for whores. Still, it was nice to find other people that we could worship with, even if they did occasionally use words we believed were evil, such as "awesome".

Sheba gave birth again. She had a puppy that Mike got attached to. He named it Toby. By the time Toby was 6 weeks old, Mike was trying to teach it. Mom said he could keep Toby. Dennis said it was a possibility. My brother spent hours upon end with Toby, cuddling the puppy. Mike, who seemed so brittle and tough, had a crack in his armor, a soft place in his heart and the puppy filled it. He taught Toby to sit on command, to come when called, to lay down, and other commands. He was so proud of his puppy. I was supposed to teach the other puppies to obey a little, to learn basic commands so they'd be easier to give away. I went out with a handful of dog food and threw it to them one piece at a time until they learned to catch it in the air. Then I told them to sit. The ones who sat spontaneously got a pebble of dog food. The others quickly learned to sit when told. They sat in a line and I tossed a piece of dog food to each puppy. I named them each (except for Toby) and would give each puppy a piece of food when I called it. Because they were half Border Collie, they were bright and learned their names quickly.

Dennis called his children in California every few days and begged them to come up to Idaho. He'd been reading a book about earthquakes, and said that California was going to crack along the San Andreas fault. They would fall into the ocean if they stayed. California was cursed by Yahweh because of the homosexuals, it was like Sodom and Gomorrah, and would be destroyed. They must escape while they could.

Meanwhile, my mom spent hours in her bedroom asking Yahweh what her dreams meant. He talked to her a lot. She told us that he'd speak to us, too. I wondered why he didn't speak to me. I guessed that maybe I didn't have enough faith. He showed her that UPC codes were evil, that they might even be the mark of the beast. Every UPC code in the house was searched out diligently and crossed out with a black marker. Things such a UPC codes, pagan names, and other evil things were considered "open doors". An open door could result in a demon gaining access to our household, and the demon might deceive us or harm us in some way. If we seemed to be having a lot of problems, mom would ask Yahweh where the open doors were, so she could close them. It turned out we had a lot of open doors for Satan to get in and harass us: clowns, rabbits, heart symbols, Christmas trees, gnomes, elves, unicorns, Cabbage Patch dolls, Barbies, pegasus, Santa, snakes, crows...we were surrounded by evil! No wonder we weren't successful, no wonder Dennis hadn't found a job, no wonder we were unhappy and fighting so much! They fired up the woodstove. Into it went any clothing, toys, or items with the evil emblems. The clown blanket she'd made for me as a baby, the only shred of our early childhood, went up in flames. So did our treasured toys, even the stuffed rabbit my Aunt Linda had designed and made for me for my birthday. The C.S. Lewis books, poof! It made me sad, but they said I shouldn't feel any pain about this. Whose side was I on, Yahweh's or Satan's? If I wasn't for the right side, I was against it. Did I want to see demons again? Of course I didn't. Of course, we still had problems after purging our home of so much evil. That meant we hadn't got it all. We searched again, all through the house. In Lisa's closet, concealed behind the other clothes, were all the sweaters and clothes with hearts. Some of them had been given to her by our grandma Hill, and she didn't want to burn them. My mother was incensed. She felt that not only was Lisa sneaky, she had more loyalty to the woman who had deprived her of seeing her own children, her ex-husband's mother. Lisa gave the things up to Mom to be destroyed (she had no choice), but a rift had started to develop between the two.