Chad has a style. In fact, I would go so far as to say it's a "tell." Despite identifying himself as a person who routinely communicates with invisible other-worldly forces and who has little trouble seeing the future, he is forever finding himself perplexed and disoriented by what many members of even the mainstream Mormon Church are likely to regard as fairly pedestrian spiritual promptings.
For example, in "Miracles still happen" (
9- Miracles still happen | cdaybell.com), Chad's essay on missionary work, he describes an occasion when he was drawn to a family who he ended up converting. Within a space of only a few minutes, Chad receives a mysterious prompting to visit a Spanish-speaking family (in "a part of the city where there weren't a lot of Spanish-speaking people"!!!); hears a voice telling him to stop the car and, despite his companion denying he said anything, finds himself shaken and bewildered ("You really didn't hear that?"!!!); and sees a man on a ladder who directs him to the house of a Spanish-speaking family but then professes bewilderment ("I couldn't believe it"!!!) when he turns round and the man on the ladder is gone.
Several months after Chad and his missionary companion have converted this family, one of the girls, Jenny, asks Chad for a priesthood blessing. He gives her one, but, curiously, after the blessing, Jenny tells Chad that, during the blessing, she had a vision of a girl with short blonde hair who was praying for help in knowing who she should marry. Jenny tells Chad that she feels impressed to tell him that this is the girl Chad should marry. Chad knows Jenny is "very receptive to spiritual things." But here's the kicker: he doesn't know any girls with short blonde hair!!! (Spoiler: soon-to-be-wife Tammy Daybell has short blonde hair.)
There is a related and subtler "tell" that comes up repeatedly throughout Chad's writing. It is the inclusion of a detail, almost always trivial, that seems to undercut the expected narrative. In "Miracles still happen," there's one right at the start. A woman called Ana has a vision (sorry, a "vivid dream") of two young men in white shirts visiting her. Understandably, when Chad and his missionary companion show up in their white shirts at Ana's house, she "kind of freaks out" but immediately invites them in for a "very good discussion." You think you know where this is going, right? WRONG! It's not Ana that Chad and his companion convert, but her "teenage daughter Lina"!!! (Spoiler: Ana joins the Church soon enough, after inexplicably paying tithing for several weeks.)
This essay was written in the summer of 2015, years before Chad would have had any idea who Lori was and before he had his terrible vision of Tammy's death. But if you look at the first part of the account of Tammy's death that he posted on AVOW (the second part is PPV), you see the same rhetorical ticks (
Here's part of the essay Chad Daybell wrote about his wife 12 days after she died | East Idaho News). After reporting that he woke up at 6 am and found Tammy's dead body, Chad writes that it was clear she had "been gone for several hours" (no point calling the paramedics). Despite having prophesied Tammy's untimely death and repeating that prophecy at least twice to fellow visionary Julie Rowe, the death "came as a shock" and Chad just "couldn't believe” he “hadn't been awakened somehow"!!! No matter, though: "all indications" were that Tammy's spirit had "simply slipped away." Not only did her face look serene, but it even revealed "a slight smile."
I won't link to anything for fear of violating the rules. I will just say there are posts out there still that are attributed to other people but are written in a style that bears an uncanny resemblance to Chad's.
MOO
jmo
