Show notes
After a year of asking and waiting, Donald finally got permission from his mom to join the church when he was 15. Being a part of this new church family felt like the right next step for this Jamaican immigrant living in Florida, but he soon learned that while the restored gospel was perfect, the people weren't. In this story, Donald shares the moments that left him wondering about his place in the body of Christ and what helped him to chose faith and forgiveness. But I can tell you instead of the "why", I can tell you how you move forward. And how we move forward is by focusing on Jesus Christ because we're all, black, white, Jew, gentile, green, whatever color you are, We are all His sons and daughters. SHOW NOTES We met Donald Kelly and his wife Cristina when we were filming in Florida in the fall of 2017. In fact, the audio for this story was taken from the video that we made of donald for the VIEWPOINT series. You can watch the video HERE on our youtube channel. TRANSCRIPT This episode of This is the gospel is sponsored by BookshelfPLUS+ . --- With BookshelfPLUS+ you can have unlimited access to every audio book that Deseret Book has ever released from all your favorite authors -- fiction, non-fiction, even the newest books like Sheri Dew's "Insights from a Prophet's Life" which is full of stories, and well, insights from President Nelson's extraordinary life of service Read by the author.00:00:25So if you want more uplifting, good stories after this episode is over, try BookshelfPLUS+ free for 30 days by visiting deseretbook.com/thisisthegospel.00:00:48KaRyn: Welcome to "This Is the Gospel", an LDS Living podcast where we feature real stories from real people who are practicing and living their faith every day. I'm your host, KaRyn Lay. There are now over 16 million members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints around the world. And when you think about it, that's a lot of people who've put their hearts and their souls into the hands of a church family seeking opportunities to learn together and grow together as we individually work towards our salvation. That's a lot of people from a lot of different cultures meeting in the proverbial chapel every Sunday.00:01:26I come from a family with seven kids so I understand that the bigger the family the more room there is to feel neglected, misunderstood, or forgotten or in some cases, even overly protective of your status in the family structure. In fact, I understand this because my favorite book when I was a little girl was called "Noisy Nora" (by Rosemary Wells) and it was about a mouse who was constantly making noise just so her family wouldn't forget she existed When a new baby came. So, I get it. But here's the other thing that I know about big families. They also give us more opportunities to brush up against the kind of, what I like to call, "divine friction" that can only come from so many different personalities, backgrounds, races, and cultures engaged in the work of God. And that "divine friction" asks us to change and to be better. Sometimes we get it right. And sometimes we get it wrong.00:02:20Today our story comes from Donald, whose conversion at 15 (sic) and membership in the Church was often complicated by some of this divine friction around race. As a black member living in a predominantly white stake of the church in Florida, his experience with racism sometimes left him wondering about his place in that body of Christ. How he chose faith and forgiveness is a story that truly is the Gospel.00:02:45Here's Donald:00:02:48DONALD: I'm 33 years old. I was 31 and I was called to be a bishop and it was definitely something that I was not expecting. He definitely has a lot of trust.00:03:00Anyone who wants to be a Bishop... they're more than welcome to be the Bishop. It's a lot of work when you're a bishop.00:03:08Why I do what I do? For the money, man!!! (laughter) It's all about the money -- the bling bling, baby. (laughter)00:03:15The reason why I do what I do because I feel people need to know it.00:03:20My life has been changed because of the truthfulness of the Gospel, the direction that it gave me.... and I know that there is more, there are more Donalds and out there and more people who need that direction. And that's why I do what I do . It's because of the love Jesus had for me and spared me so I can go and do his work and help spare somebody else.00:03:45I grew up in Jamaica and moved to the United States when I was nine years old and my mom was a single parent raising two kids. Then my sister came along later on and there was three of us. And when I moved... in Jamaica they refer to anyone in the United States-- you're a "Yankee" so the Jamaican term, "You're a Yankee man, turned yankee man no junior!"00:04:09My mom came to the United States for a better opportunity. Jamaica economy had different challenges especially in the early 90s.00:04:17So she came here with hopes of a better life earning more money and also providing for us. Giving us the opportunity as her children to get quality education and to get an opportunity just to better ourselves. My mom did everything to make sure that opportunity came through. She worked hard. She is a hard worker. She still works right now. You're not a Jamaican unless you have two jobs. So she embodied that, where she worked multiple jobs and just, I call it "the hustle" hustled and did whatever she could to provide for us. And it didn't seem like much -- making thirty thousand dollars a year.00:04:53I grew up in a not so safe neighborhood and it was... a lot of us in the neighborhood were poor and some people were poor and didn't know it. But, some of us knew it. I knew that I was poor but my mom always made sure we had what we needed. We never went hungry. We always had food and we always somehow found out a way to get clothes... if we got to McDonald's? That was cool. (lau00:05:23My childhood growing up and my early adolescent going into teenage years, I went to middle school, Bear Lakes Middle School and that was.... I had some friends who were kind of rough around the edges and my mom raised us as a good good kid. I never drank, never smoked ...I never never saw her drink or smoke and it was just this good environment and it was... it rubbed off on me. So when I selected friends, I just selected friends who were people in the neighborhood and even though they did things that I didn't necessarily agree with or approve of, they were friends. We hung out with them. So the four of us one evening, we were hanging around in the neighborhood and went to this fence and we were being teenage boys and the neighbors thought we were breaking into his house... came outside and he chased us. I got caught out of the four of us and I was arrested that evening and wasn't taken to jail but I was booked and released back to my mom. And I was put on house detention - no bands on your legs, you're just put on house detention so I just was home and my mom being a strict Jamaican mother, she said, (donald in Jamaican accent) "you're grounded for life." So I was was... I was grounded for ever. Pretty much that was my prison was home.00:06:44we went to church every so often. After being arrested and being at home and now having a lot of time to myself, a lot of time to think, I knew I need to get back into a church. I know what church or any church. So one of my friends, Ralston Campbell, Dane we called him. He introduced me to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints. Invited me at a National Junior Honor Society meeting to come to scouts and play basketball on Tuesday nigh00:07:09I blew him off but then he reminded me and invited me again and I took him up on it. I went to church, my first time was on Easter Sunday 1999. I think it was a General Conference that time and then I had all these questions and he said, "I have two friends for you." and introduced me to the missionaries. So I started taking lessons and the missionaries invited my mom to take the lessons and to learn about it but she was stuck in her ways and didn't want to learn anything about it. But didn't have a big deal with me go to church and it was a good thing for me at that time of my life.00:07:41Growing up in Jamaica is really interesting though. People don't get baptized until you're later. It's kind of like you're done making all your mistakes in life -- your sinning. Your're an adult, you understand what you're doing. So when I approached her that I wanted to get baptized... I started going to church April and I approached her really soon after getting to the lessons that I want to be baptized. And she said, "no, you need to wait until you're 18."00:08:03and then she pushed it back "until you're 16." So several months later I asked her and she said, "no." So the missionaries were transitioning through and then it came down to the end of the year was December and I really want to get baptized so I asked her. I remember seeing all my friends passing the sacrament and I was like I want to do this too. And she said no.00:08:23It Was a fast Sunday so all of us the teachers and the young men's and some of the members they said we're gonna do a joint fast. And we fasted that my mom would allow me to get baptized. She had said at 16 at this time and I just turned 15. So we went that Sunday again in December. I asked her and she said, "yes, you can get baptized." It was amazing. So that gave me a huge huge testimony of fasting. And if you have something, you bring it to Lord to help you. And I was baptized when I was 15.00:08:58We went on this high adventure (scout campout) and I remember we were in North Carolina and there's, you know, five six of us kids... scouts... that were black and the majority of us were just white and we all friends and so forth. But we're gathered together and some of the other kids had doubts about the Church and about the Book of Mormon and the blacks and the priesthood and I remember that really hitting me.00:09:21And that was the one time I started to think like, "well, is something wrong here? Is something wrong with the with the Church... is something wrong with that?" And I really... I stopped reading the Book of Mormon. You know, something doesn't seem like it's right. I had good leaders at the time who gave me good mentorship and guidance and taught me to study the scriptures, to go to get an answer. So I read the Bible and I read the Book of Mormon and I would study and picked up and I came to know that it was true but it's still in the back of your mind.00:09:54The High school I went to was predominantly white and I didn't have any black leaders. I didn't necessarily see it as an issue but one time there was a guy named brother Carter and he came to our ward and he was a bishop previously. But seeing him in the churchv- that he was a black man that was a bishop at one point. It was like, "that is cool." I remember the day that when I did see that, it was awakening to say - oh, Brother Carter. It just gave me that vision that - oh, you know, we can have opportunities." It was just interesting. It was just different.00:10:29For the majority of our life my mom was a single mom raising us and my stepfather was in the picture for a little bit of the time. He was... it was an abusive situation... physically abuse, domestic abuse from my mom and he was in the picture for a few years and he was thrown in jail.00:10:45So that left us with a financial situation. My mom was recovering from abuse and missed a couple of weeks of work. And that led us to being evicted from our home. I remember coming home seeing the fluorescent orange sheet of paper on the door and you know what it was because you've seen it before in the neighborhood. Somebody is getting evicted. And that was us.00:11:07I knew things were rough but not that bad. And we threw everything in a small storage unit and my mom, brother, and sister went to live with one of my cousins on the other side of town and I stayed with another relative, a cousin, because that was the busing route to my high school.00:11:25One of my best friends in the Church is Andrew. So we always hung out, always spent time together. a few of us together. And so when I stopped we got evicted and I lived with my cousin and his small apartment. I stopped going to seminary because I didn't have my rides to pick me up and take me to seminary anymore so he knew something was wrong. So I just pulled it out of me and I told them what was going on. That we were evicted and family was separated and I was staying with my cousin in the laundry room. He said, "well you know, we're already brothers already like brothers. I think my parents be fine you come and stay with us."00:12:00And I went home with them that evening and they said, "Of course you can stay with us." And I used to live with them for about a year until my mom got back on her feet. T hey have seven kids and always the extra was Donald. I remember the youngest son Matthew, He was so confused because he was a little kid at a time when I lived with them...00:12:21but they would say, "yeah we have six kids and seven kids." and hew was like, "What about Donald?" (laughter) And it was always uh... cute.00:12:30My friend who introduced me to the church at 14, He's also Jamaican and black American as well. And his mom left the Church... he left the Church too.00:12:46There was that thing that started it... someone at the time was teaching Relief Society and said (or some meetings) said that the blacks were the seed of Cain and taught that false doctrine and it was very difficult for her. I can see how tough it was. So not seeing her come to church and not seeing Dane come to church, It was really hard for me to figure out how I was going to get to church.00:13:13I knew I was right. I knew deep down that it was right. So I kept going and it was again that escape for me and I went and went. Those questions came later on. There were times... I remember one situation where a girl that I had interest in and she had interest in me, But her parents would not approve because the fact that I was black and it's that that idea. How do you feel about that? When people read and misunderstand the Book of Mormon and to say don't mix your your seed with someone... like, what did I do? And that was really a difficult time to grasp that again.00:13:47But the Church was like the thing for me. It was an escape away from, you know growing up and in the way I grew up, in the environment. And being in a wholesome environment... having a vision. And I did get my Eagle Scout and naturally that's the next progression. You go on a mission. And I knew I wanted to but going on a mission I got called to Detroit Michigan. And Detroit. It's a lot of African-Americans, right? And being a black missionary in Detroit it was like a big deal for our mission. So I got placed in the inner city a lot of times and it was it was really neat to be in the city. But stuff came up.00:14:24Out of the hundred and fifty, one hundred and twenty missionaries only a couple that are black, the population of the Church majority are not black. So people ask that question, "how can you be a part of a church like that?" And it brought me to think a lot. I knew that this was the Church of Jesus Christ and knew it was restored. There are things that I didn't understand and it brought a lot of questions and I can humbly say it did bring me to question certain things…
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