"I don't like things that are casual about freedom and I don't like things that are casual about the testimony of the gospel. It is real and it is true. There's no doubt in my mind."
Come Back Podcast
Transcription
Ashly
00:00
I'm really excited to have you on. I don't know a whole lot about your story, but I'm super excited to hear it. And yeah, so if you want to, just get started from the beginning.
Don
00:10
It goes back about 30 years. I was in the military for about 16 years. I got out in 1990. 1998, my life fell apart. My stepdad who I was close to passed away. My marriage failed. And my career ended. All within a year. I had been severely injured in the military. I didn't have enough years to retire. So they medically discharged me. And I had been a combat soldier for 16 years. For 12 of those years, that's all I knew. When I got out of the military, the best job I can get was six bucks an hour doing landscaping. Didn't have a college education. My skills were not in high demand in the civilian world. So, you know, I got to know what hungry was real quick. And the VA wouldn't pay for college, an out of state rate, which means I couldn't go to college for the first year. I ended up living in a government subsidized apartment when I had been divorced, and in 1989 I got my endowments. And I thought everything's going well. Everything's gonna be okay. They're gonna let me reclassify. I'll retire from the military like I’d planned. It didn't work out that way. My whole life fell apart. So I came to Virginia because the community college system was the best in the country in 1990. I knew I had to get some education to survive. The Veterans rep got me a job working for Breyers ice cream in a factory. But it was better than six bucks an hour. Wasn't great, but I worked there for four years and went to school. The military taught me a lot about discipline, self discipline. And I went to school full time during the day, and I worked full time night shift in the factory for four years. I did well in school, I graduated the top of my class. But when my life fell apart like that, I became inactive in the church. There wasn't time for anything except school, work, and that's it for four years. And unfortunately, when that happens, it gets easier to stay away. About, what, 13 years ago, I got hit with a real big double whammy. I'd never well let me back up from it. I've never had a problem with testimony. For 12 years I fought battles in other countries and countries you don't even want to hear about. But I always kept the pocket size standard works in my rucksack, even though it was illegal. I wasn't supposed to have anything in English on my body. But I always had my scriptures. I never had a problem with my testimony. But about 13 years ago, I lost my brother, my older brother. And we were closer than brothers. We were brothers and best friends. I mean, there was nothing that he could ask me that I wouldn't do and vice versa. And I mean nothing. But I lost him to cancer. Yeah. I wasn't prepared for that. Before he died, I went out and spent a week at his house. And at the time I was I was working for Lockheed Martin. As a senior manager. I put all my direct support, working at helping me find anybody anywhere on this planet that could help a trial, something that could help my brother survive. But he had four different types of cancer at the same time. There isn't any trial that will take him on unless it's an isolated type of cancer that they can isolate and do something with. I wouldn't accept that. 24/7 around the clock, I didn't eat, I didn't sleep, I searched, I researched. I contacted specialists in every country on the planet that knew anything about cancer. And I did that for a week until he finally came to me and said, “Stop. You're not going to help me stay alive. There's nothing you can do.” And he said, “I'm gonna ask you to go home.”
05:32
And I did. Two weeks later, he was dead. But I got mad. And I'm talking about furious mad. I got mad at God for taking the wrong one.
I felt that he should have taken me, and left the better man. And like I said, we were closer than brothers. And then, young lady, I was dating my fiancée at the time. Three months later, I had been primary caregiver for her for two years, for cervical cancer.
06:20
Three months after my brother died, she died. So it was a rough time. And I reached a point where I was so down, I didn't care. I didn't care about me. I didn't care about anybody else. I just wanted to be left alone to get off the planet.
And for the most part I did. And I had basically told the home teachers to stay away. I told the missionaries not to come back. And it was at the point, at one point I received a letter from the bishop who told me he was going to remove my name from the rolls of the church because I didn't want to be visited. And I told him, I know you're not and if you do, I will sue you. And they backed off of that. And that wasn't Bishop Banks. In fact, Bishop Banks was, two years ago, when I contacted him, he was completely frozen. Missionaries and home teachers were told not to contact me. They had contacted me several times, even though I had asked not to be contacted. One time I walked out on the front porch, and I was wearing a 44 caliber revolver on a holster. I didn't draw it. But I drove the point home, I wanted to be left alone. And then everybody left me alone, of course.
Ashly
07:57
And how long ago is this at this point, where you felt like you were wanting to just be left alone? And you told—
08:05
Don
15 years ago.
Ashly
Okay.
Don
And I mean, I didn't care about anything or anybody. I wasn't afraid of being alone. I wasn't afraid of dying. I’d come too close too many times.
08:24
Death does not nor has ever frightened me. You know, I’ve buried 11 of my best friends. I got hurt, because somebody started shooting my best friend. And I didn't think that was okay. And I got shot 16 times in the process of saving him. But that's alright. But, I never lost my testimony. But I did cease to care. Those are very different things. There was no doubt in my mind that scriptures and the gospel was true. I never had that problem. I never thought because I had lived with the realization that I probably wouldn't live past 30. Because with what I did in the service, the life expectancy in combat is eight hours. I guess I lucked out. Or more to the point. Somebody wasn't done with me. And two years ago, a little over two years ago, I married my best friend. And then she told me when we got married, that she would not marry a man that was not a man of God. And we had some discussions, points of gospel and that kind of thing, and she found out that, quite frankly, I knew a lot more about the Bible than she did.
Ashly
10:05
So was she familiar with the Church at all? Or was she …
Don
10:08
No.
Ashly.
No.
Don
She was Lutheran.
Ashly
Okay.
Don
And she had read, she had heard a lot of misgivings, misinformation about the Church. And so we started talking about it. And I started answering questions honestly and openly. But when we got married, I changed our vows. Our vows does not say “till death do us part.” Even though it was a civil ceremony, our vows said “for time and all eternity.” Well, right after we got married, we were talking, she knew I was sealed to somebody else. And that sort of gave her angst and I had tried to make that marriage work twice with that woman. It wasn't going to happen. So I contacted, through my bishop, then Bishop Banks.
11:01
He helped me get my sealing canceled. Took over a year. And then I called him. I said, “Okay, what time's church?” Blew him away. To the point that the stake president asked him, “What did you do?”
11:20
(To get me to come back to church.) It wasn't the bishop. My wife had decided that she wanted to investigate the church. I decided that if she was going to investigate the church, and if she decided she wanted to be baptized, that I was not going to tell that woman, “I'm sorry, I'm not worthy to baptize you.” Those words were not coming out of my mouth. Like I say, I got lucky, I married my best friend. And we do everything together. And basically, Bishop Banks held my hand for two years. We were attending a different ward every week, and we started the missionaries’ discussions with her, and I was adamant with the bishop, with the missionaries, with everybody, that they were not going to pressure my wife. It was going to be her time, her decision, her way. And I would stand in their way if I had to. I was very adamant about that. But she decided that she wanted to be baptized and she wanted me to baptize her. And I wouldn't go. It probably sounds silly, but I would not accept a shake of the head. I made her verbalize her decision that she wanted to be baptized, number one, and number two that she wanted me to baptize her. And once that happened, now you have to understand, we didn't know anybody in the ward. And at the time, our ward’s baptismal font was broken. And we were attending a different ward anyway. So Bishop Banks and I had a backup plan. We’d baptize her in a creek if need be. This was in October.
Ashly
Oh, wow.
Don
Yeah, it could have been a little uncomfortable. She was willing. Then Bishop Banks and the missionaries pulled out all the stops. They helped me plan it. They helped me get ready. Bishop Banks helped me make sure I was worthy of exercising my priesthood and I had a debt. That was a major concern for me. Because like I said, I was not going to tell her that I couldn't do it, which means I had to get right. I had to get me right. I had to get me worthy, and I had to get ready. And so I worked for the better part of a year counseling with my bishop, talking to my bishop, figuring out what I needed to do. I had an interview with him. I had a couple of interviews with a stake president to make sure that I was ready and able to baptize from when the time came. And I ended up baptizing her on Conference weekend, on that Sunday, and when we showed up for the baptism, we figured that might be you know, I knew the Bishop Banks was going to be there. I knew a member of the bishopric— because he had just been released. So we're going to have a member of the bishopric just to preside, he was going to be there to conduct. The missionaries were going to be there. We had two witnesses, my niece was one of them. And I figured that was probably going to be about the extent of people that would attend her baptism. There was over 30 people there, from three different wards. Representatives from the bishoprics of three different wards, and two relief societies pulled out all the stops. Somebody said, “Well, we're going to have some treats.” They had a full layout of food. The missionaries, and Bishop Banks went out and organized and planned the entire baptism for me. I hadn't even thought about things like, “Who's gonna say the opening prayer?” Was there gonna be music? How many songs we were going to have, or if there were going to be talks. These are all questions that the bishop had to ask me. And we were on the phone every day for a week before her baptism. And then I got to thinking, I think the baptism, no problem, I got that. And I thought about the confirmation. And I asked Bishop Banks, “Who's going to confirm her?” He said, “You are.” Now I went, “I've never baptized anybody, I've never given a confirmation before. This is the first time for me.” He said, “Don't worry about it.” He said, “I’ll be standing there. And if you make a mistake, I'll whisper to you.” And I evidently didn't screw it up because he didn't say anything. But this is the person who's most important to me in this entire universe, other than God.
16:52
And Bishop Banks. Like I said, he held my hand for two years.
17:00
We had people that we'd never met, made my wife feel so welcome. Like I said, so she would be baptized into a ward that she didn't even belong to. And we had representation from three different wards, and we didn't know anybody. The missionaries did the programs. And one of my favorite songs, hymns, and we used it in our at our wedding, and we used it at her baptism, is “I Need Thee Every Hour.” So one of our missionary sisters hand drew those words, onto the program, with art. And now that is framed and lives in my wife's vanity.
Ashly
That's so special.
Don
But the key there, like I said, there was never any doubt in my mind, there was never any problem with testimony. I've always had a very, very strong testimony. One of the things that we did is, the missionaries had asked us to write down our testimonies. And I typed ours out and signed them. And we started a new tradition. We're going to redo our testimonies in writing every year on the anniversary of her baptism, to see the growth. We had a stake conference this year. We had a visiting 70, who had requested some newly baptized members to bear their testimony. And we were asked, my wife was asked to bear testimony.
18:50
And she did. And of course, I wasn't getting off the hook. Because Elder Brady turned it into an interactive session during the stake conference, so they brought me the mic. And my wife started telling her our story. And I'm gonna tell you what she told them.
19:15
She believed that God brought her to me, so that I could bring her to the church.
Ashly
Wow.
Don
We had started reading the Old Testament before she started the discussions. Now since that time, like I said she was baptized on the second or third of October. So far, we've finished The Book of Mormon. We've also finished the Doctrine and Covenants.
19:46
She now has her temple recommend to do baptisms for the dead. My temple recommend has been, I got my endowments in ‘89,
19:59
now I’m back to the point where I have my temple recommend. And we have an appointment for next month to start doing baptisms in the temple, and we're going to try to do it every month. Until next year, when she gets her full temple recommend. She's already planning her endowment. She's already planning our sealing. She's already making the guest list who's going to be invited to our sealing.
Ashly
That's so awesome.
20:41
But in the story that I'm telling you, there's a couple of key points that people need to understand. Doesn't matter how strong your testimony is, doesn't matter how strong of a person you are, it doesn't matter how brave you are, it doesn't matter how strong you are. I got hit by two major tests. And I failed them both. When my brother was taken from me, and when my fiancée was taken from me, and when I lost my career, and my stepdad, my life fell apart.
21:22
That's the time I should have turned to the Lord. I failed those tests. I accept that. I've repented of it. But it doesn't mean
21:38
that I didn't fail the test. You don't get a do over on that. But that didn't take away my testimony. Nothing can do that. But when my wife sat down with me in the bishop’s interview to get her recommend, she all but asked for a calling. The only thing she wanted was it to be a joint calling with me.
ASHLY
Wow, that's so sweet.
DON
And now, we just have our calling together. We're going to be teaching Sunday school 13-14 year olds.
ASHLY
That'll be fun.
DON
Together.
ASHLY
22:22
That's so, I teach Primary with my husband and it's fun.
DON
22:28
Yeah, we're gonna have a blast. We've already got a game plan of how to break the ice.
ASHLY
I love it.
DON
Like I said, we do everything together. We made the arch that we got married under.
ASHLY
Wow.
DON
Yeah. In my fort. But like I said, everything we do we do together. And we're already planning, she's already got it figured out what temple she's going to be going to, to get her endowment. At first she said she wanted to get sealed in the Salt Lake Temple. And then she found out it's not going to be open till 2025. She said, I'm not waiting at all. Because we don't know where the sealing will happen yet. And I made sure that, I mean, we pretty much adopted those missionaries. We made sure we had their contact at home for afterwards, because they're gonna get invited to our sealing.
ASHLY
That's so sweet. I love that.
DON
They’re part of the journey.
ASHLY
Yes.
DON
And so the key there is where we are now, and where we're headed. A couple of things that have made a big difference for us. We read scripture every day. It doesn't matter if anything else happens. We don't care if you're tired. I don't care if we're tired. If we're busy. That doesn't change. We do it every day. Every night. We say our morning prayers, we say our evening prayers. We say grace over the food. We counsel with the Lord. We pray. And we listen. Benjamin Banks was very surprised when I agreed to do this interview. I said back to him, I said, you know he's my ministering elder, “I can take counsel. I don’t have a problem with that.” I just don't want another situation where I fail a test.
24:48
That's you know, people just don't understand how hard it is. It's It's never been about me. Even when I was serving in the military, people say, “Well, why would you be willing to?” You know, I got shot several times.
25:17
“Why? Why would you be willing to do that?” Because freedom isn't free. It's paid for in blood. There are a couple of things that
25:28
get under my skin when I hear people say, “Oh, I’d take a bullet for that person.” Would you?
25:35
How do you know? Have you ever done it? I can say yes, because I have done it. But that doesn't... I don't like things that are casual about freedom. I don't think like things that are casual, about testimony of the gospel.
25:56
It's real. And it's true. There's no doubt in my mind. What I want to do is make sure I don't fail another test.
26:13
I don't ever want to let my wife down. I don't ever want to feel like I felt when I was standing at my brother's grave site. Because it's hard. But you know, my niece was there. At the baptism, she was one of our
26:41
witnesses. And she looked at Bishop Banks. And he just winked at her. He said, “Don't worry about these guys.”
26:53
And she almost started bawling. Because see, my niece, her dad's the one that died. She also was away from the church for almost 10 years.
27:13
For the same reason. She had the same problem I did. She went back before I did. And she was there helping. I wouldn't say push. But to encourage, especially when my wife decided that she wanted to start discussions. We'd get a text or something that was with a talk or something, you know, when there was no pushing or prodding or anything that hard. It was just gentle love and encouragement. She was part of that journey as well.
28:00
But it was very difficult for me to become less stiff-necked, hardhearted. At one point, I had decided that when I retired, I would go to Alaska by myself.
28:24
That's not gonna happen now. Because, you know, my wife and I just bought some land, we’re gonna build a new house next year.
ASHLY
That's awesome.
DON
The cool part about it is, like everything else, we will do it together. We're gonna build a log cabin style home, on twenty and a half acres. And I've had several of the elders say “When you're going to start building? Give us a call.”
28:57
And I'm now at a point where I can accept that. I've never been one to accept help. Not since I was 17 years old. I realized that I couldn't get back by myself. You know, Ben Banks may have been released from his calling his bishop,
29:25
but he'll be my bishop till the day I die. And I told him, I said, you know, that we call each other brothers, but I felt like he was a brother. And he looked at me, this was at my wife’s baptism. He said, “Because we are.” He's one of the most real people I've ever met.
29:52
He doesn't talk to hear himself talk. And I've watched him. He may have been released as a bishop,
30:00
but he doesn't know how to not be a bishop. He's always doing those things to service other people, always. It’s just who he is. Because of him, I had the honor to baptize my wife. That's pretty special.
ASHLY
That's pretty special.
DON
You know, I'll never forget it. You know, I am 65 years old. And, you know, I'm worried about screwing up the baptism, screwing up the confirmation.
30:40
You know. But it's only because I love her so much. And now we're going through the standard works, and she's learning. And the cool part about it is she will stop me and go, “Wait a minute, stop.”
31:00
“I have to understand this.” And we'll go back through a chapter or whatever. We try to do like three chapters tonight. But we have to stop and discuss a scripture. We do! Sometimes, you know, we both work in different places, and she'll, she'll contact me or send me an email to, you know, tell me what this means. So we'll go back and we'll look at it, we'll cross reference it, you know, like, cross referencing The Book of Mormon, the New Testament and the D&C. And we just keep it up until she understands or doesn't have any questions on that. I've told her, and it's hard to make her understand. Yeah. I've always known this stuff. I went to seminary in high school.
31:59
I know the scriptures. I have a testimony. But if it wasn't for her, I don't think I would have found my way back.
ASHLY
32:09
So tell me what, despite like, all the things you went through, you were in the military, you were doing all these things, and you have all of these trials you're going through, but you've said multiple times that you never lost your testimony. When all of those things, you know. There's a lot of people today that attack the history of the church, or they have questions because of the history of the church, or they have hard questions related to the gospel. What do you think it was for you that made it so you never lost your testimony through all the things you've been through in your life?
DON
I think mostly, my patriarchal blessing. I got my patriarchal blessing when I was 14. I remember being ordained as a deacon, as a teacher and a priest, and as an elder. But I also remember the day I got my patriarchal blessing. And I remembered how I felt. That feeling was more powerful than knowledge. It was the strongest that I had ever felt the Spirit of the Lord, the Holy Ghost, was on that day, at 14 years old. I joined the military. Two weeks after I turned, I was in the military two weeks after I turned 17. And I've always been very disciplined. And that helps. But the reason I never lost my temper, I never lost my testimony. And quite frankly, the reason that I've never feared death, I'm not worried about this. Because I always knew that there was another another life to come. And I say, I knew. It's not just that I had faith. When my brother baptized me, when he was holding my hand, before I got ordained as a deacon and a teacher and a priest and you know, those things will carry when nothing else will. If you've never seen it, there's a video on YouTube that I think every American ought to see. It's called “The Angel Flight.” It's about the C130 that brings soldiers home being in a casket. I have stepped on the tarmac 11 times. I've supervised 11 funerals. I always thought that would be me. That didn't bother me. But the reason it didn't bother me and what's important about that,
35:27
I wasn't afraid of dying. Because I knew it wouldn't end. I knew I had that testimony, because the way I was raised, but most importantly, because of that patriarchal blessing.
35:48
I can pull out my patriarchal blessing today. And I can start underlining, and putting dates when certain things happened. I was 14 when I got that blessing. And I don't mind telling you not everything in that blessing has come to pass yet, keyword: yet. But that's why I didn't have a problem without losing my testimony. I never lost my testimony, never lost my faith, but lost my faith in me. I lost caring, because I had lost too much. And I wasn't bright enough to turn to where I needed to turn. I wish somebody had beat me in the head with the Old Testament, and maybe read the story of Job. Because the affliction that I felt is nothing compared to what he faced. But he never turned. He never lost hope. And he never turned away from Christ.
36:52
I've never denied Christ. But I turned away from the church, His church. That's why I tell you that I failed those tests.
37:03
But I don't intend to make that mistake a third time. And I've learned a few things since then. I've finally figured out how to accept help. I've always been willing to give it. Recently, I've learned to accept it. That's a major milestone. So that in a nutshell is the story.
ASHLY
37:26
So awesome. I love it. I think you have such an amazing testimony. And obviously, you've been through so much and just that you can recognize where your life, you should have been relying on … You know what I'm saying? Like, you recognize that now where you should have been relying on the church and the Lord and the Lord's church, and you didn't and how that affected things. And it seems like now you're so grateful for your wife and your life and everything that you guys do together. And that's so special. And I think that just the love for the gospel that you guys share is so beautiful. And so amazing. And I'm so happy that we got to have you on the podcast and hear your awesome story.
DON
38:31
Well, and I will tell you that I couldn't have done this alone. No way. And if I learned one thing really well, it’s stop and listen to the counsel of my church leaders. And when you have that feeling like I have with my bishop, right now my ministering elder— When he asked me to do this podcast, I first thought, “Who cares? Why would anybody want to hear this?”
39:17
And I texted him back and I said, “Okay, we need to talk about this.” Because you know, what's the point of me doing this? Is it for me? Is it for other people? And he was like, “Oh, no, this is to help other people.” Okay, fine. “And you think I ought to do this?” He said, “Yeah.” Okay, fine. I can take counsel. He was surprised that I agreed so quickly. Well, I learned that I need to be able to take counsel from him, from the Lord, and from my wife, and I need to be able to give counsel. Sometimes that's not easy. Sometimes accepting help is the hardest thing you can do. And when somebody touches you as deeply as I have been? My wife—what I look forward to is the day when we go to the temple and get sealed. She's the first member of her family that she knows of is a member of the church. She's got a bunch of genealogy work. And I've committed to help her do it. We're going to be going to the DC temple next month. I'm going to be going there to help her get baptized for the dead.
ASHLY
So cool.
DON
We're hoping that she'll be able to go to the dedication of the Richmond temple. Are you in our area? Are you into Virginia?
40:56
ASHLY
Nope, I'm in Utah.
DON
Okay, so Richmond temple gets dedicated on the seventh of May.
ASHLY
Awesome.
DON
By Elder Holland. And that's her favorite of the 12 speakers. In Conference, she loves to listen to him talk.
ASHLY
He’s pretty good!
DON
Oh, he's very good. They all are.
41:19
ASHLY
They are, they all are.
DON
You know, they got a leg up on us. So we definitely will be going through the temple when it's open. But we're hoping that she'll be able to go there for the dedication. She's already told me that she's going to talk to stake presidency, to see if she can get in, if there's a possibility she'd like to meet him. I don't know what the answer to that's going to be. Doesn't really matter. What I do know is this woman has got me motivated to get sealed to her for time and all eternity.
41:58
ASHLY
So awesome. She sounds amazing.
42:01
DON
Oh, she is amazing. You know, I tell people all the time that I got lucky. I married my best friend. That's not an exaggeration. She is my best friend and my partner. You know, that's the wonderful part of our life. Doesn't mean everything's gonna be great. No, we still have trials, we're going to have trials. But I'm convinced that there's nothing that we can't face together. Then when you take that and expand that to a ward family, a stake family, and a church family— I didn't have to get ready for that baptism alone. My bishop held my hand for two years getting me ready. And he and the missionaries made sure it was perfect. We had two Relief Society presidents at her baptism. She didn't know either one of them. We know both of them now. These people have treated us like family. Because we are. That family is growing every time, every Sunday when we go, we meet somebody new. And that family grows. I just hope that someday I'll be able to do for somebody else what my bishop did for me.
ASHLY
Wow. That is so special.
DON
He's an amazing man.
ASHLY
Well, shout out to Bishop Banks.
DON
Yep.
ASHLY
43:46
I'm sure he's gonna be listening to this.
DON
43:48
No doubt my mind. He told me he's going to, and I asked him in fact, I asked him, I said, “Why? You already know the story.”
ASHLY
43:57
Well, awesome. Well, do you have any final thoughts before we wrap up?
44:01
DON
Not really.
ASHLY
Okay. All right. You're amazing and I am so grateful that you took this time to share your story with us.
44:11
DON
I hope it helps somebody.
ASHLY
I'm sure it will.
DON
You have a good evening.
