Greg Trimble, a popular LDS blogger, recently wrote about his experience with James Curran, more popularly known as JamestheMormon.
As a Latter-day Saint who has quite a knack for rapping, JamestheMormon's first album beat out albums by mega stars like Drake and Kendrick Lamar on the iTunes chart, hitting no. 3. But this success hasn't come without a price.
Focused on sharing the gospel any way he can, JametheMormon can often catch flak for being so open about his religion—something that's led to him to be at the receiving end of a whole lot of hatred and negativity.
And that's something Grey Trimble understands all too well: "When you put your heart and soul into something, and believe you’re doing a good thing, only to have people rip you to shreds, it can get really exhausting. I know that."
While speaking at a fireside together, JamestheMormon and Trimble were able to talk about the challenges and negativity they both face by sharing their beliefs in such a vocal way.
Some time later, when Trimble and his wife were visiting an 85-year-old friend, Barbara Boman, Trimble brought up this conversation he had with an LDS rapper.
Boman, who never listens to rap, was intrigued by JamestheMormon and told Trimble that the sister missionaries who recently visited showed her a video about "some young lady covered in tattoos" who had "a wonderful testimony."
Image of Barbara Boman from gregtrimble.com.
That's when Barbara Boman told Trimble, “If you have any way to get a hold of them—the rapper guy and this tattooed Mormon—will you please let them know that they have been chosen and prepared to live in this day, and given a special mission to help many people that would have otherwise not been reached. . . . These people . . . can reach people that there is no way an old lady like myself could reach. They can reach people that not even the missionaries can reach.”
Though directed at JamestheMormon and Al Fox Carraway (otherwise known at the "tattooed Mormon"), this beautiful testimony from an 85-year-old member teachers us a small part of why diversity is so needed within our Church and why it's important for us to find our own unique way to spread the gospel and reach people no one else can.
Lead image a screenshot from "You Should Watch Conference" on YouTube.
