Salutations, people. My name is Julie Saint-James, or Sister Jay as my friends like to call me. I was born in Salt Lake City, State of Utah, to Peter and Mary Saint-James. I was brought up in the Mormon faith and like all Mormons, I did my missionary work over a period of two years. Something happened when I got sent to preach and share the Word with the people of metropolitan Detroit, Michigan. I met an amazing man who transformed me from a lily-white Mormon gal into a wanton slut. All those years of repression came bubbling to the surface thanks to the man I will forever remember as Mr. Rashid Osman or Big Ra as he calls himself.
I knocked on a lot of doors, approached a lot of people during my mission days in the City of Detroit, Michigan. Finally, I knocked on the door of a nice-looking house in a middle-class section of Detroit, and got a surprise. Instead of the portly, middle-aged white suburban guy I was expecting, I was greeted by a tall, good-looking young black man. He smiled politely at me and asked me how he might help. I introduced myself as Sister Julie from the Mormon Church. Then I asked him if he had a moment to talk about the Lord.
To my immense surprise he said yes, and invited me inside. To tell you the truth, I was quite nervous. I'm five-foot- four, freckle-faced, red-haired and green-eyed. I weigh one hundred and ten pounds soaking wet. What chance did someone like myself have against a six-foot-four, 200-pound black guy? I'm ashamed to say that this is how I thought in those days. When you grow up in the lily-white suburbs of Utah without exposure to other races and cultures, you can develop a certain closed mindset. Well, I have since learned better.
Mr. Rashid ended up surprising me in more ways than one. He told me about his parents, and spoke proudly of his Irish-American mother Deirdre Morgan and his Somali immigrant father, Abdirashid Osman. I knew there were interracial families out there, but I had honestly never seen one in the flesh. At my old high school in Utah, everyone was white. There were a few Chinese people in town, along with some Mexicans and Blacks but they lived far away from where my family and I lived. I'm as white-washed as they come, I'm sorry to say. Rashid told me he was a freshman at Westminster College, which surprised me because that's in Salt Lake City, my neck of the woods. Apparently, he'd opted to study outside Michigan, how about that? Rashid smiled at that and told me he met a lot of Mormons there. I asked him what he thought of my faith. Rashid shrugged and told me that while he was raised Muslim, he respected all religions.
I smiled and nodded. Even though we Mormons claim to respect other faiths, many people in our religion view other religions as filled with lies. That's unfortunate but true. After sitting together for about an hour and talking about religion and society, Rashid walked me to the door. I asked him if I might come back another time and he said yes, and when I offered him The Book of Mormon, he happily took it. I went home that night feeling quite surreal. I couldn't get Rashid out of my head. Tall, good-looking, well-spoken, educated and a God-fearing man. Sure, he still believes in the falsehoods of the Muslim faith but that's okay. All he needs is a good Mormon gal like me to teach him the truth.