First-Down Conversion

Playing professional football with the Oakland Raiders brought Burgess Owens some unforgettable experiences, both on the field and off. One of those off-the-field experiences—and it had nothing to do with football—changed his life.

“My wife, Josie, and I were drawn to Todd and Kathy Christensen, because they were family-oriented,” Burgess recalls. “But I never asked them about religion because I grew up thinking Mormons were racist. I didn’t want to dislike the Christensens, so I just didn’t ask them anything. But after I spent a Thanksgiving dinner in their home, something happened.”

That year, 1982, Josie had remained in the East during the National Football League players’ strike, and Burgess was going to be alone for Thanksgiving. Invited to a number of friends’ homes, he chose Todd and Kathy’s. While there, he met the missionaries, and he “left with a positive impression.”

Several weeks later the strike ended, and Josie returned to California. She and Kathy resumed their friendship, and Kathy invited Josie to attend church with her the next day while their husbands were away for a game. “When I walked in and saw all the children, I felt so comfortable, and so did our daughter, Sumner,” Josie recalls.

When Burgess returned from a road trip, Josie adds, “I told him, ‘This is it. I loved it.’” Josie then described her experiences at church and encouraged him to attend. The next week, they attended together and began taking the missionary discussions. By the seventh discussion, they were ready to be baptized—except for one thing. Burgess began to have some questions about why blacks had not been able to hold the priesthood until 1978. He was directed to the mission president, who, without even knowing what his questions were, told Burgess, “The Lord will give you just what you need to know to make the next step. He expects you to have the faith to take the second step.”

Burgess had grown up in Florida, where he had been troubled by what he thought of as “hypocritical philosophies of ‘love thy brother, but don’t accept thy black brother.’” It was this concern that had kept him and Josie from pursuing religion at all, until their first daughter was born.

“But something kept us going this time,” Brother Owens adds. “I realized that I had a small testimony. Though it wasn’t as strong as it is now, I realized that it wasn’t my place to try to figure it all out at once. I am always growing, gaining wisdom. It occurred to me that if I had to be certain about every single detail, we couldn’t take the next step. I had had sufficient witnesses from the Spirit and had seen enough. I knew enough that what I felt was true and good, so we were baptized. It was the best decision we’ve ever made.”

After Burgess retired from football, he and Josie started a family business in New York, where they now live in the Plainview Second Ward and where Burgess serves as a counselor in the New York New York Mission presidency. “Our friendship with Todd and Kathy,” Brother Owens says, “has taken on an eternal significance, as has our own marriage and family.”—Jessie Embry, Provo, Utah