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GREEN RIVER, UT—Henry Bearheart has waited a long time. Since joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in February of 1977, enduring freezing temperatures to be baptized in the San Rafael River, Henry Bearheart has poured out his soul, begging his Heavenly Father to take away the curse of dark skin.
“It was my hope to come out of the San Rafael white,” recalls Bearheart, “but I was still this gosh-darn coffee color, even a month later.”
In the last few years, however, Brother Bearheart has taken a different approach, emphasizing being “delightsome” above being “white.”
 “I try to crack jokes, pull pranks, that kind of thing,” says Bearheart. “Like this one: Why did the chicken cross the playground? To get to other slide! See, that kind of sense of humor is going to help people see past my skin color, to the delightsomeness inside.”
His neighbors agree it’s working for him. “Yes, I believe I would say that Brother Bearheart is fairly delightsome,” says Mason Bagley, High Priest Group Leader in the Green River 2nd Ward. “He’s handy with the horses.”
Sister Marybeth Gleason, Compassionate Service Leader in his Ward agrees. “He’s about as delightsome as a dark fella could be. ‘Course, I won’t let him in the house, not with him being a Lamanite and all, but he’s quite delightsome to watch mow my lawn.”
Bearheart smiles when asked about Sister Gleason. “I love to help around her house,” he says. “I always do a little rain dance when I’m done, to help her grass grow. She likes that, and slips a cookie through the mail slot with my $10 bill.” He recalled that once, probably just kidding around with him, she slipped a note out with the payment that said, ‘Please don’t kill my family with a hatchet.’ “She always jokes with me like that.”
Bearheart is proud of what he’s accomplished as the only Native American in his Ward, despite years of disappointment in his skin color. “I almost became a Jehovah’s Witness when I saw what was happening to Michael Jackson,” he says. “But then I saw that nose, and decided to stick it out with the Mormons.” Now he says he’s content in his personal evolution. “I’m pretty sure I’m more delightsome these days, and that’s good enough for me.”
Editor’s Note: Some readers may find articles such as this offensive. Please remember that the objective of satire is to point out the offensive elements of our culture and shine the light directly on it. We are not making light of a sensitve subject--on the contrary, we take serious issue with the racism the Church continues to promote.
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