Elder Paul H. Dunn

Those (like me) who were active LDS teenagers during the 1970s and 1980s no doubt remember Elder Paul H. Dunn. He held youthful audiences spell-bound with faith-promoting, fantastic, almost unbelievable stories of sports exploits, war heroism, bravery, moral virtue, divine intervention and material and spiritual success. He inspired us with “fatherly” counsel laced with good humor, a sense of wonder and awe, gratitude and greatness. One was reassured and uplifted by Elder Dunn’s witness. Gosh darn it, based on his “testimony”, the LDS religion just had to be true!

Until it was discovered that Elder Dunn had lied.

Repeatedly.

In fact, his entire “career” was a fraud.

He faked, forged, made up or contrived many (if not most…perhaps all!) of his “greatest” motivating stories. At best, many of his accounts were cobbled together from “snippets” of “truth” and “experience” he gained elsewhere or “borrowed” from others. He fabricated fables and myths, claiming his moral messages were contrived “innocently”, with the best of intentions. Even his exploits as a professional athlete and erstwhile surreal war hero were fictitious. When confronted with the facts uncovered by Lynn Packer, a journalism professor at BYU (and nephew of Elder Boyd K. Packer, the current president of the LDS Church’s Quorum of Twelve Apostles), Elder Dunn was compelled to publicly confess the “gist” of his perfidy and was promptly and quietly relieved of all public duties as an LDS General Authority “emeritus”, for “health reasons”.

The Church then “buried” Elder Dunn’s ministry -- just as it did hundreds of tapings of Music and the Spoken Word, with Spencer Kinard, after Brother Kinard was caught cheating on his wife. (The Church went back and “re-recorded” all 18 years of Bro. Kinard’s sermons, using the “voice-over” of his replacement, Lloyd D. Newell, effectively “erasing” Bro. Kinard from Church history…which is too bad, because I really liked Bro. Kinard’s spoken words!) For his efforts exposing Elder Dunn’s fraud, Bro. Packer (the professor, not the apostle) was fired from his job at BYU for violating "church and university policies that prohibit public criticism of church leaders, even if the criticism is true.”

Well, I’m going to tell you another truthful story about Elder Paul H. Dunn. (But not one you might expect.)

In the 1980s, while traveling by bus, I lost my luggage. In that bag were my garments, several new pair of Levi's, a favored lamp, other items of necessity…and my journal. My precious journal. My life’s story. The record of all my dealings in all my days: my mission, my interactions with God, every revelation and so forth. It was irreplaceable to me. These were my own “brass plates”.

They went missing for months. No one could find them. The search proved fruitless.

During my mission, Elder Gene R. Cook told our group of missionaries a faith-promoting story about the value of fasting and prayer. As a missionary himself, he had lost his well-marked and cherished scriptures. But after fasting and praying – and much waiting – they were “miraculously” returned to him. He urged us to use fasting and prayer during our ministry and, I can tell you, it worked. To a young girl, distraught over the fact that her father, a hardened atheist, refused to join the Church, I said “If you fast and pray, I promise you in the name of Jesus Christ that your father will join the Church.”

“Really?” she said.

“I promise.”

Several weeks later, she returned, distraught. “My father still refuses to be baptized!” she complained.

“Have you fasted and prayed”, I asked.

“No.”

“Why not? I told you in the name of Jesus Christ that if you fasted and prayed for your father to join the Church, he would! And you haven’t! The sin, sister, will be upon your head…because you have not exercised faith.”

I was pretty bold as a missionary.

About a month later I saw that wonderful sister again.

“Elder Carter! My father has agreed to join the Church! You were right! I fasted and prayed, asking God to bless him with a testimony, and he received a witness from God that it is true! Oh, thank you, elder! Thank you!”

It wasn’t me. It was the Spirit of God and prophecy inside of me. I had the pleasure of baptizing that man, his wife and that young lady’s sister before I ended my mission.

Now, having returned to the United States, I had lost my journal. And everything it contained.

As it happened, Elder Paul H. Dunn was giving a fireside to a small group of people at a local ward building near BYU. We met together in the Relief Society Room. I sat directly in front of him as he spoke. I heard all the “standard” stories: his baseball exploits, etc.

Remarkably, this General Authority – and, thus, my “spiritual” guide -- encouraged us to marry the most physically attractive person we could find! He said “A person’s spirit can change…but ugliness lasts a lifetime!” (He was a funny guy!) He told us how blessed he was that he had fortunately married a beautiful woman. (She was sitting right there beside us.) I cannot fault his “wisdom”, now that I’ve been married a few times myself. (Wrestling with one’s own “natural man” is surely a whole lot easier when he is strongly attracted to his/your mate!) 

He also told us to get as much education as possible. He spoke of his having earned three college degrees. (I now have three of my own! So I guess I took that advice, as well!)

After his “talk”, I asked him about his sports career. I wasn’t really “into” sports and I didn’t really care what he had to say, but something just didn’t “sound right” to me when he “covered” the subject, so I challenged him on it (in front of everyone).

“What team did you play for, again?”

I don’t think he lied to me. He said something about various farm teams and minor-league organizations tenuously connected somehow with the St. Louis Cardinals. But he admitted that he never played in the major leagues. (I think he was trying to “come clean” after having “dug” himself into a hole with prior stories. I didn’t know anything about those previous exaggerations and fabrications, however.)

Here’s the kicker:

In the hallway, as we were all departing for the night, I pulled Elder Dunn aside and asked him for his advice. He was the only General Authority, up to that point, I had ever spoken with (outside of my mission). I told him about my journal and how desperately I wanted it back. It meant everything to me. We discussed all the normal avenues of inquiry and searching for it, to no avail.

Then he said, “Have you fasted and prayed?”

I remembered Elder Cook’s testimony about the efficacy of fasting and prayer to find his scriptures…and my own missionary experiences.

“No, I haven’t”, I confessed.

“I promise you in the name of Jesus Christ that if you fast and pray you will get your journal back.”

“Really?”

“I promise. If you fast and pray, the Lord will see that you get your journal back.”

As God is my witness, his words pierced me to the core. I had faith in his promise and I went home and began to fast and pray immediately. I never gave up hope.

Sometime later I traveled back to California. I stopped by my old apartment where I lived before my mission. No one was there.

So I walked about a hundred yards down the street to another apartment building and knocked on the door of an old friend whom I had baptized years before, on the day I was set apart as a missionary, before I left for the MTC. (Sadly, he fell away from the Church while I was gone on my mission and we had fallen out of contact with each other.) I looked in his mail box to see if there was any evidence that he still lived there.

There was only a postcard.

I pulled it out. 

To my amazement, it was addressed to me – at this address, someplace I had never lived! It was from the bus company. They had found my luggage! It was in Los Angeles, over a hundred miles away. It had been there for a long time. They invited me to come get it.

When I did, I discovered the lamp, the Levi's, even the garments were all gone.

About the only thing left was...my journal.

I bear witness that Elder Paul H. Dunn is a true servant of God who spoke the truth in the name of Jesus Christ. I don’t know whether it was his faith or my faith or our fasting or a loving God just honoring the word of one of His servants so that it might not fall to the ground unfulfilled. But I testify that I got my journal back, as promised, even by "miraculous" means.

And I love Elder Paul Harold Dunn. May he rest in peace.