No issue
has demanded more of Kennedy's time than the task of expanding missionary work
in new areas. That expansion became the highest priority for him precisely
because it was President Kimball’s first priority. When Kennedy and the President
first began to consider which countries might be likely targets for expanding
the missionary effort, President Kimball did not have a fixed list of countries
to which he wanted to send Kennedy. His process was to examine the countries
one by one, exploring with Kennedy the possibilities each offered.
In those
early discussions in 1974, as they studied together the large atlas that the
President kept in his office, Kennedy placed his hand over sub-Saharan Africa.
That gesture eliminated most of the African continent from consideration because,
he argued, the Church could not operate without local leadership, and exclusion
of blacks from the priesthood precluded the development of that essential
leadership. Kennedy took his hand away from the map of sub-Saharan African on
June 8, 1978, when President Kimball announced to the world that he had
received a revelation confirming “that the long-promised day has come when
every faithful, worthy man in the Church may receive the holy priesthood . . .
without regard to race or color.” On returning from the temple where he shared
that revelation with the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, President Kimball met
with Kennedy and told him he knew Kennedy would be pleased with the
announcement. (Martin Berkeley Hickman, David Matthew Kennedy: Banker,
Statesman, Churchman [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1985], 343-44—this was
at the time when Kennedy
was a special ambassador for the Church, meeting with government and ecclesiastical
leaders in various countries)
