“You Have Come At Last”

“You Have Come At Last” July 25, 2016

 

Nigeria's first temple.
The Aba Nigeria Temple was dedicated in 2005.  (LDS.org)

 

Someone kindly brought this wonderful story to my notice the other day, and I’m embarrassed to say that I don’t recall who it was.  But I appreciate it:

 

https://history.lds.org/article/pioneers-in-every-land-nigeria-anthony-obinna?lang=eng

 

May God bless the memory and the family of Anthony Obinna, and the Saints and the people of Nigeria, where life can be very difficult.

 

I have a distant but particular interest in the beginnings of the Church in Nigeria (and Ghana) because my own mission president, Edwin Q. Cannon, and his wife, Janath Russell Cannon, were, with the Mabeys (who are mentioned in this article), among the four missionaries assigned in 1978 to open black Africa for the preaching of the Gospel.  There’s a famous photograph circulating out there, of a white man standing in an African river or small pond performing a baptism, while a line of people waiting for the ordinance extends from the water’s edge back toward the photographer and then altogether out of the picture.  That’s my former president in the water, and I’ve often chuckled that there were more converts shown in the photograph than we had in an entire year in the Switzerland Zürich Mission.  I’m deeply grateful that President and Sister Cannon were able to have that (compensatory) experience.  They, too, were great Saints and servants of the Lord, and I pray his blessings on their memory and on their family.

 

Posted from San Diego, California

 


Browse Our Archives

Follow Us!