True Men

"...arise from the dust, my sons, and be men, and be determined in one mind and in one heart, united in all things..."

1 Nephi 1 :21 

Today we met 10 true men.

We were awed.

We were inspired.

We were humbled.

 We are so grateful for the chance we had to meet them and see their work today. These guys know the meaning of work. They work on the true frontier of the church.



True Men (with Elder and Sister Bennett)



They live and work in Sunyani. This is a place where just 9 months ago, no one had ever heard of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The church has never been in this area. It’s about as far north as Christians go here in Ghana. Good people. The further north you go, the more Muslim the population becomes.

Again, nine months ago there were NO church members.

These missionaries were brought here (about 8 hours away), essentially dropped off and told—go find members. Teach the gospel. Baptize members. Organize sacrament meetings. Ordain  priesthood holders. Organize sacrament services… Go and do.

And they have gone and done!

Today, just nine months later, there are four church buildings. (Each building has a missionary apartment in the back and a chapel in the front.) There are four groups, and three of the groups are about ready to become branches. Church attendance this last week was pushing 50 people in each of the 4 buildings. A church activity is being planned next week (we were invited) and they are expecting close to 200 people!

Chapel and home of two of the missionaries

These guys find their own investigators—they hit the streets. (There is no such thing as a member referral when there is no members to begin with.) They teach every day. They study hard. They plan hard. Then when the people come to church, they run the sacrament, they teach the Sunday school, they teach the converts how to do everything and I mean they teach them everything—how to conduct meetings, how to pray, how to bless and pass the sacrament…

Essentially they have built 4 branches in 9 months!

After our fireside with them, we sat in on a missionary zone meeting and the conversation goes something like this: “we have to move our baptism to Saturday” and “Ok how about you join us on Saturday because we have two baptisms already scheduled at our building”. It was so fun just to sit back and listen to the conversation. We were star-struck—seeing these guys work. Wow. Can you even imagine?

Sunyani is a place that is spiritually ripe. The minds of the people are set for learning. They as a people already have a love of God. Sister Fife and I toured the hospital with one of the guards, who was a bit upset at first with our requests (because we wanted to take a picture of the hospital grounds to document our evaluation).  By the time our ‘tour’ was over, he—along with another employee asked if they could come to church next week and were anxious to hear the missionary discussions. So we got two more good referrals just by our asking a few questions.

FYI: we hate the roads in Africa—Sister Fife and I will never complain again about our road in Seeley Lake. We've been told that next time we travel to Kumasi or Sunyani, not to go without a truck.

A few times we needed to whisper a prayer to help keep the car on the road and not in the river

On the road to Kumasi

Along the road to Kumasi

Also a plug is needed tonight for Elder Aloysius. I think he is our favorite missionary. He comes from our first full group of MTC “graduates”. He is the perfect missionary. We had the opportunity to sit in on one of his discussions with an investigator (baptized on Saturday). It was so exciting. We were so proud of him—we felt like parents. He’s one of the ten greenies in Kumosi—another city of about 2 million here in Ghana. We are anxious to see him again in a few months.

Our favorite missionary--complete with mosquito net and water filter!
Not all missionary apartments that we see are this clean and nice