Another Great Mission Presidents Conference

This past week was our Mission President's Conference. Twice a year the mission presidents in West Africa gather together to be instructed, to share experiences and testimonies, and to relax a bit. Elder Shipley and I are always in charge of the logistics for these conferences. Fortunately we have great help from Emelia Ahadje who is the manager of the travel office. She always arranges for the hotel and for the restaurant(s) we use and does a wonderful job. Elder Shipley prepares agendas, handouts, and makes sure all the supplies are at the conference. We pack the car up with equipment, song books, and materials and arrive at the hotel early to make certain everything is in order and then we get the priviledge of sitting in all the meetings. It is a real treat for us.

The people in the trenches of West Africa are our Mission Presidents who work hard long hours everyday caring for, instructing and sheperding about 100+ young missionaries. It is like being a parent to 100 young adults. My uncle was a mission president in France. He told me (when he returned 35 years ago)that he rarely got more than 4 hours of sleep. I think the mission presidents here get more than that but they can expect to receive phone calls anytime day or night from their missionaries. These Mission Presidents and their wives are great men and women. They serve for 3 years except in Nigeria where they serve for 2 years.

All of them bore testimony of knowing the Lord was in this work: of having words placed in their mouths, and thoughts come to them to make them aware of problems;Of feeling great peace in fearful situations; Of knowing how to handle situations.

Pres. Sitati, the first African to become a member of the Quorum of Seventy, a general authority in the church, shared his thoughts on the calling. He said he is often asked about how he feels to be the first black general authority. His answer was: "In the restored church we don’t have contituences. We have only one church. The message does not have color. The message is the same throughout the world. People must change to claim the same salvation. There will never be an African message but the true message of the restoration. We are preparing a people to greet the Lord."

What a great man he is. He does not think of himself as a "color" only a man of God. I have felt that way as I visit the saints in West Africa. I do not feel my color, I do not feel theirs. I only see them as children of God, purifying their lives that they may be prepared to greet the Lord.