Mission President’s Reflections - 2018

Note: As part of our mission's annual history, I was asked to summarize the year with a "Mission President's Reflections."  This was our 2018 in Liberia.

“For Zion must increase in beauty, and in holiness; her borders must be enlarged; her stakes must be strengthened; yea, verily I say unto you, Zion must arise and put on her beautiful garments.”     

Doctrine and Covenants 82:14

My Kingdom Shall Roll Forth

For the Liberia Monrovia Mission, 2017 was the year of preparation, which enabled a tremendous expansion during 2018.  On December 10, 2017, we created the Caldwell and Paynesville Stakes in Monrovia, capping a 13-month period during which the country was transformed from having three member districts under the direction of the mission, to having four fully-organized, functioning stakes in capitol city, each led by faithful local members.  

Outside Monrovia, we started the year with two mission branches in Kakata, one in Harbel, a few other scattered members and an entire country with no real exposure to the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.  With the firm foundation of our partner Monrovia stakes in place, carefully built by numerous pioneers over many years and through the agonizing struggles that dominated Liberia’s recent history, it was now time to take the gospel much further across the country.  And we did.

Buchanan Branch

• In January, we created the Buchanan Branch in the capitol of Grand Bassa County, a port city two hours southeast down the coast from Monrovia.  Isaac Garbleah, a returned missionary, former branch president and district president who had moved from Monrovia to Buchanan several years earlier to establish a farm there was called as the branch president.  Under President Garbleah’s guidance, the branch flourished, leading all other wards and branches in Liberia with convert baptisms.  The branch currently meets in a rented facility with a newly-constructed pavilion for their sacrament meeting. The pavilion holds 100 attendees, but we have been regularly hitting close to or over that figure and we are now authorized to locate property and begin construction of a full-sized chapel. 

• In March, we traveled nine hours down the coast from Monrovia to visit a small member group

  

  Greenville Home Group

  in Greenville.  The group had been set up as dependent branch to a unit in Monrovia about 15 years ago, but everything fell apart when Liberia’s civil war intervened, and the group went dormant for more than a decade.  The group was restarted in early 2017 with Joseph Dwehgbaye leading, but had no place to meet and struggled until Hyrum Mennoh, a returned missionary, well-respected former branch president from Monrovia was appointed to serve as the Greenville’s Magistrate Justice.  We rounded up the members, leased a building for them and got the Greenville Member Group operational again. With a meetinghouse and the combined leadership of “Brothers Joseph and Hyrum,” the group has met each week, averaging 35 attendees.   As 2018 closed, I received authorization to open Greenville to missionary work and create a branch there.  That will be an exciting leap, particularly since all but two hours of the trip is unpaved and frequently impassable during much of the rainy season.

Totota Branch

• In April, we created the Totota Branch in Bong County.  Umunna Ezechinyere (Prince) Enyi-Ineh was called as the branch president.  President Ineh is a returned missionary, born in Nigeria who operates a trading business in Totota, a small community two hours from Monrovia and an hour beyond Kakata.  For the past several years, he paid to transport his family one hour each way by motorbike to attend church services in Kakata.  From a humble start of six members, meeting in a dilapidated shed with walls made of woven mats, the Totota Branch had 34 convert baptisms in 2018 and finished the year with 40 members, including four new Melchizedek Priesthood holders serving in the branch leadership.

• In June, we created the Kakata 3rd Branch in Margibi County and combined it with the two existing Kakata branches to create the Kakata District, the first member district located outside of Monrovia.  President Joseph Harmon, the pioneer of the Church in Kakata, who served first

  

  Kakata 3rd Branch & Kakata District Creation

  as the Kakata Home Group leader more than 17 years ago and had served for ten years as the Kakata 1st Branch President, was called as the district president, with Elder Brad Baird and Aaron Toure as his counselors. Eddie Amara was newly called as the branch president of the Kakata 1st Branch, Obeto Gonlar continued as the Kakata 2nd Branch President and Nathan Sumo was called as the Kakata 3rd Branch President.  In the June 10 meeting creating the new branch and the district, held in the Kakata City Hall with 450 people attending, nine local brethren were called as members of the district presidency, clerk, district high councilors and branch presidents.  Over half of those brethren had attended the Ghana Temple trip the preceding November with their wives, where they received their endowments and were sealed to their families.  It was a marvelous manifestation of the power of the temple to transform lives and prepare the saints to receive the Lord’s blessings.

• In November, we moved the Church into Liberia’s heartland by creating the Gbarnga Member

  

  Gbarnga Member Group

  Group in the capitol city of Bong County, three hours northeast of Monrovia.  Many of the saints in Monrovia trace their ancestral roots to Liberia’s central city and I had long felt that the Lord wanted the Church organized there.  The problem was that Gbarnga was an hour from our nearest branch (Totota) and we did not have any active priesthood holders living there.  That all changed the last day of September.  At the end of a member devotional I attended in the Paynesville Stake, Roland Kabedeh came up and introduced himself as a former branch president and commander in the Liberia National Police who had just been transferred to Gbarnga and was aware of other priesthood holders who were also in the process of moving there and were seeking a place to meet.  I immediately dispatched our facilities team to locate a meetinghouse and missionary apartment.  I told them I had additional missionaries arriving in four weeks and I wanted to use that opportunity to open Gbarnga to missionary work and the gospel.  With a lot of effort, prayers and faith, the team moved miracles and we moved the missionaries there on October 29 and held our first services there the following Sunday, November 4.  It was nip and tuck signing leases while securing Area Presidency approval for the move with their absence during October General Conference and personnel reassignments, but we pulled it off.  At our inaugural sacrament meeting, we had 64 people in attendance in a hastily renovated building, complete with 70 chairs, hymnals, manuals, sacrament materials and table, pulpit and a white board, and four newly assigned missionaries.  Roland Kabedeh was called as the group leader and there were six other known members, including two other returned missionaries. By the end of the year, we had identified 16 local members, convert baptisms and received authorization to create a branch.

Harbel Branch

• In December, we closed out the year by creating the Cotton Tree Branch in Margibi County, by dividing the Harbel Branch, which had been formed ten years earlier.  Samuel Singbeh, the former Harbel Branch President was called to lead the Cotton Tree Branch, and Austin Darius was newly called as the Harbel Branch President.  

Kingsville Member Group

• That same day, we created the Kingsville Member Group from the original Harbel Branch, with Samuel Koenig as the group leader.  By creating this new branch and member group, we were able to move the meeting locations closer to where the members lived.  At present, the Kingsville group is still meeting under a tree, but the members and their friends are thrilled that they can walk to church instead of paying to travel by motorbike across the entire Firestone Plantation to worship the Lord.  

As a testament to the enthusiasm of these changes and the benefits of making it easier for members to attend services, the combined sacrament meeting attendance of the original branch, the new branch and the member group immediately jumped by more than 100 people from what the original branch was averaging and it continues climbing. 

The recurring theme with all these new units is the importance of endowed, returned missionaries who come back from serving the Lord with a solid understanding of and commitment to the gospel.  As they marry, start families and careers, they continue to serve and grow in the gospel and are prepared and anxious to serve as the anchors for these new branches as they spread out seeking opportunity across this fertile country.  I am so grateful for the men they became while serving the Lord and the way they continue to apply the principles they learned while in His service.  They are Liberia’s blessed, honored pioneers.

The Missionaries and the Support Team

One of my biggest misconceptions about the call Michelle and I received to lead this mission had to do with defining our primary responsibility.  I initially assumed that we were responsible for carrying out missionary work in Liberia and that the missionaries were a significant input variable to accomplish that task.  However, in training with the First Presidency, the Quorum of the Twelve and the Area Presidency, I came to realize that the missionaries assigned to our mission are not an input to help achieve an objective, they are the objective.  Specifically, we are responsible to help each of our missionaries become firmly converted to the Gospel, or the Doctrine of Christ. As several of the apostles have stated, the measure of success we achieve in this calling will only be fully determined in about forty years, when the grandchildren of our missionaries are entering the temple to make their own sacred covenants.  We are building Zion, however Zion is not a geographic location but those we are helping to become “the pure in heart.” That said, one of logical outcomes of that building effort is the further establishment of the gospel within and throughout the boundaries of the mission. 

To accomplish that purpose, our 2018 training, interviews and zone conferences focused on strengthening our missionaries’ understanding and personal application of eternal truth, law, agency and integrity, personal applications of faith and repentance for true conversion, understanding how the Plan of Salvation and the Atonement apply in their own lives, in addition to strengthening their skills in contacting, teaching, time management and working with local leaders.

We are still decades away from any mission grandchildren, but we are seeing wonderful spiritual growth among the missionaries and some great milestone indicators.  Many of our missionaries come from backgrounds with meager financial resources and seemingly bleak opportunities following their missions.  This creates a temptation to misuse the funds given to them to support their missionary labors, such as purchasing personal items or keeping funds for post-mission use. A few anecdotal, but representative evidences that these messages are taking hold include the following:

• One of our missionaries brought me $600, telling me he had been saving it over the course of his mission. He said the spirit whispered to him that the funds belonged to the Lord, not him and he wanted to set his life right and trust the Lord.  That experience, in varying manifestations, has become a regular occurrence as the spirit continues to work among these faithful, good men and women.
• An elder who served here wrote: “You encouraged me to trust in my plan to develop my faith and follow it. Well, I did. I arrived home with a clean hand and heart knowing that I obeyed the Lord and you. No clothes, shoes, phone, extra garments, pocket money etc. for the life ahead of me. I trusted the Lord and He remembered our covenants. I believe that being on the Lord's mission blessed my family. I'm glad that I did what I did. I trusted the Lord, kept His funds sacred and He continues to bless me. I'm glad that I served Him."
• Several returned missionaries from Nigeria and Ghana send updates on reunions they are already holding, traveling hundreds of miles to gather at the temples in Aba and Accra.
• A sister who served here wrote that although she would often “keep quiet and pretend I'm not interested” during zone conferences, “honestly I listen[ed] wholeheartedly and they helped me improve.” She said that she and a fellow returned Liberian missionary keep in touch, regularly reminding each other to remain “Faithful and True.” 

Liberia Monrovia Mission - December 2018

We started 2018 with 90 missionaries, the authorized level since the mission was reopened in late 2015 following the Ebola closure.  Because of the sudden ramp-up from that closure, nearly all the missionaries who were here when we arrived in mid-2017 were completing their missions and we had a massive turnover and replacement in late 2017 and early 2018.  To smooth out the turnover pattern and meet the growth needs of the mission, I asked for and received permission to expand the mission by 24 missionaries during the second half of 2018 and 14 more during the first half of 2019.  This led to a situation from spring through autumn where virtually every elder here was training, being trained or a zone leader. 

This rapid force increase required locating and preparing many new missionary apartments, in addition to the logistics involved with creating and overseeing the new mission branches, meetinghouses and training the new leaders.  As the saying goes in Liberia, it is “no small thing” to find, refurnish and equip that many new secure facilities in appropriate locations in one of the world’s poorest and least-developed countries. Samuel Sayon, our mission facilities manager, and Felix Tuanpoh, the meetinghouse facilities manager performed miracles in 2018.  We opened thirteen new missionary apartments this year, including a new senior couple apartment out in Kakata.  Twelve new wards and branches were created across Liberia during 2018, a whopping 34 percent increase in a single year.  The biggest challenge in all of this was the tremendous geographic expansion.  In January 2018, all but three of Liberia’s congregations were located in the Monrovia area. During the year, we created new congregations in seven cities across four counties outside the capitol, along with locating, furnishing and equipping the necessary supporting meetinghouses, missionaries and missionary apartments.

I would be completely remiss if I did not mention our reliance on the senior couples who served here this year.  These amazing “green berets” came to an unknown, often frightening part of the world, lacking most of the amenities they have taken for granted throughout their lives.  They lost themselves, fell in love with the people, taught them fundamentals of gospel living, and came away from the experience profoundly changed.  They covered most of the logistics required for managing and caring for 100+ young adults living in a third-world country and provided nurturing shadow-leadership for the fledgling branch leaders and members. We started the year with but bid farewell to Tom and Nicole Degomez (MLS), Steve and Kim Barker (MLS) and Steve and Karen Teerlink (Humanitarian Services).  Mark and Peggy Philbrick capably anchored the office, finances, phones and photography throughout the entire year and were joined by Brad and LaWynn Baird (MLS) who took the big leap from a Monrovia high-rise apartment to live in a little cottage we created from converted garage an hour away in Kakata.  During the year, we also added Dale and Susan Christiansen (Humanitarian Services) and Ron and Karen Kimball (MLS, back for their THIRD tour of duty in Liberia).  We could not have asked for a more capable, dedicated and cheerful team.

And everything we have accomplished, whether in the mission or with and through the missionaries
has been enabled and enhanced by my amazing companion.  Michelle completely loves and is equally loved by each of the missionaries: their mom away from home.  She fearlessly plunges into street markets, shrewdly bargaining for vast arrays of apartment furnishings. She has ‘gone native’ with her driving prowess, deftly navigating congested, narrow streets, dodging missing manhole covers, gaping potholes and byzantine swarms of taxis, motorbikes and ke-kehs.  She joyously teaches pure doctrine, lovingly invites Helaman’s army back into their scriptures and firmly but gently keeps them healthy and cared for in a country where hygiene and healthcare often seem like foreign concepts.  And she constantly keeps me grounded, focused on my purpose, and remembering the important things in life.  She restoreth my soul.

As the mission has grown, we have also had a great increase in diversity among our missionaries.  We finished 2018 with missionaries from twenty different nations.  They are amazing men and women of faith from across all of Africa, the United States and several Polynesian nations.  In June of this year, the Church marked the 40th Anniversary of the revelation expanding the priesthood and temple blessings to all our Heavenly Father’s children, which also marked the opening of the Church into Africa. The theme of the Church’s celebration was “Be One” and we have invited all our missionaries to take that attitude in working across different cultural, national and language backgrounds.  

The Master

This is Lord’s Church.  I constantly see that profound truth in my work with both the members and the missionaries.  Two recent experiences illustrate how this mission really operates.

For one branch creation, I received clear insight from the Lord on whom He had called as the new branch president. I love the many opportunities I have had to issue these callings and hear the sweet acceptance and confirmation from those the Lord has prepared to lead. However, on this occasion, I met with the brother and his wife on the Saturday before the scheduled branch creation, issued the call and he politely, but firmly told me he could not accept; he had too many other responsibilities and challenges at that point in his life. We discussed the matter for a while, but he steadfastly refused to accept. There was another man in the branch whom I felt was worthy and capable but had not been chosen at that time for this calling. That brother was not available on Saturday, so I called him that night and arranged to meet with him an hour before the service began the next day. 

That evening I desperately prayed to know what I should do. The answer came back clearly: "Go forward, trust Me. This is My work, not yours." I still didn't get a lot of sleep that night. The next morning, as Michelle and I were driving to the branch, I was about 30 minutes away when I got a phone call from the brother who had turned down the calling the day before. He told me that he had also had a sleepless night, had been roundly chastened by the Lord, and if the Lord would still have him, he would gratefully accept the calling. We discussed and he recommended names for his counselors and other leaders over the phone, including the brother who was already waiting to meet me. I phoned ahead and asked the remaining brethren to come in early, met with each of them, issued the necessary callings, packaged everything and started the meeting on time. The new branch president has since told me how the Lord has magnified his capabilities to serve and the branch is doing great.

That same week, I was striving to help two good missionaries who were nevertheless caught up in a bitter companionship dispute, I counseled with them individually and together, but their hearts had hardened, and their differences seemed insurmountable as our meetings ended. Michelle and I continued with calls and texts that evening and pleaded with the Lord for them. I despaired and told Michelle that I felt completely inadequate to this calling to minister to the missionaries entrusted to us. She reminded me we all are inadequate, but this is the Lord’s work. Within ten minutes, a text arrived from the missionary who had previously refused any further attempts at reconciliation. The spirit had been working in the background, and the text said that the two of them had just completed a wonderful companionship meeting with huge progress and they were both resolved to work out their differences.

I woke up at 3am the next morning with the phrase from Moroni 6:4, that Christ is “the author and the finisher of our faith” on my mind, which one of our missionaries had referenced in a meeting the day before. I had always thought of ‘finishing touches’ as the final one-percent polish-up to cap off a masterpiece. In that moment, I realized what the Savior had accomplished despite the limits of my bumbling one-percent completion with struggling missionaries and a hesitant leader.  My own efforts are inevitably clumsy and unpolished but offered in faith. The master then adds His ‘finishing touches’ to make up the gaping deficit in my own work. That is what grace, the enabling power of His atonement, can do.  

As I watch the stone, cut without hands, rolling forth across Liberia, I see those miracles every day.  This is His work.  We are just privileged to be instruments in the hands of the great Jehovah.

President Doug Clark