A True Story of Gratitude on Thanksgiving
A young convert, missionary, and angels in Africa
This is a true story. It happened to me. In sharing this, I may be “casting pearls before swine,” and allowing skeptics to make light of it, but as I’m getting older, I think it’s time to pass it on. I hope someone finds their faith strengthened by it.
I joined the Church at the age of 18, just a few months before my 19th birthday in 1978. As a young convert in Virginia, it seemed I immediately came under fire from anti-Mormons. I had a strong spiritual witness of the truth of the restored gospel, but I studied the scriptures and read doctrinal books upwards of an hour daily so I could have the answers to the antagonists’ questions. Along the way, I obtained the conviction that I should serve a mission for the Church. It took me some time to save up enough money, and I left to go to France as a missionary at the ago of 20. I had been a member of the Church only 20 months when I reported to the Missionary Training Center.
I had many formative experiences in France. It was considered a “difficult” mission where few baptisms happened. The years since the French Revolution, Napoleon, two World Wars and an a war in Algeria had left the French people skeptical of anything religious. Much of the successful preaching we did was among immigrants in France, particularly among Africans.
There was a man from Congo named Andre Bassouamina who, if I recall correctly, was a graduate student at the University in Pau. I came to Pau around the end of my first year in the mission field. Andre had met a set of missionaries just before I was transferred into the area. It became evident to us, as we got to know him, that God’s calling was upon him.
Andre went through all the missionary lessons quickly, but he had many questions. We did our best to answer them and our discussions with him stretched us in our studies. I can’t begin to tell you how many times the very thing I studied that morning would be the answer to the questions he posed that afternoon in our meeting with him.
Andre had grown up in the Evangelical Church of Congo (ECC). If there was ever a close match to the the restored Church, this was it. The ECC was formed and led by a man followers revered as a prophet. He was arrested and jailed by authorities because his teachings were considered disruptive. This church had “patriarchs” and a non-professional clergy. They believed in spiritual gifts, healings, tongues, etc.
I think the biggest challenge to Andre was that his church so closely resembled the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, that it was difficult for him to see the differences. Many of our discussions focused on authority and the keys of the kingdom. We also had a period within the local branch of the Church where there was some contention happening among the members and that strife had an effect on Andre. He felt the Holy Spirit strongly when we were with him, but the contention drove that Spirit away from the church meetings. It took time for that situation to resolve.
Finally, Andre shared with us what his biggest concern was. He knew that we believed in healings, tongues, and spiritual gifts, but he never saw any. We Latter-day Saints don’t tend to show those things to the world at large. Miracles don’t really convert people, and people whose testimony depends upon seeing signs and wonders often end up being very weak in their commitment to the Lord.
A friend from Church asked Andre, knowing that we were coming to see him that afternoon, to come by and to give him a blessing because he felt unwell. Andre asked if he could go with us. We agreed and he got to see us anoint and bless someone who was ill. This touched him. It was what he was “starving” to see. The next day, we visited him and he related his joy in seeing us do this. In our discussion with him that day, we explained why we don’t really advertise this out to the world, but that it is indeed a part of our faith. We also talked about patriarchal blessings.
Andre was very enthused about this. He had received something like a patriarchal blessing from one of the patriarchs in his church, a week before coming to France to study. In that blessing, the patriarch was inspired to tell him that he should prepare himself because, in France he would have an encounter with the Spirit of God and it would change his life. A week after he arrived in France, he was seeking a church to attend and my companion and my predecessor had stopped him on the street to invite him to church. Andre connected the dots and knew, deep down that he was to be baptized and become a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Now here’s where this gets interesting—should I say, supernaturally interesting. Andre bought a box of the Book of Mormon and began sending them to people back home in Congo. The Church was not yet in his country, but he wanted his family and friends to know what he had found. In particular, his mother and brother were intrigued by the Book of Mormon and the Church.
Andre had an uncle who was one of the patriarchs in the Evangelical Church of Congo. He was also the person, according to tradition, to keep the family genealogy. It was the custom that one man in each generation would be chosen to memorize hundreds of years of genealogical information and pass it on to the next generation. Andre would have been the one to receive this information from his uncle. Obviously, knowing the importance of this information and the value it held for being able to do temple ordinances for his ancestors, Andre was excited to be able to take on this honor. When his uncle found out about Andre joining the Church, not only did he swear to not give Andre the genealogy, he actively began to work to instill bias in Andre’s family.
The uncle got some anti-Mormon brochures from a church in Brazzaville and passed it to Andre’s mother. The Church wasn’t even established in the country yet, but Christian sects there already had stocks of anti-Mormon literature. Of course, this scurrilous literature troubled Andre’s mother. They wrote letters back and forth, Andre trying to reassure his mother. The only thing he could really do was what we tell everyone else to do: read the Book of Mormon and pray about it.
I was transferred from the city of Pau to the mission headquarters in Toulouse shortly thereafter. A few months later, I received a letter from Andre telling me the amazing events that had occurred in his family. His mother and brother had been reading the Book of Mormon seeking answers and they were feeling very excited about it. There were no missionaries and no stakes, wards, or branches in Congo at the time. One day, while praying over their concerns for Andre and the troubling accusations of the anti-Mormon uncle, Andre’s deceased grandmother appeared to his mother and brother in a daylight vision. The grandmother told them that Andre had done the right thing in joining the Church and that they should help and support him as much as possible. The work that he would do would help raise up Zion among his people. This vision took place in the fall of 1981.
What a marvelous thing it was to receive the account of this manifestation from Andre. To this day, I am never troubled by whatever stratagem anti-Mormons devise to try to derail the Church. I just think back on this experience. As a young man, unschooled in the ways of the world at the time, yet endowed with priesthood authority and operating on faith, I went and did my part to serve the Lord. The Lord caused angels to appear on another continent, thousands of miles away, to deliver a message that reassured a troubled mother, and helped in some small measure, to pave the way for the Church to come there and grow.
This being long before the Internet age, I lost track of Andre and his family. Congo underwent a tragic, deadly civil war that went on for many years. I don’t know if Andre was caught up in that, if he remained in France, or whether he was killed in the war. I remember that his confirmation blessing was somewhat “apocalyptic.” My companion took me to task for it at the time, but it came through the Spirit. How could I have known that his country would be caught up in a war that would literally kill six million people, making it one of the most deadly wars since World War II.
The Church received official recognition in 1986 in Congo. I was thrilled to learn that my mission president, R.Bay Hutchings and his wife Jean, were the first missionary couple sent to Congo in 1985. Today is Thanksgiving in the year 2024. I am grateful for this experience and others from my missionary endeavors. I know that God lives and that he calls people to come to him in his earthly kingdom. I know that he can and will do miracles signs, and wonders to help his saints and to move his work forward. I testify of this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.