Journey to Nigeria Port Harcourt Mission: Life in KNUST 2

I was worried I had to go to church with my mom again so I decided to go to the temple and pray about it. While in the waiting room, I decided to read the recent general conference report from the November Liahona and to read from the Prophet’s message. It was a talk given by President Thomas S. Monson titled Dare to Stand Alone and the talk gave me directions as to what to do. I was to tell my mom. My mom had asked whether I had joined the church and I had said no. She then said “If you join them I will disown you.” I was scared but I was not going to disobey the prompting I had had. I was bent on following it and let the consequences follow. So two days before Christmas day I was watching TV with my mom and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir was performing. She was really impressed by the choir so I took the chance to tell her it was my church choir. She got infuriated that I had joined the church against her will and had disobeyed her. She became very angry and disappointed about my decision and started to call me all sort of names because of the church. She told all the influential people in my life mostly my uncles to talk me out of it but my decision had been made and there was no turning back. It took quite a long time for my family to finally agree with and accept my decision.

I attended church now no matter where I was. I had developed a desire to serve a mission but I knew it was not going to be easy so I started preparing myself and started to talk to my mom about having the missionaries come over but she will have none of it. I was called as a seminary teacher and that calling also taught me a lot and helped me learn more and prepared me for my mission. When I finally told my family about my decision to go on a mission my mom was disturbed and disappointed that I was willing to “throw away my life” for the church which will not benefit me in anyway. I explained to her that I was not throwing away my life as she put it but I was going to serve the Lord. Out of her frustration she said I should do whatever pleased me because she felt I was just wasting away my life. My cousin thought I had joined the church just because I wanted to travel but when she learnt missionaries pay for their missions her perceptions about my mission changed.