Member Voices
Descendant of First Missionaries in Africa Serves Mission in Same Country 170 Years Later
Sister Lori Humbert’s mission in Johannesburg, South Africa, is following in the footsteps of her ancestor, Elder William Holmes Walker.
One of the first three Latter-day Saint missionaries to the African continent was Elder William H. Walker. He arrived in Cape Town, South Africa, in April 1853 after a seven-month journey. And now his great-great-granddaughter, Sister Lori Humbert, is serving a mission in the same place, along with her husband, Elder George Humbert.
The Humberts didn’t ever think they would travel so far from their Layton, Utah home. But they started reading Elder Walker’s journal when they got their mission call: “We just feel like this is where we need to be now,” Sister Humbert said.
Elder Walker, along with Elders Jesse Haven and Leonard L. Smith, did a lot of their work by distributing pamphlets and advertising their meetings. They were hampered by mobs and other religious leaders and had a hard time getting food and places to stay. One journal entry describes being pelted by eggs.
Sister Humbert found a quote in Elder Walker’s journal about that time: “The devil is determined to starve us out and destroy or drive us out of the place, notwithstanding the fact that the times look hard, we trust in the Lord, knowing that he will sustain us if we do right and keep humble. Therefore, we have nothing to fear, although the devil and everyone else is telling us that we cannot do anything here, that we came to the wrong place.”
Fast forward 170 years, and the Humberts’ mission involves different kinds of challenges. They serve in the communication department at the Area Office and help to train communication directors in 13 different countries. They moderate the local Church Facebook page and send referrals to the individual missions. They also write and coordinate articles for the inserts in the Liahona magazine from Africa South and Central Area, which are translated into five different languages.
In a September 1854, letter written by Elder Walker in Fort Beaufort, he described some of these troubles in getting people to listen, as well as a widespread cattle sickness and locust plague in the area. “My prayer is that Israel may be gathered, and Zion redeemed. My best wishes and respects to my brethren, the elders, and my associates in the Kingdom of God,” he wrote.
Journal entries also described healings, calming of the weather, and the first baptism—a man named Henry Stringer on 15 June 1853—more baptisms, and the formal Church organization in South Africa in Mowbray. Six congregations were formed by 1855.
Elder Walker arrived back in Salt Lake City on 1 September 1857, having traveled 30,000 miles by sea and 10,000 miles by land in five years.
Sister Humbert said her great-great-grandfather’s story helps her today.
“It just impressed me that they left their loved ones behind and went for that long, and they were doing that because they were following what the prophet asked them to do,” she said.
“From him I learned perseverance. Just like his quote, he wouldn’t allow Satan or anyone else to discourage him or stand in their way. Through the troubles he just kept trudging on. The way he lived the gospel principles and loved the people here just helps me understand that I can do hard things and look at things with more of an eternal perspective.”