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Matt Heiss was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. He served as a missionary in the Germany Dusseldorf Mission from 1975 to 1978. He met and married his wife, Becky, in 1980 while attending Brigham Young University, and Becky's with us tonight. You want to just stand in and wave? Thank you. You deserve an extra measure of gratitude, because it's not easy being married to a historian, especially one who travels as much as Matt has. They're the parents of two children. Matt graduated from BYU in 1984, and then went on to attend graduate school at the University of Virginia, where he graduated in 1986. He began working for the Historical Department of the Church. It's now called the Church History Department, but he began here in 1987. The focus of his work has been on the international Church, specifically central and eastern Europe and Africa. Presently, he's the area manager in the global support and acquisitions division. And as the area manager, he has one third of the world as his responsibility. He strongly believes that that is the best third of the world, and I'm sure he'll mention that today. I don't believe that there's anybody more passionate or dedicated about the history of the Church than Matt Heiss. It's been a privilege to work with him for these past several years, and it will be our privilege to hear from him tonight. Matt?

Thank you for being here tonight. Jacob chapter 5 is not my favorite chapter in the Book of Mormon. It's very long. I don't relate to ancient gardening practices. There's a lot of repetition--people going back and forth and back and forth. I find it somewhat tedious to plow through, and I don't find it personally relevant until I need to give a presentation on Church history, and then all of a sudden I find it incredibly relevant. I'm going to use Jacob 5 as a framework for what I want to talk about tonight. In Jacob 5 we read about an olive tree that represents the House of Israel. The master of the garden transplants branches of his prized olive tree into several parts of his vineyard. When I read this passage, I think about the Church in Africa. "And these branches will take place in the nethermost part of my vineyard, withersoever I will. And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard went his way, and hid the natural branches of the tame olive tree in the nethermost parts of the vineyard, some in one and some in another, according to his will and pleasure. And it came to pass that the servant said unto his master, how comest thou hither to plant this tree or this branch of the tree? For behold, it was the poorest spot in the land of thy vineyard." Often when we think of Africa as a whole, we think of it as the poorest continent in the world. It has a legacy of colonial abuse, pillaging, and neglect. It's a place of war, civil war, tribal warfare, terrorism, and genocide. I looked up life expectancy statistics and found that 42 of the 50 nations with the lowest life expectancy on Earth are in Africa. According to researchers at the Wall Street Journal, 18 of the 20 poorest nations on Earth are in Africa. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is listed as the poorest nation on Earth in terms of GDP, and it is interesting that DR Congo is one of the places where the Church is growing fastest. Today there are approximately 38,000 Latter-day Saints in DR Congo. The country has two missions and 12 stakes, and the Church has announced a temple for Kinshasa, the capital of DR Congo. Even one of the most prosperous nations on the African continent, South Africa, is still plagued by the legacy of apartheid, which wasn't dismantled until the 1990s. I asked my coworker in South Africa--a native South African--about this, and he replied, "Societal issues today are still being blamed on the apartheid laws of yesteryear. Some correctly, because the actions and mentality of apartheid went deep and wide, while others, due to a lack of action in the people's sphere, are looking for someone or something to blame. So apartheid becomes a convenient scapegoat. Yet we must not underestimate its legacy still today. With all that being said, apartheid legacies still plague the country." Africa is also hit with its own fair share of periodic natural disasters, such as famines, droughts, and floods. And because of its lack of infrastructure, these localized disasters have huge consequences. The list goes on, but I think you get the point that Africa seems to be the poorest place in the Lord's vineyard. Africa has been called the dark continent. This may be rooted in racism or in our ignorance of the place. And yet despite all this darkness, there is amazing light resulting from the establishment of the Church and from Church members who are striving to make and keep sacred covenants with the Lord. I'd like to share a few stories about the Lord's dealings with His children in Africa and about the powerful influence of the gospel in giving hope and healing lives. And it is my hope that your faith will be increased and that your resolve to make and keep covenants will be strengthened. I'd like to focus on three different areas. First, God's love for all his children, which is manifest by his preparing them for the gospel. I've called this Patterns of Preparation. Second, being in the world but not of the world--that is overcoming in worldly traditions. And I want to focus primarily on the treatment of women, which will ultimately, like leaven, raise a society and a people. And third, I wasn't sure what to call the last category, so I simply titled it a few of my favorite stories. But before that, a little history lesson. Most of what I want to talk about tonight is based on work that I've done in Africa or work that I've helped others do over the past 25 years. A lot of my focus has been to collect stories of Church members who are the living pioneers in their nations, but the history of the Church in Africa didn't start with the 1978 revelation on the priesthood. Consider this. The first LDS missionaries to set foot on African soil were called by Brigham Young in August of 1852. These missionaries, William Walker, Jesse Haven, and Leonard Smith, arrived in Cape Town in what is today South Africa in April 1853 after traveling seven months to reach their mission field. By the time they left Africa at the end of 1855, there are 176 converts. Six branches of the Church had been organized. And I know that this is hard to read, but these are the first two pages of the earliest Church record from South Africa. It contains minutes documenting the organization of the Church on the African continent, dated August 1853. The mission they established closed in 1865 but reopened again in 1903. By 1917, there were 339 members of the Church in South Africa.

Missionaries were withdrawn from South Africa during both world wars but returned after hostilities ceased. Missionaries began to work in southern Rhodesia--now Zimbabwe--in 1930, and in Northern Rhodesia--now Zambia--in 1951. In fact, we even had a Latter-day Saint, Gail Phillips, who was crowned Miss Lusaka in the capital of Northern Rhodesia in 1960. On the 22nd of March, 1970, the first stake was formed in Africa. It was called the Transvaal Stake and was headquartered in Johannesburg. But this time, there were over 6,000 members of the Church. And the first temple on the African continent was dedicated in August of 1985 by Gordon B. Hinckley. So based on what I've learned about the Church in Africa prior to the 1978 revelation on the priesthood, I most certainly honor the early missionaries to Africa, as well as the white South Africans who joined the Church and who have kept the light of the gospel burning in Africa. So that's a little bit of background for what I want to talk about tonight. Now I want to focus on these patterns of preparation. The stories of how the Church got started in Ghana and Nigeria have been published and told for many years. In fact, there have been a couple of videos made about Joseph William Billy Johnson. If you've seen those productions, you'll recall that Johnson, who was living in Ghana came across a copy of the Book of Mormon, read it, was converted, and spent 14 years preaching Mormonism to his best ability. He organized small branches, and these resourceful would-be Latter-day Saints in Ghana went so far as to print their own baptismal certificates. And remember that none of them had the authority or the priesthood to baptize. At the bottom of this certificate, they printed the Articles of Faith. I've always enjoyed how they slightly altered the 10th article of faith. And let me read the first part of their version, which is right here. We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and the restoration of the 10 tribes, that Zion will be built upon this--fill in the blank--continent. I think they might have wanted to put Africa in there, but they didn't. They just took America out. Johnson had a meeting house in Cape Coast which contained a large statue of Moroni, patterned after the cover of the Book of Mormon. He led his converts the best he knew how, and when the missionaries finally arrived in 1978, he was the second person baptized. A similar thing happened in rural Eastern Nigeria. Anthony Obinna had dreams and visions that led him to write Church headquarters and ask for information about the Church before the revelation on the priesthood. Upon receiving basic information, he proceeded to preach Mormonism to the best of his ability and to organize congregations of people who believed what he taught. He and his small congregation did the best they could without the priesthood or input from missionaries. And it's hard to read, but the little girl in front holding the sign--the sign says LDS 1971. And each of the children is holding an Improvement Era, and you can see the one little boy--you can see Joseph Fielding Smith on the cover of that magazine. Obinna was not alone in establishing an organization patterned after the LDS Church. There were many such congregations scattered across Nigeria. Some of the leaders of these wannabe congregations even went so far as to register the Church with the government. And this is a photocopy of one such registration paper. And note the date at the bottom--1964. That's 14 years before the revelation on the priesthood. In 1978, one of the first missionary couples, the Mabeys and the Cannons arrived in West Africa. They met with these would-be Latter-day Saints, taught them the discussions, and baptized them by the hundreds. They were a people prepared.

So the pattern of preparation looks something like this. A faithful person stumbles across information or has led to information about the Church. This person is converted. He teaches his family and friends or anyone willing to listen. Those people are converted, and they continue doing member missionary work. This person then writes the Church headquarters and asks for missionaries, literature, direction, and support. Small groups are established. The people do their best to wait for the arrival of the missionaries, and when the missionaries do arrive, these patient people are quickly taught and they are baptized by the tens and even hundreds. We often recount the great missionary success that was experienced by the likes of Wilfred Woodruff and Brigham Young in England in the 19th century. The same thing happened in West Africa in 1978, 1979. This slide and the next one were still shots made by Randall Mabey--one of those first missionaries--who made home movies during his historic mission. And these give you some sense of what the Mabeys and the Cannons accomplished in establishing the Church in West Africa. It should also be noted that sometimes a few of these first forerunners fall away from the Church for a variety of reasons. Nevertheless, the work that they did paved the way for the establishment of the Church in Africa. I want to tell you about how the Church got started in Mozambique, which, in a way, follows the same pattern. This story, however, testifies to me that the Lord is the master of history, and that He can, to quote Gordon B. Hinckley, "turn the hand and the work of the adversary to the good and the blessing of many of God's children." How the Church got started in Mozambique makes me also believe that maybe the Lord has a divine sense of irony or at least a sense of humor. But first, a little bit of historical context. Mozambique was a Portuguese colony until 1975, when it won its independence. It soon adopted a Marxist Leninist form of socialism and began to associate closely with the Soviet Union. A civil war began soon after Independence and lasted until 1992. It was a proxy war--East versus West in the Cold War era. It's estimated that a million people died from either the fighting or from starvation and malnutrition resulting from the war. In 1992, a cease-fire agreement was signed, and the war was over. Also in 1992, Church leaders traveled to Mozambique and found that there were small groups of people worshipping as Latter-day Saints. In one remote village, they had even built their own meetinghouse. The would-be Latter-day Saints in Beira, Mozambique, even created a stamp that they used for their official documents, and here's a photo of what it looks like on paper. Notice the cross in the middle. How did this would-be Latter-day Saints get there? We have the Communists to thank for that. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, after Mozambique became an independent nation, it began to send young students to eastern block nations and to Cuba for training. This training consisted of opportunities for vocational and university education. An underlying desire was to educate and indoctrinate a generation of loyal communists. In 1982, 13-year-old Chico Mapenda left his hometown of Beira, Mozambique, for the German Democratic Republic, commonly called East Germany, where he finished his basic education and received technical training as a welder. In 1989, after moving to a new city in northern East Germany, while looking for a branch of his church, Chico noticed a sign advertising a video presentation about the Book of Mormon. He went in to see the movies, but the missionaries decided to teach an English lesson instead. Chico stayed for the free lesson, the missionaries gave him a Portuguese Book of Mormon, and he began to read it. In an interview, he said: "I decided to start reading it, but it left me really confused. I was a religious person, but I knew only personages from the Bible. But I kept reading it, and the missionaries took my address. I decided to keep reading the book, and then I felt the power of God telling me that the book contained the word of God. From then on, I started to have a testimony." That was 1989, the year the Berlin Wall fell. On the 14th of January, 1990, Chico was baptized. Shortly after Chico's baptism, Germany was reunited. Many of the foreigners in East Germany returned to their homelands, as the former German Democratic Republic began to transition to democracy and their socialist support dried up. Chico went back to Mozambique. Soon after arriving in his homeland, Chico began to share his new religion with his family and friends. His brother Gimo--Gimo wears the blue shirt and Chico has the white shirt--was working as a minister in a Protestant congregation, and he was one of Chico's earliest followers. The Mapenda brothers began to organize small groups of unbaptized Latter-day Saints. They served as traveling ministers for these congregations. Chico had the Aaronic Priesthood, and Gimo hadn't even been baptized. In November 1991, the Elder Earl C. Tingey, a member of the Africa Area Presidency, visited Mozambique and reported that Chico was leading and teaching groups of up to 150 people. Five years later--this is before missionaries arrived--Elder James O. Mason, also a member of the Africa Area Presidency, visited Beira and organized the first official LDS group. He authorized the first baptisms. Gimo Mapenda was finally baptized. Missionaries living in Zimbabwe were given the responsibility to make periodic trips into Mozambique in order to care for these new converts, and finally, on the 30th of January 1999, nine years after Chico Mapenda was baptized, the Beira branch was officially organized. When I was there in May 2000, the first four full-time elders and first missionary couple were still in the country. The young missionaries had just returned from that remote village where Chico's father-in-law lived. Chico had taught his father-in-law, Francisco Dique Sousa, who returned to his village and formed six or seven congregations of unbaptized Latter-day Saints who were waiting and praying for the missionaries. In four days, the missionaries taught 69 first discussions when they went up to this village. People waited all day outside of the huts where the missionaries were teaching, just to hear the first discussion. Shortly after I got back from that trip, I got a letter from one of the missionaries, who said that they had returned to that village, and in 3 1/2 days had taught 21 more discussions. Many in this remote village were eventually baptized. Today, after only 15 years since the first missionaries arrived, there are approximately 7,000 Latter-day Saints in Mozambique. The country has its own mission, and just two months ago, the first stake in Mozambique was organized. A great work is going forth in Mozambique, and how did it all get started? At the invitation of a communist government. I find it wonderfully ironic that Chico Mapenda was supposed to enter the communist world to become a dyed-in-the-wool socialist, but instead he became a Latter-day Saint and the man who, in many ways, is responsible for the establishment of the Church in Mozambique. The communist leaders in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe tried to suppress religion. The Soviets blew up ancient Orthodox Church buildings or turned them into barns or swimming pools. Priests were sent to Siberia or simply shot. Faithful people in Eastern Europe were often persecuted, including the handful of Latter-day Saints who lived behind the Berlin Wall in East Germany. But this did not stop the work of the Lord from progressing, and from the era of oppression in Eastern Europe arose the beginnings of the Church in Mozambique. Maybe there's a lesson in this for all of us. Sometimes the strange situations and seemingly impossible events in our lives turn out to be great blessings if we have the eyes of faith to see. I think of these lines from one of our hymns, "God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform. His purposes will ripen fast, unfolding every hour. The bud may have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower." In my mind, this story and so many other similar stories bear witness to the scripture found in Jacob 4. "Behold, great and marvelous are the works of the Lord. How unsearchable are the depths of the mysteries of him, and it is impossible that man should find out all his ways." There are many other similar stories that I could tell, but I need to move on to the next revolutionary topic. Elder Dallin H. Oaks in October 2014 general conference said: "We are to live in the world, but not be of the world. We must live in the world because, as Jesus taught in a parable, His kingdom is like leaven, whose function is to raise the whole mass by its influence." In this next section, I want to consider how the gospel is raising African Society and think about the potential for it to raise the entire world. I had the opportunity to record an interview with Elder Richard P. Lindsay, who was the first president of the Africa Area. One of his priorities was to maintain the purity of the doctrine. As the Church was just getting started in many nations, there was always the possibility of non-LDS beliefs and practices creeping into the Church, which is often defined as syncretism. I recorded interviews with some of the first missionary couples who had to contend with members in these early congregations, wanting to have drumming and dancing in their meetings, passing the plate, or having a very charismatic person lead the congregation as a Pentecostal minister would. I've even found evidence that there was, before the revelation on the priesthood, a woman in Ghana, Rebecca Mould, who was known as apostle, president, and even prophetess. And this slide is a letter, dated 1972, addressed to the Prophetess Rebecca Mould signed by the Presiding Bishop, Dr. Reverend A. F. Mensah. They did the best they could with the knowledge they had. Those kinds of practices, in many ways, were fairly easy to confront. Correct principles relating to LDS meeting standards and practices were taught to the first generation converts and quickly adopted. There are, however, deeper traditions of the world that are more difficult to get rid of, and one of these has to do with the treatment of women. And the amazing thing is to witness just how revolutionary LDS doctrine related to women is in Africa, where women are often considered second-class citizens. Back in 1998, I was preparing for my first trip to West Africa. As part of my preparation, I interviewed Larry B. Duke, who had recently returned from Ghana, where he had been Mission President. I went to his home in Heber, Utah, for this oral history, and while I was in his study, I saw the usual array of African souvenirs--carved animals, kente cloth, etc. But there were two statues that really caught my eye. It was a statue of a man and a woman. So here's a young woman who is likely illiterate or under-educated, pregnant, carrying an infant on her back, having another toddler tug at her leg, and carrying a heavy load on her head. And standing off to the side, not doing much of anything to help, is her husband, or the man in her life. President Duke said that this was the plight of many West African women. I was so moved by these statues that when I got to Ghana, I did two things. I got in touch with the artist and commissioned a set of these statues for myself, which are now in my office, and I used President Duke's comments to add some questions to my interview outlines. And I've continued to ask these questions over the past 16 years. One of these questions deals with the place of women in Society. The other one has to do with marriage practices. From the interviews that I've recorded, I've learned that the wordly tradition or perspective in many parts of Africa is that women are inferior. In an interview I recorded in 2005 with one of the earliest converts in Aba, Nigeria--a woman--I learned the following about the African way of doing things. Sister Fortune Okwandu said: "Anyway, the truth--you know, we are for the truth. The truth is that in Nigerian society, women are treated as second hands, and that is the truth. If anybody tells you other things--no. The women are treated a little bit under trodden."

Women's lot in life is to do all the hard work and maintain the family while the man stands back and does whatever he wants to do. And this is sometimes reinforced by the tradition of bride price, or the dowry, known commonly in many places in Africa as lobolo. I believe that the doctrines of our Church provide women with a set of revolutionary beliefs that have the power to change their worlds and to liberate them, thereby making the meaningful exercise of agency possible. In other words, the gospel gives women the power to act and not to be acted upon. So what are those revolutionary doctrines that provide liberation to women and take them and their husbands and sons out of the world and into the light of the Lord? I have a short list of quotes that represent some facet of LDS theology that has this power to liberate. This is certainly not a comprehensive list. Rather, these short quotations are a starting point. So listen to these and see if you can recognize where they come from. Each of us is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and as such, each has a divine nature and destiny--the Proclamation on the Family.

We are daughters of Heavenly Father who loves us and we love Him--Young Women theme.

Husband and wife have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other and for their children--Proclamation.

Fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners--Proclamation.

This one's a little harder, the next one. I will continually seek opportunities for learning and growth. It's one of the Young Women values--knowledge--and the color is green.

So see if you know where this one comes from. "A new celestial culture is developing in homes, nurtured by the ready hearkening to the counsel of the living prophet. As a result, many are able to break free from the shackles of traditions that restrict the exercise of their agency. As an illustration from personal experience, three of our children were recently married in the temple without the encumbrance of dowry."

Elder Joseph Sitati--in his first general conference address in 2009, and he just spoke this past weekend. So did you catch the reference to shackles and agency? And what about dowry? Dowry is not something that we generally think about here in America. However, Elder Sitati's reference was a clear signal to Church members in Africa that changes are still needed. Let me talk for a brief moment about the notion of the dowry and some of the LDS revolution not to participate. Back when I was a teenager in seminary, I was introduced to the idea of the dowry by none other than Johnny Lingo and Mohanna. Theirs was the classic ugly duckling story, where the homely woman becomes a 10-cow wife. And thanks to those 10 cows, Mohanna turns beautiful, acquires tons of self-esteem, and lives happily ever after with Johnny in their tropical paradise. This story was intended to teach self-esteem through proper self-perception made possible by love. Well, I've met and interviewed people in Africa who have participated in the dowry. The husbands seemed burdened by it, and not many of the 10-cow women felt like Mohanna. In fact, it seemed that the whole system was somewhat negative, expensive, and even degrading. One of the consequences of the lobolo practice is that men postpone marriage, often living with women and testing them to see if they can bear children, preferably sons. Also, this practice can make women feel like they are owned by their husbands and their husbands' families, and that they have been sold by their families. They are often made to feel like second-class citizens and are treated as such. This is the tradition against which Elder Sitati spoke in his first general conference address. In an interview that I recorded with him after the talk, I asked about the dowry, and he explained that in times past, before the colonial powers took over East Africa, the dowry was a way of economically binding families. Extended family members would all chip in a cow or a goat, fully understanding that these assets would at some point be returned to them as other marriages in the village or area occurred. However, after colonial powers introduced a new and different economic system, the dowry became about acquiring wealth, and the woman became the bargaining chip. The more educated she was, the higher the price. Imagine the liberation that is offered by our Church's revolutionary way of thinking about marriage and family in Africa as suggested by those statements from the Family Proclamation, the Young Women program, and by Elder Sitati. So returning to my list of basic doctrinal quotes, what do these doctrines represent, and what are the results in the lives of LDS women? As I see it, they are positive, liberating , and make meaningful agency possible. A few of the positive results may be one, self-esteem based on a belief of divine destiny, unconditional love, and sincere gratitude--self-reliance through education, time and energy to be human based on shared responsibilities in the home, and freedom from worldly traditions that bind women to second-class status. So with that in mind, let me conclude with two quotes from interviews I recorded with West African women, and see if you can catch the spirit of this LDS revolution. Back in 2000, I interviewed Monica Opare, whose husband was one of the first Area Authorities Seventies called in West Africa. I asked her about the status of women and the dowry and I love what she said. "Some other things like marriage, dowries, big dowries--people have to pay before they can get married. I personally feel that it is wrong. I have been telling my sisters in my ward that the only dowry I'm going to ask for for my daughter is a temple recommend." In 1999, I was in Lagos, Nigeria, where I interviewed Sister Florence Chukwurah, who had graduated from college with a degree in nursing, had lived in the United States, had served as a leader in Young Women and Relief Society, and who had been a mission president's wife, which meant that she gave a lot of training to women in districts and branches. When I walked into her home, I was surprised to see that she had a set of these statues on her table. So naturally, I asked her about the status of women in West Africa, and here's her answer. And when she refers to "Third World," she named the woman here in this picture--that statue--third world. "African men think that they are above women, generally speaking. But when they have the gospel, they treat their wives differently. They show more love, more respect, and more regard for the mother of their children. I remember there was a time I gave a talk. I had to go with this Third World," and she pointed to the statue. "I was giving a talk on the family, and I went with my Third World. You'd see the woman with the load on her head, the child strapped behind, carrying a child in her tummy. Where's the husband? He couldn't do something? I think the men enjoyed it when I said, let's not be like this woman. Let us treat women with love and gentleness because we deserve it." Coming back to Elder Oaks's conference talk and the notion of leaven raising an entire society. Imagine the huge, huge changes that are occurring as people embrace the gospel and leave the traditions of the world behind.

OK, I want to conclude with a few of my favorite topics--home teaching. And who doesn't love home teaching--and the temple? On my first trip to Ghana, I met and interviewed a newly called stake president named Charles Sono-Koree. Before his baptism, in his own words, he was a man of the world. He had worked at a brewery before becoming an entrepreneur. His wife had found the Church and was very interested in it. At first, Charles avoided the missionaries. He had a very cynical view of religion. However, he finally came around, was taught, and agreed to be baptized. He and his family were baptized in December 1987. He had a testimony, but his faith was small and in need of nurturing. A short year after the Sono-Korees were baptized, the government of Ghana banned the Church from operating. It locked up the meeting houses, arrested a few Latter-day Saints, and deported the senior expatriate missionaries. And this is a page from the passport of one of those missionaries, who was serving with his wife in Ghana. Noticed the big Deported sign on his passport. And on the other side of the passport is the deportation notice. This period became known as the freeze. Brother Sono-Koree, being young in the gospel, may have fallen victim to inactivity and even apostasy at this time, but he remained faithful. I asked him what kept him in the Church during this period when it was illegal for Church members to congregate, and this was his reply. "My home teacher was very, very, very strong. He visited, even during the time of the freeze. He always came with his vehicle, took the whole family to his house, and we'd hold our sacrament meeting with him in his home. After that, he refreshed us. We'd sit in his home and learn about the scriptures or discuss any of our concerns, and then in the evening he'd bring us back home." I asked who that home teacher was, and it was Brother [INAUDIBLE] Hammond. Since that time, Brother Sono-Koree has served as a bishop, a stake president, and was the first West African to serve as a counselor in the Accra Ghana Temple presidency. His faithful home teacher has made a huge difference. So let me conclude with a few short thoughts about the power of the temple. South Africa, with its legacy of legal discrimination, known as Apartheid, has struggled to unify as a nation. I believe that we may have the answer when it comes to healing those wounds. Back in 1995, I had the privilege of being part of an interview with Julia Mavimbela, and this is the same Julia Mavimbela that Elder Dale Renlund mentioned in his general conference talk on Saturday. Julia was born in South Africa in 1917. She acquired the education necessary to qualify as a teacher. In 1940, she became a school principal. In 1976, during political unrest in South Africa, she sold the family business to focus on the needs of children. She began using gardening to teach literacy and responsibility to children in Soweto. Through acts of reclamation and gardening came lessons of social healing. Where there is a blood stain, she taught, a beautiful flower must grow. On the 4th of November 1991, only two months after the repeal of the apartheid laws in South Africa, she was elected as the first Black woman to be vice president of the National Council of Women for South Africa. My companion interviewer that day, Francine Bennion, asked this question, "Tell me about what difference you think the temple has made to the people in your area." Sister Mavimbela said this: "I'm grateful to be working in the temple. I take two days each week, meeting people of all colors and races. It has become one of our best meeting places, and it has humbled many people, and at times we least expected. There is no touch of Afrikaner. There is no English. There is no Situ nor Zulu. You know that feeling of oneness. You find it in the temple, and it has been a real blessing for us in Africa to have a temple." Finally, I want to show you a video clip containing the story of Clara Cooper, who lived through the Liberian Civil War. This video was shot by a Park City woman named Jill Johnson, who was asked by the Africa West Area Presidency to capture some of the pioneer stories. [VIDEO PLAYBACK] - Clara Cooper also recalls the hardships of wartime. - During the war, 1990, there was no food in Liberia.

Everybody was going here and there searching for food. We couldn't find no food for anybody. As a result, we would go in the bushes looking for leaves, bush yam to sustain our family. As we go in the bushes to get the food, the stray bullet who gave chase. We should be bending down, lying down on the floor to get a safe cross to go in the bushes for food. My husband couldn't go out because they were looking for men to kill. So he used to stay home, are I go out there to search for food. At the time, I was pregnant. Because of my legs swelling up, they used to give me problems. Sometimes when I walked, I would sit a little bit to gain a little strength. We were living on water, and as I moved about, I made sure I drank enough water to carry me through for that day to find something for my family. Then a friend came to me and told me that at Hotel Africa they can feed children, but not you, the mother. So I said, I will go there. I was pregnant. I put Willy on my back. The one who is serving a mission today, I put on my shoulders, and the older one who was eight years at that time, I would hold his hand. I woke up around 4:00 in the morning to get ready to go to Hotel Africa. [MUSIC PLAYING]

- As God would have it, I delivered and gave birth. After two months--the child was two months at that time, and she passed away.

And my oldest son that I had, at that time he was seven years old. Because of no food, he, too, passed away. And the two children died. The little girl died Saturday, and my son died Monday, within the same course of days. It was terrible for me at that time. It wasn't easy. I just fell down. I had no hope. There was no food and my two children died, and only I, the woman, could go out for food. I just felt that there was no way at all in life. [MUSIC PLAYING]

- I used to have a dream of my son. Each time he comes in my dream, he always asks: "I'm waiting for you. Go! I'm waiting for you." I said, "Where am I going?" He said: "Just go. I am waiting for you." All the time. Each time I had the dream, I woke up and told my husband this is the dream I had. He always tells me we should go, but I don't know. He says where we should go. So we prayed that the Lord would tell us where he wants for us to go.

- Some years later, Clara and her husband were able to attend the Johannesburg temple in South Africa.

- It was a wonderful time for me. And When I went to the temple in Johannesburg, after I had done the sealing process, the baptism and marriage in the temple, I was sitting with my daughter that came with me. She was five months old. So I was sitting in the nursery room, taking care of her. And just within a time I was between sleep and awake, I just bowed my head like this. And my son who died, coming to me with running.

When he came, he embraced me like this: "Oh, mama, thank you. I'm free now." From that day, up until this present, I never dreamed of him again. [END PLAYBACK] This story is moving, but also testifies to a principle that Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin taught in his last general conference address on the principle of compensation. He said: "The Lord compensates the faithful for every loss. That which is taken away from those who love the Lord will be added onto them in his own way. While it may not come at a time that we desire, the faithful will know that every tear today will eventually be returned a hundredfold with tears of rejoicing and gratitude. One of the blessings of the gospel is the knowledge that when the curtain of death signals the end of our mortal lives, life will continue on the other side of the veil. There we will be given new opportunities. Not even death can take from us the eternal blessings promised by a loving Heavenly Father. Because Heavenly Father is merciful, a principle of compensation prevails." What an amazing truth that is, and think of what that means to each of us. So let me conclude by returning to my least favorite chapter in the Book of Mormon, Jacob chapter 5. That long chapter ends with a call to action and an interesting thought. And think of what this means for us and for our brothers and sisters in Africa. "Wherefore, go to, and call servants, that we may labor diligently with our might in the vineyard. Graft in the branches. Begin at the last that may be first, and that the first may be last, and dig about the trees, both old and young--the first and the last and the last in the first--that all may be nourished once again for the last time. And the branches of the natural tree while I graft into the natural branches of the tree. And thus will I bring them together again that they shall bring forth the natural fruit, and they shall be one. And thus they labored with all diligence, according to the commandments of the Lord of the vineyard, even until the Lord had preserved unto himself that the trees had become again the natural fruit. And they became like unto one body, and the fruits were equal. And the Lord of the vineyard had preserved unto himself the natural fruit, which was most precious unto him from the beginning." I believe that we are witnessing this as the Church continues to grow and spread across Africa--the nethermost part of the Lord's vineyard. And I say this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. OK, questions--and only the easy ones. Mine is not a question. I witnessed all of this in a mission with my husband in Nigeria, Africa in Aba. We were there for the groundbreaking of the Aba temple, and I witnessed all of this. It is all true. It's all true. Thank you.

Brothers and sisters, I'm so very happy to be here. This is not really a question. I just want to make a few remarks. My name is Imar Ashet. I live in North Carolina--Greensboro. I come to Salt Lake City every April and October to help in the translation of general conference into African languages.

I've been a member of the Church since 1994, getting to 21 years. I have five children, three sons and two daughters, and all three sons have served missions in Springfield, Missouri; D.C.; and Lagos, Nigeria. I know that all that Brother Matthew Heiss has said this evening is very true, and I believe that this meeting is about me. And that's why I'm so very happy to be here. And I only got wind of this meeting yesterday as I prepared to come over for the translation of the conference, because we do it post conference. I determined that I will be here once I got to Salt Lake, and here I am, and I am very happy. And the Church, not in this dispensation--right from the time of our Lord Jesus Christ has always been in Africa. So Africa dates back in the history of the gospel. You remember that Africa played host to the Lord when his adversaries wanted to kill him as a baby, so he went to Egypt and was hidden there. And when the Lord was about to be crucified, it was an African that happened to carry his cross. And after that, there was a guy who was his Apostle--Philip--and he was proselyting. And one day he come about an Ethiopian eunuch on the road and he was reading the gospel. And Philip approached him and said, "Do you know what you are reading?" And he said, "How could I know without somebody to instruct me?" I'm just paraphrasing. And he received instruction from Apostle Philip. And then they got to a body of water, and the Ethiopian eunuch said: "Look, here is water. What does [INAUDIBLE] need to be baptized?" And he was baptized and he took the gospel to his land. Today in Ethiopia, if you go to Ethiopia, you will find churches that are older than some churches in Europe and even in the Americas. So we have always been very interested in the gospel. It is true that we have problems, as Brother Matthew has said. I am a victim of one of those problems. I used to be a professor in Nigeria, and because of the situation, I spoke out against the military regimes, and then I was kicked out. So I came over to the United States. I have my wife, and we've been doing the best we can. We have been pioneers in the Church in Nigeria, and I was very lucky to be taught by some elders--senior couple of missionaries who came from the United States to work in Nigeria. I held some leadership positions, and so did my wife. We have reasons to be grateful for the Church in Africa, and I think that the gospel and the temples in Africa are doing a great deal to mitigate the disaster that would have become of the entire continent. I strongly believe that Nigeria is still one nation today because of the temple in Accra, and I strongly believe that there was no catastrophe in South Africa because of the presence of the temple in Johannesburg. The good influences of the temple have continued to permeate the entire continent at one time. I really believe that the gospel is the only hope for the continent of Africa, and I have reasons to say that. My grandfather married 36 wives. He had well over 70 children, and he was look it was easier it was a chief priest of a divining cult. And in those days, twins used to be killed in Africa. My father was born a twin. And my grandfather faced a dilemma. He was a big chief--faced dilemma. He had, as we heard from Brother Matthew--he had so many female children daughters, and the sons only started coming in when he was very old. And here he was blessed with twins. And he had been presiding over the killing of other twins, and so he was instructed to kill these twin boys. And this dilemma was such that I don't know how he resolved it, but this is part of the family history. Mysteriously, my grandmother died, and my father survived. He died along with the other twin boy. So somehow my grandfather figured out a way to deal with that situation. And here I am today, and my father never knew who the mother was, but he survived it. The interesting thing is that my grandfather later on turned around and said look, this religion I am practicing is not the religion of the future. On his deathbed, he called his children and said, I don't want you to take after me. I do not want you to take after me. This--my religion, tradition Africa religion--served my purpose. Now, the missionaries came to Nigeria and started building schools. I wanted to go to that religion. And when I was six years old--six or seven, in 1966--I lived with an uncle who encouraged education, because education is the only window out of the poverty so far as I know in Africa. And those of us who don't have anything, we just try to get as much education as possible so that we can turn around and bless the lives of other people in the continent. So my uncle used to subscribe to Reader's Digest, and he will read it and drop it around so that I, too, would read. He wanted to encourage me to read. So one day I read the Reader's Digest. I came across the story of Joseph Smith, and I was so excited. So I took the book to him and said: "Uncle, you see? This guy saw God and His Son, Jesus Christ." My uncle turned around and said: "You don't mind these crazy Americans. Nobody ever sees God or the Lord Jesus Christ. So don't worry about it. Don't worry about your story." So I forgot about this story. But 40 years after, someone handed me the Book of Mormon, and I said: "I remember this book. I remember this book"--and started thinking about it. And the man who gave me the book was a minister of Presbyterian Church. So I asked him, "What do you know about this?" "Oh, don't worry about these Americans. They have everything. They even have a religion, have their own Bible. And don't worry about the Book of Mormon." So I said, "OK." I read it just like literature, and then gave it back to him. Then one day, my wife, who used to love to go to church--because I was so disillusioned with going to church because people using it and making money in Africa, so I didn't want to be part of it. But my wife used to love going to church. We had a Volkswagen Beetle, a little car. So she would load our children into the car and drive around from one church to another looking for the truth--unconsciously, without seeing it. So one day she landed in a chapel of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Then she came back all fired up with the children. Said: "Listen, we found a Church. We want you to come and listen." And I said to her: "Lavina, remember we had an agreement. You can go to all the churches you want, but don't bring church talk or anything to the house. So I'm not coming." But my kids--my first daughter, she was four years old--she insisted that I needed to go to that Church. And being the only daughter I had at the time, she had me wrapped around her finger. So I made a promise that OK, just to let her let me live my life, I will go to the Church with you on Sunday. I thought she would forget it, but she didn't. That Sunday she got my shoes and got me ready to go to Church. So I went. When I went there, it was just a congregation of about 15 people. And there was a young returned missionary who was everything. He blessed the sacrament, he passed the sacrament, he did everything. And the rest of the people were mostly investigators. So I looked at him. I was surprised at what he was doing, so I asked him, "How much do you get paid for all this?" He said nothing--that he just does it for the Lord. I couldn't believe it. So he said to me: "If you will come and join us, you will find out what the truth is. You'll do what I'm doing, and you won't get paid, and you'll still love it." So I decided to take the challenge, and we became members of the Church. That was in 1994. And I found out for sure that I saw what was lacking in my country--leadership. I saw it in that young man. He was barely 23 years old, and he was doing what I'd never seen in the country before--volunteering, saving people--just for the love of it. So we became members of the Church. And fortunately, we had the missionaries--senior missionaries--who came out from United States to help us. And he's talking about faith. My wife--one of the first testimonies I had about the Church was faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We had a piano in our little branch, but there was nobody to play. And so the senior missionaries called my wife to play the piano, and my wife didn't know anything about the piano. And the couple missionaries--the sister missionary herself who was called to teach her--did not know anything about music. So she would sit with my wife on the piano. She would be reading the musical scores and telling my wife what to do. But tell you what, brothers and sisters. In the night, my wife would go to sleep, and she would have dreams of someone teaching her to play the piano. And in that dream, she started practicing how to play the piano, until eventually she was able to play during sacrament meeting. And she would tell me about these dreams. One day I will go with her here, and I didn't believe it until I saw her actually playing the piano. Even the sister missionary herself was very surprised. So brothers and sisters, we need education in Africa, both spiritual and secular education. I write for a Church-related website called NauvooTimes.com, and my column is known as the "African Voice". If you go there, you will see some of my articles. My general editor is a Brother Scott Card. You probably know him very well. I try to tell African stories about the presence of the Church in Africa, and I invite you to go to that website and see for yourself what the Church is doing in Africa. What he says about women is very true. But let us see Brother Matthew has today as King Benjamin. He has given us a discourse--a very powerful discourse. Let us have a mighty change of heart. We can walk outside--we can walk along with an outside choice channels to bring greater light to the people of Africa, because we are really suffering from under education, lack of education, superstition--it's killing the entire place. As I sit in the United States, I'm a political refugee, but I'm trying to build a school in my village so that people who go to school--so that people who read the Bible--my maternal grandfather was a big chief, but he couldn't read. But he was interested in the stories that missionaries told him, so he went and bought a Bible. Even though he couldn't read, he would hold the Bible in his hands, and people would be mocking him. "What are you doing with that book you carry? People read the book with their eyes. You are reading yours with your nose." And he sent his son to school, and his son came back and taught him how to read and write. And the information that he has about his family is what I use today for family history. So brothers and sisters, I know this is true, and I know that the Church will do great, great things in Africa. And I say that humbly in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ, amen. Amen. How many members, how many missions, and how many temples in Africa? I don't know, but I know where you can find out. There's cumorah.com, and there are a couple of websites. The Mormon Newsroom I think has those stats. They might be a year off. In terms of temples, of course we just had one announced this past Sunday for Ivory Coast, which is awesome. There are two announced for Durban, South Africa, and Kinshasa. There's one in Johannesburg, one in Aba, Nigeria, and one in Ghana. So three functioning temples, three either announced or under construction. I know the temples. I don't know missions or number of missionaries. Sorry. Yeah, from your perspective some missions in Africa are baptizing many more than other missions. Why is that? Like you referenced DR Congo and the influence of the Catholic church, the Dutch Reformed Church, the Anglican Church on these people. Is there any correlation on how they are being baptized along with what was the influential Church in those areas? That's another one of the hard ones, and I said only easy questions. I don't know that I have a good answer for that. I'm sure there's a lot of mission presidents over there that have that same answer when they compare what's going on in DR Congo as opposed to South Africa. I do know this though--that we have a debt of gratitude to those Catholic, Protestant, Dutch Reformed missionaries who went there for centuries and spent their time preparing the people--teaching them about Christ. There are Christian nations there, and it's those people who are joining our Church. That's the best answer I can give on that one. I might be able to answer part of that question. We just returned last year from Uganda on a mission there.

The mission president--we were fortunate to have two mission presidents when we were there. The mission president before pushed baptisms very much. Now the Church as a whole is trying to recover. One of the problems that we had in Uganda was people didn't have food. So when they had--had were in the city or close to the chapel, they would be converted and go to Church. Then they'd run out of money and then have to go back to their village, which was too far for them to come into Church. So we lost a lot of members that way, but they were still active. And so the focus today is they're not letting the missionaries go out teaching long ways away--center of strength. And that's the reason for that. We had many--and I won't take any more of your time. We had several villages where they begged us to come out to their groups. We had a group that was close to Tororo, Uganda, who they were--actually the whole congregation wanted to be converted the gospel. But we just did not have the manpower to support them in their group. So we had them--each week they were teaching out of the Gospel Principles book. Awesome. A very brief comment. I have a great love for the African nation, and I'm glad that you've mentioned about early Christians teaching there. I'm actually a descendant of two of the pioneers from the London Missionary Society--and this is prior to the Restoration of the gospel--that went to the Mascarene islands--Madagascar and Mauritius--and taught Christianity. And my understanding is that it's a dark continent because it lacked the spirituality, and they did not know of Christ. When David Livingstone, who was one of the very first Christian missionaries that went to Africa to open up the continent to Christianity, it was nothing to do with the color of skin. And I've read many, many letters from my ancestors back to the London Missionary Society, and I've never once heard anybody mention in the letters--this is going back to the late 1700s, early 1800s--mention the color of anybody's skin, to be honest. And their drive was they lost their families to Malagasy fever, and it was their great love of Christ that really helped this continent. And they started the first schools there. So I am thrilled to see the Church as it is growing now in Africa. And I follow it quite closely. As you can probably tell, I'm actually from England, so we were probably those that were the early settlers there in Africa. And all my family all along the southern route of Africa--I found many, many graves of my ancestors going back into the 1800s. So it's a wonderful country, and the people are wonderful, and there's a huge amount of work that needs to be done. So thank you so much. I agree. Thank you. Actually, it's not my question it's [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] Abelow. His name is Abelow--Abelow's question. And he wants me to ask it in English, because he only speaks French. So he is a recent convert. He just joined the Church in February here in the US as a visitor in the East Coast. And he wanted to come here for conference, because he heard that it's general conference time. And he decided to stay a few more days here, too, when he heard about this lecture. But he's going back to Africa in a few days--a few months. And he's from Burkina Faso, where there is no Church there. And so his question is, "Do you have any suggestions what he can do to support himself and keep that spiritual mind in himself until maybe the Church will get there one day? We don't know." Yeah. I have one thing. Are your ready to translate? I heard about Abelow from Jeff Chance, who sent me an email. And I passed that information on to Elder LeGrand Curtis, who's the President of the Africa West Area, who emailed me back and said that there are a handful of members in the capital city of Burkina Faso. And he wanted your email address, which I forwarded to him. And so I'm hoping that the Africa West Area Presidency--and I think it's the mission president in Cote d'Ivoire--is going to establish contact with you. I think that's the way it's going to happen. And I'm hoping that you're coming into the Church History Department next week for an interview. We've invited him in French. Not me.

But my question is are you aware of any stories or traditions in Africa about a great white God that might refer to Jesus Christ? No, I've never heard that. Nope. Oh, what's that? One more. Oh, there we go.

How's family history work treated in West Africa? I imagine it's kind of an oral tradition, but what about written records? It is, and I wish I knew more about that. This I can tell you. They do allow oral genealogy--people to do that and to produce temple cards. And there's a stake in Ivory Coast that is the third-most productive stake in terms of producing its own family names and taking them to the temple, which may be one of the reasons why they're getting a temple in Abidjan. I was talking to Brother Sono-Koree earlier this week, and he's really concerned that the use of the temple in Accra is going to go down when those Ivorians finally get their own temple and they can stay in their own country. So think of that--a stake in West Africa is the third-most productive stake in terms of family names. It's awesome--in the Church, the entire Church. Yeah. Thank you. [APPLAUSE]