Area Presidency Message
The Faith to be Self-Reliant
Didier returned from his mission as an orphan with no family or financial support. In the face of much discouragement, he relied on the Lord to help him find a trade and to build up his business.
If you consider the events of your life up to this point, you will acknowledge that unwavering commitment was behind every good thing that you have ever accomplished. In every case, you were driven by a firm belief that your goal was achievable. You were also confident that the way you were going about it would lead you to your goal, and this gave you the commitment to overcome obstacles that challenged you in your progress.
Such is the power of faith, which the Apostle Paul described as “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (see Hebrews 11:1). That is another way of saying that before we have received anything through our own efforts, we have exercised faith that we could get it, and we were committed and did the right things required to achieve it.
A true story of faith to become self-reliant that I find inspiring concerns a brother that I will call Didier (not his real name). Didier served in the Nigeria Calabar Mission at the time that I served there as mission president. When he completed his mission, Didier was serving as a zone leader. He was an obedient, quietly determined, and hard-working missionary. Both of Didier’s parents had passed away when he was young. At that point, he was taken into the custody of his maternal uncle, who raised him and introduced him to the Church. But before Didier completed his mission, his uncle was overcome by a terminal illness and passed away. Didier’s circumstances appeared bleak and desperate.
Returning home, and without any able members of his immediate family to turn to for help, Didier decided that he would continue to put his trust in the Lord who had sustained him up to that point. He decided to find out what he could do to move forward in his life. Through prayer, he got the impression to study what people who were self-reliant in his hometown were doing to sustain themselves. For several weeks, he walked the streets moving from shop to shop, observing the business that was going on, and how people were coming and going.
He reached the conclusion that he would likely live a reasonably good life as an electronics technician repairing TVs, radios, and other electronic equipment. The problem was that he had no skills, no money, and he did not know where to begin. Again, through prayer, he got the impression to ask the owner of one electronics repair shop, how he could get practical training to work as a technician. The man told Didier he could train him for about two years at a fee.
Excited, he contacted his ward self-reliance specialist and asked to be considered for a Perpetual Education Fund loan so he could get the money to pay the shop owner and obtain the training he believed would help him earn enough to meet his temporal needs. Then came his major disappointment. The specialist explained to him that PEF loans were only given for recognized training institutions, and loan money could only be paid directly to the bank account of the training institution. The shop owner was not a registered training institution and did not have a bank account. Didier was at a dead end.
But Didier had observed the goings on at the shop long enough to know that this was a good business if he would work hard. Moreover, he was drawn to the work and admired how a non-functioning TV could suddenly be brought back to life. In this moment of intense discouragement and apparent hopelessness, he again turned to the Lord in prayer. The impression came to go back to the shop owner, explain to him his situation, and offer to enter into an apprenticeship contract that he would pay for after he had completed his training and started working. He did not know how the shop owner would respond, but he decided to try. After deep reflection, the shop owner accepted his proposal on the condition that Didier provide a character reference, which he gladly did.
Two years later, Didier—now with his wife, another returned missionary, at his side—completed his practical apprenticeship as an electronics repair technician. He developed a strong relationship of trust with his trainer, who also became his mentor. Didier was a good student and an asset to the shop. The shop owner offered to hire him as an employee, which Didier gladly accepted. This gave him the opportunity to immediately start paying what he owed for his apprenticeship.
A year later, Didier felt that he knew enough to start his own business. With what he had saved from his employment earnings, he rented a small shed in another part of town. As he had become known to several good clients while working with his trainer and mentor, his business picked up steadily. After two years, he had saved enough money to buy a 40-foot container which was going for a bargain. He rented a plot where he placed the container and moved his repair shop to the new premises. In another year, he bought the plot on which his repair shop stood.
Didier was now his own man, feeling in full control of his life, and deeply grateful to the Lord for sustaining him as he waded through uncertain territory in his life.
During the last year and a half, the Covid-19 pandemic has caused much disruption to our lives. It may have severely tested the foundation you have painstakingly tried to build for years and undermined your sense of being in control of your life, spiritually and temporally. It may have prevented you from even making a start.
My hope and invitation is that despite the gloom of the past 18 months, and of anything else the world might throw at you to try to destroy your hope, you will not let go of your faith. I hope that you will draw inspiration from the experience of Didier, a young man whom I came to know and who, under conditions that could have allowed despair to rule his life, decided to trust in the Lord and to go forward despite the overwhelming weight of his discouragements. Today, Didier serves as a stake high counsellor, and he and his family stand independent. He is confident that if he does his part, the Lord will see him through any challenge that he may face.
“Self-reliance is the ability, commitment, and effort to provide the spiritual and temporal necessities of life for self and family.”1
The prophet Ether taught that “by faith all things are fulfilled—
“Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God” (Ether 12:3–4).
May you and I have faith to determine that, with the Lord’s help, and “notwithstanding the tribulation which shall descend upon [the world] . . . [we shall] stand independent above all other creatures beneath the celestial world” (D&C 78:14).
Joseph W. Sitati was sustained as a General Authority Seventy in April 2009. He is married to Gladys Nangoni; they are the parents of five children.