Member Voices
Now Is the Time to Preach the Gospel
In February 2017, my sister, and best friend, Sharon Mabuku, passed away while I was in boarding school. My twin brother and I received a message from the vice principal that our parents wanted to meet us on the way home. Most of our classmates walked with us to the school gate. They knew of the sad news about the death of my sister though they never told us that they knew. Instead, they only put on smiling faces.
The journey back home was not one to remember. We stopped at a small town called Mvuma because of a funeral car that overtook, and stopped, in front of the car we boarded. Suddenly I saw my father coming out of that same car. He walked to the car we were in and paid the driver. In a few minutes, a bus came by, and my father, with a sad face and red eyes full of tears, asked if we could get onto the bus. Tears started to stream down our faces as we boarded the bus and sat down by my mother. She then told us, “Be like men my children, be strong. She is gone.”
I cried because I was not able to see my sister during the viewing. Questions started to flow into my mind: Does God really exist? If so, why did He not answer our prayers? Instead, God answered my sister’s prayer when she cried, “Father, take my soul, I’m in pain.”
After that cry, everyone who was in the room stopped praying and saw Sharon pass away.
After finishing ordinary level a year later, I started to think about my future. One day while I was in bed listening to music, I decided to continue studying business management, but then felt a prompting to preach the gospel. I quickly brushed it off from my mind because at that moment, I was studying commercials. To preach the gospel was one thing I desired, but at that moment the subjects I studied were only leading me to business and there was no way I was going to be enrolled in Bible school.
In 2019, one of my closest friends invited me to join a discussion with the missionaries when they were teaching his little sister. I turned down the offer many times because they were learning outdoors—I didn’t want to have others see I was learning with the missionaries. My friend then said, “Today we will go inside,” to which I agreed.
During our first meeting, we discussed the first principle in the first lesson. Everything they were saying I agreed with, such as “God is your loving Heavenly Father, He knows you personally,” and other things like that. The problem came when the missionaries said, “God has a body of flesh and bone that is perfect.” My friend’s little sister agreed, but I did not. They tried to help me, but I refused to change my view. Before the lesson ended, they invited me to read, pray, and come to Church. I accepted their invitation.
They then gave me an example that, “if I were selling TVs and there is one customer that wants to come and buy a certain TV but doesn’t have money at the moment, the customer might ask if I can keep the TV till tomorrow when she would come and then be able to buy. She would always repeat the same statement every day for months without purchasing the TV. And then another customer comes with money. Will you sell the TV to the second customer?” I replied, “No, I will keep the TV for the first customer.” Later, I changed my mind and said, “I will sell it to the second customer.” The missionaries then told me that it’s just the same with them. If I do not keep the commitments, they will stop coming to me and focus on other people who are keeping commitments.
When I heard these words, my desire to learn the restored gospel was triggered. “Why do they want me to learn this gospel so much?” I asked myself. After the first meeting, my friend asked me, “Why were you making this lesson hard to understand?” He continued, “Just give them time and listen to them.”
My friend’s little sister heeded the missionaries during the lesson. I then recognized that I was not humble enough. From that day I humbled myself to the missionaries because of my good friend and his little sister.
I tried to keep the commitments. The days I still remember vividly are, first, a day I was asked to study 3 Nephi 11:1–17. In our next appointment they asked what I learned from the chapter, I then recited most of the verses I had read. Second, one day I was invited to attend a baptismal service. On the morning of the baptismal service, I was busy playing video games with my friends and when I realized that I was short on time I ran to the chapel that was about a mile away. “We thought you were not coming,” the missionaries said when they saw me. I never missed the sacrament because of the example the sister missionaries gave to me. It was a good time to learn the restored gospel with the sister missionaries.
I was baptized on 2 November 2019. In early 2021, I started to prepare my mission papers which was kind of rough. One thing that increased my desire and testimony happened when I had less than five days before I left on my mission. I was coming from my bishop’s house with a gift he gave me. I decided to show it to my mother and sister. I was about to leave them when my sister called me back. She asked, “Do you still remember when you were young what you said you wanted to do when you grow up?” And I replied, “to be a businessman,” then she said, “No, that was and is your twin brother’s dream and he is now going to study economics in university. You said you wanted to be like a pastor and now soon you are going on mission.”
I started to remember the prompting in 2018 when I was trying to chase the wrong dream (business management). I had the desire to preach the gospel when I was young, and now is the time to go and do it, in a church that was restored because a boy of 14 prayed to God. Why would God lead me to this Church? So, I can live the dream of young Mabuku! Many things happened and I was tried and tempted because of the new faith I chose. Since I was converted to the Lord, and on my journey to the mission field, though my faith was not always strong, I wasn’t shaken.
On 28 July 2021, I was able to have the required temple ordinances completed for sister Sharon with the hope that one day we will be together again.
I bear my testimony of the love of God, that He restored the gospel of His Son, Jesus Christ. We can live our desires as they align with the will of the Father. These things are true, and this is the Lord’s work.