A GLORIOUS REUNION by Susan L

OUR HOMES, OUR FAMILIES A GLORIOUS REUNION By Susan L. and C. Terry Warner Decades of separation and heartache ended when the Lord brought a father and a son together in the temple. t was a beautiful morning in April I2012 when John Ekow-Mensah entered the Accra Ghana Temple. The elderly brother, now in his 80s, had made the trip with a group of Saints from Nkawkaw, where he lived alone. The group planned to stay the night in nearby rooms for temple patrons and spend two days serving in the temple. Seated inside the temple, Brother Ekow-Mensah was waiting to partici- pate in initiatory ordinances when a younger man sat down beside him. The younger man, age 54, had planned to go through an endowment session that morning with his wife, but arriving too late for that session, he decided to do initiatory ordinances. “Where are you from?” Brother Ekow-Mensah asked. “Sekondi,” the man replied. these questions might be leading. “That is my name too,” the son “What part of Sekondi?” Brother Moved by a growing sense of rec- replied. Ekow-Mensah asked. ognition, the younger man looked After serving in the temple, the “Ketan,” the younger one answered, at Brother Ekow-Mensah. “You are two men sat for a long time in the “in the area where the schools are my father,” he announced. “What is celestial room, reconnecting their lives located.” As the conversation con- your name?” and rekindling their love. Though tinued, the men both sensed where “John Ekow-Mensah.” everything Brother Ekow-Mensah 14 Ensign Jr. said and did was Because of the lack of telephones learned about from a friend. She told respectful and proper, he or mail service, John Sr. had no way him the name was The Church of Jesus seemed not quite ready to keep contact with his family. His Christ of Latter-day Saints. John told her to embrace his father search for work took him many hours this was the church he had read about wholeheartedly—until he away. He lived in Mankessim from in a magazine at the university. learned why his father about 1963 to 1989, where he oper- John and Deborah were taught had to leave and why ated a small paint shop. From there he the gospel and baptized in 1999. A he could not contact his moved to Ada, where a woman whose decade later they were sealed in the family. building he was painting introduced Accra Ghana Temple, and the three Nearly 50 years ago him to the gospel of Jesus Christ. youngest of their five children were Brother Ekow-Mensah Brother Ekow-Mensah Sr. joined the sealed to them. Sr. had married a woman Church in 1991. Then in the temple in April 2012, whose grandmother—the Because Brother Ekow-Mensah Jr. tears came as the father and son oldest matriarch at that was so young when his parents’ mar- recognized each other. Their joy was time—held sovereign riage dissolved, he didn’t know much compounded by their understanding power in their tribe. about his heritage. Occasionally his that they had separately joined the Sadly, the matriarch mother remarked that he was a “car- Church and found their way into the had been opposed to bon copy” of his father, but that was temple that beautiful morning. ◼ John’s marriage to her the extent of his knowledge. The authors live in Utah, USA, and served in granddaughter. At her After he grew up and married, John the Ghana Accra Mission. insistence the couple ulti- and his wife, Deborah, decided to find mately separated when a church they could join. John was their oldest son, John Jr., at the University of Ghana in Accra was just four or five years when he saw a Liahona magazine old. John Jr. had known on a shelf. He picked it up and found his great-grandmother as a strong, himself interested in what it had to hard-working woman, not as the say. John noted the publisher: The power that had deprived him of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day all association with his natural Saints. father for nearly 50 years. When John returned from school Expulsion from the fam- to his home in Sekondi, his wife was Father and son, reunited at the temple ILLUSTRATION BY BRIAN CALL; PHOTOGRAPH ILLUSTRATION COURTESY OF THE AUTHORS ily essentially severed all ties. anxious to tell him of a church she had after nearly 50 years of separation August 2015 15.

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