AFRICA WEST AREA LOCAL PAGES AREA PRESIDENCY MESSAGE Easter Can Teach Us and Change Us By Elder Terence M. Vinson First Counselor, Africa West Area Presidency s the world contemplates Easter, I wonder bear our sicknesses, our suffer- Ahow many really understand that this sea- ings, our infirmities, and our dis- son is a celebration of our salvation. The Savior’s appointments in order to enable Atonement is the means by which we are saved from us to grow and to be reconciled the effects of both physical and spiritual death. This to our Father. We knew then saving was an essential component of the plan that that there would be suffering in we all embraced prior to coming to this earth. But order for this to happen. For us, it the Savior’s Atonement which would provide this was not to be an easy life where salvation would also provide an enabling power for everything goes just the way we us to develop, with God’s help, beyond our own want. There would be opposi- ability. “The Atonement is fundamentally a doctrine tion and hardship. But we also knew our Father’s Elder Vinson of human development, not a doctrine that simply Firstborn. We knew His qualities; we knew His erases black marks” (Bruce C. and Marie K. Hafen, trustworthiness; we knew His love for us; we knew Belonging Heart: The Atonement and Relationships He would not fail us. with God and Family, 79). “There must be opposition, or opposites, in all As all of the spirits of the sons and daughters of things. Bad is the absence of good. Darkness is the Heavenly Father were gathered together, our Father absence of light. Sorrow is the absence of joy. How presented His plan. It was a plan for our progress, could we ever understand warmth if we never expe- growth, and education. He saw that we needed ex- rienced cold? God is the author or provider of light, periences to enable us to reach our potential and so life, truth, joy, and good. The adversary can provide gave us the opportunity to accept or reject it. Lucifer only the opposites because he takes away. He can opposed the plan and argued that we should be provide darkness (the absence of light), death (the “acted upon” in our earthly experience in order to absence of life), falsehood (the absence of truth), have us molded to the desired form, rather than to misery (the absence of joy), and evil (the absence “act for [our]selves” and to develop according to our of good). The devil actually provides nothing; he desires. God made it absolutely clear that it is a crit- just sees to it that all who cooperate with him are ical element of the plan that all people must “act for devoid of the blessings that God does provide. The themselves and not be acted upon” (2 Nephi 2:26). unrighteous may not be miserable according to their Lucifer’s plan would not require a Savior, but rather perspective, but they do not know real happiness” a ruler to act upon us. (D. Kelly Ogden, Andrew C. Skinner, Verse by Verse: We, who have now received bodies, rejected The Book of Mormon, Volume 1 [2011]). Lucifer’s plan. We determined that we would Lehi taught his son, Jacob: “For it must needs instead follow the plan of our loving Father. His be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not Firstborn stepped forward and offered Himself as so, my firstborn in the wilderness, righteousness the one who would atone for our mistakes and could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, April 2015 A1 neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. in the which I have suffered the will of the Father Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in all things from the beginning” (3 Nephi 11:11). in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must He then ministered in incredible love to the needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, Nephites, blessing them and their children, heal- nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor ing their sick, and reaching out in absolute love misery, neither sense nor insensibility. Wherefore, it to them. Indeed, there is no other who has loved must needs have been created for a thing of naught; God and others as the Savior did and does. His wherefore there would have been no purpose in example brought about the true definition of the the end of its creation. Wherefore, this thing must word charity, being the pure love of Christ. needs destroy the wisdom of God and his eternal Our responsibility, then, is to follow His example; purposes, and also the power, and the mercy, and it is to live our lives in such a way that we, too, can the justice of God” (2 Nephi 2:11–12). be reunited with our Heavenly Father and the Savior. So, knowing that we could not remain innocent Our celebration of Easter should not simply be a and redeem ourselves in such an environment, the desire to have another holiday or to enjoy an Easter Savior offered Himself to save us because of His feast, but rather a vivid reminder that we are to learn love for His Father and for us. It should not surprise more of the Savior and of our Heavenly Father’s plan us that these are, then, the two great command- which we embraced so confidently prior to coming ments which He has taught us to follow, both by to mortality. It should be a recommitment in our de- His precepts and His example, in order to be truly sire to both love God more and to love others more. happy. Just as He did, we must love God and we Our prime responsibility is to God and to the must love our fellow man. His love for the Father is covenants and commandments He has given us. such that He endured even more than He thought We should yearn to partake in His sacred ordi- He could, as implied in His self- introduction to the nances. Our second responsibility is to help others Nephites: “And behold, I am the light and the life of in every way, but especially to assist them to know the world; and I have drunk out of that bitter cup of God’s plan for them and us. Both we and they which the Father hath given me, and have glorified will then grow in joy, happiness, and confidence the Father in taking upon me the sins of the world, in the presence of God. ◼ OUR HERITAGE missionaries came, they found “You Have Come at Last!” multiple congregations eager By Elizabeth Maki to be baptized virtually the day hen the first LDS mission- encountered the Church in one they arrived. Waries arrived in Nigeria way or another had been writing Anthony Obinna had been in 1978, there was very little Church headquarters in Salt Lake writing Church headquarters for need for proselytizing. For more City, Utah, requesting literature several years by the time Rendell than 30 years, Nigerians who and missionaries. When those and Rachel Mabey and Edwin A2 Liahona and Janath Cannon sought him Mabey later wrote. He found program for the next day’s ser- Some of the out a week after their arrival one set of doors labeled “LDS” vices was already carefully writ- early members in Nigeria in November 1978. and another labeled “Missionary ten up on a blackboard. A copy of the church The two senior missionary cou- Home.” “It was a curious experi- of the Doctrine and Covenants in Nigeria ples set off in a cab from Port ence encountering the name of and several copies of the Book Harcourt with only a general our own Church,” wrote Mabey, of Mormon were available for idea of their destination. Like “where no missionary had ever student use, and shelves were many in Nigeria, Obinna lived in before set foot.” stacked with old issues of the a numberless house on a name- The missionaries found the Ensign and Church News. less street, but the missionaries area filled with people, but not It took a couple of hours for knew his village, county, and Obinna. Upon learning who their Obinna, who had built up this state from the letters he had visitors were, Obinna’s son went place over 13 years of waiting, written. After a three- hour ride in search of his father while the to arrive and finally shake hands including several stops to ask for missionaries explored the church. with someone prepared to bring help, they turned down a road The Mabeys admired the him The Church of Jesus Christ lined with banana and palm trees small chapel with its neat blue of Latter- day Saints in full. that ended at a small church. door and shutters, then explored “Near the roof in blue letters the classroom which doubled as An astonishing discovery were painted the words, ‘Nigerian an office in the other half of the More than a decade earlier, Latter- Day Saints,’” Rendell building. In the classroom, the Obinna had had a dream in April 2015 A3 which a man appeared to him Spirit moved me to continue Patience rewarded and took him to a beautiful writing. Many a time in dreams When Anthony Obinna ar- building he had never seen I saw some of the missionaries rived to greet the missionaries before. Obinna was taken of the Church discussing matters on that November day in 1978, inside and shown everything about the Church.” his demeanor was serious, even there.