Baptismal Day near Ikot Eyo, Cross River State, Nigeria, by Janath R. Cannon. Elder Edwin Q. Cannon, Jr. baptizing. Photo taken 4 March 1979. Following the June 1978 revelation on the priesthood, the message of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ was taken to West Africa. On 4 March 1979, at a small stream near the village of Ikot Eyo, Cross River State, Nigeria, sixty-seven persons were baptized [by Elder Edwin Q. Cannon, Jr.]. One hundred seventeen had been baptized the day before. Supervising the baptism (at left and right of the baptismal line) are the Cross River State District president [Ime Eduok] and his first counselor [E. D. Ukuot]. They were the first two black brethren in [West] Africa to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood.
Baptismal Day near Ikot Eyo, Cross River State, Nigeria, by Janath R. Cannon. Elder Edwin Q. Cannon, Jr. baptizing. Photo taken 4 March 1979. Following the June 1978 revelation on the priesthood, the message of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ was taken to West Africa. On 4 March 1979, at a small stream near the village of Ikot Eyo, Cross River State, Nigeria, sixty-seven persons were baptized [by Elder Edwin Q. Cannon, Jr.]. One hundred seventeen had been baptized the day before. Supervising the baptism (at left and right of the baptismal line) are the Cross River State District president [Ime Eduok] and his first counselor [E. D. Ukuot]. They were the first two black brethren in [West] Africa to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood.In a presentation at the 2018 FairMormon Conference,[i]I shared stories of some of the faithful Saints in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Kinshasa). In this series of presentations, I would like to speak from a more personal perspective, reflecting on the meaning of that experience for Kathleen and me, and pondering some of the dynamics of numerical and spiritual growth of the Church in that country.
The series is organized into eight parts:
Prologue: What brought us to Africa?
Snapshot of the Church in the DR Congo
The missionaries
What attracts people to the Church?
Building from centers of strength — Kisangani
Building from centers of strength — Wagenya and elsewhere
The temple: A light to the world
“The labourers are few”
Part one is a prologue that begins by outlining some important milestones in the history of the Church in West Africa. This will be presented through the eyes of my mother and father who served in Nigeria twice, beginning in 1980. I will then give a few of the circumstances of our call as a couple as senior missionaries to the DR Congo.
[i]The video version of the entire FairMormon presentation “Stories of the Saints in the DR Congo” is available on the FairMormon YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJl9FvLKmjw. The seven segments of that presentation, in an edited and somewhat expanded form, are available for reading at Meridian Magazine(www.ldsmag.com) and the website of The Interpreter Foundation(https://interpreterfoundation.org).
Jeffrey M. Bradshaw (PhD, Cognitive Science, University of Washington) is a Senior Research Scientist at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) in Pensacola, Florida. His professional writings have explored a wide range of topics in human and machine intelligence (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_M._Bradshaw; www.ihmc.us/groups/jbradshaw).
Jeff serves as a vice president for The Interpreter Foundation and is on the Advisory Board for the Academy for Temple Studies. He has lectured at BYU Campus Education Week and the Sidney B. Sperry Symposium and has presented at FairMormon meetings in the United States, Germany, and France. His articles on temple studies and the ancient Near East have appeared in Studies in the Bible and Antiquity, Element: A Journal of Mormon Philosophy and Theology, Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture, Meridian Magazine, and BYU Studies. Jeff has written detailed commentaries on the book of Moses and Genesis 1-11 and on temple themes in the scriptures. For LDS-related publications, see www.TempleThemes.net.
Jeff was a missionary in France and Belgium from 1975–1977, and his family has returned twice to live in France: once from 1993–1994 as a Fulbright Scholar and a second time from 2005–2006 as an unexpected “sabbatical” in the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan. Jeff has served twice as a bishop and twice as a counselor in the stake presidency of the Pensacola Florida Stake. He and his wife, Kathleen, are the parents of four children and eleven grandchildren. In July 2016, they began two years of service in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kinshasa Mission.
