“So That They Too Could Join in Singing”

As a young woman, Priscilla Sampson-Davis attended an Anglican college in Mampong. One day, she had a dream in which she met Jesus while He was carrying the cross. His face and eyes were covered with blood and tears, and He asked for a handkerchief to wipe His face so He could see. “I will do that, my Lord,” she promised.

Priscilla and her husband, John Sampson-Davis, were among those baptized when the first missionaries came to Ghana in 1978. One Sunday morning in 1980, Priscilla was relaxing at home when she had another visionary experience. She saw herself in sacrament meeting and was approached by a figure in white, who told her to look around and tell him what she saw. She noticed that many in the congregation had bowed heads and did not join in singing. When he asked her why, she replied that they did not speak English. He asked if she would be willing to help her brothers and sisters “so that they too could join in singing praises to our Heavenly Father.”

When this vision ended, she immediately took up paper and pencil and began translating the hymn “Redeemer of Israel” into her native language of Fante. She soon read an article in the Ensign magazine about the Book of Mormon being translated into another language. She heard a voice whisper, “Couldn’t you do that, too?” She soon translated the Book of Mormon and other Church materials into Fante. “I always have an eraser with me,” she noted, “because the Spirit is always teaching me.”

Priscilla thought of the scripture, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:40). She felt that by translating hymns and scriptures “so that the people of Ghana [could] see,” she fulfilled her promise to give the Lord a handkerchief.

Fante is a dialect of Akan, one of the most widely spoken languages in Ghana. The Church has also translated the scriptures and other materials into Twi, another dialect of Akan.