Anthony Obinna—Nigeria

A dream of the temple leads a Nigerian schoolteacher to the restored gospel

A Picture in a Magazine

On January 19, 1971, Anthony Obinna, a forty-two-year-old Nigerian schoolteacher, took out a pen and a blue sheet of paper to write a letter to the president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “I have read several books in search of salvation,” he wrote, “and at last found the answer.”

During the last few years, Anthony, his wife, Fidelia, and their children had been largely confined to their house while the Nigerian civil war raged around them. One day, as Anthony passed the long hours of uncertainty, he had flipped open an old magazine and seen something he was not expecting: a picture of a tall, stately stone building with several large spires.

He had seen the building once before—in a dream he’d had before the civil war broke out. In the dream, the Savior had guided him to the magnificent building. It was full of people, all of them dressed in white.

“What is this?” Anthony had asked.

“These are people who attend the temple,” the Savior replied.

“What are they doing?”

“They are praying. They pray here always.”

When he woke, Anthony had yearned to know more about the things he had seen. He recounted the dream to Fidelia and his friends, asking what they thought it might mean. No one could help him. He finally asked a reverend for guidance. The reverend could not interpret the dream either, but he told Anthony that if the dream was of God, then his questions would someday be resolved.

As soon as Anthony saw the image in the magazine, he knew he’d found his answer. At the top of the picture was a caption identifying it as the temple in Salt Lake City.

“Mormons—officially the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—are different,” the article began. It recounted the Church’s history and explained some of its basic doctrine. “It is a complete way of life,” the article said. “The religious spark that fires such a community of effort is a belief that everyone on earth is a spiritual son or daughter of God.”

The article had set Anthony’s mind racing. He lived near his brothers, so he immediately gathered them together and told them about the picture and his dream.

“You’re sure about that building?” his brother Francis asked.

Anthony was sure.

Unfortunately, he had not been able to write to Church headquarters at that time because of a wartime blockade. Nor was he aware of any of Nigeria’s unofficial Latter-day Saint congregations. Many of them had scattered during the war, losing contact with each other and the Church. Some believers, like Honesty John Ekong, were never heard from again. But now that the war was over, nothing kept Anthony from contacting the Church.

Continuing his letter to the Church president, Anthony expressed his wish to have a branch of the Church in his town. “Mormonism is indeed unique among religions,” he wrote.

A few weeks later, he received a letter. “At the present time we do not have any official representatives from Salt Lake City in your country,” it read. “If you wish, I shall be glad to correspond with you concerning the religious teachings of Jesus Christ.”

The letter was signed by LaMar Williams, Missionary Department.

See the full text in Gospel Library for notes and source citations.

A Letter to the Prophet

In August 1976, Anthony Obinna sent a letter to President Kimball. “We here wish you to turn your attention to Nigeria,” he wrote, “and have the land dedicated for the teachings of the true gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Two years had passed since Anthony had last heard from his contact in the missionary department, LaMar Williams. In the meantime, Lorry Rytting, a Latter-day Saint professor from the United States, had spent a year teaching at a university in Nigeria. Anthony and other believers had met with Lorry, and they hoped that his visit would result in more direct contact with Church headquarters—and perhaps the beginnings of a mission. Lorry had returned to Utah and given Church leaders a favorable report of the readiness of Nigeria for the gospel, but nothing had yet come of it.

Anthony was unwilling to give up. “Your church’s teachings embody such good things that cannot be found in others,” he wrote President Kimball. “God calls on us to be saved, and we wish you to hasten the work.”

Anthony soon received a reply from Grant Bangerter, the president of the Church’s International Mission, a special mission supervising areas where Church members lived but where the Church was not officially recognized. President Bangerter told Anthony he sympathized with his situation but informed him there were still no plans to organize the Church in Nigeria.

“We encourage you with all expressions of brotherly love to pursue the practice of your faith as best as you can until such time in the future as it may be possible for the Church to take more direct action,” he wrote.

Around this time, Anthony and his wife, Fidelia, learned that their children were being harassed and humiliated at school because of their religious beliefs. Their eight-year-old daughter told how teachers would call her and her siblings out in front of the student body during school prayers, force them to kneel down with their hands raised, and strike their hands with a stick.

After Anthony and Fidelia found out what was happening, they went to speak with the teachers. “Why are you doing such things?” they asked. “We have freedom of worship in Nigeria.”

The beatings stopped, but the family and their fellow believers continued to face opposition from their community. “Lack of visit of any of the authorities from Salt Lake City has made us a laughingstock from some people here,” Anthony wrote President Bangerter in October 1976. “We are doing everything we can to establish the truth among so many of our Heavenly Father’s children in this part of the world.”

Anthony Obinna (left in back row) with children after Sunday meetings, 1971. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Anthony waited for a reply, but none came. Had his letters not reached Salt Lake City? He did not know, so he wrote again.

“We shall not be tired in writing and asking for the Church to be opened here as you have done all over the world,” he declared. “We in our group are earnestly following the teachings of our Saviour, Jesus Christ. There is no going back.”

See the full text in Gospel Library for notes and source citations.

Truly Ready

On November 18, 1978, Anthony Obinna solemnly approached three Americans—one woman and two men—waiting for him at his congregation’s meetinghouse in southeast Nigeria. Anthony had come as soon as he’d heard about their arrival. He had been expecting them for more than a decade.

The Americans were Elder Rendell Mabey, Sister Rachel Mabey, and Elder Edwin Cannon. They asked, “Are you Anthony Obinna?”

“Yes,” Anthony replied, and they entered the meetinghouse. The building was about thirty feet long. The letters “LDS” adorned the wall above one door, and the words “Missionary Home” above another. Just under the roof someone had painted the words “Nigerian Latter Day Saints.”

“It has been a long, difficult wait,” Anthony told the visitors, “but that doesn’t matter now. You have come at last.”

“A long wait, yes,” Elder Cannon said, “but the gospel really is here now in all its fullness.”

The missionaries asked Anthony to tell his story, so he told them he was forty-eight years old and the assistant schoolmaster at a nearby school. He recounted how he had dreamed years ago of the Salt Lake Temple and then later happened upon a picture of it in an old magazine. He had never even heard of the Church before. “But there before my eyes,” Anthony said, his voice struggling with emotion, “was the very building I had visited in my dream.”

He told the missionaries about his careful study of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, his correspondence with LaMar Williams, and his sorrow over the continued lack of a Church presence in Nigeria. But he also bore witness of his faith and his refusal to give up hope, even when he and his fellow believers had faced persecution because of their devotion to the truth.

After Anthony finished his story, Elder Mabey asked to speak with him privately. They stepped into the neighboring room, and Elder Mabey asked if there were any laws in Nigeria that would restrict baptism because the Church was not yet legally registered. Anthony said there were none.

“Well,” Elder Mabey said, “I’m delighted to hear that. We must do a lot of traveling during the next few weeks to visit other groups like your own.” He said that visiting these groups might take five to six weeks and that the missionaries could return then to baptize Anthony and his group.

“No, please,” Anthony said. “I know that there are many others, but we have been waiting for thirteen years.” He looked into Elder Mabey’s eyes. “If it is humanly possible,” Anthony said, “go ahead with the baptisms now.”

“Are most of your people truly ready?” asked Elder Mabey.

“Yes, absolutely, yes!” Anthony replied. “Let us baptize those strongest in the faith now and teach the others further.”

Three days later, Anthony met with Elder Mabey to discuss how to lead a branch of the Church. Outside, little children sang a new song they had learned from the missionaries:

I am a child of God,

And he has sent me here,

Has given me an earthly home

With parents kind and dear.

Soon, Anthony, the missionaries, and the other believers gathered on the bank of a secluded pool on the Ekeonumiri River. The pool was about thirty feet across, with dense green bushes and trees all around. Patches of bright sunlight filtered through the trees and danced on the water’s surface, while small, colorful fish darted back and forth near the bank.

Elder Edwin Q. “Ted” Cannon, Jr. baptizing a group of Nigerian people at a pond in Nigeria.

Anthony and Fidelia Obinna (center row, fifth and sixth from left) with their congregation in Nigeria, circa 1974. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City.)

Once Anthony’s wife, Fidelia, and seventeen other people were baptized, the group returned to their meetinghouse. Anthony and three of his brothers—Francis, Raymond, and Aloysius—were ordained to the office of priest in the Aaronic Priesthood. Elder Mabey set Anthony apart as president of the Aboh Branch, with Francis and Raymond as his counselors.

See the full text in Gospel Library for notes and source citations.