Chapter 31
Mysterious Ways
On October 26, 1999, Georges A. Bonnet was waiting for President Gordon B. Hinckley to stand up. A budget appropriations meeting with the First Presidency, Presiding Bishopric, and various general authorities and Church administrators had just ended at the Church Administration Building in Salt Lake City. Georges did not usually attend the meeting—he was there in place of the managing director of the Physical Facilities Department—but he knew the meeting wasn’t really over until President Hinckley was on his feet and heading for the door.
And the prophet did not appear to be going anywhere. Instead, he looked right at Georges and asked, “What are we going to do about the Ghana Temple?” His eyes were pleading for an answer.
Georges didn’t know what to say. The question took him completely by surprise. Nearly a decade earlier, while serving as the director for temporal affairs in Africa, he had helped end the Ghanaian government’s freeze on all Church activities by encouraging Isaac Addy, a Church member in Accra, to reconcile with his estranged half-brother, Ghanaian president Jerry Rawlings.
Georges had earned the respect of Church leaders for his work in Ghana. But he now had a new job in the Church, and it wasn’t related to Africa. The only thing he knew about the Ghana Temple was that President Hinckley had announced it back in February 1998.
“I’m sorry,” Georges finally said, “but I’m not involved with the project.”
President Hinckley remained seated, the pleading look still in his eyes. He told Georges that progress on the temple was at a standstill. At first, the Ghanaian government had seemed supportive of the project, and the Church had purchased property on a main thoroughfare in Accra. But then, just before the planned groundbreaking in April 1999, the government had refused to issue a building permit to the Church. No one knew why.
After the meeting, Georges walked back to the Church Office Building with Presiding Bishop H. David Burton and his second counselor, Keith B. McMullin. They were eager to know what Georges thought the Church had to do to get permission to build the temple in Accra.
“Would you mind going to Ghana?” one of them asked.
“Not at all,” Georges said. “I’d be glad to go.”
A few weeks later, Georges arrived in Ghana and found the Church thriving there. At the time of the freeze, there were nearly nine thousand Church members and no stakes in Ghana. Now, ten years later, the country had five stakes with more than seventeen thousand members. And those members were praying earnestly for progress to resume on the house of the Lord. When President Hinckley visited Ghana in 1998, the Saints had stood and cheered when he announced the temple. No one could have anticipated the delays.
In Accra, Georges met with the temple architect, Church attorneys, and government officials. He also met with Elder Glenn L. Pace, the Africa West Area president, who was grateful for Georges’s help. Georges could tell Elder Pace was deeply frustrated by the situation. But he still had hope. Recently, the Saints in West Africa had held a special fast for the temple, and Elder Pace believed change was on the horizon.
After a week of meetings, Georges extended his trip another week to piece together his findings. According to people he spoke to, representatives of the Church had unwittingly offended the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, the government organization that approved building projects in the city. The AMA believed the representatives had been too insistent and arrogant during the permit approval process. There also seemed to be some resistance from President Rawlings, who was no longer on speaking terms with his brother, despite their reconciliation during the freeze.
Georges shared what he learned with Elder Pace, and together they prepared a report for the Presiding Bishopric. Georges then returned to Utah with report in hand, satisfied that he had done his part in Ghana.
Back in Fiji, Juliet Toro was enjoying BYU’s distance learning program. Her classes were unlike anything she’d ever experienced. Growing up, she’d always been afraid to ask questions in school, worried her teachers would ridicule her for saying the wrong thing. But she soon found that the classroom facilitators encouraged questions and never made her feel foolish. She also felt the Lord’s Spirit in the classroom, guiding her learning.
Juliet’s first term was extremely challenging. Her hardest class was business management. Although she was already familiar with some basic business principles, Juliet was often overwhelmed by the many new terms and definitions she learned in class. At the end of the term, she felt like there was too much to review for the exam. But she scored well on the test and earned the highest final grade in the class.
Her religion and accounting classes posed other challenges. As a new Latter-day Saint, she was unfamiliar with the Doctrine and Covenants, so she got help from her fellow student Sera Balenagasau, a lifelong Church member who had served a full-time mission. For accounting, she turned to her husband, Iliesa. Until recently, he had worked at a bank, so he understood the subject well and could help her work out problems. At the end of the term, she had top marks in these classes as well.
Since Juliet’s house was across the street from the school, it became a place for the students to gather and study. Her classmates often helped prepare meals and tidy up the home. Juliet enjoyed having them as friends and was cheered by their willingness to serve her and her family. Watching them was like seeing the gospel in action.
The second term began on September 1, 1999. Some of the students who had not done well wanted to retake their exams to improve their grades, so summary courses were created for them. And since Juliet had done so well in the first term, she was brought on as a facilitator for the business management students.
For the next three months, Juliet juggled her studies with her other responsibilities as a facilitator and a mother. She treated the five young men in her business management summary course like they were her sons. As the term progressed, she could tell they were more comfortable around her than around their facilitators from BYU. They spoke freely in class and seemed less reluctant to ask her questions. At the end of the term, they all passed the exam.
One day, the program directors called Juliet and told her that she was the valedictorian.
“What’s that?” she asked.
To her surprise, it meant that she’d had the best academic performance of all her classmates that year. Her confidence swelled. “Yes,” she told herself. “I can do this.”
A short time later, the program held a graduation ceremony for the students and around four hundred family members and friends. The graduates, wearing blue caps and gowns from the Fiji LDS Technical College, received recognition for completing the program. Juliet and several others also received introductory business certificates from BYU–Hawaii. Juliet offered the valedictory speech.
Afterward, Iliesa expressed his and Juliet’s gratitude in a letter to Elder Henry B. Eyring, the commissioner of Church education. “My wife and I always wondered whether we would be able to further our education,” he wrote. “It seemed like our silent prayers have been answered. The Lord does work in mysterious ways.”
On January 1, 2000, the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles issued “The Living Christ: The Testimony of the Apostles,” a signed declaration honoring the Savior two millennia after His birth. “We encourage you to use this written testimony in helping to build the faith of our Heavenly Father’s children,” the First Presidency counseled.
The declaration bore collective witness of Jesus’s divine mission throughout time and eternity. “We offer our testimony of the reality of His matchless life and the infinite virtue of His great atoning sacrifice,” the apostles declared. “None other has had so profound an influence upon all who have lived and will yet live upon the earth.”
Three months later, during the April 2000 general conference, the Church released Special Witnesses of Christ, an hour-long film featuring each member of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles bearing personal testimony of the Savior.
The film opened with President Hinckley walking the sunlit halls of the BYU Jerusalem Center. “This great and ancient city,” he said, stopping at a balcony, “has always been an inspiration to me. It is so because this place bears the imprint of the Son of God.”
He then recounted the story of Jesus, from His birth in Bethlehem to His Resurrection from the tomb. “None can fully comprehend the splendor of His life, the majesty of His death, the universality of His gift to mankind,” the prophet testified. “We declare with the centurion, who said at His death, ‘Truly this man was the Son of God.’”
Following this introduction, the film moved from one apostle’s testimony to another. Each sequence took place in a different location. Some apostles spoke in front of temples while others spoke at historic places like Palmyra, Kirtland, and Nauvoo.
Standing beneath a powerful telescope at an observatory, Elder Neal A. Maxwell testified of the Savior’s universal influence. “Long before He was born at Bethlehem and became known as Jesus of Nazareth, our Savior was Jehovah,” he testified. “Way back then, under the direction of the Father, Christ was the Lord of the universe, who created worlds without number—of which ours is only one.”
“Yet in the vastness of His creations,” Elder Maxwell continued, “the Lord of the universe, who notices the fall of every sparrow, is our personal Savior.”
Elder Henry B. Eyring, the newest member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, spoke from the east steps of the Salt Lake Temple. “Dedicated temples are sacred places where the risen Savior may come,” he declared. “Every part of these buildings and all that goes on inside them reflect the love of the Savior for us and our love for Him.”
Walking reverently across the foundation of the old Nauvoo Temple, President James E. Faust bore witness of the Savior and His sacrifice. “I know that through the unspeakable agony of the Atonement, men and women, if they repent, can be forgiven of their sins,” he said. “Because of the miracle of the Resurrection, all will rise from the dead. I feel His love and marvel at the price He paid for each of us.”
The film closed with a final testimony from President Hinckley as he and his fellow apostles stood in front of the Christus statue on Temple Square.
“It is He, Jesus Christ, who stands at the head of this Church which bears His sacred name,” the prophet declared. “Unitedly, as His apostles, authorized and commissioned by Him to do so, we bear our witness that He lives and that He will come again to claim His kingdom and rule as King of kings and Lord of lords.”
On May 19, 2000, six months after Juliet Toro’s graduation, armed militants forced their way into the Parliament of Fiji and took the nation’s prime minister and dozens of other government officials hostage. The crisis quickly developed into a full-scale coup d’état. Violence and lawlessness enveloped the country for several days.
Juliet was in tears as she watched reports of the coup on television. At first, everyone was put on lockdown. Businesses closed, schools shut down, and churches stopped meeting. Then the restrictions eased up, and Juliet’s two oldest children went to a movie with their cousins and a friend from church. But soon after they left, violence again erupted in Suva, throwing the city into chaos. Juliet was frantic when she heard the news. Three hours passed. When her children finally made it home, she held them tight.
The coup began after construction on the Suva Fiji Temple had finished, and the Saints were preparing for an open house and dedication in June. Now many Church members wondered if these events would be postponed until the upheaval was over.
On May 29, the president of Fiji resigned, and the military seized control of the government. Two days later, President Hinckley called Roy Bauer, the president of the Suva Fiji Mission, to ask about conditions there. President Bauer informed him that the country was relatively stable under the military, despite the ongoing hostage situation. The airport in Suva had reopened, and it was again possible to travel around the city.
President Hinckley was satisfied. “I will see you next month,” he said.
The Saints in Fiji held a small temple open house in early June, attracting more than sixteen thousand visitors.
One Saturday, three buses arrived at the open house with people from other faiths. As one woman stepped off her bus, she had a wonderful feeling that only grew more powerful as she approached the temple. In the past, she had spoken against the Church. Now she regretted her words, and she prayed for forgiveness before entering the temple.
“Today I know this is the Lord’s true church,” she told one of the Saints she met during the tour. “Please send the missionaries.”
Because of the coup, the First Presidency decided to hold only one dedicatory session instead of four, limiting the number of people who could attend the ceremony. Still, on June 18, the day of the dedication, Juliet and other Fijian Saints stood outside the temple along the main road.
The temple was situated at the top of a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean. When the car carrying President Hinckley and his wife, Marjorie, drove slowly by, the Saints waved white handkerchiefs in the air and shouted hosanna. The prophet smiled and waved back at them. Seeing him lifted everyone’s spirits. The skies were sunny, and Juliet could feel excitement and emotion in the air.
In his remarks at the dedication, President Hinckley spoke about the significance of the new, modified temples. Already he had dedicated more than two dozen of them around the world. “It’s the house of the Lord,” he declared at a pulpit in the celestial room. “You can get the washings and the anointings and the endowments and come into this room, beautifully furnished, here having passed through the veil in symbolism of our passage from life into a new life.”
“Here are two sealing rooms with beautiful altars where you can look in the mirrors and sense the feeling of eternity,” he continued. “There’s nothing like it on all the face of the earth.”
The temple soon opened for ordinance work. And after preparing to enter the house of the Lord, the Toro family was sealed together for time and eternity.
On August 10, 2000, Georges Bonnet felt very much alone. Nine months after his trip to Ghana, he was returning to the country—this time to serve as the Church’s director for temporal affairs in the Africa West Area. His wife, Carolyn, and three of their children would soon join him in Accra. But for now, he was on his own.
Progress on the Accra Temple remained at a standstill, and Church leaders hoped that Georges, with his reputation for informed and sensitive leadership in Africa, could help move the project forward. Feeling the weight of his assignment, Georges yearned to be equal to the challenges ahead of him. He searched his soul and thought about Jesus Christ and His atoning sacrifice.
“Although I firmly believe in the powers of the Atonement to bring peace to the soul,” he wrote in his journal, “there are, no doubt, other powers and blessings from the Atonement I have yet to experience.”
Once he arrived in Accra, Georges quickly learned that obtaining a building permit for the temple was just one of many serious matters demanding his attention in West Africa.
At first, he was confident he could handle the load, which included other major building projects and a temple in Aba, Nigeria. “I’ve worked here before,” he told himself. “I can do it.” And when his family joined him, he felt less alone.
But after a month, he was not so sure of himself. His many other responsibilities left him little time to attend to the Accra Temple’s building permit. While Saints throughout Ghana were faithfully preparing to enter the house of the Lord, no one—in or out of the Church—seemed to know how to end the impasse. The one thing people agreed on was that Jerry Rawlings, the president of Ghana, was behind the delay.
Feeling helpless, Georges prayed. “There are too many problems, too many complications,” he said. “How do you, Lord, want me to do this? I’ll do whatever you say. I’ll be your instrument, but I cannot do it by myself.”
A short time later, Georges began collaborating with the office of Ghana’s First Lady to organize humanitarian aid projects. He hoped doing so would help the Rawlings family get to know the Church and its mission better. He also began fasting every Sunday.
By the middle of November 2000, Georges was optimistic. More and more, he believed Isaac Addy, the president’s brother, was vital to resolving the impasse, just as he had been during the freeze. But he hesitated to ask Isaac to approach the president on behalf of the Church.
Although the brothers had reconciled during the freeze, the reconciliation had been short-lived. It pained Isaac, the older brother, to ask another favor. Yet Isaac’s wife, June, had encouraged him to trust in Jesus Christ to help mend his relationship with his brother. So, despite his pain, Isaac assured Georges that he was willing to speak with Jerry about the temple.
On December 3, Isaac called the Bonnet house with good news. An aide to the president had contacted him with questions about the temple, and the president was open to supporting the project if the Church could make some minor modifications to the layout of the site. It was fast Sunday, and Georges and Isaac hadn’t eaten all day. But rather than break their fast that evening, they went to the temple site together to determine if the president’s requests were reasonable.
As they walked the grounds, they felt like they could accommodate the requests. “Isaac, this is where the temple will be,” Georges said. “Let’s ask Heavenly Father to intervene.”
Kneeling, they offered a prayer, asking the Lord to bless their efforts. They felt the Spirit powerfully, and they immediately called the president’s aide to say they were willing to negotiate. Both Georges and Isaac felt good about the conversation.
Two days later, Isaac met privately with his brother at Osu Castle, Ghana’s presidential residence. Just before the meeting, Georges called Isaac to remind him to tell his brother that he loved him. Georges then went home and prayed and paced the floor, waiting to hear from Isaac. When no call came, Georges went to the temple site to wait. The phone finally rang half an hour later.
“It is over,” Isaac said, his voice jubilant. He and Jerry had spoken about the temple for all of ten minutes. They had then spent the rest of the time talking and reminiscing about their family. By the end of their discussion, they were smiling, laughing, and weeping together. Jerry said the Church could begin work on the temple immediately.
Isaac had asked if they needed to consult the city’s planning committee first.
“Don’t worry about it,” the president had said. “I’ll handle it.”