“God Showed Me I Had a Purpose,” Liahona, July 2024.
Portraits of Faith
God Showed Me I Had a Purpose
I fell from a tree, but the Lord saved me so I could turn my life around and help people with disabilities like mine.
Photographs by Christine Hair
I was attending a religious conference with my sister when she asked me to climb a tree and get a bunch of coconuts for the conference. As I was collecting the coconuts at the top of the tree, I suddenly blacked out and fell. I landed hard on my back and could no longer feel my legs.
I was taken to the hospital, where the doctors stabilized the bones in my back. For three months, I lay on my back in the hospital, unable to even sit up. It was an emotional and depressing time. I would just lie there and wonder what was going to happen to me and what I was going to do next.
Counsel with the Lord
After the three months, I was told to go to New Zealand for an operation for my back. The operation made it so that I could sit instead of only lie down. While in the hospital in New Zealand, I met a girl who was working there. She asked me, “Do I know you? You look familiar.”
We started chatting. She shared the gospel of Jesus Christ and gave me a Book of Mormon. At first, I didn’t read it. I left it untouched beside my bed. One day, however, I was alone and there was nothing interesting to watch on television. Then I saw the Book of Mormon on my table. I opened it and began to read and read.
As I read, I had the feeling that there was something different about the Book of Mormon and that it must contain the true gospel of Jesus Christ. The girl in the hospital had marked several verses, one of which was Alma 37:37: “Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good.”
Those words jumped out at me and made me think. To know if The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was the true Church, I knew I needed to counsel with the Lord. I also wanted to go see this church for myself.
My Hopelessness Washed Away
When I got home from New Zealand, I invited the missionaries to teach me. As I learned, I gained a testimony that this is Christ’s Church. I am grateful to the missionaries who taught me. At my baptism, they had the strength to carry me into the water—one holding me in his arms while the other performed my baptism.
With my baptism, all the feelings of depression and hopelessness I had endured were washed away. I knew I had a purpose in life and that God loved me.
Before I was baptized, I felt embarrassed about myself because of my wheelchair. After I was baptized, however, I began coming to the ward every Sunday and participating in young single adult activities. I even went to stake dances, dancing in my wheelchair to every song. I also joined a network for Samoans with spinal injuries.
I realized I had healed from feeling that I needed to hide. Through the Church, I gained the confidence to go among people again.
The Lord also helped me to push myself and grow when I was encouraged to attend a three-year program at the Cambodian School of Prosthetics and Orthotics (CSPO). I was unsure I could join the program because no one in a wheelchair had ever applied. However, circumstances ultimately allowed me to be able to attend the CSPO in Cambodia. I graduated there as the first student with a disability in the program’s history.
Before he was baptized, Posenai felt embarrassed to be in a wheelchair. But after his baptism, he says, “I gained the confidence to go among people again.”
After I returned to Samoa, I spoke at a YSA devotional about health. Following the conference, a woman walked up to me to shake my hand and tell me she liked my talk. Lagimanofia had just returned from her mission. From the moment I met her, I felt that she completed me. I had been praying to find someone who could be a companion and who would love and accept me.
As Lagimanofia and I started dating, she cared for me and accepted me, and her family was supportive. We married, and our lives changed forever when we adopted Posenai Jr. God prepared us to adopt him. Having him in our lives has made us very happy.
Could I Serve?
At church, I was called as a ward clerk and later as a counselor in the bishopric. I couldn’t believe that someone in a wheelchair could serve. My accident had made me feel useless, but working in the Church made me feel useful and helped me realize I could contribute. I love the opportunity to grow closer to Jesus Christ as I serve.
As a counselor in the bishopric, I wanted to be guided so I could be better at my calling. That made me want to prepare more for each Sunday. I got into the habit of reading my scriptures, and I had opportunities to bear my testimony. Being a leader at church even helped me become a leader at work. I built up the feeling that I could lead and speak up, allowing me to lead in other areas.
Now I work as the principal of the Prosthetics and Orthotics Department at the Tupua Tamasese Meaole Hospital, Samoa’s main hospital. My department fits around 500 people a year with walking aids and wheelchairs. The Church, through the Samoan Ministry of Health, helps provide needed wheelchairs and the materials to make prosthetics (see philanthropies.ChurchofJesusChrist.org/humanitarian-services). These aids help people get back to work and become self-reliant. They also give people hope and a way back to a life they thought they had lost.
“Working in the Church made me feel useful and realize that I could contribute,” says Posenai. “I love the opportunity to grow closer to Jesus Christ as I serve.”
Rely on the Lord
If I were to give advice to others with disabilities, I would say, “Do not let your disabilities stop you from what you believe in. Pour your heart into what you want to achieve and work hard toward it. As you seek the Lord’s help, He will bless you [see 2 Nephi 32:9].”
With that belief, I keep going, and it makes me who I am today. I believe I was placed here and was saved for a purpose. I fell from that tree, but the Lord saved me so I could turn my life around and do this work that helps all these people. The Lord has taught me that I can help many people—not despite my disability but because of it.