Member Voices
The Long Waiting Had Come to an End
Temple Sealing, March 8th, 2024: Ghana Accra Temple
How it started
As this day happened, I had a chance to reflect on how far we had come together. The journey had not been very smooth but in every hardship that we faced, the Lord made a way for us. Our journey began from the day I took Joanita’s hand for her baptism in 2017 in the waters of Makindye Ward where we all started our journey on the covenant path.
A few days later, I stood at the door of our meetinghouse and watched her as she cleaned the chapel. I loved that moment, and I remember imagining her as my wife but I didn’t pay any attention to it. Under the leadership of Gerald Baryamujura as our bishop, I had a chance to serve as a ward clerk and participated in the ward councils. At this point in time, Joanita had traveled outside Uganda for work, and we had never exchanged phone numbers and were not close. For some reason her name never went out of my mind whenever we discussed members that were no longer attending church.
In 2019, I invited members to a Christmas devotional using the Church email system and she was one of the few members who replied to that email. The long search had come to an end. Unfortunately, I didn’t see this email until February 2020 and promised to minister and follow up with her even during my time when I was on mission.
Nurtured and embraced
Does it sound more like a dream? Was it a sign of revelation received for a woman who was to be my eternal companion?
With my desire to go and serve the Lord burning bright, I left for my mission on September 2, 2020, and she never stopped writing every week to me for two years. Was this the sign? I had not thought about it yet, but I could feel that there was a strong connection growing between us due to the time she invested in writing and asking more about the plans I had after my mission. Close to the end of my mission, we wrote about the possibility of having a physical date. We tried to schedule time for it, but this didn’t seem like something possible though we still hoped for the right time.
Fear experienced along the way
As my head battled thoughts of how to marry and when to do so, I had no job, was scared of starting a family and surviving was still hard for me as an individual since I was almost on my own. On the day when I returned home, in his counsel, Bishop Baryamujura emphasized that when I get married things will work out for me. I heard it, but where could I start from? The Lord knew that I was thirsting for His righteousness and kingdom, and He prepared a way for me. This was manifested through the leaders that I had, my bishop and my stake president, to whom I made myself accountable from the day that I dated Joanita. I remember sitting down for a moment and not understanding how things would work out. I was scared but she turned to me and asked what the problem was. I replied, “I do not know what the future holds for us.”
From this point I started to feel that things were to work out when she turned to me and said that the Lord was to provide a way for this relationship and that I should not worry. It is true, life was hard for a returned missionary as I was in Africa, but I knew that this is what our Heavenly Father wished for all of us and it is a commandment for our exaltation.
The long wait had come to an end
Eleven months passed from the day that I returned from my mission when we were legally married on August 5, 2023. We helped each other overcome our weaknesses, and we counseled together on matters pertaining to our family’s temporal and spiritual affairs. Our greatest goal and desire was to have an eternal family and it was from the day that we decided to get married and grew each day as we got to understand each other better in our relationship as husband and wife. To this joy was added the joy of expecting a child. For these blessings bestowed upon us as a family, I truly had reason to shed tears of joy in the celestial room as we waited to be led to the sealing room. The long wait was over, my heart became closer to hers as we sat and reflected on these experiences and how far the Lord had brought us.
My eyes felt as though they had been translated to see her eternal beauty. Indeed, there was no one that my heart and my entire life desired to commune with at this moment other than my wife. This feeling sparked and boosted all the desire that I had to have her and to be only hers forever. As we knelt at the altar, the promise of being a husband that would preside over his family in meekness and love unfeigned was followed by other blessings and I uttered a “yes” that was firm and unwavering. I could feel her faith too and her face shone to manifest this.