Hank Smith: 00:03 Hello, my friends. Welcome to this week’s followHIM Favorites. This year, we are telling a single story to go with each week’s lesson. John, this week we’re in this huge chunk of 2 Nephi in the Isaiah chapters, and I have a story I think you’ll like. Are you ready?

John Bytheway: 00:17 Yes, absolutely.

Hank Smith: 00:19 All right. You know in chapter 12 where Isaiah talks about many people flowing to the house of the Lord.

John Bytheway: 00:27 The mountain of the Lord.

Hank Smith: 00:28 The mountain of the Lord. Let’s go to the temple. I want to tell you a story about a miracle. At least I believe it’s a miracle that happened in the Accra Ghana Temple about 10 years ago. There’s a man named John Ekow-Mensah. He’s in his 80s. He joined the church, I think, 10 years previous to this. So 20 years ago, lived alone in a town called Nkawkaw. I think that’s how you say it. He’d been a member of the church, I think for 10 or 15 years, and now he’s making trips to the temple. He’s in a waiting area at the temple.

  01:00 Another man sits down next to him, and they strike up a conversation starting with, “Oh, where are you from?” The man says, “Oh, I’m from Sekondi.” And he said, “Oh, I’m from Sekondi. What part of Sekondi are you from?” The man said, “Oh, I’m from right where the schools are.” There’s this growing sense of recognition to where the man says, “What is your name?” This is the younger man. He says to John Ekow-Mensah, “What is your name?” And John Ekow-Mensah, our convert, he said, “Oh, I’m John Ekow-Mensah.” The younger man says to brother Ekow-Mensah, “That is my name too.”

John Bytheway: 01:34 What?

Hank Smith: 01:35 So what had happened is that years and years and years ago, decades previous to this, John Ekow-Mensah Sr. had had a falling out with his mother-in-law, who was also like a matriarch of his tribe, his town, and she had exiled him, and he had to leave behind his wife and infant son. Over the decades, he had moved far away and been working when he ends up joining our church.

John Bytheway: 02:06 Wow.

Hank Smith: 02:07 On the other side of this is his son, John Ekow-Mensah Jr., who grew up never knowing his father. They never talked about him. He ends up getting married to his wife, Deborah. He was at the University of Accra in Ghana, and he picked up a Liahona magazine. So get this, John. When he gets home from school, talking to his wife, Deborah, now John, this is the same day that he picks up this magazine. She says, “I want to tell you about a church I learned from a friend.” She told him the name of the church was The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. John said, Hey, that’s the same church I read about in this magazine,-

John Bytheway: 02:48 In this magazine.

Hank Smith: 02:48 … the Liahona. So they were both baptized. Then, John, the same day in 2012, John Ekow-Mensah Sr., who had joined the church, John Ekow-Mensah Jr., who had joined the church, found themselves sitting next to each other in the waiting area of the Accra Ghana Temple. Tears came as father and son were reunited. Their joy was compounded by their understanding that they had separately joined the church and both found their way into the temple that beautiful morning.

John Bytheway: 03:23 It’s almost like the temple is to unite families.

Hank Smith: 03:27 It’s almost as if, John.

John Bytheway: 03:29 That was all orchestrated.

Hank Smith: 03:30 Isn’t that wonderful?

John Bytheway: 03:30 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 03:32 Isn’t that just a wonderful story?

John Bytheway: 03:33 Amazing.

Hank Smith: 03:34 Oh, I love it. Come join us on our full podcast. It’s called followHIM. You can get it wherever you get your podcast. We’re with Dr. Shon Hopkins this week, walking through these Isaiah chapters, and we think you’ll love what he does. Come back next week. We’ll do another followHIM Favorites.