On June 14, 1989, the
government of Ghana banned LDS Church
meetings and sent police to lock down meetinghouses. For the next 18
months, Church members were left to keep the
Sabbath without being able to go to church.
The freeze actually taught
me to know and to understand how important the Sabbath
is to God's children and to His Church. At times, we take
things for granted. When we were meeting
every Sabbath, we were taking
things for granted. But when the freeze
came, we couldn't meet as brothers and sisters. We didn't know
what to do until we had a message from
the Brethren, that we can organize our sacrament
meetings in our various homes.
During the freeze,
our living room became the sacramental hall. I prepared the sacrament and
blessed it to my young family. And in a way, that also
sanctified our hopes as we sat and sang and
blessed the bread and water. The Spirit of the
Lord was strong. During those times, after
every sacrament meeting, we had to visit with other
Church members to hug them, to keep their faith,
to encourage them. Our home teacher came
to us and taught us that, on every Sunday,
he will come and pick us up from his home to his home or
we can organize our sacrament meeting there. If this brother could see
the importance of the Sabbath and spent all his
time only to ensure that the Sabbath
is observed, then I need to follow his good example. I want to keep the Sabbath holy. The Lord says that is what
really shows the relationship that we have with Him. If we don't respect
His day, I don't know how to give my respect to Him.