Elder Joseph Musa Dongboi
- Mar 19, 2025
- 2 min read
One of the truly happy things I get to do is set apart full-time missionaries who are members of our mission branches. We have 45 currently serving and dozens more preparing. This morning, I set apart Joseph Musa Dongboi . . . just 14 months after he himself was baptized. He is the first and only member of the Church in his family.
Elder Dongboi is a member of the Mogbwego Branch. It’s a young branch. His branch president was baptized two and a half months before him. They worship each Sunday morning sitting under an open-air, thatched-roof canopy. It is my favorite place to attend church, but it is a long three-hour drive from the Mission Home down a bumpy, albeit beautiful, dirt road in the Jungle.
He was baptized by Elder Fisher Pratt from Cypress, Texas, who is still serving in our mission. After setting Elder Dongboi apart we video called Elder Pratt (he's five hours away). It was beautiful watching these two young men talk—missionary and convert, now missionary and missionary. Imagine serving at the same time as someone you found, taught, and baptized. This is not uncommon here. Elder Dongboi will undoubtedly send off a missionary before finishing his mission, probably more than one. And so it will continue, a never-ending swell of the love of Jesus Christ spreading across West Africa.
After some advice and well wishes, handshakes and emotional moments, Elder Dongboi picked up all his earthly possessions, neatly packed into one carry-on suitcase, and climbed into Elder and Sister Arnell’s truck for the start of his journey to the airport. (He has never seen an airplane.) Sister Wyatt slipped him some snacks to eat along the way. He will spend the next three weeks at the Ghana Accra MTC before flying to the Nigeria Lagos Mission.
How is it possible to feel so much love and hope for a young man we hardly know?
I love following your blog and the work you are doing in West Africa! I have the privilege of traveling to Africa, usually East Africa and sometimes Ghana, about once per year as one of two American employees for a Humanitarian Organization (FamilyHumanitarian.org) focused on providing clean water. When you left on your mission, I was so sad that Josh and I couldn't join you! We still have three of our five children living at home, but when the time comes we can't wait to serve a mission in Africa! Until then, we will enjoy your stories and do what we can to support these wonderful and deserving people! With Love, Carrie and Josh Kirk
Incredible! God speed, Elder Dongboi.
What a wonderful experience awaits him! Thanks for sharing this inspiring story!
We love seeing the Gospel Swell in Sierra Leone and West Africa. A delightsome people.
Brings tears of joy and wonder to my heart. The Lord does work in ways mysterious to us. I am grateful to live in the days when we can hear and see across the world as God works in the lives of so many. Thank you (Wyatt's, Arnell's and Merriam's) for sharing and doing such marvelous work.