Lily Andoh-Kesson: Faith Without a Written Word (Cape Coast, Ghana, 1978)

Lily Andoh-Kesson was a humble pioneer of the Church in Ghana who grew up in poverty and received only part of one year of formal schooling. She bore sixteen children and raised thirteen to maturity. She could not speak or understand English, and she could not read the Book of Mormon or any other Church literature, for none had been translated into her native language, Fante. Yet she prayerfully considered the teachings as they were explained to her and felt deeply that they were true. She was among the first baptized when the missionaries arrived in 1978. When the missionary couples from America did not speak Fante, some early converts who could not understand English returned to their former churches; but when asked why she did not leave also, Sister Andoh-Kesson answered, 'I stayed because I had the feeling that in everything we have to exercise faith in God.' Her great example and love brought twelve of her married children and their families into the Church. Her life is a faith-promoting witness that the Holy Ghost can bear testimony of truth to the humblest heart, even where there is no written word in one's own tongue.