Our Journey to the Beautiful House of God, the Temple

All my husband and I wanted ever since we got to know, love, and understand each other was to spend the rest of our lives together. Gladly, being part of the restored gospel, we knew how, and we had to strive towards accomplishing our goal.

My gospel journey began one peaceful afternoon as I had to help my little cousin, Tracy, take a bath. I looked for her where she always played but couldn’t find her. Frustrated, I asked my eldest sister, Santa, and she referred me to the neighbor, where I found Tracy playing with a little girl, Promise, and her brother Byron, the children of Mr. and Mrs. Ondoga. They were members of the Church of Jesus Christ and later referred the missionaries to our home.

One afternoon as I laid down on the couch, I spotted a pamphlet titled “The First Vision of Joseph Smith”. It piqued my interest, so I read it, but after completing it, I had all sorts of thoughts going on in my head including, “How could someone write something so touching and create a beautiful image to convince people?” However, there was a persistent thought that was strong and kept repeating itself that it was true, most especially the verses in Moroni 10:4–5 that state:

“And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

“And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.”

This verse moved me so much more than any other verse I had ever come across. I had always dodged the lessons with the missionaries, but after this I started attending lessons with them, and they always emphasized that same verse. That hit me so strongly as they helped us understand the various voices in our heads and the voice of the Holy Ghost, with its gifts of love, comfort, and peace, among others.

I had this strong feeling to act upon it, so one morning, after my morning chores, I was prompted to go in the room I shared with my sisters and have some time on my own. I prayed earnestly to my Heavenly Father to know if the things I was taught were true. As I did, I felt calmness, peace in my heart, as all the loud thoughts I had earlier quietly slipped away and disappeared. I felt a happy feeling too. The missionaries later, as we met, helped me understand that it was a confirmation of the truthfulness of the gospel from our Heavenly Father.

After a year, on 13 March 2011, my sister Agnes and I got baptized as members of the Church by our brother Emmanuel, who got baptized earlier than us as we waited for our parents to consent to ours. It was a day we dreamt of so much because it felt impossible. This was because we came from a family where our parents were from a long generation of Catholics, and it was like a taboo to change from the religion of our parents.

However, the Lord does things in a mysterious way and after my baptism, my other siblings also became members. My brother Stephen, in the long run, served a mission in Harare, Zimbabwe. After his return he became an inspiration to me, seeing how the gospel had made him a better person. I wanted so badly to experience that and serve my Heavenly Father, seeing all the blessings I received.

After a very beautiful lesson about patriarchal blessings by my Young Women president, Sister Dianna, I was inspired to get my own patriarchal blessing to guide my life, so I spoke to my bishop, then later made an appointment with the patriarch. I finally received my patriarchal blessing. It was wonderful experience as I heard the patriarch, Brother Jiles, pronounce those blessings upon my head.

In September 2019, the stakes in Uganda organized the FSY (For the Strength of Youth) program where my husband, Peter, and I met. After we returned from the camp, we began dating and I realized that he had just returned home from an honorable mission he served in the Kenya Nairobi Mission, which covered part of Tanzania too. He came from this beautiful family of members where his mom, Jessca, brought him up as a God-fearing, humble, loving, obedient young man, together with his dad, Mbiro, who was serving as a stake president by then. I had an opportunity of meeting them. They were loving people, including his siblings too, since he was the firstborn. That was the family I wanted to experience, live in, and build one day—a family who served the Lord, taught their children the principles of the gospel, strived to live the principles of the gospel, and made sacred covenants in the temple.

Peter was a miracle to me, and he was this missing piece of my puzzle. We straightaway set goals for our lives, and we shared our goals and aspirations. This included my desire to serve a mission, which I made known to him, and he clearly supported and felt was a good opportunity for him to prepare to settle, since he was fresh from his mission. We also planned to get married after my return from my mission.

On 9 December 2021, I left for my mission, where I was called to serve in Kumasi, Ghana, and I returned in May 2023 from an honorable mission.

We later set plans for our marriage. We got engaged on 31 September 2023, in a traditional wedding, and later a Church wedding on 28 November 2023. It was beautiful seeing our goals and dreams come true, but we still had to seal our marriage in the Lord’s holy house, so we started planning and working towards our goal, since it was one of the promises attached to both of our patriarchal blessings.

Life got busy with work and other things, and for a period of time, we pushed our marriage sealing goals to the back of our minds, until a tragic and sad event happened on 8 February 2025, when I lost my mom. It was a sad incident. The families were grieving, the empty feeling rushing in here and there. After the funeral of my mom, Rebecca, it was really difficult. I kept having these dreams about her and my husband, and I would always wake up and pray for comfort and for her soul to rest peacefully.

I still kept having those dreams until I requested my husband give me a blessing, which he gladly did. In the course of that very day, I also felt this strong prompting to submit her name to the temple for ordinances, since she wasn’t a member. After doing this, I felt comforted, and the continuous dreams about her that made me sad and worried stopped. I felt I was having those dreams as a reminder for me to do my part in performing ordinances for her.

One lovely evening after dinner, Peter told me about the return of his mission president from South Africa to Kenya and how he was organizing a reunion for missionaries who served in the Kenya Nairobi Mission during his time. This was towards the opening and dedication of the Kenya Nairobi Temple. He also told me how this would be a great opportunity to go and get sealed, as we went for the reunion too. I affirmed and we both started preparing. We chose 20 May 2025 as our sealing date.

Towards that date we received calls that our apartment bookings were approved and secured; however, the transportation was not possible. We had to take care of that on our own or have our booking postponed to June. It was a sad evening since it was a Friday already, and before Monday we had to be in Kenya for our appointment.

We got stranded on ways in which to transport ourselves. We had to wait for the last confirmation Saturday evening, which clearly stated it wasn’t possible for us to travel. We could not even go to the bank and try getting some money for travels because they stopped working Saturday afternoon and resumed on Monday, the day we were supposed to be in Kenya.

It was very tough for us, and for a moment we didn’t know what to do. We knelt down after dinner, and we prayed. Peter led the prayer and as he concluded, he said, “Father in Heaven, we put our desires into Thy hand, even of going to the temple to get sealed in Thy holy house, but not our will but Thy will be done.”

A few minutes later we saw the hand of the Lord. A friend, who knew we would be travelling, inquired about our journey, and my husband shared the challenge we had. Little did we know the Lord’s plan for us.

The Lord uses His children to bless the lives of others. We received a gift of our fare through a mobile money transaction, and I had to start packing that night. The following day, after attending sacrament meeting, we booked an evening bus to Kenya that set off by 5:00 p.m., and we arrived in Nairobi at 4:00 a.m., just on time to attend the reunion that afternoon with my husband’s former mission president, Ephraim Msane.

On 20 May 2025, my lovely husband, Peter, and I walked into the temple. It was a day we dreamt of. The peace and beauty all around as we walked the corridors into the sealing room was just beyond any description. It meant everything to me to kneel at the altar, facing my husband and listening to the blessings pronounced and sealed for all eternity by President Shem Omondi, in the presence of our friends, the former mission president, our family in spirit (since they could not make it to travel with us), and above all, in the presence of Heavenly Father.

Being in the position to feel the Lord’s assurance in the celestial room and knowing that I was able to have that spiritual confirmation after the ordinances we performed on behalf of the dead, including my mom, was the best feeling.

We had a confirmation of the Lord’s hand in each of our lives and the enabling power of the Son, Jesus Christ, to conquer any possible trials in our lives.