Called to Prostitute? (3)

 I'm going to briefly mention the many ways that the Temple Square missionary experience that I supposedly had a honeymoon off of was tolerated to say to the best and deplorable to be actually frank. Let me say a few things about the sister missionaries that were called from Nigeria before and after I was there, to the best of my knowledge. The surnames might have changed as most of them have got married at least once since the mission experience. The sister missionaries were called by their last-names after the title 'Sister.'

Nelly Metus: I believe this was the first missionary from Nigeria to serve on Temple Square. I wouldn't know but this was what I learnt on my arrival on the Square in December, 2005. She was a few months ahead of me. She hailed from Imo State, an orphan and lived in Abeokuta, Ogun State. I hadn't known much about her except through her aunt in Ibadan, who had served her own mission to Umuahia. It was until I arrived in Salt Lake City that Nelly and I would meet. She returned to Nigera after her mission. Her boyfriend's (or fiance) to come to Salt Lake City before her return didn't work out. I wonder if she's been able to return to the USA since. She told me that she had earned a ordinary national diploma before the mission. I didn't hear if she had been married before her mission. I didn't dig into anybody's past. It wasn't my business to have done so. She was called as a district leader while I was on Temple Square. Like other missionaries she had issues with fellow missionary but I didn't think it was a huge deal. She confined in me Ms Stricker's malice against her, which I think tricked off before they both left the mission. It seemed that her friendship with one Mr David Eka, a prominent LDS Church leader from Port Harcourt got her to Temple Square. She later married Mr Samuel Idowu.

Ijeoma Njoku: I hailed from Abia State. I'm Ngwa and had lived in Aba, Abia State before my tertiary education from the University of Ibadan. I observed the mandatory NYSC in Ibadan before I got a form to go on a mission. I arrived the USA in November 2005 and went to Provo, Utah for training before commencing missionary work one month later in Salt Lake City in December of that year. It was thrilling getting called to serve on Temple Square, but going to the USA was another issue. It wasn't without anxieties over my health concerns and issues. But I tried my best to serve only that I knew that I was prostituting my education. I probably could be doing something more productive and worthwhile than being on the Square. However, I saw that I wasn't the only one who had a bachelor's degree but I didn't know what brought other women and the couples to Temple Square. I had an eternal problem of not smiling and got a few complaints from the couple missionaries, probably having received complaints from the women that I worked with, called companions. They needed everybody to be having a ball even if they weren't. Huh? I think that Mr Marcus Ogbonna was instrumental to me going to America. So, was Mr Taylor Harper who was the District President of Ibadan at the time. I served a stint in Houston, Texas in 2006 and returned to Temple Square early 2007. I left from Temple Square for Nigeria in June, 2007 and returned to the USA in September, 2007 via Baltimore, Maryland. I attended graduate school in Boston, Massachusetts (2007-2010) and returned to Nigeria again in 2011 amid a lot of conflict and confusion from Dallas, Texas. I had left the USA through Logan, which I did in order to access the situation with my belongings housed at the Public Storage, Mattapan. It was place that I mailed/posted a cubicle key to Mr Simeon Nnah of Needham, Massachusetts to help me evacuate my property including my school books to his home for onward shipping to Nigeria. He had obliged my supplication but would later keep my books to himself or sold or gave them away without my knowledge NOR permission. Dispute Resolution is NOT the same as Law and I had not offended any sane individual in studying what interested me!

Uduak Udoh: She hailed from Akwa Ibom State and came after me in 2006. She lived in Port Harcourt with her elder sister. She liked to cook the Nigerian dishes and found the African store in Salt Lake City. I would go there once to buy foodstuff to make egusi soup before I returned to Nigeria. Udoh only had the bad habit of calling her sister nearly every day from the Telecenter. She probably bribed the elder sister missionaries to say nothing about it. Lol.

Nseabasi Ikpe: Nseabasi came from Uyo, Akwa Ibom like Uduak, It was interesting that the two didn't get along well. Ikpe was a borrowed missionary from California. I didn't know that business or arrangement but I knew that she left for California before the end of my own mission. She was probably sent to spoil the air for me. I wouldn't know. She liked to tell stories and told of her difficult life including living under the bridge in Lagos State. I told her that such disclosures mightn't be in her own interest. Anyway, her Cinderella story must have struck a cord with the king makers on Temple Square. She didn't have any tertiary education as far as I was to know.

Ada Onwuchekwa Obasi: She was from Ohafia, Abia State but lived in Port Harcourt with her brother. She came to Temple Square in 2006 and was there upon my return from Houston, Texas. She came at least 9 months after my own missionary journey to the United States. I had no knowledge of her existence before the mission. It was possible that our paths had crossed but we weren't ever associates. She had confided in me her difficulties with a few of her own companions including a Kim from South Korea and an American (Robbing) who made out with another missionary (Bond) under a covered table. I gave her mother's phone number to ask for referrals, that is speak to her friends who could like receiving Mormon missionaries. I regretted this action. Ada wasn't like the other missionaries. She was belligerent, gossiped often and found ways to cut corners. I often saw her break mission rules and warned her against such. Apparently, she had read through the wrong missionary rules and felt it her job to shame the Mission. One time, a companion and I had gone to check on the sisters in our district as district leaders to find her strutting the corridor of the Deseret Apartments after 9pm. With the other doors closed, I told her that it was rude for her to be the one who disobeyed the mission rule of having doors locked at 9pm. She returned to her room, but kept the door open, sat in the door way and continued to chat with a white missionary across the hall. My companion (Deborah Crossland) and I left for our place at Gordon's Place. I would since take whatever she had to say with a pinch of salt. She wouldn't tell me if she was breaking mission rules. At least, I caught her once being rude and recalcitrant. And if nobody had told me I wouldn't know that part of her life.

Patience Hezekiah: She came on the mission after I had left Temple Square. I met her in Mr Marcus Ogbonna's house in Isheri, Lagos State, where she was helping his wife out with the children. I haven't met her since my departure from that house in 2011. 

Note: I have only once civilly met Ada Obasi after our missions because in 2012, she and her young family moved to Aba, Abia State. They live, like me, in Osisioma. It was during a stake conference in 2012. She was heavily pregnant with her second child from her marriage with that husband. She called me when she was delivered of her baby girl, which she said was born on October 1. Talk of an attention seeker.

To be concluded.