The story of the Church is a story of chain reactions.  One step in the process of the Restoration always leads to another.  A chain reaction was initiated by Joseph Smith’s reading of James 1:5 that continues today in an ever-widening, ever-lengthening chain of events that is currently linking millions of lives in miraculous ways.  The following story is about chain reactions.  It is also about the importance of example, of diligence, of the keeping of one’s appointments, of being on time, and of properly preparing investigators, converts, and family members for the next steps in their lives.

In 1965 a young man in Fiji began acting strangely.  His family became greatly puzzled by his odd behavior.  Every Sunday he put on a white shirt and tie and disappeared for long periods of time.  His 15-year-old sister became curious to find out where he went and what he did.  She enlisted the aid of her older sister, and together they set out to secretly follow their brother the next time he left on his secret errands.

The two girls followed behind as their brother walked.  They were surprised to see him enter the Suva Branch meetinghouse of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  They peeped in.  They observed music, activities, bright lights, and young people having fun.  The girls agreed that it looked like a fun place to be, and decided to attend church.  Their brother was greatly surprised the next Sunday when his two sisters entered.

The 15-year-old girl began taking the missionary discussions, and was soon baptized.  Several years later she obtained a job working for the credit union of a company in Fiji.  A young man worked for the same company, and found it necessary to frequently come to the credit union to obtain an advance on his pay.  His visits to the credit union became more and more necessary because of his interest in the girl who waited upon him.  He asked her for a date, and was flatly refused.  He asked again and again, but was always politely turned down.

One day to his surprise and delight, the girl accepted his offer of a date, but explained that it would be on her terms.  “You come pick me up, and we’ll go to church.”  That was fine with him.  “Church” turned out to be the Suva Branch meetinghouse.  The young man escorted the girl to the front steps of the church, but would go no further.  “I’ll wait for you here,” he told her.

She went inside.  He patiently waited.  The activity took three hours.  This became their weekly date.  He escorted her to her activities, she went inside, and he waited.  He was satisfied to at least be with her, but he couldn’t go inside.  He was a strong Catholic.  He had even considered becoming a Catholic priest, but his interest in the girl had erased those thoughts from his mind.

The girl was 18 years old.  He never did go in, but his faithfulness and attentiveness finally won for him the prize that he sought.  She agreed to his marriage proposal, and her family gave their consent.

John and Josafini (Kula) Bennion soon had two small girls.  Every Sunday John encouraged his wife to go to church, and helped get the children ready to go with her.  They lived less than a 10-minutes’ walk from the church.  He declined all invitations to accompany them, even though he had ceased attending his own church.  He assured his wife that he would stay home, clean the house, and have dinner ready when they returned.

One day when his wife returned from church, two missionaries accompanied her.  John invited them to lunch.  They asked if they could return the following week and begin giving the missionary discussions.  John assented, but was very skeptical when they told him how Joseph Smith had seen God and Jesus Christ, and had been able to translate some golden plates.  From that time on John made it a point to be gone and to be busy whenever the elders were scheduled to return for an appointment.  He ran away.  He avoided the missionaries.  He made sure to be playing soccer with his soccer club.  He hoped the missionaries would get the message, and give up on him, but they tried to meet with him again and again.  With careful planning he was always able to avoid them.

Another appointment was set for Thursday evening at 8:00.  It happened that a cyclone hit Fiji prior to the appointment.  The wind howled, rain poured down, power was knocked out to the whole city, and flooding was taking place.  John felt secure in the knowledge that the missionary appointment would not be kept.  No one in their right mind would go out on such a night.  Nevertheless, John found himself frequently looking at his watch.  8:00 was approaching, but John felt good.  He knew that the elders would not show up.

At 8:00 sharp a knock came at the door.   “Who in the world could that be,” John wondered?  “It’s probably a neighbor needing help.”  John opened the door.

“To this day,” John says, “I can still see this picture of two missionaries standing in the rain soaking wet.  It was a turning point for me.  If these two guys can brave the cyclone and downed power lines, there must be something in this for me,” he thought.

John sent the two elders upstairs to dry and to wrap themselves in towels.  The family then began ironing and drying the wet clothing.  By candlelight the elders gave John a discussion, and challenged him to be baptized.

“Who could say no?” John says.  The branch hired a bus, and everyone went up in the mountains on the following Saturday where John was baptized in a stream.

John was a very shy, quiet individual who never opened his mouth.  The next day when he went to church, he chose to sit on the back row where he could be unnoticed and unobtrusive.  To his great surprise and embarrassment the branch president called upon him to ask the closing prayer.  He refused.  He had no choice.  He had never prayed in his life.  He had come from a church where the priest did all the praying.  He didn’t know how.

After the meeting he told his wife, “I’m not going back.”

“I don’t know where the Spirit went that I’d felt when the missionaries were teaching me,” John said, “but I stayed away for eight years.”  When branch members would see him, they’d ask when he was coming back.  He’d reply, “I’ll be back.”

One day while working, John almost blacked out.  For the next 3-4 months he couldn’t work.  He lost weight, and was skin and bones.  Every second day he had to be rushed to the hospital, but the doctors could never find anything wrong.

One Saturday he had another attack.  He asked his brother to take him to the hospital.  While waiting at the hospital a voice said to him, “Seek the blessings of the Priesthood.”  The voice repeated the message three times.  He had never known anything about the Priesthood; but he turned to his brother, and told him to go get the branch president.

Five minutes down the road John’s brother met the branch president coming to the hospital.  The branch president administered a blessing to John, and then left him sitting alone in the room.  John could not control his shaking body.  He was in tears.  The doctor examined him and declared, “You’re OK.”

And he was.  John told his surprised wife, “Tomorrow we’ll go downtown and go shopping—for church clothes.”

That Sunday John returned to church.  He walked in and sat down in the third row from the front.  “No more back row,” he said.  Within eight months he was sustained as a counselor in the branch presidency.  In 14 months he was sustained as branch president.  John and his family moved to Tonga, where he was sustained as a counselor in an English-speaking ward.  Then he became president of a new branch.

The family moved back to Fiji.  Fiji now had one stake.  Brother Bennion’s branch was now a ward.  One year later he was called to be bishop of the Lautoka Ward.  Two years later the stake was dissolved, and he was called to be district president of the Lautoka District.  John and Kula moved to Suva, and it was not long before he was called to be the first counselor to the bishop in the same building where his wife had attended when she was 15 years old.  John later became the bishop of that ward.  He later served as first counselor in the Suva Fiji Stake presidency.

“I have always felt that the Lord prepared my wife so that one day I could join the Church,” Brother Bennion says.  “In 1989 I took my family to the temple.  I regret the eight years that I missed, but I can still see the picture in my mind of those two elders standing at my door, on a pitch-black night, soaking wet, and clutching their scriptures.  I fed them supper, and dried their clothes.  They taught the lesson, we said goodnight, and they walked off into the dark and the rain.  I’ll never forget them.  They changed my life.”