Appearing on the front page below the fold in today’s Washington Post is an article from Lagos, Nigeria written by Mary Jordan the Post’s London co-bureau chief. “The New Face of Global Mormonism:
Tech-Savvy Missionary Church Thrives as Far Afield as Africa” occupies 14 column-inches in the lower-right corner of page A1 and then takes up 64 out of 121 column-inches of page A13. The other 47 percent of that page is an advertisement for Total Wine & More. (See Isaiah 49:22.)

A few highlights:

Outside Zion Osandu Ndukwe’s one-room apartment, a naked toddler ran up and down a filthy hallway lit by a single candle. The power in the overcrowded slum was off yet again. The stench of urine from the communal bathroom overpowered the fragrance of spices in the bubbling soup that a neighbor stirred in the dark passage.

But this night, the misery all around Ndukwe — the crime, the uncollected trash, the bathtub-size potholes, the dilapidated cars belching black smoke — stopped at his door. It was a Monday evening, and because Ndukwe, 39, had been baptized into the Mormon Church six months earlier, that meant it was time to be with his family and sing God’s praises.

“I am a child of God!” he sang, as he, his wife and their 4-year-old daughter celebrated in loud, joyous voices a faith once known for its all-white, all-American membership.

“I’m a changed man,” Ndukwe said, sitting on a bed that took up most of his apartment. “I used to drink. I had girlfriends outside my marriage. I don’t do that anymore, and I feel better. The Mormon Church contributed 100 percent to the change.”

Ebiloma has sampled a range of [religions]. He was born into a pagan family and still bears the scars of tribal markings carved into his cheeks when he was young. After attending Muslim schools as a child, he tried various Christian churches before finding what he described as “happiness and peace” in Mormonism.

Now, Ebiloma nodded and smiled as fellow Mormons told their stories. One woman described the joy of having her family “sealed,” a ritual that Mormons believe ensures that families stay together beyond death. Another said she believed that tithing — the Mormon practice of members giving one-tenth of their income to the church — “would bring great blessings.”

A third woman praised Gordon B. Hinckley, the 97-year-old church president in Salt Lake City, who followers believe receives divine revelations. “I know President Hinckley is the living prophet,” she said, just as amplified clapping and stomping in a nearby Pentecostal church began drowning out more testimonies.

“It is quiet and more organized in here,” Ebiloma said later. “In other churches, people are shouting at the top of their lungs, sweating so much they need a hanky. One thing I know for sure: God is not deaf.”

Ebiloma said those quiet services, along with the fact that all the men wear white shirts, have led many to think that his church is strange: “My friends ask, ‘What are you doing in there? Did they make you wear a uniform?’ ”

Ebiloma said that five years ago, curious about this new church, he jumped off a city bus and walked into the buildings of tile and marble. He immediately liked what he heard inside, especially that no one preached that people of other faiths were going to hell. He had soured on the many Christian pastors he saw growing rich on collection-plate cash and admired the fact that Mormon church leaders are largely unpaid and support themselves with other jobs.

Abstinence from alcohol, another church practice, was a tougher sell. But gradually, with the help of his favorite part of the church — regular home visits from missionaries and other members — he abandoned Guinness, his favorite drink and one heavily advertised in Nigeria.

Now, the affable father of two said, he even tries to obey the church’s no-caffeine rule. Tugging proudly at his belt, he said he had dropped 50 pounds and now weighs a trim 165. “I am so happy,” he said. “I am at peace.”

A few miles away, in another Mormon church, Muyiwa Omowaiye closed his eyes and fell back in the arms of a Mormon elder until he was completely under water.

“I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit,” the elder said, as the seated congregation watched the 6-foot-1 computer salesman in a white gown being submerged, their eyes on a ceiling mirror hung above the pool-size baptismal font.

Omowaiye is one of more than 220,000 people a year baptized abroad into the Mormon Church — four times the 54,000 annual baptisms in the United States. And like many people around the world, he first started learning about the church on the Internet.

The Mormons have embraced the Internet, and a new TV ad campaign in the United States directs people to find out more about the faith online. Millions of people first learn of the religion through its vast online depository of genealogical records.

The Salt Lake City headquarters has considerable oversight over the global church and transmits general conferences and leadership training sessions via satellite to churches around the world. About one-third of the church’s 53,000 missionaries are not from the United States.

After reading about the church online, Omowaiye clicked his way to a dating Web site for Mormons (though not officially affiliated with the church). There he began chatting electronically with Deborah Hess, a relocation manager from Colorado. After corresponding for a year by e-mail, webcam and phone, Hess recently came to Lagos and married Omowaiye, a quiet, soft-spoken man.

“No matter where you go in the world, the service is the same,” Hess said, noting that the buildings, baptismal fonts, services and hymns in Lagos were nearly identical to those back home in the United States.

Ngozi Ndukwe, the wife of the recent convert who says the church helped him stop drinking and womanizing, likes this uniformity. She has watched meetings in Salt Lake City on satellite TV here and saw that the teachings in Nigeria are the same as in the United States — including the emphasis on ancestors.

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