The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced the creation of the Lomé Togo Agoe Stake at a special conference held in Lomé Togo on 7 May, 2023. The newly created Stake is the third in the Togolese Republic. Members of the Church from the Lomé Togo Tokoin and Lomé Togo Be Stakes gathered at the Tokoin Stake Center to witness the creation of the new Stake.
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Komlan Emmanuel Amehouenou was called as the President of the newly created Lome Togo Agoe Stake, with Ali Cristophe Badjibassa as first counselor and Kossi Biova Attiogbe as second counselor. A new presidency for the Lome Togo Tokoin Stake was also announced at the conference. Koffi Pierre N'Sougan was called to serve as the new President with Kanlihoe Romarique Sokame as first counselor and Ada Roger Evegna as second counselor.
Elder Alfred Kyungu, a General Authority Seventy and counselor in the Africa West Area Presidency, presided over the conference. He was assisted by Elder D. Martin Goury, an Area Seventy. Elder Goury shared with the assembled congregation the new boundaries and names of the new presidencies. He counselled the members to remember Jesus Christ in all that they do. He noted that, “if you want to get to know Christ, you must study His life in the scriptures.” He then encouraged them read about Christ using references to Him from the Topical Guide to the scriptures.
Elder Kyungu expressed his love for the people of Togo and noted their faith through many trials and adverse circumstances. In talking to the new leaders, he encouraged them to remain humble, using the example of President Russell M. Nelson. Elder Kyungu noted that although President Nelson was older in his physical condition,”he still chooses to serve others and does not accept that he be allowed the privileges of being the President.”
The growth of the Church in Togo has been rapid and steady. In the 1980s, a few dozen Togolese people joined the Church while living abroad. It was not until the mid-1990s, however, that a man named Dieudonné Attiogbe brought those who had returned to Togo into contact with each other. As a result of their efforts, the first Church group in Togo was officially organized in 1997. With encouragement and support from Saints in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, the group developed into a branch by 1999. The next year, the Church gained legal recognition from Togo’s government.
The first district in Togo was organized in Lomé in 2009; just four years later, it became a stake. “Where rapid growth sometimes comes at the cost of maturity and depth, that is not the case in Lomé,” Elder Terence M. Vinson of the Africa West Area Presidency observed at the time. Saints in Togo heeded the scriptural call for Zion to “strengthen [its] stakes and enlarge [its] borders” (Moroni 10:31), and as a result, a second stake was organized in 2017.
The new Agoe Stake will be a great blessing to the members of the Church in Togo, said Church History Specialist Gaston Kokou. “They are happy with the great things the Lord has accomplished in Togo, in the homes and in the respective lives of the members. Their eyes are now turned to greater blessings, namely a mission to widen the ropes of the stakes, and also a temple for the ordinances of the members and their ancestors.” He also noted that the new stake will continue to give the Togolese members the hope of a bright future.