Mpumelelo Victor Miti, or Victor as he is known, was born and raised in Munsieville, a township about 45 minutes from Johannesburg. He was raised in the home of his grandfather, who was a Reverend in the Baptist church, but Victor attended a school that was influenced by another Christian faith. In this school, only the priest was allowed to read the scriptures and Victor always had a desire to read the word of God, so he stopped going to church. One day in 1990 while walking to work, he saw a book in a pile of rubble. Even though it was dusty and wet, Victor felt drawn to it. Gold writing titled it ‘The Book of Mormon’.
“On the cover there was an emblem of the angel Moroni,” said Victor. “That is what attracted me to the book. I thought it was about things that had happened long, long ago.” He dusted off the book and took it home. He read it and said that all the '-ites' were interesting. He noticed on the title page the words written, 'The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints'. Victor made several attempts to find this mysterious church, but was unable to do so.
“The address on the book was in Utah and I thought there was no such church near me,” said Victor. “I really wanted to be part of the genuine church that was serving Heavenly Father in the right way. But I couldn’t find anything, so I just gave up.”
Ten years later, while walking to his spaza shop, two young men in white shirts approached Victor. They told him they wanted to talk to him about God. Victor invited them to come to his home, and the teaching began. During the discussion, he noticed the words on their name tags: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Suddenly, he remembered the book that he had found ten years earlier with those words on the cover. Victor retrieved the book from its shelf and showed it to the missionaries. His decade-long search for the church had finally been brought to an end! “That was a moment of great excitement between us and the missionaries,” said Victor. “It didn’t take long to decide that I wanted to get baptised. We met in December 2000 and my baptism date was set for the next month.”
Since that day, he has never missed a Sabbath day at church. He watched Munsieville grow from being part of a ward, to its own branch, meeting at a school. Later, Victor was called as the branch president and accepted the challenge from his priesthood leaders to help make the branch into a ward. Two years later this vision was achieved. But this is not the end to miracles witnessed by Brother Miti.
While paging through the Book of Mormon he had found, Victor saw a name written on one of the pages: Elizabeth Mosime. Victor had never met Elizabeth, but assumed from the inscription that she had once owned the book. Years later, Victor’s second son dated a young lady named Tshelofelo Vinolia Mosime. A baby boy was born of that relationship. The tiny child was named Kamogelo Victor Mosime. When the baby was nine months old, Vinolia suddenly died of a heart problem. Brother Miti and his wife lovingly took the infant into their home to raise. Some time later, Victor discovered that Elizabeth Mosime - the same lady who had once owned his Book of Mormon - was the great aunt of his grandson. Miraculously, Victor was connected to the original owner of his beloved book through the child who had unexpectedly come into his home.
Brother Miti says he will one day bestow this special Book of Mormon on his grandson, Kamogelo.
“I will be the custodian of this book for him. After my grandson goes on mission, I will give it to him as part of his heritage,” said Brother Miti. Kamogelo is now five years old and loves going to Primary. Heavenly Father has a master plan - Elizabeth Mosime, Victor Miti and little Kamogelo are all part of it.