Daniel Sintim-Aboagye is one of those special individuals who recognized what matters most and chose to follow it. As a young man Daniel’s ultimate desire was always to be a professional football player. His entire life seemed to be centred upon that dream. Although he was baptised at age 9, his focus was more on football than on the Church.
| Temple Square is always beautiful in the springtime. Gardeners work to prepare the ground for General Conference. © 2012 Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved. | 1 / 2 |
His dream of becoming a professional football player was finally realised when he was asked to play in the 1st Team for the Woking Football Club in the Conference Premier as a defender, centre back. As time went on, he also played for a few other teams in and around London. Playing football especially on Sundays kept him away from Church, and he eventually went inactive. Serving a mission was never a possibility, football was too important for him to give it up for a mission.
When his younger brother Timothy was serving his mission Daniel began to think about going back to Church. He started to read the Book of Mormon, and for several Friday nights the full time missionaries would visit his home and read the Book of Mormon with him. He also saw the movie about the value of serving a mission. He begin to feel the Spirit telling him he should serve a mission. At about this time Daniel began to lose interest in football, and he knew it was not the life he wanted. He started to go to Church and received a calling as the Clerk in his congregation.
About six months before his brother Timothy was to return home from his mission in the England Manchester Mission Daniel emailed Timothy to tell him that he was considering serving a mission. Six months later when he went to Manchester to pick Timothy up to bring him home at the end of his mission, the mission president told Daniel that he would go on a mission, and he would come to the England Manchester mission.
As time passed Daniel became more active in his congregation, and in November 2015 he received a call to serve a mission in the England Manchester Mission. Although he was 25 years old, Daniel decided he wanted to serve a mission. He gave up his football career, and he is now more concerned about passing out Books of Mormon than passing footballs.