Hirobo Obeketang sits back on his couch and smiles. He and his wife, Linda, have just finished holding family home evening with four of their children and the sister missionaries. They also treated the missionaries to a fish dinner, complete with eyes and tail—a tradition in Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands. As Hirobo describes his life, he expresses how grateful he is for the Church, the gospel, and his family, especially his wife.
It is June 2009. One day earlier the Majuro Marshall Islands Stake was created, and Hirobo was called to serve as the first stake executive secretary. Hirobo, as new stake president Arlington Tibon describes him, "is very, very strong," one of the faithful leaders of the island.
But Hirobo is the first to point out that until recently that wasn't the case. In fact, he credits his wife with being the strong one—the one who made the difference in his life. He explains, "I was baptized when I was eight years old, but when I was 16, I became less active."
A few years later he and Linda began living together, though they weren't married. Linda was not a member of the Church. In 2000, shortly after Linda discovered that Hirobo had been baptized as a child, she became interested in the Church and began meeting with the sister missionaries.
"She studied for two years and decided she wanted to be baptized," Hirobo recalls. "We had to get married first, but I wasn't interested in getting married. I was confused; I was really into the world's temptations. I didn't understand the importance of family, and I didn't really care or listen to anybody."
Linda, though not baptized, raised their children in the Church. Every year she asked Hirobo to marry her so she could get baptized; each time he said no. Over the years two of their daughters were baptized, but Hirobo did not attend their baptisms.
Then, in 2006, their nine-year-old son, Takao, passed away from a seizure and high fever. About 300 members from the Majuro district came to the funeral to support the family.
"Their support was a really big thing for me," Hirobo says. "I started to think that God was probably telling me something."
He began thinking about how he was the reason his wife couldn't get baptized, even though he was a member of the Church. "She was getting stronger and stronger. She was really inspiring me," he recalls.
"So I sat down and thought about how I was halfway through my life. I asked myself, 'Am I going to continue doing what I am doing? Do I have a chance to work for God for the second half of my life?' I started saying my prayers and thinking about coming back to church to start working for God."
Hirobo began studying with the missionaries and relearning doctrine. President Nelson Bleak of the Marshall Islands Majuro Mission befriended him, as did other members, including then-district president Arlington Tibon. Finally, Hirobo committed to return, and the next thing he knew, he was attending not just sacrament meeting but also Sunday School and priesthood meeting. At last, Hirobo made up his mind.
"When I came back, I said, 'This is it. This is what I'm going to do.' And it changed my life completely."
Hirobo and Linda were married on August 30, 2008. He soon received the Aaronic Priesthood and baptized his wife. Two months later Hirobo received the Melchizedek Priesthood and was called as the district executive secretary.
Hirobo looks at his wife and smiles. "She couldn't believe I was the one who baptized her," he says. "Imagine—it took her eight years, from 2000 to 2008. She is amazing."