A Legacy of Missionary Service

By Susan Swann

On January 8th, 2018, Benjamin Thomas Fagg, local Cumming resident and former student at West Forsyth High School, opened his mission call from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) and discovered he had been called to serve for two years in the Czech/Slovak Mission. Ben was amazed and humbled beyond words. His great-grandfather Thomas Biesinger had also served in Prague. Ben had always felt connected to this man, blessed to carry the name Thomas as his own middle name. Now Ben would inherit his great-grandfather’s legacy as well by serving in the Czech / Slovak Mission.

After Ben received his call, he and his family sat together and again read Biesinger’s history. They were reminded that 156 years before Ben received his call to serve at eighteen, his great-grandfather Bessinger joined the LDS church as an eighteen-year old in Germany. Three years later, he emigrated to Utah where he married, and had four children.

One Sunday in 1884, when Biesinger was 40 years old, he attended the faith’s General Conference and was surprised to hear his name called from the pulpit. He was being asked to serve in the Austria-Hungary Mission, which he agreed to do. Leaving his family behind in Utah, Biesinger arrived in Europe and met his mission companion in Vienna where they decided to split up in order to cover more territory. That’s when Biesinger went to Prague. Not long after he’d been in the city, he was jailed for preaching religion publicly on a street corner.

Biesinger spent many months in jail before being released, but he later baptized his jailer, who was the first convert to the LDS Church in what is now the Czech Republic. Biesinger returned to Utah after serving in Europe three years and raised his family. Then in 1928, at the age of 85, he asked for and received another call from the Church to help reopen Czechoslovakia to missionary service, since the country had been closed to preaching during World War I. Biesinger spent another eleven months serving in Czechoslovakia, at home in the country where he had served 45 years prior.

Now it was his great-grandson’s Ben’s turn to answer the call. Serving a mission is not asked of everyone in the LDS church, but Ben’s family had others who had already served: his Dad in Peru; his older brother Jake in Argentina, and one of his older sisters, Brittany, in Charlotte, North Carolina. Ben’s sister Allie’s husband Mitch had also served in New York City.

Ben had been an athlete most of his life, playing football first and then rugby. Ben was a starter all four years of high school with his squad, the Alpharetta Phoenix rugby team. They were his brothers. Was he ready to leave all this behind to serve a mission?

Ben wanted to know if serving a mission was what the Lord wanted him to do, so he read his scriptures and prayed about it. One night, as he read the book of Joshua in the Old Testament, he came across this scripture in Joshua 1:9 “Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.” Ben had his answer, and tears fell from his eyes.

Then Ben approached his parents Wayne and Amie who agreed to let him homeschool his senior year. Ben immersed himself in online courses and finished his high school graduation requirements in December of 2017, six months ahead of schedule.

With the help of his bishop, Ben prepared the paperwork to go on a mission, including physical and mental checkups. Then on January 8, 2018, Ben was called to serve in Czechoslovakia, just as his great-grandfather had.

May 30, 2018, Ben entered the Mission Training Center (MTC) to begin preparing to teach the message of the restored gospel and to learn the Czech language. He entered Czechia on August 2, 2018, and currently lives in the city of Ostrava, located less than 10km from the Polish border.

In a recent email to his family Ben wrote, “I am so grateful for this experience and the opportunity I get to bring people closer to Christ. I know it is tough to have faith sometimes, especially in Christ. The only way you can grow it and survive spiritually is through study of His life and personal revelation and reflection of your own.”

February marks ninth months on Ben’s mission. He will serve in the Czech Republic until June 2020, after his sister Charli, who is a junior at West Forsyth graduates from high school.