The story of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) in Africa is one of perseverance, faith, and eventual growth. Mormonism arrived on the shores of Sub-Saharan Africa in 1853. That year, missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) began proselytizing among the white European South Africans.
Johannesburg South Africa Temple
In the early years, Church growth was minimal, as a language barrier and government restrictions halted missionary work in South Africa from 1865-1903. The first Latter-day Saint missionaries assigned to Africa were called in 1852. One of the first three Latter-day Saint missionaries to the African continent was Elder William H. Walker. He arrived in Cape Town, South Africa, in April 1853 after a seven-month journey. Elder Walker, along with Elders Jesse Haven and Leonard L. Smith, did a lot of their work by distributing pamphlets and advertising their meetings.
The history of the South African Mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (1853-1970) describes the progress of the Church in South Africa from its inception until the present time. In 1853 three missionaries began Mormon proselyting activities in the Cape Province and within six months they had baptized forty-five persons, established two branches, and organized the first conference of the Church. Despite mob violence and opposition from the clergy, civil authorities, and the press, the Church continued to progress.
They were hampered by mobs and other religious leaders, and had a hard time getting food and places to stay. Sister Humbert found a quote in Elder Walker’s journal about that time: “The devil is determined to stare us out and destroy or drive us out of the place, notwithstanding the fact that the times look hard, we trust in the Lord, knowing that he will sustain us if we do right and keep humble.
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In a September 15, 1854, letter written by Elder Walker in Fort Beaufort, he described some of these troubles in getting people to listen, as well as a widespread cattle sickness and locust plague in the area. Journal entries also described healings, calming of the weather, and the first baptism - a man named Henry Stringer on June 15, 1853 - more baptisms, and the formal Church organization in South Africa in Mowbry. “My prayer is that Israel may be gathered, and Zion redeemed.
In those beginning years of the Church in Africa, it was mainly white Africans who were baptized. From him I learned perseverance. Just like that quote, he wouldn’t allow Satan or anyone else to discourage him or stand in their way. Through the troubles he just kept trudging on.
Restrictions and Independent Congregations
Around that time, Church leaders in the United States began a practice of restricting men of African ancestry from receiving priesthood ordination, which limited Church growth outside white communities in southern Africa. In 1852, President Brigham Young publicly announced that men of Black African descent could no longer be ordained to the priesthood. Subsequent Church presidents restricted Blacks from receiving the temple endowment or being married in the temple. Over time, Church leaders and members advanced many theories to explain the priesthood and temple restrictions. None of these explanations is accepted today as the official doctrine of the Church.
Starting in 1930 LDS missionaries began working in Zimbabwe and during the twentieth century missionary efforts began to increase in African nations from the late 1970’s, coinciding with the lifting of the 1978 temple and priesthood ban against those of African descent.
In the mid-20th century, other African groups learned about the Church and began corresponding with Church leaders. In countries like Nigeria and Ghana, independent congregations that embraced the Church’s teachings before 1978 laid the foundation for more rapid Church growth. Beginning in the late 1940s, people in West Africa began hearing about the restored gospel and wrote to Church headquarters for more information. In 1964, Joseph William Billy Johnson found a copy of the Book of Mormon in Ghana and was converted. In the late 1960s, Anthony Uzodimma Obinna learned about the Church in Nigeria.
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Gray began with Glen G. Fisher, the South Africa Mission president from 1956-1960, who was asked to visit Nigeria on his way home from his mission. Gray then turned to the historic visit of Elder N. LaMar Williams was the next man Gray cited. In late 1965, Williams went to Nigeria to see if he could get the church officially registered in the country. Gray noted that interestingly, Williams was soon directed by the First Presidency to leave the country, and two months later, there was a violent military coupe, making it impossible for official church activity for the next 13 years.
As reported by Gray, Catherine Stokes’ backstory tells of her influence in Ghana. She was slated to take a vacation in Yugoslavia, but was surprised by a call from Elder Neal A. Maxwell of the Quorum of the Twelve, who requested that she take a detour to attend a meeting in Accra, Ghana. Stokes took the detour and represented the church, meeting with ambassadors and ultimately helping to open doors for the church in that African country.
Gray then went back to his own experience, since it was through his friendship with Williams and his employment at KSL that he became invested in the African Saints. As explained above, he did not think he would find Mormons in his first visit to Africa in 1970, and was surprised to find Mormons at the first airport where he landed. He found more Mormons in Nairobi, and was asked by the branch president to request that they no longer report to the South Africa Mission, where there were tensions due to apartheid. Upon returning, he reported back to President Lee his experiences in Africa and was gratified when the request was honored and the Nairobi Branch was directed to report to the Swiss Mission.
“Sometimes you don’t expect to be a part of the backstory, or an instrument of spreading the gospel,' Gray said.
The 1978 Revelation and Subsequent Growth
A revelation given to President Spencer W. Kimball in 1978 once again made priesthood ordination available to all men without regard to race, and many of these believers became leaders in the Church. In 1978 the revelation on the priesthood was received. A revelation ending that practice in 1978 allowed for increased growth rates across the continent.
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Two years after the 1978 revelation on priesthood was received and announced, a group of young Durban township boys were contacted and taught by missionaries. By the end of the year, this group had joined the Church, and in early 1981, they became members of the first organized branch of the Church in the township of KwaMashu (located north of Durban). At the time he was baptized, black South Africans referred to the Church as “Isonto Labe Lungu,” meaning, “Church of the Whites”-not a flattering label at all-but reflected impressions that many held about the Church during the difficult apartheid years in South Africa.
During his mission and afterward, Sipho’s pioneering spirit motivated other African young men to accept mission calls and to serve the Lord. In fact, during one of Elder Khomo’s Christmas phone calls from England, the township boys all gathered with his family to hear of his missionary experiences. In his own words, Brother Khomo said, “I am glad I went on my mission-it helped make me strong. Brother Khomo still lives in KwaMashu, and he remains faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Latter-day Saints who had joined the Church while living overseas also introduced the faith to countries like Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo), Côte d’Ivoire, and Uganda. Africa’s first stake, the Transvaal Stake, was organized in South Africa in 1970. The Aba Nigeria Stake, the first in West Africa, was organized in 1988, and East Africa’s first stake was organized in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2001. Now there are three areas - Africa West, Africa Central and Africa South.
The 1978 revelation on priesthood had also opened temple worship to men and women of African ancestry. With the dedication of the Johannesburg South Africa Temple in 1985, temple spires began punctuating African skylines. President Gordon B. Hinckley dedicated the Johannesburg South Africa Temple in 1985. Additional temples have been built in South Africa and in Cape Verde, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, and Nigeria, with others announced or under construction. “Temples being close to members now - it’s something that we were hoping before. We were traveling all day to go to the Ghana temple,” he said.
Through the Church, African Latter-day Saints, like the Saints in other parts of the world, have found ways to serve others. They have embraced education and vocational training programs, worked on community-service projects, and organized relief during pandemics, famine, and natural disasters. Millions of Africans have benefited. Church members from Africa have served as missionaries around the world, spreading the gospel among all peoples. African Saints have also launched projects to collect oral genealogies and stories to link past and future generations.
As the LDS church grew on the continent, an African Area was established in 1990. Today, Africa is one of the fastest growing areas for the LDS church. The LDS church has over 2,300 congregations, thirty-five missions, and four temples in thirty-one of the fifty-four African countries that are recognized by the African Union and the United Nations.
Pioneers of Faith: Norbert and Valerie Ounleu
When a college friend gave a copy of the Book of Mormon to Norbert Kalogo Ounleu, he said he thought it was like any other book. He was attending university in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, at the time. He knew his friend’s uncle did not allow her to meet the missionaries at his home, so Ounleu offered to have the missionary lessons at his home. Ounleu was impressed with the missionaries, and he wanted to be like them. He asked the branch president if he could serve a mission. There was one branch in the city, and only one district of the Church in the whole country at that time.
Norbert and Valerie Ounleu
“But he advised me saying if you are married, you will serve a mission. But he didn’t tell me when. He didn’t realize married couples usually serve when they are older and retired. He and his friend got married anyway, while they were still in school.
“My wife and I went to South Africa to be sealed [in the temple there], and then we came back, the stake was divided, and I became a stake president” of the Abobo Ivory Coast Stake, he said. In June 2005, the Ivory Coast Abidjan Mission was created, and Ounleu and his wife, Valerie, became the first mission leaders. He was now serving a mission, 10 years after being baptized. The Ounleus have four children, and three of them are now returned missionaries.
And another blessing came when Ounleu’s mother joined the Church. Ounleu was raised Muslim in an area of the Ivory Coast near the border with Liberia. His father passed away when he was 4 years old. “She said, ‘My parents, they came in a group and told me I have to go where my son is now worshiping, so they advise me if I want to be saved,’” Ounleu recounted. He called the missionaries over to meet with his mother, and he translated the lessons for her in her local dialect.
As an Area Seventy at the time, Ounleu helped with the creation of the first stake in the country of Togo in 2013. Gambia now has its first branch, after Elder D. Ounleu has been helping to organize Church history fairs in every country so that new members don’t lose those stories about the beginning of the Church and those who came before them, he said. In an October 2010 visit to Burundi, Elder Jeffrey R. Ounleu said, “It was really a difficult decision to come to Africa and start a new life.
Challenges and Cultural Adaptation
Scholars working in Mormonism in Africa have noted that Christianity is experiencing massive growth in Sub-Saharan Africa, and although both the LDS and CoC organizations have seen impressive growth in Africa, when compared to the growth of other African Christianities, they lag behind. One explanation for the lack of LDS growth, when compared to other Christian traditions, may be that the American-headquartered church resists local customs being integrated into church worship and practices.
The LDS church requires strict adaptation of African members in dress, language and worship services, encouraging a duplicatable experience for members. In other words, the hope is that one can walk into any LDS church in the world and have the familiar hymns, formula and lessons. Philip Jenkins points out that despite the obvious connections between LDS and African beliefs regarding the importance of the extended family and communal connections, the LDS growth rate will remain hindered without allowing for cultural assimilation of local worship styles.
Jehu J. Hanciles observes that globalization is changing the face of Christianity, and Mormonism is transitioning to a religion of brown and black members. Despite this transition, Hanciles notes that “the inescapable conclusion is that Mormon voices within North America control the flow of ideas and almost exclusively shape the LDS Church’s narrative.” Finally, Walter van Beek joins these and other scholars in calling for cultural adaptation of local customs in order to grow the LDS membership in Africa. Van Beek’s analysis of “gospel culture” wrapped up in “Deseret culture” reveals the pervasive nature and serious pitfalls of American religious imperialism within Mormonism.
Some of the most pressing issues for those studying Mormonism in Africa will be an examination of how American racism and sexism has stalled conversions, as well as reasons that growth lags behind when compared to the explosion of Christianity. Examining issues of violence, peace and conflict, systemic poverty and postcolonial interactions may also bare fruitful explanations for what converts within Mormonism need from their church leaders.
Modern-Day Pioneers
“There are so many young people that are joining and they’re going to be their future leaders,” she said. And Elder Humbert added that he’s heard the phrase before that “it’s always 1830 somewhere in the Church,” and they see that in their travels. “We met a sister a couple weeks ago who puts her baby on her back in a traditional wrap and walks to sacrament meeting an hour and a half. And she walks an hour and a half back,” Elder Humbert said.
Ounleus said the members in Abidjan used to have no building - they met and worshiped under a tree. “I think the Church has made our family - I can’t really explain because it is more than what a human being can expect. It’s changed our life, and we are now members of the only true Church on earth, and that kind of blessing doesn’t come like this.
Abidjan Ivory Coast (Côte d’Ivoire) Temple rendering
“I’m so grateful for the gospel and that it is the only true Church,” he said. “Jesus Christ is the head of the Church. We have a living Prophet. I love President Russell M. Nelson.
Church milestones in Africa include the creation of the first stake in 1970 in Johannesburg, South Africa. In 1988, the first stake was formed in West Africa, in Aba, Nigeria. In 1990, the Africa Area was organized. Visit the Newsroom to see current events of the Church in Africa. Today, Latter-day Saint congregations exist in many African countries and experience continued growth.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) operates 449 missions throughout the world, as of June 2024. Most are named after the location of the mission headquarters, usually a specific city. The geographical area a mission actually covers is typically much larger than the name may indicate; most areas of the world are within the jurisdiction of a mission of the church.
Table of Temples in Africa
| Temple | Location | Dedicated |
|---|---|---|
| Johannesburg South Africa Temple | Johannesburg, South Africa | 1985 |
| Aba Nigeria Temple | Aba, Nigeria | 2005 |
| Accra Ghana Temple | Accra, Ghana | 2004 |
| Durban South Africa Temple | Durban, South Africa | 2020 |
| Kinshasa Democratic Republic of the Congo Temple | Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo | 2019 |
| Nairobi Kenya Temple | Nairobi, Kenya | 2024 |
| Praia Cape Verde Temple | Praia, Cape Verde | 2021 |
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