The following updates are excerpted from the Church Newsroom. The link for each full report follows the excerpt.

Elder Gong meets with the Secretary of the Interior of Mexico

On a recent visit to Mexico, Elder Gerrit W. Gong of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints met with Adán Augusto López, Secretary of the Interior of Mexico.

In a cordial meeting held at the headquarters of the Ministry of the Interior, Elder Gong spoke about the efforts that the Church makes to build up families in Mexico.

“By doing so, we are contributing to the strengthening of society,” he stressed.

Elder Gong shared data on the presence of the Church in Mexico, which is home to nearly 1.5 million Latter-day Saints in about 1,850 congregations.

Elder Gong also explained the scope of the Church’s humanitarian aid in Mexico. During the pandemic, this aid was manifested in 166 different projects that favorably impacted an estimated 12.8 million people.

Elder Gong presented Secretary López with a statue of the Christus and thanked him for the diplomatic relations that have existed between the Church of Jesus Christ and the government of Mexico for 110 years.

To read the full report, CLICK HERE.

Elder Christofferson meets with President of Ghana

On 21 February 2023, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the President of Ghana, welcomed Elder D. Todd Christofferson, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to a meeting in the Jubilee House also known as the Presidential Palace in Accra, Ghana. Also in attendance was Elder Paul V. Johnson, of the Presidency of the Seventy, Elder S. Gifford Nielsen, a General Authority Seventy and President of the Africa West Area, and Elder Alfred Kyungu, a General Authority Seventy and counselor in the Africa West Area Presidency. Elder Christofferson is in Ghana during a 12-day visit of the Africa West Area.

President Akufo-Addo was first elected President in 2017 and visited previously with Elder Christofferson in 2019. Elder Christofferson congratulated him on his election to a second term.

This reconnection comes at a time of great growth of the Church in Ghana. Ghanaian citizens began joining the Church more than 45 years ago in 1978, and today the Church has over 101,000 members in 353 congregations.

One of Akufo-Addo’s major priorities as President has been his focus on education and he shared his appreciation for the efforts the Church has made to support government programs focusing on education.

“Education is the key to developing society,” the President said. “I commend the Church for its initiatives to educate and empower individuals with sought after employable skills. With my government’s emphasis on technical and vocational education, I feel what your Church does in terms of education complements our effort.”

To read the full report, CLICK HERE.