The first missionaries entered the country in 1953. The first Nicaraguan convert, José de Guzman, was baptized on April 11, 1954, a year after the first missionaries arrived in the country. These missionaries, Elders Manuel Arias and Archie R. Mortensen, were serving in the Central American Mission, which Elder Spencer W. Kimball organized in 1952. In 1959, the first Nicaraguan district was formed. The first stake (the Managua Stake) was created in March 1981 and reorganized in June 1998. Several natural disasters and political crises, including an earthquake that devastated Managua in 1972 and a civil war that began in the late 1970s, slowed missionary work throughout the 1970s and '80s. Foreign missionaries were removed from the country in 1980, and locals continued the work until full-time missionaries returned about ten years later. The first Nicaraguan members entered the temple in Guatemala City in 1987. The Nicaragua Managua Mission opened in October 1989.