The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Sierra Leone
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Sierra Leone refers to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and its members in Sierra Leone. At year-end 2009, there were 8,054 members in 17 branches in Sierra Leone. In 2019, there were 22,787 members in 79 congregations. In 2019, Sierra Leone ranked as having the second most LDS Church members per capita in Africa, behind Cape Verde. History. The first official meeting of the LDS Church in Sierra Leone was held  in Goderich in January 1988, with the first LDS missionaries arriving in May of that year. They were under the Liberia Monrovia Mission. A district was organized in Freetown in 1990. At various times in the 1990s, missionaries were withdrawn due to the civil war in the country. In 1991, the Liberia Monrovia Mission was discontinued and Sierra Leone was placed under the Accra Ghana Mission. The first LDS-built meetinghouse in the country was completed in Bo in 2004. In 2007, the Sierra Leone Freetown Mission was created covering both Sierra Leone and Liberia. In December 2012, Jeffrey R.  Holland created the first LDS stake in Sierra Leone in Freetown. In 2013, Liberia was split off to be its own separate mission. A brief history can be found at LDS Newsroom (Sierra Leone) or Deseret News 2010 Church Almanac (Country Information: Sierra Leone) Stakes and districts. The Freetown Sierra Leone Stake was organized on December 2, 2012, making it the 3,000th stake in the LDS Church. As of February 2022, Sierra Leone had the following stakes and district: Stakes and Districts Missions. 2014 West Africa Ebola outbreak. After two of its members died during the 2014 West Africa Ebola  outbreak, the LDS Church required its missionaries to remain in their apartments as a precautionary measure. Then on August 1, 2014 the LDS Church announced that it would transfer all of its 274 missionaries out of Sierra Leone and Liberia, thereby closing the Sierra Leone Freetown Mission for the duration of the outbreak. Temples. On October 5, 2019, the Freetown Sierra Leone Temple was announced by church president Russell M. Nelson.