SALT LAKE CITY — President Russell M. Nelson will visit Israel, India, Kenya and five other countries on a “global ministry tour” next month, the LDS Church announced Friday.
The trip is scheduled to start about 10 days after millions of Mormons sustain President Nelson, 93, as the 17th president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in a solemn assembly next week at the faith’s international general conference.
President Nelson and his wife, Sister Wendy Watson Nelson, will be joined by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and his wife, Sister Patricia Holland. The contingent will depart April 10 and return April 23. The tour’s other stops are in London, Zimbabwe, Thailand, Hong Kong and Hawaii.
Church members already have started to look forward to his visit.
“I feel like my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have a special message for me,” said Sumalatha Komalpati, a stake family history consultant in Bengaluru, India, where the tour will stop. “He loves me so much that he wants to make sure I feel all right. He sent his prophet to meet me to ensure I am doing fine.”
Several of the stops are in places where the church is expanding, like Bengaluru. The number of LDS stakes in India has grown from one to four since 2011. A stake is a geographic concentrations of congregations. The six congregations in Bengaluru became a stake in 2015. India now has 13,000 Mormons.
Three tour stops also are in cities where church leaders have announced future temples — Nairobi, Kenya; Harare, Zimbabwe; and Bangkok, Thailand.
President Nelson will meet with members and missionaries and make other visits at each stop.
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