Nicaragua: Church Chronology

November 16, 1952 • Guatemala City, GuatemalaThe Central American Mission, which included Nicaragua, was created.

December 1953 • NicaraguaManuel Arias and Archie R. Mortensen were the first missionaries to serve in Nicaragua.

April 11, 1954 • Managua, NicaraguaJosé D. Guzmán and his daughter Nora Esperanza Guzmán Muñoz were the first two Nicaraguans to be baptized.

November 21, 1954 • ManaguaThe Managua Branch was created.

September 30, 1956 • ManaguaRoger Zelaya Aragon was ordained an elder and sustained as the first local president of the Managua Branch.

1957 • ManaguaJosefa Correa was called as the Relief Society president in the Managua Branch. She served in that calling for 15 years.

January 3, 1961 • ManaguaJoseph Fielding Smith, president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, participated in a district conference.

participants attending youth conference in Costa Rica

April 7–11, 1966 • Costa Rica

Nicaraguan youth participated in the first Central American Mission youth conference. Two hundred youth from throughout the mission attended.

September 24, 1967 • ManaguaThe first Church-built meetinghouse in Nicaragua was dedicated.

April 13, 1970 • NicaraguaThe Church received legal status in the country.

December 23, 1972 • NicaraguaA 6.2-magnitude earthquake leveled central Managua. Four hundred and fifty thousand people were evacuated, including 1,700 members.

December 1975 • NicaraguaThe Nicaraguan government issued a “Great Choirs of the World” (Grandes coros del mundo) postage stamp series including one stamp depicting The Tabernacle Choir.

September 1978 • NicaraguaFull-time missionaries from outside Nicaragua were evacuated because of political instability. Local missionaries carried on, baptizing 56 converts in November.

March 1981 • ManaguaThe Managua Stake was organized.

1982 • NicaraguaAccusations that missionaries were agents for the United States government led to the confiscation of three Church meetinghouses.

1987 • HondurasOne hundred-forty-six members traveled from Managua to the Guatemala City Temple, enduring a five-day delay because they did not have written permission to cross the border.

October 29, 1987 • ManaguaChurch leaders met with Sandinista government officials and received a verbal commitment that the Church meetinghouses would be returned and that the officials would consider letting full-time missionaries serve again.

April 30, 1988 • ManaguaThe government returned the Bello Horizonte meetinghouse to the Church.

1989 • NicaraguaFollowing the end of the local conflict, full-time missionaries returned to Nicaragua.

October 15, 1989 • ManaguaThe Nicaragua Managua Mission was organized.

April 9, 1990 • ManaguaSeveral local members were present as Elder Richard G. Scott and Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles dedicated Nicaragua.

July 1, 1992 • NicaraguaPresident José Evenor Boza Dompé and Sister Janette Arauz Boza became the first Nicaraguans to preside over the Nicaragua Managua Mission.

President Gordon B. Hinckley with crowd in Nicaragua

January 21, 1997 • Managua

Church President Gordon B. Hinckley spoke to approximately 2,400 members in the Aloph Palme Auditorium.

June 21, 1998 • ManaguaThe Managua Stake, which had been discontinued in 1989, was reinstated.

October 2001 • ManaguaAt a ceremony announcing the donation by the Church and the Wheelchair Foundation of 500 wheelchairs, First Lady Maria Fernanda Flores de Aleman also thanked the Church for its humanitarian aid during a recent drought.

November 9, 2002 • ManaguaNicaraguan Saints volunteered for “Rural Medicine Day,” a Church-sponsored event to provide medical and dental services to people in need. Seventy-eight hundred people received care.

December 2005 • NicaraguaBy the end of 2005, Church membership exceeded 50,000.

January 2009 • NicaraguaNicaraguan youths throughout the country participated in nationwide youth camps.

June 2, 2013 • Chinandega, NicaraguaMembers of the West Chinandega Stake participated in an indexing marathon.

April 2017 • Salt Lake City, Utah, USAReyna I. Aburto, who was born in Nicaragua, was called as the Second Counselor in the General Presidency of the Relief Society.

April 2, 2018 • Salt Lake CityChurch President Russell M. Nelson announced that a temple would be built in Nicaragua.

June 2018 • NicaraguaThe Church transferred all missionaries out of the country because of civil unrest.

August 4, 2021 • Tola, NicaraguaThe Church donated medical supplies and equipment to the Roberto Clemente Health Clinic in Tola, Nicaragua, to support the clinic’s work in rural communities in the region.

September 15, 2021 • NicaraguaAmid the COVID-19 pandemic, Nicaraguan Latter-day Saints hosted virtual celebrations of the 200th anniversary of the independence of Nicaragua.