Elder Denelson Silva

General Authority Seventy

The 4,000-mile (6,400 km) return trip from Luanda, Angola, to São Paulo, Brazil, gave Elder Denelson Silva and his wife, Regina, time to wrestle with a prompting. After serving as a mission president, Elder Silva felt that he and his wife should not buy a home.

They had sold their home before leaving for their mission. They planned to purchase a new home upon their return but felt prompted to wait. “Houses in Brazil are not an asset you put up for sale and then sell immediately,” Elder Silva said. “It can take days or months or years.”

Sister Silva said they focused on the fact that Heavenly Father had guided them before their mission and that He would guide them again. “We decided together to wait for a time,” she said. They chose to rent a home instead.

Like selling a house in Brazil, the answer didn’t come in days or months or even a year. The answer came more than two years later when Elder Silva received a call to serve as a General Authority Seventy.

“We have to have the mindset that if He asks us to do something, our answer is always yes,” Elder Silva said. “If the answer isn’t always ‘yes,’ it leaves space for ‘no’ or ‘maybe.’” However, for the Savior, he explains, “there was no space for ‘no’ or ‘maybe’ in Gethsemane.”

Denelson Urbano da Silva was born on July 4, 1965, in Recife, Brazil, to Domingos Urbano da Silva and Maria José de Almeida Silva. He grew up in Recife and was sealed to Regina Maria de Carvalho Silva in the São Paulo Brazil Temple in May 1987. The couple has two children.

He has a bachelor’s degree in business administration (data processing). He worked in the travel industry for 30 years.

From 2016 to 2019, Elder Silva served as mission president with his wife in the Angola Luanda Mission. He has also served as an Area Seventy, stake president, bishop, high councilor, and full-time missionary in the Brazil Curitiba Mission.