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.

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.

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.