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To reach a temple of their faith, Kenyan Latter-day Saints in Nairobi must buy airline tickets to fly either 2,600 miles to Accra, Ghana, or 1,818 miles to Johannesburg, South Africa.
The cost is prohibitive, far more than many of them can afford in a nation where the annual gross domestic product per person is $2,082.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced a temple in Nairobi back in 2017. It is under construction now, though it won’t be completed for about two years, according to local estimates.
A year after the temple announcement, President Russell M. Nelson embarked on a round-the-world ministry tour in April 2018.
He stopped first in London, one of the world’s most diverse cities. Nearly two-thirds of the city’s population now identifies with an ethnic minority group.
“Everybody comes to London, so we might as well come, too,” he told me then. “It’s a melting pot, and ours is a global ministry, so at least we can get a sample. Most of the nations of the world are here in London.”
President Nelson’s next stop was Israel.
“I wanted to go to the birthplace of the Lord Jesus Christ,” he explained at his third stop, in Nairobi, Kenya.
Why Kenya?
“I felt a sense of devotion and obligation to come here before anywhere else,” he said to Africans from several countries during a devotional on April 16, 2018.
He spoke for 35 minutes and devoted several of them to talking about the importance of the temple.
President Nelson mentioned that at that time, a site for the Nairobi temple had not yet been selected.
“I don’t know how long it will take to build that temple,” he said, “but let’s have a little contest: See if you can build your lives to be ready and your ancestral documentation to be ready for when the temple comes.”
Nearly 42 months later, construction began on the Nairobi Kenya Temple, in September 2021. Last week, I visited the temple site in the Mountain View area of Nairobi with photographer Spenser Heaps. We found a construction crew at work.
The temple sits well back from a paved highway, surrounded by dirt roads on three sides. The spire is in place, but scaffolding surrounds a skeletal frame below the steeple.
President Nelson was just three months into his administration when he visited Kenya, but he already had begun what over the past five years is a clear emphasis on the temple.
During his Nairobi devotional, he also said that it is easier for church leaders to build a temple than it is for them to build a people ready for the temple.
President Nelson then outlined three ways he wanted Kenyans and other Africans to prepare for the temple.
The first was to identify their ancestors and learn when and where they were born.
Second, he told them to be worthy to attend the temple.
Third, he told them to prepare their children for a temple.
“Have them sealed to you,” he said. “Give them the opportunity to be sealed to your ancestors.”
One member of the audience stood out in a striking orange African dress. Eunice Amuge of Lira, Uganda, had saved money and traveled on four buses across two days to attend the devotional at Bomas of Kenya, a large circular, wooden structure that resembles a giant hut.
Afterward, she met the prophet briefly when he shook hands with some people in front of the stage.
“I’m very happy because my prophet, I shook his hand,” she said. “A very nice blessing. I learned from him today about family and forgiveness and loving one another, and to clean our hearts, to forget about every bad thing and start anew.”
About the church
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What I’m reading
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Behind the scenes
