As part of a recent five-country ministry in East and Central Africa, Elder Ronald A. Rasband of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles dedicated a missionary training center in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, on Sunday, Nov. 2.
The missionary training center in Kinshasa will serve one of the fastest-growing areas of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, according to a news release on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
“Many young converts are of missionary age, and they want to go on missions. And so, this MTC in the Congo will cater more to the Congolese missionaries,” Elder Rasband said.
Elder Rasband was joined at the dedicatory service by Elder Kevin R. Duncan, a member of the Presidency of the Seventy, and Elder Christophe G. Giraud-Carrier, a General Authority Seventy who serves as second counselor in the Church’s Africa Central Area presidency.
The dedication comes as the Church prepares to open two new missions in the country — the Democratic Republic of the Congo Kinshasa North and the Democratic Republic of the Congo Mwene-Ditu missions — in 2026. The country currently has seven missions, according to ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
Elder Deniel Siles Acquaah, who will be serving in Cameroon, is the first missionary from Ghana to receive training at the missionary training center in Kinshasa.
“I felt honored to be part of the missionaries who witnessed the dedication,” Elder Acquaah said.
After a limited number of local missionaries began receiving training in a temporary center in 2022, the Church on June 18, 2024, announced the opening of a new missionary training center in Kinshasa.
The Kinshasa MTC began training in November 2024 with a planned capacity of 200, serving missionaries who already speak French or will be learning French and English for their assigned service.
“We have missionaries come from other parts of Africa as well, coming here to learn to speak French, or we have some French speakers learning English,” said President Myles Proudfoot, president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo MTC in Kinshasa.
One is Elder Khalifa Kikuli, a missionary from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, who will serve in the South Africa Johannesburg Mission. “I’ve been learning so many things about the English language,” he said.
Sister Julie Proudfoot, wife of President Proudfoot, said of the MTC dedication: “What a wonderful occasion for [the missionaries] to hear an Apostle speak to them and to feel his message and to give them encouragement to go out and serve with all their heart, might, mind and strength.”
The MTC facilities include a single building of eight stories with a basement parking garage. The first two floors contain a cafeteria, sacrament meeting room and offices. The remaining stories will be used for classrooms and residence apartments for the missionaries and leaders.
The missionary training center is located a short drive from the Kinshasa Democratic Republic of the Congo Temple to allow missionaries to attend the temple while at the MTC.
The Kinshasa MTC is one of three on the African continent and one of 11 worldwide. The Church’s other missionary training centers are:
- Brazil Missionary Training Center in São Paulo, Brazil
- England Missionary Training Center in Chorley, England, near Preston
- Ghana Missionary Training Center in Accra, Ghana
- Mexico Missionary Training Center in Mexico City, Mexico
- New Zealand Missionary Training Center in Manukau City, New Zealand, near Auckland
- Peru Missionary Training Center in Lima, Peru
- Philippines Missionary Training Center in Quezon City, Philippines, in metro Manila
- Provo Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah
- South Africa Missionary Training Center in Roodepoort, South Africa, near Johannesburg
- Thailand Missionary Training Center in Bangkok, Thailand
