Elder Christian C. Chigbundu recalls a challenging time when he was serving as a bishop, learning to be a new father and working to further his accounting career all at the same time.
Adding to the already busy schedule was his goal to receive a professional accountant certification. This required him to attend lectures, mostly on weekends.
“One of my bosses in the office came to me and said, ‘Christian, you will never qualify as a chartered accountant. Tell them to release you from this calling.’”
Elder Chigbundu told his boss: “The Lord calls in my Church, and the Lord also releases. I will not go to the Lord and ask the Lord to release me.”
It was overwhelming, he said, but “when that stress comes, I look up to the Savior.”
Eventually Elder Chigbundu did receive his certification, still serving as bishop. He’s since carried with him that devotion to God’s work, doing so now as a new General Authority Seventy sustained in the April 2026 general conference.
Because for him and his wife, Sister Felicia Chigbundu, serving the Lord is a privilege.
“I will continue to serve in any capacity He will call us to serve because He owns the work,” he said. “Since it’s a privilege and I’m given that privilege to serve, we will always serve.”
Finding the Savior in the Book of Mormon
Raised in a Christian home, a young Christian Chigbundu sought to be “dedicated in the things of the Lord” and “strived to be what the Lord wanted me to become.”
So when a family friend introduced him to the missionaries as a young adult, he was eager to see if their book testified of the Savior. He determined that if the Book of Mormon didn’t witness of Him, he’d ask the missionaries not to return.
“The cover page said ‘Another Testament of Jesus Christ.’ It touched my heart,” recounted Elder Chigbundu, “and I started to read.”
Although he didn’t understand everything on the pages, he felt “something different” as he read.
“I scrambled and scrambled and scrambled, looking to see something that would make me tell them not to come anymore,” he said. “I didn’t see it. So they continued to come, and they continued to teach.”
After praying to know if the Book of Mormon was the word of God, “I felt something very strong that said, ‘This is true.’ And it was at that point I felt I needed to make that decision.” He was baptized a few days before his 22nd birthday.
‘This is where I want to be’
Sister Chigbundu first attended a Latter-day Saint congregation as a teenager, after a friend invited her to church. She was moved by what she felt and saw — the peace, the reverence, the genuine love from members who welcomed her.
“I felt at home. I felt something different,” she said. “I saw myself saying in my mind, ‘This is where I want to be,’ from the first day I got to church.”
When Sister Chigbundu told her mom she wanted to go again, her mom wasn’t thrilled — the family had been attending a different Christian church, and the mom discouraged attending another.
Sister Chigbundu started taking missionary lessons at her older brother’s home, and she got baptized once she reached the age of adulthood. For a while, she would attend her church and her family’s church on alternate weeks.
Then “at one point, my parents could not stop me anymore,” she said. “They knew I was bent on following my heart, and they allowed me. And ever since then, I tell whoever that cares to know about the gospel of Jesus Christ and the difference it has made in my life.”
‘Always extend loving hugs and appreciation’
Elder Chigbundu looks back with gratitude for those who supported him as a recent convert.
After receiving the Aaronic Priesthood, Elder Chigbundu was assigned by his bishop to bless the sacrament one Sunday.
“I thought, ‘This is very simple.’” When he said the sacramental prayer for the water, though, the bishop asked him to redo the prayer to match the precise wording. He prayed again, and the bishop again asked him to repeat the prayer. After the third time, the bishop signaled that it was good.
Elder Chigbundu recalls thinking: “I’ve disappointed many people, so I’m going to leave here, and I’m not going to come back anymore.”
But before he could leave after sacrament meeting, the bishop came to hug him and said, “Brother Chigbundu, you did wonderfully well.” The elders quorum president also gave him a hug and told him he did well.
“A sister also had a handshake of congratulation with me — the sister is my beloved wife today.”
He recalls: “I asked myself, ‘Did I do well?’ I know I didn’t do well. But those hugs, those simple words brought me back the next Sunday.”
Elder Chigbundu now invites the general Church membership to strengthen new converts. “We should always extend loving hugs and appreciation to new members of the Church,” he said. “They need it. It may not mean so much to us, but it means so much to them.”
Starting a family and serving in the Church
Although they were already attending the same ward, Elder and Sister Chigbundu didn’t get to know each other until Sister Chigbundu invited him and his brother to a home evening. The two built a friendship as they kept connecting with each other and attending Church activities together.
He said: “We started dating, and it didn’t last long, and we decided to get married.” The couple was married in 2002, when Elder Chigbundu was serving as a counselor in the bishopric.
Despite the busyness of starting a family amid callings and career responsibilities, the Chigbundus have trusted in King Benjamin’s promise in Mosiah 2:41: “Consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual.”
Sister Chigbundu has learned this while serving in callings such as stake Relief Society president, stake Young Women president and branch Primary president.
“We were serving the owner of the whole universe, who owns time, owns money, owns everything and apportions it the way He deems fit,” she said. “So if He calls us to do anything, we are ready to do that.”
They’ve kept that attitude through their calling to be mission leaders of the Nigeria Enugu Mission, starting in 2025. “From the time the call was extended to us, we went to our knees and asked for the support of our Heavenly Father,” said Elder Chigbundu.
He said they’ve been honored to work with their missionaries “side by side with our Heavenly Father,” helping them “understand their missionary purpose and that we are in this together.”
“I feel strengthened, I feel energized, I feel motivated knowing that He has gone before me, He has prepared the way for me, even before calling me.”
— Elder Christian C. Chigbundu, General Authority Seventy
‘I want to walk with Him’
As Elder Chigbundu begins service as a General Authority Seventy, he and his wife know a few things unequivocally: Joseph Smith restored Christ’s Church through the power of God, the Savior invites people to become like Him through His atoning sacrifice, and the Lord leads His Church through living prophets and apostles.
“This is the restored gospel of no other person but the Savior Himself,” said Elder Chigbundu. “He is at the helm of the affairs of His kingdom.”
Elder Chigbundu invites Latter-day Saints to comfort and reach out to “the one,” asking each day, “Have I done any good in the world today?” He also bore witness that “notwithstanding your circumstance, whatever you are passing through today, the Lord still loves you.”
When Sister Chigbundu sees her growth from following the gospel of Christ — especially by studying the scriptures and words of living prophets — she recognizes she’s in the right place. “I know that many lives, just like my life has been blessed, will be blessed.”
For Elder Chigbundu, becoming a lifelong disciple of Jesus Christ is more than a goal; it’s a blessing. “I feel strengthened, I feel energized, I feel motivated knowing that He has gone before me, He has prepared the way for me, even before calling me,” he said. “In Him I believe, and I want to walk with Him. He will never lead me astray.”
About Elder Christian C. Chigbundu
Family: Elder Christian Chiemezuolam Chigbundu was born Nov. 12, 1974, in Ahiaba Okpuala, Nigeria, to Egwatu Stephen Chigbundu and Oluchi Eunice Nwannunu. Married Felicia Mgbeodi Ugbor in Lagos, Nigeria, on Feb. 14, 2002. They are parents to five children.
Education: Graduate of accounting and finance with a master’s degree in marketing, postgraduate degree in international relations and advanced certificate in law.
Employment: Worked in finance, strategy implementation and mobility services and has served in executive leadership and on professional boards of many companies and organizations in Nigeria and Africa.
Church service: Nigeria Enugu Mission president (2025-26), Area Seventy, stake president, bishop, bishopric counselor, ward mission leader and ward Sunday School president.
