When the call came to serve as the next Primary general president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, President Rosemary K. Chibota had a lot of emotions.
“Sometimes just feeling overwhelmed, sometimes feelings of inadequacy, but also feelings of great joy and peace at the same time,” she said. “I know that there are a lot of people praying for me, and I have felt that peace from the prayers and comfort.”
President Chibota was sustained during the April 2026 general conference and begins service on Aug. 1.
She had a feeling something was going to change in her life as she and her husband, Brother Joel Chibota, were finishing their time as mission leaders in the Alabama Birmingham Mission in June 2025.
“Just before I left, I started to feel that I was going to be serving in some capacity even after I got home. I have had some impressions, knowing that the Lord was preparing me for more service.”
Because of those impressions, the last few months before she was sustained have strengthened her testimony about revelation and about living prophets and apostles who receive revelation from Heavenly Father.
Above all, she is excited to serve “God’s finest, the little children,” she said. “I look up to them a lot because the Lord said [that] except we repent and become like little children, we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. (See Matthew 18:3; Mosiah 3:19; and 3 Nephi 11:37-38.) I’m really looking forward to learning from them and to being better because of being around them.”
President Chibota was born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, to Malawian parents. This calling marks the first time an African will lead an organization general presidency of the Church. She said she has received many messages of love and support from people of different cultures and backgrounds.
While she said this is not the reason she was called, it is part of it — just like when her husband was called as a Black mission president in Alabama. She believes that the Lord “calls us for who we are.”
The fact that Brother Chibota was a Black man in the Southern United States had a good impact on a lot of people, President Chibota said, explaining that people felt the Spirit when Brother Chibota spoke, and it changed many attitudes and helped heal prejudices.
Serving as mission leaders was a great blessing, President Chibota said. “Those young men and young women, those wonderful missionaries, they are amazing.”
Brother Chibota said the Lord increases the capacity to love. “Genuinely love,” he added.
President Chibota said a lot of times when people are asked to serve the Lord, they think of it as a sacrifice. But when she was a mission leader, she learned that callings are a gift from the Lord.
“When you take on that gift, the Lord increases your capacity to serve. He blesses you with the gifts and talents that you need to fulfill that calling that you wouldn’t otherwise have if you had not accepted that call.”
Seeing how much the Lord increased her capacity to love and serve as she worked with the missionaries has her looking forward to her new calling.
“I already have this overwhelming feeling of love for the Primary children. I’m excited to receive more capacity to serve them and to love them, which I know the Lord will bless me with.”
An inspired question
President Chibota is the ninth of 10 children. Her parents were raised as Christians in Malawi, and her maternal grandfather was a priest in the Presbyterian faith and chief of their village. He was the pioneer of faith in her family, she said.
Her parents established a branch of the Presbyterian Church within the compound where they lived in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, to serve immigrant workers from Northern Malawi who had come there seeking employment. She was raised in a faithful home, reading the scriptures together every day.
She remembers a day when she was really young, sitting in her father’s lap and reading in Exodus about the burning bush. She asked her father, “What does God look like?” She didn’t realize at the time that it was an inspired question that triggered her search for the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Her parents allowed her to attend other Churches with friends where she went seeking the answer to that question.
President Chibota was growing up during Zimbabwe’s War of Independence, and there were certain places where her family could not live because of the color of their skin. When the war ended in 1980 and the country became an independent nation, her parents looked for a new home for the family.
The hand of the Lord was involved in the house search, President Chibota said, because her parents found a home that ended up being within walking distance of a Latter-day Saint meetinghouse.
President Chibota had continued attending different churches as she looked for the truth. Then, one day, in 1984, when she was about 17, she came home from school and found a pamphlet with a picture of a boy praying in a grove with two heavenly beings above him. She immediately picked it up — as she felt like it had the answer to her question of what God looks like.
“I took it to my room, and I read it. And immediately I gained a testimony that this was true and that this boy, Joseph Smith, had seen God and Jesus Christ. I gained that testimony in my room just by myself. I knew that this was what I was looking for,” she said.
The missionaries invited the family to go to church. Walking into the chapel for the first time, President Chibota heard the hymn “Come Unto Jesus” and felt an overwhelming sense of welcome home flood her heart.
“I knew that I was home, that this is where I was supposed to be. I knew that this is my church, this is what I’ve been looking for.”
Over the years, her mother continued to regularly feed the missionaries, and her father read “Jesus the Christ” and the Book of Mormon — even teaching from it and giving away copies in his own church congregation. “He was a missionary before he was a member,” President Chibota said.
Around 20 years after President Chibota’s baptism, her parents were baptized as well.
Because of her experience searching for the restored gospel, she knows the formula for receiving answers to questions: “Think about it, pray about it, ponder about it, search for answers, and the Lord is willing to give us those answers.”
A dream that led to baptism
Brother Chibota grew up in a different part of Zimbabwe than President Chibota and also grew up with a Christian background.
He had questions and went to different churches and congregations. Growing frustrated in this search, he thought he would do better to study the Bible and sing hymns by himself in his room on Sundays.
“I did that for a month or so, but I felt emptiness. I felt like I needed to belong to a church. Something was missing in my life,” he said.
One day, when he was about 19 years old, he had a vivid dream of a building with unrecognizable letters on the front. Later, while riding his bicycle, he felt something prompting him to go a certain way. After about 5 miles, he saw and recognized the building from his dream, and he read the words “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
He went home and told his cousin, who borrowed the bicycle and immediately rode back to the building. His cousin came back with a huge smile saying he had set up an appointment with the missionaries for that evening to learn more. Since the bike could carry only one person, they both walked 5 miles back to the chapel for the appointment.
The missionaries answered questions Brother Chibota had for many years. “The Spirit was so strong that this was the change that we were looking for.”
Three weeks later, on June 22, 1984, he and his cousin were baptized. Just over two months later, his brother was also baptized on Sept. 8, 1984.
From matchmaking to marriage
While Brother Chibota was called to serve a full-time mission in the England London South Mission, his brother served in the southern part of Zimbabwe and met President Chibota in her home branch. He told her that he had a brother serving in England. “I never forgot that conversation,” she said.
A few years later, Brother Chibota’s brother returned to visit the area where he had served. He met President Chibota again and mentioned his brother again and that he was still single.
President Chibota loved matchmaking and thought she could find someone for Brother Chibota to date. They began writing letters almost every week.
Brother Chibota put his phone number in one of those letters, so President Chibota decided to call him. When he answered the phone, it was the first time she had heard his voice. And the moment he answered, the Spirit told her, “That’s your husband.” She was so shocked she dropped the phone and quickly hung up.
Soon, her older sister needed help with her family in Harare, the same city where Brother Chibota was residing. President Chibota went to church the first Sunday there and met Brother Chibota in person for the first time. They got married a few months later.
“It just felt like the Spirit was so involved in the whole thing,” she said.
The Chibotas have one daughter and moved to Utah 22 years ago. Before they left, they were living in Bulawayo, and the Church had a district there. Now there are four stakes in that area, and Zimbabwe recently received its first house of the Lord, the Harare Zimbabwe Temple, which was dedicated on March 1.
“We worked so hard to help build the Church over there for many years, so now to see the fruits of those labors is just exciting,” President Chibota said. “Now we have a temple, and the Church has grown so much.”
About President Rosemary K. Chibota
Family: President Rosemary Khwimani Chibota was born on Oct. 16, 1967, in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, to Malawian parents — Wellington Daniel Gondwe and Rosebelle Nyakabango Mwakasungula Gondwe. She married Joel Basil Chibota in Bulawayo on July 13, 1996, and they were sealed in the Johannesburg South Africa Temple on Sept. 11, 1997. They have one daughter.
Education: Master’s degree from Western Governors University and a bachelor’s degree from Colorado Technical University.
Employment: Human resources generalist for the Church and served as a senior executive assistant in the office of the Seventy.
Church service: Currently a Sunday School teacher and stake mission preparation instructor; former district and branch Young Women president, ward Relief Society and Primary presidency counselor, ward activities chair and Relief Society, Primary and seminary teacher. Served as a mission leader with her husband in the Alabama Birmingham Mission.
