HARARE, Zimbabwe — Sean Donnelly has not only witnessed the growth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Zimbabwe over four decades, but has also been an active participant in the church.
This has ranged from being baptized in Harare more than 40 years ago when there were only about 200 Church members, to participating as the Church’s regional relations director across Africa in the preparation and execution of several major events, culminating in the dedication on Sunday, March 1, of the Harare Zimbabwe Temple, the first house of the Lord in the southeastern African country.
rhodesia roots
Donnelly was born in 1962 in what is now Harare in Southern Rhodesia, then known as Salisbury. His family fled during the Rhodesian Bush War of the 1970s, leaving behind a five-bedroom, well-staffed house with a swimming pool. Considering their family heritage, they sought a more modest environment in Ireland.
There, her parents divorced and her mother struggled with mental health issues until she and her daughter joined the church. She became a British Latter-day Saint during what Donnelly described as a “double whammy” during a volatile period of political and religious turmoil in Ireland and Northern Ireland.
“We fled one war and went to another,” Donnelly recalled, adding that her mother and siblings then returned to Africa.
But Donnelly stayed behind after completing his schooling, wanting nothing to do with the church. “At the age of 17, I was left alone to find my own way and become independent,” he added. “I kept running away from the gospel, but I was a little afraid of it because I knew I could feel its power. I was afraid to let it go and accept it into myself because of the changes it would bring.”
“Now would be a good time.”
Instead, Donnelly spent several years traveling the world on a merchant ship, avoiding the Latter-day Saint missionaries he encountered at nearly every port. Drunk and depressed, he finds himself in Alexandria, Egypt, toying with the idea of ending his life by jumping off a ship.
As he wept and fell to his knees, he thought of his mother and sister in Africa and said: “Oh, God, if you’re here, now would be a good time because I don’t know if I’ll make it through the night.”
“I had never prayed like that before. We always said Catholic prayers. But the next day dawned and the light in my life changed rapidly.”
He immediately headed to Harare, Zimbabwe, a new city and country that gained independence in 1980. There he met the approximately 200 Latter-day Saints in the branch and new fellow missionaries. The former were Elders Jeff Flake and Peter Chaya, who later became U.S. senators, and the latter was the country’s first black missionary, who served despite being weakened by polio.
This is the pair’s third trip together in this country, and their previous assignments included South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Botswana. There are currently seven missions covering the same four countries, with two more planned for July.
conversion
Following the teachings of Elders Flake and Chaya, Donnelly was baptized in 1983. “Honestly, I went from my darkest night, my darkest time of heart, to being the happiest person I was when I was baptized,” Donnelly recalled.
Less than a year later, he was sent on a mission to French-speaking Switzerland, without experience at a missionary training center or temple endowment. “I went from being a sailor to being a missionary in 11 months.”
His mother eventually remarried and moved with her husband and other children to Mutare, on the eastern border of Zimbabwe, where she started a church group and continued her work as a Latter-day Saint pioneer.
Having served the Church in stake and ward leadership, as well as presiding over the Madagascar Antananarivo Mission (2009-2012), Donnelly eventually transitioned into a church career that expanded to include regional public affairs while in Johannesburg, South Africa, and to his current role at Church headquarters in Salt Lake City.
recent events
Fast forward to late 2025 and early 2026, and Donnelly returned to Harare for the temple open house and several accompanying church-sponsored events.
The Harare Lord’s House is the third Lord’s House of the Church to be dedicated in Africa in the past 10 months, following the dedications of the Nairobi Kenya Temple and the Abidjan Ivory Coast Temple in May 2025.
“Each temple built on the other, and it seemed like a real culmination in Zimbabwe,” Mr Donnelly said.
The culmination included events on family history and religious freedom, as well as a temple open house that drew a diverse group of visitors, from national leaders and media to large groups of local schoolchildren.
Approximately 120 faith leaders, academics and citizen voices representing 11 countries attended the Zimbabwe Religious Freedom Conference on January 16-17 and took a guided tour of the Harare temples as part of a visit to several religious sites in the city.
On January 22, President Emmerson Mnangagwa of the Republic of Zimbabwe, along with other interfaith, government and civic leaders, toured the new temple. Other dignitaries included the vice president, ambassadors from nine countries, and 11 ministers from the Zimbabwean government.
“Their experience was almost indescribable. What happened and the feedback from them cannot be explained in words,” Donnelly said, adding that “the head of state had a very spiritual experience in the temple when the (church) leaders prayed together in the temple.”
Return to Harare
The events leading up to this weekend’s temple dedication have brought many happy rewards.
Mr. Flake, a returned missionary, former senator, and U.S. ambassador, returned to Harare with his wife, Cheryl Flake, to serve as a tour guide for ambassadors and other dignitaries at the open house. Mr Donnelly’s sister has returned to her home in Harare for the first time 40 years after leaving home as a teenager.
Long-time members and returning former missionaries have flocked to Harare over the past few months to reminisce and relive past interactions and experiences.
No one is more so than Donnelly, who returned to Harare in late 2025 to carry out preparatory work and coordination for the event in early 2026. Donnelly is back for that, too. He carried in his pocket photographs of members, missionaries, and Harare’s only early meetinghouse, and would show the images to others whenever he had the chance.
And from the early roots of the Donnelly family and many others, the Church has grown to include approximately 50,000 Latter-day Saints in Zimbabwe, with six stakes headquartered in the capital alone.
“Imagine the scenario there, the kind of joy of reunion, being with friends and family, attending the temple open house, showing people around the temple,” he said recently from Salt Lake City.
“I can’t tell you how blessed I am to be there. And now, with the dedication of the temple coming up, it’s really starting to become important. You know what’s going on now.”
