August 18, 2025, 4:15pm MDT
The first presidency of the Latter-day Saints’ Church of Jesus Christ announced the open house and day of dedication at the Harare Zimbabwe Temple. This will be the first dedicated home in the South African nation and the ninth of the continent.
Elder Gerit W. Gong of the 12 Apostles, Quarlam, will be offering the Harare Zimbabwe Temple on Sunday, March 1, 2026, in a single dedication session broadcast to all congregations within the temple district.
Harare Temple begins with Media Day scheduled for Monday, January 19th, 2026, followed by tours of guests invited on January 20th and 21st, starting on Thursday, January 22nd and continues until February 7th except Sunday.
The dates for the dedication and open house were announced on Monday, August 18th, 2025 at churchofjesuschrist.org.
The temple is a approximately 17,250 square feet building that stands on a 6.7-acre site at 65 Enterprise Road Highlands in Harare, bringing blessings of the Lord’s House far closer to the more than 46,000 Latter-day Saints, which make up the more than 100 congregations in Zimbabwe. Members are currently travelling about 14 hours by car to Johannesburg South African Temple, which has been assigned a temple since 1985.
Temple announcement and groundbreaking
The Harare temple was announced at the general meeting in April 2016 by the late President Thomas S. Monson, then president of the church. The ground broke due to the temple on December 12th, 2020. This was broken with a small invitation-only event that adhered to local government socially driven guidelines during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The groundbreaking chair was Elder Edward Dube, from Zimbabwe, who was then the first counselor for the president of the Southern Region of Africa. Called the country’s first stake president with an organization of Harare Zimbabwe in 1999, Elder Dube is currently serving as a member of the church’s presidency.
“The Harare Zimbabwe Temple will be a beautiful and wonderful building,” said the groundbreaking Elder Dube. “Like all temples, it is not only a manifestation of the faith of Latter-day Saints who live in this country and their neighboring countries of Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique, but also of the faith of saints around the world.”
Leaders and invited guests attending groundbreaking services include Emerson Mnangagwa, President of the Republic of Zimbabwe.
Mnangagwa spoke on groundbreaking service. “I would like to express my deep gratitude to the church for expanding my invitation,” he said. “It is most coincidental that this event comes this month in December, where the vast majority of Christians of all life and denominations commemorate the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.”
Church history in Zimbabwe
The church has a rich history in an inland South African country known for its dramatic landscapes and vast wildlife.
As early as 1925, the church had members in the southern part of Rodesia. Before 1980 it was the name of the country of Zimbabwe. Peter and Elizabeth Duprey, who lived 62 miles from what is now Harare, visited South Africa on March 10th, 1925.
Five years later, the church sent missionaries to the new Rhodesian district and worked in the area for five years to distance from the mission headquarters.
Members continued to contact us via letters written to the Mission Headquarters in South Africa, which carried out the news in the Mission Publication, South Camora Cross.
In 1950, the missionaries returned to Rhodesia. On February 1, 1951, the first convert, Hugh Hodzkis, was baptized. The Salisbury (now known as Harare) branch was organized in September 1951.
The conference house was built and dedicated in Rhodesia in the late 1960s. Elder Mark E. Petersen of the 12 Apostles, Quarum, was dedicated to the Salisbury Branch meeting hall on September 17, 1967. Elder Marion G. Romney, a quorum of the 12 Apostles, dedicated the meeting hall of the Bulawayo branch on September 3, 1968.
On April 18, 1980, the UK recognized Rhodesia’s independence and the country’s name was officially changed to Zimbabwe. On July 1, 1987, the Zimbabwe Harale Mission was organized and created in a division of the Johannesburg Mission in South Africa. In 1988, Chonah’s Choice from the Book of Mormon was translated into Shona.
Elder James E. Faust, a quorum of the 12 Apostles, dedicated Zimbabwe to a Gospel sermon. The late President Gordon B. Hinckley visited Zimbabwe on February 18, 1998, and visited around 1,500 later Cents.
Current Church President Russell M. Nelson visited Harare in the first World Ministry in April 2018, where he held a prayer meeting with Latter-day Saints. Jeffrey R. Holland of the Elder of the time was joined. Jeffrey R. Holland is a quorum of the 12 Apostles members, now representative president of the bodies, and President Nelson visited the grounds of the future temple during the stop.
“You deserve the temple here in Harare, so that’s because we get the best of all the blessings God can give to his faithful children,” President Nelson said. “I want to be here to see it happen.”
