The following list indicates when missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) first preached in the territory of present-day countries.
Country Year First official church missionary2013 Deseret News Church Almanac (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret News, 2012). Notes 1830 Samuel H. Smith Smith is regarded as the "first missionary" of the LDS Church. He preached in New York in June 1830. 1830 Joseph Smith, Sr. and Don Carlos Smith Although Phineas Young preached in Upper Canada several months before the Smiths, when he did so he was not a member of the church and therefore was not an official missionary of the church. The Smiths preached in villages north of the St. Lawrence River in Upper Canada in September 1830. 1837 Heber C. Kimball and Orson Hyde Kimball and Hyde first preached in Preston, England 1840 John Taylor, James McGuffie, and William Black A few months before Taylor, McGuffie, and Black arrived in Ireland, Reuben Headlock preached in Belfast, which was part of Ireland at the time but which is now in Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom 1840 William Barratt Barratt was a 17-year-old convert from England whose family emigrated to Australia. Before his departure, he was set apart as a missionary to Australia. 1841 Orson Hyde Hyde spent a week in Rotterdam and Amsterdam preaching to rabbis. 1841 Orson Hyde A British church member named James Howells preached in Germany in 1840, but he was not an official missionary of the church. 1841 Orson Hyde Hyde preached in Istanbul. 1841 Orson Hyde Hyde preached in Jerusalem and dedicated Palestine for the return of the Jews. 1844 Addison Pratt, Noah Rogers, and Benjamin Franklin GrouardPreached first in Tubuai. Preached in Tahitian; first official church missionaries to preach in a language other than English. 1848 1849 William Howells 1850 Erastus Snow, Peter O. Hansen, John E. Forsgren, and George P. Dykes First preached in Copenhagen 1850 Lorenzo Snow, Joseph Toronto, and Thomas Stenhouse First preached in Genoa 1850 John E. Forsgren 1850 Thomas Stenhouse and Lorenzo Snow First preached in Geneva 1851 Hans F. Petersen Petersen was one of the first converts baptized in Denmark 1851 Gudmund Gudmundson and Thorarinn Thorason Gudmundson and Torason joined the church in Denmark and were sent back to their native Iceland as missionaries. 1851 Joseph Richards Church members Benjamin Richey and George Barber preached in India in 1849, but they were not official missionaries of the church. 1851 Parley P. Pratt, Phoebe Pratt and Rufus C. AllenPhoebe was one of Parley's plural wives. 1852 Lorenzo Snow and Jabez Woodard 1853 Jesse Haven, Leonard L. Smith, and William H. Walker Preached first in Cape Town. In 1852, Joseph Richards spent nearly a month in Cape Town on his way home from his assigned mission in India. He distributed some tracts and preached a few sermons. Haven, Smith, and Walker were the first missionaries specifically assigned to South Africa. 1853 Hosea Stout, James Lewis, and Chapman Duncan The missionaries were called to preach in China, but conditions allowed them to only preach in Hong Kong, which was a British colony at the time. 1853 Darwin Richardson, Aaron F. Fan, Jesse Turpin, and A. B. Lambson 1853 Chauncey W. West and Benjamin F. Dewey 1854 Augustus Farnham, William Cooke, and Thomas Holder Preached first in Auckland, Wellington, and Nelson 1854 Elam Luddington Preached first in Bangkok. 1856 George Kershaw 1863 Kimo Pelia and Samuela Manoa 1865 Orson Pratt and William W. Ritter 1876 Daniel Webster Jones and Ammon N. Tenney 1876 Carl A. Sundstrom and John E. Sundstrom Preached first in Vaasa. 1884 Thomas Biesinger Preached in Prague. 1885 Thomas Biesinger and Paul Hammer Preached in Budapest. 1888 Mischa Markow Preached in Antwerp. 1891 Brigham Smoot and Alva J. ButlerEric B. Shumway, "Tongan Saints: A Legacy of Faith", Liahona, August 1991.Savani Latai Toluta'u Aupiu, "Mormon Missionaries in the Kingdom of Tonga, 1891–1897" (MA Thesis, University of Utah, 2009). Met with and granted permission from King George Tupou I before preaching. 1895 August Höglund Preached in St. Petersburg. 1898 1899 Ferdinand F. Hintze 1899 Mischa Markow Preached in Belgrade. 1899 Mischa Markow 1899 Mischa Markow 1899 Osborne J. P. Widtsoe and Mervin Davis preached first in Rarotonga 1900 Mischa Markow 1901 Heber J. Grant, Horace S. Ensign, Louis A. Kelsch, and Alma O. Taylor 1903 Mischa Markow Preached in Riga. 1925 Rulon S. Wells and Rey Pratt Preached first in Buenos Aires. Wells preached in German and Pratt preached in Spanish. 1928 Rheinhold Stoof, William F. Heinz, and Emil Schindler Preaching began among German speakers. 1929 Arthur Gaeth Gaeth was the first mission president of the Czechoslovakia Mission. Thomas Biesinger had previously preached within Czechoslovakia, but only in the current territory of the Czech Republic. 1930George C. Maw, Vern D. Greene, and Bertram C. Cutforth 1946 Arwell L. Pierce, Robert B. Miller, and David D. Lingard 1947 Seth G. Mattice, Earl E. Hansen, Robert B. Miller, and David D. Lingard 1947 Frederick S. Williams 1949 Glenn W. Skousen and Omer Farnsworth 1950 Frederick S. Williams, Sister Williams and William S. Farnsworth The first baptism was performed by Samuel J. Skousen, a former missionary in Argentina who was then working as the military attache to the United States Embassy in Paraguay, he baptized Carlos Alerto Rodriguez, having previously been authorized to do so by the First Presidency. Williams was president of the Argentine Mission when he went with his wife and Elder Farnsworth to begin missionary work in Paraguay. Three additional missionaries, Keith J. Morris, Norval C. Jesperson and Daryl L. Anderson were sent after President Williams had determined that the government would allow missionary work to proceed. 1952 James T. Thorup and George W. Allen 1952 Thayne Christensen Fritz Bunge-Kruger and his family arrived earlier in 1952 and traveled about the island doing missionary work, but none of the members of the family were official church missionaries 1953 Manuel Arias and Archie R. Mortensen 1954 Boyd L. Harris and Sheldon L. Abbott 1954 Richard L. Detton and Don G. Powell 1958 1964 Sterling Nicolayson was President of the Andes Mission; he met with American expatriate members in Bolivia in October to November. Missionaries under him arrived in late November and baptized their first covert, Victor Walter Vallejos, just before Christmas. In 1962 Norval Jesperson, who had been among the first six missionaries in Paraguay, became the director of the American-Bolivian Center in Cochabamba. He shared the gospel with several people and baptized Maria van Gemerfen. 1956 Darwin Thomas, Edward T. Hall, Donald L. Hokanson, Shirrel M. Plowman 1956 Weldon J. Kitchen, Keith Madsen, Duane W. Dean, and Melvin C. Fish 1957 1961 Ray Goodson, Harry Murray, Kent Lowe, and Nestor Ledesma 1963 Hyrum M. Smith and Gerald E. Malmrose 1964Verl Tolbert and Dwight K. HunterThe first baptisms of Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico had occurred May 7, 1959 when Cristina Burk and Irma Haws, both of whom were married to American Mormons, were baptized. Tolbert and Hunter mainly worked with US military personnel in Puerto Rico, although they did baptize Becky Farticelli, the first Puerto Rican convert who did not have familial connections to the U.S. mainland. Steven Johnson and Craig Van Tassell in 1969 were the first missionaries in Puerto Rico to preach in Spanish.1964Darryl Thomander and Gilbert Montano 1965 Craig Carpenter, Bryant R. Gold, Lindon Robinson, and Paul O. Allen 1965 Ted E. Brewerton 1966 Randall Harmsen and Jerry Broome Preached first in Bogotá. 1966 1967 Ted E. Brewerton, Floyd Baum, Neil Gruwell, David Bell, and Fred Podlesny 1968Kim A. Shipley, Joel Richards III, Rhett T. Bake and Melvin D. Shurtz 1968 Harold Richards and Jeannine Richards 1970Clark Hinckley and a few others.Sheri Dew. Go Forward With Faith: The Biography of Gordon B. Hinckley. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1996) p. 306 1970 Frank Willard, Dale Storer, Robert Meier, Ross Marchant, Greg Hawker, and Larry Hunt 1972 Eb L. Davis 1972Elam Luddington had preached on the island of Penang in 1854. Anthony Lim, the first Malaysian baptized in Malaysia, was baptized on December 3, 1972. 1973 Colin B. Van Orman, James L. Chrisensen, David T. Posey, and Richard C. Holloman 1974 William Grant Bangerter 1975 Neil D. Schaerrer 1975 Asaeli Mokofisi and Peni Malohifo’ou (of Tonga) and Brett Edward Olsen and Rodvern Lowry (of Canada) 1975 Jeff Frame and Callis Carlton 1975 Kent Bowman, Randy Clark, Kerry Riley, and Derrin Watson 1976 George L. Mortensen and Aldric Porter Preached first on Pohnpei. 1977 William Wardel and Steven Cooper 1977 Matthew and Marion CiembronowiczMehr, Kahlile B. Mormon Missionaries Enter Eastern Europe (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 2002) p. 103. 1977 Chris Doty, Doug Mathews, Randy Clark, and David Roos 1978 John A. Davis and Ada Davis Latter-day Saints Eddie Amparo and Mercedes Amparo preached prior to 1978, but they were not official missionaries of the church. 1978 Edwin Q. "Ted" Cannon, Janath Cannon, Rendell N. Mabey, Rachel MabeyBilly Johnson and others had shared the Book of Mormon with many people in Ghana and even been recognized as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by the government in 1968, but none of these people had been baptized. Immediately after the June 1978 Revelation on Priesthood, Ted Cannon, and Merrill J. Bateman had made a short fact-finding trip to Ghana and Nigeria where they laid the final ground-work for the entry of missionaries a few months later. The missions of the Cannons and the Mabeys resulted in the baptism of several hundred people, most of whom were among those prepared by Johnson and his associates. 1978 Edwin Q. "Ted" Cannon, Janath Cannon, Rendell N. Mabey, Rachel Mabey See note on Ghana, above. In Nigeria there had been others who set up unofficial congregations of the LDS Church, such as Anthony Obina. 1978 John Limburg and Beverly Limburg 1978 Ron Brown and Stanton Akana 1978 1978 1979 1980 Samuel Flores and Robert Henke 1980 Glenn E. Stringham 1980 L. Douglas Johnson and Eva Johnson 1980 Steven B. Wooley and Terry Williams 1983 Todd Hardy, Paul Jackson, Jay Schroeder, and Marty Harris 1983 Kenneth Zabriskie 1984 Douglas Myers and Robert J. Molina 1984 Ralph Tate and Aileen Tate 1984 Joseph B. Keeler 1984 Joseph B. Keeler, Glen Cornwall, and Shirley Cornwall 1984 1985 Robert W. Hoffmaster and Leonard G. Gill 1985 1986 R. Bay Hutchings and Jean Hutchings 1987 Kenneth Edwards and Betty Edwards 1987J. Duffy Palmer and Jacelyn Palmer 1987 Clay Jorgensen and Julio Gonzalez 1988 Benjamin Hudson and Ruth Hudson 1988 Marion K. Hamblin, Christopher Lee, and Ken Margetts 1988 Barnard S. Silver and Cherry Silver 1988 1989 Marc Modersitzki and Bradley Saunderson 1989 James O. Henrie and Evelyn H. Henrie 1989 1990 R. J. Stone 1990 1990 Lark Washburn and Arlea Washburn 1990 Gary L. Browning Browning was the president of the Finland Helsinki East Mission, which had jurisdiction over Estonia. 1991 Gary L. Browning Browning was the president of the Finland Helsinki East Mission, which had jurisdiction over Ukraine. 1991 1991 1992 Kenneth H. Beesley and Donna Beesley 1992 James Griggs and Diane Griggs 1992 1992 1992 Gary L. Browning; Robert A. Rees and Ruth Rees Browning was president of the Helsinki Finland East Mission, which had jurisdiction over Lithuania. The Rees were the first missionaries assigned to preach in Lithuania. 1993 1993 1993 "a French missionary couple" 1993 Eugene Hilton and Ruth Hilton 1993 1993 1993 1994 1995 E. Crawford Jones and Judith Jones 1997 1998 1999 1999 Dermoine A. Findlay and Joyce Findlay 1999 Philip Reber and Betty Reber 2001 Barry A. Baker and Tamara H. Baker 2006 2006 2008 2010 2011Griseld Merepeza and Eliot Steimle 2012Joel Kay and Chase Adams 2012Tyran Schouten and Taylor Nelson 2012Phi