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SALT LAKE CITY — Conditions are safe for Mormon missionaries in Liberia after last year's Ebola outbreak, according to Elder David A. Bednar, a member of the LDS Church's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles who visited the country earlier this month.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints evacuated all 86 of its missionaries from Liberia in August 2014 as Ebola tore through parts of the country, eventually killing 4,808 people. But in May 2015, the World Health Organization said the outbreak in Liberia was over and declared the nation Ebola-free on Sept. 3.
In a video produced by the church, Elder Bednar and his wife, Susan, said their visit to Liberia on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 was a statement that missionaries are safe there. Full-time Mormon missionaries began to return to Liberia in early September. Today 57 missionaries are serving there, and the church plans to increase that number to 112.
"The World Health Organization declared Liberia Ebola-free," Elder Bednar said in the video, "so we're here. We want people to know that we're here, we're not concerned, and we would not be calling young men and young women to serve in Liberia if there was great danger or concern."
Sister Bednar said, "I think naturally, mothers have concerns when their sons serve missions and their daughters, wherever they go in the world. So for us to be here is an important statement to let people know that this is a great place, that there's wonderful work to be done here, and that a missionary can be happy and healthy and successful here.
"This is an exciting time to be a missionary and a member of the church in Liberia.
Elder Bednar expressed confidence in the new mission president of the Liberia Monrovia Mission, President Arvid Alan Carlson of Midway, Utah, and his wife, Kelly Lynn Lilly Carlson.
"This is an exciting time as the work is reinitiated in proclaiming the gospel among the people of Liberia," Elder Bednar said.
In May, the church announced plans to send missionaries back to Liberia and that a mission president had been called. In June, the church said it was extending calls to missionaries to serve in Liberia.
Today there are 53 full-time young missionaries and four senior missionaries in the country. About half of the missionaries are from Africa.
"The resources of the Church, and especially the operation of the mission, bless all of the members," Elder Bednar said. "So the missionaries returning, the increase, and the number of missionaries, the strength that they bring to the members who are here is an indication that we are fellow citizens in the household of God."
Elder Rain Price of American Fork, who served for a year in Liberia before becoming one of the missionaries evacuated from Liberia, said the missionaries first learned of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in March 2014 and learned cleaning and hygiene principles to stay safe.
He has kept in touch with several Liberian Latter-day Saints.
"You know," he told KSL-TV, "seeing their personal progress and seeing them stay faithful through these things as they share their experiences and the hardships they've gone through is a strengthening aspect in my life because I'm able to draw from their strength and the struggles they're going through. It makes me feel happy every time I realize they are making it through these things faithfully."
He said Liberian Mormons reported the Bednars' visits provided them with additional encouragement.
The church has nearly 9,000 members in 24 congregations in Liberia. The church has 460,000 members in Africa.
Contributing: Sam Penrod
