A Historic Day in Botswana
October 2026

Botswana gained its independence (from being a British Protectorate) on September 30, 1966. We recently celebrated the 60th anniversary.

The Church arrived in 1990 with missionaries from the South Africa mission, and a Group was formed in June. The next year the Group became a Branch. In 2012, a Stake was formed in Gaborone (the capital city), with Clement Matswagothata as president. In 2025, Matswagothata was sustained as a General Authority Seventy.

The Botswana Namibia Mission was created in July 2013.

The Kanye Botswana District was created in December 2024.

On 18 October 2026, the Francistown District was created. Meeting in the Civic Center were more than 300 members and friends of the church. Many were from Gaborone because of their close ties to the Francistown area and had come to celebrate with the saints in Francistown.

During the President's comments at the close of District Conference, he shared the development in Namibia.

For the longest time, we have had difficulty getting missionaries into Namibia. They go over on a tourist visa which gets them 90 days, then get a 90-day extension. After that, they have to come back to Botswana. And they can't really go back to Namibia easily.

One fine day, Namibia immigration (the Immigration Department Head, the Chair of the visa board and the entire visa board) asked to meet with us. President Neuberger asked his counselor (who lives in Namibia) to attend. The conversation went like this:

We know you want Visas. Why do you apply for the short 90-day visas? Why don't you apply for longer visas?

Because we don't qualify. Our missionaries are volunteers; We don't post for applications for the position, as is required for that visa.

We know you don't post for the position nor take applications. Just write a letter explaining this exemption and we will grant it. Doing it the way you are causes us a lot of extra work.

We would be glad to apply for the longer version! We just want to follow the rules.

So last week, President submitted a half dozen missionaries for the new process. We had to get a medical form signed as well as a chest x-ray reading. If it works, President & Sister Neuberger will apply for their visa. If that all works, he'll let the Area Presidency know and that will probably start the exercise of splitting Namibia off as its own mission.

Botswana is about the same size as Texas, and Namibia is about the same size, too. So the Botswana/Namibia Mission is really large, geographically speaking. Having Namibia as its own mission would be amazing.

We are so happy to have been here during the formative years. Working with the young missionaries is amazing (we keep using that word!!!) We met some amazing people and had some amazing experiences. Hopefully we left behind some amazing contributions to the Kingdom here in Botswana/Namibia.