Joseph W. Sitati

Who is Joseph W. Sitati?

Joseph Wafula Sitati has been a general authority of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints since 2009, when he became a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy. He is the first black African general authority of the church and the second general authority of black African descent.

Sitati is a native of Kenya. He has a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Nairobi. He worked in the oil and gas industries as well as for Reach the Children, for which he was also a member of their international board. Immediately prior to his call as a mission president in the LDS Church, Sitati was the church's director of public affairs in Africa.

Sitati first attended the LDS Church in 1985 and became a member in March 1986. In 1989, he became the first district president of the church in Kenya. Sitati also became the first stake president in Kenya when the Nairobi Kenya Stake was organized in 2001. On 3 December 1991, in the Johannesburg South Africa Temple, Sitati and his wife and children became the first Kenyan family to receive the church's sealing ordinance. In 2004, Sitati became an area seventy of the church and in 2007 he became the president of the Nigeria Uyo Mission. He was still a mission president at the time of his call to the First Quorum of the Seventy in April 2009. He began service as a counselor in the church's Africa West Area in 2010. Sitati addressed the church in a talk delivered at the Sunday afternoon session of general conference on October 4, 2009, where he stated the LDS Church is a "global faith."