First Presidency greets president of U.N. General Assembly at church headquarters

The president of the United Nations General Assembly visited Tuesday with the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at the faith’s headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah according to a news release.

President Csaba Korosi, a veteran Hungarian diplomat, has been president of the General Assembly since June 2022. His visit with President Russell M. Nelson, President Dallin H. Oaks and President Henry B. Eyring marked the first time a General Assembly president has visited church headquarters.

The church has donated tens of millions of dollars to U.N. humanitarian aid programs over the past 10 years.

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Korosi learned more about his ancestors during a visit to the church’s FamilySearch Library.

He also met with Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

The church is in frequent contact with the United Nations and diplomats through the church’s government relations offices in New York City and Geneva, Switzerland. Church representatives serve on committees for nongovernmental organizations, the news release said.

The first time a president of the General Assembly visited Utah, María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés of Ecuador toured Welfare Square during the 2019 annual conference for nongovernmental organizations.

In November of that year, Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles visited New York City where he met with officials from the office of the president of the General Assembly. They discussed several shared priorities, including eradicating hunger and poverty and improving education.

“He informed us of what the church is doing,” His Excellency Jerobeam Shaanika, a Nambian diplomat who then was serving as the deputy chef de cabinet to the president of the U.N. General Assembly, told the Deseret News. “I informed him of the priorities of the president of the General Assembly for this session, which are zero hunger, poverty eradication, quality education and climate change. We saw an intersection of those priorities and the church’s activities, and we discussed ways in which we can cooperate together.”

Shaanika said one key intersection was the church’s humanitarian aid.