Junior Banza's mission started long before he put a tag on in 1991. As the first person baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Congolese soil, Junior helped to pioneer the spread of the restored gospel in his home country years before being called to serve a mission in Kinshasa, Congo. When civil unrest broke out in the Congo, he was unexpectedly reassigned, in an unexpected way, to Johannesburg, South Africa.