SALT LAKE CITY — For the second time in six months, President Russell M. Nelson is embarking on a multi-country tour, this time to five South American countries in nine days.

The president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will visit Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay and Chile on what is billed as a "South American ministry and temple dedication tour" from Oct. 19-28. He will be joined by his wife, Wendy, and Elder Gary E. Stevenson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and his wife, Sister Lesa Stevenson.

President and Sister Nelson conducted a global ministry tour in April, visiting England, Israel, Kenya, Zimbabwe, India, Thailand, Hong Kong and Hawaii with Elder Jeffrey R. Holland and Sister Patricia Holland.

"Whenever I’m comfortably situated in my home, I’m in the wrong place," President Nelson said in London at the start of that trip. "I need to be where the people are."

In all, President Nelson, who became the faith's president and prophet in January, has visited four continents in the past six months. He also traveled the breadth of Canada to six cities in two trips in June and August, then visited Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic in September.

The new tour was announced Tuesday evening in a news release by the church.

About 4 million Latter-day Saints, or about one-quarter of the church's membership, live in South America.

The tour will culminate in the dedication of the Concepción Chile Temple on Oct. 28. It will be the church's 160th temple and serve 122,000 Latter-day Saints in southern Chile and some southwest reaches of Argentina.

President Nelson and Elder Stevenson are scheduled to meet with government and religious leaders, members, missionaries and friends, according to the news release.

The tour will begin Oct. 20 in Lima, Peru, where they will meet with missionaries and then hold a devotional for members. Both meetings will be broadcast to other parts of the country.

The devotional will be held at the Coliseo Mariscal Caceres, an indoor arena with a capacity of 7,000.

Nearly 600,000 Latter-day Saints live in Peru, where the church was organized in 1956. The nation has two temples, a third under construction and a fourth that has been announced.

On Oct. 21, the tour group will speak at a devotional in Laz Paz, Bolivia, at the Polideportivo Heroes de Octubre, which has a capacity of 10,000, making it the largest coliseum in the country. The church was organized in 1964 in Bolivia, which now is home to more than 200,000 church members.

President Nelson and Elder Stevenson are scheduled to meet with missionaries in Asunción, Paraguay, on Oct. 22. That evening, they will hold a devotional at the Conmebol Convention Center, with a possible capacity of 4,500. More than 93,000 Latter-day Saints live in Paraguay, where the church was organized in 1948.

On Oct. 25, another meeting with missionaries will be held in Montevideo, Uruguay. That evening, President Nelson and Elder Stevenson will broadcast a devotional throughout the country originating from the Landia Complex. Active in Uruguay since 1944, the church now has nearly 105,000 members in the country.

The tour concludes in Chile on Oct. 27-28.

The group will tour the new temple in Concepción on Saturday afternoon and speak at a youth devotional in the evening. The following day, President Nelson and Elder Stevenson will participate in three dedicatory sessions of the temple, Chile's second.

Chile, where the church was organized in 1956, is home to more than 590,000 Latter-day Saints.