According to the website for the mission president in the South Africa Durban Mission, three districts have been organized over the past few months. Two of the districts are in South Africa, the Newcastle District and the Richards Bay District. The third district was created in Mbabane, Swaziland. Several independent mission branches have been functioning in the Newcastle area since 2001 and have finally been grouped together in a district. The Richards Bay District was created from a single ward in that city which met in four separate groups for sometime (and the groups became branches in the district). Lastly, Swaziland has for nearly the past 10 years been in a stake, but now is its own district. A new branch was organized in at the same time the district was formed and the mission president stated that last Sunday there were 17 baptisms in the country. Another new branch was formed a short while ago near the mission home. On the above map, yellow squares are stakes and the green squares are the newly formed districts.
The South Africa Durban Mission's blog can be found at http://durbanmission.blogspot.com/
Other areas where the formation of new districts is likely are on the outskirts of Cape Town and Johannesburg.
New branches organized in Hungary
Two new branches have recently been formed in Hungary in the cities of Kaposvar and Szolnok. The first stake in this nation was organized in 2006. Membership has grown steadily in these two cities in the past year. This is another example of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saint's recent expansion into many new cities in Eastern Europe. The yellow squares are wards and the green ones are branches
New cities open for missionary work in Ukraine
Cities open for missionary work in Ukraine In an earlier post, I noted that the city of Kremenchuk in Ukraine was opened for missionary work and a branch was established. Today I found out that a branch has been established in Khmelnytsky which is in western Ukraine. Another branch has been established in the Khmelnytsky Oblast, but I have not been able to exactly pin point where it is.
Rapid Church growth in the Baltic Nations
According to a blog from an Elder serving in Estonia, the Baltic Mission is seeing amazing success. Investigators (people who are not members of the Church but who are learning about it and considering membership) have been numbering in the double digits in some of the branches. Those who commited to be baptize on a specific, future date rose in the hundreds recently. Although it is quite unlikely that many of those people will recieve baptism, it does signify that conditions are changing in this region of Europe at a fantastic rate.
New branch in the DR of Congo
A new branch has recently been created in the city of Mwene-Ditu, which is near the city of Luputa in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Furthermore, Mission President Livingstone of the mission in the DR of Congo stated that a request has been sent in to the Area Presidency for a branch to be organized in the city of Ngandajika (in the vicinity of Luputa) where 50 members of the Church live. In areas of the World where there are very few Church members and are not that secure, new cities are not opened for missionary work and branches established until permission is granted from the Area Presidency.
Two districts in Trinidad and Tobago combined
The two districts on the island of Trinidad were combined in an effort to prepare for the first stake in this nation. Almost 500 members attended the conference and sustained a new district presidency. In the past year, a branch has also been created on the island of Tobago.
Rapid Church Growth in St. Lucia
Now when I say rapid, I mean that at the end of 2006, there were 55 members on the island and a month ago or so there were 104 attending the branch's Church services. Granted the numbers are small, it is still remarkable to see such growth among so few members in such a short period of time. This is actually quite representative of many of the islands in the Caribbean right now.
2 comments:
Wow! Hundreds of baptismal commitments in Estonia!? I served in Estonia from 2004-2006 and I fell in love with the people and knew that the work would continue to progress there. We had much success while there, and I hope and pray that it continues. If you're allowed to say, whose blog did you get that from? You can email me or post it on my blog or something. -Mark
The blog I found this information from can be found here, http://eldermelton.blogspot.com/ .
It appears that missionaries are being very successful at finding people to teach and getting them to Church. Getting them baptized, however, does not seem to be going as well.
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