Friday, March 31, 2017
First LDS Stake in Roraima State, Brazil
I have confirmed from Brazilian members that the Church will organize the Boa Vista Brazil Stake in Roraima State on May 7th. Roraima State is the last Brazilian state without an LDS stake. Currently the Boa Vista Brazil District has five branches that operate within the city of Boa Vista.
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What about Acre? It was carved out of something, has one national highway andas far as I know, no more than four cemeteries according to BillionGraves.com.
It is almost as far west in Brazil as you can get
That is excellent news, Matt! Thanks for sharing! I am excited to see what the Lord has in store for the Brazilian Saints, and am sure He will continue to surprise us all with the progress that will be made there. I am particularly anxious to see what happens in terms of the next Brazilian temple. I don't know what to hope for there. I have heard from so many who think an additional temple or two is possible very soon in Brazil, and I would love to see that happen. The growth there certainly warrants such an event. However, with one Brazilian temple under construction, one more with the ground broken and with full-scale construction pending, and one announced last conference that has not had a site nor groundbreaking date announced. With all of that happening right now, I find it hard to believe that the Church would announce another temple in Brazil until these three are further along. I don't know what the status is of the construction industry in Brazil, but I would imagine that between the temples and meetinghouses, those workers are pretty well swamped. However, I am not one in mind with the Lord, and so if He feels a need to have other temples in Brazil before these are completed, I am sure He will let the prophet know. I am always intrigued to see the growth that happens in Brazil. My brother-in-law served his mission in the Sao Paulo region, and he speaks so warmly of the devotion of the Saints in that area. So I know that the Lord has great things planned for the nation of Brazil, and I am personally hoping that one day very soon, we might see the number of temples in Brazil exceed the number of temples in Utah. Right now, that nation is halfway there. What an exciting time to live in, where the bulk of Church growth is not just happening in Utah or the United States alone, but particularly in South America and Africa. Witnessing all of this, I think I now have a greater appreciation for Joseph Smith's incredible prophecy. It is coming to full fruition, and we are blessed to be witnesses of that. Thanks again, Matt, for this wonderful report.
Acre has about 750,000 people to Roraima's slightly over 450,000. Roraima thus haa few people than Wyoming but the area is smaller, altgough not by much.
Acre has had the Rio Blanco stake sine 1995. That is the year the Boa Vista stake was formed. They both border Anazonas State, with its capital at Manaus. Amazonas state has jusy over 4 million people but an area of 606,000 sauare miles as opposed to Texas 268,000 square miles. Amazonas and Acre both essentially go equally far west althogh Amazonas goes a lot further east.
Western Acre is a long way west of Rio Blanco and in Cruzeiro do sul there are 2 branches directly under the Brazil Manaus Mission. In other cities like Feijo if the Church has any presence it is directly under the Brazil Manaus Mission Branch. Interestingly the Manaus Mission takes in a branch in Colombia.
Acre has only been a Brazilian state since the 1960s but earlier was a Brazilian territory since 1903. Acre is basically all rain forest with lots of trees producing Brazil nuts and rubber. At least since 1860 the majority of the populatiin there has been Brazilian. It was recognized as Bolician territory in an 1867 treaty. Starting in the 1890s Bolivia sought to uncrease its authority there by working with an Anglo-American syndicate. This lead to several revolutions from 1899-1903 which proclaimed an indeoendent Acre but like the independent Texas the goal was always to join Brazil.
Roraima is a state with many of its demographics similar to the western US with a few twists. It was formed as a federal territory in 1943 and made a state in 1988.
Early on it faced attempts by Spanish and Beitish to take control. In th 1830s the British attempted to use Protestant missionaries, well mainly just one, to win the indigenous peoples to their side. The British insisted that the Indians of the region were essentially under no ones control inthe 1850s and the border with Guyana was not settled to the 1890s.
In 1887 there were only 1,000 subjects of Brazil in what is now Roraima but possibly over 10,000 indigenous people.
The area has largely grown though cattle branching and especially gold and diamond extraction. Today the population is almost 70% mixed race, usually meaning black/white, a percentage once would find no where in the US, 20% white (probably more Arab ancestry than is common in the US), and around 10% black. Still 30,000 indigenous people live in the state and over 45% of the land is indigenous reserves. That is higher than any state in the US is Indian Reservations. About half the population lives in the capital of Boa Vista. There is much room for LDS outreach in Roraima but it may require training missionaries in some of the indigenous languages. With 4000 Brazilian missionaries serving in Brazil I think that there are enough resources in missionary work that the Church could establish this outreach program to the indigenous people.
The two largest indigenous geoups in this part of Brazil are the Macushi and the Yanomami. They both number about 30,000 but also live in Guyana, Venezuela and such. The 35,000 or so Yanomami are spread across 200 to 250 villages. These may seem small numbers but Tonga has just over 100,000 people. If we take seriously the charge to take the gospel to every nation, kindred, tongue and people we need to figure out how to teach the gospel to the Yanomami.
During my mission in Brazil, I knew a missionary from Acre who said most of the members there would fly to Lima Peru to attend the temple (when the alternative was Sao Paulo, way before the Manaus Temple was built). I always heard it pronounced as Ah-kree, by the way. I'm happy to see the last states of Brazil getting their own stakes.
Ah-kree with the accent on the "Ah", right?
I wrote some papers about stake growth in Brazil back in 2001-2002; it is great to see the stake growth happening. I wonder if traveling to the Trujillo Temple in northern Peru helps any Amazonians. Or Cochabmaba in Bolivia.
Mas, tente aprender o idioma e acho que posso falar assim talvez meio bom, hein? Nao se escriver tanto.
With the new temple announced for Brasilia, Brazil is now on track, when all the announced temples are completed, to take the #3 spot (currently held by Canada) for countries with the most operating temples.
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