Saturday, July 29, 2017

New Era of LDS Expansion in West Africa

I recently received a report that the Church in West Africa will organize its first branch in another previously unreached nation within the Africa West Area in the immediate future. Although the source did not disclose the country where this branch will be created, Guinea-Bissau and Burkina Faso appear to be the most likely possibilities. The Church within the last 18 months has created its first branches in Senegal (May 2016), Guinea (June 2017), and Mali (July 2017). The opening of branches in these nations has been the greatest coordinated effort of the Church to expand into previously unreached countries since the Church organized official branches in the former Yugoslav republics during the early 2010s (e.g. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Montenegro). The seven countries within the Africa West Area without an official LDS presence currently include Burkina Faso, Chad, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, Niger, and Western Sahara.
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10 comments:

  1. ALFREDOJuly 30, 2017 at 4:42 PM

    Fue de mucha bendicion la visita apostolica del Elder David Bednar.

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    Replies
    1. AnonymousJuly 30, 2017 at 5:37 PM

      Alfredo said it was a great blessing for the apostolic visit from Elder Bednar. Where did Elder Bednar visit?

      Delete
    2. AnonymousJuly 30, 2017 at 5:45 PM

      Alfredo, ¿de donde es? Que bien tenía una Gran visita.

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    3. DowntownchrisbrownJuly 30, 2017 at 6:22 PM

      He's probably referring to Elder Bednar's visit to West Africa.

      http://www.mormonnewsroom.com.gh/articles/elder-david-a-bednar-first-latter-day-saint-apostle-to-visit-three-african-countries

      Delete
  2. James G. StokesJuly 30, 2017 at 4:51 PM

    This is interesting news, to be sure. Thanks for sharing it with us, Matt! For any who may be interested, I have been hard at work blogging and would welcome feedback on recent posts about potential future temple sites, progress with current temple construction, and the predictions I am preparing for General Conference. Check them out at the link below. Enjoy!

    http://stokessoundsoff.blogspot.com

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  3. John Pack LambertJuly 30, 2017 at 8:18 PM

    At Southfield Ward today we had an investigator from Cameroon. I gave a ride home to an African-American brother who used to live in Detroit but now lives in Southfield. He is staying with his father temporarily but seeking empliymrnt. It is gard because 22 years ago his wife left him and left him with two severly handicaped children. He was unable to keep a job over the summer because he had to care for his children. One died a year ago at age 24 and the other died a year before that. I hope he finds a job.

    Also in Southfueld Ward there is another brother whose daughter just arrived from Ghana. In Sunday school our teacher wazva native of Singapore who just came here after getting an engineering degree at BYU.

    I also went to Palmer Park branch. There was a sister there who is from Nigeria. Her mom who is a native of Nigeria wasvalso present.

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  4. John Pack LambertJuly 31, 2017 at 5:36 AM

    One of the missionaries currently serving in the Detroit Mission is an Elder O'Brian from Samoa. I asked him how hd got such an Irish last nsme and he does not know.

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  5. Jim AndersonJuly 31, 2017 at 12:23 PM

    That might be from the American area, Billiongraves also has an old US missionaries cemetery on the Samoa side documented that has a fair number of English surnames among the burials there

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  6. John Pack LambertJuly 31, 2017 at 8:55 PM

    On my mission I knew a man feom Samoa whose Irish sailor grandfather had settled down in Samoa and married a local woman. The O'Brien name could come from direct migration from Ireland.

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  7. twinnumerounoAugust 1, 2017 at 2:17 AM

    I don't know anything about the Irish situation in Samoa. However, Chile has a region with an Irish name, O'Higgins. It is named after an important independence leader who was the son of an Irishman, although he himself was born in Chile. According to the Wikipedia article, Bernardo O'Higgins also had a national park and a village in Chile named for him, and the main street in Santiago is also named after him. (I also found his father's article fascinating- he apparently moved to Spain in the 1750's and was in South America by 1756, spending the rest of his life there as a colonial official and officer in the Spanish military, with more than 30 of those years living in Chile. The Chilean city of Vallenar, which currently has a district headquartered there, was named after his birthplace in Ireland, Ballynary.)

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