Working With the Ward - 14 April 2014

At the beginning of this week we had a meeting with our branch president, he gave a list of recent converts that had not been to church in a long time and asked if we could make some visits to try and get people back to church. We looked at the very long list of people. It was sad because most of the people had just been baptized into the church. 

So this week we have been working mainly with recent converts and less active. I has been so fun working more closely with the members as well. We been visiting members of the branch here that have been in pillar do sul for a long time and know about a lot of the members that haven't been in church. 

You know how back in Ohio how we had that long list of members in the ward directory but every time you look through it you don't know who half the people are.. Well its the same thing here. The branch has a list of 140 members but we only have 40 people in church each Sunday. So we talked with 3 sisters that have been in the ward forever and got all of the members information and whether they still lived in the house listed on the directory. After three visits on Tuesday we had all the information we needed about what happened to these members which one´s moved and so on.

sorry I don't know why it sends every time I push tab... 

This week we had tons of lessons with members and less active and the results were awesome!!! This Sunday we had more people in church that I have ever seen in the 3 months I've been here!!!!!!! 

At the beginning of sacrament meeting the branch president made an announcement for the parents leaders and missionaries to meet after sacrament meeting. When we all gathered he said that he needed everyone's help to plan activates to help the ward. The result was great. We have planned a ward activity every week to take the place of youth night. We hope that having an activity all together as a ward will help the members get excited about going to church make friends and invite more people to come. 

            We have a group of members in charge of food, one in charge of decorations and activities, and the Missionaries' are in charge of the spiritual thoughts!!!  I pray that as we work together we will be able to invite more people to join and STAY in the church. 

           Tomorrow we have the Baptismal interview for Antonio!!!!!! he is going to be baptized this Saturday by a new priest that is the oldest son of the family that helped us integrate him into the church. We had an awesome lesson with him last night as we taught the commandments with sister Delva.

        The power of working with members is outstanding We taught 7 lessons this week with members. It has been such a blessing to see just how much a member adds to the conversion of the investigator. 

          But truly the biggest blessing of all is the growth of my testimony. If I can convince no one else of the truthfulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ  i have convinced myself for truly I know that it is true and the path that we have to return and live with our Father in Heaven again together with our families. The gospel is true, it is Gods plan for our happiness here on earth. Fallow the example of Christ and you will be blessed. Choose know to choose Christ. Stand as a witness of him in all places, in all times and in all things. 

                                 I love you all so much, have a great week!!!! 

                                              Elder Bryan Jacobson

me with a lizard at a less active members house!!!!