Exciting Changes

On January 25, 2015 the Praia Stake (the first stake formed in Cape Verde in April 2012) was divided and the Assomada District was formed. The District includes everything north of Praia on the island of Santiago. The first District Presidency was formed with Alector Torres as President, Maxwell Furtado as first counselor and Antonio Gomes as second counselor. They are pictured here with Elder Morreira, of the Seventy, and President Mathews.

Pictured below is the new Mission Presidency - Elder Demke as first counselor, President Mathews, and Elder Muhlestein as second counselor.

Mission Leadership Council

At the beginning of each month we hold a Mission Leadership Council, where we train our leaders and counsel together on the issues facing our mission. It consists of the Zone leaders of our 5 zones - Praia, Assomada, Fogo, Mindelo and Sal - and also our Sister Leaders. Unfortunately, this picture is missing our Sister Leaders and Zone Leaders from Mindelo. Their flight was canceled due to bad weather.

This picture is of our newest Zone Leader, on the left, and our oldest, on the right, who left to go home a few days after the picture was taken.

Happy New Year 2015!

To start the new year right, we decided to begin a mission blog for all our friends and families.
So here is a little about the mission. I am Sister Mathews and my husband, President Robert Mathews, is serving as the mission president.We currently have 115 missionaries and 5 senior couples serving in the tiny island republic of Cape Verde. It is 360 miles off the coast of Senegal. Africa. Cape Verde consists of 9 inhabited islands, with one of them having an active volcano on it. We have missionaries serving on each of those 9 islands. If placed all together the land mass is roughly the size of Rhode Island. The islands receive about 10 inches of rain a year. Each island in unique, with some consisting of flat land and beautiful beaches, while others are made up of rugged, mountainous terrain. The population is 512,000 with most living on the capital island of Santiago. The mission language is Portuguese. In our mission, we currently have three Stakes of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and one District.Our missionaries come from all over the world - Canada, United States, Portugal, Brazil, Tonga, Mozambique, Dominican Republic, Australia, Angola and even Cape Verde. The average age of our missionaries is 21 - if you don't count the senior couples. The church does many things here in Cape Verde, including sponsoring humanitarian projects as well as educational and self-reliance programs.But most importantly we are here to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end.

Since it is impossible to get all of our missionaries on one island at the same time, we will share the pictures taken at our Christmas gatherings on the various islands.

The Mindeo Zone ...

The Fogo Zone ...

The Praia and Assomada Zones ...

The Sal Zone ...

We hope to keep you updated on all the news here as time and circumstances permit.