Monday, August 23, 2010

Church on the Beach




Sunday we had an interesting experience. We attended our normal sunday block of meetings in our Santa Cruz Branch and then had the opportunity to attend another sacrament meeting.

Apparantly there used to be a branch meeting in small town called Brasilito which is about 10 minutes from our house. This branch started about 25 years ago and had a fairly good group of people. Over the years the number attending dwindled somewhat and there were more members in the Santa Cruz area, so the branch had to move to Santa Cruz where more of the members lived.

This unfortunately meant that the branch in Brasilito dwindled way down since hardly any of these people had transportation to get to Santa Cruz. When Lane went out with the missionaries last week, they visited many of the members in Brasilito and promised them that the church would again be organized there in time. As of now, we are going to hold a sacrament meeting there every other week. There is no building, but we will meet in a covered patio area of a member's home that is about 30 meters from the beach.
Aside from our family, the branch Pres. from Santa Cruz and the missonaries, there were 7 other members there from the area. They were so grateful to meet again and we are hoping to help in the reactivation of the many members there.

I led the music and Abe passed the sacrament. The waves were crashing in the background and there was a sweet spirit there. It makes for a long day, but we are anxious to help them get a branch going again in this area.

3 comments:

Amy said...

Seriously??? Church on the beach, how could it get any better? Hee! hee!

Shaun Zimmerman said...

Hey Martinsen Family! What a great experience and you're already helping the church to grow there. Amazing! I was reading the scriptures today and when I read this one, I immediately thought of you all down there... 1 Nephi 17:6.

Also wanted to let you know that I couldn't be happier for Alex and his new companion; Elder Heldt. E. Heldt has been here in Columbia for the last 5 months and is an amazing missionary! The two of them together will do miraculous things, no doubt! Take care.

Kristen said...

I am glad you will start having missionary experiences soon! Looks like you had fun sailing. I checked for flights at thanksgiving...they are like $1000. Won't be happening. We will shoot for spring break??? miss you like crazy..it's been a hard few weeks.