Christmas on
Christmas came to the Cebu Mission on the first of July. After weeks of preparation by Dumaguete Zone leaders, we drove our car onto the campus of Negros Oriental State University to see 500 students (read “prospective members” or “investigators”) forming into their ranks on a field 100 yards by 200 yards. Their commandant informed me we had an hour and a half to teach about our religion!
One of the great challenges of missionary work is to entice even a single person or a family to listen to our first lesson. Here, given to us on a platter (well, after weeks of hard work), were 500 investigators pledged to listen to our program for 90 minutes. At the end we passed out about 460 Books of Mormon (in return for names and addresses). The challenge to our three zones with 26 elders and sisters on
It is now over 90 days since that one day of Christmas. The resulting baptisms for the effort showed up clearly in September and continued into October. It appears about 25 new members have resulted above the normal rate of baptisms. The three Negros Island Zones, usually lagging the mission in baptisms, had a total of 40 baptisms for September. Our other seven zones combined had 51 baptisms. For missionary work
