Conmemoracion 2012

I know its been almost a month since but...Memorial !!! This year the memorial of Jesus' death fell on April 5, 2012...The highlight of our year as Jehovah's Witnesses.  All 100,000+ congregations throughout the world gather in different locations to commemorate his death and sacrifice.  This year was especially memorable for me since it was my first time away from home and with a new congregation and in a new country.
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For those of you who are not familiar with the event...The memorial, or Lord's evening meal, is the remembrance of the death of Jesus Christ.  On the evening before his death, Nisan 14 33 C.E, Jesus instituted the Memorial celebration as described at Matthew 26:26-30 (See also Mark 14:17-26; Luke 22:19,20; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26).  At our Memorial celebration, we follow the same pattern.  It begins and ends with song and prayer.  In the middle there is a Bible based discourse explaining the occasion, the significance of the emblems of bread and wine, how we are affected by Jesus sacrifice, and how we can show appreciation for the two greatest acts of love ever shown. (See John 3:16)

In Luke 22:19, Jesus issued the command to "Keep doing this in remembrance of me."  Since he instituted the Memorial on the same night as the Jewish Passover, in effect replacing it, we celebrate this event only once a year.

If you would like more information about the Memorial, please let me know.  Or feel free to ask any local Jehovah's Witness the next time they come to your door.  And for next year, please keep in mind that you are being cordially invited to attend the Memorial of 2013.

Also see the article on our official website: Reliving Jesus' Last Days on Earth: Nisan 14, after sundown.
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Our group in Fatima has 28 publishers but we had an attendance of 114!  An increase of 25 from the previous year.  Since our normal meeting place can only hold about 50 people, we rented part of the local school.  We joined two classrooms, moved out all the furniture, washed it out, and set up our 122 chairs.

Many Bible Students, friends, family members, and interested persons from the territory came to hear the Bible based discourse.  Thanks to Jehovah everything went smoothly!  No power outages, sound malfunctions, or otherwise distracting happenings.  Well, a dog did run in partway but the attendants escorted it out promptly.

My highlight was to have five Bible students attend.  We had been talking about the importance of attending the Memorial over the previous weeks so I was so happy that they applied it and made the effort to come.  There are pictures of them below and also more pictures in the Picasa Album under "Conmemoracion 2012."  I'd love to hear about how your Memorial went.  Leave a comment or email me at ktanjoco@gmail.com

Tania, Maria Isabel, Yaritza

Rosa, Erlinda, Jefferson
I study with Erlinda and her daughter Lizbeth.

Arelis - she's the one who asked me for a Bible Study!