Merry Christmas

I didn't expect to be able to write but here I am!!! Merry Christmas one and all. Today is a wonderful day to be here and to be able to celebrate one of the most important events of the world.

Today we got to hear from Elder Nelson and his wife. They were very good. Sister Nelson took most of the time and she talked about spiritual gifts and how to obtain them. She said that we have to have more than an ambition and a want but that we need a burning desire and are willing to put everything that we have to receive it. We have to work and put all or heart, might, mind and strength into obtaining them.

Elder Nelson gave us advise for the mission. He said that we need to make friends with the ward mission leader as well as the ward family history coordinator.

We will be hearing from Greg Olson later today. The spirit is so strong here today. You know that Christ did come down and that today is special. We all know that we are in the right spot and that we are doing His will. No one complains but everyone rejoices in being here on this day.

I love you all and hope you are having a Merry Christmas.

Love,

Elder Nielsen

Malipay Paskwa

Merry Christmas or as we say Malipay Paskwa! We got a wonderful gift in the mail this week! Our flight plans!!!  We are looking forward to the flight. This week went very well. Our lessons have never been better. We are teaching very well with the spirit. This week we made huge progress with Francis. He is basically our only investigator right now. He is almost ready to get baptized. He stopped smoking and isn't going through withdrawls anymore. We are working on finding his birth certificate right now so that he can get married. I hope he finds it so that we can baptize him before we have to leave.

 We all miss the temple a lot. We put other plans in for it. Last week we had a testimony meeting in our language so it was all Cebuano or Hiligaynon. It was really cool. This morning as a district we talked about our Christmas traditions and read the Christmas story.

Today we are having an extra fireside and are watching a Christmas Carol. I don't know which one. Tomorrow we are having a devotional with an apostle and then one with Greg Olson. We will have a musical then too. That will be Christmas.

 The song went very well. Everyone loved it and President Brown, the MTC president, came out and shook our hands and told us that he loved it and you could tell that he did because it seemed like he didn't want to let us go.

I miss you all and wish I could be there to celebrate the holidays.

I love you all,

Elder Nielsen

New Missionaries

This week was really good. So this week we lost one of our teachers. She is off to be married. We are going to miss her but we are hoping she comes back before we leave. We have not got our plans yet. We are hoping by Friday because if it isn't by then, we have to stay longer.

The new missionaries are great. They have a great desire to learn and are improving a lot faster than we were but I think it is because they use us because we didn't use the older group. My responsibility went well and everyone got their internet stuff done. We ran into a few problems and one I couldn't solve so the computer people are working on it.

 The language is still coming. I feel pretty good about talking about gospel related stuff but don't know much else so as long as I talk about the gospel I will be good.

This week we finished teaching Christine. She has moved to Georgia so she is gone. I think that she will be good. Francis we are working on really hard and are hoping that he gets baptized before we leave. We are working on problems and he is slowly coming to follow them.

 So I am going to play for the new missionaries this Wednesday. I tried out with another missionary in my zone named Elder Butler and he is singing O Holy Night while I play. I don't know how or why I'm playing but I just know that I am. I am excited to perform.

 I don't know what else to say. This week was pretty normal. We are all looking forward to Christmas.

I love you,

Elder Nielsen

 

An Amazing Week

This week was amazing. The language is coming really well. I am surprised at how much I know. We can teach must everything that we need to with our language but we are always seeking to know more especially since we can't hold a normal conversation. Our investigators are doing very well. We are going over the lessons with Christine and making sure we taught her everything that we needed to since we are teaching things that we taught within the first two weeks. Francis is doing well. We are working on some problems with him. He isn't married which is typical for Philippinos. He has the desire but no money to do it. We will have to see how things turn out with that. I think that I am ready to talk to some natives but I know that I won't understand much.

This week we are suppose to get the new Hiligaynon speakers. We will be the old group of speakers. We are excited to get them and to give them advise that we wish that we were given at the very start like don't take notes into the lessons starting at the beginning.

 I am over the internet stuff in our branch. I get to teach the new missionaries how to write the branch president and how to do their online courses on Sunday. I am excited to teach them.

Not much happened this week. We are really looking forward to Christmas because we hear that another twelve or higher is coming. They never tell us who but we had Elder Evans come and he told us that there is a good program set up for us.

 I love you all and miss you!

Elder Nielsen

My Testimony

This week we got our first baptism!!! Christine made a lot of progress and I think that she got confered yesterday but I haven't heard yet. We will continue to teach her until Sister Burton leaves to get married. Francis is going very well. We had a amazing lesson with him on Saturday and I think that we will solve a lot of his problems soon. It is going step by step (amat-amat for us). This ended up being a normal week for me as well. I am not as tired which is good. People don't lie when they say that you gain weight at the MTC. I have gained five pounds since I last checked. It doesn't seem like it is fat though.

 I love to play volleyball at the MTC. The net is low so we do a lot of blocking and spiking. It makes the whole game really fun.

I love reading Jesus the Christ. It gives me a lot of questions and thinks to look up. It also helps me with the work by seeing what happened to the Savior and thinking about what will happen with me.

 I don't know what else to write so our branch president told us to bear our testimony. Kabalo ako nga si Jesucristo sang maluluwas kag manunubos sa kalibutan. Magsabat ang Dios sa aton. Palangga kita sang Dios. Maghandum Sia sang baton sa ila. Si Joseph Smith kag Thomas S Monson sang mga propeta. Naghamal sila sang kamatuoran. Nagapasalamat ako parte sa Pagpasag-uli ni Jesucristo. Palangga kamo ko. (I know that Christ is the savior and redeemer of the world. God answers us. He desires us to return. Joseph Smith and Thomas S Monson are prophets. They speak the truth. I am thankful for the atonement of Christ. I love you all.)

 Elder Nielsen

A Wonderful Thanksgiving

Everything was amazing this week. We worked hard with our investigators this week and got one to commit to baptism. The other is suppose to be baptized on Friday and we are hoping that will go through.

 

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun. We started by having Elder Holland talk to us. So you know, he adopted all of us so this might be short because I need to write them as well. Jokeslang (joking). He did adopted us though and he told us we had no agency in this decision. He gave a wonderful talk, as always, about how we should be grateful for living at this time because we have the whole gospel and it is everywhere. We then had a wonderful dinner which we wanted to eat more but there was a lot of people around. Right before I got to eat we went on a temple walk and someone yelled "Happy Thanksgiving" from their car and one missionary yelled back "Wait, it's Thanksgiving" jokingly. We fill like we have no connection to the outside world. We then did a service project for Ouelessebougou which sends supplies to Malia to help educated them. It was a lot of fun. We had a Thanksgiving program which was fun and helped us relax. We finished by watching 17 Miracles. It was a great day.

We are at the point where we just want to get out of the MTC. We feel like we have been here forever. There is a saying here that the days go by like weeks and the weeks go by like days. Everyday sees to pass like a lifetime but we look back and it seems so short of a time. We just move forward. We are hoping to leave on time still but we don't know the date. We still have a group from before us that are waiting for their visas but the only visas that had problems for them are the missionaries going to the Eloelo mission. So we are hoping to go out on time. The work just goes on.

I love you all. I hope everything goes well this week. I'm happy everything went well last week.

Love,

Elder Nielsen

 

PS: We have lots of fun in class. We were practicing the language and Elder Lungren said that a dog was his friend. Our teacher came up and told him that he was Elder Lungren's friend and that they should eat the dog. It was funny.

Old Friends

Things have been going very well this week. We started to teach our second investigator. His name is Francis. He seems excited to hear the gospel but it sounds like it will be hard to get him to follow up on his commitments because he is busy with work and family. Christine is going well but we have ran into a word of wisdom problem. We are now trying to work it out. It seems like every week I see someone that I knew that has just entered the MTC. This week, I ran into a old scout camp friend. Her name is Sister Allred. She is going to the Paris France mission and is joining Sister Stapley there. I also ran into a tennis buddy. Elder Wes Brown is here and he is going to the Dallas Texas Mission. It is amazing to see how many people I know and to see them pressing forward to preach the gospel. It is good that you could sell my car. I am sorry to hear that the Miller's haven't heard from Braiden yet. I hope they have by now. He seems like he is doing great.

Being here has been so good spiritually. I have grown a lot and have learned a lot. This week I have been studying Jesus the Christ and was reading chapter 20. It has a lot of good stuff if anyone gets the time to read it.

 Happy Thanksgiving to all!!! We are going to be doing humanitarian service here by making some kind of kits. I don't know what kind yet. We saw a film about the humanitarian service being done at NYC. It is amazing how many went to go help. It was great to see that the church could prepare so many people by their service.

 I love you all. I strive to keep the spirit. I pray that you can have the spirit in your life.

Love,

Elder Nielsen

The Language and Disney Movies

This week was really good. We got our first investigator to commit to baptism!!! We were supper excited. But the day after we got her to commit, we found out she is just another teacher and so she is teaching us now. Her name is Sister Burton. She is really good and we joke around that we got her to that point since we taught her about the gospel.
The language is coming very well. I am working hard at getting it but it is difficult because the words are so close the same and some only have one letter difference. We have decided that we have the perfect plan of learning the language. We found that we could take some words and apply them to Disney movies and remember the words. Take for instance, simba is to worship and simbahan is church. We also make phrases like dumdum remember, dumdum is the word for remember. It is a lot of fun plus it helps us memorize the words. We start to teach a new investigator today. We will still work with Christine but we will add another. We don't know anything yet so we prepare as much as we can.

We get to go to the temple on Mondays. It is really cool. It is a good start to the week.

I think it is a very good idea to sell the car. I was hoping that you would. I was afraid that it would break down. The money part is fine as long as I get it back sometime .

 I love you. Sorry but there isn't much to tell this week. I hope things are going well.

Love,

Elder Nielsen

First Week

Things are going really really good here. My companions name is Elder Disque, sounds like disk. He is from Seattle Washington. He is great. We are quite similar. We have started learning Hiligaynon, sound like hili- guy-non. We had our first teaching moment on Friday where we taught about the Book of Mormon. We had our next lesson on Saturday on the restoration of the gospel. We are doing quit good for not really knowing the language. We are told this is the third group to be learning this language in the MTC. Before, they sent them out to learn it. It is a great blessing to have instructors to teach us. We are working hard. For being in the MTC for so short of a time we are really making progress. The food is great here. We love to eat. Yesterday was fast Sunday and we just stuffed ourselves full. Yesterday was great. We had testimony meeting which was very uplifting. It is amazing to hear why some people are here and there stories. It just proves how great this work is. We were told about the field and how we are representatives of the Lord. We didn't realize how big the black nametag is, if you get the chance look up the poem of the black nametag. I hope things are going well there. I love it here and know that I'm here for a good purpose. I love you all.

 Love,

Elder Nielsen

Short Letter

Dear family,

I write to tell you I'm good the MTC is great.  I like it here, though I don't understand about half the discussion.  I love you and miss you.

Love,
Jacob

Off to the MTC

Here is Jacob's address at the MTC:

Elder Jacob Brent Nielsen
MTC Mailbox #90
PHI - BAC 0102
2005 N 900 E
Provo, UT 84604-1793

We got Jacob off to the MTC today.  He was excited and ready to go.  We are so excited for him!

 

Waiting by the temple until it was time to go to the MTC.

On his way!

Farewell

It is getting very close to my departure date so I'm starting off my blog so that all of you can see my progress in the mission field. My letters will be posted here so make sure you come on every week for updates. I love all of you and pray for the best for you. I love my Heavenly Father and I know what I'm doing is the best decision for me. I know my Redeemer lives and that he died for us that we may return to him. He has taught me so much and I hope he will teach me more. This will be my only post until I leave. I hope to be able to meet with you again some day. God be with you until we meet again.

Hanlong ka,

Elder Jacob Nielsen