More Investigators

This was a very crazy week. We started out Monday getting 4 new investigators!!! We are pretty excited about this. The work is really going right now. We ended this week with 10 new investigators which is really high. We were really busy this week especially in Punta Salong. We were going to less actives there to try to get people out for the special sacrament there. It wasn't very successful though. Only 18 of the area came. We had a hard time getting investigators out to church this week. Only the Negad family (sorry, been spelling it wrong the whole time) came out. There interview went good and they will be baptized on Saturday.

Edmon and Felix are the same. They know the truth and want to be baptized but they didn't come to church. We are trying to figure out what to do to get them out. We tried to talk to Elmer this week but he has been gone so we didn't teach him. Sister Ansaldo is doing really good. She knows the truth but like Edmon and Felix, she doesn't come to church. It is pretty frustrating but we do our best.

Our teachings are good and we follow the spirit. Maybe we are here to plant seeds so other missionaries can harvest. We don't know but we think that to keep our spirits up. We have high hopes for this area and will keep working just like we have been.

I am happy here. I know that I am doing the work of the Lord. There is little time to be sad. We are sad when investigators don't come to church but it is up to them to come.

We do drink things that have milk in them. There is a drink here called Energen that has milk. We also can buy milk that isn't the powder here. It tastes weird but we still drink it. As far as water, we were given water bottles that have a filtration system installed in them so we can get water almost anywhere and be able to drink it so I can drink plenty of water.

This week we ate oyster. It was really good. They cook in what they call adobo. So they cook it in vinegar and some other stuff. It was really good. We eat all sorts of food. I really like the salted egg here. It is a purple egg. It is salty but really good.

I love you all.

Elder Nielsen

Our baptism from last week

First Baptism!

Well this was another busy week. We taught a lot and we saw some more miracles happen.

This baptism was great! It was really exciting for Ferly and a good learning experience for us. We found out that we need about 2 hours to fill the baptismal font. We started about 45 minutes late because the font wasn't ready. Ferly's dad got to do the baptism. It was a good experience for him to use his priesthood.

This week we found out why some of our investigators didn't come to church. Some were sick and others didn't have money or were doing things to get money. We were hoping that they would come to church this week but few come.

Sister Nigad and her children did come to church this week. They really want to be baptized. They were sad when we moved their baptismal date and they promised that they would never miss church again. They are to be baptized on March 2 & 9. We were hoping for Edmon and Felix to come to church but they didn't come. We know that Felix is now working building houses and Edmon is working as well so they can have money to come to church. They might have been working so they did come. They like the gospel though. Edmon wants his grandson to be baptized into the church when he turns 8. We will push for them to go to the special sacrament next Sunday in Punta Salong. Elmer is progressing still. We need to reteach somethings again but he likes the gospel. We went to his house to go to church but he was at the ocean so he didn't attend.

This week we were going to teach someone we found but he wasn't there. We felt like we needed to go to a member's house so we went. We didn't know why we just felt like we should be there. We were there for a while but through going there we picked up 3 new investigators. Later, we got one more when we went to visit one of the new investigators. We are have high hopes for them.

So this week was transfers. Elder Bermudez and I stayed in Manapla but Elder Bermudez became district leader. It was funny because he was district leader 6 months before I came and he got a break for one transfer and now he is district leader again.

Overall it was a good week. We worked hard and will continue to work even harder.

I love you all,

Elder Nielsen

A Baptism

This was a very good week as far as spiritually. We had a lot of teachings and we were able to solve a lot of concerns. I don't know where to start but here it goes.

Ferly passed her interview!!!!!!!! We will be holding her baptism the morning of Feb 16. She is very excited. The district leader was very impressed with what she knew. Next is Edmon and Felix. They are starting to fix their problems and they really like the church. They are progressing very well. They weren't able to make it to church so we have to start the 4 weeks over again for them. Edmon was very sad that we moved it on Saturday and we need to change it again. We are sad that we have to do it but that is the rule. I don't know if I have mentioned the Baldos family but we have been teaching them for the whole time that I have been here. We have finally broken the ice with him. He is happy when we come and he is starting to progress. Before he just listened but now he is excited. Rene is starting to progress now. He was saying that he would do things but now he starting to do them. We are excited about this because he was hard to teach before. The Nigad family is progressing as well. They have accepted everything so far. We were sad that they didn't come to church this week. We will have to go over and see why they didn't come. Elmer Diagbel, (di or diy makes a j sound) we started teaching last week. He is excited when we come over. He sees the blessing when we come because he is a fisherman and was making 30 pesos before we started coming and now he is making 100 pesos. He relates this change to us. He is really progressing. We taught him the word of wisdom and 2 days later he had quit smoking! It was amazing. I was shocked when he told us that. He also switched his boss so that he could come to church on Sunday. We will go pick him up next week to take him to church.

This was a very good week for resolving concerns. We didn't do that good at getting investigators to church. We only had 3 so we were pretty sad since we have about 12 investigators and 2 of the 3 we haven't taught. One was a referral so we were happy about that and the other is difficult to teach. We will have to teach her with her family but we are told is a long travel so we haven't got there yet. We were sad about this week’s attendance.

This next week is looking very busy. We are hoping to teach a lot.

The language is still coming. I have improved a lot since being here. The members are starting to say that I am sagad, skilled, at the language but there is still a lot to learn. It takes time but as Jake said if you know the rules you can make up new words. It is fun to do sometimes but sometimes you have to be careful. I work every day and come back tired every night. That is the work of a missionary.

I love you all and miss you. Have a happy Valentines Day!!!

Elder Nielsen

Good Food - Except Eggplant!

This week wasn't our best week. We had some trouble finding people to teach but we are hoping for a better week next week. We have zone conference in Cadiz City in the church there. We had training with President Lopez this week. It was really fun and good. We trains us like we will be bishops and stake presidents or relief society presidents. We expects a lot out of us. This makes us want to work harder.

As for teaching we did pretty good with our investigators this week. Ferly is really progressing. She comes to church every week so she will be baptized on Feb. 16, yeah my first baptism! She smiles all the time and loves when we come over. Edmon and Felix are really progressing but it is hard for them to come to church. They didn't make it this week because of money. For both of them it takes 64 pesos to travel to church and back because they are in Punta Salong. We were sad that they didn't make it. We are teaching Anabel Ansaldo right now. She is progressing and has read the whole Book of Mormon but we can't get her to come to church. She knows it is true but she doesn't come. We are working to get her to come. Then we have Sister Nigad and two of her children. They are doing really good. We taught them about the Word of Wisdom and we were suprised because we teach them with the Tanedo family and Brother Tanedo was against the church but he is starting to listen and he told Sister Nigad to slowly stop drinking coffee. He has the same problem but he said that he was going to do it too! We are excited about this. We also started to teaching a few people. We started teaching Danilo Aspa and his friend James. They listen well. We still need to follow up with them because the meeting went long with President Lopez. We also started teaching Henry Gonzaga. His family is part of the church but he isn't. We were looking for people and found him. He loves God and adds to the lesson. He is going to Cebu so we won't teach him this week but we will next week.

The food is really good here. The only food I don't like here is the eggplant. The fish is pretty good here. It is fresh and the people know how to cook it. They cook dry fish which is very salty. I like it but need to figure out how to eat it better because it has lots of bones and they always end up in the meat. Everything here is pretty good. A little bit dirty after it rains but you get used to it.

Our house is made out of cement. The rich use cement and the poor is bamboo. Most roofs are made out of tin. There is toilet paper here. Not all the toilets have seats. All the showers are cold. It is really cold if the wind is blowing because the window is just bars in our apartment. Overall you just get used to it and go to work. That is the best method of the mission is work as hard as you can.

I love you all. Remember who you are.

Elder Nielsen