Transferred!

Hello from Negros Oriental!!! I transferred on Wednesday! I am now in a place called Guihulngan branch (pronounced ge-hul-gan) in the Canlaon district in the San Carlos Zone. If you look at where I am, I am no longer speaking Ilonggo. I am now in a Cebuano area! It is really different but good. I am now the senior companion and we whitewashed the area because one missionary finished his mission and the other was transferred! It is a very exciting time. We are seeing a lot of changes right now. I have to readjust my language now. It will be alright because part of it is the same so it won't be as hard of a change. I just hope it comes a lot quicker then Ilonggo did. Guihulngan is a branch because San Carlos is a district. I hear that it is getting close to becoming a stake. We have a high enough attendance to be a ward so we are waiting for the district to become a stake.

My new companion's name is Elder Ponseca. He is by far my tallest companion. Before my tallest companion was 5'4" but he is 6'. It makes things a little bit different because we attract a lot more attention when we walk the streets because we are both very tall. We are trying right now to figure out the area. Elder Ponseca knows the area a little bit because he has had exchanges in this area a few times so it helps us a lot. We are trying to find the investigators. It is a little bit hard but we get a lot of help from our branch missionaries. It is a working progress to whitewash an area. One thing I have had to get use to is bucket showers. In Manapla they have a shower but here we have a bucket. It is alright. It doesn't take long.

We have visited a lot of members these past few days trying to find out about the area. We are hoping to start getting to the investigators more this week. Our area is rather big so we are taking it one small area at a time.

As far as weather, it was starting to get very rainy in Manapla but here the mountains brake up most of the storms (I forgot to mention our area is very mountainous and we can see Cebu from our area). It hasn't rained yet here but we thought it would a couple of times.

In order to get to our area from Bacolod we had to go through a canyon. It was very pretty. I took some pictures which I will try to send next week. It had a ton of turns and it was very small. We went through it in a bus. It was probably worse then going through Ogden canyon. The road was about the same size but we were doing it with buses. It was fun especially when two buses passed each other. Then the buses were stopping to drop people off during the travel. It was very fun.

Well I will be able to tell you more about the area next week. I don't know it very well. Maybe next week.

I love you all,

Elder Nielsen

Me and my companion

Happy Father's Day!

This was a great week for us. We got 35 teachings this week! That hasn't happened in a while. We hope to do more these coming weeks.

 

So Uzi's baptism is on Wednesday. He had his interview on Sunday. The zone leader said that he is a funny boy. He says some funny things and tries to explain things in a long way but it seems like he gets himself confused while doing so. He's baptism is on transfer day. I might not be there to see it because of transfers. Oh well, we don't know what will happen this week. I think there is a good chance that I will transfer because I have been in Manapla for a long time.

 

As far as our other investigators, Jay-r is doing great. He is still progressing well. His interview for baptism should be on Sunday. He has a firm testimony. It is hard to teach him right now because of school. We can only teach on Saturdays and Sundays. It is alright though because the lessons are almost done. We started teaching a new investigator this week. Her name is Leah. She is a housemaid for our landowner so we have visited her a few times. We started teaching her this week and introduced the gospel to her. She doesn't really understand me because of my accent so Elder Nunez is doing most of the teaching but it gives me something to work on. She attended church this Sunday. We are hoping to help her. We went back to a family this week that are less active. The Nopeto family is really big and has a lot of members. We were referred to them. We went to visit and picked up a new investigator there. Apparently there could be a lot more investigators for us to teach there because most of the daughters married nonmember husbands. We are finding a lot of new investigators right now. We went to Sister Taperan this week. She wants to be baptized but has to take care of her mother-in-law. She will come to church when her mother-in-law is good but right now it doesn't seem very good. We are just waiting until she can come to church so that she can be baptized. We have a lot more investigators that we go to but they aren't progressing. We are trying to help them but it is hard sometimes because they don't want the help. 

 

Anyways, I love you all. Happy father's day to all the fathers there.

 

Elder Nielsen

Focus on Retention

This was a pretty good week for us. We worked a lot harder and we are seeing some of our investigators really start to accept the gospel.

Nixie's baptism was great! It was very spiritual. We had everyone dress up and tried to make it a good experience for her. She was really happy. We are looking forward to more baptisms in Manapla.

Uzi is doing great. He doesn't understand a lot of what we teach so we focus on the questions for baptism to help him understand the commandments of God. He is on track to be baptized right before I transfer and before his sister leaves for the mission. It will be her leaving on a mission gift. Jay-r is a pretty common name here. Jay-r is doing great. His family told us he really likes to read the Book of Mormon. He will go to read and he will see that his sister is reading something else and he will go talk to her and ask why she is reading the other book and not the Book of Mormon. It was funny but he has a sincere testimony of the truth. He is already looking forward to going on a mission and preaching the word. He says he has a friend he would like us to teach so we are hoping to start teaching his friend this week. We are also starting to teach a relative of Nixie. His name is Jernel. He of the boyfriend of one of our less active members. He came to her baptism and we are told he is asking questions about the gospel. He came to church on Sunday. We are excited to continue to teach him and help him be baptized. We need to help them be married first but once he hears the gospel that is an easy step to take.

We are continuing working with other investigators and part member families. It is work all the time. Sometimes it feels like there is nothing we can do but we still try to find people to teach. The retention here is hard because we work with a lot of part members that are less active. They don't understand enduring to the end so they will come to church just to be baptized and then they will go less active. We try to focus on that when we teach the people here. The Negad's haven't been to church for a couple of weeks but they have been traveling a bit. I hope they will come again next week. They were visiting family. School just started here so they will probably have time now.

This week I was able to go back to Punta Salong with Elder Evans. I visited Tabligan again. He is the same. We helped him to realize that he needs to pray about the Book of Mormon. He would just believe it before. We hope he will read now. I also went to Baldos. He knows it is true but wants his wife to accept it as well before he joins the church. It was nice going back to that area.

I love you all. Be happy.

Elder Nielsen

Hide and Seek

This week was pretty good for us. We actually have a baptism on Saturday!!! I didn't think we would be we do. We are looking forward to Nixie's baptism. It is pretty exciting. She loves the gospel. She is a little bit shy but we were able to teach her.

This week we taught a lot more than normal. We started to go through are former investigators and we saw some names of less actives with the names of the former investigators. We have started to visit both of them and we are hoping to see more investigators come out of this work. This week was mainly focused on preparing people with baptismal dates and searching with maybe a little game of hide and seek. Some times the less actives hide from us so we have to find them a different time and then we can start to work on their problem that has been stopping them from going to church. Sometimes it is hard but some people we just visit them once and then they come back. We have been working with the ward and have been really working on getting home teaching and visit teaching happening. A lot of these less actives won't have gone less active if their was home and visiting teaching happening. We can't change the past so we are starting now. They are now going to the less actives and we are starting to see a lot of less actives coming back to church. This is exciting. We are getting close so that Punta Salong can split from the Manapla Ward. It is still a ways away but it will happen one day.

Right now we are working with Jay-r Villariaz. He was close to baptism but missed some Sundays so we have to start over with him. He made it to church this Sunday. He really wants to be baptized. He are looking forward to that baptism on June 29. We also got a new investigator this week. His name is Uzi. He is 9 years old. He is part member. We were told to teach him. His sister is about to go on a mission so we are hoping to do his baptism right before she goes and before transfer day, June 19. That is about it for those baptisms coming up. We look forward to a lot more to come this week.

It is rainy season right now. My umbrella is my hair. It is brand new and very useful. My house is really nice so we don't get rained on. It is pretty close to what houses are like in the US just a lot smaller. I get to clean the house every week. I also get to do laundry by hand every week. Man life is rough!!! jokes.

I love you all,

Elder Nielsen