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