Monday is Cleaning Day

This week wasn't quite what we were hoping for but we did alright.
We struggled to find teachings this week because all the students and teachers were preparing for midterm this  week. They have lots of projects to do an are preparing for tests. They were very busy.
Sister Esposo and Lionel are now ready for baptism!!! They both passed their interviews and will be baptized on Saturday! We are looking forward to their baptisms. They are both great people and have great testimonies of the church. Irish Maghanoy is right on tract for her baptism on Aug. 10. We are teaching her and she is listening and really knows what we teach. She is reading the Book of Mormon is things are really going well. All of our investigators really know that the Book of Mormon is important. It really helps them to progress. They are able to fill the spirit more and they are more likely to accept the gospel. We still haven't been able to go to Jessa because she is busy with school. We text her but she still isn't sure if she will be baptized or not. We are hoping to go back on Sunday since midterms will be over. We are teaching 2 new investigators right now. They are part members. We are teaching Kyle and Mary Jane. They really know the gospel. They were taught before but didn't get baptized. We are now continuing to teach them. They would have come to church on Sunday but because they are going to a Catholic school they had to go to the Catholic school on Sunday. They will probably come to church on Sunday. The Galanzas are doing good. They are really receptive and they listen good. Brother is still stuck on being Catholic. We think we are starting to see changes in him though. He is starting to pray more like we do then before. It is still Catholic but it is more structured like ours. Sister wants to join but she has a hard time going to church. We need Brother to help her. We will continue to help them and hopefully they continue to grow. We are also teaching a family like the Galanza family. We are teaching the Paskils. They believe the Book of Mormon is true but they are Catholic so they won't be baptized. We made a lot of progress with them yesterday. We found out a lot about their past so now we can move forward with them.
So p-day here is just us in Guihulngan. Everyone else in the zone goes to San Carlos. We would too but the it is 1 hr 15 min to get to San Carlos. It costs a lot so we just stay here because we have everything we need. We just stay home and clean. I do my wash on Mondays. It gives us things to do.
Well that was my week. It was a lot of walking and little teaching but we got a lot of work done. We are looking forward to a better week this week.
We also have transfers on Tuesday. We will see how that goes.
Love you all,
Elder Nielsen

A Great Week for Teaching!

This was a great week for teaching. We are slowing moving up with more teachings every week. We are really excited for the progress this branch is making.

Sister Esposo is right on tract. Her baptismal interview is on Sunday so we are looking forward to our first baptisms in Guihulngan. She is really excited and as we have taught her she seems to get more and more anxious. Lionel is also doing really great. His interview is also on Sunday. He has a firm testimony and he is extremely excited. We saw him on at church and he told us he had read all of the pamphlets that we had given him, we gave him the last 2 on Thursday. He is really good in his reading. He is about half way done with 1 Nephi and we just met him 2 weeks ago at church!!! He is an amazing person. Some of the planned baptisms dropped for Aug. 10 because their sister says they aren't ready because they just like to make fun of me and my Utah accent, yes we do have a big accent. We will only baptize Irish Maghanoy on the 10th. She is doing great. She has a hard time paying attention but she understands what we say and why we are there. Those are the people with baptismal dates so far.

The Bulabon boarders are doing good. Most of them are reading but the problem right now is they won't pray about the Book of Mormon. We are a little confused about that because usually we can get people to pray but not read. We are really focusing on getting them to pray because they all have felt the spirit and their faith is really growing. They just need that confirmation in their hearts before they are willing to accept a baptismal date. Once that happens we will then focus on getting them to church. We are teaching a part member, Jenessa Gabetero. She attended church last week and she knows the church is true. We are trying to get her to continue to come to church and feel the spirit. We tried to give her a baptismal date but she wasn't sure if she would. We will continue to teach her and strengthen her testimony of the gospel. We haven't been able to go back to Jessa Cuebas yet because she has been busy. It is midterm right now at the college so they are really working on projects and focusing on school right now.

We are really working with the branch council right now on trying to get more investigators to teach. We planned out an activity for next month to get investigators to the church. We are going to have a branch fellowship night for investigators, less actives, and members. We are going to focus on getting members to bring less actives and investigators to the church for this activity so we can teach more people. The leaders are really stepping up on the work and they are starting to get excited about the work that we do each day. It is an exciting time right now. We are looking forward to the harvest that will come because of our efforts and the efforts of the branch. We are going to reach the Bacolod Mission Vision of having baptisms every week. That is the goal we are reaching for and we will reach it. It isn't that far away.

Love you all,

Elder Nielsen

Baptisms lined up for August

This week wasn't as good as we were hoping but it seemed to go alright. We were hoping to teach more but it didn't happen. The good side of this week is that we have a lot of investigators progressing and the baptisms are really lining up for next month.

Sister Esposo is on tract to be baptized on August 3! She has finished the lessons so we are just focusing on her having spiritual experiences right now. Her children are members so it gives her a little bit of a push to be baptized. She is really going great. We also have Brother Lionel Bayon-on getting ready for baptism on August 3. He is very smart. He is 18 years old and really knows the gospel. He is asking questions about deeper doctrines and wants to know how things work in the church. Most of the time he is helping us teach the lesson. He is amazing. He says that I am his idol because I am American and he says that I am Mr. Bean! He is a great person. We also have 4 children preparing for baptism on August 10. Their sister is an RM. We teach them at the church because of family problems. They are really great kids. It is a little bit harder to teach them because of their understanding but we manage. We think Sister Jessa is doing good. She didn't come to church and when we went to teach her yesterday, she wasn't there but we talked with her dad and invited him to come and listen to us when we teach her. He said that he would. It is good because he his friends with our branch president so it gives a support system for him. Sister Zapanta is doing great. We taught her about baptism and she decided to wait to be baptized until she is married. We think it is a good decision so we are just going to support her until that happens. As far as the boarders at our branch president's house they are really gaining testimonies. All of them feel the spirit very strongly. We took them on a church tour and watched the Restoration with them. They all really felt the spirit. They all went home so they didn't attend church this week. We know that 2 of them probably won't continue because one of the members received texts from them that said they were baptized so they won't continue. It was sad because they really felt the spirit but the can choose.

Right now we are trying to get baptisms in the branch so that we can get more missionaries in the area. There are 4 cities, cities here are like counties, that are part of our area that we haven't touched. It is a very large area so we are getting baptisms so that we can ask President Lopez for more missionaries to start working in some of the areas that we aren't able to cover because of distance. We are hoping to ask in August.

I love you all,

Elder Nielsen

A Week Full of Miracles

This has been an amazing week full of miracles.

First of all, we received 12 referrals this week!!! I think that is a high for my mission for a week. We were able to contact 9 of them. We contacted 7 of them because they live at our branch president's house. In Guihulngnan, they have a big college. They say it is the 3rd most recognized in the Philippines. They attend that college so they live at our branch president's house. We started teaching them this week. They are really prepared for the gospel. There are 5 girls and 2 boys. We taught them on Tuesday but we forgot the Book of Mormons so we were only able to give them 1 for all of them. We went back on Thursday, with the Book of Mormons, and all of the girls had read the introduction of the Book of Mormon. They then asked about who Mormon was as well as Moroni. We were able to tell them and then we started to teach them the plan of salvation. The spirit was so strong and all of them felt it. We are looking forward to going back to them on Wednesday night. About 2 weeks ago, we were trying to find a less active and so we asked some people and then gave them a restoration pamphlet and asked if we could come back to teach them. One of them texted us about an hour later and said she was interested. We have now taught her twice. Her name is Jessa. She knows some of the members of the church and she has felt the spirit as we teach. She wants to continue to learn. We invited her to be baptized and she accepted. Her baptismal date is on August 10. We are really looking forward for that one. We also have one more with a baptismal date. We found an investigator that has been taught for a long time. We continued to teach her and gave her a date for baptism. She agreed and will be baptized on August 3. Her name is Sister Esposo. We have a potential baptism this month. Sister Zapanta we are waiting for her to say that she will be baptized. Her husband, not married, is in Manila so she can potentially be baptized. We are waiting for her to decide. We got a new investigator on Sunday. He is going to be adopted in a members home so he came to church this week. We will start teaching him this week. His name is Lionel.

One of the greatest miracles this week was in our branch council. We talked to them about how baptisms goals for each month are now a branch thing not just a missionary deal. We talked about it and we have set up an idea for next month. But during that time, the leaders gave us 3 referrals in that meeting. They are starting to see the vision of the Bacolod Mission of having the weekly baptism. We are going to start a lot more new ideas such as having church tours and the basketball courts are now open for public use with the supervision of the members. We are visiting the members and teaching them and seeing how they are doing for sharing the gospel. If they aren't then we work with them so that will start sharing the gospel like we practice teach with them. We are going to see a big surge in Guihulngnan. We might get to the point where we can split the branch and make 2 solid branches so that it can help the district develop into a stake.

This has been a wonderful week for us. Some days were hard but we are now going to work a lot more and be a lot more effective.

I love you all,

Elder Nielsen

Ilongo to Cebuano

This was a very hard week for us. We have been walking around a lot but have few people to teach. We got to this area with a big area full of investigators but we haven't been able to find them. That is our focus for this week is to try to find some more of these people. Our week was cut short for us to teach as well because we had zone conference this week. It was amazing.

For zone conference we watched the worldwide leadership training. It involved missionary work so President Lopez thought some of us wouldn't be able to watch it so he showed it to us. We learned a lot about how to better effective missionaries and a better way in order to find people to teach. The big focus of the training was to get members involved in the work. I think Elder Bednar said that the perfect system is members are full time finders and missionaries are full time teachers. That is the goal for every area with missionaries in them. That is what President Lopez wants us to do in our areas. We are going to start with the leaders in our branch and move out from there. Our branch president is actually a new member. He was baptized in March 2012. It is good because it pulls out a lot of rules that have been made up over the years here.

As far as investigators, we have very few. One of our investigators is Norning Galanza and his wife. He was a referral from one of our former APs. Norning is Elder Galanza's grandfather. He is really cool to teach him but he is very Catholic and doesn't want to change. We are really focusing on the Book of Mormon to help him because if he gets a testimony of the Book of Mormon, he will convert. We started teaching Jessa yesterday. We contacted her trying to find a less active. We gave her a pamphlet and set up an appointment with her. She has a lot of contacts in the church. A lot of her friends are members so we hope that will help incourage her. She listens good. She says she has gone to one of the activities at the church and liked it. Then we have Yuriza Letrada. She likes the church and was referred by a friend. The problem right now is her parents don't want her to join, she is old enought to choice to join or not herself, and she is a teacher for another religion. She hasn't got a testimony yet about the Book of Mormon so we invited her to pray about it and read it. I think that is about it for the investigators.
As far as the language, it is a lot easier to change from Ilonggo to Cebuano but is is hard at the same time. You get so use to one language that you go to say something and you say it in the other language. The people understand me for the most part because some of the words they don't use in Cebuano is Tagoloc so they understand it but sometimes they don't so I have to try to explain in English. I get my point accross though. It will take some time but it will happen.

Our companionship is going good. We are getting a long and are both trying to get things rolling. Elder Ponseca is from Bataan Luzon Philippines. I hear he is the tallest Philippino in the mission. It is different to have a tall companion. It is taking some time to get use too. Before him, my tallest companion was Elder Disque and he was 5'6".

Well, everthing is good here.

Love you lots,

Elder Nielsen