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