Life is Good

This week was pretty crazy with all our teaching appointments especially Wednesday. Wednesday was a holiday so we were packed with activities. It was good that we could go on exchanges with the members that day so it really helped the load of things. (Don't ask about the holiday, I don't really know about it just that the president's dad was shot on that day.)

We had a lot of teachings this week. We didn't get to go to Jessa because she was still busy. Elder Ponseca went to La Libertad on Wednesday to start to contact those referrals. I went and did some home teaching. It was good. We went to Erik on Saturday. We had a good lesson with him about the plan of salvation. He really likes it and we gave him a date for Sept. 28 for baptism. He didn't make it to church this week but we weren't expecting him to because they said they have no money. We are also teaching a relative of our branch president's wife. His name is Jovenal. We have taught him a couple of times over the past few weeks. We gave him a date on Saturday for Sept. 28 as well and he accepted. He also came to church on Sunday! It was a great find for us. We also went to Mary Grace again. Her husband was the Catholic apostle. We had a great lesson with them. The first time he said that the Book of Mormon was just the same as the Bible but now he says it is different. They are reading and we were able to teach them about how the Book of Mormon came to be and why we need it. We were able to testify that it helps us get closer to Jesus Christ. After we finished they told us that we are different then the other religions that have tried to teach them because we don't argue and try to prove them wrong. That is one thing President Lopez told us to do for them because we asked him how to help them. He told us just to testify. It was a great testimony to me that this is the true church because we don't need to argue. We know it is true through the Holy Ghost. We also had a lot of good lessons like that one with other of our investigators. We had a very good week. We contacted one of our referrals this week and low and behold, another group of boarders. This time we are teaching 14 girls, one of them is a less active from a different branch. One of them is very interested and we don't know about the rest because we had one small lesson with them. Maybe when we return we will find out more. The other boarders are doing about the same. They did ask some good questions this week. One asked about why we need to be baptized. We were then able to testify about baptism and how it was a commandment and was needed for us to return to God. We are waiting to see what they are thinking and feel about baptism.

As far as me. I am very happy right now. As long as we can teach life is good. We are constantly trying to figure out what else we can do to help our investigators recognize their answer about if the church is true. That takes up most of our time. We are also trying to figure out right now how we can focus on some of our investigators because it is hard because we are working with a lot of investigators and they are far apart. It is a good problem to be dealing with. They weather was hot at the beginning of last week. Today has really cooled down and is raining. Just the typical weather here.

We now have Facebook going and it is growing right now. We are now trying to figure out how to best use it to promote missionary work not just a place to go if we have no appointments or just a site. We are trying to figure out how to make it productive. If you have any ideas, we would love some.

The work is good right now. The Lord has prepared many for the gospel we just need to find and teach them.

Love,

Elder Nielsen

Basketball

We have started working on an online proselyting program. We now have use of Facebook, skype and other internet access devises to help move forward the work! It is very exciting because it can really enhance the work here because a lot of people are using technology here. I think we are the test mission for the Philippines because I hear the Davao Mission doesn't have it yet. Now I must warn, don't look us up or try to find us. If we get a friend request, we will reject it and if some tries to write us, we won't respond. This is for the people in each area and for the return missionaries so that they can keep in contact with their converts. It is a great thing.

President is also having us start doing basketball camps. We are going to teach young women and men how to play basketball. Basketball is big so this will draw attention and will give us more referrals. For members to join they must bring a friend that isn't a member so we will get the young people's attention and then they will introduce us to their parents and family so that we can start teaching them.

Another thing we are doing is we are going on exchanges with members every week. One person will go to investigators and the other will work on home teaching with their companion. This will help us with the rescue program to bring people back to church and will also give us time for investigators. It will double the work that day. We are very excited.

We told President about La Libertad but right now we are thinking we need to contact some of them and make sure there is some very good investigators there before we ask for missionaries. We don't want to start an area just to have it close in 3-6 months.

As far as teaching we had little. There was a lot of parties this week, I don't know why, so we ate a lot but taught very little. As far as investigators, we went to Jessa but she wasn't there. She says she will come to church on Sunday. We are excited for that. We planned to give her a baptismal date but we will have to do that this week. We made it to Yuriza this week. She was good and we cleared us some confusion. We tried to give her a date but she just said that she will be baptized when the time was right but right now she has duties in her other church. We had 2 very good lessons with the boarders. The boys are really great. They believe it is true and they are reading and really studying the scriptures. We are now hoping they will stay some Sundays so they can go to church because they live in La Libertad but they are very far away. We went to Galanza this week. We taught him about prophets and he knows that we need one but he won't budge. He is very Catholic and won't change. We are trying to figure out how to further help him. We went to La Libertad this week and we got 6 new investigators there. We are seeing how they will be because right now they seem very Catholic. We also got a new investigator as we were visiting some less actives. His relative, of that family, died about a month ago so he is really receptive. He has a great knowledge of the gospel. He really wants to join and we are excited for him to see how he progresses. His name is Eric Vergara. Right now we are working with a lot of investigators and seeing who will progress quicker so we can put more attention to them.

This week we also had district conference. President Lopez came to our area to interview some people. We got a new presidency for the district. We also had an area 70 come. I forget his name. His is the area 70 for the Bacolod Mission. He was good but it was hard because he was talking in Ilonggo and talked very fast so it was hard for us to keep up and understand.

As far as traveling, it isn't good to travel a long distance at night. That is why we travel at 5pm. It is hard to get a tricycle after and the buses could be far away.
The weather has been good. We had some hot and some rainy. That is what it is always. Mostly it was cloudy so it was good.

I believe that is all.
I love you all,

Elder Nielsen

Birthdays

Here it has been very rainy. I am glad that I got a new umbrella on Wednesday when I was in San Carlos. This week went well. We got a lot more teachings in this week. We also went to a new area. We went to La Libertad. There we had a great experience. We taught a less active family with a part member and that less active family gave us 31 referrals in that area!!! We are thinking right now how we are going to be able to teach all of them consistently because we can't be there past 5 pm because of transportation, tricycle or bus, and we can't go there very often because it costs us 20 pesos to go there and takes about 15 minutes. We are going to ask president for missionaries there so that they can try to start a new group there.

We taught Mary Grace again this week. Her husband was there as well. It was a different lesson because her husband is an apostle for the Catholic church, each big church has 12 apostles. He really tried to use the Bible to understand us or disprove so we didn't get to teach. We told them about the Book of Mormon and committed them to read it. He is still wondering where Lehi is in the Book of Mormon. We will focus on the Book of Mormon. We didn't make it to Paskil and Galanza this week. We went to Jessa this week. She is doing great. She wants to go to church but is shy so we talked to her and tried to help her. She is also shy because her aunt doesn't want her to join. She knows it is true so maybe in 2 Sundays she can attend church, we have district conference on Sunday. We tried to return to Yuriza but she wasn't there so we taught her sister Agnes. We taught the plan of salvation and she believes it is true. She just needs to pray to know the Book of Mormon is true. We also started teaching a relative of our branch president's wife. She didn't want to let us teach at first but when she found out they were members, we were able to teach. That is the power of having a fellowshipper that people know. The boarders are doing alright. We are still trying to get them to pray about the Book of Mormon. They seem scared to do it. That is our focus right now. We got a lot of new investigators this week that seem really good. I will tell you more about them later.

We eat a lot of coconut here but we don't eat the fresh ones. We eat the baby ones that just barely got the inside growing and has the water. We use the water and add the inside then we add milk and maybe sugar then we eat it. It tastes very good. The mission rule for houses is they have to be cement and have tile floors. They also have to have a gate and have screens and bars on the windows. Most of the houses in our area is cement because it is a "bigger" city and our area is a richer area. We have some that are made of dried leaves but not to many.

We had a great week this week. It is a lot better to have lots of lessons.

I love you all,

Elder Nielsen

PS the picture was a cake for Elder Ponseca's birthday, last Monday, and early for my birthday

Beginning of Typhoon Season

This week was slow as we thought it would. We had a hard time finding people to teach because of the midterms and we have entered into typhoon season. We got hit pretty hard with rain this week. Right now it is clear but the past 3 days it was heavy rain. I need a new umbrella because 2 of the poles broke on my other one.

We had a great baptismal service for Lionel and Sister Esposo! It was very spiritual and they are great people. The branch is very supportive of them and are really helping them. Lionel even worked with us yesterday. He wanted to see what we do so he came with us and helped us. It was a good experience for him. He is already talking about his mission!!! Bytheway (John), I am both us are still in Guihulngan.

Kyle and Mary Jane are good. We couldn't teach them this week because they were busy so we will try again this week. We went to the Galanza family this week. We took our branch president and he shared his thoughts about baptism and shared some verses from the Bible about baptism and how infants don't need to be baptized. It was good but I don't think Brother Galanza was very happy to hear it. He is very firm about being Catholic. We also taught Paskil this week. We made a lot of progress on them. We found out where they were in the teachings with past missionaries and found out a lot of his beliefs about religion.  We now know more about the direction we should go. We also started teaching a referral. We were given her name 2 times. The first we text her and she refused but the second time a member told us her name and we went to her house, not knowing it was the same person, and contacted her. She found out it was the same person and she is willing to listen. She has been to church before so we just have to build on what she has learned. Her name is Mary Grace. We went back to Yuriza this week. She is still confused so we told her to write down her questions so when we return this week we can answer them. We can't continue Irish's baptism because her dad wouldn't sign the baptismal record. We will continue to teach her and hopefully he will change his mind. She is ready for baptism so we just have to wait for her parents to sign.

As far as the area, we have a lot of coconut trees here. We live close to the mountains so we walk up hill a lot (both ways in mud up to our waists or maybe the middle of our shoes). It is a big city for this side of the island. We have a big college here. It is the 3 most recognized in the Philippines. Lots of teachers and students live here. It makes it hard because we start to teach and find out they go home on the weekends so they don't come to church. The beaches really depend. Some are really rocky and some are good sand. Some of the water is clear and some is really dirty. It depends on the spot.

One thing you have to know is a city here is like a county back at home. What we call a city is a barangay  or a sitio. Those depend on the area. A barangay is bigger then a sitio. The people are really good here and when they are converted, they really help with the work. We get lots of support.

This area we eat a lot of rice and chicken. We get some vegetables but that is the bases of our diets. (It is making me fat. I am about 170 now).

I think that is about it.

I love you all.

Elder Nielsen