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