Zone Conference

This was a great week. We taught little but we were gone for 2 days so that was the reason. They had 2 days of zone conferences but the mission was split into 2 groups. The first day was for travel and then the second day we had the zone conference. It was nice to see my past companions and one of my zone leaders that is now an AP. It was nice to get some socializing in because we are in no where land.

The weather stayed good for the most part. We got rain on Thursday which made it crazy going home but we made it fine.

My birthday was great. We went out and worked and then we had the baptism. It was nice to have another baptism. It had been a long time. We had 2 baptisms. One 8 year old and then Irish. I did the baptizing. It was a great program. We are really excited for her. Now we will continue to help her and hand her off to the ward to take care that she continues. We then worked more and then we had a dinner appointment so it was a good day.

We had a great week for investigators. Erik made it to church again so we are looking forward to his interview this week for his baptism. He has a wonderful testimony and is progressing very well. Mimi didn't come to church so we don't know what is going on with her. We will find out this week. We went to Makalua this week and found out we have a potential of 3 convert baptisms and one 8 year old. We gave them a date for November 2 but we might move it to the week before depending on how fast we can teach them because they are only available Saturday and Sunday. We also gave Julie Ann a baptismal date. She is set for October 19. She isn't sure but we think she is just shy. We hope she continues and has a desire to be baptized. We couldn't go to Jessa this week because her aunt was there. Her aunt is very against her joining the church. She wants to try but is scared to when her aunt is there. We hope to see her next week. We are also teaching the Mingay family. We didn't see them this week but they are potential baptisms. He looks up to one of the members so it really helps him have a desire to join the church. We are seeing a lot of good things. We are excited to get a full week of work in this week.

Yesterday, I got to do 3 more interviews in Vallermoso. We are also expecting another one next week. It makes things hard in a good way. They are baptizing but we get less time to prosylete on Sundays. What a good struggle to have.

I think that is about it for this week. We did get a good study on the atonement this week by President Lopez. He taught us a lot. He had us read a talk by Elder Bednar called "In the Strength of the Lord." It is very good if you get the chance to read it.

Love you all,

Elder Nielsen

 

District Leader

This was a harder week for us but to say the least no transfers for both of us. I am now the district leader in the Vallermoso district.

Irish is doing great. We had her interview on Sunday and we have a baptism on Saturday!!! We are excited for that to happen. It is cool to have one on my birthday. What a great gift. Erik is doing amazing but he didn't make it to church this week. Some of the members went over there and they said they had no money to go to church this week. We are going to have to move his baptism now. It is a long walk if they would walk, I think about 8 km, so we can't blame them. We didn't get to teach the Makalua family this week because the kids had school to make up for a celebration this week. They can choose to make up school here on Saturday if they don't go because of a barangay celebration. They didn't make it to church this week either. We don't know why they didn't come. Mimi is also doing great. She didn't make it to church either. We text her and she said she tried but the gate was closed and locked so they couldn't enter. We don't know what happened with that but we did see her on a motorcycle prepared to go to church. We will probably just move her baptism a week later. Julie Ann came to church again this week. We were excited about that and want to give her a baptismal date but she is shy for us to teach her unless her mother is there. Her mother is very busy so we have a hard time teaching her. We hope that we can get that going because she has now been to church twice. Mary Grace is also doing great. We had a great lesson with her about the plan of salvation. She had lots of questions but she said that it was a lot better because people don't go to hell. We are trying to get her to pray to know it is true so that she can get her testimony and make the transition to the church.

This Sunday, I went to Vallermoso and did my first baptismal interview. It was a cool experience. The spirit was so strong as I interviewed him.

The weather has been pretty nice here. It has been overcast most of the week so not to hot. We did get a little rain but not as much as you did. We get enough to get the roads wet but not much more. It is crazy that you are getting so much. It is pretty nice that amount we are getting right here.

I wish I could tell you more about my week but it was pretty dull and we spend a lot of time walking trying to get some teaching appointments.

Next week might be about the same. We are going to Bacolod next week for zone conference with President Lopez which will take up two of our days.

Love you all,

Elder Nielsen

Great Hopes

Well, it wasn't the week we planned but it wasn't bad for the time that we had to work.

We had zone meeting this week. Most of it talked about the upcoming mission tour that we will have with President Brent Nielson this coming October. President Lopez is pretty serious about this and we are getting a lot of new things that we need to do so it will be perfect by the time that President Nielson comes.

This week we did a lot contacting referrals. It was a little bit hard because a lot of them didn't want it so we did the best we had with the investigators that we had.

Irish is doing great. We are looking forward to her interview this week. We are happy to have one again. Erik made it to church this week! We are happy that he is still good for his baptism on September 28. He is really great and asks some very good questions. It is good. Jovenal didn't come to church this week. One of his relatives, a member, went over there after church and visited him. They said he is worried right now because his wife is Catholic and he is worried she won't approve of him joining. He knows it is true but would like her to join with him. We can't talk to her right now because she is in Dumagette for work so his baptism is going to be delayed. We had quite a few investigators at church this week. We had two from the Makalua family. I don't know if I told you but we found Sister Makalua while trying to contact a referral. She told us she was a member. She is having us teach 3 of her grandchildren. 2 of them will be converts and one is 8 so the branch president will work with that one. They are really ready for the gospel and are really great people. We are teaching them and are excited to give them a baptismal date as well. Julie Ann Bayna also came to church this week. We have taught her for a while and she has never been sure about going to church but she came this week. It helps that her boyfriend is helping her come. We just need to find time to teach her the rest of the lessons. They are very busy so we are trying to get a schedule with them. Elder Ponseca went over to Jessa this week, we went on member exchanges, and taught her. She really wants to come to church but is scared because her aunt doesn't want her too. She says she will try this next week. We gave Mimi Brava a baptismal date this week for October 5. She didn't make it to church but it looked like it might rain so we didn't expect them. She just need to come for 3 more weeks and she will be baptized. We went to Mary Grace this week and had a great lesson with her. We taught about Joseph Smith and the restoration. She asked some really good questions and we had a great spiritual experience. She said she can't go to church because the groups she is in at the Catholic Church but if she finds our church to be true, she is willing to change. We have great hopes for her.

The weather was good this week. Not to hot but we still didn't get much rain. It made the road wet this week but not much more then that.

We have transfers this week so we will see what happens with that.

Love you,

Elder Nielsen

10 months!

I can't believe that 10 months have passed already. It has only felt like 2 months have gone by! It is crazy.

We had an amazing week this week. We had a pretty good amount of appointments this week and we are seeing a lot of good things coming out right now.

We are happy to say that Erik came to church this week!!! He brought his niece with him that isn't a member. She came and listened to us on Saturday and we asked her if she wanted to be baptized. She said yes, she is 9 years old. We were so excited! We are now looking forward to 4 baptisms coming up. Jovenal didn't make it to church this week. We went over there yesterday to find him sick. He is still good for Sept. 28. We set his baptism late so he could still be baptized on that day if he missed a Sunday. He is doing very well and has a great testimony. We had a great experience with him this week. We taught him the Word of Wisdom on Thursday. We knew that he had a cigarette problem. We taught him about it and he told us he went to the doctors earlier that week and they told him that he needed to stop smoking and stop drinking coffee because it wasn't helping him. They told him that it was bad for his body. It was great to see how the Lord helps us by sending some of our investigators to the doctors to find out that is bad for them. They will listen to the doctors. Some of the missionaries say if they won't give up their word of wisdom problems you pray they will get sick so they go to the doctors so they will stop. It isn't the best to pray for but it works for getting them to stop. We went to Irish's parents yesterday to ask them to sign the baptismal record so she could be baptized. The mother was hesitant at first but Irish went inside the house grabbed a pen and told her to sign. It shocked us a little bit to see that she had such a desire because she doesn't talk much during the lessons but she has a great testimony about the truth. We are planning on going back to their mother and teach her because she says that she hasn't listened to the missionaries before. We are looking forward to seeing if we can help her join as well. We were a little bit shocked yesterday at church. We contacted a less active about a week ago. We were looking for a referral and we asked her where the referral lives. She told us she was a member. To keep things short, she came to church yesterday and she brought her grandchildren. We know 2 of them can be baptized, one a covert the other is 8 years old. We are looking forward to teaching them this week so they will be baptized as well. We also have been working on Mimi Brava for a while now. She has been taught for a long time. She is a part member. Her mother is less active. She also came to church this week. It was cool because we haven't seen her for about 2 weeks because she went to Manila but she got cold there because of the typhoon and came back and she came to church. It was definitely a great day. We also had a branch fellowshipping night. We had the members invite others to come to the church to tour it. After they had some activities. They had 36 investigators come. We started contacted them yesterday and one is interested. He said he wanted to come to church so we will meet him there next week and set a schedule to teach him.

This week was very hot. We had no rain. It was very different and we felt like dieing yesterday because it was so hot. We were walking and would stop every so often to rest because we were drenched with sweat. It was very hot.

We celebrate Labor day here but it is a different day but it is different. Everyone still works. It is just like a normal day.

Well I think that is all. It was a great week.

Love you all,

Elder Nielsen

PS Merry Christmas. We are starting the Christmas season now. It starts 100 days before Christmas day. Time to start singing the Christmas songs!!! YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!