Transfered to Mabini!

Wow!!! This was a crazy week.

Everything started ok. We had normal p-day and then Tuesday we had district meeting. The lesson was about recognizing the Holy Ghost so it was a little bit harder lesson to teach but it went alright. That evening we got the transfer call . . . I am now in Mabini, a barangay in Escalante. I am still district leader but what a change.

My new companion is Elder Torres. He just finished his training so he is on his 3rd transfer with his 3rd companion in his first area. It has been crazy for him. I got here and found out a lot of the mission leaders served in this area so it must be a good area to serve in! We don't have many investigators here. We are going have to build up this area so that we can have more baptisms. Right now, we have 1 planned then we have nothing so it is going to be a challenge. We worked and of course, I was lost. The area has lots of hills and all of it is full of sugar cane so it is hard to tell where you are going. We worked and I met some of the members and a few of the investigators. On Saturday, we went on splits with the branch missionaries. The one I went with didn't know the area very well so I had to lead it. That was a great idea!!! We did find everyone though. It was hard as well because everyone is preparing for barangay elections right now so everyone is very busy. The area is good but there is a LOT of MUD!!! We hope it doesn't rain so the ground stays hard hahaha.

I would love to tell you more but I still don't know much about the area.

Love you all.

Elder Nielsen

Training by Elder Nielson

It was a great week having Elder Nielson here. We all got to great him at first and when I came up him and his wife both said "Look, our long lost son" hehehe. It was a great training with him. He focused on that talk by Elder Bednar, " In the Strength of the Lord." It was a really good training. He is a really good teacher and I learned a lot about the administration of the church. It was nice to be with the missionaries but we were given instruction not to really talk because we were there to learn. When we went there, we stay the night at the O Hotel in Bacolod. It is awesome! It has a warm shower!!! We went home after the training but had to stay the night in San Carlos because there was no more buses to get to Guihulngan.
The earthquake was kind of cool. We felt it and it was pretty good sized but didn't do any damage here. We felt 6 aftershocks that day but very small. They say there was an aftershock yesterday but I didn't feel it.
The baptism of Jolie Ann was great! Her brother came, he is a potential baptism, and her mother, which is less active. It was great to have them there. The Macalua family is right on tract to be baptized on Nov.1 so we are looking forward to that. We went to Mary Grace this week. She is doing great. We are talking a lot about Adam's trangression right now. We are trying to get her to know that we are not punished for that. That is about the only thing right now that we know of that is holding her to Catholic. We didn't get to go to Gretchen this week. She was busy all week. Mariel is doing good. She is just continueing. We are still hoping that next year she will be baptized. We went to Manilyn. She is going good. I think she is having a hard time right now because of her pregnancy. She is getting close to her due date in November. We got to teach Cecil this week. He accepted our invitation to be baptized! We were excited about that. He said he was going to come to church this week but didn't show. We aren't sure why. We hope to find out this week.
In 2 weeks, Elder Andersen will be coming to the mission. We are getting excited for that. We are all wondering why he is coming. It is going to be a good experience. But first, we have transfers this week. We will see what happens. We are expecting a transfer because we have both been here for 3 transfers. I will let you know what happens.
Love,
Elder Nielsen

Jolie Ann's Baptism

 

Elder Nielsen and Elder Nielson

 

Bronzed Shoes

This was an alright week. Not a ton of teaching but that was to be expected with no work on Saturday and little on Sunday.
My favorite talk was Elder Ballard because it is going to help the missionary work here, if any of the members hear it.
As far as our teaching. It was really great. We had an interview this week for Jolie Ann. She will be baptized on Saturday!!! We are excited for her. She is really great and received a testimony through attending church. She is going to be the key to activating her mother and baptizing her brother. It is a great moment. We also have some great new investigators. Gretchen texted us this week and told us to come over and teach them. She really wants to learn more and is very interested. She studies the pamphlets and is really searching for truth. She even talks about it with her husband! It is great teaching her. If she becomes a member, she will do a lot of good telling others about it. We also went to Mimi this week. She is the same. We gave her Nov. 30 for her baptism. She really wants to but won't come to church on her own. It is a problem because there is no members over there, just her mom. We are trying to figure out what to do to help her. The Macalua family is doing great. They are really progressing. They are on tracked to be baptized on Nov. 1. We are also seeing a lot of improvement in the less actives. Some are coming back to church so it is getting time for this unit to become a ward and the district to become a stake. It is a miracle.
We loved all of conference and the ideas we have now to continue to help people to progress. We are looking to a good week this next week but we will again miss 2 days of work because Elder Nielson is coming here for our mission tour. We are looking forward to that. Sorry, not much to tell this week.
Love you all,
Elder Nielsen
PS you can bronze my shoes when I get home =P

Excited for General Conference

Sorry about last week. I tried to e-mail but I guess it didn't go through.
This was a good and bad week. We had some very good lessons but we didn't have much time to teach.
Eric is doing great! He was baptized on Friday! It was a great experience. He was very excited about it and it turned out very well. The Macalua family is doing great as well. We didn't get to teach them this week because of me going to Bacolod on Saturday and they weren't there on Sunday when we went there. We will go there this week because there is no school this week because of some break after the college finals. Julie Ann is doing great. She believes the church is true. We gave her October 19 for her baptism but might have to move it. She wants to talk to her dad about joining the church first because he isn't a member and she doesn't want to make a problem for her family by joining the church. We don't think there is a problem but we have to wait and see. She is suppose to tell us by Saturday what happens with that. We picked up a few new investigators this week. One came to church last week and we have been teaching her. Her name is Mariel. Her husband is a member and she has the cutest child. The baby is like a doll. We have been teaching her. She wants to be baptized but we have to wait for her to be married. They say it will take a few months to process though. They say it might be able to happen in December. We are making plans for that right now. We also had one of our member's boyfriends come to church. Apperently, he has been wanting to join the church for a while so we were happy he came. We will start teaching him this week. We also got a referral from some missionaries through Facebook. We are teaching a woman named Marivic. She is really searching for the truth. She invited her friend, Gritchen to listen as well. They are both really doing there studies. We just gave Gritchen a pamphlet of the restoration and when we came back, she was loaded with questions and she believes a lot of the things we have taught. She even talks about it with her husband! We will see how things play out there.
The basketball clinic is hard. We didn't do this week because I had to go to Bacolod this week for fingerprinting. I guess it is a new law here for us to go home so all the Americans went there this Saturday. It wasn't very fun because on the way back, there was a truck stuck on the road so we had to wait 3 1/2 hours for them to pull it out or clear enough space for the buses to get through. We ended up sleeping in San Carlos. Then Sunday we rushed to church. I came from San Carlos and Elder Ponseca was at Canla-on so it was a trial. We made it back for the second hour of church, sacrament is the third so we were good. It was great at church. We had 9 investigators there. We are very happy about that. We then rushed to Vallermoso for some more interviews and then we worked. It was a ruff couple of days. I hope it doesn't have to happen again for awhile.
We are excited for general conference! We are going to San Carlos to watch. We aren't excited for the travel but we are excited to see what they have to say.
The weather has been alright. It is cooler right which is good. Not too much rain so it is just right.
I love you all,
Elder Nielsen

Eric's Baptism

Letter that Didn't Send Last Week

Have you every tryed praying about being humble? That isn't a good one. I did it in Manapla and look what happened hehehe.
This was a pretty good week for us. We taught a fair amount and we had lots of investigators come to church this week. Now where to start?
Eric had his interview this week. It was a success. We are looking forward to his baptism this week with his niece. She is 8 years old. It is going to be an exciting day. We will be held of Friday because I have to go to Bacolod of Friday to get fingerprinted. Darn. That is 8+ hours of travel and 480 pesos just to be fingerprinted. I wish it could be a different day then Saturday. Oh well. Makalua are doing great. They are more active then most of the members. We taught them on Saturday and yesterday. They are a great family and listen very well. They have taken a love for the church. One wasn't dressing that great but when we taught the Law of Chastity, she immediatly changed. It was a great testimony to me. Jessa we hear is the same. Still haven't been able to go to her because of her aunt. Darn! Mingay we weren't able to go to this week. We found out they are shy of us and want some members with us when we go there. We are going to coordinate with our branch first counsilor and the district president, because they know them, to going there with us. Julie Ann is going good. She is a little scared to be baptized because she says she doesn't know it is true yet. We are trying to fix that quick so she can be baptized on Oct. 19. She has been to church enough now to be baptized though. This week we did a lot of finding. We went through the previous investigators and got some names to visit. We started to visit them and are starting to teach some of them again. We also started teaching some new investigators that we found. It is good because we were getting low on investigators. That is what we did this week.
We just found out last week that Elder Neil L. Andersen of the quorum of the twelve will be coming here on Nov. 2. We are looking forward to listening to him and learning from him. It is cool because that is 2 weeks after Elder Nielson. We are very excited for that.
As far as weather, it was good except for Saturday. It hit us hard on Saturday.It was like being under a small waterfall and we were outside in it!!! It wasn't fun but we couldn't do anything about it.
I think that is about it.
Love you all,
Elder Nielsen