Lots of Rain

This was a pretty good week for us but we had our hardships. The weather was good all week, sunny and hot, until Sunday when it decided to rain harder then any other storm besides Yolanda that I have ever experienced. It made for a hard Sunday trying to get investigators at church.

On the good side, we had our baptism!!! I sent you some pictures of the two. I will tell you when I get home who is who. It was a cool experience having them baptized. It made for a good day. They are so good and are pretty funny.

Danna is doing great. Sorry I didn't write about her because we have been going on a lot of splits since lots of missionaries have been at our house. Mostly Elder Paaño has been going to them. She is really good. We talked to the father and he is fine with her being baptized but the mother wants them to get baptized at the same time. That might take a while because the mother wants all of them to go to church together but brother is shy to go to church since it has been so long since he has been to church. We are working on that right now to see if we can change that. Rica didn't come to church this Sunday because she thought she was going to a graduation but that didn't happen. We moved her to April 26 to be baptized. We are still excited for her. We started teaching an 11 year old named Chenna. She is really good and had been to church before. She is pretty smart and she loves the gospel. She has committed to be baptized but we haven't given her a date yet because we haven't talked to her parents yet. She seems like a great potential. She came to church on Sunday with some of the members. Bishop's house help, Carmela, is coming a long pretty well. She comes to church every Sunday. She just believes that all churches are true. We have taught her some of the lessons but haven't really taught her much. We got her to come to gospel principle class this Sunday. We hope to give her a date for baptism this week. It is a little hard to teach her because she is Tagalog so Elder Paaño teaches her in Tagalog and I teach in English. She understands English for the most part. It is quite interesting. The cool part is even though I don't know Tagalog that well, I understand everything that is going on. It is definitely the gift of interpretation of tongues.

We did a little on trying to find those people again this week but we didn't work too much on it. We have been focusing on our investigators trying to help them to accept the gospel. We might work more on it this week.

Lots of good things are going on right now in the area. We hope it continues.

Love you,

Elder Nielsen

Searching

We still had a decent week but had a hard time for church. The first thing to say is we had no baptism. Mitoy went back to Kabangalan because her brother was in the hospital for some disease that I forget. We don't know when she is coming back or if so we are going to wait a while and if she doesn't come back, we will send the missionaries there a referral. We are looking at 2 baptisms this week though. We will be baptizing Aldrin and Aladin. They are doing really great. They are really fun to be around. We look forward to that one. The next one is probably going to be Rica. She is looking at April 19. She didn't come to church because her sister had some health problems as well. We don't know about Danna. Something seemed wrong when I went there yesterday so I am thinking that her mom doesn't want her to be baptized. We will go today and find out for sure if that is the case. We didn't make it to Brother Planilla this week. He was very busy and was never home so we didn't make it to him.

We taught a group of friends at one of our less active families. We think that is going well. Eliza one of the friends that seems very interested. She has a great understand of the church before so we are just adding to her knowledge of the church today. She seems very potential for being baptized. We need to figure out where she lives and she if she wants to be baptized.

The rest of the week seemed like we were mostly going around doing a new project. We are searching for some members that we don't know their present address. We try to go to their old address and find their new one then try to share with the people that we ask. We know where some are now but we have a lot more to find. It gives something new to do which is great.

That was about it for the week. Training was good. Ours went a lot better than I thought it would.

Love you

Elder Nielsen

A Progressing Area

Yes, I do cook. I cook McDonald's and Jolly Bee. Jokes!!! I do buy some American. I know how to cook and it is a lot cheaper.

We had a very good week this week. We had our training for the month so that hurt us a little bit but we still did really good for missing a day and a half of work. This week we will do the same because we have zone conference but we will have some help because we will have missionaries coming to our house so we take them out to work with us. That should help us as far as teaching.

I will tell you more about our investigators now because I know them. We have a baptism on Saturday for Mitoy. She is a house help at one of our members houses. She is really good. We are excited for this one. She is 15 years old. I will send the picture next week. We also have Aladdin and Aldrin on the 22nd. They are doing pretty good. We still have a lot to teach them so we are going to need to hurry through the lessons so they are ready. Then for the 29th we are looking at Danna Torres. She is really good, we just have to talk to her dad to find out if it is ok that we baptize them. Then this week, I found Rica Villamento. She is 8 years old, her birthday is on Friday becoming 9. She is a part member. She is very smart. She will probably be our next baptism after Danna. Her sister is active but her dad is less active so she at least has some support. That will be a great one to look forward too. We are also teaching Brother Planilla. He is really good. He is a little slow but we are really getting a great relation with him. He believes that Joseph Smith is a prophet. He was going to come to church but needed to help his son so he didn't come. Then we Roberto. He is 72 years old. We hope that we can make a connection with him so we will be baptized. Then the bishop has a maid so Elder Paaño taught her last week. We will continue this week and hopefully it will be quick to baptize her. She has been to church a lot so we are hoping.

We stay very busy in Bacolod. Lots are willing to listen and it is a progressing area. I really enjoy it.

Love you all,

Elder Nielsen

Bacolod City!

Hello from Bacolod proper!!!

That is right, I am now in the Bacolod 2nd Ward in the Bacolod Stake. Just a funny fact, there is a Sister Nielsen assigned to the same ward and we have another Sister Nielson in the zone. I am still a zone leader.

Before I get started, I got your letter with Ben's. Thanks, it was really nice to get.

My new companion is Elder Paaño. He is from Marakina City, Manila. He is really good. I am looking forward to some good times with him.

This week was packing and then going to a few members before transferring. It was hard because the Lord started that area progressing while I was there. I was a great area and lots of miracles happened there. I hope that it continues to produce good results.

After that is off to the new area. I like it here in the city. I don't have to wash my laundry, there is American food, and there is so much support here in the city. Did I mention that there was American food?!!!

I don't know the people very well yet especially we haven't gone to church at our building due to stake conference but I will tell you about some of them that I do remember. We are teaching 2 kids, Aladdin and Aldrin. They are super smart and there mom and siblings are members. We gave them a date for March 22 to be baptized. We are looking towards that. They both like to call me "Good boy." Then we are teaching Mitoy. She is a house help at one of our members. She is really good and like to listen to the gospel. She is really shy but knows the gospel. We are looking at March 22 for her as well. We have a recent convert that lived in London, England for 22 years. She is really cool! It is fun to visit her and talk some English but she also helps me with my Ilonggo now that I have to learn it again. We also have a great recent convert named, Salvie Villaflor. Her husband had a stroke so he can't walk very well but she is super active. They are both good and they keep telling me that I speak Tagalog but I don't know it very well.

That is about I can tell you right now. I am looking for a great week. I am zone leader still so we have a meeting on Tuesday and will train on Wednesday. I think we can still do good. We taught about 66 lessons this week so we are going for higher this next week.

Love you lots,

Elder Nielsen

PS We have a huge apartment because we host a lot of missionaries for meetings in Bacolod. It is really good but I need to clean it up. It will take me a while to get it ship shape.