Rainy

We had a pretty fun week trying to balance everything but I think it turned out alright.
First of all, Tony Nobleza was to be baptized with Irish before he died. The ward sure does miss him because he contributed so much even before he was baptized. God does have a plan for him though and it must have been his time. They say he died while reading the Book of Mormon.
It is raining a lot lately. There is hardly a dry day here. It is nice because it isn't hot but it is also hard because it is hard to catch people home during the rain. They are trapped somewhere or they are sleeping.
Training is going well. Elder Vinoya is starting to get the language down. He is also getting really good at teaching so everything is going well.
We taught pretty good this week do to zone conference taking away Monday from us going out to teach at night. Also Elder Vinoya got sick so we missed some work there but it is good.
Carmela is doing pretty good. She believes the church is true but she isn't ready to accept a baptismal date. She just wants to observe for the time being. In Preach My Gospel it says all concerns are based on not having a testimony of the Restoration or not willing to commit to the commandments. We are lead that she is still scared of some of the commandments so we plan to teach her about that this week. We haven't seen John Paul this week so we don't know how he is doing. He is very busy playing when he gets the time. Manuel is coming. He is getting rid of his vices right now. That is the hard part. We have a new investigator named Dino. He is doing very good. We were planning this week to give him a baptismal date but we didn't get the time to do that. We will try this week. He came to play basketball on Saturday with us. It was good.
We are just trying to solve the concerns right now and continue to find.
Love you all,
Elder Nielsen

Father's Day

What a good but challenging week this week.

We had Irish's baptism this week. It turned out very good experience and was very nice. I thought something was missing probably because I was thinking of the sisters' investigator who died the day before the baptism. It was pretty sad but it must have been God's will. He sure does work in mysterious ways.

We stayed pretty busy this week. Our key indicators are getting bigger every week so we are doing some things right but we are still struggling getting our investigators to church.

As far as investigators, Carmela is doing about the same. We got busy so we didn't make it to her this week. We will be visiting her next week. We had a great experience with Miguel Javier. We were teaching him, and he didn't read the Book of Mormon so we decided we would read with him to try to get some background of it so he would maybe be more excited about reading it. We read it and he said "This isn't the same as the Bible is it?" It gave us a great experience explaining what the Book of Mormon is. We think it is helping him to be more interested in what we are saying instead of just listening to what we are saying. He seems curious so we will see what happens this week. We started teaching April Mana-ay. She is a security guard. Her sister was baptized a couple of months ago. She has been taught before but wasn't ready to listen. We started again and was able to commit her to a baptismal date. It is still a long ways away but she wants some time to prepare. We are excited to teach her and help her to understand and accept the gospel. We also have taught her brother but it isn't the easiest to catch them home.

Manuel is doing alright. We have set up a plan for him to stop his vices so we will see what happens there. We also have been looking and have found some fellowshippers for him to help him stop his vices. We hope this will help him to see what he is doing is possible.

John Paul didn't come to church so we need to move his baptismal date. We aren't sure when because we want to make sure that he is prepared and understands what we are teaching him first.

This week in our studies we have been studying about working with members. It is so important that members are working. It is very hard if it is just us so we need all the help we can get. Members are the key to conversion because it gives us the people that are ready to listen and then they have a friend to help them on their way.

Love you lots,

Elder Nielsen

PS Happy Father's Day to all the dads.

 

A Wonderful Week

We had such a wonderful week this week. We were a little worried at first but it turned out alright.
Irish had her interview and we will be having her baptism next Saturday. We weren't sure if it was going to happen because we were waiting and about 20 minutes after the schedule timed and then he said I am on my way. We think he forgot so it was a good thing we text him.
We still aren't sure how the funeral will effect John Paul's baptism. He got back yesterday. We hope that it will continue but we still have a lot to teach him for only having 2 weeks to prepare him for his interview.
Manuel is coming. He is coming very well. We are just waiting for a few things and then he is good for baptism.
Carmela is doing well. We found out she believes that all churches she believes is true as long as they talk of Christ. We are working on finding a way to help her realize that Christ built one church and gave authority for one church. It is a working progress.
We had a miracle find this week. We have been going to a new area called Malapitan. We were looking for a less active member there that was on our member list and as we were looking we couldn't find her. We asked all the people around if they had meet her and no one new her. We were going to leave the area when we heard "hello elder." We went back and it was her!!! She works in Ilo-ilo so she only comes home about once a year. The Lord put us there for a reason. Her son is there on the weekends and hasn't been baptized yet. We will start teaching him this next week. It was a miracle.
We had a great week. The Lord truly blessed us. We found some more investigators and we will be working on them this week. We will see how that goes.
Love you all,
Elder Nielsen

Interesting but Fast Week

We had a very interesting but fast week. Everything seemed good this week so I can't say much. Let me think what was going on this week. huh. . .
Well we found out that Irish needs a special interview because of somethings that she has done in her past. We aren't sure when she will be baptized any more because of that but we are hoping it will be soon. One of President Lopez's councilors will be coming over on Thursday to do the interview with her. We hope that everything will go alright. I am sure it won't be to much of a problem. If everything goes good we might baptize her on June 14. John Paul is doing alright as well. He is coming along but his grandpa died this week so we aren't sure what will happen with that. We hope it won't effect his baptism but it might just because funerals take about 10 days here. We might have to move his baptism because of that. Manuel is doing great. We hope that he will continue. Carmela is coming very slowly but I think she is starting to realize that the church is true. We asked if she prayed if that church was not true and she said that she felt nothing but when she prays if it is true that she feels peace. We didn't have much time to teach her so we will be focusing on that next time we go to teach her. We are just hoping that she will accept that as her answer because she wants to know not just believe. The rest of this week was just trying to build some relationships with some of the people that we have taught before or that we were referred too. I hope that we can teach more this next week but it might be a little hard with school. School just started today for the elementary and high school students and then college starts next week. It will be interesting to see what happens.
We teach about the same as when I was zone leader and maybe a little less just because we have extra studies that we need to do since I am training. It is better help the new missionary to understand what missionary work is and how it is best performed. It is hard to put in the schedule but it is alright. We make it happen.
I have to agree with Elder Holland when he said missionary work was never easy because it wasn't easy for Christ when he performed the atonement.
Salvation isn't easy but it can be easier if we follow Christ.
Love you all,
Elder Nielsen