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

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Life is Good

This week was pretty crazy with all our teaching appointments especially Wednesday. Wednesday was a holiday so we were packed with activities. It was good that we could go on exchanges with the members that day so it really helped the load of things. (Don't ask about the holiday, I don't really know about it just that the president's dad was shot on that day.)

We had a lot of teachings this week. We didn't get to go to Jessa because she was still busy. Elder Ponseca went to La Libertad on Wednesday to start to contact those referrals. I went and did some home teaching. It was good. We went to Erik on Saturday. We had a good lesson with him about the plan of salvation. He really likes it and we gave him a date for Sept. 28 for baptism. He didn't make it to church this week but we weren't expecting him to because they said they have no money. We are also teaching a relative of our branch president's wife. His name is Jovenal. We have taught him a couple of times over the past few weeks. We gave him a date on Saturday for Sept. 28 as well and he accepted. He also came to church on Sunday! It was a great find for us. We also went to Mary Grace again. Her husband was the Catholic apostle. We had a great lesson with them. The first time he said that the Book of Mormon was just the same as the Bible but now he says it is different. They are reading and we were able to teach them about how the Book of Mormon came to be and why we need it. We were able to testify that it helps us get closer to Jesus Christ. After we finished they told us that we are different then the other religions that have tried to teach them because we don't argue and try to prove them wrong. That is one thing President Lopez told us to do for them because we asked him how to help them. He told us just to testify. It was a great testimony to me that this is the true church because we don't need to argue. We know it is true through the Holy Ghost. We also had a lot of good lessons like that one with other of our investigators. We had a very good week. We contacted one of our referrals this week and low and behold, another group of boarders. This time we are teaching 14 girls, one of them is a less active from a different branch. One of them is very interested and we don't know about the rest because we had one small lesson with them. Maybe when we return we will find out more. The other boarders are doing about the same. They did ask some good questions this week. One asked about why we need to be baptized. We were then able to testify about baptism and how it was a commandment and was needed for us to return to God. We are waiting to see what they are thinking and feel about baptism.

As far as me. I am very happy right now. As long as we can teach life is good. We are constantly trying to figure out what else we can do to help our investigators recognize their answer about if the church is true. That takes up most of our time. We are also trying to figure out right now how we can focus on some of our investigators because it is hard because we are working with a lot of investigators and they are far apart. It is a good problem to be dealing with. They weather was hot at the beginning of last week. Today has really cooled down and is raining. Just the typical weather here.

We now have Facebook going and it is growing right now. We are now trying to figure out how to best use it to promote missionary work not just a place to go if we have no appointments or just a site. We are trying to figure out how to make it productive. If you have any ideas, we would love some.

The work is good right now. The Lord has prepared many for the gospel we just need to find and teach them.

Love,

Elder Nielsen

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