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

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