Christmas Celebrations in the Philippines

We had a better week this week. It was sad a few times but good the other times. We had to move 2 of the Christmas baptisms yesterday because they didn't come to church =(. We were sad about that. Mitchelyn and Jessica will now be baptized on Jan. 1, 2014 the first baptisms of the year. They were ok with that but they were a little sad that they didn't come to church. You could tell that Mitchelyn was sad about it but she held strong was tried act excited for Jessica. Russel and Macmac are still good for the 25th. We are looking forward to those baptisms. We started teaching Joffrey this week and he brought a friend to our second lesson. He likes the teachings and he believes it is true. He had to work Sunday so he didn't make it to church this week. We are hoping for next week. Averina is good. We are only teaching 2 of them. One came to church 2 weeks ago. We started teaching her. She seems to like the teachings. We are also teaching the grandmother but I don't think she fully understands what we are saying and it seems like she just wants to listen and not do anything. We will see what happens the next few weeks. We also started teaching the Villarojo family. They were a referral from one investigator that is pretty much a member that just can't be baptized right now. They are a good family. They love Christ. They have been to lots of religions and doesn't like that they are informal and other things. We taught them the restoration and invited them to church. They said they would come but couldn't make it because one of the kids got sick. Maybe next week.
Christmas is a lot different here than in the USA. Santa really isn't that big and about the only big thing about Christmas I have seen is the Christmas lights, which some people leave up all year. Other then that, Christmas is present with some caroling and people giving but it isn't a big rush. Christmas focuses a lot more on Christ here. They celebrate it for him so Christmas is celebrated more on the 24th and the sign rather then on the 25th. The 25th will be a branch celebration and then other churches go to church on the 25th. It is pretty relaxing compared to the USA.
That was about the week. It was good but went by really quick. We look forward to the coming weeks and days as Christmas approaches.
Love,
Elder Nielsen

Potential

Merry Christmas!
These seemed like a very good week for us. We taught a lot and did pretty good but we looked at our success at the end of the week, it was not really that great.
We had very few teachings this week. Now I look back, people were pretty busy this week. I don't know why, but the normal investigators where gone whenever we went there. We did end of teaching a lot of member lessons which is pretty good. We also did a lot of street contacted at the end of the week. We have a few potential investigators so we are going to teach them this week and see what happens there.
As far as investigators, Mitchelyn, Macmac, Jessica, and Russel are right on tract for their baptism. We are looking forward to their baptism and sharing a great Christmas with them. We went to Olga but apparently she is staying at school in Cadiz until the Christmas break, Dec. 20, then we should be able to go there and teach. We are looking forward to teaching her again. Johnell is about the same. He has a great knowledge of the gospel but we haven't been able to get him to church yet. We might start teaching the Averina family. The daughter is a recent convert that was taught in a different place. We went to her and her family was there so we started teaching them on Saturday. We didn't get a firm return appointment so we aren't sure yet if we can teach them. We are hoping and praying that we can. We also have a potential investigator named Jeff. His girlfriend is an active member but he is shy to listen to us. We are hoping to start this week. Lots of potential right now.
As far as transfers, nothing happened. We are in the same area, same companion. It is a good thing, so that we can get more done. It rained a few times this week. It makes things very muddy. Other then that, everything is good. We will see the First Presidency Christmas Message on Dec. 17 when we have zone conference.
I think that is it for this week. We are working hard trying to get things going. No referrals yet. Maybe this week.
Love you all,
Elder Nielsen

Maayong Paskwa! (Merry Christmas!)

Maayong Paskwa!
It has been Christmas here since September!!! You are all slow there.
We haven't got back to our house yet. We are about the same distance anyways in the Escalante apartment. Our last apartment is in Escalante also. We have to take a jeepney to get to our area everyday. That is why we e-mail later now. We go and work in the mornings on Monday so we don't have to try and catch a bus to Mabini and back during the night.
We were short on lessons this week but I think we have almost made the breaking point so that people are going to give us referrals. We have been going to them for a few weeks now, teaching them how to do missionary work and they are now looking for some opportunities. Some of them have people in mind so we are now waiting for them to talk to them and then let us know. We are looking at 3 convert baptisms on Christmas. That is our next baptisms. They are 3 kids ages 12, 9, and 8. They are really excited. Their names are Macmac, Jessica, and Russel. They are doing great. They just need to keep coming to church and pray. The older ones read so they are doing good. Macmac and Russel's sister, Mitchelyn, was suppose to be baptized too but she didn't make it to church this week. She still might be able because we don't know the reason but we are thinking we are going to move it. We didn't make it to Olga this week and she didn't come to church. She was busy this weekend. We started teaching Leah Diana this week. Her uncle is a member and she wants to listen. We will see how that goes. The Alverez family is doing good. We are still teaching them and see if we can convert them to the point that they just have to wait for baptism.
Glad that Thanksgiving went well. I actually had an upgrade for dinner. A member feed us canned sardines with noodles and rice. I am sure you all are jealous.
Love you all,
Elder Nielsen

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving. I was thinking about it so we decided to have a Thanksgiving feast of rice and canned tuna. Hahahaha.
We now have water which is really nice. We are happy about that and so are the sisters. The sisters are in our house right now until their house is finished, probably Wednesday. Then we can go back to our house. Right now we are staying with the Escalante missionaries.
We are now back to normal with our schedule. Even when it is normal, it is very hard to teach. Olga was busy with school and wash this week so we didn't teach her and she couldn't make it to church. Mitchelyn was busy as well with a lot of stuff so we didn't teach her and she had somewhere to go this week so she didn't make it to church as well. We aren't going to the Gantalao family anymore because we were going to their house and we saw sister running so we figure they are hiding from us so we won't return. Dioney is very hard to get to now. He is taking boxing lessons right now so he wasn't there all week. We are teaching the Alverez kids right now. They are good and listen well. The problem is their mom won't let them be baptized until they are 18 so they  have a long time to go. We are going to focus on their cousin that comes and listens. I think he is very interested, he is just shy to ask questions. We might pick up an investigator there as well because they came and listened and liked our message. 
Danny's baptism was great. It was a good experience for him. He was full of joy as he was baptized. It was a little bit sad because not very many people came to the baptism. We are going to try to get more to the next one, whenever that is. We are hoping to get someone baptized on Christmas day. We are going to have a "White Christmas" by baptisms. We have some 8 year olds set up for that day.
We haven't heard about calling on Christmas yet. We heard that we do it in the morning but that is it. We probably won't know until the week before.
Since the typhoon, we have had a high attendance at church. I was a little surprised this week that was high because Manni Pacaw was fighting. He is the world champion boxer. The people here are really happy that he won.
I think that is about it for this week. We are doing alright but we need a lot more investigators. That is the problem right now. We are working on that though.
Love you all and Merry Christmas,
Elder Nielsen

Missionaries from Tacloban

Hey we get to write!!! We are to write every week so here is my letter.

Lots of changes are happening right now. We got 20+ missionaries from the Tacloban Mission. They pulled all of them out and are now dispersing them to the Cebuano speaking missions. We are a full mission. I think I heard that by the end of the year we will have 300+ missionaries in our mission! The mission compliment is 250!!! We are looking for a lot of houses right now to have places to put people.

As far as my area. We now have power and electricity. Probably by Dec. 4 all of Escalante City should have power. Some of Mabini still doesn't have power. Not much damage was done. It is just hard for them to travel everywhere and fix all the lines.

As far as investigators, Danny will be baptized on Saturday. It would have been earlier but the problem was we had no communication with the zone leaders for the interview so we had to wait a week. We picked up Olga this week. She was a former investigator and my companion met here so we started to teach her. She wants to be baptized. She says her dad wants her to wait to finish school first. We might have to wait until March but she is really good. We also are teaching Mitchelyn. Her brother is a recent convert. She has just started coming to church. She doesn't talk much but she is willing to learn. We are going to try giving her a date this week. Those are the progressing investigators in our area. We also have the Gantalao family. They listen well and want to learn but they are falling short on acting right now. We are hoping to get them to read and then we will move on from there. We are also teaching Diony Sumogat. He listens well. He came to church 3 times then stopped. We don't know the problem but we figure it is his friend which is a Baptist minister. We hope to help him progress.

We are just looking for more to teach. It is hard to teach right now but we are hoping, since the reconstruction is almost over, that we will be able to teach more people.

Love you all,

Elder Nielsen

The Typhoon

This was a crazy week!!! We did hit pretty bad by the storm this last week. We got hit by the one yesterday as well. It didn't do much. We are safe. We have no electricity and no water!!! It is rather fun and makes life so much easier (can you hear that sarcasm)!!!

We did very little work this week, as you can tell. We haven't had to do that much service because a lot of what happened is the trees fell down and a few roofs flew off. We didn't get hit that hard. If houses were destroyed, it was because trees fell on them. Otherwise there is minimal damage. We will be without power and without water until December. I have heard 4 and 14 so I don't know when. It will be alright. We use candles and there is a water pump a few houses away that we get our washing water and then the couples come and give us clean water to drink. We are just happy we have cellphone signal now. At first we didn't so we couldn't contact president. He thanks you for having me here and staying updated.

I thought we would have gotten more but it was small. We are just working hard right now. We are trying to get more investigators and help out the people that we can right now. We are looking for service opportunities to help people listen to our message. Not much to say. It was cool to watch the storm. We had a good view of it out of the back of our house. The major damage was to the banana trees.

Love you all,

Elder Nielsen

PS I am good. Not a scratch from the storm.

Less Lost

This was a pretty good week. It is a little bit different now that I am in Mabini.

We had very few teachings this week. I think everyone was busy trying to get in work so they can have the funds for All Souls Day. All Souls day is the day of the dead here. Everyone goes to the graveyard on that day. I think it is a lot like Memorial Day but everyone cooks sticky rice and pigs. I have never been so full in my life!!! We ate a good lunch and stacked so much, I had to force myself to eat dinner because we had a dinner appointment on that day.

I still get lost in the area but I am getting use to it. You get to know the trails pretty well. We found our way pretty easy last week and this week.

We have very few investigators in this area. Lots of missionaries say this is a very hard area and I see why. You walk a lot just to get from one house to another and for the most part, the people that are close together, don't want to listen. It is going to take a lot of work to get it going. We do have a baptism on November 16. His name is Danny Diana. His family was baptized a while ago, last month, he is the last one. He wants to be baptized but was having trouble with his word of wisdom. He is now on tract and good to go. After that, we don't know who. We have some good investigators though. The Alverez family is looking good. There are 3 boys there that listen well. They live with their grandmother and their father was a member. They listen well and participate. The problem is getting them to church. They wake up late so they don't go. We tried calling them but we can't with the difference in cellphone companies. We can just text them. We are also teaching a family named Gantalao. They are doing good. They have been taught for a long time. They won't come to church is a problem. We just picked them up so we are trying to answer some questions right now. They ask some good questions. We are hoping to help them progress. That is about it for now. We are hoping to find more this next week.

Elder Torres is from Ozamiz City in Mindanao. I will send a picture next week. I haven't taken one yet. He is good. He is native Cebuano which really helps me. I have learned a lot from him. He is 3 months in the mission. He is a good elder.

Now for Elder Andersen. It was a good meeting. We had Elder Anderson, L. Whitney Clayton, a president of the 70, Ian Ardern and Larry Echo Hawk, of the 1st quorum of the 70, and Elder Nobleza, an area 70 all at the meeting. It was a very good meeting. It was 2 hours long. I was hoping for longer. Elder Clayton talked to us about the Anti-Nephi-Lehis and how they were converted. He taught us what we need to do with the recent converts. They Elder Andersen taught us about the welfare program. He showed us Bohol, the place of the earthquake, and then he talked about how we need to teach investigators. He talked about the commandments and how they help us to grow. At the end, he talked about the atonement and how it applies to us. It was a very good meeting and we all learned a lot. We all got to shake his hand at the beginning. It was a cool experience.

Love you all,

Elder Nielsen

PS love all the pictures and am thankful that I am here and not there in the snow.
PSS Merry Christmas