Full Week

This week we got to do a lot more than last week. We had a full week to work and no distractions. It was nice but it turned out to be a very challenging week.

We spent a lot of this week trying to talk to people and find some less actives. We did a lot of that. We talked to a lot of people and contacted some less actives but we had little success with both of them. We couldn't get any return appointment with our contacting and the less actives weren't willing to let us in or to really talk to them. It was a bit ruff but I guess it wasn't their time.

As far as investigators go for this week. Jona is doing alright. Still reading and praying but she didn't come to church again this week. She might have been in Bago so that might have been why because she went there on Saturday and might not have come back. She has been struggling lately because of the pregnancy. She says that it is causing her teeth to really hurt. It has been a trial for her. Earljohn seemed so sure he was going to come to church this week. He has been reading and was excited on Saturday. We went to pick him up and he said that his head was hurting so he didn't come again. That has been a struggle as well. Satan sure does like to make that poor kid sick. Spencer is also doing pretty good. We didn't get to teach him much this week because they have been busy. He went downtown on Sunday so he didn't make it to church. They say this week they should be good. They had to take care of some stuff for his grandmother because she isn't around right now. We did find a new investigator this week. His name is Leopoldo. He seems pretty interested and might be pretty good. He was sick when we found him so it was a little hard. We will be going back to him this week to continue teaching him.

That was pretty much this week. Lots of trials but that is ok. There has to be an opposition in all things to help us and them to improve. If there was none, we would be the same as Adam and Eve with no improvement or development.

Love you all,

Elder Nielsen

Teaching for Understanding

We did have transfers this week. Elder Monzales went off to his second area and I am now with Elder Alfeche. He is from Marikina City in Manila (same as Elder Paaño). I have known him for a long time now. He is a great missionary and I am happy that I get to work with him. He is really good. I have gone on exchanges with him before in the past and so I am really excited that he now is my companion.

So this week . . . It went by very quick it is hard to remember what happened this week.

Tuesday was a day of saying goodbye for Elder Monzales and Wednesday was picking up Elder Alfeche. The rest of the week was about normal. Jona is doing the same. She didn't come to church this week and we don't know why so we will follow up with her. Earljohn is still struggling to come to church. We will probably have to take another approach to help him. We didn't make it Spencer this week. We were very busy with some mission assignments so we didn't get to do as much work as we wanted or could. It made things a little bit ruff this week. If you remember Anafe, she is doing really great. She loves to talk to others about the gospel and share her testimony. We are working with her to get a referral so that should be coming soon. We are still working with the Turuel family. Sister isn't there anymore. There was some things that she has to do somewhere else so we won't see here for a long time. Other than that we have been working with members and less actives to help them come back or continue to enter the fold.

I would just to tell you a little bit about what I have been studying lately. It our district meetings, where I give my lessons, we have been focusing on chapter 10 of Preach My Gospel which focuses on how to teach and improve your teaching skills. Last week I gave a training on Teaching for Understanding. I was thinking about that last Monday on how I would present my lesson and I thought about it for a long time. I finally figured that I would focus on language and about not giving too much information as we teach. A big concern in all teaching is that we want to be so clear that we share everything making a disturbance and a change of focus. That causes things to be very unclear so we need to give the needed information and a couple extras that that person can understand. The Spirit is the guide for how much we can give. That is been a big help in my teaching is focusing on what they can understand and teaching a simple understandable manner in the language they speak. In this language, there are lots of old terms the people don't understand that we are taught to use. But as we simplify it, they receive a greater conversion.

I think that is important in all teaching whether religion based or not.

Love you,

Elder Nielsen  

Strong Testimonies

We had a pretty slow week this week. It seemed like we were doing so well with teaching and then we came to look at what we got done and it was very little. Oh well, we made a lot of progress this week on figuring out what needs to be done.

Our investigators are about the same. They love to listen but are struggling with their commitments. We will have to see how they continue to go.

Jona is still holding out strong. Earljohn is still listening but still struggling to get to church. We went to pick him up for church but he was too tired to come. I guess he needs a stronger testimony of the gospel. The Elisa family is doing good. They have such strong testimonies. They still haven't come to church and we were able to find out their concern so now we get to focus on that to help them overcome that hurdle. We were able to get back to Mylene Villarosa. She is doing good. Lots of questions about the gospel. She is extremely busy with school but we were able to figure out her schedule so we can now make plans to help her and to continue teaching her and her sisters.

Elder Monzales got sick again this week. This has been a big trial between us because he has been getting sick a lot so we haven't been able to work as much as we would like. I got to clean the house and we were able to find some old records that could help us in the future to find more investigators. That has also been a trial. We have been searching but haven't found very much and when we do find, we go back and they aren't there. It is a working progress but I am sure that we will get more success in the coming weeks.

As far as rain, there hasn't been any rain this week!!! It has been nice weather for the most part and the other part it has been extremely hot. We are sweating a lot. It has been a quick change but I am ok with it.

Love you all,

Elder Nielsen

We are just His tools

Here is the update this week, it has rained 26/28 days this past month!!! We had some sunny days but it ended up raining later but that was alright. The sun did dry up some of the rain so it isn't as bad as it use to be.

As far as this week, we had a good week even though Elder Monzales and I were both sick. We took a day rest and are now both fine. We did a lot of finding this week and it came up with some new investigators so we will see how that goes.

Jona is doing great as always. There is nothing really to teach her anymore. She understands everything and has a great testimony. She reads everyday so we just have to wait for the marriage. We hope it is soon but it doesn't look like that will happen. It might be another 3 months before that goes. We went back to Sister Droa and she is doing great. She says that her husband wants her to wait for when he is ready to get baptized. We are ok with that but she wants to go ahead of him because she believes it will be a while before he is prepared because he hasn't listened to us yet. When we go, he always gets up and leaves. We are hoping he will come along soon. Earljohn was so sure that he was going to go to church this week and we even went there on Sunday and he said he was going to but he never showed. We don't know how else to help him because he isn't helping himself. That is the hard part of it. We will keep working and maybe next week he will come. We started teaching a boy named Spencer Elisa. His parents are members and he is really great. He is loving the gospel and is very smart. We gave him a baptismal date for August 30. We hope to continue it. It will be hard to get him to church because the parents always goes to her mother on Sunday mornings so we will see what we can do to get them to church. We also got a referral from an investigator in the sister's area for their children. We contacted Mylene and Mariel Villarosa. They are really nice. We didn't get much time with them but we did invite them for baptism on August 30th. Their schedule is very hard but he hope to continue with them. It will be hard to get them again but we will keep trying.

We did some talking to people where members were present and we shared a little to them and got return appointments with them. We are going to contact them again and see how we can help them to progress.

Lots of good things are happening. We are just struggling to get them to church. We don't know the problem but the Lord does so we have to trust in him to convert them. We are just His tools.

Our area is very urban. It is all houses and stores. It makes things pretty hard to be in the city because it is hard to get people while outside of their houses. We don't do any door knocking so we jump on the opportunities we get to talk to people. It is better that way so they are more receptive.

Love you,

Elder Nielsen

20 out of 21 days of rain

We had an interesting week that didn't turn out just as we thought it would. Lots of promptings and going to houses to get bad results. Oh well, it has to happen sometimes.

First of all, Sister Droa didn't get baptized. She came across a family problem that we couldn't control. We are waiting to visit her to see what is going on and see if we can help to get her baptized. We are hoping for next week but she might not be able. It was sad to hear but we understand her situation. Jona is doing great. Very receptive just need the marriage. That is going to be awhile so I will let you know what happens there. Earljohn still won't come to church. We don't know his concern. He is always to tired so we are promoting him to go to bed early so he won't get tired. We didn't see Pingping because she went to Talisay and so we weren't able to teach her so we will try to connect with her this week. We got some new investigators that look like they might be good. The Amante family is very nice. Very willing to listen. We haven't been able to teach them because their daughter-in-law is a member and they want her there to listen. She has had a sick child so hasn't been able to do much. All others is a slow process.

It has been raining like crazy here. We are now at 20/21 days of rain. Lots of typhoons coming through. We hope it dries out this week and gives us some warm days.

Sorry short letter. Not much this week. Lots of walking around.

 Love you,

Elder Nielsen

Wonderful Experiences

It rained everyday this week except Friday making 13/14 days of rain the past two weeks. We held Anafe's baptism this Sunday. It was really great. She has such a great testimony. She has investigated a lot of churches to find out which one is true and she says that she felt this was the true one while the others where good but felt like something was missing. It was such a wonderful experience to be with her for that. As far as investigators go, Sister Droa's interview will be on Tuesday because the zone leaders are far away so they will be doing it on Tuesday. We are excited for that so we can prepare for her baptism this next Sunday. She is doing really great and we are very excited for her. Jona came to church again which we were excited about. She is loving the church and has had some really good experiences. We haven't given her a date because we still have to check up on somethings before we can let her be baptized but she is really looking forward to that date. Earljohn still hasn't been to church. He always has an excuse. We are working to strengthen his testimony so he will come to church and his excuses will fade away. We are also still working with Bella Consulta. We learned a lot about her this week and it is going to difficult to help her but through a lot of faith we will be able to. We contacted a new investigator this week named Pingping. She is a former investigator that stopped because she moved places. She is very interested and we were able to give her a baptismal date for August 31. She was a little shocked but I think it will be good. Sister Teruel is doing great. Still waiting for them to process their marriage papers so she can be married but they are suppose to do it this week. We are also teaching Gemma Mag-usara. She is very interested and she wants to be baptized but can't because she isn't married. Her husband doesn't want to marry so we have a problem. It might be because of money because he has no identification so it is more expensive but their is a law we can try to help them with so they can be married. We will have to see how he accepts it.

I had to laugh this week. I was transferred her 2 weeks ago and just last Monday, one of the sisters from Bacolod 2nd got transferred here as well. It was funny that we both came from the same ward and got put here.

Love you all,

Elder Nielsen

 

Very Wet

This was an ok week. We had a good teaching week and lots of time to find. That made things a little interesting for us.

First of all, Anafe is doing great. She will be baptized on Sunday. We are very excited for her because she was so ready. We have gone through the commandments with her very quick and she readily accepted all of them. She is so great. We are also expecting a interview this Sunday with Leonida Droa. She is such a wonderful woman. She readily accepts everything and is very excited for her baptism. We are getting excited for that. We also got Jona to church this week!!! We were excited about her coming because we wondered if she would because her siblings told us that she was in Bago and was coming back on Sunday. We stopped by her house just in case to invite her to church and she came!!! She doesn't have a baptismal date yet because we are waiting for her to be married first. That is a big step for her to prepare for baptism. We are teaching a boy named Earljohn. He is doing alright just having a hard time getting him to church because he is so busy!!! It is weird that kids can get so busy that they don't have time for anything else! We are working with him and he has a desire to be baptized but church is keeping him from baptism. We gave him a date for Aug. 10 for his baptism. We are also teaching Bella Consulta. She is a long time former investigator. She is very receptive and wants to follow Christ. We gave her a baptismal date for Aug 24 because she wants it close to her birthday, Aug 25. Sister Teruel is doing good as well. Still waiting for her to process her marriage papers. They are planning on doing it this week so we will see how that goes.

I just got to tell you it has rained all week!!! I am very wet! We had a typhoon pass through this week which just brought a lot of rain and they say that today or tomorrow another one is going to come through. It makes my area very muddy. My area is very city making things very hot when the sun comes out. Lots of the area is just dirt roads so it is dirty. There is a lot of big houses and businesses in our area. The big houses are hard to get into if there is no referral given so we are trying to talk to them when they are out of their houses but that is hard because they usually aren't. It is an interesting area and is going to be a challenge but it is good. We walk a lot in circles in our area but it is good.

Sorry still getting to know the area. I will try to write more next week.

Love you,

Elder Nielsen