Missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Letters sent home from the Phillippines

Elder Nielsen

Elder Nielsen

Sunday, September 11, 2016

Golden Members.

Zarina's binyag. 



We had another great week last week. Sister Zarina was baptized last Saturday. Her baptism was very successful. All of her young single adult friends were able to attend her baptismal service. Zarina has many friends in the ward, and she has also signed up to go to Baguio with all the other YSA in October. We know that she has truly repented and understands the covenant that she has made with our Heavenly Father.  However the highlight of her baptism was the fact that her mother was able to attend. Her mother's husband, who has passed away, is also a member of this Church. We have been teaching Zarina and mother for a while now, but her mother just never really progressed or went to church. However, her mother attended Zarina's baptism and also went to church the next day. After Zarina's baptism her mother whispered to us, with teary eyes, "Thank you." We feel this is the start and the little push that Zarina's mother needed. We really feel that she will start to progress, and we are hoping that the next baptism that she attends will be her own baptism. 

Last week, we started focusing a little more on part-member families, and we have already seen many little miracles happen in our area because of our new focus. One miracle we have experienced is that we were able to find a part-member family that Elder Perkins has been looking for the past few months. This family has member in their family that was supposed to be baptized a few months ago. He had attended church four times and was preparing for his baptism. Unfortunately, they moved to a new house, and the missionaries were never able to find their new house. Then yesterday, when we were in our area, Elder Perkins saw their family walking down the street and we were able to talk to them and find out the location of their new house. We set a return appointment with them on Wednesday. 

We also just recently discovered that their is a very active member in our area, that missionaries never visited. All the other missionaries have thought she lived in the Sister's area. Another member in our ward showed us her house because this Sister had a referral for us. After visiting for a while with this Sister, we learned that she has been a member for a very long time and that she also does a lot of Visiting Teaching. She literally does missionary work, she is the best! Her husband has passed away, so she just does visiting teaching, to stay busy. We struck gold on this one. We found the golden member. She knows pretty much all the members in our ward, less active and active. She was able to tell us where some less active families, that we had never visited, lived. At one of these less active's house, we met a family that has been less active for a few years and the missionaries have never visited their house. This family welcomed us in and we were able to meet them and teach them. In this family they have a 15 year old, 20 year old, 21 year old who still have not been baptized. Not all their children were home when we taught them, but at the end of our lesson, we were able to extend a baptismal date to one of their kids. We were invited to come back and teach them on Tuesday. 

I can not think of anything else. This area is great. We have seen so many miracles in this area. We are expecting 6 baptisms this month and 4 baptisms next month. 

And to answer Mom's questions from last week, we do not have house help anymore in our mission. It is not allowed. So we do all the cleaning and stuff. But we do have a member that does our laundry for us. So instead of taking 3 hours to do our laundry by hand, we pay someone to do it. They come to our house and pick it up, and then come drop it off again. It is great. It gives us more time to play basketball on P-days. And for cooking, we do not do that either. Our next door neighbors cook, and we just buy food from them. It is great. And it tastes a lot better than our cooking. 

Have a great week! I love you all. 

Nagmamahal,

Elder Nielsen 

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