Strikin' Gold

We had another great week this week. Brother Michael passed his baptismal interview yesterday. His baptism will be held this Saturday. He has shown a lot of faith and has made many sacrifices in order to be baptized. When we first started teaching brother Michael, he was not married to his living partner, but he sacrificed his money in order to pay for his and his wife's marriage. We are very excited for him, and we are glad he made the decision to be baptized. Brother Arnold is now only smoking three cigarettes a day. We set a goal with him, that by Wednesday of this week he will be completely cigarette free. He has shown great progression and determination to quit smoking in order to be baptized. Brother Elbirt is an investigator that we found two weeks ago. He has already attended church two times. He was taught by missionaries in Novaliches, but unfortunately he moved to San Jose Del Monte and lost contact with the missionaries. We met him one walking down the street, and he said he wanted us teach him. His baptism is scheduled for the 6th of August. Our area is really starting bloom. We had 9 investigator in church yesterday. Hopefully everything will continue.  

Elder Ricafort and I experienced a miracle this week. We were miraculously able to find the house of the sibling of our recent convert. We had searched for their house on a number of occasions, but we were never able to find it. On Thursday, we were able to find their kids who led us to their house. At first, we were not going to follow their kids to their house because it was far away and we had just came from that direction, but we felt prompted that we should ask the kids to show us their house. The kids led us to their house. We taught the mother and her children, and we gave them a baptismal date. On Sunday, she and her family went to church. We are very excited to keep teaching their family and help them prepare for their baptism. They have a big family. And some of their other family live close by and they are net yet members. I feel like we have struck a little gold mine in this area. All thanks to the promptings of the Holy Ghost. 

We had a little problem with one of our investigators this last week. The investigators is in kind of a weird situation. She lives in the house of her boyfriend (20) (who is a member) and his family (members). The girl (19) does not really have a home and has just finished her schooling, so she is a little low on money. We had the approval to baptize her. But we checked with the APs on last time. They called President and the President called us. We talked about the situation and President said he did not feel comfortable with them in the same house. They said they were not yet ready for marriage. The mother got offended when we told her. It was all just a mess. But President said if we wanted he could have his counselor interview her and she is she is ready for baptism. We have been praying about it the last two days, and we feel we should just wait for her baptism. It has been kind of a mess.There are three progressing investigators at their house.  The mother and her whole family did not go yo church yesterday. So we will see what happens... Da Da da Duuuun. 

The new companion is really nice. We get along really well. We are just trying to break some of his old habits like sleeping when we are working. But it is going well. I am being a little patient patient with him, but I think everything we be great. I think we will have a very successful transfer here. 
The Ether district is doing well. We are excited to have some new missionaries in our district. I am very excited for the upcoming months with this district. The missionaries in this district are planning on having many baptisms in the next few months. I am grateful for the opportunity that I have to work with the missionaries in this district. 

The mission is great. The work is really great right now. I love being a misionary. The Gospel is so simple. It saddens me when LAs and Investigators do not understand how simple the plan of God is, they are not willing to make sacrifices here on earth. I love this work and love all you!!

Pagmamahal,

Elder Nielsen