Home Sweet Camarin

We had another great week this week. Sister Jocelyn was baptized last Saturday and she received the Gift of Holy Ghost on Sunday. It was a wonderful baptismal service and Sister Jocelyn bore a very strong testimony about how she knew that this church was true. We are sure that she will stay active in the church. She has great fellow-shippers and friends in the church and she also has a very strong testimony about the truthfulness of this church. Our next goal is to get her to the temple to do baptisms for the dead. Unfortunately none of our other investigators were able to attend church last Sunday. We have been struggling with getting our investigators to church. We are able to find lots of new investigators every week but we just can not get them to go to church. We have been trying to improve our commitments and our invitations these last few weeks, but we still have not seen too much of a difference. We are still trying to figure out what we can do better or improve in order to get them to go church. 

Our recent converts are doing great and still progressing. They still attend church every Sunday and are participating in the ward and youth activities. Most of our recent converts are about to finish their RC reteaching lessons. We are very happy with their progression and desire to continue to strengthen their testimonies. 

I am grateful for the opportunity to be companions with Elder Alejandro. He is a very consecrated missionary. He has taught me so much these last two transfers. He has help me immensely with my Tagalog and my teaching. He worked as hard as he could until the very end. He truly has been a wonderful example for me. 

Also, we had transfer announcements this week. ( the reason I didn't email yesterday, sorry I forgot to tell you) And of course Elder Alejandro is going home, so I will be staying in Camarin for another transfer. This will make 5 transfers or 7 1/2 months. But I don't mind, I really like this area and the time flies by anyway. But my new companion is Elder Alcala. He is a pretty young missionary ( younger than me, like 4 1/2 or 6 months I think) and he has never been a zone leader before. So I will kind of be his trainer/helper. But I have only heard good things about him, so I am very excited. I am happy he is another Filipino. I love to ask them questions about the conjugations and grammar. And also, Elder Perkins (my old kabahay) was called to be an Assistant, so he is back in the Camarin apartment. He is companions with Elder Goodwin, a Elder from Idaho Falls. He is nice and home grown. We get along really well and we love to joke around with each other, so I am excited to be their kabahays again. 

The Camarin Zone is doing well. The missionaries in our zone worked very hard this transfer and they showed a lot of improvement. We are excited to see how well they will do this upcoming transfer. Remember how I told you our zone goal was 23 baptisms? Well we ended up only getting 20 baptisms this transfer. But that is still really good because last transfer our zone only had 4 baptisms. So that is improvement! 

+Mother's Day Calls+ 

So we need to set another time and date for the Mother's Day calls. You have the options of the 8th or 9th of May. Whatever time you guys want. We can do the same time as last time, if that worked for you guys? My plan was to call on May 9th, (Monday here, Sunday for you) around 9 o'clock my time. So around 7ish p.m. for you guys. But have a family council and let me know what you guys decide. 

And to answer Mom's question if I get I get discouraged, ummm not really, I get frustrated sometimes, like when I know what to say but the words won't flow out smoothly in Tagalog, or when I lose my focus during a lesson or something, Or when our investigators don't go to church...;) But usually that only lasts for a little while. The mission is really teaching me to be a lot patient, patient with other people, myself, and patient during the hard times. Usually I just think of all I have been blessed with and the Eternal perspective and all my frustration or discouragement goes away. 

Thanks for all you do and all your prayers. Keep striving to improve everyday. I Hope Adelaide feels better! I am grateful for this opportunity to serve a mission and help other people grow and also help myself grow. Looove you all. 

Pagmamahal, 

Elder Nielsen

Ps. Sorry no pictures. Next week na lang! 

CONFERENCE 2016

We had another good week this week. Sister Joselyn, her bother Danny, and his wife Ester were all able to attend conference last Sunday. They really enjoyed listening to the conference in Tagalog. They said they really enjoyed all the music and talks. Sister Joselyn will be baptized this coming Saturday. She has such a strong testimony and desire to follow the Savior. We are also teaching her brother Danny and her sister in-law Ester. They too are showing great progress and are progressing. Brother Nicole, the father of an investigator family we are teaching, also attended conference. This is the first time that Brother Nicole has been able  to attend church. Brother Nicole has great faith and understands the reasons why  he needs to be baptized, but he has been struggling keeping commitments and attending church. We are hoping last weekend will be a turning point for him and he will start to have a stronger desire to attend church every Sunday and be baptized. We are really starting to see some great progression in our area.

We had two exchanges this week. The first exchange was with the Assistants last Wednesday. I always enjoy going on exchanges with them because I always learn some much from them. I was companions with Elder Heaton, and he taught me many new teaching analogies and new words in Tagalog that I will use in my proselyting. The other exchanges that we had this week was with Bagong Silang 2, Elder Martel and Elder Miguel. I had the opportunity to be companions with Elder Martel. Elder Martel is a very good teacher. He does really well at connecting and relating the lessons to the people that we were teaching. He is a outgoing Elder and likes to talk and OYM with everybody that we pass. The only area that Elder Martel is struggling in is his planning. When I checked his planner, there were many days that were not filled out completely or the key indicators were not written. He admitted to me that he has not been planning as well as he could have been. I encouraged him to plan everyday and use his planner more effectively in order to help the people he is teaching in his area and to essentially better fulfill his purpose. He committed to me that he would improve his planning. 

Conference was absolutely wonderful. I learned sooo much. They were all my favorite. It is hard to pick just a few. But I really liked, President Nelson's talk on prayer, both of President Uchtdorf's talks, Elder Bednar, Elder Holland, pretty much all of them! They were all pretty unique and powerful talks. And my favorite song was Come thou Fount. That song is so powerful and loud when the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sings it. My favorite session was the Priesthood session. All those talks were great. It is funny how fast the conference sessions go as a missionary. I remember how some of the sessions would just feel so long for me back in the day. But now the sessions just fly by. I love General Conference, and especially more now as a missionary. I always find so many ways to improve. So many areas where I am lacking and struggling in. I have this vision of the new and improved Elder Nielsen that I imagine myself to be at the end of my mission. And in order to get there I have to continually improve. I have to Fix and improve the little things and big things in order to get there. I'm really excited for when the Ensign will come out with all the talks. I still haven't finished all of the talks from last conference! But I am getting close! Overall a very spiritual and uplifting weekend. 

A story I forgot to tell you. Now people are selling the little quails again but now they are selling little baby ducks, or ducklings now too. They are the cuttest little things. ALl the little Filipino kids run down the street chasing and playing with their little ducks and quails. I always ask them to let me hold their little birds. They only cost like 40 cents. I might bring some home with me and start a duck and quail farm like Grandpa ;) 

Thanks for all the prayers and support. Thanks Summer for watching over the "flat" Elder Nielsen. Carly, even though I am flat I can still be squished! Congratulations to Amber and Kevin for their big Day! Welcome to the Fam Kevin! Now that it is official.. Kevin, The bug needs a little repairing, the trooper needs an oil change, and the van needs a fix up, so when you have some time that would be nice of you if you could just fix those ;)  Amber chose wisely on who she would marry, now we have a new mechanic in the family ;) 

I love this work and the People of the Philippines. And I love all of you. Have a great week! 

Mahal kita 

Elder Nielsen 

"The Elections are Heating Up" ;)

1 and 2 Sister Rosita's Binyag

3 The Promised Land. 

We had another great week this week. First off, Sister Rosita had her baptism on Saturday and it was a wonderful baptismal service. She bore her very simple but powerful testimony at her baptism. It has been amazing watching her testimony grow these last few months. We are very happy for her and her decision to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized. We are not worried about her because she has great fellowshippers and she can go to church with Sister Mago every Sunday because they are next door neighbors. Our next goal is for her to go to the temple and do baptisms for the dead. Sister Joselyn was unable to attend the baptismal service or church yesterday because she went out of town for a doctors appointment. We visited her last night and had a very powerful lesson with her. We talked about her baptism and her preparation for her baptism, she said she was not quite ready to be baptized this week, so we rescheduled her baptism to the 16th of April. 

We are really struggling getting our investigators to church right now. All of our investigator promise to go and then on Sunday none of them show up. Therefor our main focus this week is getting our investigators to church. We also want to focus on member present lessons, last week we had many member lessons planned but they all fell through. We want to increase our member present lessons in order to increase our investigators at church. 

Our companionship is doing well. Elder Alejandro is a very hard worker and wants to finish his mission strong. He is a great example for me and I have been learning lots from him. 

The elections are coming up in the Philippines! The campaigning is a little different here.. So all the mayors, VP, Secretaries, ect. they all make posters and stickers and big signs with their pictures and names on them. And they make like thousands and thousand of them and they put them literally EVERYWHERE. There are so many posters and pictures of all the different candidates. Then they hire people to drive around these little cars (covered in posters) with huuuge speakers blasting these songs about the candidate. The songs are all the super famous up beat songs, ( like Happy, and like all the popular american songs) but they change the words and say the names of the candidate in the songs. They are really clever and funny. But these cars are driving around all day blasting these songs. Then they do little parades, all the candidates in their cars (covered in posters and sticker) and all their music cars and they just drive around all day. It is really interesting. I will try to send pictures of them. 

Overall another great week in the Philippines. I am so excited for Conference! It is like Christmas for missionaries! I hope you are all doing well! Congratulations Amber and Kevin! Save some brownies and cookies for me! ohh wait.. they would last, our fridge is broken.. ;) Keep workin hard. Love ya bunches!

Mahal na Mahal ko kayo

Elder Nielsen

Eco Park

This is Eco Park.

It was another successful week this week. Sister Rosita passed her baptismal interview and will be baptized this coming Saturday. She is a lot more comfortable with the church and all the members now. She attended a Relief Society activity last Saturday even though both of her main fellowshippers were unable to go with her. After the activity, she told us she had a good time and enjoyed the activity. We are very happy for her progression and are excited for her baptism this weekend. Our other progressing investigator, Sister Joselyn, was unable to attend church on Sunday. We are not sure why she was not able to attend church, she told us on Friday she would attend. We will visit her tomorrow and find out why she was not able to attend. Her baptism is scheduled for the 9th of April. We were also able to find two families this week. One of the families we found was a referral from one of our recently returned less actives. The family was really nice, and very willing to let us come in and teach them. Unfortunately the father was doing a lot of talking and preaching to us in our first visit, and we were not able to clearly teach the Restoration. However we are planning to visit them again this week and we will hopefully have a better lesson. We had a lot more success in teaching our other new investigator family, that we found through OYMing. We had two great and powerful lessons with them this week. When we returned after the first lesson they said they all read the Lesson 1 pamphlet and prayed about our message. They are very interested in our message and we have very high hopes for this family. 

I will answer Mom's questions this week. "Have you ever gotten sick from what you've eaten?  How was the temple?  How are your feet holding up? Did you ever get any of those native sandals?"

1. No I haven't gotten sick from anything I have eaten. I have been pretty lucky with that. I have only had one little cold my whole mission, and pink eye a few times in my first area. I learned not to touch my face or my eyes throughout the day.  I have eaten a lot of interesting things, and luckily Grandma and Grandpa Nielsen's old food storage food has strengthened my immune system enough to handle all the foods here. One thing they do here is they give you pork with all this pure pieces of fat on it or in the ulam ( main dish). And when you are at a member's house you just can't leave it or throw it away because that is like the best part for them, so you just have to eat these pure pieces of fat all the time. Not the healthiest thing. 

2. The temple was great. It is always so quiet and peaceful. And you just get to sit and relax and not worry about anything for a few hours. I love it. 

3.The feet are doing fine. They are officially trained to walk everyday and be sore. My shoes that Sister Conklin gave me are awesome. They are still holding up pretty well. They are getting worn out on the bottom but over all they are doing great. Thank her the next time you see her for me! And yes I have bought the little Filipino shoes, but I only wear them on Sundays or to meetings because they are still new and look good. They are the not the most comfortable shoes, but they are really cheap. 

And today our zone had a zone activity at Eco Park. It is like a big tourist National Park place. It was sooo pretty there. It was a lot of fun. 

Overall another great and eventful week in the mission field. I love all of you. Thanks for all the love and support. As dad would say, " Study hard. Learn a lot. Choose the Right. And Return with Honor." Have a great Week! :) 

ay ay akin ka   (Ilocanno) 

Elder Nielsen 

Cow Stomach

1. and 2. Pictures from church yesterday. 

3. This is the ole E. Nielsen trumpo 

First Things First. HAPPY BIRTHDAY POPPA SCOTT! You are getting quite old! I was wondering if you were starting to slow down, old bones, aches and pains ect. But then I read your email about how you were playing basketball at mutual with all the young pups and was, and I quote, "schooling them". And you were completely drenched in sweat after. Then I thought, nope. He has not change a bit. His age keeps increasing, but in his head he is still 22. "You can't teach an old dog to quit." But hey take it easy over there! I don't want you to hurt yourself so I wouldn't be able to school you in basketball ( like I always do) when i get home ;) Happy Birthday! :D 

We had another very successful week this week. Our investigators are still progressing and doing very well. Sister Rosita attended church again last Sunday. She feels a lot more comfortable and has many friends now at church. Her baptismal interview is this Saturday. She was a little nervous about the interview and was not sure what she needed to do in order to prepare, but we explained the purpose of the interview, and told her that we would practice the interview and prepare her for her interview. She was very relieved after we explained this to her. We are very happy for her and this big and life changing step she is about to make. We have no worries or concerns for her, we feel that she is ready. Sister Joselyn, our other progressing investigator, also attended church last Sunday, and she brought one of her friends, that we have recently started teaching, with her. Sister Joselyn loves when we teach her and loves attending church. She has two wonderful fellowshippers that are present at all of our teaching appointments with her. They have invited her to Relief Society activities and have texted her just to check up on her. Joselyn's baptism is on the 9th of April. The last few weeks, we have been looking and trying to find an investigator family to teach. We have found a lot of new investigators, but we have not been able to find any families yet. Our goal for this transfer is to find two investigator families every week. We are still searching for those families that are prepared to hear our message. 

WE ate some cow stomach this week at a dinner appointment. It wasn't too bad. But let just say I wouldn't order it at restaurant. It was just really chewy and fatty. It didn't have a whole lot of flavor. I will tell you a little more about food next week.

Overall Another great week. The weeks move by so quickly! Every week I ask my companion, "Did anything interesting happen last week?" All the days just run together.  But it is a great time! I love his work. Everyday I learn something new about this never ending gospel. I love you all. have a great week! :) 

Pagmamahal,

Elder Nielsen

Ps. Sorry mom, I ran out of time, I will answer your questions next week! :) 

Get your Trumpo

We had another busy but also successful week this week. Everyday we had something we had to do or attend. Tuesday we had our district meeting, Wednesday we had to do transfers, so we had to make sure everyone knew how to get to their new area and ect., Thursday we had a Leadership Meeting. Friday we had weekly planning and had to do some baptismal interviews, and Saturday we had a ward FHE. It was a crazy week! It literally blew by! 

 Our investigators are really progressing and working toward their baptismal date. Sister Rosita visited her brother, who lives out of town, this weekend, so she was unable to attend church last Sunday. However, we had many really powerful lessons with her last week, all with her fellowshippers present in all the lessons. She continues to read the Book of Mormon everyday and is preparing for her baptism. We also had a really successful week teaching Sister Joseline, our other progressing investigator. Last week, we really focused on finding her more fellowshippers in ward. She attended our ward's Family Home Evening on Saturday and we introduced her to all the Relief Society sisters and they all took her under their wings and helped her feel comfortable. She attended church last Sunday and brought her teenage daughter and all her friends to church with her. She is really progressing and her testimony is getting stronger and firmer everyday. 

Our mission is focusing on increasing our number of convert baptisms that we have. Last year we had over 900 convert baptisms and this year we want to raise or even double that number. For the meeting on Thursday we had to come up with a goal for the number convert baptisms we wanted to have in our zone this transfer and the next. Last transfer we only had 4 baptisms in the Camarin Zone, we average around 7 a transfer. So we really wanted to increase that number. We looked at some number and statistics and we made a goal of 23 baptisms for this transfer. President thought that was a little high, but we told him we think we can really do it. And as of now we already have 8 baptisms in our zone. And we have lots more baptisms lined up. We think it should be a very exciting transfer. 

Yes mother, it is getting hot. Very hot. April to May is the hottest time of the year here. The highs this week are all in the 100s. Plus the humidity. But you can't the weather I've learned. You just have to keep going. I think my body has adapted to the heat quite a bit, but I still am constantly sweating. I think I have just adapted to being constantly sweating and hot. But it is great! You gotta love the heat! 

And yes mother, we just walk around all day. But we have a really good area, so we can get 6-10 lessons in a day. So thankfully we can do more teaching than walking. And yes I think my body has stayed the exact same. I walk a lot, but I eat a lot, so in the end it evens out. 

And to answer your question from last week. Yes I do know Victoria, her last name is Deguizman. She is a very nice little girl. She was in my graduating class.

We have taken up playing with trumpo's these past few weeks. They are a little top thingy and string that all the kids play with here. They are actually pretty tricky to get the hang of, but I have officially mastered the skill, now I am learning tricks. All Filipinos are surprised that this big American knows how to do it, I think I earn a little more respect from them ;) Sorry I don't have any pictures, just look it up on google or youtube.. haha

It is a great time to be a missionary. The weeks just fly by. I am trying to follow Dad's council and enjoy every single moment. It is going by way too fast.  It truly is a special time in my life. And I love it. Have a Great Week! 

ps. Mom, I memorized all the amendments in high school. You could do that next? ;) 

LOVE, 

Elder Nielsen 

I have never Killed a man before..

Sorry! I forgot to tell transfers were this week so I would email today instead of yesterday! Wow this transfer has absolutely flown by! By far my fastest transfer yet. We had transfers yesterday and I am... staying in Camarin! :) This will make it 6 months here. But I don't mind, I will serve wherever the Lord wants me to serve. Elder Alejandro is still my companion so no changes here. And this is his very last transfer in the mission! So in missionary terms, I am going to "kill him"! I will have officially killed an Elder! 

We had another very successful week this week. Sister Rosita attended church again this week. She has now attended three times, with two consecutive Sundays.. She is she really progressing and her testimony is growing everyday. We decided Sister Rosita needed a few more fellow shippers at church, so yesterday we asked Sister Abrasado, a recent convert, to come with us and help us in Sister Rosita's lesson. It was a wonderful lesson and the spirit was very strong. We are excited for her upcoming baptism on the 2nd of April. One of our investigator families we are teaching really wanted to attend church, but they were a little nervous to go by themselves, so we arranged to go to their house on Sunday morning and go with them to church. Unfortunately, on Sunday morning something had come up, and the parents were unable to attend, but their teenage children still able to come to church with us. The parents promised they would go next week, we are praying they will be able to attend next week. We are continuing to search for those elect  children of God, who are prepared for our message. 

Some fun little stories, so I don't think I have told you but spider fighting is really big here in the Philippines. So in the Philippines only 20% of spiders are poisonous, compared to in America where 80% are poisonous. So most the spiders are usually always safe. People go into the mountains and jungle and bring back these big cool looking spider and sell them to the Little kids for like 5 to 10 pesos. The kids keep them in these little matchboxes with a bunch of little compartments. Then when they want to fight them, they take them out and put both of the spider on a little stick. Then the  spiders start attacking each other and trying to wrapped the other one with his webs. Eventually one of them will wrapped the other one up and kill it. It is really exciting to watch. And when adults spider fight, they usually put money on it, so it is a bit of a bigger event. 

And NOTE: Next week we have temple P-day, so I will email on Wednesday next week! 

I am excited for the upcoming transfer in this area. Elder Alejandro really wants to finish strong, and I am excited to work along side him on his last transfer. This is a lot of work that needs to be down in this part of the Lord's vineyard, and we are honored to work here. I am constantly trying to improve myself and become a better missionary and son of God. Thanks for all you do! Ingat! 

Mahal Kita 

Elder Nielsen