Last Email from the Philippines!! 10 More Days!!

Well this will be the last email that Elder Nielson will be sending home! This week we had a pretty good week. We set the next elders coming into this area up with a very solid investigator named Elmer. He will be baptized on the 24 of October - three days after I go home ha ha. Oh well, that is just the way it works out I guess. 

I feel like the members in my area are more excited for me to leave than I am ha ha. They have a little party planned for me on Friday and Saturday. Both should be lots of fun with lots of food. I love Filipino food but I can't wait to eat a really delicious Alberta steak... I have been craving that for a solid 22 months! My companion and I have picked up several good new investigators over the last couple days so the next missionaries to come out here will hopefully have a good time.

The Branch attendance is also up. It was sitting at about 30 people at church on Sunday when I got here but now we are at about 60. I can't attribute that to me or my work in the branch but we have been working really hard with the less active members. 

Conference was awesome haha. I already can't wait to go to Conference in April. Hopefully I will be able to go to Salt Lake for that one. That way I would get to meet up with some of the other missionaries from my mission. The biggest thing that stuck out to me at conference was how important progression is in this life. We always need to be moving forward and never backward. This is especially important for me at this time because of how great the temptation will be to just sink back into normal life. If I go back to being normal when I go home my mission was a waste. I need to continue to be making steps in the right direction.

I will be calling you hopefully on Monday at like 8 or 9 pm here in the Philippines. I won't be able to talk for very long and it will pretty much be to just clear up the airport stuff. 

Well, I love you lots and I can't wait to see you in 10 days. (That really feels weird to say!)

Elder Nielson

This may be Elder Nielson's last post from the Philippines but we will have one more post from Canada when he is back!! So stay tuned in!! :)

16 Days!

Thanks for the email Mom. Dental appointments and eye exams? Awesome! I am down for whatever you want to put me through. Thanks for telling me your new number. I think I will probably call you Monday night on my last week.

Don't worry about me stressing out about things. If I didn't learn about how to manage stress out here on the mission, I probably had a pretty crappy mission considering everyday is right full of stress. Guess how many times I got cold sores or stomach problems here in the mission... Zero times! I am doing just fine so don't worry about me. 

I can't wait to go and watch conference. I have been looking forward to conference for the last 2 weeks. It will be really nice to just sit back, relax and watch conference. Let the inspiration pour in. 

I have been emailing Chase every week. I can tell that he is having a good time in the field haha. I have also emailed Mike a few times over the last 2 months or so. He just wanted to know if I wanted a spot in his apartment. I said I can't make any promises right now but that might be a good idea.

Well everything is going just fine out here in my area. Things are really moving along and we have some good progressing investigators. I think I finally have my companion where I want him to be. It only took like 3 weeks of good pushing but I have him at the point that I don't think he can physically work any harder. Later on tonight I have exchanges with my district leader haha. I think he is a little scared of me lol. He is a really good guy. He is from Cebu and speaks perfect English. I think he told me that his family is planning on moving to Canada after his mission. His dad works on ships so I think they will go to Vancouver or some place like that. This will be the first exchange I have been on since Lopez where I wasn't the senior companion on the exchange. Should be a good time! :)

Love you lots!

Thanks for the email Dad. I am grateful that you are not trunky. I don't even feel that trunky either. We had our mission president interviews a couple of days ago and he pretty much told me that if I was feeling trunky at all I am pretty stupid haha. I assured him that I am not. The only time that trunky feelings creep into my mind is during anytime that I have down time. What I am doing right now is removing any and all down time from my schedule. I need to get this area up and running so that the next missionaries that come here can have a good experience in Victoria Branch. My companion and I made maps for the whole area and color coded every section of our area so we know where we are working on what days. We also color coded the ward directory, the bishop's action list, the unknown address list and several other lists so that my companion and I as well as the next missionaries will always have something to do. Whether that this tracting, updating the mapping system, or finding less actives, everything is now nice and organized. 

I love the topic you have given me for my homecoming by the way. I could talk for hours about that. Thank you for something easy like that haha. Like I said I don't know if I can give a talk in English though. Its been quite a while!

We had a good bonus this week. Church actually started on time! After chastising the members, branch presidency, talking to the stake president, and talking to president Mangum, we are finally having church on time. That is one big step towards Victoria becoming a ward and getting their very own chapel!

Well, thanks for everything. Love you lots. See you in a couple of weeks. 

Elder Nielson