Hey I got two packages this week, there is a funny story with one.  Last Tuesday I lost my glasses.  I wok e up in the morning and they were definitely nowhere to be found, I assumed that they would  turn up, but until now they have not been seen.  Tuesday is also district meeting. We went to district meeting in Urdaneta and while there I was given two packages.  One of those packages contained contacts and although I still don't have glasses I didn't even go through a single day sightless.
    This week I met an interesting person named Lourdes Tabelin.  She is John Bytheway's first convert.  She told me she was the first baptism in a certain area and then later mentioned that was John Bytheway's first area, and now she lives in Pozorrubio.  She had a lot of things saved that  Elder Bytheway had given her. She also told us some stories about Elder Bytheway back then.  Sister Tabelin also has a big Pit Bull.  A very nice and friendly pit bull, but big nonetheless.  Elder De Jesus is afraid of dogs, really afraid of dogs.  When we got to that house, the Pit Bull was very excited to see people, it had a leash, but it very much wanted of the leash.  I could tell it was playful and nice, but Elder De Jesus didn't want to go anywhere near it. When they saw he was afraid they decided to help his fear.  They went to the dog to calm him down, and then took him of the leash to bring him closer and show that he was friendly.  Elder De Jesus was not happy with this change.  I told them to put the dog back,and they did and then we were able to go into the house.
        Speaking of dogs, I got attacked by one.  Probably doesn't help Elder De Jesus'  fear very much.  The dog tried to bite my leg, but instead bounced of my leg like there was a wall an inch in front of my leg, which left it stunned and then we walked away.  The dog didn't even touch my pant leg.   That is the first dog that I've met that is aggressive in any way, the rest just run away from me.  This week we found a lot of Less Active member.  It is interesting to see the Less Active members because a lot of them know the truth.  One less active would ask us trivia type questions about the church and then answer them to prove he knew about the church.  When he arrived at  his house he said' Elders I am immersed in sin.'  He essentially knows everything he should do but doesn't do it.  He even used to work with missionaries when he was a teenager.  He stopped going to church because his friends aren't members and he wants to keep them.  Another less active told us they don't go to church because they don't want to face a certain member.  It is very sad to see people who know but still don't go to church.
     This last week I gave a few blessings to some members.  One blessing I gave was to Sister Gladys Mundo because she is pregnant and wanted her child birth to go well. She was particularly worried that her baby was overdue and she wanted the baby to come soon to avoid any possible problems.  I asked her when her due date was...May 1st.  She said she got a check up and the doctor said she wasn't closer to having her baby now than she was then.  I gave her a blessing Sunday night (Yesterday) and said her baby would be coming soon and the Lord would take care of everything.  We got a text this morning at 8am that said she has had the baby.  12 hours from the blessing to the child birth that doctors said would not be happening any time soon.
Those aren't all my events I'd like to share, but it will have to do for this week.

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Good luck to you all and have a wonderful week,
                                                                          Elder Nathaniel J. Merrill

It has been another great week here in the Philippines.  A lot has happened.  First of all on Wednesday I got my new companion.  My new companion is Elder De Jesus, straight from the Manila MTC. He of course is Filipino and he is from Manila.  Being from Manila means that he speaks Tagalog.  He speaks pure Tagalog, not other Philippines dialects, which is good because that means he knows Tagalog very well,and he can definitely still help me in Tagalog. We are doing well and are teaching well so far.  

         In the Philippines there are 3 seasons.  Hot, Even hotter,and rainy.  Right now it is almost into the rainy season.  It doesn't rain every day, but it rains more often now than it did before.  One day this week it very suddenly started raining very hard.   We walked in the rain for a few minutes until we passed a house with people playing outside in the rain.  They invited us to come sit on their porch, so we spent some time sitting on the porch and talking to them.  It turned out that none of them are members, but that they have a lot of family who are members. We were glad that they were nice enough to let us avoid the rain and they told us we could come back and share about the gospel.  It's funny that we only found this family because of the rain.  This week we happened upon one other great investigator. A few weeks ago I mentioned one of our investigators close to baptism left town, well he left his wife and two kids here while he went away for work for a month.  We decided to visit his wife (who is a member) and share with her about the importance of baptism hoping to help strengthen her faith in baptism as well.  It just so happens that because her husband is gone one of her cousins is staying with her to help with the kids.  We decided to share about the Restoration, and then when we came back she told us she had prayed and knew our message was true.  Essentially we could end up with two baptisms from this family instead of one.  All that came because Brother Christopher went away for work, which we saw as a great downside at the time. Of course his baptism was postponed, but if his cousin gains a testimony in the mean time it will all be worth it.  

        This week we had one kind of funny lesson.  We were teaching a little girl and her grandmother.  The little girl is 10, her name is Jenalyn.  Her grandmother was not paying attention at all while we were teaching, so half way through the lesson we developed a new strategy.  We taught Jenalyn, then we would ask Jenalyn to tell her grandmother what she had learned.  Her grandmother paid attention to her.  So we would teach Jenalyn well enough and simply enough for her to understand,then she summarized it for her grandmother.  It worked surprisingly well.  Afterwards they were both paying attention to us and both understood.  

            I am out of time here, but I would also like to mention I met some people from Provo.  Well they are from here but now are living in Provo.  The Edos family (i am pretty sure)  Anyway Sister Edos teaches Tagalog at BYU.  She also told me there was a Filipino teacher in the nursing department. 

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Good luck to you all and have a wonderful week,
                                                                           Elder Nathaniel J. Merrill

How is everyone doing?  I hope you are all doing great wherever you happen to be.  A lot of things have happened this week.  We have a couple investigators that are just golden investigators.  We got referred to one family this that will most likely become a great family.  When we went to their house they said ‘Where have you been?’  It turns out that more than 6 months ago the missionaries here met them and set a return appointment but never managed to come back.  The missionaries only shared there once, and the member that referred them to us didn’t even know about that time.  They even kept their commitment from 6 months ago to read the pamphlet that was given them.  They were very receptive to our message.  Our other great investigator is Sister Villanueva.  We have only been able to teach her a few times, due to schedule misunderstandings, conflicts and unavailabilities, but she has been to church 4 times and last Sunday the Bishop told us she even paid tithing.  The only reason she can’t get baptized now is that we haven’t taught her all the lessons needed before baptism. 

This week we had the National Day of Service in the Philippines.  Well sort of.  The National Day of Service was April 28^th, but our ward did the service project for the National Day of Service this last week.  We cleaned out drains in an area of Pozorrubio.  We wore the Yellow shirts you always see in LDS service project pictures.  I was there with Elder Savage because we had exchanges that day.  Elder Savage is a pretty new American missionary.  He is a good guy, it was fun to work with him.  I feel like I see myself progress a lot when I look back.  I’ve worked with new American missionaries before, and I remember it being very hard, and also sometimes uncomfortable.  This time I felt very able to teach even though I was doing almost all of it.  My Tagalog has improved enough I don’t worry too much.  I was also able to focus a lot more on helping Elder Savage than previous.  Previously I was worried about pulling the lesson together, but now I could easily go through the lesson and I was trying to help Elder Savage to do as much as he felt comfortable with.  It was a good experience. 

I also went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders.  I was with Elder Teodoro, an Elder I really have a lot of respect for.  He was never in my zone before now, but in the few short times I talked with him I was highly impressed, and now I got to work with him.  However Before that, earlier in the day, Elder Tolman called.  My Trainer and now one of the Assistants called and told me I was going to be training a new missionary next transfer.  I still feel fairly new, but Elder Teodoro was very helpful for my confidence in training.  He acted in a way like a trainee by always asking me questions, he also as a Zone leader talked to me about some important things for trainers.  He is a very good missionary. I will find out who I am training at transfer meeting, I am excited but a little nervous as well to be training.  

This is a short letter, I am sorry for that, but those are the major happenings right now.  

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Good luck to you all and have a wonderful week,
                                                                           Elder Nathaniel J. Merrill

       This week went pretty good.  I guess I will start off this with the sadder part of news.  We were supposed to have a baptism yesterday, but our baptismal candidate left last Monday for work in Manila.  He won't be back until June, which means he won't be able to be baptized until July, if he gets baptized.  Elder Trujillo was pretty disappointed about that.  That was going to be his last convert baptized, but now he is not going to see another baptism on his mission.  Although we won't be having another baptism this transfer we still have a lot of receptive investigators and less actives we are teaching.          I met a man this week that is RLDS.  I didn't think that church existed in the Philippines but there exists at least one.  It was a very different conversation because he believed and accepted our basic truths, he just didn't completely understand them.  He isn't from Pozorrubio so I probably won't ever talk to him again but it was very strange.  He is closer to the truth than I normally see, but yet at the same time he is further from finding the truth.  In Preach My Gospel it talks a little bit about culture.  It says to embrace the aspects of culture that support the Gospel and discard those that do not.  Philippines is very family centered.  They are very close to their families.  This is very good.  It seems to me however, that there is very little organization in those families.  It is kind of an anything goes game.  I've begun to notice that through the church, the young parents here who never had good parenting can learn how to raise their families.  Everyone loves the family here, and the church really helps pull the family together.        Yesterday before Sacrament Meeting I was playing prelude music from the children's songbook.  As I was playing a young boy came up behind me and began to sing the song I was playing.  He was joined by a few more shortly afterwards.  As they sang the spirit was so strong.  The little children are very pure and precious.  They are very close to heaven.  It was a great moment for me as I sat and simply listened to the singing of such precious souls.  This week I felt very good about everything we were doing. I feel very good about my skills as a missionary as well.  One of the hardest people we have to teach is a little 9 year old girl.  It is very different when we teach to a child, and in some ways much harder. You really have to make sure everything is simple and cut away anything that isn't necessary.  I am glad for the opportunity to teach children.  I feel that teaching children helps very much to improve the overall teaching skills.  Children you will always teach as a child, but sometimes it is forgotten that even for the adults here the information is so foreign and new that in some ways you must treat them as a child.  If we teach so a child can understand the teaching is more effective for all who are present.   -- Good luck to you all and have a wonderful week,                                                                            Elder Nathaniel J. Merrill