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