I've have been having some good days lately.  First question.  Has anyone ever heard of Manny Pacquio? He is probably the most famous and well loved person in the Philippines.  He is a boxer and when he has a fight, no one is outside.  Incidental he had a fight last Sunday morning.  (Saturday actually it was in Vegas but for us Sunday.)  The Sacrament attendance was supposed to go down, but we had 11 less actives we had visited come to church.  The week before we had 3, and this week was said was going to be low.  We also had 4 investigators come to church.  Manny Pacquio lost, coming to church won.  For at least 15 people that is. 
      This week we also had great success with our teaching in the last week.  We have one less active who really doesn't want to pray.  The problem is when we ask him to close the lesson with a prayer, he will refuse and then his wife would always say the prayer.  It was impossible for us to find out his concern because his wife would very quickly take the responsibility on herself and start praying.  So what did we do? We asked his wife to say the opening prayer.  We had a powerful lesson, and then at the end of the lesson, as expected he didn't want to pray.  Unlike previous however, we were able to ask why.  We found out his concerns, and then we helped him resolve his concerns about prayer.  I felt very guided by the Spirit in what to say to help him to overcome his concerns.  The Spirit was also very strong as he prayed, for the first time I've heard and probably for the first time in a long time.  Afterwards he was very happy, as were we.  We went in with a good plan and then were led by the Spirit to help a good man. 
     We had a couple interesting finding experiences this week.  First was an investigator.  We started talking to a man, and the first thing he said was can you guys come to my house.  I thought he must have been a less active, but as we spoke with him we found out that he was a nonmember and when our church building was being built he helped work on it.   He had some LDS friends and knew we had some "good stuff" to tell him.  We went to his house later and were able to teach him about the restoration.  It was interesting because he was very excited for us to come.  Our other find involved a small miracle.  We had been trying to contact a certain less active for about a week.  We found his house and then returned several times but he was never home and we never had contact with him.  Then a few nights ago we were out again in a far away place at night.  We knew where we could get a tricycle, but before we got far one drove by.  We are always thankful for a timely tricycle, but for this one we were especially thankful.  Why? As we were driving our tricycle driver started to cry.  When I noticed that I started to talk to him.  I asked him what his name was... And it was the very less active we had tried to contact so many time.  After our ride we talked with him a little longer.  He had recognized us as Elders and knew he was not doing everything he should.  He asked if we would come and teach him to help him change his life.  He said he had been trying to change his life already.  We have been able to teach him once and have appointments for others.  He is so receptive.   I am out of time here.
    Good luck to you all and have a wonderful week,
Elder Nathaniel J. Merrill