I am almost definitely going to be transferred this week.  Why?  Well my companion Elder Sta.Ana, who if you remember is my trainee, is training next transfer!!!  So my trainee is training which means I shall leave. (Well it's never for sure but I think you can 99%)  We officially find out on Wednesday and then transfer day is Friday.  Everyone says I am going to go to a middle of nowhere area.  

     We had a baptism last Saturday.  A nine year old of a recently returned family was baptized. As we have been working with returning families now we have a lot of young investigators.   We haven't focused very much on the young kids because we are trying to help the families return, but now we counted up all the 8 year olds and older of families that are returning and we have about 7, the oldest being 12, that will probably be baptized in March.  The 8 year olds aren't convert baptisms but it is still going to be exciting to see them baptized because we helped their families return.  Those baptisms are in addition to the other investigators.  Next transfer there will be a lot of baptisms, I won't see them but I did help them get there.  We also have one more baptism before I leave.  It will be on Tuesday and one of our ward missionaries will be baptizing him.  That one will be exciting because he is 18 and has already expressed interest in serving a mission.  He will have 1 year from now, the ward missionary who is baptizing is one of his good friends and will also be serving a mission soon.

       Another exciting thing was the Young Women New Beginnings.  The reason it was exciting is because they formally welcomed our recent convert who is a young woman to the stake.  On Friday Elder Sta.Ana went with another missionary to the Train the trainers meeting with President.  I worked in my area with Elder Wilding.  Elder Wilding is fairly new but he is a pretty good missionary.  While working with him we stumbled upon the house of the mother of our Young Men's President.  She was super super nice to us, and I remember hearing the Young Men's president pray a short time ago that his family will come back to church.  Well this may be the beginning to the answer to that prayer.  With Elder Wilding we also taught one of our new investigators.  This was a referral from a member and is one of the most receptive people I've met.  We taught them for the second time and afterwards Elder Wilding was amazed to find out that was only the second lesson to them.  I have high hopes for all of our investigator families right now.  There is a lot of potential in this area... The area that I am leaving... but it is still way exciting because people will be being baptized.  Last Year in LIngayen 2 ward you could count the baptisms on one hand.  This January we have 3, February there are 2 more that are very ready and then we have a lot of very progressing that I believe will also be baptized.  It is exciting to see an area that is progressing so well even though I am on the way out.

          One of these is at the top of the Pangasinan state capitol building.  We just walked up to the top.  We walked past 4 guards and none of them cared at all.  There is also a baptism here.  There is also a cool investigator family.

 

Have a good week, keep your head up, and smile.
                                                                           Elder Nathaniel J. Merrill