I had a great week this week.  We got quite a bit done.

     Last week it was funny, we met an investigator I used to teach with Elder Sagayno.  They went to Manila so they we stopped teaching, but last Monday we saw them selling stuff at the Palenke so we said hi.  She was way excited to see us and quickly asked when we were coming to teach them again.  This is the investigator that I may have mentioned before that tried to go to church but couldn't find the church so just sat in front of the Capitol building for an hour.  Well we were excited for them.

    This week also we filled the Gospel Principles class.  We had investigators and less actives it was great.  Our ward missionaries gave us a cheer, there were just so many people.  A bunch of those people were also coming to church for the very first time so it was even more exciting.  Yesterday was just a good day.  Our schedule yesterday was pretty random and sporadic, during church I asked all the ward missionaries whom they know that is less active that we should visit.  Then in the afternoon we took one ward missionary with us and went and contacted as many as we could.  We ended up finding 3 less active families that seemed super receptive.  Also yesterday we got a new investigator family.  We taught them about the Restoration and then invited them to be baptized, and then it got super intense.  After the baptism invitation they started asking so many questions and it was great.  They were asking weird questions that I have never been asked as a missionary.  Can your religion save you? etc.  I asked them Do you need to be baptized? Reply Yes.  Can just anyone baptize you? No. Why not? You need authority. Whose Authority? Jesus'.  Here is the opportunity to be baptized by the authority of the Priesthood of God, which authority comes from Jesus Christ.  That's something like how it went.  It was really intense and they all had really strong commitments to find out for themselves if this was true.  

        Also about new invetigators, we taught a daughter and father, the father whom we'd met before the daughter who is grown.  The daughter asked us 'How did you even get my dad to listen to you? he hates religious stuff"  Well that is the powerful change that the Gospel brings into lives.  We are finding people right now that are super prepared. It is so great to see that God is always getting people ready to join his church.  God is working and will not stop, and he loves the Philippines. I love you and will write again next week. 

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

This week has been a pretty good week.

     We found a pretty good investigator this week.  After we taught she just kept saying 'It'so true" and things like that.  When we came back she told us she is reading the Book of Mormon and sharing with her neighbors what she's been learning.  She also told us that she had a dream that people were going to come teach her the Gospel soon. We told her that she needed to be baptized, she asked us when.  She came to church too.  It's just one of those awesome situations. There is another investigator that we preached by the way to about a month ago.  She was so nice, but kept missing the return appointments we'd set.  I was pretty much ready to not try again when we saw her on the street and she said "Hey you guys didn't come".  I was shocked, because we did indeed come (actually when we came she wasn't there and we taught someone else nearby who was awesome as well... that person has a baptism date now next month).  Well it turned out she got her days mixed up, she waited for us on Thursday when she thought it was Wednesday.  So we set a return appointment again... and when we finally taught her she is way cool.  She was taught before and knows a ton of members.  The missionaries stopped teaching her because they got pulled out back then.  She remembered Joseph Smith and knew a ton.  She even said that she would probably be our fellow shipper now if the missionaries didn't stop teaching her back then. (May or may not be true but it was cool)  We taught her what the word "restoration" meant and then she kept saying this is "my restoration to the Gospel".

      We also found some less actives that in my opinion should not have been baptized.  Two girls now age 16 and 14 were baptized without their family when they were 11 and 9.  What happened is they went to church with Grandma, and then got baptized, but then the family moved and with no support they went less active.  Well we found them, and we started to teach them.  They are pretty cool.  The next day some ward members approached us and asked if we could teach and baptize their 10 and 9 year old granddaughters who always came to church but whose parents weren't members.  After seeing a potential long term effect the day before I just couldn't do it.

      I haven't yet encountered any Jehovah's witness missionaries, but this week we found their entire teaching pool.  We found a ton of people that are being taught by the witnesses and funny enough all them agreed to meet with us.  Actually we already have several that stopped meeting with the witnesses after we taught.  I told Elder Sta.Ana that's what happens when you teach "With Power and Authority" and not "teaching for doctrine the philosophies of men".  

    I had some cool pictures to send but this computer doesn't want to let you have them... Sorry.  Congrats to Amanda going to Argentina on her mission.

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

A lot of things happened this week.    The picture is from last week and is me with Elder Sta.Ana and Elder De Jesus.  We got to go to Urdaneta for New Missionary Training.  That was pretty exciting.  It is always good to get to talk to President Monahan.  He is an amazing missionary.
   This week there was one interesting experience that I would like to highlight.  We went and taught a Sister that has really only recently become less active.  The first thing I noticed was that the whole atmosphere at the house is different than the first time I ever went there.  The Spirit is pretty much gone.  It just had a different feeling.  It has been about 2 months since she came to church.  I asked her the question ' what changes have you noticed in your life since you stopped going to church' she said none.  I then pointed out to her what I noticed.  The negative changes I could see in her, and about the atmosphere change in her home.  She told me 'Elder that is just probably because you had the Spirit with you back then, but there wasn't really more Spirit in my home.'  She then insisted that she was happier now.  I asked her when the last time she smiled was... and I pointed out that until today I've never seen her without a smile on her face.  We taught her a short lesson and brought the Spirit into her home.  After we finished she finally started to understand.  She said "Elder earlier you asked me what changed while now I know.'   And then she started talking about how she has started swearing again, and how it's harder to resist temptation and many other things that has happened since she stopped coming to church.  She reminded me of the statement of Nephi that people are carefully led to hell.  She didn't even notice these negative changes until we pointed them out, and she even at first refused to admit those negative changes that had happened.  It was a very interesting experience.  Sometimes the easiest time to see the blessings of the Gospel is when you see the effect of their departure.  On the up side she said she wants to come back.
I am sorry this is a short letter.  There are many more happier experiences as well, but this one is the most instructive.

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

       So this week I got my new companion.  I am training Elder Sta.Ana.  Which is pronounced Santa Ana. like saint.  Essentially I train people with very religious double names.  De Jesus, Sta.Ana... I believe they are the only two like that in the mission.  Elder Sta.Ana is from Bicol region and is very good.  Also everyone in Bicol knows how to cook and Elder Sta.Ana is no exception. Bicol is also famous for liking to eat spicy food so we shall probably be eating hot foods this transfer.  I am pretty excited to work with him and for this transfer in general.  It will be a good transfer.  I would send some pictures but I forgot my card reader so sorry.          At transfer meeting I saw the missionaries from Pozorrubio and asked them about my investigators over there.  They told me that some of them are being baptized soon so I am excited for them.  There is one family I found in Pozorrubio that was just amazing, but had a ton of trials.  They were progressing when I left and I knew they'd get baptized, well now they finally are, it's pretty exciting for me.  

       This week was also very good.  The last few transfers we had a lot of people coming to church but not as many that consistently come.  Now we have a pretty good pool of investigators and less actives coming to church, and of course others as well that we hope will become regulars.  It's kind of nice though to have people you can really depend on to come.  We have a lot of people that are returning to church as well as a lot of people that should be baptized soon.  

       There is a street in our area called New Street, and this week we got 5 referrals all for people on New Street.  We have been up and down that street teaching a ton of people.  We met some less actives there, taught some new investigators it has been pretty successful.  The other thing that I've noticed is  that a lot of the youth seem to have an increasing desire to serve missions.  While many have always wanted to, most of the mission age had stated that they will finish school first.  Now we have 5 that are planning on leaving in January.  Before there was 1 so we are pretty excited for them.   We are looking forward to a good transfer here in Lingayen.  I am excited and Elder Sta.Ana is a great companion.

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Have a good week, keep your head up, and smile.
                              

                                             Elder Nathaniel J. Merrill

I am Training again!!!!! I am pretty excited.  I went from training to follow up training to training again, so I have pretty much just been working with new missionaries for most of my mission.  My whole batch of Americans are training to so it will be pretty exciting.  My guess is that I will train an American because there are 14 coming in.  (And 5 Filipinos, and 2 from Pakistan.)  

   We have some great investigators that continue to progress.  We actually played basketball this morning with Reymon (who is going to be baptized next month) and it turns out he is way better than us.  This last week we found and gave a baptismal date to May.  May is 19 and she is the sister of one of our other Investigators.  What happened is that she suddenly moved back home to live with her mom (a returning less active) and she is way receptive.  She came to church yesterday and sat with her sister Jamaica in our investigator class.  Our Gospel principles teacher is pretty amazing by the way.  

     This week we were walking down a street of probably the most stiff necked people in Lingayen.  I swear everyone on this street did not want anything to do with us, and at that point all we were doing was looking for a person that lived there.  Well we were walking away after talking to a super mean woman (I hope that she was just having a bad day and isn't that mean to everyone always, because she was really grouchy) anyway as we were walking we heard someone say Elders.  So we looked at this house that's doors were closed and looked like nobody was home.  We walked to the house and there was some little kids.  They said that missionaries used to come to their house, but then the family went to Manila.  Well now they're back, and so are the missionaries, here to teach them again.  

     Speaking of finding through children, last week we taught a group of kids on the street how to pray.  I may have mentioned that.  A few days ago we went and contacted the families of most of those kids.  We've taught one family, have appointments with a few others, but yesterday something completely unexpected happened.  A large group of our children came to church.  Not with their parents (hopefully next time) but just the kids.  We filled the primary...much to the 'delight' of the primary teacher.  The kids came to church, and were not 'too rowdy'.  I did not expect them to come, we did invite them, but they're kids (oldest is 12) and we didn't expect much.  This gives us a little more initiative to be sure and follow up on their families.  

      Right now we have two less active families in the hospital.  Julieann has dengue fever, and they don't know why Gilbert is in the hospital, or rather what his sickness is.  Both families are progressing, but of course neither came to church as both have children in the hospital.  Actually Ritche, Julieann's brother did come to church.  

     We have another returning less active right now who told us he wants to serve a mission.  He really doesn't know what he needs to do but we will help him get out there.  

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

      We have a couple really progressing investigators right now.  Funny thing is, we haven't been able to teach our progressing investigators very much.  That is Tyson who is never home. And the Mendoza family who are also rarely home. They are always not home, or busy(and when I say busy I mean really busy not the we just want you to go away busy.)  Whenever we see them, which seems usually to be as we are walking and we see them somewhere, we invite them to come to church, and guess what, they do.  So they are coming to church, they just only get taught on average once a week.

    Yesterday at church our Gospel Principles teacher didn't show up, which meant I had to teach it.  That was fun, but I miss our Gospel Principles teacher, she is really good plus I feel like the investigators should get to learn from someone other than the missionaries once in a while.  We also had a lot of people come to church yesterday.  We had the children, of a family we used to teach come to church.  That family wasn't progressing so we stopped going to them, well the kids got the idea and decided to come to church to ask us to come teach them again. We taught and the family said that in two weeks they will all come to church.  They told us that straight up when we arrived, we asked what about next week, they say they are busy next week, but in two weeks... Well I think they will really come because they decided that on their own before we got there.  We had another member who is often late show up at church before we did.
We were there at 810 and saw Julie Ann and her mom already there.  To top it off they were sick.  Finally I figured out why they were there, Julie Ann was saying the prayer in Sacrament meeting.  Because they were sick they left right after Sacrament meeting, but it is good to see people keep commitments.  

         I also worked with Elder Adams this week on exchanges.  Elder Adams is only 3 weeks in the field.  He is really good.  He doesn't speak Tagalog too well yet but he is pretty good.  It is always fun to work with new missionaries, it kind of reminds you of your own first days as a missionary.  Anyway with him we found this one lady who didn't seem that interested in the gospel. I pulled out the plan of salvation pamphlet and said it answers the questions of where we come from, our purpose in life and where we go after this life.  Elder Adams asked her "Can you answer those questions for us.'  She said she didn't know the answers so we asked which one she most wanted to know.  Then we taught her a wonderful little lesson about Our purpose in life.  She was very nice and we will go back.  It was a pretty fun lesson though.  We are doing well.

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Have a good week, keep your head up, and smile.
                              

                                             Elder Nathaniel J. Merrill

Well this week we had one interesting and good experience.  We have an investigator that is doing well and progressing and has a baptismal date, but over the course of this week we were not able to contact him, not even once.  Then yesterday as we were waiting for investigators and less actives outside the church before conference, here he came riding on his scooter.  We of course were very excited.  He will definitely be baptized.  

        Conference was amazing.  It was a little different watching it in Tagalog. We didn't watch every session in Tagalog, but we did see some of them.  Tagalog is fun, and the investigators actually understand it.  It does add a new dimension of the need to pay attention, and sometimes they use 'napakalalim salita' or really deep words.  My companion Elder Sagayno even noted that.  It depended on the talk and the speaker though. I thought they had some really good music as well. I already downloaded the music to listen to it later.  

     This week we had good referrals.  We got a referral from the Bishop of another ward.  We were teaching, and he saw us and told us to come to a house after we were done.  We went to this house which turned out to be his mother in law's house.  We talked with them for a while and then asked to share a lesson.  We shared a short but quite powerful lesson and then (I think a little to the Bishop's surprise) we invited them to be baptized and they accepted.  

     I went on exchanges this week with my Zone leaders, this is the first time in a long time that I have worked in another missionaries area. For whatever reason it seems I always work in my own area. So in the Zone leaders area I met one sister that has been a member for a super long time, she was once the relief society president and has had many other callings before the wards were split.  Once back in my own area I realized that almost every less active knows her. Less actives ask about people they know, and if those people are still at church.  Now I know one of the people that they almost always say, I just never recognized it before because I didn't know the woman.  

        It's been good I think thats all for now.

Have a good week, keep your head up, and smile.
                              

                                             Elder Nathaniel J. Merrill