I think the computer shop we are in is run by a member.  They are playing EFY music and have New Era posters on the wall.    

     Here is what President Monahan told me about transfers. "Your new area will present challenges and blessings. You will find that your new companion is surprisingly talented and humble. You will be able to help and learn from other. The branch needs a lot of help and that is where the Lord needs your talent in working with members!"

I am now in Mapandan branch in Mapandan district. I am in Mangaldan zone and Elder De Jesus is in the zone as well.   I am follow up training again and my companion is Elder Marafina. I suspect I might train again next transfer because I've trained a lot and there are over 40 missionaries coming in next transfer.  (all the 18 year old  Elders and 19 year old Sisters.)  So I am back down to a branch and I am also in a very small zone.

    Back in Lingayen, to finish this week before I transfered we had another baptism. Reymon got baptized and he has expressed desire to serve a mission.  He was baptized by one of his good friends in the ward it was great.  I won't see his confirmation though. I had a good last week in Lingayen we got a lot of lessons right up to the end.  We also had a dinner appointment with the Relief Society President where we talked about all the needs of the ward.  The Relief Society in Lingayen is great.  

     Here in Mapandan we had a baptism interview right away.  I got there Friday and we had a candidate interviewed on Saturday.  This is the first time I've come into an area and had a baptism right away.  This will also be the 2nd baptism of someone I didn't find.  Mapandan is my biggest area.  There isn't much besides fields.  It is only a branch but covers a larger area than I've had before.  It also seems to have the least transportation.  We don't see as many Tricycles going by.  On Saturday we took a 'shortcut' that my companion said takes about a kilometer off of our walk,  then we proceeded to walk for about 40 minutes.  There is a lot of walking.  It is a good little branch though.  The Elder I replaced has been really sick though.  He had a parasite and they didn't work for the last 2 weeks.  Everyone we go to seems to ask "Why haven't you come by for so long?"  which is a little tough.  Because of that we don't have very many solid appointments.  We do have some great investigators though.  We have one 'eternal' investigator.  She has been an investigator for 4 years but now she actually has a baptismal date and is doing very very well.  We also have one as I mentioned being baptized on Saturday.  

My companion is also very good as well.  Elder Marafina is only in his first area but I am very impressed with him.  Every companion I've had for 9 months has been in their first area.  I don't know the entire area yet or all the members and investigators but it does look to be a very good next few months here.  

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

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

As to Dad's inquiry I am still in Lingayen, although probably not for much longer.  I was also interested to hear about MacArthur coming to Lingayen.  I knew that he came but didn't know when.  Here in Lingayen the 'fiesta ng dagat' is in January.  The ocean festival completely covers up anything about MacArthur's landing and I haven't heard it mentioned.  

     This week I got to work in Labrador.  Since my stay in LIngayen this is the first time I have actually left Lingayen for work.  I've worked in other areas in Lingayen but now I got to work in Labrador.  Labrador is a very beautiful area and I worked with Elder Daplin, a very new missionary.  The one thing about Labrador is that it is easy to talk with everyone, or Preach by the way.  In Lingayen as you walk from place to place you see a hundred people or so, while you can greet everyone you wouldn't usually be able to share to every single person.  In Labrador you very much can share to every person because we only saw about 10. President Monahan recently gave the Labrador branch President an inspired promise that Labrador branch will double this year.  (Kind of like Elder Gillespie's branch that went from 11 to 22.  Labrador is looking to go from about 30 to 60)  Anyway it was a good time in Labrador.  Later in the week we split again.  On Saturday our baptism candidates were interviewed, and there was also the Philippines area broadcast.  After the interviews there wasn't very much time before the area broadcast but we all decided to work.  Because we were in our area, Elder Sta.Ana went with one missionary while I took the other and then we split up in our own area.  Essentially we had double the lessons and the interviewing missionaries had none.  But that was ok because they didn't really have time to go back to their own area anyway.  The Philippines Area broadcast was awesome as well.  The Area presidency spoke about the 2013 area goals.  

      This week was also our stake conference.  So Saturday we got to listen to the Philippines area presidency and then Sunday the Stake President and others including President Monahan.  President Monahan's talk was funny just because it was in English (actually it had maybe 10% Tagalog).  Anyway the Filipinos liked it.  I was very impressed with each talk, the stake conference was really good.  

     There was another instance this week that an investigator was having a hard time.  We knew that things were rough and I felt that we should go and give her a blessing.  Well she is progressing well and really wants to be baptized.  We went to give her the blessing and she was packing at the time.  She was called just now to go work in a diffident place.  When we got there I would like to note she had already packed her Book of Mormon.  It was nice though that we were able to give a blessing just before she left.  She will come back in about 4 months and I am sure she will be baptized although I won't be around.  She was supposed to be interviewed with our others on Saturday.  It is kind of sad but at the same time we were very happy to be able to be there in time to give her a blessing before she left.

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

                                                                           Elder Nathaniel J. Merrill

 

I don't know what to say anymore, I feel like all my letters sound the same. But nonetheless we had a good week this week.  I've been talking a lot about how our area is blossoming and really doing well.  Last Tuesday just after our companion study President Monahan called and said he is considering splitting our area.  Then yesterday we had 29 people we were teaching come to church.  I know there are some small branches that don't even have 29 people.
    We have one person Lena we are teaching right now who has a few friends in the church.  We arranged for one of the friends to pick up the family.  (our church just switched to 1 pm BTW)  Well at about 10 am the friend texted us and told us that our investigator went to church, but not our church.  At 10 am they were at the Catholic mass.  Well that was a disappointing  we had expected them to come and I was wondering if somehow our church invitation had been confusing and that's why she went to the Catholic.  Before church we went by a few investigators to go with them, but they weren't even home which was disappointing still.  That's the point where you worry about the switch from 9 am to 1 pm and it's effect on church attendance.  Well as we walked into the church at about 10 to 1pm there sitting with a few of their friends was sister Lena and family.  They came to church.  Actually they went to church twice yesterday and they really enjoyed themselves at the true church of Jesus Christ.   Needless to say we were very happy.  The friends accompanied them to the investigator class and also took care of the children which was so very nice.
   Our awesome ward took good care of us this week as well.  We had dinner or lunch appointments every single day last week.  We taught one of our elect investigators about the word of wisdom this week.  Before we taught the lesson, we saw the coffee on the table. (not a cup of coffee but the powder)  We were a little apprehensive but we taught what we needed to.  As we talked about the WOW we started saying the things we needed to avoid and everyone was strongly agreed with, when we got to coffee she agreed again.  We were surprised, "Do you drink coffee?' we asked.  "no it's hurts my heart, I stopped drinking it years ago."  The same with tea, she told us "I would probably drink tea later tonight but now I won't be drinking any".  She only had the coffee to give away for a new years gift.  The other investigator there gave up smoking and drinking a while ago because he had a 'feeling' that he should.  Prepared by the Lord.

    Later in the week we felt we should visit a certain active member who is old and has a caretaker.  The caretaker is another active member.  We went to her house and greeted her and talked to her for a moment.  We asked where her caretaker was, and it turned out she was sick and took the day off but not without getting a replacement.  The replacement was someone we did not know but quickly found out was a Mormon before.  She told us she got baptized some time ago but hadn't been to church.  Well we knew that we had been truly inspired to go to that home.  We told her that God had inspired us to come and teach her and we were there to help her find her way back.  She came to church.
      I have a picture here of a family that has come back to church and their daughters recent baptism.

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

                                                                          Elder Nathaniel J. Merrill

December, 31 2012

I had hoped to send some pictures home right now, but it turns out I didn't bring a card reader so I can't.  We took a lot of pictures this week.

This week was fun having Christmas and all.  We bought a lot of little things and gave them children in families we are teaching.  We also gave families December editions of the Liahona in Tagalog and we gave away a few movies(like The Testaments)  It was a good Christmas.  We also attended the Birthday party of one member on Christmas eve.

   We have an investigator right now from Iglesia Ni Cristo.  The members are not allowed to have a bible or say prayers.  We talked about prayer and now they are saying prayers every night and have already related to us several great experiences about prayers.  One time we were praying as a companionship and I felt inspired to pray to help her with a certain problem. Later that day when we were teaching her that very problem came up as a concern.  It is great to be able to say with confidence to someone that you have prayed for them to help them with that specific concern.

     Saturday we baptized Jamaica.  I'll try to send pictures next week...I did the baptism and then Elder Sta.Ana the confirmation in church.  Everyone wanted me to say the baptism prayer in English and I fully intended to do so, but when I went to give the prayer, I forgot the wording in English... So I just did it in Tagalog.  It was a good experience for the family.  We had 2 other investigators at the baptism service, and after the baptism one of them said " Elders I'm next".  That   was pretty exciting to hear.  This is the longest it has taken me to get a baptism in an area and now we have baptisms lined up.  I'll probably only see about 3 more before I leave but my companion will finish the work for the rest.  We also have a lot of returning members.  Yesterday when church started about 1/4 persons there were people we were teaching.  

      Last Saturday, after Jamaica's baptism was the ward Christmas Party.  That was fun. And all of our investigators were there as well as the returning members.  Almost everyone we were teaching was there, except for people we just barely started teaching and a few other exceptions.   They really know how to party in the Philippines and even our investigators participated.  Another cool thing that happened at the party was that a member told us that Jamaica's countenance seemed brighter.  He asked us when she would be baptized and we told him this morning.  He concluded that must be the reason.  

      We had one great lesson yesterday with an investigator.  We explained to them very clearly about the Holy Ghost and his mission.  After we talked about how the Holy Ghost feels and what it means when you feel the Holy Ghost the eleven year old told us that she was feeling the Holy Ghost so it means what we were teaching must be true.  Another thing that happened, that I've never had happen, was that while we were teaching one lesson I just opened my scriptures and there was a perfect scripture.  Of course I use scriptures, and I've often felt inspiration for what scriptures to use, but this time I opened up, saw a scripture on the page that I wasn't familiar with and then shared it.  While I would not recommend simply opening the scriptures and sharing the first one you see, I would say that on occasion God can guide you in that very way.  

    New Years here is insane.  They have a ton of fireworks already, and  it's not new years yet.  It is very loud.  They have one firework that I've only heard about because it has been banned.  It is called the 'Goodbye Philippines'.  They say it cracks the cement.  All in all New Years is pretty fun.  We have an early curfew of 6 pm .

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

December, 23rd 2012

I have a book that you might like to read.  I saw it at the house of a member and that was his assignment for his English class.  I read a few pages and thought it was great, then as Elder Sta.Ana was reading the Liahona conference addition he noticed the book was quoted by President Uchdorf.  'The Little Prince' by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.  

      We have had a pretty good week.  We have one great investigator right now named Eddie.  He heard the announcements in church and said he was going to attend all the activities they mentioned.  There was the Christmas party, a baptism and other activities.  One of them was a funeral, and he reaffirmed to us that he was definitely going to be there.  I didn't really know what to say to him.  He is going to the funeral and it will be a good experience I'm sure but I didn't think he'd attend that one.  The party yes, but the funeral I didn't expect.  I am by the way supposed to speak at that funeral. Anyway he is a good investigator.  It's interesting teaching because he is always busy.  What happens is we teach his wife at the place where she works sometime during the week and then they both come to church and then after church we teach them both together.  

       We had an experience this week in which we saw an investigators mind opened unto understanding.  We taught a very short lesson about the restoration to an investigator.  She understood very well and the Spirit was great.  When we showed her the picture of Heavenly Father and Jesus appearing to Joseph Smith she asked 'Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are 2 beings?'  We answered affirmatively and then she said 'I thought they were one' and then she just paused and thought for a while.  Then she said "you know that makes a lot more sense that they are 2'  And then she brought up bible scriptures that show they are two.  After using the bible scriptures she said she didn't know why she didn't realize that before.  It was interesting because as she was talking to us she was the one answering her own questions.  That lesson we also had her less active neighbor present, who answered most of her other questions.  Essentially all the questions were answered by the investigator or the less active in the lesson. 

     We taught another returning member family about Christmas this week.  We read them the Christmas story and talked about what Jesus wants from us.  Then we moved on and talked about what Mom would want from them for Christmas.  We eventually committed 2 little girls to give their mom a special gift this Christmas. We committed them to tell their mom 'I love you' every day.  Before we left too we made sure they told their mom 'I love you'. it was a pretty fun lesson. It felt good too.

    It is a little bit difficult right now because a lot of people are going out of town for Christmas.  Well not a lot, just a few but it includes some of our investigators which is hard.  We can't teach them and help them come to church when they aren't in town.  But overall it is great here in Lingayen. 

Keep your head up and smile,

Elder Nathaniel J. Merrill

This week was a good week.  I think our Sacrament meeting attendance hit the highest it has been this year.  I know it's the highest I've seen it since I arrived. 197 It almost seemed like a fluke because last week was the lowest I've seen since I got to LIngayen.  I think that last week was more of a fluke than this week.  

    We are doing our part, and it is so exciting to see people coming to church.  One of my first weeks I was here I remember having one person in our Gospel Principles class.  I can remember thinking 'What am I going to tell the Gospel Principles teacher if next week no one comes."  Well now we are having 15-20 people every Sunday in our Gospel Principles classes.  It is pretty exciting for us.  It's a pretty good mix between returning members and investigators.  

    Last week was the Primary Program here, except they don't understand what a program is... I asked the Primary President before church how her preparation for the program was and she told me they didn't make programs they were just going to sing.  Then she asked me about 5 times she needed to go make a program.  I didn't know how to explain that a program and presentation were the same thing.  It was good though.  They sang and did a great job.  What was funny to me was that we had a 9 and a 10 year old investigator in the presentation.  They quoted scriptures and participated.  It's fun when investigators just become part of the ward.  We have some other teenage investigators that have parts in the nativity that the ward will do for the Christmas Party.  

      We have a lot of great investigators right now.  To be honest it seems like when I get to areas they are not doing to well, but then when I am getting ready to leave they are prospering.  We have several families that are coming back to church.  We are doing well at getting Fathers to come to church as well.  Fathers and men tend to be the hardest to convert, but right now they are coming back.  God has really touched Lingayen.  The evidence is here.  We have so many people keeping commitments right now.  So many members coming back to church.  Yesterday we found a Returned missionary that had drifted less active.  We talked about their mission and helped them remember the Gospel.  This is really a great area

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