July 29th, 2013 - The Chronicles of Elder Nielson Continue!

Hey all, 

Spencer here, and here is another fantastic blog by my brother. He kinda talks about food more than usual in this one.... Enjoy reading

Hey Everyone!

This week has been pretty great! We had an awesome meeting last Monday, some awesome visits throughout the week, an impressive amount of food fed to us, tons of reading from the Book of Mormon, and some great chances to serve! 

On Monday we had a Specialized Training Meeting, and we discussed the first great commandment - to "love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." We discussed ways that we show God our love for him - such as keeping his commandments and "feeding his sheep" (aka helping his children). It was awesome to hear the insights of the other missionaries on such an important commandment.

Then on Tuesday we had some pretty sweet visits with people and one in particular stood out to me. We visited with a couple and read 1 Nephi 8 with them - the Tree of Life vision - and it was cool to recognize how important it is for us to expound scriptures to people when they don't understand them or have the Holy Ghost themselves. It was neat to have the Holy Ghost there to explain to them how that vision applied to their life and how they can better feast upon the fruit of the tree. Since then, they've actually been reading from the Book of Mormon most days, which is a huge improvement! 

On Wednesday we got to meet a lot of less actives that we had never even seen before - a couple of which we had tried but had never before gotten to talk to. It was neat to see how people still know that the Book of Mormon is true even after years of not coming to church for one reason or another.

On Thursday we had a sweet miracle in that on our dinner calendar nobody was signed up, but we ended up being fed lunch as well as dinner by members! It was awesome, because one of the less active members came out teaching with us and then afterward for lunch his wife  fed us spaghetti (she isn't a member)! Then before dinner we were helping a member's sister move, and then afterward they bought us dinner, and it was pretty awesome!

On Saturday got to visit with a single sister, and she was mowing her lawn when we got there. We asked if we could mow for her, and she actually let us! She was the first person to say yes to that, and I was super glad because otherwise we wouldn't have been able to talk to her - and we'd been trying to catch her for over 2 weeks at that point. I got to mow while my companion talked with her. She told him that she appreciated the little bit of help we gave her (we only had about 15 or 20 minutes), and I was glad that I got to finally mow someone's lawn (or part of it)! Also on Saturday, we ended up being fed dinner twice... as one of our appointments in the later end of the evening also fed us (as they had just finished cooking for their family and knew we were coming so they made a little extra). It was awesome! I love food... kind of a lot. 

Anyway, that's about our week! Some cool things I've noticed while reading through the Book of Mormon (I still have about 80 pages or so to read before Wednesday night), are listed below :)

• Alma 5:15 -> You need to look forward with an "eye of Faith" towards better things to come
• Alma 7:17,24
• Alma 9:20 -> Desires + Faith + Prayer  => Knowledge
• Alma 15:18
• Alma 20:26
• Alma 27:27 -> They were distinguished for their zeal towards God
• Alma 30:34 -> No paid clergy in Christ's church
• Alma 33:22-23
• Alma 34:8 -> Testify of myself that these things are true
• Alma 37:33-34
• Alma 41:12 -> What it means to restore something (referring to the Atonement)
• Alma 45:17
• Alma 46:15 -> Faithful disciples willingly called "Christians" :)
• Alma 48:9
• Alma 57:26-27
• Helaman 1:26 -> You can't afford to assume the adversary won't strike the center. Someone once asked me what I would do if one of the Apostles fell away from the church, so what would you do?
• Helaman 5:30
• Helaman 8:15
• 3 Nephi 4:31 -> Importance of Hymns, even back then!
• 3 Nephi 6:20

Alright, so that's the word for the week! Thanks for reading it!

With Love,

Elder Jordan Nielson

July 22nd, 2013 - Short and Sweet?

Hey Everyone,
Spencer here and even though I am sometimes lazy with this blog here is the newest post from Elder Nielson! Honestly I kinda like to call him that even if he is my brother... :P It is what it is. Anyway enjoy reading!(It is quite short compared to the others)

Hey Everyone!

This week... like all the others... has flown by! I can't believe it's already monday again! It's been a super crazy week here, with exchanges, interviews, finding out about upcoming events, and visiting tons of people!

First on my list of things to talk about is that I finally got to meet an investigator! He's been someone that they met before I got here, and we'd try him on occasion whenever we were up that way - which seemed like 5/7 days we were - and we could never catch him. He works on installing sprinkler systems, and so he works pretty long hours. But, we were able to catch him on Monday and I finally met him after not getting to for an entire transfer! It showed me that persistence really does make a huge difference as we were able to have a really awesome visit with him. 

The next cool thing on my list is the generosity of people here. On Friday I forgot to put my camelbak - I had already filled it - in my backpack. So, when we went on exchanges I didn't have it with me! It was pretty terrible to not have any water, but the people were so nice! We ended up getting water from like 4 different people, so I never ended up getting dehydrated! It was awesome :)

The next thing on my list... it's another persistence example. Go figure. We went to visit a less active sister for an appointment, but she wasn't home. I was on an exchange, so I didn't know much about the area and what had been worked, so when we realized she wasn't home I asked if we had ever knocked her neighbor. It turned out that they hadn't, and when we did she told us she was super interested in learning more about our message! They were supposed to see her a couple nights later, so we'll findout how that went. But, it was an example of persistence as well, because later that night we were passing by on our way home and we noticed that the less active's truck was there. We stopped by to see if she was home, and we were able to share our message with her that we had planned to earlier in the day. It was awesome! Even if it's a bit stalker ish... but that's what happens when we bike the same routes each day as they're the fastest ones to where we need to go.

Then yesterday, the elders in Ponca City were given the opportunity to speak in sacrament! We were asked to talk about our conversion stories, but I also used some quotes from Elder Holland's talk "Lord, I believe" and Elder Robbins' talk "What manner of men and women ought ye to be". They're both pretty awesome, and the ward said our talks were great :) You should all go check out those two talks though... they're really quite good. 

Alrighty, that's about the highlights of the week, so here's a quick list of scriptures for your studying pleasure.

• 1 Nephi 10:17
• 1 Nephi 13:24
• 2 Nephi 11:8
• 2 Nephi 24:23-24
• 2 Nephi 26:33
• 2 Nephi 27:23
• 2 Nephi 33:14
• Jacob 5:70
• Enos 1:6-8
• Omni 1:1 -> Importance of Genealogy ;)
• Omni 1:26
• Mosiah 4:11
• Mosiah 16:8
• Mosiah 21:15
• Mosiah 23:8

Alright, so I would put some thoughts with those... but I don't have time this week, so you're just going to have to look them up and figure out why I sent them ;)

This week I'm starting to add some New Testament time into my studies, so for those who aren't too keen on the Book of Mormon - which you all should be ;) - will get those next week.

I think that's all for this week, sorry it's short, but I don't have as much time as I would like here :P

Love,

Elder Jordan Nielson

July 15th, 2013 - ... Wait a second! That's 2 months!

Hey Everyone!

So, I realized this morning that it's been 2 months since I entered the MTC, and it has flown by... Looking back I'm not entirely sure where the 2 months went... or what even happened. But anyway, this week has been a blur to say the least. It seems like all I can remember doing is walking inside, planning, going to sleep, waking up and planning again?

So, like I said, this week has been a blur. I don't have the planner from this week - as it's a new transfer and therefore a new planner - so we're going off my memory, which is a bit sketchy. 

The first cool thing that happened this week was that we started teaching this awesome part-member family. Ace and Sherry are quite awesome, and Sherry hasn't really been to church since she was baptized at 8 and Ace has never been. It's been super awesome to be able to see the impact that learning the gospel has on them. It was awesome for him to hear the plan of happiness, and he said that it had never been presented so simply or directly before on what his purpose in life his, where he came from, or where we go after this life. It was awesome to help him recognize how important that plan is and the impact it can have on his family! 

Another cool miracle happened last night, when we had run out of people planned to visit. They were all not there or unable to talk with us at that time, so at about 8:15 our list of people to try had run out. So, we said a prayer and the first name that came to our mind was a potential that we had tracted into a couple weeks ago, and hadn't been able to contact since. So, we went and knocked at the house he was living at when we found him, and it turned out that he doesn't live there anymore. The lady who lives there told us that he had a fit and left, so she's back to living there with her 3 kids. The coolest part was that the lady had moved down from Wichita a couple months ago, and up there had been visiting with the elders. It was super awesome, because she had googled where the church was at and even told us that they came up for the 3rd hour! We didn't actually see them, but she said her kids and her went to the last hour of primary and they were learning the song "Follow the Prophet". It was super cool as they had been reviewing that song and singing it just 10 minutes before we got there, and from what she said it sounded like we were an answer to her prayers as she was looking to get back into contact with the missionaries!

Another interesting thing this week was helping an older member of the ward move. I don't think I had ever seen her at church, but the 4 elders of the ward and 4 other members were there helping her. It was one of the most interesting moves I've ever helped with, as she had so much random stuff that she wanted to keep as she's an artist and a writer. So, most of the stuff she had to sort through while we were there and it didn't feel like we got as much done as we could have in the 2.5 hours of helping her. But, such is life when people aren't prepared or packed to move and they need to see everything before packing it away ;) My companion's take on it was a lot different than mine, as he was helping her sort through the stuff a lot more than as I was - I was basically just carrying stuff to the truck and walking back. 

 So I think that's the cool experiences of the week... so that means I get to talk about scriptures right? Sweet! I actually remembered my study journal, so this is going to be a little more organized. I picked out a list of scriptures this week, and I've been reading a lot so it's fairly long. 

So this list is basically just going to be the scripture, and if I feel like my thought was exceedingly profound I'll share that. Otherwise it's scriptures that I think might be good for y'all to look up/think about!

• 3 Nephi 14:20
• 3 Nephi 18:19,21 - We are commanded to pray alone and as families, so do it, please?
• 3 Nephi 20:40
• 3 Nephi 27:8 - If it be Christ's church it will be called in his name, so why are churches called by anything else if they are Christ's?
• Mormon 7:8-9
• Mormon 8:34-35
• Ether 2:14 - As you call upon the Lord in times of peace, as well as in times of need, he blesses and prospers you
• Ether 4:12
• Ether 6:9
• Ether 8:26
• Ether 12:4
• Moroni 1:2-3 - What would you think if we lived in a world where those around you would kill you if you wouldn't deny Christ? 
• Moroni 8:10-12
• 1 Nephi 4:13
• 1 Nephi 6:5 - The things Nephi writes will be pleasing to those who are not of the world, and it applies to the entire Book of Mormon

So that's the list for this week, if you have questions about any of those scriptures, send me an email and I'll let ya know what it was on the list or try to answer your question!

I think that's it for this week, so I hope you all are doing well!

Love,

Elder Nielson

July 8th, 2013 - First transfer complete. Ponca city now on overdrive

Hey everyone it's spencer here(as always now) and here is Jordan's latest blog post so enjoy!

Hey Everyone!

This week has absolutely flown by... I can't believe July 4th has already passed! But, this first transfer is just about over - but I get to stay here in Ponca City with Elder Rasmuson! So, we're going to kick Ponca City into overdrive this transfer, and our goal is to work as well with the Bishop and Ward Mission Leader as possible. 

Anyway, this awesome week has flown by with some great lessons, incredible miracles, sweet studies, awesome meetings, and fantastic people! 

So we'll start with the great lessons... We've taught a couple people the Plan of Salvation this week, and it's been super awesome to hear some of the questions people have and the hope that they receive as they recognize how many questions that awesome Plan answers. We taught this awesome younger couple on Monday about the plan, and it was super cool with them to see how they recognized the changes it could bring to their family. Then on Friday we taught the Plan of Salvation to a minister for another church and it was interesting to see the differences on our perspectives on that awesome plan. When we were teaching that lesson we were on exchanges though, so I got to lead out that one and help focus it on his needs. It was pretty sweet to be able to do that for the first time! Also on Friday we got to teach the Word of Wisdom - still on exchanges - and the Elder I was on exchanges with hadn't really taught it before either. It was still a great lesson as it was pretty much just us testifying of the benefits it has brought to us and the member that was with us (who was Baptized in January and had been chewing until about then) helped a ton. 

Then there's the incredible miracles that we've seen this week! One of my favorites from this week was with our Bishop. So, a family we have been teaching for a little while now that's been to church the last few sundays has been having car troubles for the last week or so. They found out Saturday that the car battery was the issue and we visited them Saturday night with the Bishop. In a sweet act of charity - nobody asked him to, and the idea hadn't even occurred to anyone else - he volunteered to go up to Auto zone for them and exchange the part that they had thought was the issue and figure out if the battery really was the issue. He came back instead with a new battery, and wouldn't let them pay him back. It really showed me a good example of how kind people here are to their neighbors, and it helped us recognize how awesome our bishop is (not like we didn't already know it... but it was increased quite a bit). We had a super cool experience yesterday - a miracle even - when we visited a fellow named Clarence. We taught him the restoration, and he received it incredibly well. He brought up the point where if he wasn't interested in our message, or if he didn't trust that we would tell him the truth he wouldn't have even let us in, so it was cool to see how willing he was to believe in our testimonies. Something I've been working on myself is recognizing spiritual gifts - in myself and others - and he really does have that gift of believing the testimony of others, it was neat to see how quickly he was willing to read from the Book of Mormon and find out from himself, but he also stated multiple times that he already believed it was true based on our testimonies and that fact that it talks of Christ.

In addition to those sweet lessons and miracles, I've been learning a ton in my studies! Since my last email to you guys, I've read through Alma 36 - 3 Nephi 10, and picked I think a scripture from each of those chapters that has stuck out to me. A couple of my favorites - and the insight I had with them - are following:

• Alma 37:35-37 -> These verses have been a great help to me as I've grown up in the church and the counsel from Alma is priceless to counsel with the Lord in all they doings and to learn the commandments in thy youth so that you can align your will with his.
• Alma 40:11-13 -> These verses discuss the state of a soul between death and the resurrection, and it's pretty cool to have a clear and simple knowledge about that when so many people don't
• 46:12,16 -> These verses involve two different titles - the Title of Liberty and the title, or name, of Christian given to those who believe in Christ. Something that stuck out to me was that both titles still apply today, and are something to rejoice in and strive to be worthy of.
• Alma 48:17 -> This scripture has always hit me pretty hard, as it reinforces the concept that Satan only has control of us so far as we let him, and if nobody were to let him control them then the very powers of Hell would be shaken. It's pretty cool to think about ;)
• Alma 56:46 -> From this verse I recognized that the reason why you do something is almost as important as actually doing it. It reminded me of the principle Christ taught about being someone who does something for the praise of men or to draw nearer to God.
• Helaman 5:9-12 -> This was our scripture of the week last week, and something I really love about it is how this counsel from a parent to a child influenced them many years after Helaman's death, and how that eventually impacted thousands of Lamanites.
• Helaman 14:11-13 -> These verses showed me the purpose of prophets in a pretty simple and distinct way.
• 3 Nephi 1:20 -> This verse shows that the words of the Prophets will always be fulfilled... so listen to them
• 3 Nephi 3:7 -> I've heard of some missionaries who mistake and use this scripture instead of 1 Nephi 3:7... so consider the impact that might have on an investigator ;)
• 3 Nephi 7:15-26 -> It stuck out to me how it took more than a year of miraculous things happening through Nephi for people to recognize that he was a man of God, but it eventually lead to many people being baptized

So that pretty much sums up some of the awesome studies I've had this last week - it's pretty sweet... I'm trying to finish reading the Book of Mormon before the end of this week (this transfer basically), so I think I can do it if I keep this pace up. But, we have definitely had some awesome meetings in addition to all that other stuff going on. For one, our new mission President - President Walkenhorst - did a mission tour and stopped by our zoneon Thursday morning. He is a pretty awesome guy - and just about 7 feet tall... like literally. It's kind of crazy how tall he is. But aside from that he is incredibly spiritual. Something he really focused on while he was here was that we are his "Fellow servants in Christ" and because of that we all have the same purpose - to Invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel. He really emphasized that our God is still a God of Miracles, as stated in Mormon9:15 (and quite a few other scriptures). He gave us a pretty good chain to use in relation to that: 

1 Nephi 17:50,51 -> 2 Nephi 26:12,13 -> 2 Nephi 27:23 -> Alma 23:6 -> Mormon 9:11 -> 3 Nephi 8:1 -> Mormon 9:15 -> Ether 12:9-24 -> Moroni 7:27-40

He also talked about the importance of having Virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly (D&C 121:44,45) and how that will give you the confidence to call upon God for miracles. The cool thing is that it can also apply in life in general - not just missionary work. As long as you stay obedient to the commandments of God and work hard, he will bless you with the miracles that are according to his will.

Anyway, that's about it for this week! I hope you are all doing fabulous, and I  really do hope you enjoyed reading through this and that it uplifted you in some way...

Love,

Elder Jordan Nielson

July 1st, 2013... ALREADY?!??

hey everyone it is spencer and i hope you all are enjoying your summers. here is jordan's new blog post so enjoy.
-spencer a. nielson

Hey Everyone, 

I looked at my watch this morning and saw that it was the first of the month... and I got thrown off a bit by the fact that June is already over! Who knew?! I'm super excited for this month, as this week should start it off fabulously!

We heard today that our new mission president - who I haven't actually met yet - is letting us stay out until 10pm on the 4th in order to watch some fireworks, so that should be super exciting! I'm probably going to be super tired the next day, but such is the way things go.

Anyway, so this week absolutely flew by. It seems like just yesterday I was emailing y'all, so we're going to treat it like that and touch on the highlights. For one, one of our super solid investigators came to church yesterday. He said that he enjoyed Sacrament meeting, and he is developing a friendship with a super awesome member in our ward. It's great to see his willingness to change, and hopefully he'll stay interested. 

Another cool thing that happened this week was that I got to have two exchanges! The first one was from Thursday to Friday, and it was with an elder serving on the other side of Ponca city. It was pretty interesting to have two missionaries working together when both have been out for about a month... but that's how it played out. We had quite a few miracles on that day, not the least of which was the multitude of times people gave us water. It was super impressive how nice the people are to us, and I was incredibly grateful for the water as the temperature got over 110 degrees at one point in the day. 

On the next exchange, from Friday to Saturday, one of the zone leaders came out with my companion and I and he taught us so much! One of the key things I gained experience and confidence in was the power of the Book of Mormon! It was incredible to see the differences that carrying it in your hands makes, as people are then able to ask you about it and it makes it so much less awkward to talk about it. Also, we met quite a few solid potential families that day and I was able to go on splits! So the difference between splits and exchanges real fast - splits are when there's 4 missionaries/members working in an area and they split up, while exchanges are where you switch companions for about 24 hours. Anyway, during the exchange - as we had an extra missionary - we also had a 17 year old member of about 3 months come out teaching with us. So, we decided for most of the evening to go on splits. I went with the 17 year old, and my companion and the zone leader went off teaching. It was definitely a cool experience - and one that built our faith a ton - to have a missionary of about a month and a member of about 3 go out talking to people about the gospel. Anyway, that day we ended up placing around 20 copies of the Book of Mormon, which was a ton! 

But, one of the coolest experiences that day was when a couple that we're teaching committed to a baptismal date of August 10th! It was super cool to be able to see the excitement in their faces as they decided together to work towards that day as when they would be baptized. They've come to church the last 4 weeks, and they have been learning a ton from that and meeting the members of the ward. It's been super cool to see how they've changed from when we started teaching them to now, as they have started reading from the Book of Mormon and also as they've attended church as a family. It's been neat to see their faith grow and how inviting and friendly the members have been to them. 

Anyway, that's about all the cool experiences from this week, so now I get to talk about what I've been learning during the awesome time that we have to study! 

This week I've really been emphasizing the teachings of Alma, as I've read about 30 chapters of Alma - from chapter 7 to chapter 35. There's so much great material in those chapters, that I'm not quite sure what to pick out. I'm not sure if anyone used the links I included in the last email, so I'm gonna leave those out this time to save a bit of my time while here. So, the following is a list of scriptures that really stuck out to me this week and the thoughts I have related to them.

• Alma 7:11-16 -> This is a super cool scripture that talks about Christ and how he really can help us in everything we do and we use it a ton with pretty much everyone we meet.
• Alma 10:23 -> This is an interesting scripture, as it points out that a few righteous are able to make a huge difference among the people
• Alma 17:11 -> This has been a super good motivational scripture for me, as I've been able to recognize that their afflictions they faced were a lot worse than anything I have to deal with while trying to spread the gospel to my brothers and sisters here
• Alma 19:31-32 -> People have their agency to listen to Christ's gospel, but those who do become converted unto the Lord and are blessed
• Alma 20:4 -> This scripture has motivated me and helped teach me that of myself I really can't do or teach much of anything, but in the strength of the Lord I can do all things
• Alma 21:10 -> People have one of two reactions to the word of God - anger or a recognition that it is true
• Alma 23:7 -> a Question I asked myself in relation to this is: "What weapons do you still use to fight against God?"
• Alma 25:9 -> The scriptures show the fulfilling of the prophecies contained therein
• Alma 27:25-26 -> Stories of conversion bring much joy to those that hear and listen to them, and that's the reason for testimony meetings 
• Alma 30:44 -> One of my favorite scriptures about how there truly is a God
• Alma 31:32-36 -> The prayer of faith will lead to an abundance of the spirit
• Alma 32:40-43 -> This is an attitude that I've been working to develop as a missionary, to see people how they can become

Alright, so that's about the extent of my thoughts for this week, and I hope you all enjoy them!

Love,

Elder Nielson