June 30th, 2014 - Food?!?

Hey Everyone!

This week was pretty intense, and as noted in my little note in the subject, most of my highlights involve food - go figure. But, this week was characterized by lots of random miracles with some cool studies and intense discussions. But, enough wasting time, and since nobody complained about it last week I'm going to start with some things I learned again this week!

This week I listened to a couple more lectures by Truman G. Madsen in his Jesus of Nazareth series, which were super intense. The 3 titles this week were: "Youth in Nazareth", "Baptism and Temptation", and "Cana, The Cleansing, Jacob's Well". Some of the stuff he talked about was pretty straightforward with quite a bit of it being read from the Bible, but there were a couple scriptures he brought up I particularly found interesting. While talking of Christ's youth in Nazareth, he quoted the JST Matthew 3:24-26, which was intriguing. It says:

 24 And it came to pass that Jesus grew up with his brethren, and waxed strong, and waited upon the Lord for the time of his ministry to come. 25 And he served under his father, and he spake not as other men, neither could he be taught; for he needed not that any man should teach him. 26 And after many years, the hour of his ministry drew nigh.

It's an interesting concept to consider how Christ learned most of the things that he knew - which were many as evidenced in Luke 2:46, 52. Anyway, I don't have time today to get into as much depth as I'd like, so y'all might just have to go find those lectures and listen to them yourself. If not, well you'll just have to ask specific questions you want me to find answers to so that you care more about what I study throughout the week ;) A couple other scriptures he read that I enjoyed were:

• Matthew 3:11
• JST Matthew 4:1-2
• Luke 4:23-24
• John 4:14,19,42

Aside from those lectures, which were pretty awesome, I did quite a bit of reading in the Book of Mormon this week and also read some sweet talks from the April 1971 General Conference (the earliest one online). So, I'll throw a few of those down and maybe y'all will check them out?

• "Out of the Darkness"
• "Choose you This day"
• "The Iron Rod"
• Luke 4:8
• 3 Nephi 22:10
• D&C 88:27-28
• Ether 12:27,37
• Moroni 6:4-6
• Joshua 24:15
• Ether 11:8

Well, I guess I should move on to the highlights of this week since I don't have much time left! First was on last Monday when we got to visit with Ricky and Jessica and talked about the 10 commandments with them. It was pretty spiritual, and it was super neat to see them as they recognized the spots that they could improve and also felt strengthened as they recognized the commandments that they were already keeping. It reminded me of that talk by Elder Oaks here: https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/10/no-other-gods?lang=eng

Another highlight this week was the chance we had to visit with Chris, since we got to talk about the story in Numbers 21 where the Children of Israel are plagued by poisonous serpents and Moses raises up the Bronze one for them to look at. Anyway, the cool thing was how excited he was to learn some of the lessons the Book of Mormon prophets teach from that experience that the Children of Israel had in the wilderness found in Alma 33, Helaman 8, and mentioned in Alma 37 and 2 Nephi 25.

The last couple highlights were related to food - since that's the title today - and the reason for that is this weekend - Friday, Saturday, and Sunday we had two dinners each day... which was a lot of food that was super tasty. On Friday we had a good dinner with our ward mission leader, and then that night Linda and Lonnie took us out to a super tasty barbeque place and we got to talk to them for a good little while on the drive there and back which was awesome. Then on Saturday we got two dinners since one family happened to be getting ready to eat when we got there to visit with them, and we got to have some super tasty Corned beef. Sunday was just awesome since there were like 3 families in the ward having dinner together that we were invited to, and another member also invited us to have dinner at her house, so we were pretty stuffed by the end of the night.

Before I get going today (since I still have other emails to respond to) there was a cool statement made by the First Presidency a couple days ago that y'all should check out:

https://www.lds.org/prophets-and-apostles/june-first-presidency-statement?lang=eng

Thanks! Have a fantastic week! Love y'all!

'Til Next Time,

Elder Jordan Nielson

June 23rd, 2014 - Members rock!?!?

Hey Everyone!

This week has been pretty intense, with some sweet miracles, a good zone conference, and a couple interesting experiences! But... I'm going to start with some cool scriptures that I've come across/heard this week since that's of course the most interesting part (nobody's told me otherwise as of yet!), and clearly what you all except when you read this letter each week.

Anyway, this week I've listened to a couple lectures by Truman G. Madsen from his series Jesus of Nazareth, that were pretty interesting. The lectures I got to listen to this week were "Ascent and Transfiguration" and "The Passover and the Sacrament", which were both super cool to learn about since he talked a ton about the background that went into both of those significant events. After talking about the transfiguration of Christ, he connected it with another story in Matthew 17/Mark 9 where Christ heals the boy "which hath a dumb spirit", and pointed out that Christ must have been fasting on the Mount of Transfiguration since that's where he had just come from when he stated "This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting." It was something that never really had occurred to me before, but really emphasized the point that fasting is truly powerful and by it we can become closer to God and more receptive to his will for us. Something cool I learned about the Sacrament from his lecture was related to the JST for Matthew 26:26 which says: "Jesus took bread, and brake it, and blessed it, and gave to his disciples, and said Take, eat; this is in remembrance of my body which I give a ransom for you." It reminded me of a scripture in Alma 34:11-15 which talks about how Christ was able to even be a ransom for us since the law of Justice typically requires the consequence fall upon the doer.  

Aside from those super cool lectures, I've been reading in the Book of Mormon and found some cool scriptures as I've read:

• 4 Nephi 1:15-16
• Mormon 2:13-14
• Mormon 3:12
• Mormon 6: 17-22
• Mormon 7:1-10
• Mormon 9... All of it is awesome, but if you don't have time, make sure to check out verses 11-17 and 27
• Ether 2:14,23

This week, as I mentioned previously we had a good zone conference on Wednesday where we pretty much focused the entire time on working with members and developing relationships with people. It was pretty intense at times, and President Walkenhorst gave us a paper that basically has a checklist of things we should constantly make sure we're doing to continually have a strong relationship with the ward in which was have been assigned to live in and serve for a time. He pretty much took Preach my Gospel chapter 13 and broke it down into specific things to make sure we're doing, so go check out Preach my Gospel chapter 13 for basically what our zone conference was about. At one point he also spent a bit of time talking about the Doctrine of Christ, specifically focused on Faith which was pretty cool. He pointed out how most people focus on the Faith talked about in Mormon 7:5-7, namely that Christ is the Son of God, he lives, etc. But sometimes we don't recognize or understand fully the type of faith talked about in our purpose which is to "Invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through Faith in Jesus Christ and His atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end." He told us that in order to have "Faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement" we have to believe and hope that he can truly change us first, and also that with his help the people we are striving to invite and help come unto him can also be changed.

So... I hope that y'all enjoyed that "discourse", so now I'll move on to the less cool things and talk about the "lame" experiences I've been having lately since nothing can really compare to the feelings that come as we're spiritually fed. Anyway, an interesting thing happened last Monday sometime between 5 and 8pm... So last Monday after P-day ended we put our bikes on the car's bike rack, but since we didn't have much time before we would be heading out to dinner the other Elders (Crosby and Hoopes) dropped us off at a less active's house who we got to visit and they headed off to see Sister Harper (who is getting baptized on the 12th of July). After we finished visiting with them we drove out to dinner - which was out in Dickson and then drove back into town and they dropped us off where we were going to see people next and when Elder Lyman pulled his bike off the bike rack and put it on the ground it just kept going down... and he realized his back tire was gone?!? So... we spent the rest of the night retracing our steps to try and find it with no luck. So, that was a pretty interesting night... not really a good thing, but an interesting one nonetheless! 

Well... I don't have as much time I'd like so y'all don't get to hear about the other interesting experience this week - clearing out some overgrowth with a few members on Saturday morning since I want to spend a couple minutes mentioning some miracles that we got to experience this week! One cool miracle was on Saturday night we got to go out with Oscar and were able to visit with a less active and one of his friends was there and we were able to have a sweet discussion answering some of her questions. Another cool miracle for this week was on Tuesday when we got to briefly visit with Ricky and Jessica. He had just started a new job the day before and was able to quit the two jobs he had previously been working that had kept him working Sundays (and most other times), so that was awesome to find out! We were able to visit with them for a little bit before Jessica went to work, so that was pretty sweet.

Anyway, I best be off! Love y'all! Have a fantastic week!

'Til Next Time,

Elder Jordan Nielson

June 16th, 2014 - Another Transfer, Come and Gone

Hey Everyone!

Transfers happened again this week, but I didn't have to go since I'm still with Elder Lyman here in Ardmore! It's been a pretty sweet week, with a couple awesome miracles scattered throughout that I wanted to share with y'all. 

The first cool thing that happened this week was the chance that we had to visit with a guy named Chris, and we got to talk about the restoration of the gospel with him after he shared some things he's noticed as he's been reading through the Old Testament. It was interesting particularly because he noticed some cool things about the priesthood as he'd been reading. The "miracle" part of it was how interested he was in where the Book of Mormon fit in as we were able to testify that both are testaments of Jesus Christ and we ended up having a pretty lengthy discussion about all that, so it was neat. 

The next miracle I wanted to share with you guys was that we were finally able to meet Brother Williams! He's a pretty awesome guy, with a solid testimony and we ended up having a cool discussion about the Bible and the Book of Mormon with him, since we asked him if he had had any concerns when joining the church and he told us no and then started talking about concerns other people seem to have, which was pretty neat. He ended up sharing his conversion story with us, so hopefully we'll be able to start visiting him more regularly and figure out what he needs to come back to church. 

The last experience I wanted to share with y'all this week was when we visited with Linda and Lonnie, since recently they've been super busy we were able to catch them and visit with them for a little bit yesterday and we talked about our relationship with God before this life. It was interesting to see how Lonnie recognized that he didn't have any idea what it was, and at some point he ended up "testifying" of how he feels as he meets with us and does the simple things like reading scriptures and praying compared to the times that he doesn't. So, we left him to read Jeremiah 1:5 and Hebrews 12:9 (a couple verses that talk about our relationship with God), and he committed to have an answer for us next time we see him. While I'm on the note of mentioning scriptures from this week, here are a few more:

• 3 Nephi 12:14
• 3 Nephi 15:9
• 3 Nephi 19:24-28
• 3 Nephi 27:27
• Matthew 22:36-39
• John 10:16

That's all I got this week! I hope y'all have a fantastic week! Love y'all!

'Til Next Time,

Elder Jordan L. Nielson

June 9th, 2014

Hey Everyone!

My email this week might end up being pretty short, not because there wasn't stuff that happened this week, but because we don't have much time today since we're going to be going fishing pretty soon here ;) 

Anyway, this weekend was Stake Conference and it was pretty awesome! There were quite a few awesome talks, with some good counsel, things to work on, funny stories, and sweet quotes shared. A couple of my favorite quotes were: "Your Faith will never be greater than the lesser of your knowledge or your obedience." and "You can't get out of Straits, you must go through them by either going forward or backward."

Aside from the awesome Stake Conference, there were a couple other cool miracles that happened, like getting to play tennis early (at like 6:30am) one morning with a member here, and having some sweet visits with people throughout the week. One sweet visit we had was with Sister Harper, who is planning on getting baptized on July 12th, and we talked about Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy and the spirit was just super strong. She already knew the principle of it, but it was awesome to be able to talk about it with her and have the spirit there promising some incredible blessings. She ended up coming out to stake conference yesterday, which was awesome! 

We also had a pretty cool lesson with Taylor this last week with Oscar there, when we talked about the second half of the plan of salvation - what happens when we die. Before we got into the second half, we reviewed the first half of it with her and she was pretty much teaching it to us, which was a neat experience. It's interesting to see the points that they retain a couple weeks after being taught something, especially with how they explain it back to us. I don't know how many of you have ever considered how to explain the questions of "Where did we come from?" or "Where are we going?" to someone who doesn't know much of anything about God, but it's a neat experience to be able to help them see that this life has more purpose than just the day to day grind of living. 

On a totally random note, some scriptures that were shared at stake conference or that I found throughout the week that were pretty cool were:

• 2 Nephi 31
• Mark 10:17-21
• John 6:66-69
• D&C 18:10,15-16
• Alma 36:3
• Helaman 6:3
• Alma 5:26
• Helaman 13:38
• Helaman 15:7-9
• 3 Nephi 4:8-10
• 3 Nephi 5:13
• 3 Nephi 7:18-20
• 3 Nephi 7:21-26
• 3 Nephi 9:20
• Plus, a cool talk I found in my old notes: https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2005/10/jesus-christ-the-master-healer

That's all for this week! I hope y'all have a fantastic week! Love y'all!

'Til Next Time,

Elder Jordan Nielson

June 2nd, 2014

Hey Everyone!

How are things going this week? I can't believe it's already June! This transfer has just flown by - there's only a week or so left before we find out what's happening, and before Elder Pugmire goes home :( I hope you all had an excellent week, because our week here has been pretty sweet.

We've had a couple cool experiences that I wanted to talk to y'all about today, so hopefully I can type fast enough to get them all down. First on my list happened last Tuesday when we were able to have a recent convert go with us to see Connie. It was super spiritual, as we talked about tithing and fasting with them and it was especially cool since the recent convert had been struggling up until very recently. He was able to bear some awesome, heartfelt testimony about the importance of keeping the commandments, and committed himself to start paying tithing again. It was sweet! Connie already wanted to pay tithing, as it's a principle that she believes firmly in, so it was awesome to be able to have them both strengthen each other's testimonies of the truthfulness of the principle. 

Another cool experience we had was on Thursday when we got to visit with Joshua for over an hour for the first time since I got here. It was super intense, as we talked a ton about the restoration and Joseph Smith - including having him briefly teach us about the Great Apostasy (he's one of those awesome people who loves to study and learn things on his own, and he enjoyed teaching us) and we got to help clarify his understanding of some points. Then he asked us if he'd be able to go out teaching with us... so that was just super awesome. 

The last highlight I wanted to mention today was on Friday when I got to go to Sulphur on exchanges - it was awesome! We got to visit with a lady who is one hundred and three years old - yes. 103. It was intense, especially because of how healthy she is taking no medicines and still able to get around with just a walker. It was awesome! She has a pretty powerful testimony and we were able to give her a blessing which was super powerful. We also got to visit with a couple other cool people, and with one of them we watched a sweet mormon message - check it out!: http://www.mormonchannel.org/youth-videos?v=2886657808001

On a more spiritual note, church yesterday was awesome! We had a good fast and testimony meeting, and then a sweet discussion in Elder's quorum about Matthew 16:23-27. It was pretty intense, and since it's not a very long scripture I'll just go ahead and throw it in here:

"23 But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan:thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.
24 ¶Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
25 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.
26 For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
27 For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works."

A few other scriptures I enjoyed this week were:

• Mosiah 18:7-17
• Alma 53:18-21
• Helaman 3:24-31
• Helaman 5:8-12
• Helaman 5:17-19
• Helaman 6:3
• Helaman 6:34-36

Plus a couple cool talks that were in the Ensign for this month:

https://www.lds.org/ensign/2014/06/young-adults/follow-the-path-of-happiness?lang=eng

https://www.lds.org/broadcasts/article/ces-devotionals/2012/01/israel-israel-god-is-calling?lang=eng

That's all I got this week! Love y'all! Have a fantastic week!

'Til Next Time,

Elder Jordan Nielson