April 21st, 2014 - EASTER!!

Hey Everyone!!

Happy Belated Easter!!! I hope you all had a wonderful day yesterday, because we certainly did here. It was a great way to top off a pretty sweet week! There were quite a few highlights this week, so hopefully I have time to cover them all. First off, I hope you've all seen the new Mormon Message, "Because of Him". If not, do it! Just click on it. It's that simple. It's dang awesome, even if it's a day or two late.

Alright. Now that you've all watched that, we can move on to less cool stuff. Last Monday we had a follow up STM, which was pretty sweet. Quotes from this talk (https://www.lds.org/ensign/2001/03/missionary-work-and-the-atonement?lang=eng) by Elder Holland were shared, and it was just a good time. We talked about a whole ton of stuff that I don't have time to get into, but it was pretty sweet. Later this week, we got to visit with a fellow named James, who is just awesome. After we had finished talking about the restoration he decided he'd pray about it every night until our next appointment (this Wednesday), so if y'all could pray with him/for him that would just be fantastic. We also visited with an awesome lady named Laurel who's been studying everything we give her and loving it. She's gone through the restoration and plan of salvation pamphlets already, and we left her to study the gospel of Jesus Christ one this last time. If you've never checked out the missionary pamphlets before, you totally should! They're all available at:https://www.lds.org/manual/missionary?lang=eng So check it out! While you're on that page, you should also check out Chapter 4 of Preach my Gospel, as I particularly enjoyed going through that this week - the quotes from President Packer in there are just incredible, as well as the one from Elder Ballard so go read them! While I'm on the topic of things I enjoyed in my studies this week, I might as well throw some of the scriptures I liked down as well for you all to check out, and I really hope ya do, since they're some pretty neat ones.

In the Doctrine and Covenants this week I was reading sections 97-103, and then I was also reading from Mosiah 27- Alma 2, and I particularly wanted to share with you guys the following:

• D&C 97:8-9
• D&C 98:11-12, 20-22
• D&C 100:17
• D&C 101:2-5,16,78
• D&C 193:12
• Mosiah 27:25-26
• Mosiah 28:3
• Alma 1:29-31

Well, those are the major highlights that aren't related to Easter, so now I'll turn my focus to the best day of the week! Easter was just an awesome day, especially since we got to start off with some studies before heading to church. Church was a blast and tons of people made it out - lots of them probably just because it was Easter, but that's totally alright. The speakers were great, and the sacrament was just incredible, as it was a fantastic time to think about all that Easter signifies. After church we had 4 families that had asked us to come over and eat with them and visit for a while, which was just a blast. So, even though I was totally stuffed by the end of the day, it was great to be able to spend time with the Bakers, Mcgees, Spences, and Bighams, all throughout the day.

One last thing before I leave y'all. If you've got a couple hours today, and haven't seen it yet, y'all should check out the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's performance of Handel's Messiah! http://www.mormontabernaclechoir.org/messiah?lang=eng Through the rest of today they'll have it open for on demand viewing, so y'all should check it!

Love y'all! Have a Fantastic week!

'Til Next Time,

Elder Jordan Nielson