Well. Here it is. Already. My last time sending a giant email like this for a little while. I'll hopefully keep up with my blog when I get home, so I'll likely send out a link to y'all at some point, but this will be my last giant email as a full (part)-time missionary - at least for now. It's been a fantastic week! The ward here is absolutely fantastic, and I'm very sad to be leaving, but like it says in Ecclesiastes, "1 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
2 A time to be born, and a time to die;"
2 A time to be born, and a time to die;"
So, anyway, this week was pretty sweet! It started off great with a fantastic evening for Cinco de Mayo - the member that took us to dinner took us to a mexican place that was pretty tasty! Then on Wednesday we got to have more Mexican food for dinner and I ordered something different and it was quite delicious! We also had a good deal of thunderstorms and severe weather this week, starting on Wednesday so that was pretty exciting. They're mostly abated now, but it's been fun to deal with! Luckily, we didn't get hit with any of the tornadoes or really affected by the flooding that lots of other areas had to deal with, so that was nice. But, we've been focusing on serving the members and helping them branch out and get the things that they feel are keeping them from sharing the gospel out of the way - and for most of them they feel it's time. So, we've been striving to serve them and while we do so we've tried to talk with them about ways they can share the gospel in what they already do each day instead of trying to go out of their way to do it. Hopefully it catches on, but the real core of it is to be a good example, and answer questions as they come and invite people to act as often as possible. We've had a ton of meals this week, and those have definitely been the highlight - as that's also when we've gotten to visit with a bunch of awesome people! We've only eaten at our apartment for like 7 meals in the last 7 days, so that's not too bad.
Another cool thing about this week, was that I got to listen to the Devotional from last sunday again - and it was even better the second time! Here's a link to it, since it's super awesome: #LDSDEVO! It goes along perfectly with the theme I've seen for this week - faith - since it seems like a lot of people have a difficult time determining if they lack faith or not, and tend to lean towards the end of lacking faith. I'm not sure why, but it seems like so many people want to just start off with a perfect knowledge, but like Elder Robbins says, it's important to take the small steps and continually enduring and act according to the knowledge that you do have.
But alas, one of the reasons that I still wanted to email today, was to go through a lesson or two that I've learned on my mission, so I'm going to get on my soapbox now and I hope you endure to the end of my last email to the group!
So, lesson one: The Atonement is the Most Important Thing! The Mission tour we had last week focused on this principle for a solid hour or two, and it was fantastic. I've seen the atonement work so many times on my mission in myself and in others that it's been one of my favorite parts of the experience. One time in particular sticks out to me - when Connie was baptized almost a year ago, and she was strengthened so that she could endure that event. It was fantastic to see her health improve to the point where she could be baptized, and it was obviously not because the problems were going away, but because she knew how important that event was and the Lord helped her to do it. But, for the sake of time I'm not going to go into any of the countless other experiences, I'll leave this one with a scripture though: Alma 7:7 "For behold, I say unto you there be many things toc ome; and behold, there is one thing which is of more importance than they all—for behold, the time is not far distant that the Redeemer liveth and cometh among his people."
The other major lesson I've learned focuses on attitude and happiness - "Attitude is everything and happiness is the best attitude to choose!" Is a quote that I can't recall the source of but has been something that has proven so true throughout my mission. The times that I've chosen to be happy have been the greatest times - and they've also been totally irrelevant of the things that have been happening around me. Happiness is definitely a choice, and it's been interesting to see the wide ranging consequences of it.
But, I've gotta get a move on! I hope you have an excellent week and I'll be seeing some of you on Thursday!
Love y'all!
'Til Next Time (hopefully it's soon!),
Elder Jordan Nielson
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