July 28th, 2014 - New People?!?

Hey Everyone!

Well transfers happened this last week, which meant the first couple days were spent saying goodbye to people with Elder Lyman, and then these last few days have been spent working to get Elder Hansen used to the area and meet as many people as possible. It's been awesome to get to work with new people this week, as every companionship in our district was changed in some way. But anyway, some spiritual thoughts first!

This week I spent some time studying Alma chapter 38, which is Alma's advice to his son Shiblon, who is a pretty cool kid. I particularly found verses 10-12 interesting as it is some very pointed things that he counsels Shiblon to do or stay away from. I also read a sweet talk by Elder Packer about the Language of the spirit - y'all should check it out! A couple other scriptures stood out to me this week: 1 Nephi 1:12; 2 Nephi 3:12; Mosiah 4:9-10; Enos 1:8-9;1 Nephi 3-4. Plus, we watched a sweet video in ward council yesterday that talked about teaching and learning in the home and at church, y'all should check it out!

Video 1: https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2014-06-001-learning-and-teaching-in-the-home-and-the-church-the-home?category=auxiliary-training-videos/2014-auxiliary-training&lang=eng

Video 2: https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2014-06-002-learning-and-teaching-in-the-home-and-the-church-the-church?category=auxiliary-training-videos/2014-auxiliary-training&lang=eng

Alright, some quick highlights this week! On Tuesday, we got to see a ton of people and eat a load of food - some members had a party at Denny's for the missionaries who would be leaving, and then later we had dinner with an awesome family before another couple took us out to dinner at Café Alley. Wednesday was pretty exciting since it was transfers day and some incredible members were willing to drive us up to the city and stay up there until we were ready to head back - which ended up being a lot longer than usual since one of the new missionaries had to buy a bike while we were up there. Another sweet highlight was church on Sunday, where we had an awesome sacrament meeting, a good sunday school lesson, and then a super spiritual priesthood hour where the Elder's quorum presidency was reorganized and we got to watch a sweet talk from President Uchtdorf! 

Sorry it's short today, but such is life sometimes! Have a fantastic week! Love y'all!

'Til Next Time,
Elder Jordan Nielson

July 21st, 2014 - Transfer week!

Hey Everyone!

It's transfer week again, and I'll be staying here in Ardmore! Sadly, Elder Lyman is headed off to the middle of nowhere in Elk City, but he should have fun out there. Anyway, this week has been pretty sweet with some cool miracles and other good stuffs happening, but for some reason I don't particularly feel like emailing today... perhaps it's because I'm working on family history at Familysearch.org (I may or may not have caught the fever of enjoying it...), so that might be occupying my email time today... so this might end up a little short... sorry!

Some quick highlights from my studies this week, super fast!

• Ephesians 1:17
• John 16:33
• Helaman 6:3
• Jacob 4:7
• 1 Nephi 8:12-15
• Alma 45:4-8
• 1 Kings 6,30;7:1

Anyway, some quick highlights this week were Tuesday, just the entire day, Wednesday, the vast majority of the day, Friday, because of exchanges, and Sunday, the entire day... so... I'll have to be brief today since there was just too much cool stuff. So, some short stories... On Tuesday we got to go on Splits, which was pretty exciting. I went with Brother Robie, who is like 82 years old, and is just a blast to be with. He's a pretty awesome old guy, and we got to talk to a couple families that night that he did a pretty great job connecting with. Then on Wednesday we got to help a member demo some stuff in a building he's got that he's remodeling into some apartments that he plans to rent a couple to missionaries. So, that was super fun, and we ended up quite dirty (see pictures 1 and 2). Friday was a highlight since we took some district pictures, one of which is attached as well, and I got to go on an exchange with Elder Crosby which was a blast. Then on Sunday we got to visit a ton of members and eat a ton of food, and just had an awesome time at church especially since Elder Wheelwright is leaving for his mission this Wednesday and had his farewell talk and dinner.

That's all I feel like emailing today... hope y'all have a fantastic week! Love ya!

'Til Next Time,

Elder Nielson

P.S. Part of the reason I included pictures is since they're theoretically worth 1000 words... words I didn't feel like typing today

 
 

July 14th, 2014 - Connie's Baptism!

Hey Everyone!

This week has been another noteworthy week, but sadly I don't have time to go through all the cool things that have been happening around here! First off though, a few scriptures I found interesting in my studies this week:

• Alma 12:14
• Psalms 23:7
• D&C 121:35
• Enos 1:4,9
• Alma 41:4-6
• 2 Nephi 4:16
• Acts 5:38-39
• Joshua 24:15
• Matthew 6:24

Also, related to my studies, I've recently started focusing my studies more on being question-based, and so if y'all have any questions - simple, deep, profound, or whatever it is, I'd like to have em since it's always more fun to study to try and help someone else than just to fulfill my own curiousity. So, send your questions my way and if I start getting really adventurous I might start mentioning who the questions are from in my email. This week I focused a lot on what makes standards and goals work to help motivate us to act and achieve great things, it was pretty neat. 

Anyway, there were some awesome things that we got to participate in this week, the most important of which was Connie Harper's baptism! I've attached a couple pictures from it, but it was just a super spiritual service and it was awesome to be able to be apart of that! She's a super awesome lady, and her son who got baptized in september of 2012 was able to come up to baptize and confirm her! It was a pretty neat experience, especially since it was the first time he had baptized someone, and it got to be his mother which was super special. Possibly the most entertaining thing of the week though happened after the baptism when the sister missionaries realized that they had locked their car keys in the trunk... it was kind of funny to see them freak out, and then it was super awesome to be able to happen to have an investigator who used to do that as part of his job (working at an impound lot), and so he was able to come and help them out. It was pretty dang exciting - especially since it was like 9pm. 

The cool part about that story above though is that we got to visit with his family yesterday because of it, and it was a super fun visit. We talked about the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ and then got to play pictionary with them, which was just a bundle of fun. Also this week, we got to visit with a couple people who recently got new phones and introduce them to the Gospel Library app... it's a pretty dang awesome app, along with the app that just has the Book of Mormon on it - they're both super useful since lots of people always have their phone on them but never want to carry a book around. So, it's been fun to have people add that on their phones - hopefully they remember to use it occasionally ;)

Another cool thing this last week is that we've been able to go out to Healdton, a small town in our area, a couple times and have met some awesome families out there. For one thing, we got to visit with Scott, a less active member who hasn't been to church since 2001, and his girlfriend (who isn't a member) for a bit. He happens to be the temporary police chief out there, which was pretty sweet, and he also knows quite a bit about the doctrine of the church still, which was neat to hear. It was a pretty awesome experience to have, plus his girlfriend Amy was super interested and curious as well.

Anyway, I've gotta get going, but I hope y'all have a fantastic week! Love y'all!

'Til Next Time,

Elder Jordan Nielson

July 7th, 2014 - July 4th and other fun days!

Hey Everyone! 

Another week has come and gone, and with it some new crazy experiences happened! Of course the most exciting day this week was the 4th of July, but the 5th and 6th were also pretty cool and the 2nd and 3rd weren't that far behind ;) Basically... it's just been an awesome week. But, like last week I'm going to start with my studies since nobody has complained about it yet, and I quite like it. 

So, for this week my studies were a little bit more varied than last week - I spent a bit more time in the Book of Mormon dissecting Moroni 7-10 (chapter 9 not so much, but the others were really good), plus listening to Dr. Madsen's lecture on the sermon on the mount - which is pretty dang good. So, a few scriptures from Moroni first: (turn to Moroni or else my +'s won't make sense...)

• Moroni 7:3 + Mormon states here that this chapter is addressed to the people of the church and points out what our hope should lead to - entering into the rest of the Lord
• Moroni 7:6-8 + These verses stood out to me in that it teaches clearly the principle that our intent and the desires of our heart matter - a lot - when it comes to the blessings the Lord is able to offer to us and how that will play out in the judgement 
• Moroni 7:12-13 +  Pretty simple... things that are Good = of God things that are evil aren't
• Moroni 7:28 + A dang good verse about the role Christ plays in our eternal salvation
• Moroni 7:30-31 + Explains the office angels hold, and I also found the statement that "the office of their ministry is to... prepare the way among the children of men, by declaring the word of Christ unto the chosen vessels of the Lord, that they may bear testimony of him." interesting as it's pretty clearly stated that prophets - the chosen vessels of the Lord - are there to bear testimony of Christ which word they receive by revelation (Galations 1:12).
• Moroni 7:44 + Faith, hope, and charity are all related... but that could get deep, so I'll leave it there.
• Moroni 8:3 + I don't have time to put pluses on all of these :(
• Moroni 8:10-12
• Moroni 8:24-26
• Moroni 9:6
• Moroni 10:22
• Moroni 10:32-33

So yeah... Moroni 7 is my favorite chapter in the Book of Mormon, but it takes a ton of effort to apply and learn to live so I'm definitely still working on that one! Well, time to move on to a quick review of the highlights of this week! 

First, is Taylor's baptism! She's a 15 year old who we've been teaching since I got here that the Young Women have just done a fantastic job fellowshipping and helping her come closer to Heavenly Father. It's been awesome to see the impact that they have as they've helped her get to activities and encouraged her to do all those things that you learn in young women's (I don't even know the half of them...), but it's been awesome! We had a pretty easy job - teach a few lessons and help her keep reading the Book of Mormon - since the young women did awesome work with the hard job of getting people to church and making friends there that encourage them to come back. So, there's a couple photos attached on here, one is her and brother Greenwood (the fellow she asked to baptize her) the other is us and the sisters since we've been teaming up to teach her lately. Anyways, that was definitely the highlight of this week! 

Aside from that, we've had a few fun service opportunities this week - like helping move some bouncehouses around, scraping up some linoleum for a sister in the ward, helping trim a couple trees for one of our investigators, moving stuff around for a member who hurt his ankle playing basketball with us earlier this week..., and then unloading chairs and tables after the ward party on Friday. So yeah... we did quite a bit of service, but it was a blast! On the 4th of July we had a ward party from 10-2 where we got to play some volleyball, eat food, and socialize and it was pretty great. Later that day we had dinner with some awesome families who were willing to spend their 4th of July with missionaries, so instead of trying to find somewhere to watch fireworks we went and played wiffleball and apples to apples with them which was a blast. 

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

'Til Next Time,

Elder Jordan Nielson 

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

May 27th, 2014 - Memorial Day!

Hey Everyone!

Sorry you didn't get an email yesterday... the library was closed, so you'll have to deal with getting it a day late! I hope that you all enjoyed your Memorial day and enjoyed spending time together and remembering the incredible people who have fought to create, preserve, and extend our freedoms. This week for us was all over the place, but there were some cool things that happened.

First, last Monday (the 19th), the ward had a ward FHE deal, where they used Google Plus to connect multiple families to have Family Home Evening together. It was pretty neat, and there was actually a pretty good turnout. We had your typical family home evening - starting with a song, a prayer, and a scripture before having a lesson and then a game and treat. The lesson was based off the video "The Whole Armor of God" (https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2012-06-2420-the-whole-armor-of-god?lang=eng ) and it was pretty sweet! The video is like 15 minutes long, so don't click the link unless you have a little bit of time to watch it, but it was a good video.

Another cool visit we had this week was with a family where the mother wanted to find something for a couple of her boys to do, that wasn't video games, so we mentioned the boy scout program. So, we got the ward's young men leaders to come with us and had a sweet visit with them and they were super pumped to come join scouts... but they only have scouts every other week here and it was one of those off weeks this week. But, we had a cool experience with them when we watched this Mormon Message:http://www.mormonchannel.org/youth-videos?v=1680378463001

This week we also got to help a member out and do some service for him helping to work on a building he's got, that when it's done part of it will be used as a missionary apartment, so that was pretty fun. It's always fun to see member willing to sacrifice a little to help out the missionaries in their area. But, it was pretty fun, and topped off a pretty good weekend that we got to have. On Saturday morning (before the service), we got to visit with Oscar and his boys, which was pretty neat since they came to church the next day (the first time since I've been here), and then that evening we got to visit with Connie who had just gotten home earlier that day from her back surgery that went well! A week or so ago she wasn't sure if she'd actually get the surgery, but thanks to some blessings from the Lord she was able to have the surgery Friday and be back home by Saturday, so that was pretty neat. Then on Sunday, in addition to Oscar and his boys, a few kids from an awesome family we're teaching were able to make it to church (their parents work on Sundays) which was sweet. They said they really enjoyed it, so that was awesome.

In my studies this week, I've been spending a lot of time going through the Book of Mormon and marking it up, so I read about 25 chapters in Alma since the last chance I got to email y'all... since that's quite a bit of material and I only have very little time... I'll give a quick summary... since Alma 25-50 has soooo much great stuff in it. Alma 26 is awesome, especially for us missionaries (which is everyone) as Ammon is a fantastic example of what to rejoice in and knowing your purpose. Another sweet chapter is Alma 30, mostly because of how straightforward Alma is when he talks with Korihor, especially in verse 44. In chapters 31-34 they are preaching to the Zoramites, and there is a ton of pure doctrine taught there, and I especially enjoyed Alma 33 this time as it focuses on prayer and placing your faith in Christ. Alma 36-42 is Alma's counsel to his three sons, all of which I enjoyed but I particularly liked chapter 41 because of how much Alma breaks down what it means to restore something - which applied particularly well to the restoration of Christ's gospel in these latter days. Then begins the war chapters, with chapter 48 being among my favorite one of those as it talks about captain Moroni's attributes, and caps off in verse 17.

Well, that's all I got for this week! Have a great week! Love y'all!

'Til Next Time,

Elder Jordan Nielson