16th Week

Hey Family and Friends,

I learned a valuable lesson this last week. Although, we as missionaries are important to the work of the Lord, no matter what we do we cannot stop it. We can hinder it and we can slow the progress of it, but we cannot stop it. This last week, we had companion exchanges and my temporary companion and I struggled to say the least. He is a good Elder with a good heart, I think, but has been abit lax in his ability to follow the rules. As such, we struggled. I still found though that although everything seemed to be crashing around us the Lord's work is the only thing that continued its course.

Other then that things have been really great. I'm not going to lie and say perfect but definitely great. Conference was greatly refreshing and I learned a ton and had a lot of questions answered for myself. In especially enjoyed Priesthood session and the Sunday second session. I think there were a lot of great talks on faith and I think that is because faith is the first step in the Gospel of Christ. The missionary purpose as found in preach my gospel is to: Invite others to come onto Christ by helping them receiving the restored gospel of Christ through Faith in Jesus Christ and his atonement, Repentance, Baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. As we can see nothing else can happen until we have Faith in Christ. Repentance is impossible, Baptism is meaningless, and although we may have received the gift of the Holy Ghost as President Bednar put it so perfectly, we must strive to have the Holy Ghost with us and that can only be done through faith. I love being out here and watching the faith of members, investigators, and missionaries grow. Surely if we all had more faith in our lives we would be so much better off. Better able to withstand the temptations of the day, and to succeed overcoming them.For the branch member of the week highlight it would have to be Sister Tedrick. Sister Tedrick actually passed away last Saturday night at 9pm but she was a pillar of the community and inspired all to do well. My fondest moment of her was having a sandwich at her place with chips and having her look at me and say, "Put down the chips and eat your sandwich!" I was righteously chastised to say the least. My companion, Elder Badal, and I are going to her graveside service today and they've asked us to sing. I hope I can get through it but I guess we'll see eh?

I love you all and I wish you all the best from good old Athen's Tennessee!

Elder Nielson