Living large in "Dead Bluff"

So everybody here calls Red Bluff "Dead Bluff" because there ain't a whole lot to do, but I think it is great here! We see a whole lot of awesome stuff, and the people are awesome!

We are working with a couple people that are so close to baptism right now. We are trying to meet with the Roberts family again, because we haven't been able to for about a week and a half. We are going to talk to the father and daughter about being baptized, and we are really looking forward to it.

We are having family home evening with the Lawrence family tonight, and we trying to help them get to the temple. They have had some family problems recently, so it has been pretty tough for them. They are one of my favorite families in the ward. They have such good hearts and they just want to do what is right. We are going to set goals with them with things they need to do to prepare for the temple. It is gonna be great!

I am trying to memorize a scripture a day again to make my study more effective, and it is awesome! I memorized Ephesians 4:11-14 this morning which is about the organization of the church. One of my favorite parts was verse 13, "Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God." I am grateful for church organization that allows us to be able to do as much good as we can. It enlarges our sphere of influence beyond what we can do ourselves and allows us to serve people in ways that weren't possible before.

Give em' Heaven!

Sincerely,
Elder Nielsen

Red Bluff, CA

Howdy from Red Bluff!

I love Red Bluff already. The city has a population of about 15,000 people, and then there are people living outside city limits in the country. A good number of the members in the ward live out in the country, so we snag a ride with them a couple miles out of the country for dinner! Our area is about 50 miles across. It is huge! Crazy thing is we are on bikes. Luckily we have a set of Sister missionaries that also cover the ward, and they have a car!

There is a good amount of work going on here, and it is really exciting. We are planning to invite a girl and her dad to baptism this next week, and we are really looking forward to it.

We were in the family history center this past week and I was looking at my pedigree a bit and seeing how far back I could get with my ancestors. Apparently I have a line tracing back to Adam and Eve! I didn't know that! It went through a bunch of royal lines, and I found out I am the heir to the throne for about 4 different countries (Italy, England, Italy, and France). Pretty sweet!

I know the Gospel is true, and it is the way to find true and lasting happiness. Being here I see a lot of different people, and the people that are truly happy make the Gospel a way of living.

I love you all! I hope you had a good Easter, and that you have a great week!

Love,
Elder Nielsen

Peace out, Roseville

Yep, I'm moving.

I'm getting transferred to Red Bluff, which is one of the most spread out zones in the mission. Apparently I am on a bike too. Future Lance Armstrong right here! Except for all the....yeah.

So...I am pretty excited to go to Red Bluff. There are mountains really close to the area, so just to see them will be awesome! I have been missing the Utah mountains pretty good, and so it will be nice to see some here! Red Bluff is more of a country area, except for the town of Red Bluff. It is one of the hottest areas in the mission, with a temperature reaching 115+.

We met with an investigator named Rene this past week, and we were able to have one of the most spiritual lessons that I have had on my mission. We were teaching him that Gospel of Jesus Christ, and we started talking about Baptism. He has talked about being baptized in the Lutheran church, and we started talking about proper authority. I was able to bear my testimony about the restored Church of Christ and the authority that we have. After that he kind of sat back and said, "That is what I was supposed to learn." When he had first met us he had told us that he felt there was something he was meant to learn from us, and he reminded us of when he said that. He said that he felt something like electricity run up his spine, and we talked to him more about the Holy Ghost and what the purpose of it is. We invited him to be baptized, but he said he is going to have to talk to his girlfriend. She plays a very large part in his life, and he doesn't want to mess anything up because they are getting married soon. She is Lutheran, so we are pretty sure he doesn't want anything to grow between them because of religion. We are hoping that he will choose to follow the promptings of the Spirit, because he has felt it so strongly.

I love you all, muchly. THE GOSPEL IS TRUE. I know it.

Much Love,

Elder Nielsen

"if you believe all these things, see that ye do them."

Hello, all!

I hope you all enjoyed General Conference. I know I did! Now we get to bless our lives by acting on those things we have learned, hence the subject line (Mosiah 4:10). If we believe something will bless us, then we might as well put it into effect instead of putting it away in a filing cabinet to attend later on!

We had dinner at our ward mission leader's house this past week. He invited his less-active friend to come as well. We tried to figure out what kind of message we could share that would really help his friend. We were looking through some Mormon Messages to see if any of them would be good to share. We came to "Waiting on the Road to Damascus" that was based on a talk by Elder Uchtdorf. While we were watching it I just had a feeling that we needed to show that video. At dinner, we watched the video and talked about it for a couple minutes. After dinner our ward mission leader and his friend were giving us a ride to the church for another appointment. His friend turned around and said, "Can I ask you why you showed that video?" We told him that we had prayed to figure out what Heavenly Father wanted us to show and felt that we needed to show that specific video. He told us that video was exactly what he needed, and he thanked us for it. Promptings from the Spirit are real!

We had a lesson with the Pillay family this last week, and we invited them to come back to church. Their answer seemed to make things a bit clearer than we had understood in the past. They told us they need to work through some personal things before they can commit, and they really love the church and the people they have met there. I hope everything goes well for them in the future because they are such an amazing family.

One of my favorite talks from conference was Elder Uchtdorf's, speaking on gratitude. I loved when he said, "Gratitude is the catalyst to all Christlike attributes." It seems that if we want to be more like Christ than having gratitude is a pretty important thing! I know gratitude brightens the blessings and shrinks the sorrows that we all receive in life.

Love,

Elder Nielsen