White Plains First Ward

(Antcipataion background music playing)
It's the moment....The moment you've ALL been waiting for!  Elder Sorensen’s new area IS------WHITE PLAINS 1ST WARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   (Thunder storms, raging fires, volcanoes, final countdown, nuclear missiles, and several other loud things go off in the background)

Just kidding! It is a family ward in the southern part of Maryland, third most south area of the mission boundaries. Everything down here is more like home, less like Prince George County where I was before.  So it’s not all big city; but there are lots of houses and actually lots of new housing 
developments.  It has kinda made me homesick all week because it is more like Utah than my old area, so it has been really tough.  I’ve been trying to make my way back to 1600 North so I can crash in my own bed… And it has also made me homesick for Glenndale because I was just so familiar with that area and everything about it.  

My new companion is Elder Wang (Wong is how to pronounce it.) He is from Mainland China and was just moved into the English program two transfers ago.  His English is a little rough around the edges.  We don’t talk much because it is hard to communicate.  He doesn’t have his drivers’ license, so I drive everyday.  I like that.  The roads and stuff here aren’t bad yet, the only snow we’ve gotten was on Wednesday, and it didn’t stick that long.  From what I have seen our ward is pretty cool.  It’s a lot different from a singles’ ward, but that is okay.  We still get fed almost everyday, so I’m happy about that.  We had stake conference this weekend, so I didn’t meet that many people.  Our teaching pool is pretty dry.  We have two investigators and I have not met either of them yet.  If we do not find one of the investigators at home, we will go tracting.  

People down here are a lot nicer than up north.  They actually offer you a drink of water and don’t slam the door and stuff.  So, at least that makes tracting more bearable.  I think it would be good to check on people who are already on our map so maybe I can persuade Elder Wang to include some of them in our plans this next week.

Our roommates are our zone leaders.  Elder Thornton and Elder Nollet.  They are both really cool.  I 
really like our apartment.  It is pretty nice.  My bed is a little precarious, though.  I’m on the top bunk 
again, and the bed shakes whenever I move.  It frightens me!  They had an extra pillow here though, so I’m happy I’m not stuck with the one I found at the old apartment.  I don’t know if I ever mentioned, but I forgot to pack a pillow. I can hear geese outside my window most mornings during study. They’re migrating south.  We are really far away from the visitors’ center, which is really sad because the visitors center is really good for lessons and stuff. It is an hour or two away depending on traffic.  

We had a couple cool lessons this week.  I think my favorite one was with the M- Family. Their son A- is seven and is going to be baptized in March.  His mom wanted us to teach him the missionary 
lessons.  He listened well and he reminds me of Nick.  We ate dinner there after the lesson, and Elder 
Wang was trying to talk to Brother M- who isn’t a member.  The three kids were being super loud, so I played with them while Elder Wang talked to him.  It was a lot of fun.  

I am so lucky to have one of the three Café Rios in the mission in my area now.  We went shopping at Costco this morning cause Elder Thornton has a Costco card.  I now have 10 pounds of chicken cause I’m kicking the ramen lifestyle!  I’m happy about that.  

I've had a huge testimony strengthening experience down here so far. I'll be honest, I've been really frustrated with this area, and other things, and Saturday I was just super done. I wanted to go home. I prayed that night and just asked why?  Why am I in this area, with this companion, with no work, and was just really upset with everything. Well, stake conference Sunday morning...  I got so many different answers to my prayer.  I'm not gonna say everything's perfect hunky dory now, but I'm learning to cope with it, and use the atonement and everything more.  So, I think I'll have a lot of growth in this area.  Anyway, I love you guys!!!!!!

Elder Sorensen

A Perfect Culmination

No one knows where they are being transferred yet; only if they are staying or leaving.  As expected, I am leaving.  We had interviews with President Cooke on Saturday afternoon and he told me I’d be leaving the stake.  So I feel like they’ll send me up north to Seneca.  My deduction is because this is the only stake I really haven’t seen yet.  The singles’ ward covers all of Silver Springs, and Suitland and a corner of DC, so Seneca is the only stake that I have not really been a part of yet.  

This week was the perfect culmination of my time here in Glenndale.  I loved it.  We met or exceeded all our goals for this week.  It was awesome!  We had so many good lessons, and people we met with were so great.  It was just a terrific week. M (fellow I met on the metro early on in the summer) came to church, and we even got Jason’s brother, J, who isn’t a member, to come to church too.  It has been a remarkable way to end my time here.  I feel like I am starting my mission all over again because I am leaving all my friends again for a new area.  But, I have a good feeling about it.

This week we watched Meet the Mormons with investigators- we got to see it three times this week. It was good.  I don’t even remember all that happened this week….it was just too full.  I did have to talk to a couple people in Spanish this week.  It was cool!  We got a few referrals and they spoke Spanish only, so we handled it.  I was able to communicate and get my point across – remembering all my Spanish from Mr. Ecalono from Timp Academy and first and second grade Spanish Immersion.  

We met with M, M, I and J and M and just so many of the people I’ve come to love in this ward!  For P-day we have been playing Killer Bunnies.  We decided we wouldn’t stop playing until we had used every single card- all 770 of them!  So yeah, the game is still going after like five hours.  We also are playing Duckpin Bowling.  I won the first game and am doing pretty well in the second!

My brain is so scattered today and I just don’t even know what else to say.  I am so happy out here.  It is awesome.  I love it!  Have a good week you guys.  I’ll try to post on Facebook on Wednesday where my new area is!

Love, Elder Sorensen

Elder Eyring

So, I'm kind of sad.  I'm going to be leaving my first area in about 9 days. I've been here since June, so it's really bitter sweet.  I love this area, but I also want a new one.  I wonder where my next area will be.

Something cool happened for us this week!!! President Eyring came to our mission!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  It was so cool! He's one of my favorite apostles because he gave an awesome talk right when I needed it in General Conference when I was a teenager.  He's one of my biggest hero's.  I got to sit in the front row!!!  We made eye contact! 

He spoke to me directly a little!  He spoke on the gift of discernment, and how by looking at our investigators with faith that God can reveal their needs to us we can receive discernment of their concerns and questions.  He taught us by actually doing it!  It was crazy to see him just look around and receive personal revelation for us. I think everyone in that audience had something stand out to them personally! 

I also got to sing for him.  We did our Nearer My God to Thee piece. Everyone said it was the best time we'd done it.  It was so nice to be able to try to repay for all he's done for me.  People even said we sounded as good, if not better, than Vocal Point!

Something we do every once in a while out here is exchanges.  One companion goes with the District Leader, and the other goes to the DL's companion, and we trade areas for a day.  It was pretty fun.  I had our district leader come to my area.  He said we had more lessons in that one day than he had had in just over 2 weeks. So we must be doing something right. That was fun mix it up a bit that day. 

Our investigator that we met for the first time last week came to church this Sunday. She bore her testimony for the first time in church and she is progressing so well. I really think she will be baptized in February.

They opened a new exhibit at the Visitors Center this week.  It's a model of the DC Temple, but it's cut in half so you can see all the rooms inside.  It's about 9 feet tall and it's super awesome!  It's gonna be such a great teaching tool!  I'm stoked! 

I love being a missionary!!!  It's my freaking favorite!!!

Elder Sorensen

Good Week for Appointments

So, this week was pretty crazy.  We had a meeting with C- Monday night.  That was pretty good.  I love meeting with her.  Then Tuesday we had a pretty good day.  We spent a good portion of it working on contacting our referrals from Festival of Lights.  It was okay.  We actually haven't been in contact with any of them...  It makes me kinda disappointed.  I think my favorite one is where we went to this house and there were people we could see in the kitchen through the front window.  They would look at us when we knocked, then look back to whatever they were doing.  Then when we wouldn't leave, they turned off the lights, but stayed in the same place.  We could still see them, they just didn't want to talk to us.  So that was fun.  We had a really good dinner that night.  Jordan Lawrence fed us.  He made us steak and potatoes with asparagus.   It was so good!! 

Then Wednesday, our bishop took us out to lunch.  We went to a pizza place that was pretty good.  Not near as good as that food truck in Hawaii though.  That was way better.  Then we couldn't go out after 5:30 that night, so we ordered that pizza, and had a party in our apartment building.  I played Monopoly for the first time ever, and totally destroyed it.  It was fun. 

The next day was zone conference, so we were stuck inside all day.  It was a good conference though.  We talked a lot about the focus 15 list, which is 15 individuals that the ward, and missionaries should focus on.  It was good.  Then we had dinner with Ryan, and tried to get back in contact with that ward member who we missed last week.  

Friday was our temple trip!!  It was so good!  I love having the temple in our mission.  It makes my day when we get to go!  Finally met with K- again!!  I hadn't seen him since Elder Rummler left the area!!  He's doing good, he just has a lot of questions.  I'm excited to be teaching him again though, and we're taking him to the Visitor’s Center this week.  That night we had dinner with J-, and her boyfriend N-.  I think we're gonna be able to start teaching N- soon, so that's gonna be cool.  Apparently he really liked us.  Then we met with M- again.  It was a good lesson.  I love meeting with M-.   He's super cool.  I'm gonna be sad to leave this area.  

Saturday was kinda dead...  No appointments, and nobody home.. That makes for a boring day in the life of a missionary.  But Sunday made up for it hardcore.  I think I mentioned I- previously.  Well, if I didn't, here's an overview.  She was a referral from the Laurel Ward elders who we got before Christmas, and tried to get her to come to church, well it didn't work out till this week.  She even bore her testimony during sacrament meeting!!  All day she was saying how welcome she felt, and that we were like her family already!  It's awesome.  Then we had a short meeting with her after church, and I felt right about asking her to be baptized!!  Totally not part of the plan, but she accepted!!  February 15th is her date.  I'm so sad I'll be out of the area by then. 

Transfers are January 21st, and last night we found out where I might be going.  Elder Bodda, my old roommate, got a deathwish.  That's when it's your last transfer and you get to choose a bit of what happens.  He got to request a companion.  Me and Elder Jensen are on the top of his list, so I might be going all the way down to Lexington Park for my next couple transfers.  We'll see what happens.  We got to watch Meet the Mormons Sunday night!  They have it at the Visitor’s Center now!  I always miss home a bit during the missionary part of the movie... But, I love it out here!!!!! 

I LOVE YOU GUYS!!!

Elder Sorensen

I Just Talked to You Guys!

Week 29: I just talked to you guys!

  

This is weird, I feel like I just talked to you guys! The rest of my week has been good. 

We had some fun lessons Christmas Eve where we read the Christmas story with people-not to investigators, just active members. 

Then Christmas was obviously the bomb!!!! Everyone loved my sweater.  President Cooke even said he liked it.  We watched How to Train Your Dragon 2.  It was the best!  I loved it!  Then obviously seeing you all was my very favorite thing ever!!!  Just think, only five months till I get to see you again! 

So, the rest of our week consisted of trying to recreate our area map.  This task apparently is the hardest thing to do ever. That didn't go too well.  We were rearranging our room, and so we ended up just moving the map... We're still gonna try to make a new one though.  So I'll keep you updated on that. 

Then Saturday we had an interesting experience. One of our ward members gave us a hard time.  We had a lesson with him and he was just bashing on the church for 45 minutes without letting us pray first, and not letting us say anything.  I was really angry, I'm not gonna lie.  It took all I had not to just snap and start yelling about him bashing all that is most sacred to me.  I hated that experience and all I could do was just stand there. It was really faith building for me, which is the opposite of what he was trying to accomplish. 

Then Sunday I was super sick- it was not pretty.  So Elder Herring and Elder Parker went to all the appointments that day.  Elder Redding was sick with me. It was a pretty good week.  How was all your guys week? Equally good I hope!  I love you!!!

Elder Sorensen