Four Snow Days

So this was definitely the most irregular week of my mission life- we had FOUR SNOW DAYS! We got so little done, it was unreal and frustrating.  We only had 11 lessons.  I also got so bored! Then the even crazier part was that we went on exchanges this week – there were two days of exchanges.  So for the three days we proselyted I was with Elder Gipson and not Elder Wang.  On Wednesday Wang and I were together; however, we didn’t get much done.  Thursday was with Elder Gipson and I got five lessons in that day in White Plains! Woot!  Friday we were up in Capitol area.  We gave a blessing to one of their investigators and then tried to check on a few people but sadly no one was home.  We did have a good dinner with a member that night from the Capitol ward though. That adds up to only one regular teaching day in my area. 

Sunday we had two eight year old baptisms which was cool.  We helped teach one of them, so it almost felt like an investigator.  We didn’t go to church though, because it was cancelled due to the snow.

We found out quite a bit of mission info this week.  We have a General Authority coming this week.  We are also getting new ipads.  President Cooke has announced that he is taking Facebook away from the mission for four months coming up soon too.  That will be really weird; but we’ll see what happens. 

Our p-day today was super fun!  We were invited to drive up and hang out with my old roommates!  We had so much fun playing hockey again.  I scored five goals in one game!  Elder Wang had fun too.  It made our bummer week of being stuck inside of four days a little better. 

That is about all that happened this week due to the snow.  Hopefully this week it will not snow!

I love you!

Elder Sorensen

Picture from Elder Sorensen's exchange this past week

Seventeen Lesson, Snow, Poison & Skipped 65% of My Talk

So this week was good.  We taught seventeen lessons- it just didn’t really feel like it due to the fact that besides these lessons, we were out checking on people who didn’t want to talk to us or people who weren’t home.  

Today is the first real snow of our winter down here in this part of Maryland.  We are supposed to get 8 inches- so that is pretty exciting.  The snow means we are probably going to be stuck inside tomorrow.  Elder Wang and I went out shopping today as the snow started and it took us forever to get home because people in Maryland can’t drive in the snow.  We got a gym membership with Elders Thornton and Nollet this week.  We’ve been waking up at 4:30 every morning to go work out with them.  I am eating right, having protein and I’m going to be stacked, jacked, and juiced when I get home—so be ready! Haha-maybe not that big, but I’m still working out.  I’m super sore right now because I did arms Saturday and chest this morning- my triceps are donsk!  Saturday mornings are fun because we have basketball right at 7:00, which is usually when we get back from the gym.  So, we wake up at 3:30 to go to the gym then get to basketball right after---Woot!

I forgot to mention something awesome happened last week- we met a fellow named Brother A-.  He has not been coming to church and we were able to meet with him on Saturday.  We shared a talk from The Ensign about sacrament.  We were so excited to see that Brother A- came to church the following day.

Elder Wang had another great quote from last night.  I was asking Elders Thornton and Nollet if we could tag along with them the next day.  They were saying that they think the other elders would be stoked to have us there; but I was really trying to ask if it was okay with Thornton and Nollet or if they would be bugged if we tagged along.  Well of course they were just fine with us coming; but Elder Wang made sure to pipe up and say, “If they don’t let us hang out with them, we’ll just go to the supermarket and get.----what’s is called again? POISON!”  Hahahahaha!  We all had a good laugh at that one.  

In this area I have noticed something that I am very grateful for, and this is kinda a brag on my family—Family Scripture Study!  It seems like a lot of families out her have trouble finding time to put in family scripture study and I have just been so grateful to have grown up eating dinner and then reading scriptures with my family! And when that stopped working, still having the opportunity in the mornings before school.  I have even given those suggestions for our members who are having that problem.  Thanks MOM and DAD!!

Also, I have had Hawaiian Haystacks for the first time in the 8 months I’ve been out.  They were so terrific!  And yes, I have been out eight months now!! One third of my mission is already over-how did that happen?  It just started it seems.  I have heard lots of missionaries say that months eight through twelve are the slowest, so I still have lots of time to enjoy it.

Thursday night was a lot of fun, neither of us nor our roommates had dinner appointments.  I offered to buy us dinner with the Buffalo Wild Wings gift card.  It was super fun and we also got a bottle of their sauce.  So now I can have a taste of B-Dubs everyday!  

We had Zone Training this week.  It was pretty good.  The main focus was using our iPads more effectively; specifically in the Area Book, Gospel Library, and Facebook apps.  It was interesting to learn the things you can do with those apps.  

We have several Filipino families in our ward.  They make us really, really good food—it is so amazing.  It has been great to have them in our ward because we have a Filipino lady who has not been coming lately.  She came once and didn’t see any other Filipino families, so she didn’t feel like she fit into the ward.  She has started coming again and we have about four families that she can interact with.  Yea!

Saturday night we got home pretty early- and there were tons of glow sticks left over from Zone Training.  Let’s just say we had some fun with cut up glow sticks, black lights and music.  We were pretty entertained and the walls looked awesome.

I pulled a Sterling Randle this Sunday.  We were asked to give talks on the Plan of Salvation.  Elder Wang was assigned the first half and I was in charge of the second half, and then the high counselor was the last speaker.  I was about a quarter of the way through my talk when I got a note telling me I was over my time!  Yikes—I skipped like 65% of my talk!  But I ended really quickly so that Brother Bracey could speak.  He is the institute teacher too, so it was cool to speak with him.  

They just sent out a message that we need to get back to our apartments because of the snow.  I’m going to wrap this up!  I love you guys!!

Elder Sorensen

Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner.

Travis Pastanas is a famous X Games skateboarder-he has these ramps in his backyard.

The New Beginnings Flyer didn't start out very professionally.

Buckle Down and Word as Hard as I can

Hey!!! This week was pretty good, similar to last week!  We had 18 lessons, but a whole ton of contacts.  Which means, yes, we tracted a whole bunch.  The worst time was when it was super windy and cold on Thursday.  We had two hours to kill…it was a bit of an ugh.  It was so cold; but it was tolerable.  And I still have all ten fingers.  I heard a trick this week from one of the ward members, take a golf ball to knock on the doors with- that way you don’t have to use your hand and make it colder.  It was pretty nice Saturday though and Sunday was a gift from above!  My gosh, I loved it.  I drove with the windows down and didn’t wear a sweater.  It was so relaxing in the 60s weather, I put some chill music (mission approved ipod music) in and just cruised down the country roads to our appointments. It was fantastic!

We also had a cool success with E- this week.  We showed him the talk, The Mediator, by President Packer.  It prompted a good conversation that led into talking about church and he said he might actually try to come to our church in the next few weeks!  That’s a great success because he has not expressed any interest in coming before. 

We had interviews this week, and so President and I had a good talk about building the area.  He basically told me the only advice he had was to buckle down and work as hard as I can...  So yeah, I'll be keeping that up.  

We had a cool miracle Sunday!  One of our ward members gave us a referral for a guy from South America.  He doesn't really know that many people out here so he's been looking for people and a church and stuff, so we're meeting with him tomorrow! I'm so stoked!!  

My vast portfolio from being employed in our home moving service came in handy this week.  We helped some ward members move some of their stuff and some of it was pretty hefty furniture.  I surprised everyone with my lean muscles!  Haha, they didn't think I would be able to lift half the stuff I did!  It was fun.  

We played soda pong for zone activity.  In black lights.  It was pretty fun! Elder Wang and I got out in the first round though...  The sisters creamed us.  

This week we have 13 appointments set up already, and we usually get a good amount from just randomly showing up so we might actually hit our 20 lessons this week!!!  I'll send pics from this week soon, but I love you guys!!!

A Strong Arm of Faith

We had tons of appointments this week!  We ended the week with 16 lessons.  That is really good for our area, and even two of those lessons were with investigators.  So compared to last week’s zero, I' d say we’re starting to get better.  

We are teaching E- and G- …sort of.  E was raised Presbyterian and now claims to be only Christian. He doesn’t have much interest in being converted; but he does like The Book of Mormon, and he does like meeting with us.  He cares for his wife who is sick and he enjoys the company.  Hopefully as we continue to meet with him, and have him read The Book of Mormon he will begin to feel the spirit more in his life and feel the difference.  We read 3 Nephi 17 with him last week and had a discussion about Christ as the Mediator.  He had never heard of Christ in this role and became very curious about it.  This week we are going to show him the talk, The Mediator, by Boyd K. Packer so hopefully that will help him understand this concept better.

Our next investigator is G- who was a referral from The Festival of Lights.  It was a pretty good lesson even though it was over Skype because his power was out.  He liked what we were teaching, and he believed it all pretty well.  At the end when we asked him to be baptized, he got all skittish and thought it was too big of a commitment.  He said, “Oh, I’ll just read the Book and then when I know it’s true, then maybe I can be get baptized.” He didn’t even want us to come back for another lesson!  Ugh! So we are back to one investigator.

We had seven lessons with less active members this week with varying degrees of acceptance.  Some 
that actually made it to church this week.  Then some said, “I know my choices and I’ll be accountable to God for them when the time comes.”  That is too bad.  We’ll keep working with the area to see how many people we can get coming to sacrament meeting.

I got all the mail you guts sent!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!! The cake was awesome, I got the 
package on Friday, and all day something was just off.  I just wasn’t feeling happy.  I came home and remembered that about this time my family’s mail could come about now, so I’ll go check the mailbox.  I opened it up to find your package with Dad’s German Chocolate cake –it was exactly what I needed right then!  The cake was the perfect taste of home to keep me motivated and happy.  I am eating my 10 pounds of chicken from Costco for lunch everyday and then 3-5 eggs for breakfast every morning. #swoll

I heard about President Cooke going up to the sacred grove a while back, but I didn't know he saw
Jordan there!!  I keep seeing so many people get home, and so many people get their calls!!  It's a bit 
overwhelming, I must admit.  I saw a fun picture of Jordan, Nate, Bryson, Ben, Brianne, and Corrine. Some of my friends from my sophomore year who are all finally reunited!  So cool!  

We did end up having to do more tracting than last week... But we did start doing the tracting game where you give the person who's doing the door approach a word and they have to work it into their approach.  I think my best moment was working noodle into one.  "The Book of Mormon can turn your faith from a limp noodle into a strong arm of faith"  That's how it's done.  Elder Wang and I are getting along well now. I guess he's just a little shy at first, but now he's super funny!!!  I think my favorite saying of his is, "Who care?!"  Whenever you say something you're excited about he'll say that.  Like the Superbowl for example, I would be all excited when I heard the Seahawks were up, and he'd say, "Who care football?" I CARE FOOTBALL!!! GO HAWKS! 

I LOVE YOU ALL!!

Elder Sorensen