Half Birthday & Ten Months

I had some crazy stuff happen this week.  I'll start with Tuesday.  We went to Gallaudet, and as we were walking to the campus from the metro this guy stopped us.  We were talking to him, and he seemed out of it.  He mumbled something, and I said, “What?”  And he grabbed my ear and pulled me a bit closer to him and said, "I can't HEAR you."  He was super high.  It was crazy.  

Anyway, Wednesday was Temple Day.  And that was super fun.  We went to Panda Express after and some guy just jumped in as we were about to pay and paid for our meal!  It was super nice. 

Then Thursday was my half birthday!!  Super crazy.  We had something weird for our apartment happen.  We have a really small apartment, and so it’s a two person apartment.  But we got roommates this week.  Elder Tanner and Elder Liang.  They are in the DC Third Ward.  Their apartment had super bad bed bugs so they moved into a hotel for a week, and then they moved them here.  So that was a pretty good curveball.  4 missionaries --1 bathroom... It's interesting. 

Saturday was my ten-month mark!  And it was the transfer call out day.  We found out Elder Tracy will be leaving the ASL program...  But I'm staying, so that's fun.  I'm happy I get to stay, because I really love it.  Then Sunday I got asked to bless the sacrament in Sacrament meeting.  It was terrifying; but I did okay.  And in class I got asked to participate a lot.  I'm starting to get the language down enough to communicate pretty well.  It's awesome. 

So, the guess for transfers is that I'll receive Elder Parker as my new companion which is awesome.  He was my roommate in December, and we talked about how fun it would be for us to be companions, so we're pretty stoked.  Anyway, we went to the National Mall and played football today.  It was pretty fun.  Then afterwards we went to go see the cherry blossoms.  Now we're just finishing up emails.  It was a good week! 

Elder Sorensen

General Conference & Easter

My week was pretty good.  We got paid this week so were able to be out and about more.  We went to Gallaudet a lot to teach some of our investigators and less actives.  And active members too.  We've been figuring out our bus routes pretty good.  Wednesday night we went up to the DC stake center to interpret and help teach an ASL class they have.  It was lots of fun.  They learned a whole bunch of Easter signs.  Afterwards we were asking if we could get a ride back to the metro station, and a very kind family in the Rockville ward offered not only to take us all the way home, but also bought us dinner on the way there!  That was really cool!  

Friday we had institute at Gallaudet and beforehand, we ran into the Wardle's.  They got us lunch from the cafeteria before class.  While I was getting my food, I ran into the deaf lady I met on the metro last week!  It was super cool to see her again, and get to talk to her for a sec.  Then Saturday we watched the first session of conference, and then we metroed out to the very end of the silver line which goes super far into Virginia so we could watch priesthood session with our branch president.  It was awesome.  His son, JM plays lacrosse so Elder Tracy and I got to pass the ball around with him for a while before it started, and we had super good tacos too.  

Then Sunday we went up to the Lawrence's again for the rest of conference.  It was so much fun.  Between sessions we would play ping pong, and basketball and tons of fun stuff.  So, one thing about watching conference in ASL, is the interpreters can sometimes be really distracting.  During President Utchdorf's talk Sunday morning he was super solemn, right?  Well the interpreter was signing all big and happy and not in the same spirit of the talk at all.  It was a great talk though.  

Then, today we just got back from our spring break sports day zone activity down at fort Washington.  It was super fun.  I scored all our points in football, so that was cool. The actual fort itself is freaking awesome too!  We got there an hour early, so we got to go around the whole fort and see everything.  It's super cool.  Right on the banks of the Potomac.  You can see Washington up the river.  It was super rad!

Elder Sorensen

Trials Help Us Grow

This week felt so long! It was super fun though.  Here are some of the highlights:

We had zone conference this week, which was super.  It was all about using our devices, like our new ipads, effectively.  More training on all the stuff we’re learning about how to use them correctly and safely.  I realized something this week too- due to when zone conferences take place- I have only ever attended zone conference in Silver Springs!  Woot! Silver Springs is definitely the best zone in the mission!!

We went to two dinner appointments together with Elder Parker and Elder Buanocore this week.  One in our area and one in theirs.  It was a good time together!  We ate at The Paynes, who is our branch mission leader, and The Aquistos, who are in the other elders’ ward.  We also went to Smoothie King with them and Sister Mays this week.  Sister Mays is so awesome!!

I think on Friday we had a really cool experience taking the metro home.  We were coming back from Gallaudet campus and happened to get into the same metro car as two deaf ladies who work at the university.  It was my first time contacting someone using sign language, so it was super fun for me!  We chatted with them until our stop and I actually held up a conversation!!  It felt so good and was so cool to me to be able to communicate on my own.

This week we finally got Elder Tracy’s bike fixed.  We finished it on Saturday, so we were going to bike our way to church on Sunday morning. Then all of sudden Elder Tracy’s pedal fell off his bike! So we ended up walking our bikes to church.  Elder Tracy gave a really nice testimony though about how that is kind of like life.  We have trials to help us grow, and we need to keep on keeping on.  We also decided that Heavenly Father really doesn’t want us to bike right now.  Other than that, it’s just been doing our best to keep our lessons and contact up without our car!  

I’m really excited for General Conference this week! We get to go to two really cool members houses- so I am stoked!

I love you guys!!

Elder Sorensen