Now in Boston!

(Sorry for the rather long post, but I wanted to get caught up)

September 22, 2014

Some of your responsibilities as a ward missionary are to be the example of missionary work in the ward (IE sharing the gospel with your friends and introducing them to the missionaries, as well as giving the missionaries referrals, and going teaching with the missionaries) the ward mission leader can also ask you to come to be a part of the missionary coordination meeting.

Can you believe we only have 3 months until our last Skype of my mission??? That is completely insane. It so completely ridiculous how fast time is going!!! This week was pretty awesome, on Monday we had a lesson with our new investigator that I think I already told you about last week. Yep, just checked, I definitely already told about it. Then, the very next day, we put one of our investigators on date for baptism!! It was a really good lesson, halfway through the lesson (gospel of Jesus Christ) she asks, “Why was Christ baptized? I've always wondered why Christ had to be baptized, because he was Holy, so why should he be?" Those were her exact words. I immediately replied, "Well actually this is one of the things that we learn from the book of Mormon which has been lost from the bible!" and then we read 2 Nephi 31 with her. I love that scripture. Other than that it was a lot of looking and not finding.

We had a lesson with Fred again and he kept coming to us with all of these reasons why the Book of Mormon couldn't be true and he even started pulling out some anti-literature. We pretty much rebuked all of that nonsense and then invited him to research reasons why the book of Mormon was true. We told him that he had spent all of this time and effort into finding out all of the reasons that it was wrong and talked to him about how a fair assessment weighs the Pros as well as the Cons of any given subject and that if he was going to have an unbiased stance on the book of Mormon that he needed to research all of the reasons that the Book of Mormon is true. So, we'll see how that goes if I'm still here in 4 days. IDK we'll probably drop him if he comes back with nothing.

Tonight we hear about transfer information... I'm kind of split, I've developed a really good relationship with the people in the ward here, but I'm ready for a change. I really just want to be thrown into the deep end of a new challenge. I also hate anticipating transfer information. It's killing me to have to wait another 10 hours to hear what's happening... anyway that was about everything!!

Love you!

Elder Sorensen

September 28, 2014

Boston is nice! I put up a few pictures and a video on Dropbox. My new companion is Elder Burke, He's from Australia. Yeah he's pretty cool, I don't really know him very well yet, but he seems like an alright enough guy. I totally forgot to get Sister Retallick flowers! oh well, they knew that I liked them.

Well now I'm going to tell you straight up that I invite you to bare you testimony next sacrament meeting! No excuses next time. Testimonies aren't meant to be super incredible and interesting; it's just a statement of truth that you've come to know. That's awesome that you guys are being consistent with your prayers and reading, I'm sure you're seeing the blessings from it. I got the Jesus the Christ book and the suspenders haha tell him thanks! And I love you.

Tell dad not to stress out too much, the Lord is happy with him trying his best at doing genealogy. Plus angels are going to correct the mistakes that we make during the millennium:

Gospel Principles Manual:

"Many people have died without receiving these ordinances. People on the earth must perform these ordinances for them. This work is now being done in the temples of the Lord. There is too much work to finish before the Millennium begins, so it will be completed during that time. Resurrected beings will help us correct the mistakes we have made in doing research concerning our dead ancestors. They will also help us find the information we need to complete our records." (See Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, comp. Bruce R. McConkie, 3 vols. [1954–56], 2:167, 251–52.)

This week has been pretty cool. Not very much has happened. It's just been a bit of finding and unpacking for the past few days. We live in a house that is apparently more than a hundred years old. It's pretty huge as far as missionary housing goes. It's a typical British house and we've got a fair size back garden as well. I'll send you the video tour I made of it. The town seems pretty cool, It's finally a change from the scenery of the midlands! It does seem like a coastal town even though it's about 45 minutes from the beach. Our ward boundary covers ALOT of the coast, so we've got some plans to go out to a lot of the coastal towns and beachy areas to keep things interesting. Hopefully next week I'll have some more exciting stuff to tell you guys! That's about all I have for now.

Love you!

Elder Sorensen