November in the Field

November 11, 2013

This week was kind of crazy. we had a whole bunch of lessons with people, which is awesome, but having an emergency transfer Thursday morning made things kind of hectic, Elder H had to pack up to leave and Elder Nelson had to unpack when he got here. Elder Nelson is completely awesome. We hit it off right from the start and I really hope that we get to stay companions next transfer. We've decided that we're gonna get hunched together in the next two transfers, so we're on a diet and we've made a workout program. WE also made some pretty dodgey home workout equipment I'll put pictures and videos of it up on dropbox when I get the chance. We've got workouts written for the next few weeks, so hopefully I can continue that for the rest of my mission and come back absolutely jacked. On the spiritual side of things, you can look at dad's email for a more detailed version, but I think that Heavenly Father has been trying to teach me charity and love with these hard companions. It's okay though, Elder Nelson is really cool and this transfer should be awesome! It's strange, I think in the past two months I've been at both my highest and lowest levels of happiness. Hopefully I can keep it in the positive and not dip back to the negative again haha.

Words from the letter to his dad:

It's been really amazing to see how the gospel can change people's lives. Just in the time I've been here I've seen it give people a brighter happiness than they've ever had, heal families, and even pull people from the depths of misery. I'm starting to think that the Lord is trying to teach me that (learning to love anyone regardless of who they are and how they are). I think it might be working because I absolutely love Elder Nelson. He's a really awesome guy and we get on great! I think I did the most growing out of any of my companions yet with Elder H. Something I learned about prayer recently has helped me immensely.

The bible dictionary says:

As soon as we learn the true relationship in which we stand toward God (namely, God is our Father, and we are His children), then at once prayer becomes natural and instinctive on our part Many of the so-called difficulties about prayer arise from forgetting this relationship. Prayer is the act by which the will of the Father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence with each other. The object of prayer is not to change the will of God but to secure for ourselves and for others blessings that God is already willing to grant but that are made conditional on our sking for them.

Every time I was either depressed, annoyed, or ready to tear his head off, I hit my knees and had a conversation with Heavenly Father. As I did this, and truly tried to set my will in line with his, I felt the most intense feeling of pure love that I have ever felt. I forgot my anger toward Elder H, I forgot how annoyed or depressed I was and I just felt the pure love of Christ within me. I know that that is the love I need to have toward others and I am always striving to achieve that. That's partly why this last transfer was so stressful haha I was jumping from complete misery to complete happiness all over the place, and I just couldn't handle it. I'm with Elder Nelson now though and really enjoying my time. I'm hoping in the future I will be better at loving unconditionally because of the time I spent with Elder H.

November 18, 2013

Last week was pretty exciting

Monday was your average P-Day just emails shopping around and messing about. Tuesday, we worked on re-splitting the area because we seem to have all of the active parts of the area and Elder Stubbs and Lowry have the more dead part. We worked on a list of AUF's that the church posted to us, and then in the evening we went to mutual with the youth. For mutual we did something called the bleep test. It's really hard and I only made it to stage 6. On Wednesday we just worked through a list of less actives and former investigators, nothing too exciting. On Thursday we had zone conference, which was pretty cool. We had a member of the seventy, Elder Dyches come and speak to us. He shared a really good message about planning effectively and how we will use those skills for the rest of our lives. He also talked about the planning strategy of Vision Goal Plans and Accountability. Basically your vision is your ultimate goal and then you make more and more specific goals until you have something specific that you can accomplish right now and then you need a way to keep yourself accountable. That night we had a DA with the Wilkinsons what an awesome family. Pumped for missionary work, genuine, and just really nice people. Friday morning we bumped into Ehsan, our neighbor/investigator. It was really lucky because we haven't been able to get in contact with them for about a month. We set up a sign language lesson with him and Behnoosh. That night we had a lesson with Frank, who has been investigating for years, and we made some pretty good progress with him. He had read the talk that we left him to read and had also read the pamphlet on tithing. He says he feels a lot better about tithing, but he's still not ready to get baptized. I challenged him to pray every night for the next week and he accepted. Next week I'm going to challenge him to another two weeks. haha Saturday we had a lesson with Lawrence, who we found through the former investigators list. He's a really great guy, I think it might take him a while to accept everything, but he's really cool. We went by Donald after that and had a short lesson, and then we made our way to the Greens for a DA. Their granddaughter is the cutest little girl I've ever met. Her name is Poppy and she made me a little drawing during dinner. Sunday we had a sign language lesson with Ehsan and Behnoosh before church and then they attended sacrament with us. They said they enjoyed it and we've set up to see them again this Friday.

Not much else to talk about!

Love you tons!

See you in a few weeks!

Elder Sorensen

November 25, 2013

On Wednesday at 1:00PM Elder Nelson and I were caught out in a hailstorm while we were doing a lady's garden. It was pretty terrible, but we made do. I guess that's your motherly instincts kicking in haha. (side note from Casey’s mom: I had emailed him because I had woke up with an awful feeling about Casey. So I asked him what had happened at that time.)I'm good, Emotionally happy. Spiritually hungry. Physically tired. Always tired. The boots are awesome. they keep my feet dry and they're super easy to get on and off. No snow yet, just humidly bitingly cold. But apparently we're supposed to get like 100 days of snow or something. That would be crazy. Alright, well Monday we spent most of the day waiting to email and then made a trip to the mission office to get a polish Book of Mormon for one of our members and delivered it to him. Apparently the guy he gave it to wasn't interested, but the guy's daughter is now reading it, so that's cool! Probably won't come to anything for us because the guy lives more in the Harbourne area, but still good! This ward is actually really good about doing member missionary work. Tuesday morning we had an unexpected lesson with our investigator David. He rang us up at 1015 and asked us if we were still planning on coming at 1030, so we hustled over. haha Then we had a lesson with Donald and went to a carvery meal with him after. I love carvery meals, I can't wait to you guys come back with me and we go to eat at one. Wednesday we started the day off doing service for an old lady near one of our investigator's house. We were doing her front garden and ended up getting the crap beat out of us by hail. Then our investigator cooked us a full English breakfast, another thing you guys need to have. I'll cook one for you when I get back. Grilled tomatoes, mushrooms, bacon, eggs, fried bread, beans, sausages, and toast. Delicious. Thursday was pretty much just double decker busses, trains, and zone meeting. It was a good zone meeting though, a bunch of people gave their departing testimonies and it was really uplifting. I wonder what my departing testimony is going to be like. I can't wait to give my homecoming talk. Chelan ward and our new ward aren't going to know what hit them! That night we ate at the Corbishleys and they thought that it was Thanksgiving, so they made us a roast dinner. They wouldn't listen to us when we told them it was next week. Actually next week the Heaths, Cook's, Burton's and one other family are putting on a full thanksgiving feast for us and they've asked us to sing the American national anthem for it haha we're going to have a turkey bowl and everything! That should be exciting. Friday we had a lesson with Ehsan and Behnoosh, that went really well. We did half sign language and half gospel. They've committed to read the Book of Mormon. Saturday we had 3 flogged appointments and one flogged DA. That was about how the whole day went. Sunday was good, we ate with the cooks and Burton's after church and they are AWESOME families. Then we went and visited with the Robinson's, and they've been doing really well with missionary work. Another really awesome family. I definitely want to come back and visit Solihull. Loads of really cool people here That was about it this week. I'll work on putting some more pictures up. It would be good if you could make a decision on that camera ASAP so that I can have a camera to take pictures with again. Love you guys! Don't ever stop reading, praying and attending church! It invites the spirit and reaffirms you testimony each time you do. Keep progressing! Never be comfortable with your level of righteousness and always strive to be better.

Love you tons!

Elder Sorensen

Casey being Casey