New Views and Changes

July 29, 2013

On Tuesday we went on exchange with the District leader and I went to Evesham with Elder Dryden. It was so much fun, but we didn't get a whole lot of work done. We did get one other lesson taught, but that was about it. On Wednesday we switched back and on Thursday we had a day out in Malvern. Elder Harris' bike is nearly dead and has gotten to the point where it's unsafe to ride so we've probably walked an average of about 8 or 9 miles a day for the latter end of the week. Other than that not a whole lot has happened! Today the Nolan's are taking us to Gadfield Elm Chapel, which is the oldest LDS chapel in the world and to Raglan castle. So I'll take lots of pictures and send them all to you tonight. For now though, I don't have a whole lot of time and I need to go. Love you guys more than you know!

Raglan Castle

Gadfield Elm Chapel

August 7, 2013

Not much happened this week because we've been spending most of our time setting up furniture and cleaning the new flat for our second team of missionaries! This is the first time Worcester ward has had a second team of missionaries in about 15 years. It just goes to show that the Lord blesses those who faithfully serve him. On Saturday we were teaching one of our investigators down by the river and a guy came up to us and starting throwing out a lot of anti-Mormon facts and bible scriptures. Now, I've never even read in the bible, but The Lord placed the words I should say into my heart and there wasn't a single falsehood that came out of that man's mouth that I didn't refute with a true principle of the gospel. After about 45 minutes of this guy doing all he could to tear us down, I shared with him the story of how the priesthood was lost and then restored through Joseph Smith, and he just sat there in silence for about 2 minutes straight, and left. The Lord qualifies us for the work! I'll know tonight whether or not I'm being transferred. I'll let you know. They take place on Wednesday. No new pictures this week, I'll send some more next week! Love you tons, Elder Sorensen

Busy in England!

It’s been a bit busy so I apologize for taking so long to update Casey’s blog.

July 1, 2013

So last week went really well. On Monday we went all over the city trying to find pedals in the right size for the loaner bike I got from one of the members while my bike is in the shop. no luck. so I biked all over the place last week with one pedal, no brakes and really just terrible gears. One of the bike shops said they could get the right size pedals in on Thursday, so I told them to order them. Tuesday was PACKED with appointments. well at least for England. we had 5 appointments scheduled and 4 of them were actually home when we got there! And all of them went really well. one of our investigators is praying about a baptismal date right now and we are planning to put two more on a date this week. On Wednesday we spent the whole morning doing finding and one of our less actives let us come in, visit with them, and share a spiritual thought. Then we had coordination with our Ward Mission Leader and ate dinner and retired to the flat. On Thursday we were in Malvern doing some finding, went to a deaf member’s home to learn some British sign language and had a DA. Friday we picked up my bike and it is way cooler than I expected. And way better than I expected. I had them change it to a single speed and put drops on it and he put really thin, light tires and wheels on it as well. It's really fast now. I love it with all my heart. Saturday we had an appointment with the Braces out at Brockhampton estate, which I will put pictures of on drop box soon. It's amazing, and then had a DA with the Stobbs'. and Sunday we had church and TWO, count them TWO, investigators showed up to sacrament meeting. so yeah. we're kind of a big deal. that was my week! love you tons and I'll talk to you next week! July 8, 2013

Last week went well. Monday was just your average P-day, shopping, email, and rest. Tuesday we had DA with the Stanley’s and two appointments. One with G in the morning and one with J in the evening. Both went well, not quite leaps and bounds of progress, but they both ended up showing up to church on Sunday, then we had PEC (Priesthood Executive Committee). Wednesday we were packed, we had district meeting, followed by an appointment with I, then S, then R, then M, and then we had football (soccer) with the young men. Thursday we met up with Bro Crook and visited quite a few people. We had a really good chat with a less-active family as well. then we had a service project/DA/British sign language lesson with one of our deaf members. And we ended the night with a DA with the Nolans! Friday we had weekly planning, Elder Harris got an emergency haircut (it really was an emergency. he looked nasty.) and we taught our recent convert Teresa and her son Krai. We then went over to Brother Robinsons house and had a Missionary coordination. Saturday started off with a huge service project at St Richards hospice (a place where terminal patients go to die) where we sanded down all of their outdoor benches and put a fresh coat of stain on them. It was a HUGE project and only about 5 ward members showed up, but we got it done eventually. Then we had an appointment with the * family and had to drop them. It was sad, but necessary. And we ended the night with a DA with the Castles. Wonderful people. Sunday we had 3 investigators show up to church! and that brings us to now. Love you guys!

July 15, 2013

I'm loving it here! I'm doing well. This week we got someone on a baptismal date! It was pretty intense, we had been trying to get her on a date for a long time, but she was very hesitant to do so. she kept saying that she wanted to have her life in order, have a good relationship with her family -- basically she wanted to be leading a perfect life before her baptism. We addressed her concerns several times and nothing helped. So we're over at the ** having a really spiritual lesson, when I get this prompting to ask her again. so I asked, and she said no. Then I felt a prompting to read the baptismal interview questions. So I explained what they were and I read them out loud. Then I explained to her that these things are all that the Lord requires of us to be ready for baptism and that after being baptized, the Lord can help you so much more through the power of the holy spirit in making family relationships better and stronger as well as guiding us through all of our other decisions in working toward a perfect life. Then she accepted. It was really great.

The Work Continues...

June 17, 2013 Last week was pretty cool. Week 4 of this transfer! We went to the Cheltenham stake center for zone P-Day. The stakes are the zones, so Cheltenham stake is Cheltenham zone. It was pretty cool; we just played sports with all of the missionaries in our zone and had a big water balloon fight. oh, and elder Harris got a call from president saying to start getting his English license, which means either he's going to be transferred to one of the two areas in our entire mission that need a car, or he's going to be a zone leader. Tuesday we had zone meeting, which is basically a small-scale zone conference, had a DA (dinner appointment) with the Stanley’s, and taught Janos Jr. Janos is cool. He’s Hungarian and he's going to be baptized. Wednesday I was on exchange with Elder Webber (our district leader from New Zealand) and had an awesome time in evesham. Thursday was boring as usual. Friday we exchanged with the zone leaders like I told you and had an awesome birthday. And then there was Saturday. Saturday was very eventful! We started off by taking a train to Malvern where we did a service project for one of our deaf members (weeding) and then learned some more British sign language (which I'm learning by the way) and then ate and took a bus back to Worcester (pronounced "worster") once we got there we changed back into proselyting clothes a caught a bus to our appointment with Steve brace. Steve referred himself from mormon.org and lives all the way out at Brockhampron estate in Bringsty.(52.195192,-2.470315)<-- if you put that into Google maps you can see how far out in the middle of nowhere that is. Right as we were getting onto the bus we found out that there were no busses coming back, but we couldn't cancel the appointment at that point so we just went anyway. We got off the bus at the entrance to Brockhampton estate, which is massive, and started walking. We had to walk through a field and a pasture full of sheep to get to his driveway. But we had an amazing lesson with them and I'm pretty sure that they're going to get baptized. When we finished we got all the way back to the highway and started hitch hiking.. but that didn't yield any results so we started walking. once we had walked for a couple of miles we decided that calling the ZL's and getting a ride would be safer, not to mention we would get home about 5 hours sooner than if we walked. Sunday was Sunday and now we're here!

June 24, 2013 Not much to be said about the past week, I'm having trouble remembering because I'm so excited about the missionary announcement! Have you heard?? We're now authorized to use Facebook and texting and everything. And we may be getting ipads soon! It’s so cool! We have to do a training thing for it first though. I don't know when that will be, but I need my login info. This past week was really good, we are working with about seven investigators right now that we have found through our own efforts. The one I’m most excited about is Mandy. We found Mandy (40 yr. old) through her Aunt Betty (70 yrs.). Betty is completely crazy and has pretty much her own religion. Last time we were over there we tried to get Mandy on a date, but we couldn't really do anything because Betty kept interjecting and ranting on about the apostles or about sometime when she said she was saved.. And then we shared a DVD of a talk that elder Holland gave and she thought we broke her T.V. because we changed the inputs to put it onto her DVD player. She went completely berserk ranting up and down her living room about something we didn't understand and talking about how she would never be able to get her TV. fixed again. It was actually quite frightening.. At some point we got her calmed down and put her TV right and she invited us back next week... we're hoping to teach Mandy somewhere else this Friday.

News from Worcester England

June 3, 2013

Yeah, last Monday was bank holiday, so the library was closed, so we couldn't email until Tuesday. No new pictures today, but I'll be sure to have a few more up next week.

Teresa is golden. She actually already has a calling and will be going visiting teaching two days before her baptism, so yeah.

Words he wrote to his cousin, but fitting for everyone.

No matter what you do or where you go, never give up. I've only been out here for about a month, but I've already seen how truly amazing that this gospel can be and what an incredible influence it can have on people. Be an example to your family. This is an extremely crucial time for you to follow the example of your savior and keep the commandments. As your family sees the light that you bring by doing this, they will remember what they are missing and they will want to be a part of it again. Don't ever let someone else stand in the way of you doing what's right for you. You know you always have us, your family, to support you. Stay strong!

~ Elder Casey Sorensen

This week wasn't overly exciting, Elder Harris and I stayed in with hay fever on Saturday and on Friday we were gone all day for the missionary choir. I had an awesome opportunity to sleep and recover from my illness though! Pretty much the only thing cool that happened last week was when I met Janos and Janos Derian. These guys are a Hungarian father and son. Janos Sr. is fat, loud, and loves to cuss, but he also says he knows the Book of Mormon is true. His only hang-up, or so he says, is that the people in the church are no-good two-faced jerks. Even though he's only been to half a sacrament meeting. Janos Jr. is more understandable, he says that he believes in the Book of Mormon, but he doesn't know if his faith is strong enough to change his life. We’ll be seeing and talking with them today.

Words he sent to the Toolson’s,

Kurt and Shannon, Thanks so much for the weekly Emails! I love having letters to read from home about what's going on, it keeps me connected to home. I just wanted to let you both know how large of a role you played in me staying in the church and making the decision to serve a mission. I think that had you guys not been there to set an example and uplift me, I may not have made very good decisions. well... I would have made WORSE decisions. I think Kurt would agree with me in saying that I was never perfect, but I still made it here somehow and I think that your family was a big part of that. Things are going really well here! We have one investigator on date for this Friday and we hope to have a few more on date by the end of this week. I have seen a giant difference in the productivity of our day when we are being obedient as opposed to being... less obedient. These first few weeks in the field have seriously flown by. I have no idea how I've already been out here for almost 3 weeks! I'm really not used to the lack of food here. We almost never get DA's so we're left to our own devices with food and we're too poor to afford a whole lot of anything. I've already dropped a waist size, but the pants here still don't fit me. I put on a pair of size 36 waist trousers last week and my thighs nearly exploded out of them! WHO HAS A SIZE 36 WAIST AND SIZE 28 THIGHS?? That is one oddly shaped man, but that's the English for you.

Lots of Love, Elder Sorensen

June 12, 2013

I've been super busy with zone P-day on Monday and zone meeting yesterday and exchanges with the district leader today. I'm in Evesham right now on exchange and I'm only just now able to email everyone.

Glad to hear things at home are still exciting and that the blog is doing well. It feels good to be popular worldwide. I love hearing all this stuff about home so keep sending it. My bike broke last week beyond repair (I'm on exchanges right now so I don't have my camera, but I'll put up pictures when I can.) It was pretty sweet, we were about 4 or 5 miles from home and I hit a pot hole. My back wheel came off of the bike and pretty much destroyed itself in a glorious blur of flying metal parts. I then had to hoist the bike onto my back and carry it all the way back home. It felt pretty great. The baptism went awesome! We had all kinds of non-members there so that was great. Everything went through without any major problems! I'm looking forward to the package as well! I haven't gotten any post since I've been here so that will be refreshing. Could you give people my address so that they know where to mail me at? England is so cool. I'm starting to call everything by their British names. It feels pretty cool. Although I still haven't gotten used to calling pants "trousers” which gets me into trouble because "pants" over here means panties. So that gets awkward. That’s pretty much it for now, like I said I should have pictures up in the next few days.

For those of you who are reading this, PLEASE leave comments. I am going to make a book for Casey and would love to have your comments to share with him. Also,please send him hand-written letters (he is begging for "post" to:

9 Sidbury House

3 College Street Worcester,

WR1 2LT United Kingdom

Words From the Field

Casey got his wish of cooler weather!

Words from the field:

I feel like I'm stronger than I've ever been and also weaker than I've ever been. It's not easy. It's really tough, but at the same time it's amazingly rewarding. The church is true,the book is blue.

All of our hard work is paying off. This areas (AND MY)first baptism in years is on the 7th! I've taught her for about half of her lessons. She's an awesome lady by the name of Teresa and she is just great. I'll send pictures once I have them.

I have, however, really been appreciating dad in the past few days. I've never really told him how much I have appreciated him and the example that he's set for me in life of how to act and how to be a man. Whether he has realized it or not, I wouldn't be the man I am today if it weren't for the way I've seen him conduct himself around others as well as the lessons and other things that he's taught me as I've grown up. Being in the real world has shown me what can come of kids who don't have a strong father role in their life and I can really appreciate the fact that he's done that for me.

Profound words Casey wanted to share:

Mosiah 4: 16-24

16 And also, ye yourselves will succor those that stand in need of your succor; ye will administer of your substance unto him that standeth in need; and ye will not suffer that the beggar putteth up his petition to you in vain, and turn him out to perish.

17 Perhaps thou shalt say: The man has brought upon himself his misery; therefore I will stay my hand, and will not give unto him of my food, nor impart unto him of my substance that he may not suffer, for his punishments are just—

18 But I say unto you, O man, whosoever doeth this the same hath great cause to repent; and except he repenteth of that which he hath done he perisheth forever, and hath no interest in the kingdom of God.

19 For behold, are we not all beggars? Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance which we have, for both food and raiment, and for gold, and for silver, and for all the riches which we have of every kind?

20 And behold, even at this time, ye have been calling on his name, and begging for a remission of your sins. And has he suffered that ye have begged in vain? Nay; he has poured out his Spirit upon you, and has caused that your hearts should be filled with joy, and has caused that your mouths should be stopped that ye could not find utterance, so exceedingly great was your joy.

21 And now, if God, who has created you, on whom you are dependent for your lives and for all that ye have and are, doth grant unto you whatsoever ye ask that is right, in faith, believing that ye shall receive, O then, how ye ought to impart of the substance that ye have one to another.

22 And if ye judge the man who putteth up his petition to you for your substance that he perish not, and condemn him, how much more just will be your condemnation for withholding your substance, which doth not belong to you but to God, to whom also your life belongeth; and yet ye put up no petition, nor repent of the thing which thou hast done.

23 I say unto you, wo be unto that man, for his substance shall perish with him; and now, I say these things unto those who are rich as pertaining to the things of this world.

24 And again, I say unto the poor, ye who have not and yet have sufficient, that ye remain from day to day; I mean all you who deny the beggar, because ye have not; I would that ye say in your hearts that: I give not because I have not, but if I had I would give.

Words from his Mom

This week has been a tough one. For some reason, I have been more emotional about Casey being gone. Yet, I am so proud of him. I know that he is doing the Lord's work and this is where he needs to be at this time.

News from the MTC and First Week in the Field!

May 8, 2013 so it's P-day, and that means I get to email!! The MTC is awesome. I've felt the spirit here stronger than I think I've ever felt it before. we had sacrament meeting last Sunday and it was easily the coolest one I've ever been to. we do these things called TRC's, where our teacher acts as an investigator in a fake living room they have set up downstairs, and we teach them as we would a new investigator. I've learned so much already in just the first week, but I'm seriously anxious to get out. I don't know how Marcus could stand 12 weeks of this! I mean, we're stuck in the same room for like 12 hours a day! it’s driving me nuts!!! today we're going to have the chance to go to the Preston temple, which is basically in the same parking lot as us. It's really big and very beautiful, I'll send pictures. we haven't really gotten to experience any of England yet as we've been in this building the whole time. we get out for exercise once a day for an hour, but it's not enough. our first TRC visit was a COMPLETE failure, instead of getting to know our investigator, my companion freaked and just jumped straight into the lesson. didn't ask her name, didn’t introduce ourselves, no prayer, nothing. just "SO OUR LESSON IS ON THE RESTORATION". it went downhill from there. our others have been considerably better. May 12, 2013 The temple was awesome! apparently at one point it was the most expensive temple in the world. I learned so much by going through again, but we won't have the opportunity to go again for the rest of the mission. Every day here is comprised of nothing but funny and spiritual moments. Last night one of the other elders, Elder Ferris, found that his shirt had a couple of ink spots on his white shirt pocket. So he takes it into the laundry room and pours water on it and irons it. He now has a white shirt with a purple and black burnt coat pocket! haha and then he picks it up, looks at me and says "does this look ok?" I died laughing. First Companion May 20, 2013 Hey mom, I've been out for about 5 days now and I'm dead tired. so for this story to make sense you have to know the term: potential investigator = someone who sets an appointment with us or gives us their phone number, The first day that we really did anything was Thursday. My companion told me that the guy I replaced was pretty apostate so they didn't get a whole lot of work done. So that day we had zero appointments and a whole lot of time. so we went over some of the goals and the standards of excellence (standards the mission president thinks we can achieve). These numbers are like the numbers of a dream day where everything goes perfectly right. The standard of excellence for potential investigators is 4 per day. Elder Harris told me that him and his last companion were lucky to get that in a week! So we set out and started street contacting and knocking doors. we did this for about 4 hours and we got 4 appointments with people. It was at about that point that I met Jim. Now Jim had talked with the missionaries before apparently and he obviously hadn't really listened to them. He ran into us on the street and started ranting and raving about how he needs proof that the book of Mormon is true, how the bible has plenty of proof of its truth, and how there were contradictions between the two. The most annoying part was that every time we tried to talk or explain something to him he would cut us off. I tried bearing my testimony and he stopped me at "I know" and told me that I didn't know anything and that I just believed. So I stopped there in the middle of the street and told him that there are people out there that are ready to hear our message and want to feel the spirit and that he obviously didn't want to. I told him that he wasn't listening to what we were saying, that all he wanted to do was to argue, and that he was wasting our time. He didn't like that. He left us with a terrible feeling and zero spirit. So we stopped, said a prayer and within the next hour we had two more potential investigators. That day we got 6 potential investigators!!! 4 appointments set and 2 phone numbers! one of them accepted a book of Mormon from us. we were really feeling awesome until the next couple of days when every single appointment fell through. It was really disappointing, but we kept at it and tracted for the time that we we’re going to be in the appointments, and then, here's the craziest part, at the end of the day, when we had given it everything we had and laid it all out on the field, we were up in our flat planning when we get this phone call from the executive secretary. Some guy from the university had just called him and said that he was interested in joining the church!! we have an appointment to teach him tomorrow! I know that the lord was rewarding us for our diligence. He works in truly mysterious ways. I love you guys and miss you tons! I can't wait to hear back from you!

It’s Official!

As of approximately 7:30 pm on May 1, 2013, Casey Reed Sorensen is now Elder Sorensen! Mom didn’t cry to hard and Dad couldn’t be prouder. Look out England, here he comes! And he's off...