Always Growing!

October 20, 2014

Mom. You did the best you could at being my mother as I grew up through childhood and adolescence and that's all that god expects of you. Yeah of course you made mistakes, Christ was the only perfect teacher to ever live, things that I do and mistakes that I make are mine alone to bear until I repent of them and take advantage of the atonement. In every situation no matter how big or small, no matter how much I'm influenced one way or another, it's still my decision as to what action I take. That's what makes me a free agent. The support that you and dad gave me is what got me through those hard times. I'm always going to be tempted. I have no confidence in myself, but I have full confidence in God and his ability to strengthen me against anything that I encounter.

ITL's are invitations to learn. I really wish I had been more open with you guys growing up, but it's time to look forward. I can't wait to get back and actually get to know you guys on a personal basis and learn more about your lives. I don't really have any new pictures or videos this week, although I am looking forward to seeing all of my pictures and videos from my mission with you guys, you guys only get like a... very small fraction of what all happens out here.

I know, It'll be our last skype call before I come home! This week was pretty uneventful. The whole week was pretty much service mixed with some finding and youth on Tuesday. On Saturday we had our first Bible study, we had a discussion about how the Bible came to be and what exactly it is. It was alright, only one person showed up, but they learned alot! haha Next week we're starting with Genesis chapters 1-5. Hopefully as we do it more regularly we'll be able to have more people show up. On Sunday we had a cottage evening with one of the members. None of the less-actives he invited showed up, but we had a good discussion. This week will be packed. On Wednesday we'll be going to Birmingham for a sleep specialist appointment for me. It'll take AGES to get there and back. Not looking forward to that. Oh and by the way I may have to buy the train ticket with the credit card which might be up to 50 dollars... I think that's about it.

I love you guys!!!

Elder Sorensen

Life in Boston

October 7, 2014

That sounds like an eventful week. Tell Dan and Kelly I said hello! My mission really has changed me. I can't begin to describe how grateful I am to my heavenly father for what he has given me and what he has done for me. I really understand Ether 12:27 ( And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them: Ether 12:27) and if I had to put one scripture to describe my mission, that would be it.

I loved general conference. I can't wait to get the written version because I can pay attention to it easier and re read things that I miss the first time. All of the general authorities seemed to be pretty emotional this time. I love it. It reminds you that they're human. I really need to write people letters, but life is so busy at the moment. With missionary work and trying to fix/clean the flat in all of our down time, we haven't had any time for anything really.

I've got a really nice pair of Ecco boots off of another missionary for free, they're proper posh. Things with my companion are awesome. Today is his birthday, so we are hopefully going out somewhere nice to eat with a member family. The area is a really slow area, but we've got a lot of cool things in the works to get it going though, we are going to start a scripture study class on Saturdays if we can get it approved by bishop, and we're trying to get the YSA going with activities and stuff. We are focusing on ITL's right now for our personal finding efforts. Since we're starting from scratch we thought it would be easier to set goals for something that we can actually control, something that we can actually make happen.

On Tuesday we had a Dinner appointment and a flipping crazy night at youth. It started out as (kind of ) five aside football, but turned into an almost all -out brawl haha it was loads of fun. On Wednesday we traveled 2 hours up to Nottingham for interviews with president. That was awesome, president always knows exactly what you need to hear and how to make you feel awesome. Then we went 2 hours back and that was the whole day gone. Thursday was a complete day of finding. It’s kind of annoying because probably 4 out of 5 people will say they don't speak English even if you can tell that they do. Friday was the same plus a DA with a really nice old lady called Mary. She’s hilarious and awesome. Saturday we had a lesson with Kyle that went really well, loads of finding, and general conference the rest of the weekend. Bishop was sick on Sunday, so we had to stay at the chapel from 10am to 7pm for all the sessions :(. That was the week! Please don't send me any sweets or candy for Halloween. I'm trying to get into shape for my return home.

I love you guys more than you know

Elder Sorensen

October 14, 2014

It's a big thing over here as well (Meet the Mormons) but President Rasmussen hasn't said anything about it.

I love to see how you guys have grown spiritually, but there is always room to grow more. We should never stop trying to improve. It's awesome to stop and see how well we are doing and appreciate it, but it' equally important to look at the next step as well, what can we do next? I was listening to "For All Eternity" by John Lund yesterday for Pday eve and it was really making me think of you and dad and grandma and grandpa and how little time I spent getting to know you guys, I feel like I was such a little jerk before my mission. I seriously think of who I was before I came out and I can't believe I had any friends or people who actually liked me. I'm eternally grateful for how far I've come, but I'm even more grateful for who I have the potential to become, and it's all thanks to the atonement.

This week was pretty fun. On Tuesday it was Elder Burke's birthday so after long day of finding, I surprised him with a batman birthday cake (he's pretty into batman He liked that. I'll put the video of him finding it up. Umm the rest of the week was pretty dull, just lot of finding, we got a lot of potentials and appointments set up, but we haven't had any of them hold through yet, hopefully some of the ones we've made for this week will hold. Today I'm going to get myself a few pairs of trousers, I just ripped another pair and I'm down to 2 so it's time to get probably 3 or 4 more which should last me until the end of my mission. I don't think I have anything else.

I love you guys more than anything!!

Elder Sorensen

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

Working in the Lord's Vinyard

September 15, 2014

This week has started off with the best lesson I've ever had on my mission :) It really showed me that perseverance and hard work pays off. There was a woman called Sara who we've been stopping by and trying to set appointments with lately. The first time we stopped by her and her son came to the door and seemed interested, so we explained briefly about the restoration. The son piped up that he believed in Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father. So we gave the mother a restoration leaflet and the son a plan of salvation leaflet and set a time to come back. When we came back the Father (Scott) was the only one home. We chatted to him a bit and he mentioned that he loved Americans because of how happy we were. We eventually came to the subject of the Gospel and he told us about his late father and the confusion that stemmed from that. We taught him of the plan of salvation and set a time to come back. When we came back, no one was home, but we were about 5 minutes early so we decided to wait. When the time we had set up rolled around a car pulled up to the driveway and Sara stepped out. She rushed into her house and we had a brief conversation with her autistic son while we waited. When she came back out she said that she was in a rush and that she had no time to talk, but we set up a time for us to come back. The only time that we both had free was today (Monday) at 10:30 am. We decided that since we didn't have any investigators and since we really wanted to teach this family of four which all sounded like they had been prepared to receive the gospel, that we could sacrifice some Pday time to teach her. We went today to find them home and ready for our lesson! We went into their observatory and started talking a little bit about the family. We came to find out that the oldest son (nearly 17) had had some serious brain surgery when he was a newborn. Their other son (12 years old) was a pretty amazing kid. According to her, this son, Caleb, just simply radiated goodness. He was always looking out for others and could never stand to see others in pain or suffering. He would stand up for other kids at school, despite him not being the most impressive human being, and he would always help those in need. She said that he always seemed to have this feeling about him, whenever he was around she felt good and happy, a sort of warm feeling inside and that whenever he was in the room he seemed to emanate it. She also said he always came to his teachers with deep religious and philosophical questions about life and that he would think about these things a lot. She said that when we came to the door that day and left the materials that we did, they soaked up the information and that it answered a lot of questions and stirred a whole lot more questions within him. When he came to his teachers at school with these questions they had to eventually just say that they didn't have time to answer all of the questions he had and the teachers actually ended up talking to his mom (Sara) about it. We told her that we would love to come back when Caleb could be there and we could answer all of his questions. She committed to come to church with Caleb, to read and pray about the Book of Mormon and to a return appointment. The Spirit was present for the whole lesson and I can't wait to come back next Monday (again the only day she's free). I know that this family has been prepared to receive the gospel and I can't wait to teach Caleb as well.

ummm that's about the most exciting thing that happened. It's been cool to see this area pick up as I've worked in it. sadly I think I'll be leaving next week, but It's been cool to see it transform into a productive area. I think that's everything!! I love you guys tons and I'll let you know where I go when I find out next week!

Love

Elder Sorensen

Obedience

September 8, 2014

Yesss!! Well hopefully the next time you finish the BOM I can be there for it. It would be cool to have scripture study over Skype when I go back to university.

YUP! haha I'm no longer afraid to bare my testimony, I do it every day to people who don't want to hear it, so doing it in sacrament meeting is a breeze.

The shoes fit perfectly and they're awesome!! Thank you so much! I was actually thinking about getting some new shoes, but now there's no need! We are in a branch, but President Retallick is a counsellor in the stake presidency.

This past week was pretty awesome. I had a bit of revelation about obedience. I've never been seriously disobedient and I've never done anything too crazy, but I've also never been one to be completely stressed over the rules either. If it came to it I would usually let a lot of things slide. I think a lot of that attitude has come from having so many companions who are so disobedient, but I can't use that as an excuse. I've always had my free agency and every mistake I've made has been of my own free will and choice. This past week though I was listening to a talk ( actually an audio book I think) by John Bytheway while riding the bus out to an area. The talk was called "how to be an extra-ordinary missionary". Something he said about obedience really struck me deep in my soul. He said ordinary missionaries obey because they ought to and extra ordinary missionaries obey because they want to. I realized that all of my obedience in the past had been out of duty and a lot of the time almost grudgingly. Needless to say I did a lot of thinking and reflecting on how I had been acting and treating my calling. I offered a prayer of repentance and I felt amazing. I felt so happy and light and just incredible! And the feeling has stayed since! It is so amazing how a simple change in perspective on things has changed my entire outlook on the mission rules and it has truly affected me in such a positive way. It shows as well in how Heavenly Father is blessing us with more lessons and appointments now than I've ever had before in Evesham it's pretty awesome. Our investigators right now are Mike and Jenna. Mike is very much an analytical investigator and isn't really in it with any real intent. We're thinking about dropping him soon. We'll have two more lessons with him, but if he is still showing zero signs of softening his heart we'll have to drop him. As of right now he's really just in it for the debate rather than for really wanting to find out if it's true. Which, I'll debate all day, but it'll get us nowhere. Jenna, on the other hand is a lot more promising, we are hopefully going by her on Thursday and we're going to clear some things up about the plan of salvation for her. Please pray that we will know what to do about Mike and that we'll be able to help Jenna progress.

I'm in the process of sorting through about 35 gigs of talks right now that I got from Elder Allen and deciding which one to put on my ipod haha I'm also converting some bible videos to put on there. I'm really annoyed with boots pharmacy right now. I took my sleep med prescription in there and they still haven't let me know if it's in yet. I went in a couple of days ago and they said they were having issues getting it. it's starting to freak me out that I've probably only got 2 weeks left here in Evesham....Half of me really wants to stay and Half of me is ready to move on. Idk. Whatever happens happens.

Love you guys!!!!!

Elder Sorensen

Personal Growth - It Happens

August 26 – September 23

We’ve been sick for a few days now, all the prayers are welcomed. I've been really bored just sitting around the flat. I really really hate it. There's nothing worse than just sitting around all day. It also felt really wrong not being at church on Sunday. I'm going to be a lot happier when we can get back out of the flat again. Yeah, President Retallick gave me a blessing on Sunday, they also brought us some food and tissues, they are pretty awesome at taking care of us :)

We taught Fred on Thursday and had quite an interesting lesson with him. It was really annoying because he just basically kept refusing to feel the spirit. We're trying to decide whether or not to keep teaching him. He basically just see's our visits as philosophical discussions. We'll probably teach him a few more times and see how it goes. It's always difficult to know when to drop someone, especially because we don't have a whole lot else going on.

Things with my companion are good!

Rumors about me... It's just that I'm nasty in general. That I'm prideful and judgmental and rude and all this. Like I said it's just because the only things people hear about me come from past companions and since I haven't gotten along with them and quite frankly sometimes ended in big fights, they typically don't have anything nice to say about me. I can say though that it has taught me a lot of lessons in the effects spreading rumors and gossiping can have. Not to mention a lot of self-realizations and a lot of things I need to work on. I just wish that my companions would have told me all of these things instead of telling everyone else apart from me.

Yeah, I really loving singing and playing and all that jazz. It's really fun, but I get really critical of myself with it. I really want to take voice lessons when I get back.

We're feeling back to 100% now! ready to go out and work. Things are good with my companion, he is quite patient so that helps haha. YES I got the shoes and the Cheetos...... please don't ever spend 20 dollars on a bag of Cheetos again... ever. Thank you so much for the packages! you really don't need to buy me things to tell me you love me though. I know you guys do :)

I'm enjoying my time here, but I really am looking forward to a change in scenery. I don't have any more pictures right now, but I should have some soon enough. We're having a district Pday today and we're going BOWLING!!! YESSS! I love bowling. That's awesome that you are trying to be healthier. That's one of the big things that I've learned since being here. When you eat healthy and live healthy you have more energy and you're so much happier and confident. This week should be a good one. We've got a lot of stuff scheduled so we should be happy and back on our feet again starting tomorrow! There's not really much to say about last week, we were sick from Saturday 2 weeks ago until Friday last week. We made it out of the flat for a couple things that we needed from the store from time to time, but that was about it. We had a couple of members bring us food, which was really nice. This is definitely a ward that I'm going to want to come back and visit. Last week made me realize just how important studies really are. There were a couple of days when I just slept and sat around the whole day and completely forgot to study. I was feeling completely terrible and didn't have the heart to pick up anything to read, but when I finally did I noticed a HUGE difference in how I was feeling as well as my mindset. I really have grown to love my personal studies. I hope I can continue to study like this at home, but I'm afraid that life will get busy again and it'll move to the background of my priorities. I really don't want that to happen.

Well anyways I'm off to go bowling with the district!

Love you guys!!!!

Elder Sorensen

Interesting Adventures

August 4 – 11

I don't have a whole lot of time today so I'm going to make it short and sweet!

This past week was an alright one. A. is still at a Christian camp, so we didn't get to meet with her. We met with N. again and had a pretty good lesson, I think he's more of a long term conversion, but I do see him someday joining the church. You never know though, God is a miraculous person. On Monday last week we went to Cheltenham so that Elder Moore could buy a suit before he goes home and today we're going to go and pick it up from being tailored.(I may get a couple of things while I'm there :) on Tuesday we got new couches for our flat so now we have three couches!! It's pretty legit. We enjoy having space to stretch out now. On Wednesday we went on exchange and taught N, we were supposed to have a bunch of other lessons, but they didn't work out. The exchange ended up lasting until Friday, which I still don't really know why. We had district meeting on Thursday, ate Ben and Jerry's on a hillside overlooking Evesham and we had some MSF left over at the end of the month so we had a really posh meal at a Cantonese restaurant!! I had an amazing coconut curry. Friday and Saturday were pretty boring and yesterday we had a munch and mingle with the ward! It was pretty cool. I love anything with free food. Today as I said we're going to Cheltenham to do some shopping, so I may end up getting a little something ;) Elder Moore is getting presents for his family before he goes home. This week is going to be rough for him, so I've spent a lot of time planning out things that will keep us busy this week. Hopefully we can finish out this week (and his mission) with zero regrets! That's the goal anyway. I'm feeling good today! I got a letter from Shannon which had some of what Elder McClellan had said to her... haha The area he's in right now sounds like pretty much my whole mission. It's just a different way of doing missionary work. You have to figure out what works for each area and learn to adapt. I've learned that if nothing else, If you can leave your area better than you left it (a better organized area book, a big list of potentials to go by, members strengthened, ward relationship strengthened) you can really feel like you've made a difference.

I'm not training, but president says he's giving me a companion that will work with me this transfer. I'll find out the info on transfers tonight. I'll send you an email tomorrow to tell you. This last week was pretty hard. Just watching Elder Moore pack and get stuff for his family before he goes home. Watching him prepare to go home is making me think of when I'll be doing it and what it will feel like. And then it makes me realize just how much time I have left. It's having a negative effect on my desire, but I'm sure I'll get pumped again when I get a new companion. I know now that I don't want to be a missionary who dies slowly, I want to work hard to the bitter end and give it all I've got. I got a letter from dad this week! that was nice :)

This week, like I said, was a lot of watching Elder Moore pack and get stuff for his family. We did go out when we could to do some finding and try to get some people for me and the next missionary to teach. It's also been nice and sunny this whole week, which means sweaty and gross haha we had a pretty cool adventure going out to try and stop by a guy whose address was '' Old shed in the woods at the end of peewit road''. We didn't find it, but we had a pretty cool adventure which involved strange bones and a horse we named Joseph! I'll put the videos on Dropbox. We've spent pretty much the whole day today just chilling at a member’s house. Not a whole lot else to say! I'll talk to you tomorrow!

LOVE YOU TONS!

Elder Sorensen