January 23, 2017

Hey guys!! This week was a pretty good week! It wasnt the most exciting one, but it wasnt bad! 

          Monday- It was one of those days where you are busy the whole day, and then you look back, and try and figure out what you did, and you cant think of anything! I think we just mostly shopped, and did laundry and stuff like that! 

          Tuesday- We had that Food Pantry again, and this week I worked in the back with this guy named Doyel! He is a CRAZY guy!!! I was laughing the entire time! He was making some jokes about almost anything! The job I was doing was super easy too! I know for a fact that I was laughing more than I was working! It was a ton of fun! On Sunday we got a Media referral! These are the kind that we get text on our phone, and there are for people who looked stuff up online! This one was weird though! It was a missionary whose parents arnt members, and so he sent us to go over there to "tract into him!" Well had some extra time Tuesday afternoon, so we headed out there! Well it ended up being about a 40 minute drive, and on a road that would be a super weird spot to tract because it is in the middle of no where! We pulled into his house, and he was outside! We pulled a fast one, and told him we were looking for a guy named Doug! There is no Doug it is just a name we made up so it wasnt awkward! He ended up not being interested at all! It was fun to meet him though! That night we had our first visit with a part member family that looked really promising! Their names are Andrew and Angel! It was Pretty sweet! If I remember right we are going to visit them Tomorrow (as in the 24th)! 

          Wednesday- We had District meeting in Rolla! It was a really interesting one! They gave me a really hard topic to elaborate on! The meetings are suposed to be anywhere from 60 to 90 minutes, so I had to get a little creative with what I was doing! We have this Elder From a small island by Fiji! You might remember him from when I was in Tahlequah his name is Elder Rooto! Well I had him teach a little lesson, and he was teaching from Preach My Gospel, and he had someone read a scripture, and it said the word "Damned"! He had a sister read it, and after she did he said "Did you just say Damned?!?!" It was super funny because he has this crazy accent, and he was kinda blown away that it said that! It was sooooo funny! After the meeting we went on exchanges! I went to St. Robert with Elder Wilcox! One of the first things we did was get my passport because I cant do it in Sullivan! We went to this one post office and they told me I had to go to the courthouse! So I went there, and we had to go through a security thing, and there was this really cool black security guard that led us in the right direction! When I got to the right office they told me I had to go to the post office (not the same one I went to before) and get my picture and a money order! I didnt even know what a money order was, so when I got there they helped me out, and I got all that done, and then they sent me back to the courthouse! They people at the court house said I needed two forms of Id, and all i have is my drivers licence, but they let my debit card count as Id, so that was kind of a struggle! Finally it was all done with! Elder Wilcox scheduled to get his hair cut from this really cool Barber, so we went and did that! After he was done the guy asked me if I wanted mine done! My hair was kind of long, so I did it! I should have had it done before I got my picture taken, but It was all good! 

          Thursday- We exchanged back, and It was pretty fun to go with Elder Wilcox! The rest of the day was pretty slow, but at dinner we ate at this families house, and they have twin girls that are about 9 or so! Well we were telling them that Elder Durrant and I are twins too! Well they were not buying it! Finally one said to the other "They arnt Twins they are God Brothers" I dont know why, but I just find that sooo funny! 

          Friday- We spent most of the morning/afternoon in a trailor park trying to go through potential investigators and less actives! We actually got in with a investigator, and a less active! We had a pretty good lesson with the investigator! His name is Austin! There is something that is really weird about most people over here lol! For some reason they really like dinner early! Maybe my family was just weird, but we always had dinner around 7! On Friday our dinner wanted us to come to dinner at 4! Luckily they changed it to 5, but that is so weird to me that they eat so early! We ended up at those out door basketball courts that we used to go to all the time! It has been pretty warm here latley! We played some ball, and it was funny these kids were saying we cant play because we were dressed up, and after we told them we were fine we proceeded to kick their trash in Basketball! It was so funny! 

          Saturday- To start off let me say that it was 67 degrees on Saturday! That is crazy to me that it was that warm!! It was good that it was warm though we had a wood cutting project! We split, carried, loaded, and unloaded a bunch of wood! It was fun except there was about 5 logs that were about 5 to 6 feet in diameter! They were a beast to split because the wood was still slightly to wet to split, but we got it all done, and let me say this it was rough! We did that from 9 am to about 2pm! Right after I got sick!! I wont give you to many details, but I will say this! I spent the next 3 hours on the toliet! It was super weird because at 5 when we had dinner it just went away! 

          Sunday- It was a pretty crazy day! We had Ward council in the morning, and when we got out of that this member handed me a program for the meeting, and I opened it and looked, and saw my name as the final speaker! It turns out that while I was in St. Robert a member of the Bishopric called and asked if I would! Elder Durrant told them that I would, and that he would tell me! Then he forgot to tell me! Church starts at 10, and I didnt find out about my talk until 9:50! At first I was kinda stressing, and then I realized I would have waited to prepare my talk until 9:50 anyways! It actually went pretty good though! I could definatly feel the spirit when I was giving the talk, and it was way cool! 

Well That was the Highlights of my week! Just so you all know next week is transfers I am pretty sure, so I  wont be emailing until Wednesday unless I let you know otherwise! I love you and miss you all!

Elder Sorensen

ps here is some pictures from my temple trip a few weeks ago! 

January 16, 2017

Hey everyone! Well folks, This week was defiantly one for the books! There was a lof of good things that happened! I am not going to lie, there was some not so good parts, but for the most part it was a dang good week! 

Monday- Today was not a bad day! We went to Rolla with the Elders in Salem! It was rainy, and kind of cold, so we just went around, and went shopping! We hit up all kinds of stores! Needless to say I didnt spend any money, but it was a good time to go and just mess around in the stores! 

Tuesday- Tuesday was amazing! We left Sullivan at 8 a.m. to go to the temple! We got there around 9, but we were a little slow at getting ready! We had a really good day! We did a whole bunch of stuff! Pretty much everything that we were allowed to do we did at least twice! It was such an amazing opportunity! John, our recent covert that was supposed to come at 4, ended up not coming, and canceling! I dont know if you remember Elder Jeffrey R. Hollands talk when he talked about using the "Spiritual Highs" to get through the "Spiritual Lows" Well, that is what had to happen there because we were sooooo excited for him, and it was really hard to not have him come up there with us! Luckily we were still in the Temple, and we were able to stay and have some more really cool experiences! At 6 there was a older couple in our ward that got sealed! I dont know if you all remember when I talked about us going on a "double date" Well it was these people that got married, so I guess that was cool in a sense, but honestly it was mostly just weird! So if you do the math we were in the Temple from about 10am to about 6:30pm, so that is about 8 and a half hours if i did my math right! So it was really a good day!

Wednesday- We started out by tracting in Sullivan! Honestly it was not great, or do I really have any interesting stories from it! Most people didnt answer there door, and we got about the usual of people who say  something like "Oh try back another time! We are super busy" and then we will never see them again, because after that they wont answer their door! Now with all that being said, We sure made it fun! We were honestly laughing the whole time! After lunch we drove down to St. Robert because I was asked to give two Baptismal interviews! We used it as an opportunity to go on an exchange! I ended up going with Elder Smith! Now Elder Smith is a good guy, but he has been out for 2 months, and he is super awkward talking to people, but thinks he is not! Him and I went out tracting! I am going to try and avoid making fun of him, so I will just tell you that there was some really funny conversations! Poor kid! The baptism interviews went great! Something crazy, I dont know if you remember, but a few weeks ago I went to St Robert, and set a baptismal date with Elder Roy, well this was those people, so it was kind of cool to be able to come back and do their interview! They both passed, and as far as I know got baptized on Saturday! We all stayed in the same apartment that night, and unfortunately got stuck in what is known as "pillow talk"! Basically what i am trying to say is we stayed up super late talking! 

Thursday-We had Zone training meeting, so that made the late night an even worse idea! Then to top it all off, President Loveland was there, and we had interviews! For some reason I was the first one to have my interview with President Loveland, so that was good to talk to him for a little bit! The rest of the meeting was about being accountable! Then the worst part is somehow my bag got put in some other missionaries car, and to make a long story short I wont get my camera back until the 25th, so I am sorry there wont be pictures for a while! 

Friday- Friday was pretty interesting! So when we woke up to go workout there was about half an inch of solid ice on our car windows! During the night we had freezing rain, so everything was covered in ice! We couldnt do a lot of drving, and we got told to use our car as little as possible, so we ended up going to a members house, and trying to wait out the storm! (That was by recommendation not by choice lol)! At about 6 it was pretty well safe to drive, so some members took us to Deneys! I had to use the bathroom, so I stood up to go, and some guy said "excuse me" I wasnt really thinking, so I said "Oh no your not in the way", and I kept walking! Then he said "I want a bar seat!" I turned around becaue I was pretty confused, but then he realized that I didnt work there, and started laughing! I finally realized that he thought I worked there! So we joked with each other for a little bit, and then both went on our ways! 

Saturday- It was another pretty good day! We went out and visited a less active member that just moved into the ward! Our Bishop asked us to go see them! Well we get out there and it is two non members that live with the wifes member mom! They are way big into hunting, and had some way cool trophies on the walls! There was a way nice Bull elk, and a pretty good size Kudu! We left their house in kind of a fast notion for some reason, and I didnt get a chance to until my shoes, and retie them, so I just forced them on! In the movie bench warmers Clark (Jon Header) says "Mother would not approve", and well that was the first thing that went through my mind as I did that!  After that we didnt have anything planned, and the ice was still on all of the cars from Friday morning, so we went out and tracting to scrape peoples car windows for them! We did that for a while, and we went to this one house that had a inclined driveway! The whole thing was covered in ice! Now us being boys started sliding down this hill on our feet! Well we went down that hill at least 5 times, and then we wore through the ice on this one part and when we hit it we both fell, and landed right on our butts! It was pretty funny!

Sunday- Sunday morning there was supposed to be an even bigger ice storm than the one on Friday, so the bishop canceled church! Well we woke up Sunday morning, and not one bit of ice on the ground or cars! So Church got canceled for nothing! We went over to a older members house for an activity! They have a bunch of less active kids who live on their own, so we went over there to burn my pants for my 18th month mark, and to play cards with all of them! Well burning my pants was AMAZING!! I cant give you very much details except it was illegal, and once again "Mother would not approve!"! It was a good way to wrap up 18 months! That makes it official If I was a Sister Missionary I would be headed home! Thankfully I have 6 more months to keep learning! The cards was a ton of fun, and honestly we got our foot in the door with a couple of the people there to come over and teach, so it was a super positive experience! 

Well that is my week! I sure hope you all have a good week, and One cool scripture that I really like this week is D&C 10:5 it says "Pray always, that you may come off conqueror; yea, that you may conquer Satan, and that you may escape the hands of the servants of Satan that do uphold his work"

I love and miss you all so much!

Elder Sorensen 

January 9, 2017

Hey everyone! This week was another week in the books! It defiantly was a good one! I am not going to lie it was not looking the best, as a matter of fact it was looking pretty boring, but as the week went on it got better and better, so I will just take you through it!  
Monday- It was the definition of boring! We ended up staying in Sullivan, and the whole day we were trying to get these work out videos ( <----Ill get to those in a second!)! But we were on the computer at the church, and the internet is so SLOW!!!  We had this one video we were trying to download at it was a 30 minute video, and we sat there for an hour and a half watching it go sooooo slow, and then it failed! So after a few frustrating attempts, we called up a member, and asked to do it on their computer! In 30 minutes we had all 12 videos all downloaded an ready to go, so that was good to get them all ready so fast! 

Tuesday- Now to those workout videos! We got the workout called Insanity! I dont know if you have ever herd of it, but it is tough! We just tried to jump right in on Tuesday morning, and I almost died! I was so close to throwing up, but thankfully i held it in! Elder Durrant was doing just as bad as me, so I didnt feel to bad! So we did this workout every morning this week except Sunday because it has a calendar for us to follow, and it tells us what videos to do, and it gives us one break day! Every morning we wake up at 6 and go do it, and let me tell you it has been hard, but it is getting easier! After we showered, and had our usual morning stuff! Then we had the Food Pantry that we always go to, and it was awesome! We helped a ton of people! It was way cool, but we also had a ton extra, so we got to take some stuff home which is always nice! For lunch we had a member take us out to McDonalds, and it was kind of crazy there was a fight going on right after we got there! It was just a yelling fight between a boyfriend, His girlfriend who went  in the bathroom, and a manager who got involved! Everything sorted its self out after a few minutes, but it was kind of intense for a second! We did a lot of Less active work, and had an opportunity to give a few blessing the rest of the day! 

Wednesday- We had a district meeting, and it was pretty small! There was only 6 of us there, so that was kind of lame! The meeting went ok though! We talked about obedience, and it was pretty good! The rest of the day was good! We kept up the less active work, but nothing to crazy happened!

Thursday- When we left to work out there was snow on the ground! That is always a good thing to wake up to! In the afternoon we had an apartment inspection from the mission, and it will please some of you to know that we passed with 100%! We had to do a little touch of things while they were there, but they were like scrubbing the toilet with this bar that was basically a soft rock! Other then little things like that we did great! That night we had a meeting with our Bishop, and our Ward Mission Leader! Sullivan doesnt have a Ward Mission plan, and our mission is really pushing those right now, so we met with them to try and get them to have the desire to make one! The meeting was about 2 hours, and I honestly did feel like we got anywhere! The meeting was so scrambled! 

Friday- We went out to a town about 30 minutes away to visit with a less active that lives out there! He is pretty interesting! He smokes, and keeps telling us he is trying to quit, bu he really hasnt shown a sign that he is! We had a decent lesson with him though, and we read a chapter out of the Book of Mormon, and he seemed to like it! When we got back to Sullivan we had to pick up some dry cleaning! I had to clean 2 suites because They were both pretty dusty! They are both looking CLEAN right now! We were just getting done with dinner when this youth pastor from another church called us! He asked us to come help them put together chairs they just bought! They are all cool people, so we went to help! It was crazy we put together like 300 chairs! I got the job of putting in screws! It was pretty fun, but after a while the wrists were getting a little sore! It is always fun to help other people!

Saturday- We helped a less active move some big furniture! It was kind of funny she was getting the stuff from other people! So we had a lot of stopping and starting! While we were taking the last load to her house this computer desk thing flew out of the truck, and exploded on the ground honestly it was the best part of the move! That was really the only part of Saturday that was too interesting

Sunday- It was our rest day for our work out, which means we got to sleep in a half an hour, and that was soooo good!  Church was good! It was Fast Sunday, so there is a lot of good and bad that comes with that! The good stuff that happend was First i guess that our message about a ward mission plan got through because in Ward Council, and in Sacrament out Bishop said something about it, so hopefully that starts to go through! John, Our recent convert received the Aaronic Priesthood, and that is such a good feeling to be apart of that! He also got his Limited Use Temple recommend! That means that We actually get to go to the Temple with Him tomorrow, but it gets better! The way that our rides work out we get to go at 10 am, and we wont leave until 7pm, so we get to spend the Whole day in the Temple!! I am so excited for that!

Well that was my week! This coming week will be a good one! I hope you all have a great week! I love and miss you!!

Elder Sorensen 

January 2, 2017

Hey everyone! I had a pretty good week! 

On Monday We had to go to Rolla because our library was closed because it was the Day after 

Christmas! It was pretty good! They have a lot nice computers in their family history center then 

we usually email on! It was pretty good! The Salem  Elders misunderstood us when we told them 

we were in Rolla they thought we wanted them to come to, so they just showed up! It wasnt a

 bad thing, but we were only able to stay for like 30 minutes after they got there, so I kind of felt

 bad for them making the drive for nothing! Hopefully they arnt to mad at us! 

On Tuesday we usually have the food pantry, well they didnt tell us that we didnt have it this 

week, so we showed up, and no one was there except the guy who is kind of the boss! We 

asked if there was anything he needed help with since we were there anyways! Well boy did

 he put us to work! There was a truck full of food coming, and  he had us help him unload it all! 

There was so much food! There was about 15 pallets full of food, and we had to unload it all, 

and put it all on shelves in a very organized manner! It was kind of exhausting! Every Tuesday 

this single guy feeds us, and he is a little interesting! He is funny though, so we always pull 

pranks on him! Well this time we went all stealth on him, and used some marshmallow guns 

i got for Christmas (Thanks mom)! We opened his door, and started lighting him up with 

Marshmallows! I dont know how many Elder Durrant shot, but I know that i at least shot 15 

marshmallows! I had my gopro all mounted up, but for some reason it didnt record, so I am 

sorry that I dont have a video to go along with that! Needless to say it was VERY funny! 

On Wednesday we had a District meeting! I dont know if you remember, but it has been like 

6 weeks since we have had one of those, so it was kind of weird!  The meeting went great! 

I learned a lot from it! The meeting was about "Teaching People and not Lessons"! We 

specifically talked about teaching about baptism to different kinds of people which was really 

cool! After the meeting the senior couple serving on the military base fed us all lunch! We

 went on Exchanges with the Zone Leaders, and I went to St. Robert with Elder Roy! That

 was pretty cool! It was way nice to get a different look at things! One cool thing is when i 

was with him we set a baptism date with a part member family, so that was way cool! When 

we were going to dinner we had to go on the military base because that is where our dinner

 lives! The guy ended up coming out to get us, and then getting in our car to drive back on 

because his car was to small! Well to get on the base you go through a gate, and they check

 your IDs and you need someone with military id to get you on the base! Well The missionaries

 in St. Robert can get a Id, but I cant, so I had to go with the guy on, and It was kind of cool

 after we all showed our IDs I got saluted by the guard! I later found out that it was because 

He thought I was a drive of an officer! It was pretty cool! 

On Thursday we exchanged back, and due to being close on our miles we arranged it to

 have a member from Sullivan meet us halfway, and on the way back to Sullivan Trenton, 

I believe I talked about him last week saying "This might be the Ginger Ale talking" Well this 

week he said he is going to change his name to Noobslayer, and after he said that he gave

 us exactly what he had to do to legally change his name, so it was pretty funny! We had 

dinner with an older couple that is about to get married (It is a weird situation) and they tool

 us out to Pizza hut! On the way there they were telling us about how they are going to go 

to the Temple the following day to set a wedding date, and to do a session! Well we sit down

 for dinner and the lady orders a sweet tea to drink! Elder Durrant and I look at each other 

for a minute like did she really just order tea! When we asked her about it The guy said "I 

am trying to get her to quite drinking soda"! Not wanting to offend them we just let it go, but 

it was super weird! 

On Friday we didn't have anything planned, so we went out tracting! Well we had a long street 

that we were doing, and really not having a ton of success! As a matter of fact one of the 

most common ,and most frustrating responses people have when they open the door is "I

 already have a church", or something along those lines! I always want to say something like

 "Well ya that is why were here"! after a while of knocking doors, we knocked on this house

 where the door mat said "A nice person and a really old grouch live here" Well we were 

joking that when they opened the door we were looking for the nice person! Well it was my

 turn, so i knocked, Fully planning to ask for the nice person, but as soon as this 90 year 

old guy answered for some reason i just couldn't do it! Well after talking with him we found

 out his wife (The "nice person") was recently put in a care center, and he was pretty upset

 about it! As of right now that guy wasn't to interested, but we were able to at least share a

 little bit about the Book of Mormon where I feel like if we would have started like we were 

planning he would have gotten upset, and we wouldn't have shared anything, so that was 

way good! 

On Saturday we had 3 things scheduled in the morning one at 10, one at 11, and one at 12!

 Both the 11 appointment and the 12 appointment wanted to got at 10, but we already had 

something, so they just said to let them know if we get done early! Well to make a long story 

short by 10:05 all three had canceled, so that was kind of rough! The joys of being a missionary! 

To substitute we went and helped the Bishop and his family clean the church! At 6 we got 

invited to go to a New Years Eve party! We were able to stay out until 10 as long as we 

were at a members house, so we had a good party! This family has most of the youth in

 the ward! There are 3 brothers who all have kids! The ages of the kids rang from 19 to 5

, so there was a lot of noise! It was pretty fun! We played pool almost the entire  time we 

were there! At 10 we had to go back to the apartment, and like the party animals that we

 are went right to sleep! 

On Sunday it was the first day of 2017! That means that my "Dark Year" is over! What a 

dark year is, is the year where you dont see anyone from home! For example the first 6 months

 of 2015 i was home, and the last 6 months of 2017 ill be home, but i was gone for the whole 

year of 2016! So that Dark year is over! After Church we met with our Ward Mission Leader,

 and had a pretty good meeting with him about the Less actives! In the meeting we talked

 alot about Testimony Vs Conversion, and how Conversion is an on going thing where if you 

just have a testimony you know its true, but Conversion is more of acting! Around 6:30 we

 got a text from the Zone Leaders tell us that that night was transfer calls, and Tuesday was

 Transfer day! Well what we found out is that we are both staying until Sometime in February! 

Well that is my week! I hope you all have a great week! I love and miss you so much

Elder Sorensen