Me and Elder Baker

Me and Elder Schow

You gotta have faith

Hey Everyone!  

This week was jammed packed so let's get to it. First off we had Zone Conference this week. For those who don't know, Zone Conference is when 2 area's of missionaries or zones (this time it was the Carson and Fallon zones) get together for a good chunk of the day and are trained by the Assistants to the President, a couple of the senior missionaries in the mission office, and then President and Sister Chestnut. It was super fun. There are some pictures of your's truly on the website nevadarenomission.com It was so great. The assistants gave a training on finding, Sister Chestnut gave a training on our thoughts and making sure they are in line with our work, and President Chestnut gave a training on teaching the doctrine in the lessons found in Chapter 3 of Preach my Gospel. It was so awesome. There was a great Spirit there and I found a lot of great inspiration and guidance from the training on finding. We have been working to improve on that this week and I have a neat story to share about that.

Normally our street contacting and tracting has yielded no real results. There has hardly been any interest from the people we talk to so it gets discouraging. From the training though I learned that you can't let yourself become discouraged. You need to press on. In your mind you have to think that this next person you will talk to will be interested. When they aren't, you move on to the next person with the same attitude and enthusiasm. This week was hard because almost all our lessons fell through and our finding was being its usual self. Elder Jones and I though were working to keep our faithful happy attitude. This Saturday while we were stopping by some less actives (who weren't home) we started to go back to our car. We saw an older lady with a walker going down the street and so we decided to go and try to talk to her. We are supposed to talk to everyone and not be hasty so that's what we did. We went up to her and while we were approaching I thought "what should I say to her?" The thought of family history came to mind and I don't really use that much so I decided to give it a shot. When I offered to show her about the family history stuff the church has she said "that sounds very interesting, you guys are Mormon right?" We said yes and she then proceeded to tell us that her family joined the church when she was 9 and she was baptized but a couple years later their family moved to Central America and she hasn't been back since. Lately she had been thinking about coming back to church and learning about it, and that it was very fortuitous that we had run into her. She asked if there was a church here and what time it meets, and we told her tomorrow at 9. She said she would love to go but she didn't have a way of getting there. We told her we would get her a ride to which she was very grateful. The next day she came to all 3 hours of church and loved it. We are meeting with her next week and is very excited to learn all about the church and Book of Mormon.

I am out of time but I just wanted to let you all know that we need to have faith. I gave a talk in the Comstock ward on faith yesterday and it was so amazing to give it. My testimony on faith and my faith in my Savior have grown so much. I truly love serving Him. This is so hard and discouraging at times, but I will not let that get in the way. I will keep my head up and put in my all. It is so hard, but in the end it will be very worth it. I know this because I get little opportunities like this last one where there is great joy and proof that it is worth it. I love you all. Thanks for your prayers and support.


Love,
Elder Kynan Sorochan

It's been a week?

August 15, 2016

Hello and welcome to another exciting episode of Elder Sorochan: The Mission Chronicles! I can't believe it has already been a week, that flew by. I'm right now trying to remember what even happened. I think we will start with the fun story of the week.

Now everyone knows I am a genius right? Right, and this here story is going to show all y'all how right your thinking is. It happened on Thursday. We were going over to teach Mark and we brought a new priest with us named Chase. His brother just left on a mission and he just became a priest so we were excited to take him out with us. As we showed up we needed to get a pamphlet from the trunk so I went in got it and closed it. Then I realized that I had left the keys in the trunk. Now, this trunk doesn't have a handle, you have to use a button on the remote or a lever in the car. Fortunately, I hadn't locked the car yet so we went and pulled the lever to open the trunk. It didn't work. We then with the help of Mark and Chase we tried to get into the trunk through the back seats. We couldn't figure out how to get them down, but we could put our hands sorta behind the seat and could tell that it was the way into the trunk. We are in a 2012 Toyota Corrolla and the farthest we could get was getting the bottom of the seat off and moving the seat a little forward to get our hands in there. We then checked the car manual and it turns out the seats do come down but the leaver to do that is in the trunk. Very helpful. Mark eventually had to leave and we still couldn't reach the keys. We used my camera to take pictures of the inside to see where the keys were and they were right against the front of the trunk, not the seats. Eventually Chase went home to get a flashlight and his mom had the idea of calling Bro. Soderborg. Bro. Soderborg is the first councilor in the bishopric and is a really fun and helpful guy. He came over and told us to pull the lever. He listened to the latch not let go. He told us to keep pulling it and he started banging on the trunk. It opened. After an hour and 40 minutes it finally opened. I'm glad Chase has a good first missionary story.

Now for the more spiritual side. This last week is Elder Baker's second last week. He goes home Thursday to be home in time for school. He is our district leader and has helped me a ton since Elder McKenna left. He has helped me through my stress and anxiety and feelings of being overwhelmed these past few weeks and has become a great friend. I had the privilege on Friday to go with him on his last missionary exchange of his mission. We had a great time. We got to do service making Jam and mowing someone's lawn. We went to a fun place for lunch and had taco's with the Comstock ward mission leader. (that was really fun for Elder Baker because he was called spanish speaking) The best part though was what we learned that day. Elder Baker through talking with me and using Preach My Gospel has showed me how much we learn about the Atonement while on our missions. This last exchange was no different. He shared with me the talk by Elder Skousen on what is the meaning of the Atonement or something along those lines. It is a talk by him sharing what he has learned about the need, purpose, and effect the Atonement has on us. It really rang true to me. I have been learning so much about the Atonement and my need to always be supported by it. My Savior is my strength. He is the only way. We can do anything as we come unto Jesus Christ. I am so grateful for Elder Baker, Elder McKenna, and so many others already who have helped me realize this and learn this. All of this, the church, the gospel, everything, is true and is to make us happy. Even though all of this is still hard and makes me work harder than I ever have in my life, I am still happy and am filled with joy because of this experience because of Jesus Christ. I hope all of you can see this for yourselves too. Love you all!

Love,
Elder Kynan Sorochan

Elder Latham (Zone Leader)

A week full of up's, down's, and Pizza

August 8, 2016

Hey everyone! What a great week this was. To start I'll talk about the Pizza. We had Pizza 4 days in a row. It was AMAZING!!! Two of the nights it was even home made pizza so that was a big plus. Ok so this week I wanted to go on a more day by day basis so here we go.

Psyche, we will do that in a second. Tricked ya! First and foremost I bet you all are wondering who this Elder Jones person is that I am training. Well let me tell you. Elder Jones is a smart cookie. He loves physics and is hoping to become a physics professor in geo-physics so that is super cool. He is 18 and just out of high school and is very dedicated. Very obedient so that makes my job as his trainer a LOT easier. He is really fun and is learning fast so things are going well. He is from Augusta Georgia which I think I said last week but oh well. I love him and he is great to have as a companion.

Ok now to business. Monday was really helpful. With Elder McKenna gone and me as the mentor for Elder Jones I felt a little lost. I was praying for help and as He always does Heavenly Father provided it. My District Leader Elder Baker has been helping me and whenever I have needed anything he has always had me give him a call to ask. This last Monday as he was talking to me he saw I was really struggling so he took me to an empty classroom in the stake center we were in and he talked with me for about an hour I would say and he helped me figure a lot of things out. He helped me understand why I am experiencing all these hard things. This mission is is really some of the best time for the Lord to prepare me for the rest of my life. I am so happy now to be better understanding why things are hard, but as well I am learning how to better face them and overcome them. I can do this! I am really grateful for Elder Baker's continuing help. Unfortunately he leaves very soon but Heavenly Father has never left me without help so I not concerned. I can do this.

Tuesday then was a really hard day. We had district meeting and President and Sister Chestnut came which was really fun. Always love to see them. Then later in the day the hard part came. Mark, a 16 year old we are teaching who we were getting ready to be baptized, came back from a trip and told us that he doesn't want to be baptized right now. He doesn't feel like he could keep the commitment and so doesn't want to go forward with it right now. It really threw me. He was our big light as we try to grow our teaching pool but now he isn't interested in progressing. It really made me just unhappy for the rest of the day. He said we can still keep meeting with him, but it was just so disappointing because he knows these things are true. I talked about it with Elder Baker and he again pointed me in a better direction of thinking and I was able to get over it. I know that these things are true and even if nobody else ever listens, as long as I give it my best and continue my conversion, all will be well. I know this is true, and I can always have happiness in that.

Wednesday was really great. We had 3 less active lessons and in our last Bro. Soderberg came with us to Sis. Carl's and we had planned to teach the Plan of Salvation but after our opening prayer the Spirit took over and it turned into a read the scriptures/testimony lesson. I had scripture after scripture coming into my head which I haven't been good at yet and she changed from not wanting to read because that's not what she does to yeah she will read. It was amazing. Thursday was just a good day and then Friday we had an exchange with the Zone Leaders. Normally this doesn't happen but Elder Baker had the thought to arrange it so I got to have Elder Latham come to our area. At first I was nervous because I don't really know him, he is a Zone Leader, and I am new. After a little bit I reminded myself that he is just a normal missionary too and that what I need to do is learn as much as I can from him. That's what I did and he helped set up some activities we can be doing to further the work and it has already given us some good potential. I am really excited.

Saturday we had a meeting with our Ward Mission Leader in the Comstock ward and he is just totally doing a great job. He is helping to move so much forward to help us and is being extremely helpful with just everything! Sunday was fun and had some enjoyable meetings. Hope you all have a great week! Remember to pray and read your scriptures!

Love,
Elder Kynan Sorochan

 Zone bowling

 Zone bowling

 The Zone!

3 generations of Missionaries. Wow.

Cool dagger

Elder Gamble and Me. He left this week but was an amazing Zone Leader. Going to miss him.

It's Elder Jones! The missionary I am training.

Elder McKenna signed my jersey! (He changed "david" to "kenna" haha)

Doesn't it look great?

Our last full day together as a companionship. So sad. I really love this guy.

Mission's are truly amazing

August 1, 2016

Hey family! (and friends :D ) How is everyone doing? I hope you are all doing great and are able to eat some ice cream today. Well let's get to it. The fun stuff first.

I know I said last week that there was a couple of lessons I wanted to talk about so I will touch on those quickly. The first is the Millers and for them it's just more I wanted to talk about them since we are teaching them. They are a part member couple who are great. Bro. Miller is a less active member and Sis. Miller is investigating. They want to be married in the temple which is super great and are excited to work towards it. I hope that Elder Jones and I will be able to help them get there. As well the other lesson was with the Moretto's. Sister Moretto is a less active member due to work and Bro. Moretto isn't a member but loves the missionaries and has been involved with the youth at times. He has done some coaching as well at the school I believe. Their lesson recently was super great. We had something planned and it turned out to be exactly what they needed. We went in and started talking to them and since we have built up a friendship with them they opened up to us about a concern about something going on in their lives. From that we talked to them about some things in the Family: A Proclamation to the World. We as well used the scripture we had planned for them, Helaman 5:12 which seemed to be what they needed. There was definitely a good Spirit there.

Fun moment of the week: We went and visited a less active member, Bro. Rogers. He recently had a stroke and so has been recovering but we went and visited him and he has some crazy experiences. He was in the military (I think maybe the marines) and has done some crazy stuff over sea's in Afghanistan. If I got into it all that would take too much time but he was doing a bunch of under cover stuff. He as well was in the Military Police and went over to Alcatraz when some Natives tried to take it over after some law was passed allowing them to take certain plots of government land if it fit the conditions. He is closely related to the chief of those people so they had a talk. He has so many weapons and the entrance to his weapon room in his house has this thing that he has to press his thumb into. I think it is a thumb print scanner. WHAT?!?!?!? It was a fun lesson.

Now onto this week. This has been one of the hardest weeks of my life. Before this week I had only planned one full day so far on my mission, now I have to plan every day based off of what I know. I don't have Elder McKenna helping know who we can see. He had been here 6 months and now all of his knowledge is gone to North Reno. Can't really call him with him being so far out of zone... I am training Elder Jones which is a huge responsibility. He is very dedicated and is going to do very well as a missionary, but I have to take that new missionary fire and try to direct it into real effective work. I have to try and figure out what has been done and what needs to be done in 2 wards. I need to work with 2 different wards who have different obstacles to do effective work. I am feeling so overwhelmed, exhausted, tired, drained, and inadequate. I don't know how to do this. I feel to tired at times to do this. I have to direct everything for awhile and try and accomplish good, effective missionary work while working around the challenges that get put in our way. A lot of times it feels impossible. Then however, at other times, it feels very motivating. I can't wait to see what I can do. What things I can accomplish. What miracles we will see. It's a great puzzle that I get to try to solve and put great happiness and energy into. It's those times that are keeping me going. What I am truly learning though, and have had many experiences with this past week, is the true power of humbling ourselves before our Heavenly Father and coming to Him in prayer, seeking help, strength, and power from Him and the Atonement of Jesus Christ. When I have knelt in prayer and poured out my heart and soul, told my Father in Heaven all that is in my mind and heart, and begged for help, comfort and strength, I have experienced something amazing. In a very small, still way, I feel my attitude and emotion shift. I have bits of strength come into me and have received a sense of peace to keep going. I have had thoughts of help and instruction come to me. None of it has been overwhelming, but it has been life changing. My Heavenly Father is there for me and is helping me. As I come to Jesus Christ I receive that which I need to keep going but as well as still feel how hard and trying this is so that I learn. Serving a mission is the hardest thing I have ever done, but I cling to the knowledge that this experience is leading me to become what my Heavenly Father wants and needs me to become, and to receive greater joy than I can ever imagine. I love you all. Keep being great.

Love,
Elder Kynan Sorochan

Elder McKenna's hot dog 

Service at the Food Pantry 

My hot dog 

Looking over Moundhouse

Didn't see that one coming

July 25, 2016

Hi! This past week has been good with a very exciting weekend, but to begin I need to give a little bit of a background. Right now during the summer months is the busy time for missionaries coming off their missions and starting them, so there are a LOT of changes going down right now. This transfer we have 19 new missionaries coming into the mission, and we also have 20 missionaries leaving to go home. On top of that we have some missionaries leaving half way through the next transfer for school timing with no missionaries coming in until September AND we have been having a number of missionaries leaving early unexpectedly. This means that we are low on numbers to start, and now with 20 missionaries leaving we are losing a lot of our leadership and are then faced with the dilemma of finding 19 missionaries in the mission who aren't training already to become trainers as well as fill in the now vacant leadership positions.

So long story short, I'm training! I got the call yesterday morning from President Chestnut asking me to train a new missionary so it's going to be very interesting to see how it all goes. I am excited, nervous, happy, a little scared, etc. It's going to be an adventure to say the least. It will be good though. I know that Heavenly Father know's I'm ready to do this. If I wasn't, He wouldn't ask me. I will be heavily relying on Him and prayer. I am praying for the Spirit to really guide me to know how to best do this. I know that as I have faith and be obedient, this will all work out. It's really funny though. The only other English speaking Canadian in the mission also trained after only being in this mission for 6 weeks so apparently it's a thing now.

It was a good week though. This past week on Friday was national hot dog day so there was a deal at a gas station on hot dog's so on Saturday we got some while the deal was still going on. As well the Saturday before this most recent one I think I forgot to mention we did some service at the food pantry. That was fun. As well we did some service for a less active member named Brother Griffiths. We have been working with him for awhile and he is now every now and then coming to church! We sometimes mow his lawn and sometimes go and teach a little lesson to him. He has taken us out to lunch and on Saturday made us breakfast! We had biscuits and gravy and eggs. It was pretty good. We have been having some really powerful lessons lately, but I waited too long to talk about them and am out of time so I will make sure to tell you all about them next week. Sorry! Love you all!

Elder Kynan Sorochan