Friday, 30 September 2016
Short but Sweet
September 26, 2016
Hello wonderful people!
Life here is fantastico! Ok so I ran short on time today so it is not going to be a very long email but I hope you will forgive me.
First off I wanted to talk about our new investigator April. She is a interesting lady with a long back story. Long story short, she has been humbled by the drastic change in lifestyle her family has had due to her husbands drastic decline in health, and is now ready to receive the gospel. We had a great first lesson with her where she was just feeling the Spirit a lot and while we committed her to read the Book of Mormon she told us without reading it that she already feels it is true!!!! For the first time on my mission after she said that I invited her to be baptized. She said is absolutely wants to! It was great! We are meeting with her again on Tuesday.
I think I have mentioned Chuck before in my emails but we had another lesson with him this week. First we did some service for him and the Workman family in Dayton ward came to help! They are such an amazing family. Sister Workman just recently was called as the Relief Society President and is already doing a spectacular job and their oldest son comes out with us a lot. We got to have their oldest and his brother sit in on the lesson and they both did some great testifying. They are going to be great missionaries. Chuck will take some work. He has studied so many different religions, but says that ours and some Hindu religion come closest to what he feels is the true religion. Interesting right? He is now reading the Book of Mormon again and praying about it. He says his answer on it's truthfulness hasn't come yet, but he is getting the prompting to keep reading. Perfect. We invited him to be baptized when he knows these things are true, and he said that if he learns that this religion is the true one, he will 100% convert and be baptized. Excellent!
Brenda is progressing as well. She is all the way to Helaman in the Book of Mormon and she has backtracked once too. She is reading so much it is great! She loved General Conference for the women's session. We asked a member to take her and they all had a blast. She is very excited for this coming weekend of General Conference, and she has a meeting with the Bishop next week so she can talk to him about going to the temple. AND she is doing family history work. She is our golden teaching person. (since she is baptized, she isn't an investigator, but she still is amazing)
Hope you all have a wonderful week and love General Conference!
Love,
Elder Kynan Sorochan
Hello wonderful people!
Life here is fantastico! Ok so I ran short on time today so it is not going to be a very long email but I hope you will forgive me.
First off I wanted to talk about our new investigator April. She is a interesting lady with a long back story. Long story short, she has been humbled by the drastic change in lifestyle her family has had due to her husbands drastic decline in health, and is now ready to receive the gospel. We had a great first lesson with her where she was just feeling the Spirit a lot and while we committed her to read the Book of Mormon she told us without reading it that she already feels it is true!!!! For the first time on my mission after she said that I invited her to be baptized. She said is absolutely wants to! It was great! We are meeting with her again on Tuesday.
I think I have mentioned Chuck before in my emails but we had another lesson with him this week. First we did some service for him and the Workman family in Dayton ward came to help! They are such an amazing family. Sister Workman just recently was called as the Relief Society President and is already doing a spectacular job and their oldest son comes out with us a lot. We got to have their oldest and his brother sit in on the lesson and they both did some great testifying. They are going to be great missionaries. Chuck will take some work. He has studied so many different religions, but says that ours and some Hindu religion come closest to what he feels is the true religion. Interesting right? He is now reading the Book of Mormon again and praying about it. He says his answer on it's truthfulness hasn't come yet, but he is getting the prompting to keep reading. Perfect. We invited him to be baptized when he knows these things are true, and he said that if he learns that this religion is the true one, he will 100% convert and be baptized. Excellent!
Brenda is progressing as well. She is all the way to Helaman in the Book of Mormon and she has backtracked once too. She is reading so much it is great! She loved General Conference for the women's session. We asked a member to take her and they all had a blast. She is very excited for this coming weekend of General Conference, and she has a meeting with the Bishop next week so she can talk to him about going to the temple. AND she is doing family history work. She is our golden teaching person. (since she is baptized, she isn't an investigator, but she still is amazing)
Hope you all have a wonderful week and love General Conference!
Love,
Elder Kynan Sorochan
Sunday, 25 September 2016
Called to Serve in the Greatest Mission in the World
September 19, 2016
I am apparently good at locking the keys in places that I can't get back into. Yesterday I locked the keys in the library. We were about to go to dinner with the Peterson clan in the Comstock ward. The oldest bro. Peterson (sometimes called old man Peterson) has 3 kids and their families that are living in Dayton. The odds of that are amazing. No one chooses to live in Dayton. Dayton chooses you. I've met only about 2 people that have moved here because they wanted to. The rest are here mostly because of work. Well Bro. Greenlee our ward mission leader in Comstock is a member, he married in. We were going to have a meeting after dinner so we stopped by the church to make a copy of the teaching progress record for him. As we were leaving I found I didn't have the keys with me. I had left them on the table in the library, which had now closed and locked. Our keys to open the library were now in the library. Now we do have an extra set, but those are in the apartment, the keys to which are still in the library. We called the younger Bro. Peterson and he came and saved the day. He went and got Bishops keys so that we could get into the library, get our keys, and go to dinner. Fun Sunday nights.
Now lets talk about Brenda, or Sister B as she likes to say in her texts :D Sister B is just awesome. She loves meeting with us and fed us dinner yesterday. She fed us steaks, crinkled fries, corn, and cantaloupe. AND lemonade too. So good. We are teaching her the lessons and are trying to build a desire to go to the temple. It is working. Yesterday was stake conference and there were 3 talks I believe either about or discussing the temple. Right after the closing prayer she says that she wants to go to the temple! As soon as we find her records and have her talk with Bishop about what he thinks she still needs to learn, she will be set to go do baptisms for the dead! She is just so great. Where in the world did she come from?
We got a new investigator this week named Chuck. I think I have mentioned him before. We have done some service for him and were able to this week have some time to have a sit down lesson with him. It has been 2 years since he has last met with missionaries. The missionaries before either were having trouble explaining things to him, or the Spirit has really been working with him. He has a problem with faith, and this week as we talked about faith he was really seeming to get it. We think so anyway because he said that the way we were explaining it is really making sense. His thing is he doesn't like blind faith. We used Alma 32 to talk about how we don't have only blind faith, but that faith is what we have that leads us to knowledge. We start with a belief, then have faith, or act on that belief, and it turns into knowledge. That really made sense to him. When we left he thanked us for the help we have been giving him in service, but that what he really wants us here for is to teach him. HOW GREAT IS THAT?!?!?!?!?! It is great.
Love you all. There are so many miracles in my life right now, it just takes diligence, faith, and patience. Keep being great all of you. Thank you for your prayers. Keep praying for missionary opportunities. The scriptures promise us that as we pray, they will come.
Love,
Elder Kynan Sorochan
Monday, 19 September 2016
They like to give us Food here
Monday September 12, 2016
Hey everyone I'm back! Hope you have all had a great week! It has been a very good week here with lots of learning. And food as the title implies. Let's see where to begin? Let's go with the funny story first.
Hey everyone I'm back! Hope you have all had a great week! It has been a very good week here with lots of learning. And food as the title implies. Let's see where to begin? Let's go with the funny story first.
On Thursday while we were waiting to meet with Mark we went around street contacting with some tracting thrown in there. One door we knocked on had the inside door open. We thought "awesome! They are home!" Well when we knocked on the door this girl runs across the view we have of the inside. Great, people! We waited about 10 seconds after that with no one coming to the door. We then heard a loud whisper from inside that said "hide! hide!". Elder Jones and I looked at each other, then left. We laughed. People will always do weird things when it comes to missionaries.
Ok first, we got to do some service for Chuck this week. We worked on the car I told you guys about which was fun. He has some issues with faith so while we did work on the car Elder Jones and I came up with some Book of Mormon chapters to give him to read. He asked for them I think. Or was very interested in having them. He has read the Book of Mormon twice in the past so we hope that we can help him feel the Spirit from his reading. We are building an image of obedient missionaries with him and Carol so we will see how it goes. He is very friendly and likes us, so I hope that we can help him along.
Bro. Larkins this week texted us to take us up on our offer of service. We unloaded this gigantic u-haul truck full of food into a storage shed. He let us grab stuff we wanted as we took it out. We got so many goodies it's not even funny. And with all the stuff we took we didn't even come close to making a dent in all the food that was donated to him. It was awesome! He is really becoming friendly to us. We really hope we can start having lessons with him soon. He is such a great person and so fun to be around. It would be amazing to teach him. He knows aikido (sp?) which is this japanese martial arts. It is so neat I want to learn it when I get home. Look up some stuff on youtube. It will be just as cool and a lot less painful than him lightly demonstrating some stuff on us.
Brenda is still killing it. She is just trying to do everything by the Gospel. We had a discussion on just some life things that she is going through right now and she is trying to figure out what God would have her do rather than what she would maybe want to do. I just love this woman! She is just fantastic in the Gospel. Everyone be like Brenda. (oh and she wants to have us over for dinner too.)
We got to have dinner with these non members Jeff and Jennifer. They spoiled us as you can see in the photos. In the Top 3 dinners on the mission so far. They are really great people. We stop by every couple weeks and share scriptures and have a good gospel discussion. They aren't really people who will progress so we don't go by very much but they will one day so we keep contact. They slowly however seem to have their faith growing. They are asking more and more questions and as we try to testify boldly they are receptive or at least listen.
I continue to be gaining Charity. I have been learning this week how to have more Charity for my companion. I haven't always been the best when it comes to being his friend like I should, but as I have prayed for charity I have seen where I have done not so well and have improved. Elder Jones and I are becoming great friends and I am so happy to be serving with him. Have a great week everyone!
Love you!
Elder Kynan Sorochan
Ok first, we got to do some service for Chuck this week. We worked on the car I told you guys about which was fun. He has some issues with faith so while we did work on the car Elder Jones and I came up with some Book of Mormon chapters to give him to read. He asked for them I think. Or was very interested in having them. He has read the Book of Mormon twice in the past so we hope that we can help him feel the Spirit from his reading. We are building an image of obedient missionaries with him and Carol so we will see how it goes. He is very friendly and likes us, so I hope that we can help him along.
Bro. Larkins this week texted us to take us up on our offer of service. We unloaded this gigantic u-haul truck full of food into a storage shed. He let us grab stuff we wanted as we took it out. We got so many goodies it's not even funny. And with all the stuff we took we didn't even come close to making a dent in all the food that was donated to him. It was awesome! He is really becoming friendly to us. We really hope we can start having lessons with him soon. He is such a great person and so fun to be around. It would be amazing to teach him. He knows aikido (sp?) which is this japanese martial arts. It is so neat I want to learn it when I get home. Look up some stuff on youtube. It will be just as cool and a lot less painful than him lightly demonstrating some stuff on us.
Brenda is still killing it. She is just trying to do everything by the Gospel. We had a discussion on just some life things that she is going through right now and she is trying to figure out what God would have her do rather than what she would maybe want to do. I just love this woman! She is just fantastic in the Gospel. Everyone be like Brenda. (oh and she wants to have us over for dinner too.)
We got to have dinner with these non members Jeff and Jennifer. They spoiled us as you can see in the photos. In the Top 3 dinners on the mission so far. They are really great people. We stop by every couple weeks and share scriptures and have a good gospel discussion. They aren't really people who will progress so we don't go by very much but they will one day so we keep contact. They slowly however seem to have their faith growing. They are asking more and more questions and as we try to testify boldly they are receptive or at least listen.
I continue to be gaining Charity. I have been learning this week how to have more Charity for my companion. I haven't always been the best when it comes to being his friend like I should, but as I have prayed for charity I have seen where I have done not so well and have improved. Elder Jones and I are becoming great friends and I am so happy to be serving with him. Have a great week everyone!
Love you!
Elder Kynan Sorochan
Tuesday, 6 September 2016
Charity
September 5, 2016
Hello! I am so excited to write to you guys! This week has been awesome. Our plans didn't seem to always work, or lessons didn't always go according to plan, but they always worked out. First off, this last Monday with bowling I did the best I have ever done in my life. I scored a 171 and got a turkey (3 strikes in a row). WHAT?!?!?!?!? It was so awesome. Our hike to the waterfall was fun and I will send pics of that next week. I just want to say right now how wonderful this work is, proclaiming the gospel. Ok now to business, some neat experiences from this week.
A few weeks ago we ran into this guy outside Walmart doing this fundraiser thing for Veterans food thingy and was talking to some missionaries in our zone. He flagged us down and started talking to us and asked us if we wanted to donate. Now you see I was in a hurry because we had just booked me a hair cut which was in half and hour and we needed to get our grocery shopping done. He suggested before we replied that we could just get some money after shopping and come give it but I just asked "could I give you a dollar now?" I grabbed my wallet where I only had dollars in my personal money so I grabbed one, gave it to him, and went to leave. He said to wait and that he wanted to feed us. His wife is a member and so this last week we finally had dinner with them. We ate the largest burger of my life. It was soooooooooooo tasty. He has an interesting sense of humor, but we just joked around with him and he really opened up to us. This week we are doing service with him and we see if he is up for some legitimate lessons. He is a really great guy and has had missionaries over before. I think we can help him make some progress. His name is Bro. Larkins.
Now update on Brenda. This week we taught her the plan of salvation and tithing. She is so awesome. After just explaining what tithing is she immediately wanted to be paying it. She is just so great! We took her to the Why I Believe fireside which is a fireside arranged by missionaries where recent converts and returning members bear their testimonies. We needed a ride since it was in Carson and we felt prompted to ask a member, Bro. Crosby, to take us. He was available and while there he ran into 2 or 3 people that in the past he had tried to help return to the church. They were in the crowd and are returning! Plus a co-worker's mom talked since she was just baptized a little while ago. He was super grateful to have come. Brenda of course loved it. She is just learning like mad. She is such a blessing to have found.
This last week I have really been working on loving and being filled with Charity. As you can tell, it is continuing to strengthen my positive attitude while being out here. I love my companion, I love the people here, and I love missionary work. Any problem that comes up, if I try to have faith, hope, patience, and charity, I am able to turn it around. I am not as tired. I am able to deal with more and not be as stressed. This is just all working out. I love doing this missionary work. Now for all of you who read these emails, I hope you like them and they are helping you. If you have any questions, comments, criticisms, concerns, or anything else beginning with the letter c, please email me. kynan.sorochan@myldsmail.net
Love you all!
Elder Kynan Sorochan
Hello! I am so excited to write to you guys! This week has been awesome. Our plans didn't seem to always work, or lessons didn't always go according to plan, but they always worked out. First off, this last Monday with bowling I did the best I have ever done in my life. I scored a 171 and got a turkey (3 strikes in a row). WHAT?!?!?!?!? It was so awesome. Our hike to the waterfall was fun and I will send pics of that next week. I just want to say right now how wonderful this work is, proclaiming the gospel. Ok now to business, some neat experiences from this week.
A few weeks ago we ran into this guy outside Walmart doing this fundraiser thing for Veterans food thingy and was talking to some missionaries in our zone. He flagged us down and started talking to us and asked us if we wanted to donate. Now you see I was in a hurry because we had just booked me a hair cut which was in half and hour and we needed to get our grocery shopping done. He suggested before we replied that we could just get some money after shopping and come give it but I just asked "could I give you a dollar now?" I grabbed my wallet where I only had dollars in my personal money so I grabbed one, gave it to him, and went to leave. He said to wait and that he wanted to feed us. His wife is a member and so this last week we finally had dinner with them. We ate the largest burger of my life. It was soooooooooooo tasty. He has an interesting sense of humor, but we just joked around with him and he really opened up to us. This week we are doing service with him and we see if he is up for some legitimate lessons. He is a really great guy and has had missionaries over before. I think we can help him make some progress. His name is Bro. Larkins.
Now update on Brenda. This week we taught her the plan of salvation and tithing. She is so awesome. After just explaining what tithing is she immediately wanted to be paying it. She is just so great! We took her to the Why I Believe fireside which is a fireside arranged by missionaries where recent converts and returning members bear their testimonies. We needed a ride since it was in Carson and we felt prompted to ask a member, Bro. Crosby, to take us. He was available and while there he ran into 2 or 3 people that in the past he had tried to help return to the church. They were in the crowd and are returning! Plus a co-worker's mom talked since she was just baptized a little while ago. He was super grateful to have come. Brenda of course loved it. She is just learning like mad. She is such a blessing to have found.
This last week I have really been working on loving and being filled with Charity. As you can tell, it is continuing to strengthen my positive attitude while being out here. I love my companion, I love the people here, and I love missionary work. Any problem that comes up, if I try to have faith, hope, patience, and charity, I am able to turn it around. I am not as tired. I am able to deal with more and not be as stressed. This is just all working out. I love doing this missionary work. Now for all of you who read these emails, I hope you like them and they are helping you. If you have any questions, comments, criticisms, concerns, or anything else beginning with the letter c, please email me. kynan.sorochan@myldsmail.net
Love you all!
Elder Kynan Sorochan
Attitude!
August 28, 2016
Hello everyone! I am so glad to be writing this email to you as a missionary because you know what? Missionaries are awesome! And so is missionary work! This week was jammed packed so listen up.
First off let's talk about Brenda, the lady we street contacted into last Saturday. She is so awesome, I don't know where she came from, but she is definitely prepared. She just wants to learn everything. We spent almost 2 hours with her last week teaching her different things. She is very excited to go to the temple. That's really just it. She is a golden investigator without being an investigator and she just get's excited about everything.
Today we have our Zone activity. We are going on a short hike and going bowling again!!! I forgot my camera today so I will get pics from someone else I am very sorry. (really I am)
We ran into this really cool couple this past week in a really weird way. We got a lot of referrals this week. The unfortunate fact is a lot of referrals don't always work out, but as we keep trying and have faith, weird but miraculous experiences like this next one happen. We had dinner over in Moundhouse which we never really go to, but we have started up some less active work there so we are now looking to find more work out there so it is more worth it when we go out there. We had dinner there and got a referral to go to the house behind the house we were eating at. When we went there a couple days later to knock on the door we were blessed to run into a lady who lives next door who was just getting out of her car. Naturally we talked to her and she told us to go try a house just along the main street in the community we were in. The first house wasn't interested so we went to try Chuck's house, the second one we were referred to. We knocked and they weren't home so we went and did the other work we had planned on and came back. When we knocked on the door Chuck opened it and immediately said "hey guys how's it going?" He welcomed us in and we got to know them for a bit. Turns out they used to have missionaries over all the time, but that had stopped back in 2014. We only realized it had been that long when we checked our former investigator records. Turned out they had been taught everything, but things had become more of a hang out than a teaching situation so the missionaries stopped coming. Since it has been essentially 2 years since their last lesson we see it as a miracle that we found them and that they could maybe even be ready to progress some more. We hope so and will try. It will also be a fun test of obedience since Chuck and Carole are really fun and want to have fun, but Elder Jones and I will be ok I think. We are both very dedicated to obedience. We will bring our new Ward mission leader in Dayton since he is not afraid to offend but is very loving at the same time to help see if they will be willing to progress. They are awesome people, but just need to learn the missionary purpose.
Lastly I wanted to talk about some learning I had this week about my attitude. I was not letting myself be happy. I was being way too negative because I want so badly to change. I want to be a great missionary so bad that I am not letting myself enjoy the good and focusing too much on the bad. I could, but I had gotten into the habit of saying "I'm not improving or changing good enough. Why can't I do this myself?" This Sunday I was thinking about just how great this week was. We had 10 less active lessons and 3 lessons with members presents which is amazing. The week before we had only 3 Less Active lessons and maybe 1 member present? We had been doing some great finding and have a few great potential investigators to try to turn into investigators this week. We are working great with the wards and more people are starting to keep commitments. I wasn't as happy as I should be and I knew that it was my attitude. I wasn't being happy Elder Kynan Sorochan, I was being grumpy Elder Kynan Sorochan (Elder McKenna would have told me to eat a pixy stick, that usually solved things.) Sunday morning I knelt down and prayed. I knew all the things about grace, I knew I needed Christ, but when I prayed the thought came to me "Let Christ change you" For some reason this worked. I have been happy since and not as tired. I have been just going forward, learning, and leaving the worrying and the changing to Him. I was trying to do this before, but for some reason now it is better. It will still take work and I will keep getting better, but for now I have reached the point I needed to and will now work to the next one.
I love you all and hope you all can, like me, keep coming closer to our Savior Jesus Christ.
Love,
Elder Kynan Sorochan
Hello everyone! I am so glad to be writing this email to you as a missionary because you know what? Missionaries are awesome! And so is missionary work! This week was jammed packed so listen up.
First off let's talk about Brenda, the lady we street contacted into last Saturday. She is so awesome, I don't know where she came from, but she is definitely prepared. She just wants to learn everything. We spent almost 2 hours with her last week teaching her different things. She is very excited to go to the temple. That's really just it. She is a golden investigator without being an investigator and she just get's excited about everything.
Today we have our Zone activity. We are going on a short hike and going bowling again!!! I forgot my camera today so I will get pics from someone else I am very sorry. (really I am)
We ran into this really cool couple this past week in a really weird way. We got a lot of referrals this week. The unfortunate fact is a lot of referrals don't always work out, but as we keep trying and have faith, weird but miraculous experiences like this next one happen. We had dinner over in Moundhouse which we never really go to, but we have started up some less active work there so we are now looking to find more work out there so it is more worth it when we go out there. We had dinner there and got a referral to go to the house behind the house we were eating at. When we went there a couple days later to knock on the door we were blessed to run into a lady who lives next door who was just getting out of her car. Naturally we talked to her and she told us to go try a house just along the main street in the community we were in. The first house wasn't interested so we went to try Chuck's house, the second one we were referred to. We knocked and they weren't home so we went and did the other work we had planned on and came back. When we knocked on the door Chuck opened it and immediately said "hey guys how's it going?" He welcomed us in and we got to know them for a bit. Turns out they used to have missionaries over all the time, but that had stopped back in 2014. We only realized it had been that long when we checked our former investigator records. Turned out they had been taught everything, but things had become more of a hang out than a teaching situation so the missionaries stopped coming. Since it has been essentially 2 years since their last lesson we see it as a miracle that we found them and that they could maybe even be ready to progress some more. We hope so and will try. It will also be a fun test of obedience since Chuck and Carole are really fun and want to have fun, but Elder Jones and I will be ok I think. We are both very dedicated to obedience. We will bring our new Ward mission leader in Dayton since he is not afraid to offend but is very loving at the same time to help see if they will be willing to progress. They are awesome people, but just need to learn the missionary purpose.
Lastly I wanted to talk about some learning I had this week about my attitude. I was not letting myself be happy. I was being way too negative because I want so badly to change. I want to be a great missionary so bad that I am not letting myself enjoy the good and focusing too much on the bad. I could, but I had gotten into the habit of saying "I'm not improving or changing good enough. Why can't I do this myself?" This Sunday I was thinking about just how great this week was. We had 10 less active lessons and 3 lessons with members presents which is amazing. The week before we had only 3 Less Active lessons and maybe 1 member present? We had been doing some great finding and have a few great potential investigators to try to turn into investigators this week. We are working great with the wards and more people are starting to keep commitments. I wasn't as happy as I should be and I knew that it was my attitude. I wasn't being happy Elder Kynan Sorochan, I was being grumpy Elder Kynan Sorochan (Elder McKenna would have told me to eat a pixy stick, that usually solved things.) Sunday morning I knelt down and prayed. I knew all the things about grace, I knew I needed Christ, but when I prayed the thought came to me "Let Christ change you" For some reason this worked. I have been happy since and not as tired. I have been just going forward, learning, and leaving the worrying and the changing to Him. I was trying to do this before, but for some reason now it is better. It will still take work and I will keep getting better, but for now I have reached the point I needed to and will now work to the next one.
I love you all and hope you all can, like me, keep coming closer to our Savior Jesus Christ.
Love,
Elder Kynan Sorochan
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