Press forward Saints

October 31, 2016

Hello again! Hope you all have had a great week. first let's start on the questions.

Sarah writes Q. "How many people have you taught?" A. Lots. Not as many as I would like, but lots. Q. Are you nervous about teaching? A. Sometimes. It depends on who it is and what we are teaching. I've always had great companions who always teach with me so it is not too bad. As I pray and have faith, I am always able to teach. Not always as well as I would like, but always well enough. That is so awesome to hear you will go on a mission! You will be a great missionary. Be ready for it to be hard, but amazing. Q. Do you ever get refused? A. All. The. Time. It's ok though. It just makes those that say yes all the more amazing. Q. So far, what is your happiest memory? A. It would be a tie between finally arriving here in the Nevada Reno Mission, the best mission on earth, or getting to meet and teach Brenda. She is just so amazing. Love you Sarah!

Maggie writes Q. How is your mission going? A. Amazing. It is definitely shaping me for the rest of my life. Q. Has there been anybody who does not want to learn about Heavenly Father and Jesus? A. Sadly, yes, but we should all want to always be learning more. Don't worry, there are people that do. Love you Maggie!

Ok everyone, this is what is going on. This is again a hard situation. I have been having bike problems. If it isn't a flat tire, it is my breaks needing to be adjusted, or my ulock not staying on properly, or my handlebars coming loose. It has been fun. The problems seem to be stopping now though. It's all good.

Neat miracle. Last Monday we went to Panda Express because it is near our house. AMAZING prices. The neat thing is though for the first time on my mission, when we got to the till, someone was there and said he would pay for us! It was so cool and nice. Things like that help you know you are doing it right!

We got to go to the temple this week! It was so amazing. I love the temple and missed it so much. Go mom and dad on your once a month goal! Let's make it the whole mission!

Well these last 2 weeks have been rough. No one seems interested right now. This has been the first week of my mission that we have not had a lesson with an investigator. We have tried everything. We went tracting Sunday and I decided where we would go by the Spirit. Turns out it was where we needed to go to show our dedication, not to find someone who is ready. This is a good time to show my willingness to serve. Sometimes, we have to show our faith that this gospel is worth anything. Even endlessly talking to people who aren't interested when all your lessons for the day fall through. I look forward to proving my willingness so later Heavenly Father can bless me with amazing blessings.

Love you all. Keep having great faith. This gospel is true and worth it.

Love,
Elder Kynan Sorochan

Sparks are flying!

October 24, 2016

Hey Everyone! How's it going? Hope you all are doing well. First order of business is questions from the letters from the Washington White family. Thomas writes: Q:"How is your mission so far?" A: It is amazing! Missions are the best things ever! Q: "What is your companions name?" A: My current companion is the great Elder Hadley (last week I spelled it wrong whoops) Q: "Why do you want to be a missionary?" A: Great question! I want to be a missionary because I want to be able to help Heavenly Father change peoples lives. I have been blessed to always know how amazing the Gospel of Jesus Christ is, and I want that for everyone. Serving a mission is a once in a life time opportunity to do that all day everyday that the Lord has asked me to do. I want to do all I can for Him. Q: "Is it fun to be a leader?" A: I am not a missionary leader right now, my companion is, but when I have been it has been very fun. Hard, but fun. Q: "Is it fun to be a missionary." A: Yes. Work hard, but it is important to make sure you have fun while being obedient too. Q: "Is it sad to leave your home for a long time?" A: Yes, but worth it. You forget about it most of the time which makes it easier. Other responses: My favorite animal is a penguin and my favorite color is blue.

Joseph asks Q: "where are you at right now?" I am in the Vintage Hills ward. Q: "Does teaching make you nervous?" It does sometimes. After doing it for a little while you get used to it and instead get excited. When you don't know how to teach something very well then you get kind of nervous. With the Spirit though you can teach someone really well even if you don't know how to teach the lesson very well. It is amazing. Q: "What things are you allowed to do besides teaching?" We can play sports on Mondays and email. We can do other things during lunch like play with a rubix's cube, write in your journal, things like that. What we mostly do is teach and do service. And plan. Lot's of planning. Q: "How do you feel? Emotionally and Spiritually?" Well both are a bit of a roller coaster. I am up and down all the time. As you teach people and learn their stories you feel love for them and a desire to help. When people won't listen to you you feel sad because you want to help them so much but instead they say no and there is nothing you can do about it. Ultimately, you feel joy. In the end of a week or month or transfer or area you look back at all the good you were able to do and you feel joy and a desire to do more.

Time is running short so I will answer the other letter's next week!

Alrighty let's share a bit on what is going on here in Sparks! I am serving in the Vintage Hills Ward covering only the Vintage Hills ward. Hurray only one ward! Two wards was a lot. It is a smaller ward and there aren't a lot of youth. There are a lot of older couples. The ward was only made a couple weeks before I arrived in the mission so I am almost as old as it is mission wise. Our current goal is to find out who on the ward list is active or less active, or even still lives in the ward. We are as well trying to grow the teaching pool. We have some people who are having trouble progressing, but Elder Hadley and I are really looking to work super hard and we feel that we will be successful.

My new companion is Elder Hadley. He is an amazing companion. Hard working and obedient. He is from the Phoenix area in Arizona and has been out for 9 months. He has been a District Leader here in the Vintage Hills area the past 2 transfers and is very dedicated to it. He is very good and being aware and keeping tack of the missionaries in his district. He is very kind to me and we get along very easily. He reminds a bit of uncle Spencer. We were laughing and joking right off the bat this last Tuesday. I am very excited to be working with such a great Elder.

This week was fun. We did a TON of service. There is this one guy named Bruce. He has a digestive problem and can only eat chicken and brown rice. He can have a little bit of lamb and some powdered vegetables on his chicken and a little bit of salt. Anything else gives him pain. We go over and cut his food up for him since his eye sight isn't very good. We listen to the Book of Mormon on tape and talk while we chop. He is a very nice man. He is from Iran originally but moved here in his late teens. He is now in his late 40's and we are slowly trying to spark his interest in the Gospel. He might be coming to our trunk or treat this Friday and when I said to him that he should come to church sometime he said yeah he might like to do that! Hopefully he does soon.

I should tell you about Sparks! Sparks is great. The people here are really nice. There are a lot of Latinos. First night here was street contacted into 2 hispanic referrals for the Spanish Elders. The whole Reno/Sparks area has about 200,000 people in it. Biggest population in Northern Nevada. We are the only set of English Elders in the Sparks West Stake. I love the city. It feels like home.

We had a couple really great miracles this last week. First is one that comes from a referral from the Elder's Quorum President. Elder Hadley and his last companion had tried him a few times with no answer. While we were biking near the guys house Elder Hadley had the impression to stop by the house. We went and knocked on the door and the man we were looking for answered the door. His name is Brother Gladstone. We then proceeded to talk to him for the next hour and find out his situation. He is awesome and once the time for church changes he will be able to come!

Love you all!
Elder Kynan Sorochan

Exchanges 

Zone activity 

Zone activity 

Zone activity 

Zone activity 

A New Adventure Awaits

October 17, 2016

Hey everyone! It's exciting! I'm getting transferred to Sparks into the Vintage Hills Ward! I am so excited. My new Companion is Elder Hadly and he is the District Leader so I will get to go on exchanges with the Zone Leaders! I will be biking as we don't have a car. Fortunately for me Bro. Greenlee our Comstock Ward Mission Leader is fixing the flat tire my bike got from sitting in our apartment. Right?

Ok quick updates. This last week was slow not a lot of eventful things happened. No one was available this week. It was a slow week but it was still great. Sorry to the Washington Whites I ran out of time I will answer your letter questions next week guaranteed.

For our Zone activity we went and had hot dogs and smores and then went bowling. Elder Latham paid for our bowling which was super nice! It was a lot of fun I am going to miss all these Awesome Elders and Sisters here in Carson. It has been amazing serving here in Carson/Dayton. I can't wait to see what happens in Sparks.

My experience of the week comes from Saturday night at our Why I Believe fireside. Brenda spoke at it and got to bear her testimony! It was amazing to hear her talk about all the progress she is making and about her experience with finding us. She loves the gospel so much. She has read all the Book of Mormon, half of the Doctrine and Covenants, and most if not all of the Pearl of Great Price. I can't wait to see what comes next. I will give better updates next week. Love you!

Elder Sorochan

Chuck's house

Me and Elder Jackson and Elder Soto 

Cool sign!

In the zone 

License plates from Brother Soderborg. One on the left Is for Mosiah 28:3 Preach Unto the Kingdom! The second one is Moroni 6:4-5 Jesus Christ's Church.

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving

October 10, 2016

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving Hola! How is everyone doing? This has been a hard, but good week. It has been been hard because everyone in Dayton is getting sick and other things are happening, but hey, gotta love my crazy Dayton! The people here are so great! I love it here. Shout out to the Duvall Washington White Family. I got your letter last week, forgot to mention it last week, and forgot to bring them today, so your questions will be answered I promise in next weeks exciting adventures!

Ok fun story of the week. On Tuesday we were teaching Conner. He is getting baptized soon!!!!!! He and his mom talked to Bishop Galloway and he says all they have to do is pick a date. They are planning on having him baptized in Utah so all of their family can see it. It is so exciting. To help get him ready we are just reteaching the lessons again to him going over the key points. We taught him the Restoration this week and with that I want to share 2 highlights. The first comes when we are starting with talking about God. I asked Conner who God is and he said Heavenly Father. Right I said and then I asked him if Heavenly Father was a spirit or if He had a body. Conner then proceeded to totally out smart me and said that Heavenly Father has a body and a spirit. I then said it was Elder Jones' turn to teach. hehe. 8 year olds are smart. They aren't perfect though. My redeeming moment came when I asked Conner what the name of our church is and he got the first part right, but instead of saying Latter Day Saints, he said latter day satans. HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA!!!!! I died laughing. It was just after he told us about Joseph Smith and his mom said that she is very proud of him for remembering all of these truths. It was great.

This week we got to teach Sister Lawrence again! It has been awhile but she said she wanted to meet again. We set up a lesson and, drum roll please, Brenda came with us! She is now doing missionary work with us. She was great. She was just constantly talking about how great all of this stuff to do with the church is and said that she would sit with Sis. Lawrence at church when we suggested it. Unfortunately something came up and Sis. Lawrence wasn't able to come, but we still had a very good lesson on the 10 commandments and following the prophet.

Brenda had us over for lunch (again) and we as well had a lesson. She loves to have us over it is so great. I love doing stuff with her. She is very good about letting us go when we need to so we are still being obedient! Exact obedience is very important and something I am always striving to do. We read with her the Learning and Serving in the Church pamphlet and taught her about how she could get a calling soon. We hope she will she would be very good at whatever they ask her to do. This coming Saturday is our Why I Believe fireside and she is going to speak at it! She is going to do some great missionary work there. It's so great getting to know her and become her friend. She has become very special to me. I will try to get a picture with her this coming week.

We as well got to go on exchanges this last week. I went with Elder Garcia into his area in Carson and Elder Coronado went into our area with Elder Jones. It was a fun day with Elder Garcia. The theme was "Exchanges Gone Wild". It started with some miscommunication between them and us where we drove into Carson and they drove into Dayton so we then had to drive back. We got home later than we were supposed to but it was due to an accident so we were ok. The next morning Elder Garcia and I had left the phones in the car by accident in the rush to get home so didn't have an alarm and got up at 7:10am. Not my most proud moment, but again, it was an accident. The rest of the day was really fun though. We got a phone call from someone in Utah and asked us to go see someone in the hospital who needed a blessing. She was a less active lady in the area and was going to have surgery so requested a blessing. When we showed up we arrived with only 10 minutes to spare before the operation. Elder Garcia gave her a beautiful blessing and it said many things not related to the surgery fully. We contacted 4 other referrals and found a bunch of pineapples. It was a really fun exchange.

I have been learning to really focus on Christ. The purpose of the Sacrament is to help us always remember Him. If we do, we become more like Him. Every time I am frustrated or angry, I am trying to remember Him. I've found it really makes a difference. It helps you remember who you really want to be through those irrational emotions. I testify that He is the only way to true happiness and back to our Heavenly Father.

Love you all

Elder Kynan Sorochan

 Elder Coronado

Elder Garcia

Miracles will always come if we are patient

October 3, 2016

Hey everyone! Did you all love conference? Did you watch it? Do you know what it is? Just kidding :D (but really if you don't email me I will tell you) I loved all the talk on the Plan of Salvation, Repentace, work, and Joy. Very inspiring. I can't wait till I can read it all again. Never have I been so motivated to do so. It's awesome. Ok first a funny story that was told in Sacrament Meeting a couple weeks ago.

Bro. Soderborg was speaking. This is a true story I promise. He is the first councilor in the Bishopbric. He told us about how one day he lost his church keys and could not find them anywhere. One night, Bro. Soderborg had a dream where he was at his mother's house in a particular bedroom. In the dream he reached up on top of a bookshelf and found his keys. The Bishop was planning on getting new keys, but Bro. Soderborg told him to wait. That weekend Bro. Soderborg went to his mothers house and went to that particular bedroom. He reached up onto the bookshelf and there he found a card saying "Happiness is knowing where your keys are." XD

This last week had some cool experiences. Firstly is one with Julie. She is getting ready to be baptized on October 22nd. We are very excited for her. She has had a few baptism dates that have fallen through in the past, but we feel that she is ready to try again. Her biggest obstacle is tithing. She is not very well off and she doesn't know how she can pay it. She can hardly keep up with life, and she does not want to commit to it if she can't do it. She wants to be baptized so badly, but with all her health problems it is a true test of faith. In the last couple months that is what we have been trying to teach her, is faith that she will be taken care of as she does pay her tithing. This last Thursday we went on splits with the Dayton ward and I got to go with Bro. Kondik, am member of only a year and a half. He has such a powerful testimony and was perfect for our lesson with Julie. He testified of trusting the Lord and having faith that even when we don't know what will happen, it will all work out ok. I shared the story of the widow and the mites, and another of when a lady gave the prophet her and her sons last meal, and was blessed with much food. I remembered those two stories and then asked Julie if she would pay her tithing no matter what. She said yes, but that it all seemed kinda scary. I told her that life is sometimes like that, but promised her she would be taken care of. I pray she will cling to her faith in Christ and that He will take care of her.

Lastly of an experience on Saturday. We had a lesson with a less active member named Cody. He is a referal from Bishop Galloway of the Comstock ward. He wanted us to go see Cody, but warned us he might be rude to us. We didn't care and went to see him. When we met him he wasn't rude at all and we set up an appointment. At the appointment this Saturday, we were talking and found is a really good guy. Very friendly. As we were getting to know him his fiance who isn't a member got home from work. She briefly went into the kitchen, but then came right back and sat down next to Cody. We asked Cody if he would be interested in coming back to church, and he said yes and his fiance Brittany was just as receptive. We thought excellent and proceeded to teach the Restoration lesson. Both were engaged the whole time. Brittany later said she has been wanting to go to church, and is very interested in ours since Cody's family is very LDS. She said she would read and pray about the Book of Mormon, and when I committed her to be baptized, she said yes! She is very interested in coming and will be very supportive with Cody in coming to church! We are super excited to keep teaching them since they are so receptive and have seemed like they have been waiting for this for awhile! I love miracles! This truly is one. It all just sort of happened and it is all so perfect! There will be obstacles, but they are so ready and prepared.

I love this gospel and this work. Thank you for all your prayers. Have a wonderful week!

Love you,
Elder Kynan Sorochan