Washoe Life

December 18, 2017

Hello everyone this has been a sweet week! First off we got to go to this really funny Christmas sing along event thing in the Reno Stake. I am serving in the Mount Rose stake but they got permission from President Chesnut to have all the missionaries in the Reno Zone come and sing at the event. It was really funny because we had about 20 minutes to learn the song and we had no conductor just a pianist who had picked the song. It was weird. The way the program went is the whole audience all sang a song together and then a group of people sang up in the choir section of the chapel. At one point we were going to sing Winter Wonderland. We had a book with the words we were to sing but she said before she started leading us that she didn't like the middle verse so we weren't going to sing it. What we thought that meant was that we were just going to sing one and three but instead she ended up leading us in a verse that no one seemed to know in place of the second verse. We were all really lost and it was really funny. We also had the congregation try and sing Handel's Hallelujah which actually turned out ok.

It was sad to say good bye to Elder Doig and Sparks but he will do an awesome job there I know! I will miss the Wales and Doug and all the members there but it will all be good.

Washoe Valley and Foothills is so fun. I have some sweet pics of some of the view when we went up a mountain. There was a non member who has member relatives who requested a blessing up in a place called Virginia City highlands (fun fact Washoe Valley borders Dayton (which was my first area). Crazy right?) It is way too far away for us to drive on our very limited miles (we have 1200 a month which is really pushing it. Our area is HUGE) but some ward missionaries named the Rockenfelders drove us so I got some pics. It was cool and a very long drive. It was around 40 minutes one way.

We had an awesome lesson with our investigator Jaclyn. She only recently started meeting with the missionaries because a member ended up somehow talking to her in a park and Jaclyn said that God seems to keep leading her to the Mormons so she agreed to start meeting with us. We read 2 Nephi 31 and she understood it great! She can only come to church every other week due to her work schedule but she came to all 3 hours of church and she came to the ward Christmas party! She is cool and a really solid investigator it is so nice!

We have been doing a ton of service so much more than my last area it is great! One at a food pantry, another at a camp ground and another thing for a guy that works for Habitat for Humanity that I knew when I volunteered there back when I was in Vintage Hills. We get to do a lot of good work.

Hope you all have watched the awesome Light the World video on Mormon.org! If not, do it! Serving others really is a huge part of Christmas. You can't really remember Him unless you go out and live as He lived! I love Him and His work. I testify He lives! I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas! I might not email next week since it will be Christmas but have a great week and I love you all! Merry Christmas!

Elder Sorochan

 Saying goodbye to Elder Doig

 Santa!

Transfers

 Mountains

Let me take you to Reno!

December 11, 2017

Well everyone today has been a flury of trying to get school stuff done in time and tell transfer stuff. I am off to Washoe Valley and Foothills wards in Reno! I am so excited to go to Reno I have wanted to my whole mission! This week I had a great lesson with Doug. Elder Doig was out with Elder Schow and therefore I split with Brother Macintosh and handled the whole lesson myself it was fun! Doug also came to church, the Red Hawk Christmas Party and the why I believe fireside it was awesome!

I played the piano in church this week. I played Still Still Still by the Piano guys it was sweet!

Well thanks for all your support. I am doing well. Love you all!

Elder Sorochan

Light the World!

December 4, 2017

Hello yall! This week was sweet let me tell ya! First off we finally contacted for real our media referral Kandy. She lives out in the middle of no where. We had a ton of extra miles at the end of the month (don't tell the zone leaders) so we figured we would use them up and go contact Kandy. Turns out you either have to go through Lemon Valley (which is out of Zone) or through this Indian Reservation with crazy dirt Roads. We have a Corrolla so we weren't sure whether to proceed so we prayed, didn't feel like we shouldn't, and went. Well, we made it the whole way and back and contacted Kandy! There are 11 dogs at the ranch she is at and a couple of Mastiffs. The only reason she came out and saw us was because dogs bark, for which I am very grateful. She isn't the golden catch we were told she was but she will go to church out in Lemon Valley because it is closer than our church building so that's good. One day she will be baptized!

I went on 2 exchanges this week. One with Elder Renninger and on it we got lost in the dark and couldn't find our car for at least 20 minutes it was really funny we were pretty late to our next appointment. They are super chill though so it was all good. The next was with Elder Maiava but the Zone leaders has a meeting and since they live right next to Elder Maiava they dropped off Elder Hambrecht whom they are training with us and we had a very fun day!

Saturday was the best day! For those of you who remember Yvonne she got baptized about a month after I left Vintage Hills. Well she has a daughter Maria who just recently turned 8. Due to a series of events Yvonne asked me to baptize Maria! It was so awesome! It was a shock too I did not see it coming but it was a huge blessing and I was very happy to do it. It was so neat. Maria is really short too I (jokingly) almost needed to kneel down to baptize her.

The Christmas devotional was awesome too! I loved what President Uchtdorf said about how we need to Love others as Christ did. To paraphrase he said although we will fail in doing it perfectly, that doesn't mean we still shouldn't try! That impacted me a lot. I fail a ton with loving others as Christ does, but I still should at least try. I will keep trying with everything I've got! Love you all!

Elder Sorochan

PS go to mormon.org and watch and participate in "Light the World".

 9 square with the Zone

 Should we risk it?

 Cows!

 Exchanges

 Exchanges

 Football

 Maria's baptism!

 Zone Volleyball

Happy Thanksgiving!

November 27, 2017

Hello everyone! Happy American Thanksgiving! It was so fun but first, something funny. Growing up back home around the holidays the attendance in my ward would always seem to increase. More people were there visiting family. However, as logic implies, if my ward is increasing in size, that means another ward is decreasing in size for that day. I found that ward. It is the Pyramid Lake ward. The Bishop, 1st Councilor, 2nd Councilor, the Executive Secretary, the High Priest Group Leader, and the Elder's Quorum President were all gone. Fortunately, the Stake President was in town, so Elder Doig and I and one other member got to give talks to the maybe 50 people there. Fun story about my talk too. I wrote most of one, but was then on exchanges with the Zone Leaders in Sun Valley. My talk accidentally got left in there car, which was Sunday night, so... I came up with a new plan. It all worked out and I was able to give a good talk for my allotted time but not the one I planned on that's for sure.

Thanksgiving was so fun we got special permission from President to go play football with members early in the morning at 8am. It was sweet. We had so much fun but that next morning I have not felt that sore since before the mission. I forgot what it felt like to be that sore! We got to have a dinner with President Perry who is a councilor in the mission presidency and guess who else was there? President and Sister Chesnut! It was so fun to get to have a thanksgiving dinner with them. I was thankful for that cool experience. We then went to Doug and Lundy's, ate some really good food and played Mexican trains. For some reason that is a popular game on my mission.

The week before I had an awesome exchange with Elder Bond. We had dinner with a former mission president, though he was very down to earth and not intimidating. If I was at a dinner appointment with President Chesnut though, I would feel very nervous. Maybe because he is my mission president who knows? Elder Bond taught so well though. This week I went with the Zone Leaders. They are training. I went into their area with Elder Steck and Elder Hambrecht. I forgot my camera cord in the car so our selfie will be shown next week! It was so fun they are really good and fun Elders we were joking around a ton. We met a basher, and had 2 people poor out their life's problems to us. We taught a couple lessons and found a super solid potential investigator. Sun Valley is where it's at apparently. Not as good as my area but close.

Didn't really teach a lot of lessons this week but did do more of a q and a with Doug again. Sometimes it's hard to keep lessons focused. Oh well. He is working hard to get an answer so I'll keep going.

Let me know if any of y'all have any questions. Love you!

Elder Sorochan

New Record!

November 20, 2017

Ok quick email this week. We had a good lesson with Doug where we started to read Tad R Callisters talk "The Blue Print of Christ's Church". I had super sweet exchange with Elder Bond who is a rock solid missionary. We had a mini missionary named Nathan with us. We had a day that was a little slower, but it gave us a chance to really get to know him. He sometimes struggles with his attitude and serving his family like he knows he should, but because of the day we had we were at the end able to give him some good Spirit directed advice out of love and I think it was impactful for him. Here's hoping. We found a new investigator in Pyramid Lake! A youth had a friend who wanted to meet. I am out of time but I will give more details on that story next week. I had some extra emails to write this week so this is the shortest ever! New record! We also got to go to the Face to Face yesterday with Elder Ballard and Elder Oaks. It was powerful and funny! If you haven't watched it, I would invite you to do so! It was awesome! Looking forward to thanksgiving this week. Love yall!

Elder Sorochan

 With Elder Clark

 With Elder Hadley

 With Elder Jones (Elder Sorochan trained Elder Jones)

 On exchanges with Elder Bond

 Nathan - the not so mini missionary

 Zone conference

  Zone conference

 Zone conference

Fun week

November 13, 2017

This was a fun week, but first the funny story. Monday night we were going and trying less actives. We had planned to go try the Clintons who seem by the notes like they might let us come back. We went up to the door and there were more cars in the driveway than usual. Perfect lets go up! As we walk toward the door we hear noise coming from inside. At first we thought that it was maybe party noise. Perfect. Let's knock. As we get closer though, the noise seems, more aggressive lets say. We stop before we knock to listen. We hear a little mocking laughter and some loud comments. Then we start to hear some swearing and some very, attacking comments we'll say. At this point we realized that the couple was fighting. Loudly. At this point you might hear of a story where the missionaries knock on the door of the fighting couple, they see it's the missionaries, they repent and we all go on missions and to the temple and what not. We on the other hand were smart and realized that doesn't really happen and since the Spirit was not yelling at us to knock we just moved on to the next house.

On Tuesday we had a stellar lesson with Doug. He is so close. We finished up the temples and families lesson and he said that it filled a few gaps for him which was excellent. He wasn't able to come to church because of Lundy and her back but he texted us saying he read the scriptures instead since he couldn't come. Hey, he may have not been able to come, but he made an effort to do something which was very admirable.

Wednesday was Zone Conference. I forgot my camera cord I so silly sorry next week you will be overloaded with pictures I promise. It was a good zone conference. We got trained on the Light the World initiative. We will be getting pass along cards for it and working with our wards to share it. Our bishops wife in Pyramid lake is helping to set up a live nativity that will promote light the world at the Spanish Springs ward bishops farm. Oh and we won one of the cleanest car awards so we got a Walmart gift card! It was sweet I didn't expect to get it. We aren't messy, but...

Friday I had a super fun exchange with Elder Flores in his area, Sun Valley, Spanish Speaking. There were so many cool miracles that happened. We made the commitment to talk to everyone and the first person we talked to was not interested in barely talking to us, but the second person we talked to said we could come back! It was sweet! We got to talk to someone else that when we asked who she knew that needed a message on Christ she said her! It was so great. We taught the Plan of Salvation twice, once to a recent convert and once to a less active couple. Elder Flores was really smart and included me by telling me what point to teach and he would then translate. I would also once each lesson read a scripture in the Spanish Book of Mormon. I know what it says in English and I know how to read spanish words, so it was so fun! At dinner we had quesadillas and someone at the house we were eating at tried to argue with Elder Flores, and Elder Flores shut him down! He didn't combat he just bore testimony and taught doctrine it was cool, and all in Spanish.

Saturday we did service for a part member family helping load rock onto a place in their backyard. It was a fun project a ton of the Red Hawk ward came and helped. The wife is active and we are going over for dinner tomorrow. Super fun! We also that day talked to two people in this one circle road called Sacred Circle, where two people said we could come back! One even set up an appointment with us right there and the other said he would like to feed us and his wife might be a hidden less active member!

Sunday was a good day. Talked about light the world, first time ever got into Red Hawk ward council, and had a good fhe with the Healys who came to church! Sister Healy's schedule changed so she doesn't work on Sundays anymore!

That's all for this week. Till next time, don't forget to smile! Love you more bye!

Elder Sorochan

Cool stuff

November 6, 2017

Last Pday was super fun. We went to Wendy's with Hunter and talked to a homeless man I met last time I was in Sparks. We went to Scheels and then played games at his house.

This week we got to help with the Baptism of Annie. She is a neat girl who is 9 years old. She has the mental age of 4 but her parents decided on having her baptized with her 8 year old brother. It was interesting to teach her but it was great for the family and they are so great. They are so nice and generous. The Mom gave us a hair cut, they always give us a ton of leftovers from dinner, and just overall they treat us great! There is a longer story to this family but I can't share it over email so one day!

We have been having some hard days of going and trying person after person and having them not home or not interested. I sometimes struggle with taking rejection personally. There was two things that happened this week that helped with that though. One was a visit with Greta. We stopped by and she was home. There is now a plan for her to be taught by some other missionaries. It's kinda sad because I would love to teach her, she is awesome, but it is what is best for her so it is ok. She works for the Sparks PD and we were able to talk about how to be neutral in dealing with people. It helps not take it personally. I am excited to try it this week. The other time was having dinner with Bishop Kahumoku in Pyramid Lake. As we were talking about people we were able to give info and reports on people. It was a big confidence booster.

We on Halloween got to go to a Halloween party for a bit! We were allowed to go to "ward activities" and a member invited us to come. We were able to associate with some people and be seen for a bit it was fun! The rest of Halloween was taken up by a short lesson of reading the Book of Mormon with a less active and a 3 hour medical trip for some biking area elders. Office miles! We had to go in early at 7 that night too.

Got to go to a meeting and see Elder's Jones, Hadley, and Clark it was super awesome! A great meeting too.

Had a fun family home evening last night with the Mundt and Healey family. The Healey's aren't active but live with members so we teach them at family home evening.

Love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Sorochan

Pinky Promise

October 30, 2017

Well hello!

This week was a good week. There were a couple days that I just zonked out when we got in I just could not stay awake. It's hard for me to not let myself get stressed sometimes, but fortunately after I go through little bouts of stress I realize what's going on and can learn how to let go. It's always a bit of a different situation so it is a learning experience which I am very grateful for.

Pday was short last week because we got to go to the temple. That was so great to get to go! It's such a nice place to relax and feel the Spirit! Love that place.

We had two lessons with Doug this week actually. First on Tuesday and second on Thursday. Tuesday was cool because that morning I felt like we needed to change the lesson plan and it turned out to coincide with answering part of his concern. He is having trouble overcoming the fact that there is one true church. This time we were able to talk about temples and the work in them to tell him about how everyone has the chance to accept the gospel. We didn't get to talk as much about it because he and his wife and the members we bring are very good at going off on tangents. It's all good though.

I had exchanges with Elder Maiava. They were fun. Met with a less active who told us his story and explained where he is at. He isn't ready to come back yet but he was very open which made our life so much easier! I will get picturres with these people this transfer because today is transfers and the district is hardly changing. No elder moves it's great!

Got to go to the Pyramid Lake trunk or treat! There was a magician and I was the Bible! Elder Doig is obviously to Book of Mormon it was so fun. Tons of people took our picture. Solid!

Had the why I believe fireside and had Daneil come. He is a recent convert from Reno that moved into our area. He is super cool. He is black! There is so little diversity here!

Ok, well, I know this wasn't great, but today I needed to chill sorry. Next week will have more effort. Pinky promise.

Love y'all!
Elder Sorochan

 Emailing at the library

 At the temple

 At the temple

 At the temple

 Ward Halloween party

  Ward Halloween party

 Zone activity carving pumpkins

 Zone activity carving pumpkins

 Ours in a moose!  Cause we're both Canadians!

Elder Sorochan and Elder Doig

When things work out!

October 23, 2017

Hello everyone! First off we have some birthday's we have missed so we will start with those! Happy Birthday Greg on September 13th! Happy Birthday Noelie on October 20th! Happy Birthday Benjamin on September 13th! Happy Birthday Jeremy tomorrow! Happy Birthday Tyler on September 18th! Happy Birthday Maggie on September 29th! Happy Birthday Aaron on September 26th! Happy Birthday Thomas on September 26th! Happy Birthday Emmett on September 27th! Happy Birthday Megan on September 11th! And last but certainly not least Happy Birthday Clair on October 31st coming up!

Ok so now the cool miracle from last week. We have a member of the mission Presidency in Pyramid Lake ward, President Perry. A couple of Sundays ago we met with him and his wife to get to know them and to talk about missionary work with them. We had an opening for dinner and they said they would sign up. They also told us that they love it when we bring people to dinner when they have us. We thought that was a really awesome idea so we worked hard all week trying to find someone to come to dinner. We don't know a lot of people we could invite yet but we tried those we did know. One of the people we had talked about was a lady named Greta, who was baptized in October of last year. She has had some trouble staying active for a bit with health and work but she is an amazing lady really smart. We had tried everyone we could think of, but then we realized that we should try to invite her! We hadn't caught her home yet, but we thought it would be a really good idea because she is really good friends with the Perry's and Sister Perry is her visiting teacher. We tried a few times and it was Friday and we still hadn't gotten ahold of her. We tried Friday morning and nothing. We planned to be down in her area later that day so we decided to just see if there was a sign of life at her house. We drove by AND HER INSIDE DOOR WAS OPEN!!!!!!!!!! We were so excited! We talked to someone outside on the way to her house after parking a little ways away. He was nice but was very not interested in religion. That's ok. When we knocked on Greta's door she was home and was super nice. She also accepted our invitation to come to dinner! It was a tad scattered the invitation. I was so excited she was home I forgot to introduce myself! haha it worked out! Dinner was awesome the Perry's are housing our first Muslim convert in the mission and so between her and Greta we got a lot of conversion story telling. We committed Greta to do the New Member Lessons because she got baptized just before Elder's replaced Sisters in this ward so it seems like she just slipped through the cracks. All is moving forward though!

This week we taught Doug and Lundy about Tithing and the Law of the Fast. He was totally cool with it and didn't really have any concerns. He was really funny though because when he explained his text as to why this Sunday would be the official start of them coming to church, he said that they had discussed it and that they were settled in enough now into the new house and healthy enough so they could come to church. While walking around Saturday we ran into them when we passed their house and he again said that they would be there. At church we didn't see them come in which at first was super sad. After Sacrament meeting though Elder Doig saw them so we went and asked when they came in. Apparently they came in about 10 minutes early and we somehow did not see them. THEY CAME THOUGH! It was so awesome!

Got to help someone prep to move to San Diego this week. She has a house in Red Hawk and was recently baptized in San Diego. What was cool though was her mom came to help who isn't LDS and we ended up teaching her the Restoration. She ate it up! She throughout it was saying that it made a ton of sense! She is in San Diego too but she is so prepared those missionaries there have a great investigator coming their way!

That's all the time I have for now! Next week will be pics of the pumpkin we carved for our zone activity from this last week! Take a guess at what it was hint: it's Canadian themed!

Just expect the unexpected

October 16, 2017

Ok everyone saddle up we had a great week this past here 7 days. First off cool thing happened this morning. Got to see a Model X Tesla! This lady parked almost right beside us at Walmart and we obviously noticed it was a Tesla. Her door handles were really funny so I asked how they worked. She said they just push in and to try it. I did and it is like a button! You press it and the door just opens. The coolest part though was it opened upwards not side-ways like normal and the radio station that turned on as the car did when the door opened just happened to be playing the Star Wars theme song! I almost peed my paints with excitement it was so cool!

Alright this week was awesome! First Tuesday we met with Doug and Lundy again. We brought Brother Macintosh and a former Temple President in our ward Brother Tsukamoto. We knew he was a convert but it turned out that he had been in the same religion that Doug had been growing up, Presbyterian. They talked about it for maybe 30-40 minutes just Brother Tsukamoto telling his story. It was long but really really good. He wasn't able to make it to church this last Sunday but when we texted him saying we missed him he texted us saying that next week is the official start of them coming to church and they would elaborate more on Tuesday during our next lesson!

Wednesday we finally got to meet with Kevin and Teeara again. It was a really powerful lesson. We brought the Mundts with us. It was a really cool miracle because Sister Mundt is someone we wanted to bring for Teeara and at first she couldn't find a baby sitter but last minute she could and could come! The Mundts hit it off with them and we taught a powerful lesson on Obedience and CPR (Church pray read)

Thursday I had a less active fix my bike for free! It has had very little maintenance over the past year so it was pretty beat up. He fixed it up and said we could come read the Book of Mormon with him so double score! We also got to have dinner with the Non-member family we helped move in a few weeks ago. We shared 2 Nephi 25:26 as a spiritual thought and both Mom and Dad accepted Book of Mormons and said they would check them out! It was so cool. We after had a visit with a less active man who has a crazy story about why he went less active. Won't go into details but he was very open and respectful and it was one of the most legitimate stories I've heard about going less active. He was just super cool about everything made life so easy I wish all less actives were that open about everything.

Friday we had interviews which were really powerful. President Chesnut is so good at what he does. I compare what he does to a puzzle. I have all the pieces and I know what the picture looks like, but he shows me through the Spirit how to put the pieces together. He helps make it clear because he is so good at bringing and following the Spirit. I am so grateful he is my mission President.

I am out of time but for next week I will have an amazing miracle to tell y'all about so stayed tuned. Love y'all!

Elder Sorochan

Piano sorta shock

October 9, 2017

Hello Everyone! This has been a good week. Firstly this week I had a little bit of a heart attack. This last week we got to have a zone conference, and I was called on to play the piano. (I had a nice short break in Elko. Sister Thomsen could play any hymn on command so she got the gig) however I was very happy to play again! I was informed about a week in advance that I would be playing hymns 26 and 27. I thought, Awesome! I know both of these. I can do this! I don't practice much since I knew them and I was pretty confident in playing time. Now at the conference I sat down and started playing the prelude music. Elder Miner, who was conducting, got up and began the meeting. He welcomed everyone and announced the opening song. The only problem was, it wasn't hymn 26 Joseph Smith's First Prayer as I had been told. Instead he annouced Hymn 19, We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet. I momentarily freaked out, but then it was all ok because fortunately of the few songs I know that happened to be one of them, but the thought of what if it wasn't came to mind. Fortunately, God takes care of those details so yeah. It was cool.

Last Monday when we were heading to dinner we got stuck. Turns out Carrolla's don't go through durt roads with a lot of sand very well. :D I've attatched a picture.

We got to have a super awesome lesson with Doug and his wife Lundy this week. We brought Brother McDoniels who is the high councilor over missionary work. He is also a convert. That greatly impacted Doug to hear his story. Doug is having a hard time believing that there is one true church. Brother McDoniels emphasized the Priesthood and Doug took interest in that. We were talking to him about what he knows is true, and he believes that Joseph Smith being a prophet and the Book of Mormon could be true, so we are getting there, but we aren't the whole way there yet. He wants to keep going because he is feeling this is right and wants to keep going. He is progressing which is awesome!

Zone Conference was awesome! It was on the Book of Mormon. It was so neat to see a video from the New Mission Presidents Seminar. Elder Christofferson talked to us about how the Book of Mormon is the greatest tool the Lord has given us for sharing the gospel in this dispensation. It is the sickle described in D&C 4 he said. Fun! The most powerful part was the testimonies at the end. President starts by picking 4 people to give a talk on a subject, this time the Book of Mormon, every zone conference. He goes by inspiration at the conference. I'm so glad he does they were so powerful!

Got to go on an exchange with Elder Bond it was so awesome! Will have a pic of him next week. Got caught up with school stuff so I will close with I know the Book of Mormon is true! It is such a powerful book you all need to read it! Read it everyday it answers the questions of the soul and provides instruction for everything because if it doesn't say it, the Spirit will and there are few better ways to get the Spirit than to read the Book of Mormon. I read it everyday in some way shape or form. Sometimes a lot, sometimes a little, but regardless I read it! Y'all are awesome. Let me know if y'all ever have any questions. Love ya! Love you Mom Dad and Anna!

Elder Sorochan

 Elder Gailey and Elder Sorochan

 Elder Sorochan and Elder Clark

 Where our car got stuck

Zone Conference

Maybe 1200 miles a month won't be enough

October 2, 2017

Hello everyone! Ok so the funny thing today is, this week we went through our area books like crazy (we finally got around to that. Not knowing what you are doing really makes things go a lot slower. Plus my mission seems to be speeding up. I think something will take so long and then it takes double. Time just goes faster that's what I'm blaming it on.) One of the records has a really funny sticky note on it. We cover a really big ward that goes on forever. After a certain point no one lives in the area but we cover it! One of the people who has a teaching record however does live in the boonies of the area. Apparently they live so far away that it inspired some missionaries to write this message "They live 30 minutes from here God Bless". I don't know if it's the missionaries that originally taught them that should be blessed, or us who would try to teach in the future, or the people themselves, but I found it funny.

Ok this week I got to go on exchanges with Elder Schow! For those of you who can remember he was my first exchange! It was fun to go into my area with him. He is now my Zone Leader which is crazy! It was such a fun exchange. We had a lady in her car stop us and talk to us, and we had a lesson with our investigator Doug. It was so neat. The lesson was all over the place and we weren't really able to do much teaching. He and his wife kept going on tangents and weird questions. Near the end of the lesson I was testifying of prayer and someone knocked on the door (or rang the doorbell can't remember what). I thought, "who in the world is knocking at 8:30 at night! Now a little background, during the lesson Doug and his wife Lundy talked about how they wanted fellowshippers and a home teacher. The home teacher might have been at a different appointment, but oh well. We told them we would bring someone next time, the reason we didn't have someone now being I don't know anyone really. Well as it so happened, the high priest group leader was the one knocking. He had just finished home teaching someone across the street and said he was going to be their new home teacher! He also ended up giving both them a blessing for health right there in those few minutes we were still there. It was so cool how the Lord provided someone for us right there when we didn't yet have the resources to provide it ourselves! We have also found a convert to take with us to the next lesson because Doug wants to talk to a convert!

We finally got through all our records. I have a testimony that keeping good records is so helpful and not keeping good records makes more work for future missionaries. TAKE GOOD RECORDS IT HELPS A TON! Most of the most recent updates are from march...

For those of you who remember Hunter, my mini missionary from the last time I was in Sparks, I had the privilege of seeing him open his mission call this Sunday evening. It was so neat to come back and see him now at this point. He is going to Orlando Florida English Speaking!

Conference was amazing. The whole day of Saturday was for me. These men and women are truly inspired. I loved how the emphasis of Humility and serving those immediately around you was so well repeated. I am striving to adopt those qualities in me even more. I need them. I want to leave my testimony to that which was said about Jesus Christ and the power of His Atonement. He is the source of peace, joy and comfort. Through Him we are not only forgiven of our sins but we are changed to become better. Look to Him and follow Him. That is how we become more like Him. Learn of the Savior and do as He did. Bye! Love y'all!

Elder Sorochan

Treats for Priesthood Session of General Conference! 

In someone's backyard!

Viva Canada!

September 25, 2017

It is PDAY again hurray! Well what a crazy wild week this has been. It has been awhile since I have felt so lost in my area. Double into an area is a crazy experience let me tell ya. You are deer in the headlights for a few days and everyone is talking to you as though you know what’s going on. After awhile you are just EVERYONE STOP I DON’T KNOW WHAT I AM DOING JUST LET ME FIGURE OUT WHAT MY NAME IS FIRST STOP!!!! And then you calm down and everything is fine and works out. If my mission hasn’t been a testament of it yet I testify that even though it may not ever seem like it this week alone has shown me that as long as you keep trying everything works out. Oh but before we move on I have a joke for y'all courtesy of Brother Anderson of the Elko 4th ward. Q: Why do Missionaries always cross their legs? A: Because they only get one P-Day a week! XD HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I’m so funny! I bet you p’d yourself laughing! Ok sorry I’ll stop. Don’t give me that look. :D Ok now on to more serious stuff.

Monday was a great day. I don’t really enjoy packing, you have to go find all your stuff and try and fit it in your suitcase. I’m not always that great at either. That night was awesome though my last dinner in Elko was at the Nortons/Garcia’s and it was awesome! At the end we roasted marshmallows and I got some sweet pictures with Elder Lee. They have helped us out so much I am so grateful for all they did over my 6 months there. After dinner we had a lesson at the Martins. We were planning on inviting them to church. I honestly don’t know why they don’t go so my plan for my last night was to invite them, but during the lesson as I looked at them I received a distinct impression not to invite them to church or do our lesson plan on it. A few minutes later I started to feel like I should invite them but I received another prompting not to do it. I was then “Alright Spirit what should I do intead?” And I got the idea to commit them to have Elder Lee and his new companion Elder Abbott come and practice all the lessons with them so I shared a scripture and committed them to the practice lessons and they accepted. I don’t know why it changed to that but that’s what the Spirit said and who am I to question Him? We also got to go say bye to Amanda and Ruben which was nice. They are really cool people I’m glad I got to know them and will be able to stay in touch.

Tuesday was crazy. Saying good bye to Elder Lee was sad. I love Elder Lee a lot he has been a very good companion. He has made a lot of strides in becoming such a better missionary than when we were first together it has been neat to see. He knows the first vision, can talk to random people on the street and have a conversation, and so on. He is awesome and very funny! Then it was a long drive to Sparks where I picked up… Elder Doig! You will never guess where he is from… Cardston Alberta Canada! HE IS FROM CANADA AND LOVES HOCKEY HOW AWESOME IS THAT!?!?!?!? Pretty dang awesome that’s how. Everyone loves that we are both from Canada it is pretty great. Anyway we got to our appartment which is brand spankin’ new by the way. No previous missionaries which means it’s CLEAN and we will be able to keep it clean. I have so much more motivation to clean right now and with having a car we can do what we want on PDAY and set aside time to clean thuroughly. Heck yeah! That night we got to go do a Q&A with the Red Hawk ward youth which was really fun. They had some good questions. Wednesday we went shopping and got groceries, had Elder Renniger who was serving in our wards plus Spanish Springs ward last transfer go over some stuff with us. It was all confusing and random didn’t really do a lot for us. That night though as I thought about how to do it better received some inspiration on how to better go through the area with Elder Renniger and to write what he said down in a specific spot. We did that the next day and it worked so much better! Wednesday we also got to drive some spanish Elders to the eye doctor. I got to drive someone somewhere! I’ve never done that that I can remember on my mission! BOO YA! We also got to meet the Pyramid lake Bishop Bishop Kahumoku. He is a rock star he knows what he is doing. Our other Bishop Bishop Gonda so far seems really good to we are setting up a meeting with him soon.

Thursday we met with both our ward mission leaders. Bother Lane is kinda intense and goes about it almost like a college professor where he just goes straight into the material it is neat. Our other one Brother Wales is very chill and just down for anything. We have a plan and when we suggest an idea he comes up with ways to make it work. Both are great. Brother Wales’ wife hooks us up with dinners too we didn’t have any this week due to how the wards last transfer divied up the days and she got us a dinner for Thursday on. Also with the move we helped with on Saturday she texted out to people for help because we know nobody.

Friday we had our train the new trainer meeting and there were at least 26 companionships in there it was cool. Introductions took about 45 minutes though which was crazy but sometimes some people need to let us know about every awesome thing about their companion but hey! At least we know we have some stellar missionaries right? President gave a really amazing training during it too. He has this parable of the bike ride experience of where he talks about a bike ride he did across the whole US. Best rendition of the story I have heard him give of it yet. We also had an excellent meeting with one of our investigators, Kevin. He has a goal of being sealed to his wife in the temple. We on temporary exchanges so that Elder Renniger could pass off Kevin and his wife Teeara to me and the lesson went really well. Brother Wales and Brother Lyman came and we taught mostly on the Word of Wisdom while touching on a couple other commandments but the word of wisdom is big for Kevin right now and trying to overcome some stuff. We talked a lot about how we overcome things through Jesus Christ with a lot of great testifying from Brother Lyman and Wales. Both were perfect for the lesson Brother Lyman had some amazing insights and Brother Wales was able to share an experience on how he overcame an addiction.

Saturday was a crazy wacky day. It started in the morning. We had planned on going to get our car checked since we have a dent in it from previous missionaries and we need an estimate on how much it will cost to fix it. However, just as we were leaving to do that we got a call from the Reno North Zone Leaders asking us to help move someone from their area into ours. We had to find the place first however and after a scramble to first get some gas and then check out one place then ask a worker at where we were where the place we were looking for was. The feeling that sentence gives you trying to read it is about how we felt at the time. Turned out the place we were looking for was all the way out in the middle of Uganda down Pyramid High way. Lets just say our miles got    W R E C K E D that day due to how many times we had to go up and down that road. It wasn't even to get stuff to move but we also had dinner down there with an appointment in between in the other ward we cover so it was crazy! We got permission to go into Stead which is a ways away to help more with the move. We helped move Guillermo (SP?) who is a really cool guy from the Dominican Republic. He has a lot of potential we are going to start working with the members in the area to befriend him. He will be solid. This move however took forever and we ended up being super late to both our next appointment and dinner. It all went ok though both families were super chill about it. The appointment was with our investigator Doug. He has some really good potential just has to start coming to church. We just had a brief get to know meeting since our time was short.

Sunday was cool. I haven't been to church at 2 wards since Dayton so it was really fun to be able to do that. We got to go to a family home evening with a family which was super fun. For the activity we played this shocker game where there is a generator thing that sends a current through these two metal bars. We all hold hands and the two end people hold the bars. We all feel the current go through us and it keep getting stronger till one of us quits. I never quit, though at one point I could no longer grip with my hands so my hand slipped out of the person next to me. It was fun. I had a neat experience with fasting though which is what I want to testify of today. Fasting and prayer works when it is according to the Lord's will. Since this last Sunday was fast Sunday, I fasted. Surprise! What was neat about it though is I didn't know what to fast for, so I prayed asking for suggestions and right away I got something. It was something I had been praying for throughout the week so I did and by the end of my time fasting right before dinner an event happened that answered my prayer/fast and helped improve immensely what it was about. The Lord will answer our prayers in His timing as we put in the work. I know this to be true. It happens all the time for me. Love you guys! Stay awesome and don't forget to smile! Bye!

Elder Sorochan

 Bye Spanish Elders!  Thanks for all the rides!

 Elder Lee signs the companionship jersey

 The jersey!

 Fire!

 The Garcias and the Nortons

 Goodbye Elder Lee

 S'mores

 The perfect marshmallow

My new companion Elder Doig!