August 21, 2017
Hello everyone! To be honest, not a ton happened this week. What we did have fell through and what we tried just didn't seem to work. Weeks happen that are like that. Elder Lee has been having a really good attitude about it all though he is good and focusing on the positive and taking things as they come. He is a great companion. Love having him. Tad odd at times, but look who's talking.
Ok some cool things. I had to get something done on my bike which was good but it wrecked an afternoon because they were super busy and couldn't do the minor thing quick so we had to call 5th ward, have them come pick us up, borrow Elder Johnsons bike, and then drive us over to Brother Norton's to fill the tires and that took a long time but it all worked out my bike is good.
We ended up giving Robin a blessing yesterday. She is in the hospital and her member friend Mary-Anne was there and asked if we could come over. There are so many obsticals right now for her and she just wants to be baptized. Mary-Anne's home teacher drove us over because oh yeah fun fact I lost my car again this week. I am really good at that it seems :D It was a great blessing and promised her how she will be able to gain the testimony she needs to be baptized!
I also yesterday got to play the piano in sacrament meeting. I did In Humility Our Savior. I want to use the experience as a parable. In life we try and prepare in a lot of things but often don't feel like we are good enough or won't be able to do well enough. When I perform on the piano I always get very nervous and my hands feel limp, I don't breath very much, and I over think everything I play. I had practiced enough for this and felt confident but was still very nervous about how it would turn out. I prayed that I would be able to play well and when I got up, the nervous conditions I mentioned didn't go away, but my mind was able to focus well enough in a way that I hardly made any mistakes. I had a lot of preparation as I played every morning this week and for fun I have played it at times on PDAY. If we just use our talents in casual times we will be ready to use them in more serious times.
My performance was great and I was very happy with how it turned out. Through my weaknesses my efforts were magnified to be great. That is how it is in life! We often won't lose our weaknesses, but our efforts will be magnified through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I love Him and this work!
Love you all! Love you Mom Dad and Anna!
Elder Kynan Sorochan
August 14, 2017
Well hello everyone! This week is going to be a little all over the place in terms of what I talk about so bear with me, but I promise that it will still be really good.
Firstly I wanted to talk about the theatrics that was Elder Freeman’s departure. As we all know Elder Freeman went home this week, but his departure literally as they say, went up in flames! That’s right. As soon as we stepped outside we looked out across the parking lot and at the buildings right across from us to the right the bushes just burst into flame. We were just uh… that’s not good! We scrambled to try to help get it put out. Someone called 911 and fortunately the building the bushes were right next to did not burst into flame. Elder Freeman was flaming as he left the mission. You might even say say he was on fire at the end of his mission. He was smoking! (he literally did smell like smoke. He ran through it to go knock on some people’s doors) [insert another fire pun here] Ok those were really lame and not even funny so I will move on now.
Something I failed to talk about a couple weeks ago was Ruben and Amanda’s Baby Gender Reveal Party that we got to go to. It was really fun and there was some good food. They are having twins and there will be one boy and one girl! Woohoo! Super fun! Also on Sunday(not yesterday) one of the members in the ward, Brother Smith, made us Ukrainian food! He served his mission in the Ukraine so we had some Green Borsch, Perogies, and Cabbage Rolls! It was all super good. We also Monday night got to eat at the Star. It is this super fancy Basque restaurant and I mean SUPER fancy. You order your food and they bring you out soup, salad, spaggetti, fries, beans, and bread all before your main course comes out. It’s family style and with the first things they will keep bringing you more until you are done. Also with it being Basque (Basque are these people from over in Spain that back in the day came over here and settled so there is a lot of Basque heritage around here) there was garlic all over my steak. (Ha I first typed it out Stake. You know you’re Mormon when :D ) The Basque love their garlic. Good thing I’m a missionary and didn’t need to worry about kissing anyone ;)
After we dropped Elder Freeman off on Tuesday I spent the day going out and working with the 5th ward Elder’s, Elder McGee who is getting transferred to Reno, and Elder Johnson who is training. 8/10 of the Companionships in Elko are training, 7 of them getting brand new greenies with the last one having the person being trained only out 6 weeks so still in the training stages. It is going to be one green zone! We had fun and Elder McGee taught me how to make ties. I made 2 but failed hard on one of them so Elder McGee came in and saved the day by quickly making a third that was good so Elder Lee and I could have matching ties! Oh and yes my new companion is Elder Lee from Lake Orian, Michigan! Last time I had a companion who wasn’t from Utah or Arizona was when I was with Elder Jones. Apparently the only way to get variety in where my companions are from is to train :D
We have had a fun week so far. We had the chance to teach Robin a little bit. She is just going through some heavy opposition but she is reading the Book of Mormon, praying, fasting even, and she came to church all by herself this week for sacrament meeting! She even told us she wants to start staying for Sunday School. Ken and Mary Anne who she normally comes with weren’t able to come on Sunday but she was determined to come because she new that she needed the help church gave her! She has some awesome faith!
We got to meet Mr. Johnston this week too. He says he is from Ireland and we also think that he might have taken a trip to the pub before talking to us if you know what I mean. He was off to paint some blank wall they found in a cave with some spray paint. He admitted it might be a tad illegal but he said he would put a cross right in the middle just for us. How thoughtful!
I guess I should also tell you a little bit more about Elder Lee. He is 18 and just graduated. He likes reading, writing, drawing, and is into making short films with his friends. At school they had this class where they would do their schools tv news thing and do other film stuff. They had a lot of fun and entered film festivals and won awards! It is really cool.
Oh on Saturday we got to help build up more of Joe's deck! I have seen it since it's beginning stages which is really neat to have seen. It is almost done!
Alright my thought for this week is this. I have been pondering on how to improve. One night at dinner we were with the Lewis family. Brother Lewis is actually President Lewis he is our stake president and he is in the 4th ward. With he and his wife we got talking about some things and we got on the topic of daily repentance and talked about it for a little bit. With this I was reflecting back on when Elder Christofferson came. If any of you remember I asked him a question about how to have the Spirit more and he told me to repent. I realized that this one word answer has so much behind it. We need to strive to repent daily so that we are looking for how we can use the power of the Saviors Atonement daily in our lives. If we repent daily we will daily look for what we can do better, ask for that forgiveness of what we did wrong, commit sooner to do better, receive personal revelation on how we can do better, and daily experience the joy that comes from repenting. It takes a little more effort on our part in our daily prayers to be doing this, but if we truly take that time to do it we will feel so much more joyful on a more consistent basis. I have been starting to experience it as I started doing it this past weekend and I am feeling a lot more content. A lot of times we get down on ourselves because we are harrowed up by the pain of our sins. The more we repent, the less time these sins have to work on us, and we will draw even closer to our Savior! I testify that He lives and His arm is always outstretched to each and every one of us at all times, in all things, and in all places. Love you all! Keep being awesome and don't forget to smile! Bye!
Elder Sorochan
Fire in a bush in our apartment complex
Elder Freeman signs the companionship jersey
Elder Lee (my new companion)
Good bye Elder Freeman
Hangin with 5th ward Elders
My Steak at the Star
Patio we helped build (This has been going on since I got here)
August 7, 2017
Alright y'all we have some news. Transfers are this week and as we all know Elder Freeman is going home so that means there will be a new companion. Who will it be I wonder. I would tell you but... I don't know! Why you may ask? Well... I'm training again! WOOHOO! Round 2 and this time I won't be as freaked out as last time! Good thing I love Elko 4th cuz it's looking like I will be here a long time... :D
Alrighty so for this week some fun things happened. First off Monday we had a super fun zone activity. We went on a hike to Lamiole Canyon up in the Ruby Mountains. They are some sweet mountains over here by Elko. At around 7 or so the way the sun reflects off of them causes them to glow red. Even though you can’t see the effect super well in Elko it still looks the bomb! We started off late and we had some funky car pool stuff going down. Elder Freeman and I got separated just how it ended up working out and I got stuck in the middle between Elder Hadley and Elder Feichko (I have some photos attached) We all went on the hike and just ran out of time before we could get to the top. While waiting for everyone we started trying to do some Mariachi shouts or something. We sounded pretty professional. Anyway it was fun.
Ok on Tuesday I had this super cool experience in following the Spirit. I haven’t normally felt too directly prompted to go to a specific place before. It is normally just me going and trying and we just end up being in the right place at the right time. This time though I felt like there was this former investigator we needed to go see. He isn’t very productive but the feeling persisted so I decided to try it. A saying I’ve heard a few times on my mission is that it is inspiration until proven otherwise so why not. We got to the point of the day when I had felt like we needed to go try the guy and I wanted to do something else but I still felt like we needed to try him. So we went. There was a lady sitting on the stairs of the apartment building across from this former’s building with some young kids. I said hello but she just said hi and looked back down at her phone. Now these ones are hard for me because I don’t want to force a conversation with someone who isn’t interested in talking. I just feel apprehensive about it. We went and tried the former and he wasn’t home. I was kinda wondering why we should go over here and when we walked down the stairs the lady was still there so I thought maybe her and I gave it one more shot and tried to make conversation. This time it worked! We talked for awhile and we were actually able to set up an appointment!!!!! Such a cool miracle! It was inspired to go over there. Plus we were able to talk to someone on our way out who’s car has a British Columbia licence plate. Turned out she grew up in Calgary Alberta and we were able to have a solid conversation with her. She mentioned how we were cool guys and although she didn’t want to meet, she was built up for future missionaries one day! Tuesday was also Elder Freeman’s last District Meeting so we took appropriate pictures.
Another couple of neat finding miracles came from Trudy and Clint. She is a less active member that we just randomly tried, and she very easily set a return appointment. Not too common but still awesome! We went back on the day we had set without even confirming and they were still there waiting for us! We sat down and talked about what has been going on with them. Turns out a year and a half ago he was taught but she was not interested. Through some big events happening in their lives they have had a softening of heart and say they are open to the lessons now! First lesson is on Friday!
Robin is doing well too! Came to church this Sunday and we had a mini lesson with her. She is facing a lot of opposition in her life right now but she is still determined to be baptized. We have another lesson on Friday with her as well and we will be able to help her be ready to keep moving forward! She is awesome!
Well I have a thought for y'all today and it comes from Alma 5:12-13 "And according to his faith there was a mighty change wrought in his heart. Behold I say unto you that this is all true. And behold, he preached the word unto your fathers, and a mighty change was also wrought in their hearts, and they humbled themselves and put their trust in the true and living God. And behold, they were faithful until the end; therefore they were saved." I really like this because this is what I am striving to achieve. I am trying to have that mighty change of heart. I had many hopes, dreams, and desires when I came out here on a mission. They were wrong. They were not what the Lord had in store for me. Now I want to have joy. Having desires and our will not in line with the Lords does not bring us joy. To experience true joy, we must align our will with His, and often that requires "a mighty change wrought in [your] heart." Now this change is not easy, nor is it convenient. It takes a lot to change, and a great deal of faith, not to mention time. Sometimes some change is fast and easy, but out here, it isn't. You even have to trust God that the change will even happen. I testify that it does. I am not where I want to be yet, but I am on my way there. Thank you for your prayers and support. They mean the world. Here's to an exciting six weeks with a new missionary. It's going to be incredible! Love you all, especially you Mom, Dad, and Anna! Y'all keep being awesome and don't forget to smile! BYE!
Elder Kynan Sorochan
District meeting
District meeting
District meeting
Elder Feichko and Elder Sorochan
Car ride to the Zone hike
Zone hike
Squishy car ride
July 31, 2017
Well everyone this has been a good week. To start off we can talk about a couple exchanges that happened this week. First was with Elder Feichko. He is super fun and I will get yall a picture of our exchange next week. We had a fun time visiting Sister Price and having lesson with Tacio. Sister Price is an active member that had cancer last year and Elder Feichko every week came and mowed her lawn. They are very good friends. Something funny happened though we had to call the vehicle coordinator to switch our car with another companionship and when Elder Feichko asked when it should go down the vehicle coordinator told him he was in charge and could make the decision. Now since Elder Feichko is our Zone Leader I started teasing him the rest of the exchange that he was in charge. It was funnier in the moment. We stopped by Tacio and had an impromptu lesson on the priesthood which worked out. Sadly later in the week, we got this text from Tacio, "Hi Elder... I think I won't be continuing with our meetings. I'll need to make some progress on my own first before I eventually feel the need to have more guidance. I appreciate your interest in helping... Maybe in the future we can revisit. Is that ok?" It was neat to see that he recognizes he needs to be able to do things himself before he progresses. He will get there. It was a pleasure to find him and help him on his way!
The other exchange was with Elder McGee! I went into his area and we had a blast! We worked our butts off and although we didn't see a lot of outward success but we did a lot of good and just had fun! I would love to be his companion one day. Elko Zone is awesome! So many friends here and in the ward.
My thought today is about how we don't really see ourselves as we really are. We judge ourselves about how we are doing when we can't really see our true progress. We are with each ourselves every second of everyday and it is hard to see how we progress. Always know that if you are trying you are getting better. God see's our progress and is always helping us along so we become more like him. Trust Him and it will all work out. Love you All! Love you Mom Dad and Anna!
Elder Sorochan
