The Rains came down and the Floods came up

January 9, 2017

Note from Elder Sorochan's mom - Over the weekend there began to be flooding in the Reno/Sparks area due to heavy rain and snowfall. This caused the Truckee River to overflow it's banks. Elder Sorochan and his companion were not directly affected by the flood in that their apartment is on higher ground away from the flooded area. However, their ability to get places and see people over the weekend was affected and will continue to be so for the next few days.


Hey everyone! Today has been crazy. There has been flooding so finding a place to email was crazy. The governor said that he didn't want any state workers working unless it was absolutely necessary, so that meant a closed library. In a half fortunate way, Bishop Cocanour wasn't able to go to work because of the flooding so he let us email at his house again. He also took us out for lunch again in honor of Elder Hadley's birthday last month/because he is leaving. (Elder Hadley doesn't like to celebrate his birthday so we used the other one to help him feel a little better about it) We went to Olive Garden. It was super good. The weather has been so crazy this week. On Thursday we had to stay in for most of the day because of some snow and ice on the roads. It wasn't that bad by my standards, but I am from Canada, so oh well.

Monday was so much fun. I know I said we were going to go bowling, but with everyone off of school there was so many people there that the wait for us to have 2 lanes we would have had to wait an hour, and we didn't have that kind of time. We instead went back to the Rock (our church building) and I said I had a game for the whole of us. For those of you who know me, I love playing the group game called werewolf. I quickly wrote out the different characters on the drive there, we got a circle of chairs, and the game began! I had 15 players which made it super fun! Everyone had a blast and people were doing a really good job at playing. It was such a good time!

We got to go on splits with the ward finally! They are now every week and I got to go with Brother Garfinkle to see the Carter's. They are doing great and we also taught Brother Carter this week how to use gospel library on his ipad.

We did service with the food bank this week in the rain. Fortunately we had tent coverings and my job was to hand people milk. It was really busy for the first 60-70 minutes and then it died down. We talked with Jennifer and told her where we were from. It was a really good contact. She has worked with missionaries at the food bank before, and we hope one day she wants to listen to our message.

We do volunteer work at the restore for Habitat for Humanity and we have been having really good contacts with a man named Johnny. He is really noticing the Spirit coming from us and other members of the church. He feels like there is something wrong at his church and he is unsure about it. We thought awesome! And invited him to the baptism on Saturday and hoped to invite him to learn the lessons from there. He unfortunately didn't come but we will keep trying!

Yesterday I had some really neat times testifying with the Spirit yesterday. I have been really trying to have the Spirit more with me. I have struggled with doubt and worry and fear on my mission, which really drives away the Spirit. I have definitely had it with me on my mission, but I need it more so that I can not have these weaknesses hold me down. Fear and faith can not exist at the same time. Yesterday I fasted to know what I can do to have the Spirit with me more. One thing I learned is that we need to give our wills up to the Lord. All of our desires, and that includes our fears. I started saying an individual prayer in regards to all of my fears, doubts, worries etc. and giving them to the Lord to deal with. I felt each time relief in my heart, and the Spirit has been with me in greater abundance ever since.

There is in the end, only really 2 options. It is to have faith in Christ, or give up. Giving up is not worth it. There is nothing happy or rewarding about it and in the end, it is harder. Having faith in Christ is sometimes very hard. It sometimes feels almost impossible. If we don't back down, but cling to faith, we will be happy and it will be rewarding. It is in the end, easier. There is no better option. There is no where else to go. If we don't choose Christ, we can never be happy. We have to feel the pain of life sometimes, but in the end all we will have is happiness. I experience this in such little ways, and sometimes bigger here on my mission. There is much more to come.

I love you all. Talk to you next week!

Elder Kynan Sorochan

 Example of flooding provided by the mission Facebook page

Example of flooding provided by the mission Facebook page

Happy New Year!

January 2, 2017

Hello everyone! I know you are all dieing for Christmas pics, but the library is still closed till next week. I will do them next week as well as Christmas shout outs! Fun thing for the week is we have a car! It is only for the rest of the transfer (so a week and a half) but it is still great! Some missionaries went home early for school, so there were some left over cars. Elder Hammond texted us (he is the vehicle coordinator) and said we could use one till the transfer is over. He gave us 500 miles too! We couldn't use up all of that even if we tried! It is nice to have a brief rest from biking, especially since this week is going to be cold. And it means that we get to drive to morning program and play sports with the other missionaries.

We have been doing a lot more finding lately. Some people we have been trying to teach we just decided to stop going to see since they weren't putting in any effort and didn't really want to learn. In the ward we have so far found that over 40 people on the ward list have moved. That's crazy! We have been having some good experiences with street contacting, tracting, trying former investigators, and less active finding, but so far no pineapples. We will keep trying though! The people here are great, and very nice to us. They just don't think they need the gospel. Silly people!

On the 14th we will be having a mission wide conference, where an area seventy, a seventy and an Apostle will be coming! We don't know which Apostle it is, but we are definetely going to learn a lot!

We are starting a new Book of Mormon initiative with the members here that President Chestnut has designed. In it we invite the members to read the Book of Mormon over the year of 2017, and while reading highlight scriptures that are meaningful to them and that might help someone who is reading it for the first time or needs a testimony of the Book of Mormon, and to pray as to who to give that Book of Mormon to. We are to do it with every member if we can, and we have a lot of appointments for it this week. It will be fun!

We got to meet with the Carters again this week! They are making slow progress, but it is progress. They are such a sweet couple. They are very fun to teach. Bro. Seavey has started coming with us and he is good friends with them, so he is a great support. We have been reading in the Book of Mormon with them reading King Benjamins address. We hope that as they apply what he says to their own lives that they will start to do more gospel centered activities like family prayer and family scripture study.

Yesterday was really good for church. The time has changed from 2:30 to 12:30, and it seems to have helped attendance. We had 5 less actives there, three that haven't come before! Bro. Gladstone and the Martins were the ones who haven't been able to come. Bro. Gladstone was only because of the time. His family isn't very supportive of him being a member, so he can only come when church is earlier. Church was a little fuller which was a good sign.

Thanks for your prayers everyone! I have really being noticing a big emphasis in my life of how Christ needs to be the center, and what I have to do to make that happen. I know that this is in part because of your prayers for me. I truly appreciate it. I love you all! Love you Mom, Dad, and Anna!

Elder Kynan Sorochan

Birthday lunch with Elder Hadley (courtesy of Bishop Cocanour!)

Happy Christmas

December 26, 2016

Merry Christmas Everyone!

It was a very fun Christmas! I sent a few pictures and will send more next week. Thank you to everyone who sent me cards and treats! I will thank you all specifically next week when I have a chance to go through everything at our apartment. All our stuff is at a members right now since you can't carry much on a bike. Ok onto the week.

Tuesday I got to go on exchanges with Elder Anderson, Elder Jones's Companion. We got to teach the Carters again. We read out of Mosiah 2 to help them read the Book of Mormon more. They are doing a better job at reading, but not every day yet. It will come!

Ok lets talk about Christmas. Saturday morning we got permission to go caroling with a family in our ward to a seniors home just outside our area. It was fun. There wasn't a lot of seniors where we were, but those that were there had a really fun time. It was so nice to see their smiling faces! In the afternoon we had some weekly planning to finish up then we went and did some service at Ricky and Davids cleaning and helping to paint a bathroom. Then we went to Jimmie's for dinner! It was so fun! I had taco's since they were doing a mexican food night, themeing it Feliz Navidad! Haha. :D I really like tacos. We had to leave dinner early because it happened at 4, and we are only allowed dinner for an hour. We ended up leaving at 5:15 since dinner wasn't ready when we got over there, but we got out as soon as we could. Normally proselyting ends at 9, but because of Christmas eve it ended at 6. Then after 6 we could go back to Jimmie's till latest 9. We played a game liars, had cheesecake, and read the Christmas story! It was a really fun night.

On Christmas we got up as usual and did our studies. Bishop Cocanour came and picked us up since we were skyping at his house. It was so great and emotional skyping. I had a wonderful time talking with my family and at the end I bore my testimony to them. After we hung out and I opened the rest of my presents. When the time came we went to church. We had a wonderful meeting and I even got to play Still Still Still by John Schmidt. One of my sticky notes made two pages stick together, so instead of helping me turn the pages, the sticky note made me stop and fix the pages! It was great otherwise. We then went to the Humphry's for dinner. It was really tasty. It was just the 4 of us, my companion and brother and sister Humphry's. It was nice and relaxing. I very much enjoyed it. We then went caroling with the other missionaries and had a testimony meeting.

I love this time of year. The Savior lives everyone! He is real. He truly did what the prophets say He did. He is always there for us, and we can overcome anything because He lives! Let Him light your world as He lights and powers mine!

I love you all! Merry Christmas! Love you Mom, Dad, and Anna!

Elder Kynan Sorochan

 Caroling on Christmas eve

 Caroling on Christmas eve

 Christmas dinner

 Christmas dinner with the Humphreys

The mini drone Cocanours got me for Christmas!

Christmas Party!

December 19, 2016

This week was fun! We had a mission Christmas party! A couple transfers ago the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve sent out a notification saying all that from now on we are to have interviews with our mission president and zone conferences every transfer, as opposed to every other. For this transfer President Chestnut had us have a west side Zone Conference for 2 hours followed by another 4 hours of our Christmas Party! The Zone Conference was great! There was a huge emphasis on coming unto Christ. President used the story of Peter walking on water and how the Savior will always help us and be beside us. He is such a great teacher! The party after was so fun! I got to see Elder McKenna and play ping pong! I played nine square too. It was a blast. Everyone got a present of a towel with the Nevada Reno Mission logo on it. They are nice towels! Christmas blessings!

We are starting to do more tracting since we are starting to stop seeing some people who are no longer productive and trying to find more. What was really neat was the first house we tried no one was home, but as we were leaving the front porch the wife of the family who lives there pulled up and we talked to her! She is open to having us come over after the holidays and talk with her and we hope her family too! They are catholic, but she was nice and open so this is a good sign. Elder Hadley and I prayed as to where to go tracting and the place he felt we should go found her! No one else was interested, but we had some good contacts which was nice. No other real potentials, but as we keep at it we will find people!

The weather has been getting worse. I do not recommend biking in the rain. :D Snow is better, but hurts a little on the face. Biking area's are the best everyone. Really they are. I am getting in really good shape and people have been telling me I have lost weight (which I have) Diet and exercise is the key. To this I testify!

We had a lesson with Jimmie this week where we read President Nelson's talk about finding joy. It was really good. She really enjoyed it and we talked about how she has had times in her life where she did not have joy, but she did know Heavenly Father loved her. She says she will work on trying to always have joy in all things. I found it very useful for me because having joy in missionary work is what you need to have to do it properly, but Heavenly Father doesn't always make it easy sometimes. As I practice though, it gets easier, and I am finding I am able to have more joy in more things! Even though it is very hard, I am so thankful for this experience to be tested and to see what Heavenly Father really wants me to learn. Jimmie at the end of our lesson invited us over for Christmas Eve! We didn't have a dinner that night yet, so we said yes! It was great! Her nephew I think it is who she calls 007 will be there. He has done all these top secret black opp's type stuff for the CIA or something. He can't talk about most of what he's done, it's that top secret. He is a pretty awesome guy I hear. It will be fun.

I love being out here. It is the most difficult and challenging thing that I have ever done. Sometimes all I can do is just not give up. I am really just not good at this. That is the Lord's way though. He turns strengths into weaknesses, but He has to have us go through the weaknesses first. Fortunately, Christ's grace is sufficient to make up for any weakness. I'm am so thankful for this, because I need it more than ever. Thank you for all your love and support. Merry Christmas to all and to all, a Merry Christmas. Love you! Especially you Mom, Dad, and Anna!

Elder Kynan Sorochan

 Biking in the rain

 Awesome Christmas lights

 A dead duck!

 Elder McKenna (my trainer) and Elder Hadley (my current companion)

 Elder Peterson (my Zone leader from Carson)

 Elf hat!

 Ping pong at the Christmas party

 Me and President Chesnut

 Me and Sister Chesnut

Me and Elder Jones in the snow

Mission posterity. Elder McKenna trained me and Elder Nye on the far left. I trained Elder Jones. This will be one of the only times we will likely be all together at the same time, and Elder Nye had to blink ;)

You never know what will happen!

December 12, 2016

Well it was a good week. There was some really neat miracles that happened.

First I wanted to talk about was exchanges this last Tuesday. I went with Elder Hadley's MTC companion, Elder Stotts, into his area. It was fun because that night we were going to be going on splits with the priests in the Red Hawke ward. Good thing I know the area. Sike, I didn't. I was just kinda going along to do whatever the priest I was with felt like doing. We had a plan to go visit home teaching families which was good. The first priest I went with had the first person we stopped by not be home, so he decided that we would go try a priest aged boy who doesn't come to church. When we showed up where he lived, we found it was a gated community and that we didn't have the password to get in! We were about to turn around when this truck pulled up behind us and opened the gate! Miracles! We talked with the boy for a little bit and committed him to come to church! It was fun. The next priest I went with and I went and taught one of his families, well, single sister, the importance of home teaching to active members. She is active but doesn't fully get it.

While doing service for this lady named Glenna this week on Friday, she gave us Christmas presents! She gave us a heater for our apartment, since we need to get the thermostat fixed (yes mom we contacted the land lord) and she had gotten Elder Hadley a winter coat! He had been borrowing the inside liner of mine because all he had is a trench coat and you can't bike in those! So great!

Ok the big story of the week involves Jimmie. Remember last week when I said she came to church and she bore her testimony, well there is more to the story. When we met wit her on Thursday, we found out something really neat. By the way she fed us and it was super tasty. She told us that on Sunday while she was getting ready for church she felt prompted to bear her testimony, but she said no. That continued throughout the day and she kept saying no. While at church during the sacrament, she always is praying during the whole thing. She kept feeling that prompting and so she said to Heavenly Father that if one of us (the missionaries) would get up and bear our testimony, she would too. President Chestnut has asked us missionaries to bear our testimony frequently and so I was planning on it this Sunday. I wanted to follow the Spirit though as to when I should go up, and after the sacrament I felt I should go up as soon as possible. It was just a very simple testimony, nothing fancy or special. Little did I know though that it helped Jimmie get up and bear hers and she shared a very sweet testimony. Just goes to show you never know what will happen if you try to do what is right. God is a God of miracles. Hope you are all having a wonderful Christmas season, I love you all! Merry Christmas to my friends and family, and a big hug and "I love you" to Mom, Dad, and Anna!

Elder Kynan Sorochan

Canada Dry for the Canadian! 

A picture especially for Mike

 This is the bishop's daughter Elsie.  She loves missionaries.

 Thanksgiving game time at Bishop Cocanour's

 Someone likes inflatables!

 A marshmallow platypus

 The new large Sparks Zone

An Elder Sorochan original 

Santa! 

 Riding my bike in the snow

The Beutlers

The Lord will always provide a way

December 5, 2016

Hello Everyone!

Hope you are all having a good week! It was a pretty calm week. Transfers came and went with not a lot of changes for our companionship but lots in the Zone. First off the Sparks West and East Zones have now been combined. Elder Latham for those of you who remember him is now my zone leader again and Elder Jones is now in my district. He and Elder Anderson got double transferred into 2 wards. How amazing is that? It is going to be a fun transfer with the new zone.

This week we had a lot of good less active work. We had 3 less actives come to church that had not been in a very long time. One of them, Jimmie, we have been inviting for awhile. She really wants to come and she finally did! And she bore her testimony for the first time in 20 years! It was so great to see. Sis. Punzalan another we are working with came which is really good for me actually. In our lesson this last week she told us she is scared she won't keep her job in the new year when her contract needs to be renewed, and I felt a small prompting to promise her that if she would come to church every week she would keep her job. It felt kinda scary to do it, but I did and so far so good!

So far in my mission, finding has been very hard. I just can't seem to find people to teach. It has now become like English class. I do it because they tell me to, but I don't put in all that I could and I don't always enjoy it. I want to change this, but it is very hard with all that I have experienced so far. I decided that yesterday I would fast for the courage, faith, and enthusiasm to find people to teach. That night I learned something profound. In 1 Nephi 3:7 it talks about how God will always provide away for us to accomplish His commandments. I likened that to now. Heavenly Father knows where He has put me in this mission and what would happen with my attitude with finding. He knew that would happen. He also knows how to get me out of it, and I know that He will help me and show me the way to do a better job at finding. He will one day bless me with greater success in this area, just like He will with everything else. Nothing will ever be perfect, but I know that He has a perfect plan to make all things better and greater!

I love my God and I love my Savior. They truly make everything possible. Love you all and until next week, have a very merry Christmas Season!

Elder Kynan Sorochan

 Elder LaBrum - We went on exchanges

 Sparks West Zone

 Chicken and waffles

 Tostados

Raking leaves

When Heavenly Father Loves you Enough

November 28, 2016

Hello everyone.

This letter will be a little different than previous ones. I won't really be talking about missionary work, because I have something different I wish to tell all of you. It concerns a personal change that I have just had over the past couple weeks, and especially yesterday. I hope that the Spirit will help me properly describe these things to you, and as well that you will understand.

For those who do not know, yesterday marked the 7 month anniversary since the time I officially entered the MTC and this whole journey began. It has been an amazing experience, with so much learning and growth and many great things happen. Many hard things have happened as well.

One of these hard things has been of my own cause. I have not truly/fully in my heart been able to have lasting peace, joy, and contentment. Now don't misunderstand, I have not been unhappy, or not had joy, peace, and contentment, but they have not lasted. I have always felt in my heart that there was something missing. I have also questioned why this mission experience hasn't fully been what I expected it to be, or why I am not as good as I want to be or expect to be. In short, I have been prideful.

Over the last couple weeks, our Heavenly Father has been kind enough to me to show me some of my biggest weaknesses. First one is how I seem to have this habit of always wanting my situation to be more, "something" than another missionaries. For example, if a missionary is receiving more success and seeing more miracles than me, I am jealous. I want to have more and better than that missionary. As well, if a missionary is experiencing something harder than me, like their area is more difficult, I wish that I was in their shoes so that I could say I am going through more. it is very selfish, and I don't like it. It is not a fun way to think. For some reason, I was able to see this and was able to notice how silly it is. I have been working to stop this, but have love for other missionaries in whatever they are experiencing, not comparing their circumstances to mine.

Another thing I discovered is that I am very prideful. I think I deserve a lot of prestige. I think I am very great and should be having lots of recognition and receiving lots of leadership. This is not good. It is not right, but I have a habit of thinking like this. Again, I don't like it. Again, the Lord has loved me enough to show me that I had this negative habit. Of course I want to get rid of it, and He has kindly shown me in a greater light what I was doing that was causing me unhappiness.

Now there are other small things that are there that I do wrong, but we don't have time for those and really, I can't think of all of them right now. I did however want to give you a couple examples so you got the idea. Now of course I do not think that these are all I define myself by. We all have weaknesses and things that we do but shouldn't. My intent in sharing this all with you is that I in my mission desperately want to be what the Lord wants me to be. I want to do all that He wants me to do. This desire has been growing to the point where it is at the top of all other desires. Because of this growth, the Lord has brought forth to me a new way of doing this missionary work. Over the past weeks, while showing me my many weaknesses, I have asked Him what I need to do to change all this. To truly enjoy all of this, to fully in my heart, 100% love this work, and be content and joyful. The answer came yesterday.

Elder Hadley and I were out doing missionary work and I was really feeling down, and this feeling kept getting worse. I felt so bad at all of this, like I was failing in my mission, and I didn't know how to change it. I felt very depressed. I could not feel happiness. I felt so bad. I wondered if I was seriously depressed. Now this didn't seem right. I am on a mission and have been promised that I will find great joy in my service. I knew something needed to change. My feelings of depression stayed as we went into sacrament meeting. The great thing about it is it got my thoughts beginning to be directed toward Jesus Christ. We had talks on gratitude, and by my focus on the Savior and through other things said and read throughout the day, I learned that that my lack of true love and happiness for all things came because I was not relying and coming unto the Savior to the extent I needed to. I have in the past, but my reliance and need of Him and His Atonement was now greater than it had ever been before, because it is time for me to become better. My answer on how to become better was to use the Atonement, and follow and become more like my Savior.

My answer was something I love to teach people, but for some reason was not applying with myself. In my sadness I began to wonder "How do I do it? How do I gain access to this power and receive the help of my Savior?" I didn't see how, but it came to me. To follow the Savior, I need to become more like Him and be like Him in all that I do. I need to develop His attributes. Charity, humility, faith, patience, etc. My experience earlier in the day truly humbled me. I felt like nothing for awhile. However, because my Heavenly Father loved me enough to have me feel that way, it opened me up to see that if I am to be the missionary I want to be, and to be happy in the way I want to be happy, it all needs to come from Christ. It cannot come from anyone else. I need to become like Him. I need to put off all these former things that I mentioned before and have all things I do be motivated and directed by Christ and His attributes. When I realized this, and committed to do it, from then on I have had this feeling in my heart that my path is right. That what I have decided and am trying to do will bring me the joy and love that I seek. I feel that support from Christ and Heavenly Father that I didn't know how to access. It comes from doing our best, focusing on Him and who He is, and following His commandments. I know I won't be perfect, but I know that as I work with all my heart, mind, might and strength, that I will be able to become better and who I want to be and more importantly, who the Lord wants me to be. I love my Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ. I know they love me. I know they will always help me and that it will all work out how it is supposed to.

I love you all. Hope you all have a wonderful week. I love you Mom, Dad, and Anna especially.

Elder Kynan Sorochan