The Book of Mormon is the most correct

March 27, 2017

Hello world! And everyone else. :D Oh and everyone Sister Latu just said she says hi. She is a sister missionary from Tonga. Hope you all had a great week because mine was really fun. To begin we have a couple really funny stories from Elder Williams. The first is just a little short story of one night Elder Williams waking me up. Elder Williams doesn't sleep talk but for some reason I woke up and heard him mumbling. Then all of a sudden He said, "in the name of Jesus Christ amen." and then went back to sleep. I woke up to Elder Williams praying in his sleep! Talk about consecration. The second story comes from yesterdays Sunday School class. Our Sunday school teacher had for some reason asked the question, if we were to assign a gender to the Bible and to the Book of Mormon, what would it be. (Don't ask me why). Elder Williams whispered an answer to me that made me laugh. Our teacher looked over and called on Elder Williams to give an answer because of it. This is what he said: "The Book of Mormon is a woman because it is the most correct!" XD It's funny because it's true! Ok now to other things.

First off the week before's stories. I had 2 exchanges that week. They were both in a row and Elder Williams went out of our area both times. I wasn't his companion for 48 hours. By the time both exchanges were done, it's like I had no idea who he was. The first one was with Elder Latham again, but we didn't end up making Cinnamon Rolls. (I did however do that last night and today!  They were soooooooooooooo good. Sister Chesnut has the best recipe) anyways it was really neat because this is the third exchange I have had with him so far in my mission. It is pretty rare to in 2 zones have the same Zone Leader come on exchanges with you 3 times always in your area. That is what has happened to me. It was really nice because he taught me about how to better ask questions and to look for how I can better use the Book of Mormon in my mission. I have been studying that from Preach My Gospel Chapter 5 and I just really need to use it more in teaching and focus on teaching specific principles from out of it. We went and taught the Carters that night and he and I came up with some questions to ask them to help them move forward some more. When we got to that part I felt and increase of the Spirit and He really helped me know what to say. I expressed my love for them over the past 5 months of teaching them and how I knew they needed to go to church. I could tell something was in the way, and that they didn't need to tell me what it was, but that they need to ponder the problem, pray to overcome it, and keep reading. They need to do this so that they can end up sealed in the temple. It was really powerful. My other exchange was with Elder Candland who is in his first transfer. He is from North Carolina and is a really good Elder. We had no appointments that day so we walked around a lot. He is a neat Elder. This week I had an exchange with Elder Kunz, last on of the transfer. He is from North Dakota and knows sorta Elder Billman, my old MTC companion. It was a really great exchange a couple of accounts. First, Elder Kunz is a HUGE Star Wars nerd so I learned a lot about the Star Wars universe and about the books for after my mission. Second, I got to witness Elder Kunz grow in his ability to teach by the Spirit when we were with the Carters. He is quieter when he teaches and has been more nervous in those scenarios, but I was just trying to help him have an easy day where I just took the lead and didn't push him to teach too much. It's good to do that, but his trainer and Elder Williams on their exchange have been doing that so I thought I would give him a little break. As a new missionary a little break helps. Sometimes I would ask him to read a scripture, and I would ask if he had anything to add, just making it really open for him to contribute if he had something. He by the end of our lesson with the Carters was talking and teaching a bit by the Spirit of his own accord and he said he enjoyed doing it which was really neat!

Yesterday at church Yvonne came as well. She and her kids have been sick the last couple weeks, but we were finally able to meet with her again and she came to church! Her baby has been sick and she almost didn't come. She was planning on all three hours, but with the baby recovering she wasn't sure, so we suggested just for an hour and she said she would still come. This was an hour before church started so it was a great miracle! She has been growing in faith. Before when we started teaching her again 11 weeks ago her faith was struggling, but we have really testified of the Book of Mormon, it's power, and really tried to teach to her needs. The Spirit has taught us what she needs and we have born testimony to her based off of that. She has come to a Why I Believe fireside, and a baptism, and she has been getting an answer about the Book of Mormon and she says she thinks it is true. Great steps!

Last night and today I made cinnamon rolls. They were so good and really fun to make. I attached some photo's of the whole process and of Elder Williams and the Zone Leaders Elder Latham and Elder Burgett trying them. They drive us around on PDAY so that is why they have some.

This is the last week of transfers, and the end of my 4th here in Vintage Hills. I will most likely be leaving, and I have loved my time here. I have one week left to work really hard and that is my goal! We have been seeing some great miracles lately like a new investigator named Sandy who we taught about the Book of Mormon and brought to a baptism. She is very a learn from the Bible person and doesn't believe in any one church. She recognizes apostasy, so we hope that by teaching her more about the restoration she will see how we need modern day prophets now.

Speaking of Modern Day Prophets, the time has come for us to listen to them again this coming weekend. The first session was already this last Saturday, and we have much left to hear. This is a great time to be alive where we can have 15 Prophets, Seers, and Revelators alive on the earth today who are not being killed or thrown into prison. We instead get to see them travel and visit us and build us up! We get to listen to them all every 6 months. I know that they are called of God and that Thomas S. Monson is the Lords chosen prophet to lead and guide us today. I invite all of you to listen to His and the other Apostles words this weekend. President Chesnut challenged us missionaries to look for where we can improve in our personal lives and as missionaries and I invite you all to do the same.

Love you all!

Elder Sorochan

7 cups of flour

Kneading dough by hand

 Finished product

 Elder Williams cheering me on

 The original batch of dough I left in the fridge overnight 

A great Zone Conference!

March 20, 2017

Hello Everyone! This week was a really good week, and I am mostly going to talk about Zone Conference since that was the big thing of the week! To start it begins Tuesday night. We combined with the Quincy Zone for Zone Conference. They are in the California part of our mission which covers Quincy and Susanville. Susanville for those who don't know has a federal prison. There's your fun fact of the day. Anyway Elder McKenna (for those of you who may be new to the blog he was my trainer) is currently serving in that zone, and the missionaries came down Tuesday night and stayed with some of the Elder's here in Sparks. We asked the assistants to have him come stay with us. We have really good assistants who know how to have fun and be obedient, so they arranged it which was really nice. I haven't really gotten to see or talk to him since we were together and at the Christmas Party.

Ok next the fun parts first. Every other Zone Conference we have vehicle inspection, but obviously we don't have a car. We had a fun idea of making a bicycle inspection report for our bikes like the cars have, but we didn't finish it in time. However, there is a perk. If you have one of the best cleaned cars, you win a 10$ Walmart gift card. Biking area's get automatically entered in and we got drawn to win the biking area gift card! We got some pens, horchata, and chocolate milk with it!

I twisted my ankle playing nine square. That was fun. Jumped up and came down on it wrong. First time in my life. I'M NOT OLD, I'M ONLY 20!!!!! THIS SHOULDN'T BE HAPPENING TO ME YET :D

Ok now for the amazing part. At the beginning of District Meetings someone is asked to come up and teach a principle from one of the first 3 lessons in Preach My Gospel. It is a really fun activity, but I have never been asked to come and teach. However, President while in Zone Conference decided to do this activity and he asked Elder Kunz to pick someone to teach. Since I've never done it before, it only seems right that out of the other 30 missionaries there, I would be the one to get picked. The principle chosen was Jesus Christ's Earthly Ministry and Atonement. I got up and was pretty nervous. I haven't taught this too much yet on my mission. I have studied it multiple times, but teaching all the Doctrine in front of everyone was pretty nerve racking. I got up and was nervous, but when I got to the front, I just kinda in my mind said, "Alright, here we go" and just went into it. It was neat. I felt like it was my own thoughts and idea's of what to say and teach, but it flowed very natural. I was remembering everything just when I needed to. It felt very last second, but I remembered. My favorite part was teaching/testifying of the Atonement at the end. I tried to put my love for the Atonement and my Savior into my words. It was an exhilarating experience, and I loved it. After President came, put his arm around me, and told me that I had taught every point of doctrine he had written down in his Preach My Gospel. He was very happy with my teaching! It was very powerful and a great memory.

I am out of time, but will tell more about some of the neat things that happened this week in next weeks email. I will give myself more time. Love you family! Love you friends!

Elder Sorochan

My sprained ankle :( 

Me and Elder McKenna

Our attempted family photo. In the middle is Elder McKenna who was trained by Elder Fordham. To his right is Elder Anderson, who was also trained by Elder Fordham. To the right of Elder Anderson is his current greenie, Elder Kunz. To the Left of Elder McKenna is his two trainee's Elder Nye and myself. (I'm the favorite :D)

Pday dinner 

A weird tree in someone's yard 

Sparks zone

Follow the Spirit

March 13, 2017

Hey everyone how's it going? This week wasn't too spectacular. We had a good number of appointments fall through due to sickness and death. No joke. It's all good though. These events help people receive the gospel more. This just allowed us to walk around more and get even more in shape! I am going to need new shoes soon though... :D

We met with the Rendons this week which was fun. They are a lot easier to meet with when we meet for only 30 min. They are a lot more focused too! We have another lesson tonight which will truly show if this tactic is working, but so far so good!

We went on splits with just Corban this week. No one in the Elder's Quorum was available unfortunately, but it doesn't help that there is maybe 6 in the whole quorum so they aren't always available to help. Corban saved the day. We went out and tried by some people and had a guy swear when he saw us. We tend to have that effect on people. :D We went and finished with some frosty's at the end like missionaries did for me when I went out with them.

I forgot a story from last week on splits. We were with the High Priest's group and I was going out with Bro. Rudolf. When we started he asked where we should go and I felt like we should go see this man named Dennis in our ward. We have tried to contact him before and he said we could come back but we never had success in getting in. It felt right to go by so Bro. Rudolf and I went all the way to the top of 4th street. We went and knocked on the door and Ellen, Dennis's wife let us in. We had a great talk about our church and found out why Dennis was less active. He has been since he was 14. He and his wife seemed happy about where they are at, but we had a really good talk. I testified and taught of the importance of the sacrament to explain why we need to go to church. He had never read the Book of Mormon so I taught and testified of it as well with Bro. Rudolf giving a great second witness. It was powerful, and he said he would read it. He didn't want a return appointment, but we gave them an experience to remember and for the Spirit to use to one day soften their hearts!

I love this work and am so happy to be here in Sparks! It is a wonderful area!

Love,
Elder Kynan Sorochan

Elder Williams shaking a can of soda

Cool plate 

The poncho in all it's glory

Better Cancel Church

March 6, 2017

Hey everyone, so the fun story of the week starts yesterday. It begins with Elder Williams and I waking up in the morning as we always do at 6:30 and starting our day with getting ready. Since it was Sunday we didn't work out so we were just kinda relaxing around. I had noticed a little bit of snow outside but hadn't really looked to see how much. At 7:30 we all of a sudden get a text from the Zone Leader's saying that church for the whole entire Sparks West Stake church meetings were cancelled for the day. Elder Williams and I were surprised. We looked out the window to see half an inch of snow. My Canadian brain was super confused. If we cancelled church this easily back home, we would never get to go to church! We waited to hear word from the Zone Leaders about what to do in terms of proselyting, and President's instructions were if you could see the black of the street, you can go out and work. This meant 4 extra hours of street contacting that day that normally would have been church and meetings, so that was fun. I took a picture outside our apartment at the time church normally starts to show why church was cancelled. Looking at it, the only thought that comes to my mind is obviously, "better cancel church". :D

Why church was canceled

Ok so it was a good week. We actually had Hunter our mini missionary come help us cut chicken with Bruce on Monday which was really fun. He is a really fun kid and I enjoy having him with us. He is just a really good solid kid. He has just recently started his mission papers too! Canada Edmonton mission here we come!

On Tuesday our day went really weird. Elder Williams has been experiencing some problems in his here. He had plugged it up with ear wax and had tried to fix it but was unsuccessful. It had gotten to a point where he couldn't hear in one ear and was having some pain so we went to the doctor to fix it. The doctor spent about half an hour to 45 minutes shooting a special ear water gun into his ear to get all the wax out. It worked though! He can now hear and doesn't have any pain in his ears! All the time it took was worth it. He can now hear my melodious singing while I take a shower again! ("and the alarm" ~Elder Williams He wasn't waking up because he couldn't hear the alarm)

On Wednesday the Humphry's took us to M&M's, an authentic southern food restaurant. You could tell it was authentic because all the people who worked there were sweet black ladies that had southern drawls and were super nice! I had Alligator and Hush Puppies. It was so good.

I got to go on Exchanges with Elder Kingfisher this week. It was so fun. We joked around a ton. I invented the word "spantastic!" (a mix of fantastic and spectacular). Elder Kingfisher came up with some good analogies to use while teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Baptism is like joining a special club, and to join you need to follow the rules of the club. The Gift of the Holy Ghost is part of the benefits of joining the club. Enduring to the End is like a treadmill. Sometimes the run is easy, but sometimes it is fast and you are exhausted. With the Savior though you can make it to the end of the run.

It was a great week. I am so thankful for the Book of Mormon and for Prayer in my life. They truly help me get through anything, even a mission. I feel the love of my Heavenly Father and my Savior Jesus Christ so much as I pray and read. They are so powerful. To quote President Chesnut, "As you anchor yourself in the Book of Mormon, you anchor yourself to Christ." Love you all!

Elder Kynan Sorochan

Elder Kingfisher and I on exchanges

FHE game 

Elder Williams stylin' my Oilers poncho my family sent me from Mexico 

Faith Hope and Charity are needed in Life

February 27, 2017

Ok so there was a lot that went down this week so here we go!

On Monday we had a lesson with Tony and Danielle. They are a couple found by the Seavey's, a couple in our ward. It was so awesome! The Seavey's set up the appointment at there house and a time and everything. It was the ideal situation! We taught them the restoration and they ate it up! They were focused, asked questions, and committed to read the Book of Mormon! Aren't they golden? There is a catch though... they don't live in our area. They are in the Marina ward, but fortunately there are some stellar Elder's in that ward so I have confidence Tony and Danielle will be taken care of. It was a great treat to teach with such a strong Spirit in that lesson.

Tuesday we lost the car :'( Back to the biking and the asking for rides to P-Day and District Meeting. The first day of biking it was raining/snowing like mad so we got SOAKED!!!!!!! It was fun. The blessings of the Lord are that we were able to go home and dry off for dinner because a single sister was just bringing a pizza to our house. Worked out great! We got dry and went and taught the Carters. It has stopped for the most part in terms of rain from the sky after dinner.

Thursday was hard. I learned that I have been still prideful and not willing to listen to suggestions on how to improve. It was rough, but through an experience I learned some things that I can do to be more charitable to others. I can be more humble. I can be more positive and faithful. I am doing well now. It was a hard experience, but it grew me for the better.

Saturday we had mini missionaries! Our's was named Hunter. He is the student body president of Spanish Springs high and is super funny! He helped us cut veggies for Bruce and might come cut chicken tonight! We also went to go teach the Carters and he bore very powerful and simple testimony. He is a super fun kid.

Hope you all love the licence plates! My new scriptures for the week are Alma 7:11-13 and Alma 7:23-24

Love you all!

Elder Sorochan

A lot of interesting license plates in NV!

 A great day for biking!

 Hunter, our mini missionary

Made you look

February 20, 2017

Hi Everyone! I have a funny joke for you all today curtesy of Bruce the Iranian Chicken Eater. We listen to the Book of Mormon while we cut his chicken and we got to the part where Nephi is having his vision where he learns about his fathers vision. In the scriptures the Angel tells Nephi to look, Nephi Looks, and then Nephi learns something. Bruce's joke with it is as follows:

And the Angel said, Look! And I looked, and the Angel said, Made you look!

Haha silly Bruce.

This week was a good week. We got to go to the temple this week and it was a really great experience as usual. We went to L&L after and found someone from Utah that isn't a member but was excited to see missionaries. She said we could send the missionaries over so we sent the referral to the missionaries in her area. It was awesome. We helped move furniture out of a couple of missionary apartments. Bishop went to Canada and got me some Old Dutch chips which I have been craving! We had our Why I Believe fireside and Yvonne and her kids came! It was a really good meeting that I think helped her a lot. There was a speaker that really seemed to be what she needed.

This weekend was transfer's but I didn't get transferred fortunately. I want one more transfer here in Sparks! It is really fun here and I love the members. I love the city and Elder Williams is a great companion.

I think I mentioned it last week but I am working on learning specific scriptures each week to help me in my teaching. I try to memorize them mostly so that I can have the Spirit bring them to my memory more easily in lessons. This week is 2 Nephi 30:8 which is a prophecy about how God will bring about a restoration in the later days, and the second is Mosiah 4:26-27, 29-30 which teaches about how to gain a remission of sins and endure to the end!

I also want to share a little nugget of knowledge for you all. In this world it can be hard to be optimistic all the time. It is impossible to be that way always, but there are things that we can do to increase the amount of time we spend being happy rather than pessimistic. I learned yesterday that if we can look at every situation with an attitude of "How can this strengthen me" or "What can I learn from this" we will be blessed with a greater Spirit of Optimism and Joy. We will think of the Savior more and use everything that happens to us for our benefit and gain. I love this gospel and know it's true.

Love you all,
Elder Sorochan

 This is Bruce.  The man we cut chicken for.

Cool license plate 

After District meeting. That's Elder Gailey middle and Elder Williams Right

Elder Williams styling it 

Elder Williams being funny 

#Nevada 

Nice plate 

O Swell! 

Bishop Cocanour went to Canada and brought me back Old Dutch Chips! I controlled myself and had them last 24 hours

The Sparks Zone! (I look fat. Dumb camera. Adds 50lb's)

At the temple trip

You never know what is going to happen

February 13, 2017

Hey everyone so it has been a fun week! Fist off last Pday we went to IHOP with Elder Gailey and Elder Lima. It was really good and Elder Williams had a gift card so it only ended up costing me 5 bucks. Oh yeah! We also went to Scheels which is like a combo of Sport Chek and Cabelas. Their hockey section was so sad. They had hardly anything. We also had Elder Williams and Elder Gailey work together to do a combined district meeting. That never happens, but the topics for our trainings have been so similar these past few weeks that they wanted to do a different spin together as district leaders so they got President's permission and it was fun.

Tuesday we had a cool miracle. In the morning before we planned Elder Willams and I both had the thought to go and see a less active member, Bro. Sledge. He doesn't get out much due to health, and the ward wants to help him start coming back to church, and it had been a few weeks that we had seen him. When we went we found out that he had only been visited once by other people besides us in that time. We were pretty surprised. (it's things like this that have me very determined to make sure I do all my home teaching every month to meet the needs of my families after my mission. Home and visiting teaching is crucial to the Lord's work it turns out) His car hadn't been working and we helped figure out that his battery was dead because a light had been turned on. We jumped his car and got it working. I have been working on having a better attitude as well when appointments fall through. This happened with the Carter's when we tried to confirm, and when we got the text that they needed to reschedule, I was pretty bummed, but then I decided to have a better opinion and just understand that it happens. 5 minutes later they texted us saying we still could come! Blessings for a good attitude.

Another fun story from the week is when we got to go to Elder Gailey and Elder Lima's baptism this Saturday. We brought Yvonne and showed up about 15 minutes before the baptism about. Turned out that the person who was supposed to come and fill the font hadn't come, and it takes an hour to fill it up, and it had only a couple of inches of water. Can't baptize someone without water now can ya? Almost all the missionaries combined to start filling up water jugs from the kitchen and dumping them into the font so we would have enough water to baptize the lady being baptized! It was fun watching the cart of jugs and bowls filled with water as the service started. Fortunately, all turned out fine. The font was filled, the baptism happened, and it was a nice time. There was a lot of people there too.

I hope you all had a great week. I had a power lesson in my personal studies about the Christlike quality of Virtue. I while planning my studies felt inspired to go to chapter 6 of Preach My Gospel, so I did and flipped till it felt right. Studying Virtue felt right, and I learned that to be at peace and truly happy, it needs to start on the inside with your heart, and go outward, not the revearse. We have the Gospel! It should be easy to be happy. As I have been applying becoming more virtuous in my everyday desires, not just the desires we normally associate with virtue, we can be a lot happier more of the time! I would invite you all to go to Preach My Gospel and study it for yourselves if you are finding you are just not happy about different things when you want to be. I promise it will be a powerful lesson for you as it was for me. I have a much better attitude because of it now.

Bye!

Elder Kynan Sorochan

 Funny bumper sicker

Companionship study