Happy To Serve

January 23, 2017

Hi Everyone! I am FINALLY back at the library so this email will be a lot easier to manage. First things first, I know it is a month late, but it time for the Christmas SHOUT OUTS!!!!!

To the Hudson Family, Thank you for the card! The update on what's going on back in the great Edmonton is awesome!

To the Palmer Family: Thank you for the card and picture! The picture was really funny. I enjoyed it.

Thank you to the Hadley family for the card, with special thanks to Sariah for the wonderful art on it. It is an awesome card!

To the Rolfson's, the card was awesome! And the Purdy's chocolate was really tasty too. Thanks!

To Sister Yamamoto, Thank you for the card and talk. It was a really powerful talk and was really helpful.

To the Rutherford Ward Relief Society: Thank you for the Christmas Wishes. Sister Bugga that card was really well made, and thanks Mom and Sister Mosiaco for the little note too! It was really nice.

To the Livingstone's: Thanks for the card and life update! It is always neat to hear what is going on. I always seem to forget things are happening back home. Probably a good thing :D

To Grandma and Papa, Thanks for the 5x5 rubik's cube and card! It will be awesome to learn how to use!

To the Smith Family! The Catan game is awesome! It is a really nice game thanks! And the Lindor Chocolate and Sour Patch Kids were perfect choices. Yum!

To Grandma Sorochan: Thank you so much for the gift! That was very kind of you!

Ok now on to the week. Everyone, I hope you will forgive me when I say this, but I remembered everything to bring for p-day... except my study notes. Whoops. I promise to bring them next week. No really I do. Have faith. Maybe pray for me. Just kidding :D I will do it. You wait and see.
Oh as well, Congratulations to Matthew Loewer on his mission call!!!!!!!! That is so awesome my friend! Montreal is about to become 1000% more LDS.

We have a new schedule as missionaries! It is designed to help us be "agents unto ourselves". It is less strict. They now give us a set of things we have to do in a certain chunk of time, but however we want to accomplish it is up to us. The big changes are companionship study is now in the afternoon, not the morning. Daily planning is now in the morning before we got out, instead of in the evening after we come in. P-day now starts at 8 instead of 10, so we don't exercise Monday morning, instead we do a little bit of personal study, plan, and get ready. Dinner must be completed by 6:30. My favorite part of this is that the evenings are now much more open to journal writing because now all we have to do is update records! The scripture our mission President asked us to look up with this is D&C 58:26-28. Elder Jones however by accident was told to look up Alma 58:26-28, and this was before we found out the new schedule and was supposed to hint at the new schedule. Look it up. You will laugh.

Fun joke for the week is last week in Fast and Testimony meeting someone got up and said that our ward is the IHOP Ward. The Internation House of Old People ward! It's funny because it's true. What else is true though is that it is the BEST ward EVER! I love the Vintage Hills ward. The members here are just fantastic. If I had time I would go on, but this statement shall suffice for me.

We saw Jimmie this week and last week Elder Williams had the genius idea to have her read the children's book of Mormon. It worked great. Jimmie went to the lds bookstore herself and in the first day of having it read the first 12 chapters of it. We have committed her to pray before and after reading and invited her to use the regular book of Mormon along side it.

We did a lot of walking this week just street contacting. We have been working really hard and have been rewarded with a few more set appointments than usual for this week and a referral with some real potential it is looking like. His name is Vinny. Here's hoping!

Elder William's is super great. He is teaching me a lot and we are getting along really well. He is great at telling stories and has a lot of them. Makes street contacting really fun. Fun fact, he was a pole vaulter before his mission!

Everyone, I love this Gospel and how it helps you. How it changes you and teaches you. I love how much my Savior helps me and does for me. As I study the scriptures I really am able to see what He has done for me, and am really able to bring the Spirit into my mind and heart so that I become who I want to be. I am still very new at all of this and struggle to succeed, but it is that struggle that teaches me faith, diligence, love, and hope and many other good things. I learn so much through these trials. This Gospel really is true. I am so happy to serve and to be a missionary.

Love,
Elder Kynan Sorochan

 I got to see Elder McKenna the mission conference

 Oh Yaaaahhhhh!

 Elder Hadley signed the jersey!

 Saying goodbye to Elder Hadley

My new companion Elder Williams

Repent

January 16, 2017

Hey everyone this was a powerful week. I have a new companion named Elder Williams. He is from Riverton Utah. He has been out for about 16 months now and is a powerhouse. It is great to be his companion and it is really helping this area. You really never know what your doing, but he has more of an idea than I do and it is helping.

Ok so I really did not do a good job preparing for this email this week so it is going to be short, but it will be cool.

This last Saturday we had for the first time in Nevada Reno Mission history a mission wide conference. The mission has never been gathered all together before. The occasion? Elder Larkin, an area seventy, Elder Pearson, a general authority seventy, and Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the quorum of the twelve apostles came to our mission. We met in Reno and all gathered in the chapel. It was an amazing meeting. It was only for 2 hours, but Elder Christofferson ended up getting about 1 hour and 20 minutes of it which was awesome. When he got up and started talking, he had us stand up and stretch, and then said it would be a question and answer period. It was incredibly powerful. I got to ask him a question too. I asked "As missionaries we need the Holy Ghost to teach, so what do we need to do individually and maybe as a mission to have the Spirit with us more?" He is fun to talk with because he half the time starts with a little witty response. His witty answer was almost immediately "Repent." He then turned to the seventies there and asked if he was right. They said yes, but then he gave me a Spirit guided answer. I will give my notes on the answer next week. It was funny and I laughed. Not everyday you get rebuked by an Apostle. Good thing I do repent right? It was such a powerful meeting, and I will share my thoughts and impressions next week. Love you all!

Elder Sorochan

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