Baptism!

May 22, 2017

Hello everyone how's it going?

The fun fact of the week comes from a move that Elder Clark and I helped out with this week. We were helping someone in the Sister's ward move since they are too little to lift really heavy things. It was a good thing too because if it weren't for Elder Clark and his massiveness we wouldn't have been able to move this one couch into the house with a stair case that was maybe 8 inches wider that the couch at best. Anyway the father of the family actually used to be a semi-pro hockey player! It is really cool because they had a hockey net and everything for their 2 year old son in their garage. I shot a tennis ball with a hockey stick for the first time in FOREVER!!!! It was great. He told us this story of this time he was 15 and at a camp where 2 pro's from the LA kings came and mentored them and he bunked with the NHL players. The funny part of the story was though was the first night he had a dream where his hand was stuck to the ice. The funny part was is that he sleep walks and so was out of his bed with his hand on the floor saying right in front of the NHL players that his hand was stuck to the ice. They teased him about it all that week.

Thank you Mom for the package. It will take me forever to eat all those cookies and all that candy!

I got sick this week for 2 days and was out of commission. There is a flu bug going around in Elko and I caught it. It wasn't that fun but I survived. That however means there isn't a ton to talk about this week due to the a lot of the rest of the time being taken up by 2 moves and 2 other service projects and what is about to come up...

Ruben and Amanda were baptized!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hurray!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was such a neat experience to finally be at my own baptism!!!! They are so prepared. They know so much, are reading daily, and have a very strong desire to be sealed in the temple for time and all eternity. At the baptism we had around 60 people there from our ward and 2 others of people that know Ruben and Amanda and helped them come unto Christ. President Shumway who is a big friend of theirs baptized them, and the Stake Patriarch whose wife gave Ruben a Book of Mormon confirmed them! It was a very spiritual time and Ruben came out of the water crying a little and gave President Shumway a big hug!

It was a great week. Y'all have a great week!

Love y'all!


Elder Sorochan

We get free ice cream at a place and while I ate I played Jenga while Elder Clark wrote letters

 My family sent me a giant package!!!!!!!!

 May in Elko

Ruben and Amanda and their family

Survived another round of transfers and had Elder Clark's Birthday!

May 15, 2017

Hey everyone! This week is transfer and the verdict is... I'm staying! And so is Elder Clark so we get another excellent 6 weeks together! It has been a fun 6 weeks. He is an awesome Elder. He has his quirks, but who doesn't? Easiest going missionary that also works hard that I know. AND we get to be together for Ruben and Amanda's baptism, but more on that later.

Funny story of the week is a little embarrassing. I gave a baptismal interview this last Friday, my first one! It was to a nine year old girl named Victorea. She is a very cool young girl and very easily distracted. It was interesting to give her the interview because there was always something distracting her whether it was the baptismal font we were next to or the pretend paper money she had brought with her or some other topic. It was fun but the funny thing was was that after the whole interview as I was talking to Elder Gailey how it went (it was his investigator) I realized that I somehow forgotten to ask one of the questions! Haha whoops! There are only 6 after all and one of them we don't even really ask 9 year olds. (the one about having committed a serious crime. A nine year old won't have) With this realization we had to bring her back in and I asked Victorea the last question and all was well. We had the baptism the next day which was awesome!

This last Monday we had our Zone Activity where we went on a hike in Spring Creek at the Lions Camp hike place thing. It was super fun and we saw actual snow on the ground! Wow! It was a really fun hike and I sent some pics for yall.

Ok so now on the missionary you see me with in service clothes. That is Elder Turner and just before we ended exchanges we were doing service. I changed quick because Elder Clark and I had a planned on going somewhere right after, but Elder Turner had dinner at their apartment right after so since we were in a rush he didn't change right then. He is an awesome Elder! He is really funny and has a very unique way of doing the work. He is effective at building very personal relationships with people and really focuses on doing that to help them learn the gospel. He finds some of the strangest people to teach but it works! He is definitely a person Heavenly Father sends to specific people, because there are only certain people Elder Turner could find. I love that Elder!

This week we had a really neat miracle. We had a dinner we a less active family named the Martins. They are really nice people that love the missionaries, but have just had some problems with some members in the past. We had a really awesome time with them and a miracle happened at the same time. We have asked them if we could practice our lessons with them so that we can get some more time teaching since we are having trouble keeping appointments. What was supposed to happen in a practice lesson turned into a real lesson! The Martins have a friend named Clint who works with Bro. Martin on the same mine crew. He is always over at their house on days off and he joined us for dinner. He is a really funny and a really fat man. He makes a lot of fat jokes too, some on purpose, some not. He dropped a couple of 20's on the floor and he couldn't bend down far enough to get them! It was so funny! He was laughing about it so it is ok everyone! Please don't send me letters about my insensitivity I am already aware of it! Anyway when we started teaching the Plan of Salvation he was laser focused as Elder Clark says and was very interested. He wants to know more so we are having dinner at the Martin's on Thursday and teaching Clint the Restoration.

This week was Elder Clark's 19th Birthday! He being from Utah got a TON of packages, but non that came close even a little bit to matching the giantness of the one I got for my Birthday/Christmas. I wish I had taken a pic but it was a really fun birthday for him. The members feeding us that night found out somehow it was his bday and what his favorite dinner was and gave it to us and a cake! Amanda and Ruben that day also passed their Baptismal interview which was super fun.

Speaking of Amanda and Ruben they are all ready for baptism! We taught them the last of the lessons and have almost everything arranged for it. We have some house keeping items to do now but they are prepared and ready. It is looking like a lot of people will be there to support them. They have been fellowshipped by Elko 5th ward since that is where they started attending and now by us! It will be this Saturday May 20th at 7pm! Invite your friends! Just kidding most of you are in Canada! There will be pictures so that will be great. Yes we are really excited for them they couldn't be more prepared. Amanda is already taking her kids to seminary and mutual. She is already teaching them gospel standards and she was doing it before she even knew the gospel! Ruben is seeing the blessings of living the gospel with his gym that he owns being busier than he can handle. He actually has been paying tithing to the Catholic church since he really wanted to but didn't know how to at our church. Now he knows and will be able to see even more blessings. They are awesome!

Well that's all for today. Love you all! Love you Mom Dad and Anna!

Elder Kynan Sorochan

Editors (Elder Sorochan's mom) note: I have no idea what the pineapple is all about

 Zone hike at Spring Creek

 Me and Elder Turner

 Elko Zone!

 Big hills aka "Mountains"

 Nevada is beautiful

Elder Sorochan's mom here again.  Like I said, no idea about the pineapple :D 

Elder Clark and Elder Sorochan 

The baptism of Yvonne and her son Luis.  Elder Sorochan taught her for a long time in Sparks.

The Lord Prepares

May 8, 2017

Ok everyone welcome to another exciting episode of the Nevada Reno Mission Experience starring your's truly: Elder Sorochan! Ok the fun story of the week is this. This week I met a man whom I now call Sir Mario. Yes Sir Mario. He is a Knight for the Catholic Church. Fun fact everyone, the Catholic Church has knights. We were walking down the street and we saw him doing some yard work and we offered help. We started talking to him and we found out he is a Knight of Columbus. He has a sword, cape, and everything. This was news to me so now I call him Sir Mario, Knight of the Catholic Church. I think we need to do that in our church. We should be called the Knights of Moroni. It would be pretty awesome I think.

Ok so this week was great. I got to go to a meeting in Sparks on Friday and had a really great time. The weather was wacky while driving which made it fun. At the meeting I got to see almost all my favorite missionaries! I saw Elder Williams, Elder Hadley, Elder McKenna, and Elder Latham! It was so fun! At one point some of the missionaries had to try to make a pie without any instructions just the recipe in 7 minutes. That was Sister Chesnut training it was really funny. The point was that we can't just tell people things, we have to teach the details. It was really fun! I also discovered that the best pizza on the planet is in Battle Mountain of all places. Look it up.

I have some exciting updates! First off for those of you that have been with us since Canada I have received word that Andrew has been baptized and Cheryl and him and I think his step dad are coming to church now! As well even more exciting news is that this past Saturday Yvonne and her son Luiz were Baptized!!!!!! Woohoo!!! I am so excited for them this is such an awesome decision that they have made! They are going to be such great members! Lastly Brenda has resurfaced. I have been able to contact her and the last 6 months have been crazy and she has been all over the place but she is now in Carson and I am sending missionaries back to her this week! Everything is going so great!

Still struggling with finding people home, but when we do there are great miracles! Almost everyone we do find home we either meet with or are able to set something up! Elder Clark and I are really learning diligence in our work but we are having fun! One night we played hockey with the mini sticks I got this week. It was super fun to play hockey again after over a year! We had a best of 5 series and played games to 5 goals using boxes as hockey nets. Elder Clark won game one 5-3 but then I swept the series winning 5-3, 5-3, and 5-2. Rough start, great finish as they say.

Yesterday on Sunday we had Elephant Ears for dinner! Here they call them Navajo Taco's and we had taco stuff on them, but I also got powdered sugar and grape jelly. So good!

Ok now to the big news! Last week I mention that some people were getting baptized so here is the story! Ruben and Amanda have been investigating the church for awhile, just not with missionaries. They are this really cool couple that have been surrounded my LDS people in their life and have had a ton of discussions with their LDS friends. Over the past few years I believe they have been learning about the church and have been seeing the Lord's hand in their lives. Ruben owns a gym and one little old lady that comes to his gym gave him a Book of Mormon. After a few months he started to read it and through reading it and learning from his friends he has come to know that this gospel is true. Amanda has been reading as well and together they have been going full force into the church now. They have a friend named President Shumway who is going to be a mission President in Guatemala this coming summer and he has been helping them. With his and others help they are reading the scriptures every day, praying, and coming to church. They have 5 kids all Amanda's and none Rubens. Two are investigating as well. However yesterday all 7 of the family came to church arriving 17 minutes early! The kids are now coming to mutual and Amanda has said that she is going to have the older ones going to seminary these last 2 weeks of it! They know pretty much everything we teach them already and have let nothing phase them. They know this is true and can't wait to be baptized! It will be May 20th at 7pm pacific time. It is so exciting! This has been such a good week

Love you all. Make sure you are reading the Book of Mormon everyday!

Elder Sorochan

 A cake the AP's used in their training

 Elder Hadley

 Elder Latham

 Elder Mckenna (my trainer)

 Elder Vargas

 Elder Williams

 Sister Chesnut training

Stopped by Yvonne's on the way home to Elko!

Elephant ears

A great week!

May 1, 2017

Hello amigos!!!! It has been a fun week!

First off funny story. I went on exchanges this week with Elder Feichko one of our Zone Leaders and it was really fun. We got to talk to a lot of people and have a couple of lessons which was awesome. The funny story about Elder Feichko though comes while we were trying to contact some less actives in an apartment complex. The managers are inactive members and DON'T like us. They have told us we are not allowed to tract, or so I had heard. Well I found this out to be true. While we were about to knock on one persons door we ran into some people outside smoking and we started talking to them. While talking to them we all of a sudden heard someone say behind us "hey! Do you have an appointment here?" I turned around and saw someone walking towards us. There are a lot of members here in Elko so I thought it was just some member that I didn't know yet asking if we had one. I said we were trying to get one and then he became rather gruff. Turns out it was the manager and so he decided to inform us about the rule. Well, apparently, Elder Feichko laughs under pressure, so he got a smile on his face. The manager then asked "Do you think this is funny?" And that just made Elder Feichko laugh some more. It was really funny and the manager was not happy. It's all good though. We just go try less actives and watch our backs.

On Pday I went around and checked out some stores with Elder Johnson. Elder Clark loves sports and not shopping so I went with someone else. Found a stained glass place with a Rough Riders logo which was cool.

On Exchanges as well we went and taught a older active lady named sister Price. She is so sweet and wonderful. We brought Brock a 16 year old with us and it was really neat. We taught her the Restoration. The next day we had back to back lessons in the morning with Gabriel a less active who joined the church for a girl but now has some legitimate questions. We had a good talk where he went from us not wanting to use faith in our answers to explain things to asking us what is faith. His heart was definitely softened. We then met with Jamie and Tara, the people from last week and retaught them the restoration. We answered Jamie's question on why we have the Book of Mormon which will hopefully encourage him to read. I also at one point led us to the wrong house. We were trying another less active but I didn't look at the numbers right and we tried the wrong house. It was funny

I hit my year mark this week!!!!!! April 27th was the day and to celebrate I got shredded beef nachos from Costa Vida yum! (this may or may not be an endorsement) :D

This Saturday an amazing miracle happened. We were finally able to meet with Ruben and Amanda, some investigators who are ready to be baptized! At the end of the Lesson we were able to set a baptismal date of May 20th!I will tell more of there story next week for I am out of time but I love you all! Keep reading the Book of Mormon every day. I know it is true.

Elder Kynan Sorochan

A member and his idea of a good dessert.  Thoughts?

Elder Clark Trying to hold a fidget toy and eat a cupcake

Elder Feichko! 

 Elder Johnson and I on PDAY

 Me and Elder Gailey

One year celebration nachos! 

You gotta look up!

April 24, 2017

Hey everyone it has been a super awesome week for me hope it has all been for you! We have some exciting things on tap so listen up!

First of all the funny thing of the week was really the whole day of Tuesday. It was a day that by the end of the day Elder Clark and I were just exasperatedly laughing!

So Tuesday. On Tuesday we had a FULL day. Appointments out the wazoo! After District Meeting we were heading back to our apartment to have comp study when I looked out the window. It was raining a little. I then did the worst thing anyone could possibly do. I thought to myself, you know, this looks like the kind of day where everything falls through. I AM SO SORRY EVERYONE!!!! The day then proceeded to have our 1 oclock fall through. Our 2 oclock cancel. Our 3 oclock fall through. Our 6 oclock not be home and no one show up to our 730 scripture study class even though we had had someone confirm! By the end of the day it was just so sad Elder Clark and I were laughing hard! We by the end of the day just had no one else to see that we went to go return an umbrella we had borrowed from a member and when we brought it to her it turned out we had grabbed the WRONG umbrella! We laughed so hard at that. It was just so sad that it was really funny! We had a great attitude about the whole thing and weren't really sad. The situation was, but we weren't. That was because we decided to look up! We were serving the Lord and He helped by blessing us with a good attitude about the whole thing. It was a miracle day.

The next morning we ended up helping a lady named Jessica. Her husband had passed away a number of months ago and he was LDS. It had not been confirmed that he had died so we were stopping by to say hi to her and hopefully him. When we stopped by we found her building a swing set and offered our help. She gladly accepted and we had a great conversation. Her husband had passed away and she is baptist. She had some experiences with the church but not all good. We were able to have a nice genuine discussion with her about non gospel topics and was able to apologize about the negative things that had happened in the past. She seemed thankful to me at least. It was a good visit.

After a week full of fallen through appointments left and right Elder Clark and I were finally rewarded on Saturday for our diligence. We met with a Part Member family. The appointment almost didn't happen. We were running a little behind and we weren't going to be able to get to the house on time. As we were walking a member couple happened to be driving by and offered us a ride! Because of this we got to the house on time and caught them maybe 5 minutes before they were about to leave. They had forgotten but we had a 75 talk/expectation lesson with them and found they have some great interest! We set up an appointment for this Wednesday and it looks like this will be an answer to our prayers. They are a great family and the husband and wife have some genuine concerns. The problem in the past is having them keep commitments but I have faith that the time that they have spent away from missionaries will help them change this road block. I'm looking up!

Sometimes we deal with anxiety and we have experiences that create a mental rut into stress and worry. Heavenly Father expects this when He puts us into these experiences. He will also always provide a way out. We must however like it says in Mosiah 24:15 move forward with cheerfulness and patience. We must look up! As we look up we will have the limitless support of our living and loving God! We will feel of His love and support! He will not take away our feelings, but enable us to move and act while in the midst of their attacks. What makes God God is not that He never experiences opposition, but rather that He knows how to act and behave while experiencing them. He has the power to overcome these obstacles perfectly every time and the experiences He gives us where we face opposition are times where He wants us to look to Him so He can bless us with this power to be just like Him. Able to do anything no matter what the circumstance while still experiencing joy!

I love you all keep up your great work! Love you Mom, Dad, and Anna!

Elder Kynan Sorochan

Look what I found! What in the world are they doing here in Elko? (I could ask my self the same question :D )

 Elder Clark being funny

 Elder Clark making raman noodles in the microwave

 On exchanges with Elder Gailey

 Me being silly

 On exchanges

Read...do it!

Great week!

April 17, 2017

Hey everyone is has been a great week. The weather has been really weird. Sometimes it would snow and be sunny at the same time. I don't get it...

First off we had a really great lesson with an investigator named Adam. McKay, one of the youth in our ward came with us. We went and taught the restoration. Adam accepted it really well and at the part of the first vision he did the whole mind blown action after we shared it. We were all feeling the Spirit really well, especially McKay. At the end of the lesson we invited Adam to pray. He was really nervous at first and didn't want to, but we started to teach him about why he needs to. McKay after Elder Clark and I taught shared an incredibly powerful testimony about Joseph Smith and about Adam's potential and some other things and then Adam prayed. You could tell he was nervous, but he did it! Now he will be more likely to do it more.

Our ward is huge. And we have a TON of youth. More than the rest of the stake combined. There are 5 wards in this stake and a few branches. Oh and I'll tell you a bit about Elder Clark. I think I said some stuff last week but this will be a good review. He is from Cottonwood Heights Utah and is really funny. He loves to joke around, but knows to be serious at the right times. He definitely leans to being a lighter type of person, but never at the wrong times. He is really fun and I love being his companion. He loves sports, especially baseball and basketball. The best part though is that HE LOVES CANADA! Really weird for an American. They like to make fun of us and I have gotten pretty good at making fun of Canada eh? :D

On Saturday we got to bring a mini missionary with us from the stake. He ended up being in our ward and his name is Carter! He just recently got his mission call to Virginia and is super excited to go! He is so awesome and he is going to make a great missionary. He is going out for the right reasons, and that is to serve the Lord which is awesome! We had him at one point do a door approach as we went to go visit some less active youth and we got in! It was an easy situation, but he was nervous but ended up doing awesome!

I want to share an experience I had on Saturday after the mini mission. I have been really tired this week and have at points been struggling to have enthusiasm at times about doing anything! I just felt so tired in energy, tired of people not answering the door or setting up appointments or never replying to us on the phone, and I just was trying and trying and trying and just wasn't being happy. I remembered the training on the Enabling Power of Christ's Atonement. I had been thinking about it during the week and trying to treat challenges and trials like an opportunity to grow, but I just couldn't keep myself positive. It all just felt like too much. On Saturday after the mini mission I had a moment to myself where I just said a prayer telling Heavenly Father that I was trying, but that I just couldn't fully do it. I have been trying and trying and trying and I just can't make it work. This is partially from my time in Vintage Hills. I loved it there, but it was very hard, taxing, and tiring. I was feeling this hit me and just asked for help from my Heavenly Father. I admitted I couldn't do it on my own, and that I needed my Saviors help. I needed Him. I gained some more humility. After that I went out from the bathroom where I was and things began to feel lighter. As it talks about in Mosiah 24 I felt my burdens lighten and myself strengthen. I began to feel like myself. I wanted to "submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord" but I just couldn't do it myself. I needed to remember and rely on the Savior, and that it is only through His Atonement that I could be enabled to be how I wished. As I did remember Him I began to feel better and enabled. I began to feel like myself and cheerful. As I expressed gratitude in prayer it increased and stayed. I learned to stay this way I must always remember Him and rely on Him. That is key to receiving peace through Him.

I love this work and I love you!

Elder Kynan Sorochan

 Elder Clark needs protection when he's eating spaghetti

 Elder Clark chillin'

 Conference with Elder and Sister Nielsen

 Elko scenery

 :D

 With our mini missionary, Carter