Sunday, 14 August 2016
A week full of up's, down's, and Pizza
August 8, 2016
Hey everyone! What a great week this was. To start I'll talk about the Pizza. We had Pizza 4 days in a row. It was AMAZING!!! Two of the nights it was even home made pizza so that was a big plus. Ok so this week I wanted to go on a more day by day basis so here we go.
Psyche, we will do that in a second. Tricked ya! First and foremost I bet you all are wondering who this Elder Jones person is that I am training. Well let me tell you. Elder Jones is a smart cookie. He loves physics and is hoping to become a physics professor in geo-physics so that is super cool. He is 18 and just out of high school and is very dedicated. Very obedient so that makes my job as his trainer a LOT easier. He is really fun and is learning fast so things are going well. He is from Augusta Georgia which I think I said last week but oh well. I love him and he is great to have as a companion.
Ok now to business. Monday was really helpful. With Elder McKenna gone and me as the mentor for Elder Jones I felt a little lost. I was praying for help and as He always does Heavenly Father provided it. My District Leader Elder Baker has been helping me and whenever I have needed anything he has always had me give him a call to ask. This last Monday as he was talking to me he saw I was really struggling so he took me to an empty classroom in the stake center we were in and he talked with me for about an hour I would say and he helped me figure a lot of things out. He helped me understand why I am experiencing all these hard things. This mission is is really some of the best time for the Lord to prepare me for the rest of my life. I am so happy now to be better understanding why things are hard, but as well I am learning how to better face them and overcome them. I can do this! I am really grateful for Elder Baker's continuing help. Unfortunately he leaves very soon but Heavenly Father has never left me without help so I not concerned. I can do this.
Tuesday then was a really hard day. We had district meeting and President and Sister Chestnut came which was really fun. Always love to see them. Then later in the day the hard part came. Mark, a 16 year old we are teaching who we were getting ready to be baptized, came back from a trip and told us that he doesn't want to be baptized right now. He doesn't feel like he could keep the commitment and so doesn't want to go forward with it right now. It really threw me. He was our big light as we try to grow our teaching pool but now he isn't interested in progressing. It really made me just unhappy for the rest of the day. He said we can still keep meeting with him, but it was just so disappointing because he knows these things are true. I talked about it with Elder Baker and he again pointed me in a better direction of thinking and I was able to get over it. I know that these things are true and even if nobody else ever listens, as long as I give it my best and continue my conversion, all will be well. I know this is true, and I can always have happiness in that.
Wednesday was really great. We had 3 less active lessons and in our last Bro. Soderberg came with us to Sis. Carl's and we had planned to teach the Plan of Salvation but after our opening prayer the Spirit took over and it turned into a read the scriptures/testimony lesson. I had scripture after scripture coming into my head which I haven't been good at yet and she changed from not wanting to read because that's not what she does to yeah she will read. It was amazing. Thursday was just a good day and then Friday we had an exchange with the Zone Leaders. Normally this doesn't happen but Elder Baker had the thought to arrange it so I got to have Elder Latham come to our area. At first I was nervous because I don't really know him, he is a Zone Leader, and I am new. After a little bit I reminded myself that he is just a normal missionary too and that what I need to do is learn as much as I can from him. That's what I did and he helped set up some activities we can be doing to further the work and it has already given us some good potential. I am really excited.
Saturday we had a meeting with our Ward Mission Leader in the Comstock ward and he is just totally doing a great job. He is helping to move so much forward to help us and is being extremely helpful with just everything! Sunday was fun and had some enjoyable meetings. Hope you all have a great week! Remember to pray and read your scriptures!
Love,
Elder Kynan Sorochan
Elder McKenna signed my jersey! (He changed "david" to "kenna" haha)
Mission's are truly amazing
August 1, 2016
Hey family! (and friends :D ) How is everyone doing? I hope you are all doing great and are able to eat some ice cream today. Well let's get to it. The fun stuff first.
I know I said last week that there was a couple of lessons I wanted to talk about so I will touch on those quickly. The first is the Millers and for them it's just more I wanted to talk about them since we are teaching them. They are a part member couple who are great. Bro. Miller is a less active member and Sis. Miller is investigating. They want to be married in the temple which is super great and are excited to work towards it. I hope that Elder Jones and I will be able to help them get there. As well the other lesson was with the Moretto's. Sister Moretto is a less active member due to work and Bro. Moretto isn't a member but loves the missionaries and has been involved with the youth at times. He has done some coaching as well at the school I believe. Their lesson recently was super great. We had something planned and it turned out to be exactly what they needed. We went in and started talking to them and since we have built up a friendship with them they opened up to us about a concern about something going on in their lives. From that we talked to them about some things in the Family: A Proclamation to the World. We as well used the scripture we had planned for them, Helaman 5:12 which seemed to be what they needed. There was definitely a good Spirit there.
Fun moment of the week: We went and visited a less active member, Bro. Rogers. He recently had a stroke and so has been recovering but we went and visited him and he has some crazy experiences. He was in the military (I think maybe the marines) and has done some crazy stuff over sea's in Afghanistan. If I got into it all that would take too much time but he was doing a bunch of under cover stuff. He as well was in the Military Police and went over to Alcatraz when some Natives tried to take it over after some law was passed allowing them to take certain plots of government land if it fit the conditions. He is closely related to the chief of those people so they had a talk. He has so many weapons and the entrance to his weapon room in his house has this thing that he has to press his thumb into. I think it is a thumb print scanner. WHAT?!?!?!? It was a fun lesson.
Now onto this week. This has been one of the hardest weeks of my life. Before this week I had only planned one full day so far on my mission, now I have to plan every day based off of what I know. I don't have Elder McKenna helping know who we can see. He had been here 6 months and now all of his knowledge is gone to North Reno. Can't really call him with him being so far out of zone... I am training Elder Jones which is a huge responsibility. He is very dedicated and is going to do very well as a missionary, but I have to take that new missionary fire and try to direct it into real effective work. I have to try and figure out what has been done and what needs to be done in 2 wards. I need to work with 2 different wards who have different obstacles to do effective work. I am feeling so overwhelmed, exhausted, tired, drained, and inadequate. I don't know how to do this. I feel to tired at times to do this. I have to direct everything for awhile and try and accomplish good, effective missionary work while working around the challenges that get put in our way. A lot of times it feels impossible. Then however, at other times, it feels very motivating. I can't wait to see what I can do. What things I can accomplish. What miracles we will see. It's a great puzzle that I get to try to solve and put great happiness and energy into. It's those times that are keeping me going. What I am truly learning though, and have had many experiences with this past week, is the true power of humbling ourselves before our Heavenly Father and coming to Him in prayer, seeking help, strength, and power from Him and the Atonement of Jesus Christ. When I have knelt in prayer and poured out my heart and soul, told my Father in Heaven all that is in my mind and heart, and begged for help, comfort and strength, I have experienced something amazing. In a very small, still way, I feel my attitude and emotion shift. I have bits of strength come into me and have received a sense of peace to keep going. I have had thoughts of help and instruction come to me. None of it has been overwhelming, but it has been life changing. My Heavenly Father is there for me and is helping me. As I come to Jesus Christ I receive that which I need to keep going but as well as still feel how hard and trying this is so that I learn. Serving a mission is the hardest thing I have ever done, but I cling to the knowledge that this experience is leading me to become what my Heavenly Father wants and needs me to become, and to receive greater joy than I can ever imagine. I love you all. Keep being great.
Love,
Elder Kynan Sorochan
Didn't see that one coming
July 25, 2016
Hi! This past week has been good with a very exciting weekend, but to begin I need to give a little bit of a background. Right now during the summer months is the busy time for missionaries coming off their missions and starting them, so there are a LOT of changes going down right now. This transfer we have 19 new missionaries coming into the mission, and we also have 20 missionaries leaving to go home. On top of that we have some missionaries leaving half way through the next transfer for school timing with no missionaries coming in until September AND we have been having a number of missionaries leaving early unexpectedly. This means that we are low on numbers to start, and now with 20 missionaries leaving we are losing a lot of our leadership and are then faced with the dilemma of finding 19 missionaries in the mission who aren't training already to become trainers as well as fill in the now vacant leadership positions.
So long story short, I'm training! I got the call yesterday morning from President Chestnut asking me to train a new missionary so it's going to be very interesting to see how it all goes. I am excited, nervous, happy, a little scared, etc. It's going to be an adventure to say the least. It will be good though. I know that Heavenly Father know's I'm ready to do this. If I wasn't, He wouldn't ask me. I will be heavily relying on Him and prayer. I am praying for the Spirit to really guide me to know how to best do this. I know that as I have faith and be obedient, this will all work out. It's really funny though. The only other English speaking Canadian in the mission also trained after only being in this mission for 6 weeks so apparently it's a thing now.
It was a good week though. This past week on Friday was national hot dog day so there was a deal at a gas station on hot dog's so on Saturday we got some while the deal was still going on. As well the Saturday before this most recent one I think I forgot to mention we did some service at the food pantry. That was fun. As well we did some service for a less active member named Brother Griffiths. We have been working with him for awhile and he is now every now and then coming to church! We sometimes mow his lawn and sometimes go and teach a little lesson to him. He has taken us out to lunch and on Saturday made us breakfast! We had biscuits and gravy and eggs. It was pretty good. We have been having some really powerful lessons lately, but I waited too long to talk about them and am out of time so I will make sure to tell you all about them next week. Sorry! Love you all!
Elder Kynan Sorochan
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