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

Now I'm in Elko!

April 11, 2017

Well I made it! 4 and a half hours on the transfer bus on Wednesday and I am here with Elder Clark in the Elko 4th ward. It is awesome here. The ward is really supportive and we have the most amount of youth in the whole stake. Wow. Went from Vintage Hills who had the least to Elko 4th who has the most. Sacrament meeting was a lot noisier but in a good way. It is nice to see little kids again and have an abundance of priests to take out with us. Bishop Howard here is super missionary focused and is doing some really cool things. They have a youth share a missionary experience they had during the week during open exercises in Priesthood and are over these next couple weeks having the youth go out in companionship's to members houses to have a "dinner appointment" with them and share a message on the Plan of Salvation. It is super awesome! We also got a list of people from the ward council to go invite to our Easter Sunday church services.

Ok now some neat stories. This last week we did a LOT of service. There isn't usually this amount, but everyone seemed to be moving out this last week. The Steve's, a part member family were moving out so for a morning and early afternoon we helped them empty their storage units into a massive u-haul. There were so many boxes. We then after got a call from Bishop Howard about someone moving out of some apartments. A lady's husband had died just a few days ago and she was moving all of the stuff out of the apartment. One of our new members saw that they were doing it and him and us converged on the scene. She was very grateful so that will plant some seeds with her. We also while trying by some potential investigators ran into a couple moving out of those same apartments. We offered our help and they gladly accepted. Apparently they were going to be having some family come and help them from Atlanta, but due to the storms going on over there the flights got cancelled and they weren't going to be able to make it to Elko in time. They didn't know how they were going to do it all since there was some pretty heavy stuff. The fridge we moved slightly bruised Elder Clark's arm! Anyway they were very grateful and we were able to come to the rescue. They took us to lunch and we talked to them a bit. They aren't very religious, but the wife has met with missionaries before. She decided it wasn't for her, but at the end of us helping we were able to give her a pass along card with our number, told her if she or any of her friends ever needed help to call us and invited her to watch the #PrinceofPeace Easter video. We helped build her faith!

Yesterday we got to have Elder Nielsen of the Seventy and his wife come and talk with us. It was an amazing experience. There were so many good parts of it, but I will only highlight a few. The beginning was really neat. He invited us to put out of our minds anything that might be bothering us or distracting us while we were in the meeting so that the Spirit could be there in greater abundance. It worked really well and I was able to feel a lot of peace and comfort during that meeting. I received a lot of inspiration and direction and was even happier while in that meeting. I learned while there that putting things out of your mind that don't matter is an incredibly powerful exercise that I will trying to be using more. His wife talked about how to be a good companion. She said that instead of just tolerating them, we need to embrace them fully as they are and learn from them. I have learned to do this with previous companions, but sometimes the hard way. They way she talked about it was she used her children and them getting married and her sons on their missions as examples. Elder Nielsen taught about the Enabling Power of Jesus Christ's Atonement and how it can change us to become like Him. Elder Nielsen really wanted us to understand how through focusing on and developing Christlike attributes we can become happier and have our missions and our lives be what our Heavenly Father wants them to be. He taught us about how to work with members, more specifically less active members. They often have many non member friends and as we help them receive the gospel, they will be able to invite others to hear the restored gospel.

I love this work and am excited to see what happens here in Elko. We weren't able to meet with many people this week, but this week we hopefully will.

Love you all! Love you Anna, Mom, and Dad!

Elder Kynan Sorochan

 Brother Moss my ward mission leader in Sparks

 Goodbye Elder Williams

At La Fuente with Elder Williams, Elder Latham, and Elder Burgett

 I really need new shoes!

 So I got some!

Elko!

 My new companion Elder Clark

 On the way back from Winnemucca

 My new bird friend Pickin'

Elko here we come!

April 3, 2017

Hello Friends and Family! It is so nice to be emailing you all again. Hope you liked last week's long email because this week will be tiny. I wish it wasn't but I have no time. I am getting transferred and there was lots to take care of and do so this week will have to suffer unfortunately. I will repent next week I promise.

My time in Vintage Hills has come to an end. 4 transfers here and 2 companions. It has been a really fun ride. I have really come to love the people here in Sparks. The Vintage Hills ward is amazing and the members here are just the best! They have done so much for me and given me many wonderful memories. From Christmas at the Cocanour's and the Humphry's to dinners at the Smith's to getting rides all the time from Bro. Moss and lessons with Yvonne, Jimmie, and the Carters, it has been really fun.

I am now going to be transferred to the Elko 4th Ward in Elko Nevada. I'm going on an East side trip where there are a lot of miners and the members are amazing. I am in a really big ward. My new companion will be Elder Clark from Cottonwood Heights Utah. He is a big guy and I've heard he is pretty easy going. He is a newer missionary so it should be fun to work hard together with him!

This past General Conference was spectacular. I will list my favorite talks. Both of President Uchtdorf's, the one from the general sessions and priesthood session. Elder Eyring's Priesthood session, Elder Rasband's, Elder Oaks, Elder Stevensen's,and of course the Prophet Thomas S. Monson's talk. It was great and I will share more on what I learned next week.

Again apologies. I love you all and hope you are doing great. My email will be on Tuesday next week because on Monday we are being visited by Elder Neilsen of the seventy for a mission tour.

Love you!

Elder Kynan Sorochan

My 10 ounce burger, fries, and a shake. I ate it all in one sitting. It was yummy but not fun :D

 The Carters

 The curling team is formed!

 Elder Williams signing of the companionship jersey

Baked Bear ice cream

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