7.30.09

Family!

Hey everyone! How is it all going? Elder Wilkins and I had a great week together and we have really been working hard and have been seeing miracles. I have had a lot of fun training and working in this new area and I'm really growing to love this area. Maybe because I've been here for over 6 months, but it still is getting better and better. I really love this mission life and I can't really think of my life without every half an hour planned with backups! lol

Elder Wilkins and I have been doing great as far as numbers. We found eight new investigators last week which was really great. I am really trying to focus on expecting miracles with Elder Wilkins and last Sunday we had great miracle of finding a total of 6 news 4 of which were a really cool family. We found the first two looking up old potentials and tracting around them. Then after tracting for a while more we only had two hours to find three more. So I contacted this lady on the street who ended up having a ton of family who were members and who let us in to teach her and her four girls! It was really great to get what we had focused on and to watch the Lord take care of us after we had given it our all.

I am still focusing on getting people to church and I have no doubt that the Lord will help me this week. I know the weakest part of our area is being able to get people to church so I am doing all that I can to make getting people to church the strongest part of our area. We are really focusing on becoming master teachers in every appointment. I know we can hit standard this week in all of our key indicators.

I am really becoming comfortable with my teaching skill and speaking Spanish. I know I have a ton to learn still but I have really realized how much the Lord has blessed me. I still need to rely on Him and work as hard as I can to be able to have miracles be given. Where more is given, more is required so I guess the Lord is expecting more from me. I am willing to give it my all and continually push to improve.

So it sounds like you are all doing really well. I didn't get a letter from dad, but I'm sure he just sent it late. I hope you are all having a great summer.

Nick-I do know Elder and Sister Morris, they were a senior couple here in New York. How did you meet them? How is your new job coming?

Mandee-I want a detailed report on your date by the end of the week.

Greg-great job with the dance performance. You better hurry up with the whole getting married thing or I might just beat you too it! lol Don't take offense. I'm only kidding

Savanna-congrats on the whole young women's gold medal thing! I'm sure it was a lot of hard work and you really learned a lot from it, if not at least you can say you won a gold medal as a young woman. Your going to be like that shoung wee lady or what ever her name was for winning a lot of gold medals in ice skating.

Anyway family I love you all and I hope you're all doing great. Sorry for my lack of writing, I just have no time. I hope your week is all great and you all do something good this week!

Elder Sorensen

pics...

I've been out of town for the last three posts and couldn't get the pics up while I was gone...here are a few to make up for it!


-deb























Family,
Hey every one it sounds like you are all doing really good and I'm excited to hear all
of your news. Congrats to Nick and dad for their new jobs I know that will be great. I
have been really impressed on how much all of you have grown and all that you have done
in such a short time.

I didn't do anything really for my year mark and kind of forgot about it until you all
sent the package. It was a great surprise and my roommates and I loved it thanks a lot! I
guess in a way today I celebrated it by going to another Yankees game. Elizabeth got us a
bunch more tickets so we all went and it was a blast. Time has really flown by fast and
now that I'm a year out, it makes me feel like I am running out of time to do all that
the Lord wants me to do. I have to work a lot harder, and now that I have some
experience, I have to start working a lot smarter.

I had a great week and I'm really enjoying training. Elder Wilkins is really learning
fast and I know he is going to be a lot better missionary than I am. I am also kind of
proud of myself in a very humble way of course. In a new area and training I have been
able to keep the same kind of numbers that I had with Elder Smith last cycle. That has
shown me that the Lord has really blessed me with a lot of miracles and taught me a lot.
I of course have a ton to learn and am no where close to being the kind of missionary I
want to be. I am just grateful that the Lord has blessed us with so many miracles in the
past few weeks. They are nothing big but finding a new or talking to some one cool is
always a big miracle to me.

We had one person come to church last week named Marianna, but she isn't the most
solid. I need to study better and increase my teaching skills. We are finding the news
and teaching with the members now the rest is up to our ability to bring in the spirit to
bear testimony of the simple doctrines of the Kingdom. We are having zone conference
tomorrow which will be great because I always learn so much and end up having a great day
after.

The Lord has blessed us with so many miracles and we have found a ton of new people. We
are always in the right place at the right time because we make plans, let the Lord know
what our plan is and then He puts people into our path. Last week we were just looking
for this person who moved and when we found out he didn't live there, I about turned to
leave but then I just remembered to asked if they wanted to hear our message. She
accepted our invitation and became a new. Yesterday we went to go teach this person who I
didn't think would go anywhere but then his girlfriend was there too and the lesson
went really well. Those are just examples of miracles I see every day and what I have to
be grateful for.

Well I have to get running but again I am really proud of you all and am thankful for all
that you have done for me. I hope you all have a great week and keep working hard.
Congrats again Nick on the sweet new job and thanks for writing me a letter. I love you
all and I will keep praying for you. Have a great week!

Elder Sorensen

7.15.09

Family!

Hey life is still doing great here in the Bronx and I'm loving every moment of it. We had mission conference last week and I was really impressed by the new mission president. He definitely has a different personality, but I know it will be really good for the mission. He seems really excited and from what I've heard he has a lot of great ideas for the upcoming trainings. We will be having a zone conference at the end of the week so we will be able to hear more from him then.

I am training Elder Wilkins this cycle and he has been doing really great. His Spanish is a lot better than when I first got into the field and he really has a drive to learn. From the other greenies I've seen I feel like I got the best pick so it should be great. I am doing the best I can to be patient as he learns all of the little rules we have and as help develops his Spanish and teaching skills. I think I will end up learning a lot more from training than he will learn from me. I have to teach all of the lessons by myself, plan, find everything is kind of on me for a little while. It is a little stressful but I'm excited to learn and we have had a couple of great days already this week and we are excited to keep moving forward.

The new area is coming a long slowly but surely. We have been working really hard to find new people in the new area but it is a lot of tough work. We have to spend a ton of time finding and so we are trying to think of more creative ways than knocking doors. Elder Wilkins brought a great idea from the mtc to use side walk chalk to write messages about plan of salvation, questions of the soul, ect. That was a lot of fun but we haven't seen too much success from it. We are trying to work with what members we have a surprisingly we have been getting a few referrals from them.

It's great to hear that you got to go visit Griff and everyone in Idaho; I hope they are all doing great. I wish I had more time to write everyone but there just isn't any time. The Lord is really providing for each us in each moment of our lives. He sees the big picture and knows all of the small things that need to be done for each and every one of our salvation. I am really excited to be able to be a small part of just a few people's salvation. I am doing all that I can to be an effective tool in the Lord's hand and I am really giving Him everything I've got. Thank you for your support and I hope you all have a great week!

Love,
Elder Sorensen

7.9.09

Family!
So I just gave birth today to my first son on the mission. His name is Elder Wilkins from Orem Utah. For some reason they trusted me to be a trainer and I guess we will see how it goes. Now not only am I opening a new area but I also have to train! I guess it will mostly me on me for a while. I am definitely a little nervous. New missionaries don't know anything and they expect me of all people to teach him everything. Elder Smith went home today along with a ton of other missionaries so it was sad to see them go.

So last week was a little bit of struggle but we worked hard and it paid of in the end. The area we are opening is actual part of my old area but because it was so far away and there was plenty to do here close Spanish missionaries haven't been there for a long time. So what they did was give part of my area to the ZL and gave me full metro so we can go out there whenever we want. We still have a part of our old focus area with a lot of members but in our new focus area there isn't very many members and no old investigators, referrals or any other useful information. So we have been trying come up with as many ideas to find new people but we just have been knocking a lot of doors and talking to people in the street.

All last week was really hard because we couldn't really find anyone out in our new area. We worked really hard but just didn't see any success. Only one old investigator came to church but we found out she is moving and the other investigator we had, Miguel who came to church, moved to our old area so now he's out. We gave the ZL three new investigators with a solid date from our old area and they all came to church. So every one we were working with is not longer in our area.

At the beginning of the week we found two people who were ok not too cool but other than that nothing. So we had a goal to find six investigators and by Sunday we only had two. We worked really hard but a lot of our appointments cancelled. But because we worked really hard the Lord blessed us with a few miracles. One of the appointments we set that cancelled, showed up so we were able to teach them. Miracle one, two new investigators. Miracle two, after tracking we found a couple equaling six new to hit our goal.

The biggest Sunday miracle was two new investigators that a member brought to church. It was from the ZL, they had been working to get that member to bring them to church so now they have a date and we are seeing them Friday. It is the sister and daughter of a really cool member so it should be a really good referral. So we ended up getting eight new investigators which was sweet!

Well I've got to run but I love you all. Sorry I can't write more I've run out of time. I didn't do much for the 4th, we had to be in the house by 6:00 and we just played a game of risk. Don't worry about sending a new suit, I have four and it's just the lining that's messed up. I plan on just using it until I can't and move on to my other suits. I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Elder Sorensen

7.01.09

Family,

Hey we had a great week and Dan**la's baptism went great. It was kind of a hard week because Mig**l, our strongest investigator kind of dropped off. He was having problems at home and so he decided to move out. It was really sad for us and we tried to help him but I guess the problem was just too much. I think he will be moving out of our area but I'm not too sure.

So we had a big change already and it looks like I've got a big challenge coming up next cycle. It should be a lot of fun but it will be a lot of hard work. I'm basically opening a new area in the mission that hasn't been touched by Spanish missionaries for a while. To explain my old area was really big and because lack of funds for metro, we never went to one big part of the area. We just worked in one part of the area like all of the missionaries before us and did well. Well they have given that part of the mission to the ZL (zone leaders) and given us full metro so we have to focus on that part of the area. It is really far a way and there aren't any members out there but we basically have to jump start the new area. It should be a lot of fun, but like I said, a lot of work.

Right now because of the area changes we don't really have any investigators or people to work with. We are really working hard to start over and find some people to teach. The new mission president also came in today and so that will be a big change. The large group of missionaries is going home next week so I will be getting a new companion. I hope he likes to find in an area I don't know.

I don't have too many people to tell you about because there not in my area any more but I will tell you a little about the baptism. Last Saturday Dan**la was baptized which was really great for me to see. I don't really feel like I did anything to help her be baptized. We didn't find her, a member did, she accepted everything we taught her, and from the beginning she was way excited to be baptized. While I don't think I taught her much I learned a lot of patience from her. She was always busy and so we were really struggling teaching her before the baptism. She was just always helping other people and didn't have time to help herself. At first I felt uncomfortable baptizing her because we had only actually taught herf like five times. But with a lot of pray and talking to my companion we both felt like we couldn't deny her of the blessing of baptism any longer so after teaching a very short version of everything, we baptized her.

Dan**la is an older Dominican lady who, elder smith and I think is crazy. Lol. She picked Elder smith to baptize her because he looks like Joseph Smith from the movie. She also gave us this ginseng extract which she described, would make us very hyper like her. It was funny working with her and I hope the ZLs take care of her as a recent convert. I am also worried about Fanny and her family because they aren't in my area so I can't keep teaching them. I hope the ZLs will have enough time to help them in this new crazy world of Mormonism.

Well I've got to run and go get my hair cut by the old makeup artist of the Cosbys. I love you all and hope you have fun playing with fire. Don't get into too much trouble. Thank you for your support and letters. I also got that picture and cd from mandee. She is growing up too fast and has too much of my good looks for her own good. The cd was blank so if you could try again that would be great. I love you all and I hope you have a great week!

Elder Sorensen