09.09.09

Family,
Wow, it sounds like you are all doing amazing! Congrats Mandee and Savanna on all of the choir stuff that is really cool! It is great to hear good news from you all and that you are doing so well. I also had a good week. It wasn't nearly as good as the few weeks in the past but we still saw a lot of success. Satan is throwing everything he has got at us right now. But when is he not? We still had success and loving life as a missionary.

We had the baptismal interview for Ra*iel, he passed no problem and so we are going to have a baptismal service this Saturday! He is a little socially awkward so we are going to have to really focus on getting the ward to fellowship him. The service should be great and I'm letting Elder Wilkins do the baptism which should be really great for him. I am so grateful for all of the success we have had in this area and how the Lord awards us with so many baptisms. I am a little worried about next month but I won't lose hope and let Satan win.

A lot of our investigators we have found have dropped out of our teaching pool so we are working really hard to find the elect. We have been finding plenty of people, that isn't the hard part of the Bronx, we are just trying to find those who are ready to receive His message. I also need to work a lot more on my teaching skills, I feel like they have been dropping off a little. What we don't constantly improve we will definitely lose.

Probably the miracle of the week happened on Tuesday. The mission standard of excellence for 1 week is 5 new investigators and 5 with member lessons. On Tuesday in about an hour and a half we hit both of those goals. We brought He*tor, a member who comes out with us a lot, tracting and we found this building that was full of Ecuadorians. It was really weird because everyone we talked to was from the same city in Ecuador and it was a huge building. But anyways we ended up teaching 5 of them with He*tor and getting 5 news. It was sweet!

Everything else has been going really well and I have nothing to complain about. I'm healthy, staying full (even though another one on my recent converts cooked me a ton of food because I looked too skinny. lol), my clothes are holding up, I feel the spirit everyday and I'm happy. What else could I ask for?

I hope everyone else is doing as well as I am. I read about Griff's experience in the temple and I was so happy that you all had such a good time. The Lord is certainly blessing us in these hard times and we have a lot to be grateful for. Thank you all for your support and prayers. It is great to have my own little fan group when everyone else here in the Bronx does the opposite. I love you all and hope you have a great week! Be grateful for everything and always be true to what we teach.
Elder Sorensen

PS: Happy Birthday OLD MAN!!! Haha I love you grandpa Brad!