3.26.10

My E-mail got cut off last week! sorry this is all i have saved, i will write more next week!

Family,

Hey everyone! I have been doing so well this past week and I must have gained 50lbs this week. I'm back into the spanish food and I'm love every bite of it! We get fed at least once a day and I always feel like I'm going to puke after each one of the meals. Mexican, Domincan, Ecuador...Hey maybe I will be able to finally break 150lbs, my life goal! I'm so pathetic...lol

So i am serving in my first branch here in the mission and from what I've seen the members are great. We live in the garage of the Ward mission leader who seems great. The Branch president is a white guy who seems a little overwhelmed but from what I've heard and seen, he is doing a great job. I couldn't imagine being a branch president in a Spanish program.

There are a ton of part member families in the branch and I'm really going to take advantage of it. A lot of unbaptized children. We have been able to set up baptismal dates with most of them and a teaching schedule so things should be great. The Daughter of a recent convert who is 21 will be baptized on the 3rd. Her name is Marisol. Her mom is one of the strongest recent converts I've seen and Marisol has a very strong testimony herself.

We are also teaching a Mexican family who should be baptized the 17th. They seem really cool and they love the missionaries and everything about the church. One of them just had a baby and hasn't been to church yet so we have to work on her. The mom also works every other Sunday but other than that they seem great!

Elder Oppe is from Brazil but he study Spanish in school so he was already fluent

We sent Daniel several messages this week. In one we asked his address. He responded to that question but not to the other letters we wrote. For some reason this is the only message we got from Daniel today. His server must have crashed or something. Here is his note:



Just send everything to the office, where you send packages. I live right by the office and go there every week.

New York, New York North Mission
700 White Plains Road Suite 315
Scarsdale, NY 10583

3.17.10

Hey family!

So I got transferred! I am now serving in the White Plains/ Scarsdale area. Now that i am upstate I am driving and around rich people. I'm going to get really lost. I got put back into the spanish program and i will be serving with Elder Oppe from Brazil. He is 3 cycles behind me and I was in his district when he first came into the mission. It sounds like the area is great and they feed us every day. Elder Oppe also says that we have 6 possible people for April. It all sounds good to me! I don't really know anything else yet but i will let you know next week.

So my birthday was one of the best days of my mission, it was really great. Patricia's baptism was really great and every thing went really smooth. She made me a cake and the ward made me a big card it was really cool. Thank you for the birthday package, i should have nice teeth by the time i come home.

The other day we had a lesson with an investigator and Patricia was there and she bore a strong testimony to the investigators daughter. You could really tell that it was from her and something she really believed.

We started praying really hard to find families of three last week and we found two! Last week we had 10 new investigators which was sweet. The Lord really does answer our prayers. I have been praying to baptize a family for some time now and i hope that time comes soon.

Well I've got to run, everything is great! I will let you all know more next week!

Elder Sorensen

3.10.10

Family,

Hey we had a good week, things weren't easy but they never are. I got your b-day
package, thank you so much. I will wait tell tomorrow to open it. I haven't sent the
picture card, Patricia still looks good for tomorrow, and I think for my birthday I will
go out and do some missionary work. I know that's weird but I think it's a great
idea. Lol. We went to the temple today which was great; it's always fun to go to the
temple.

Patricia is doing great and we are planning to have a good baptismal service. She made
all of the plans for whom to give the talks and even made invitations. She has to make a
lot of big changes in her life but at the same time she knows it's worth it. She is
going to fit really well into the ward and be able to make a difference.

The ward had a ward mission training last Sunday which was really great. The core of the
ward missionaries are really excited and trying to do missionary work. Bishop Boyle is
doing a great job leading them and I know that a great work will be accomplished in this
area. We don't have very many solid investigators after Patricia. They all seem to drop
off in one way or another. But I have faith that Heavenly Father has something planned
for us that we can't see.

I don't really know what's going to happen to me next cycle as far as transfers. I
think Swan is going to leave and I will stay but I could go back to the Spanish program.
Elder Swan is a great zone leader and everyone really looks up to him. I don't know if
I will be able to have the same kind of influence on our zone as he has.

We had a really cool experience last Monday. We were looking up some people bishop asked
us to look up before we went home. It was 8:30 and the look up wasn't home but even
though it was late and I don't like knocking doors late I decided to knock the floor.
One younger lady answered the door but didn't know the look up we were looking for. She
did tell us that 5 min before we knocked she got done watching the pbs program about the
Mormons. We asked if she wanted to talked about it and as we tried to set up a time for
latter that week she suggested right then and there. The spirit kind of slapped me in the
face for not teaching when I find. We taught a really good restoration and she had really
good questions. Elder Swan and I both felt like we took the words right out of each
others mouths. Some times it's really easy to see the spirit speak through you and your
companion. We set up another time for Friday morning to meet with her and hopefully all
will go well.

So sorry I keep writing short letters. I'm trying but I had to write a lot to president
this week about transfers. I hope your all doing well and loving life. I am doing all
that I can to lose myself in this work and I'm always trying to improve. I hope you
are doing amazing and have a great week!

Elder Sorensen

3.2.10

Family,

Hey everyone! We had a good week and finally got some new investigators. Everything is going well.

We finally set a date for Patricia, which will be next Thursday, March 11, my birthday! Pretty good b-day present if I do say so myself. It doesn't look like Nick will get baptized anytime soon because of his father. He just want to stand up to him. Brianna's mom still doesn't think they are ready, so we are working on that. It's kind of out of our hands now.

Transfers are the 17th and I have a feeling there might be some changes coming up for me. President might change me back to spanish or Elder Swan could leave.

The snow storm was pretty bad last week. Not a ton of snow just really wet snow that turned into slush. We got really wet for a few days. It's warming up a bit and things are melting away again. I can't wait for the snow to be gone!

Nothing really exciting has happened in the past week. I met with President Buckner, the stake president, again. That was fun. Mom, do you listen to Glen Beck? I guess President Buckner is on his show a lot and is going to be on tour with him for the next few months.

Mandee and Savanna- what play are you guys in? Aren't you tired of doing plays yet? I feel like that's all you have been doing for the past two years of my mission!

I have had a lot of really cool personal studies on my mission which has been great. I have been really bad at my personal journal but I write in my study journal almost every day which I feel is more important. My testimony and most spiritual moments have really come from studying the scriptures. Last week during personal study I felt a huge desire to baptize a family before I go home. I have baptized a lot of single people and part members but never a full family. I felt the spirit very strong telling me if I do my all, it will happen. So that's going to be my focus. I love the conformation of the spirit telling me what I am doing is right. A father, mother and kids, that's my goal.

So how is everyone else doing? Mom- how are you doing? You always tell me how everything else is, but how are you?

I hope everything is going well and I love you all. I will send my picture card as soon as I can. As you go through my e-mail please purge them, not delete. I guess they don't go away with out purging them. I love you all!

Elder Sorensen

2.25.10

Daniel just wrote. We were afraid we wouldn't hear from him this week. In our letter to him we asked several questions instead of writing the usual letter. Here are the questions and his responses.

What would you like for your birthday?

A belt and a cosco pack of gillette fusion power razor blades.

Do you need any clothes, socks,shoes, garments? nope

What brand of camera do you have? I forgot, I use regular SD cards

Do you want to go and see another Broadway play when we pick you up? Yes, I want to see one, but there are no reasonable prices. What most people do is win a "lottery" for tickets around $30. there is good chances to win and we could try to do it each day we are there till we win. you put in your name in around 12 for the 3 show. each winner gets two tickets. plus during the week it's not as bad

Did you get any new investigators?
Yes, we started teaching some old investigators again and I tracted into another lady this week. The family who fed us steak last night invited their neighbors over for a 2nd family home evening with us. This time we taught the lesson and after totaling feeling the spirit of the plan of salvation and learning new truths she had to justify herself by saying, "well my boy friend is Catholic and I'm 48 and Catholic too. I can't change" We all just kind of laughed a rolled our eyes, thinking we'll see. lol

How is Patricia?
Patricia is doing good, we are going to try to give her a solid date tonight. She is progressing more each day.

Was Nick able to get baptized?
NO! His dad took him away last weekend and I called him and it wasn't pretty. He said he would tell the cops we are harassing his family if we kept teaching him. Nick is still all for getting baptized.

Do you have a little message for Griffin?
I love you Bro! Keep working hard a don't give up!

What did you do for your companion this week?
I agreed with almost everything he said. Lol. No I actual focused on complimenting him as much as I could this week.

Did you get more snow? If so, how much?
Yeah its snowing more right now. It's mostly slush so it's fun to walk in, not. It snows a lot then melts and snows some more. Which is fun. It's not more then a foot though. Which really isn't too bad.

I'm doing well but ready for another change up in the mission. President might put me back into the Spanish program next cycle, but only if it all works out. That would be fun but I really do like this area. I wouldn't want to be English anywhere else.

Gotta run, time is short! Love you guys!

2.17.10

Hey family,

Well I survived the snow storms but it looks like there will be more this weekend! Really, it wasn't that bad, we didn't get too much snow. The wind is always the worst part of the weather, it cuts to the bone. The week was a little harder than some but these weeks are what make the good weeks good. We tried really hard but we weren't able to find any new investigators. With everyone being baptized last month our teaching pool is looking a little slim.

We have been really busy this week trying to get new investigators. We set up street meetings all around our area. Street meetings is where we set up a table full of DVDs pamphlets, ect; and a sign up sheet to have us come.

Nick should be baptized this weekend! If all goes down right and his parents are still cool with it. We asked the mom to pray about it and later she told us that he could do it when ever he wanted. Pray that all will work out!

Patricia is also doing really well. She has really cut down on smoking and should be almost done with it all together. It still might take time for her to get baptized but she is definitely moving in the right direction. She is getting a lot of fellowship from the ward which is great.

Brianna the 9 year old is still looking good for early march. It's not a huge priority for the mom, which is hard because they are so busy and it's hard to meet with them. We are seeing them tomorrow, so we are going to see what we can do.

We had another multi-zone conference yesterday which went really well. Elder Swan and I both felt that our training went really well and we hope that it will make a difference in their mission. Most of our trainings have been mostly about application and different ways they can have success, but this training was more about having a spiritual change and getting the most out of their mission.

Dad asked about the ward. The family ward is really big and has really good attendance. It makes up mostly of artists, people who work in finance and accounting, musicians and students. Almost everyone is a young family who probably won't settle here. The singles ward is about the same but really small. The ward boundaries cover from 110th to the top, while the family ward is 155th to the top. I guess I cover almost half of the island but I never really go down that far.

I don't know what more you want me to tell you about my companion, what do you want to know?

The same kind of card works for my camera, it just didn't copy on to SD card. One of the rules is we can't use headphones.

Doesn't Mandee get strep a ton? I swear she gets it every year.
Hey Greg, how's dancing going?
Deb, glad to hear your fetus is doing well hopefully he will be named after me.
Mom, has uncle John gone to church yet? He was always one of my favorite uncles on your side. Driving around in his convertible, and sega boxing, so sweet! I think that was uncle John. You should send the missionaries to his house. (He got John and David mixed up.)

Well I love you family, I hope all is going well. Keep staying busy and working hard. It is so good for me to hear from you all. I know that I am a really bad writer, but I really enjoy receiving letters from everyone. I can't promise I will do better at writing but I will try my best.

Elder Sorensen