Week of Oct 27, 2013

My dear friends and family,

 

I just want to start off and say that I hope you all have felt the charity I have for all of you. I use that in an interesting way. Because It's not just my love that I have for you, but Christ's love. His pure love, and he has it for all of us, freely. It's truly amazing.

 

Well let's get started with some crazy stories of the great white north shall we? Well this week has been an other long one, we built a lot of member relations, and didn't teach a whole lot of investigators. We did teach Joe, who's been stuggling with smoking and drugs, but he's really turned his life around, and i'm super proud of where he's at, but he's not keeping commitments too well, like reading assignments, and coming to church, which is really sad.

 

Now the best two parts of this week, were thursday, and friday. On thursday, we got to do some of our regular service of raking some leaves for a former investigator named Ken, he had a TON of leaves, it took 11 leaf bags (in Canada you can't use plastic garbage bags. It's illigal, so you use Leaf bags). I'll send some pictures, because The pile was huge. Anyways, after we raked his leaves, we headed out to Starbuck, which is a little town 45 minutes outside of Winnipeg, where we teach a less-active member. I finally got a taste of how flat it actually is out here in Manitoba. It's crazy, but it's beautiful! We spent a couple hours at his beautiful house doing some service, he fed us lunch, and we had a good discusion, but he's a little crazy.

 

On friday we got our transfer calls. Now in the Canada Winnipeg Mission, Transfer calls are not a small thing. I don't know how they are in other missions (Matt and Jake help me out here). But in the CWM, it takes hours of plainning and things, and transfer calls every 6 weeks are like Christmas, because of the size of my mission, you could basically get transfered to a whole new province, you could be 12 hours away, you could go state side, you could even open a new area! You never know! But basically, in maybe a state side mission, you get your call, you pack up, you transfer, and you're in your new area in hour or two right? not in my mission. Things get a little intence.

 

So here's calls. I'm staying here in winnipeg to finish up my training and welcome my new companion, Elder Martin. (the best part is, his name tag is on Pg. 123 of PMG) while my companion is going to Thompson, Manitoba. That's 10 hours North of Winnipeg! But the thing is he is going to load up onto a grayhound bus on Wednesday night, drive 12 hours to Flin-Flon, SK and meet his new comp. there, load up a car, and drive an other 4 1/2 hours to Thompson. That's how big my mission is. Crazy, no? So I'm in a tri-pan that night, I'm excited and this week is going to be busy!

 

Well, it's getting progressivly colder. They keep saying there'll be snow by halloween, but that's on Thursday so we'll see! No snow quite yet. I hear there's snow back in Utah, is that true? Well, I love you guys, you're really great. I'm just about to tear it up hear in Canada, because Elder Hatch and I preped this area, and Elder Martin and I will just baptise everyone. I'm really looking forward to the comming months.

 

Elder Sorenson

Week of Oct 20, 2013

Man, this week has been a long one. Basically most of all of our appointments canceled, we weren't able to contact anybody, and we were "lunched" a bunch of times. Oh boy! haha where to start.

 

Well It was looking to be a good week, and I was excited. It started out and actually on Wednesday we were so busy, we had to exchange with some other elders to cover all of our appointments! It was crazy! but all of those appointments canceled either on the spot or a few minutes before. I was so sad. Also on Wednesday I gave my first priesthood blessing! I was so nervous, but really following the spirit, I pushed through it.

 

Other exciting news: On Thursday I got to basically be a Zone Leader for a day, and go on exchanges with them, which was actually really fun. I hear that leadership should not be sought after, seeing how my comp. Is the district leader, but I don't know. The rest of the week we basically did service and ground work. Which our numbers didn't show. Elder Hatch and I solved our differences, my headaches weren't bad this week, and we've built up missionaries, and we've taught missionaries, and built member relationships, and things like that. But it just hurts when we can't go out and have a solid week of teaching.

 

Well I can finally say it's starting to get cold up here. I finally bought my coat and stuff and I woke up to -3* this morning. which isn't that bad, but we'll see what happens when it starts to get to -40*.

 

This Sunday was stake conference, and it was one of the best I have ever attended. The talks were really inspired and all on missionary work. I wonder why. haha. But because we haven't taught much, I have a chance to share my testimony.

 

I know that the atonement of Christ is real. It's what we're all about. I know that through it, and through the grace of Christ we are healed. I know that the Book of Mormon is the true word of God. without a doubt in my mind. I've seen it change my life as well as those I teach. I know that my calling is real, and I am here in the CWM for a reason, set apart by the laying on of hands to teach with his power, the spirit is amazing. I can feel it with me 24/7, and I don't ever want to leave it when I go home. Missionary work is amazing. I love it, I am so excited that I get to do this for 22 1/2 more months. There is no place I'd rather be right now than here, serving his children.

 

I love you guys, Thank you so much for all you do!

Elder Jake sorenson 

Week of Oct 7, 2013

Hey Guys! This week has been simply amazing. And I'll share a couple of reasons why.

 

So the 3 months before I left on my mission were probably some of the best months of my life. I had all these wonderful things, and life for me could have taken off into all these different areas, and I could be doing something completely different right now, but i'm not. I'm out sharing the gospel, and it's just fantastic.

 

Elder Hatch and I have had struggles finding people to teach ever since I got out here. He and I get along great, and we teach with power, and unity, just not to a lot of people. And tracting is not effective up here, because everyone says no, and no one is ever home. But Elder Hatch and I just kept up doing our part, and we kept being diligent, and obedient, and then the miracles happened.

 

Wednesday was probably one of the best days of my mission up to this point. We had a good district meeting, By the way, Elder Hatch is the district leader. So i'm assistant to the district leader, or so I call myself. And we went out for sushi afterwards, which was really good. After sushi, We went and taught our investigator Joe. Joe is a great guy, he's really humbled at this point in his life and needs the gospel. He's recovering from a drug addiction, and he's hit rock bottom, but he's starting to progress in life, and you can just see the want for change in his eyes. The lesson we taught was really great, and the spirit was powerful. He wants to be baptized, but he says he doesn't fully believe yet. So we invited him to read the BOM everyday, and to pray, and to come to conference, which he did!

 

Wednesday night, we were visiting a part-member family to set up an appointment. We didn't really know why we were setting up an appointment with them, just knew that we were there. when we walked out we ran into Jason. He ran up to us and asked if we were Mormons, and asked if we could come to his house and if we could answer some of his questions about what we believed in. We agreed and taught him the next night. Apparently stories like that in this mission are unheard of. but we were in the right place, at the right time. And the Lord prepares his people.

 

On Thursday I went on exchanges with an other Elder in my district named Elder Scott from Vancouver. He's great. We got to teach a guy named Herman, who's coming over an alcohol addiction, and was 9 months sober, but over the weekend, he got drunk. We felt so much love for the guy, and when we were teaching him, the spirit was so strong you could really feel God telling him how much he loved him, and how much he wanted him to change. It was so good. Really testifies to me that this is his work, and there's no place that I'd rather be than here, preaching his gospel. I haven't been that homesick, and that's because I'm here. doing what I need to be doing. That brings me to my next topic.

 

General conference. I got a lot of questions on how I was able to watch general conference, and I was able to by going to a local stake center. Oh, general conference was so good. My favorite, well one of my many favorite talks was given by Dallin H. Oaks in Sunday morning. Especially when he said: "While other religions will change their practices, and even their doctrines. Ours are determined by God, and are deemed unchangeable." Gave me the chills.

 

Well I'm doing great up in the great white north. It hasn't snowed.... yet. We got a little rain last week, and it was a little windy this past week as well. But other than that, it's actually been really beautiful weather. I love it here in Winnipeg. I live in the St. James area, and it's a beautiful area of Winnipeg. Nothing's been really bad so far, except for our bishop in our ward. I really don't like him. He's not motivated to do missionary work. We'll change that. Anyways, this email's really long. Love you guys! keep writing me! I've only gotten one letter and it took two weeks to get here, but that's okay i guess... haha

 

Elder Sorenson.