Dearest Family and Friends,
I always want to start my letters with something clever, but I can't ever do it, so I'll just get right into it!
We got to go to the temple this week!!!!! Saturday was our ward temple day and so one of the members took us. It was amazing! I hadn't been up to Baton Rouge since I first got to the mission, so it was fun to see it again. It really is a beautiful city! The temple is SO tiny, but still so beautiful! It was a much needed trip because I hadn't been to the temple since before I left on my mission. It was a great experience to be able to be with my companion and some of our dear friends from the ward in the temple. The Church is so true! It also helped motivate me even more to go out and find those people that the Lord has prepared so that someday I can be with THEM in the temple! How cool would that be?! Yes the work of missionaries is to prepare people for baptism, but baptism is not the end goal. In fact, it's just the beginning! I try to picture all of my investigators in the temple because I know they all have the potential to have those amazing blessings for themselves someday.
I always want to start my letters with something clever, but I can't ever do it, so I'll just get right into it!
We got to go to the temple this week!!!!! Saturday was our ward temple day and so one of the members took us. It was amazing! I hadn't been up to Baton Rouge since I first got to the mission, so it was fun to see it again. It really is a beautiful city! The temple is SO tiny, but still so beautiful! It was a much needed trip because I hadn't been to the temple since before I left on my mission. It was a great experience to be able to be with my companion and some of our dear friends from the ward in the temple. The Church is so true! It also helped motivate me even more to go out and find those people that the Lord has prepared so that someday I can be with THEM in the temple! How cool would that be?! Yes the work of missionaries is to prepare people for baptism, but baptism is not the end goal. In fact, it's just the beginning! I try to picture all of my investigators in the temple because I know they all have the potential to have those amazing blessings for themselves someday.
Then that night we had the women's session of general conference. It was just a great spiritual feast all of Saturday. We went to the church building (because our building is the stake center) and watched it with some of the women in our relief society. They made amazing food as always. We were all laughing at how there is a different word for "popcorn" in every country and they're all so different. As a missionary, it's always the little things that are the funniest. Anyways, we watched all of conference in Spanish, which I was scared of at first, but I was pleasantly surprised that I understood every word of it. Hooray for the gift of tongues! I LOVED President Uchtdorf's talk (I usually do). It's so true that we have so many reasons to be disheartened, but we always always always have the choice to keep our chin up and see the positives. There is absolutely no reason to be miserable in this life because it's our own choice to be happy. Shout out to my amazing mother for hammering the phrase "happiness is a choice" into my head as I was growing up. I definitely thought about her a lot during that talk and how grateful I am for her example! Also, definitely thought about my sister during the song "Dearest Children" at the part where it says "cherish virtue" because she used to sing "cherry fruit chew!" So yeah, great stuff! I'm SO EXCITED for conference this weekend!! Hopefully we have a bunch of people coming, and it's just an amazing spiritual overload. We definitely need the boost when we can get it! We'll probably watch it all in Spanish again so we'll see how that goes.
Update on Juan Pablo-- made us cry this week when he was talking about how he overheard someone saying something bad about the church and he told us "It just made me so sad to hear people talking about our church like that. We're great people and we just try to help other people come to Christ! It made me even more proud to be part of this Church because we wouldn't ever put someone down!" Notice all of the "ours" "we's" and "us's" !!!!!!! I felt like a proud parent! :) He's still so golden and we're preparing for his baptism on October 10th.
The rest of the work is still slow right now. There were two days straight this week where only one person opened the door all day (not counting one set appointment we have with a member every week). I don't know if there's some convention they all went to that we don't know about, but we would seriously go through like 20 people in an hour and not one of them would be there. It's okay though because it's given us time to go through the area book a little deeper and try to contact people we usually don't have time to contact.
Least favorite phrases I've heard-- "Yeah sure we'll try to come to church/read the Book of Mormon/pray" "God loves all of us so as long as we're worshipping Him it doesn't matter what church we belong to!" "The bible is all you need and we do not need any more bible!" "Well if you look in Revelations 22:18..."
Favorite phrases I've heard-- "Aw hey dawlin how you holdin up?" "I knew y'all were coming around here today." "I feel something different... and I like it!" "I really needed to hear that today." "How did you know that I needed to hear that?" "Sister Sorensennnnn!!!!!!!!" (from little kids) "It's the SISTERS!!!!!" "Hey y'all we're making tamales on Saturday if y'all wanna come over!"
Love you all so much! Watch as much conference as you can this week and keep praying for our dear BYU to turn this season around after a couple tough losses.
Con amor,
Hermana Sorensen
The rest of the work is still slow right now. There were two days straight this week where only one person opened the door all day (not counting one set appointment we have with a member every week). I don't know if there's some convention they all went to that we don't know about, but we would seriously go through like 20 people in an hour and not one of them would be there. It's okay though because it's given us time to go through the area book a little deeper and try to contact people we usually don't have time to contact.
Least favorite phrases I've heard-- "Yeah sure we'll try to come to church/read the Book of Mormon/pray" "God loves all of us so as long as we're worshipping Him it doesn't matter what church we belong to!" "The bible is all you need and we do not need any more bible!" "Well if you look in Revelations 22:18..."
Favorite phrases I've heard-- "Aw hey dawlin how you holdin up?" "I knew y'all were coming around here today." "I feel something different... and I like it!" "I really needed to hear that today." "How did you know that I needed to hear that?" "Sister Sorensennnnn!!!!!!!!" (from little kids) "It's the SISTERS!!!!!" "Hey y'all we're making tamales on Saturday if y'all wanna come over!"
Love you all so much! Watch as much conference as you can this week and keep praying for our dear BYU to turn this season around after a couple tough losses.
Con amor,
Hermana Sorensen