Hello Everybody!!
Not that I didn't love mother's day before, but mother's day on a mission is the equivalent to Christmas, and it's only SIX DAYS AWAY! WOO!! I'm so excited to talk to everyone again. Also, I'm really weirded out that this will be my last time skyping. How did that happen?
One major highlight of the week was the ward crawfish boil! I've had crawfish before, but this was my first experience with a crawfish boil. It's a whole event and it's all about the experience of it. We helped with all of it from the live crawfish, to boiling them, to setting everything up to be eaten. There was so much crawfish that they put it in a kiddie swimming pool on one of those big round church tables, and it BROKE THE TABLE. It was funny. The pictures I have of the crawfish in the swimming pool were actually only about the first 5 sacks of crawfish. There were still 7 more sacks! The thing is though, you hardly eat any of the crawfish. It's a lot of work for hardly any meat, but it's really good, and it's all about being with people. Also, you boil potatoes, corn, garlic, and sausage with the crawfish and they taste amazing with all the spices on them, so that fills you up more than the crawfish. There were SO many less actives and investigators there. More than active members actually, which was awesome to see. I guess we should have free food at church and then more people would come more often. :)
Not that I didn't love mother's day before, but mother's day on a mission is the equivalent to Christmas, and it's only SIX DAYS AWAY! WOO!! I'm so excited to talk to everyone again. Also, I'm really weirded out that this will be my last time skyping. How did that happen?
One major highlight of the week was the ward crawfish boil! I've had crawfish before, but this was my first experience with a crawfish boil. It's a whole event and it's all about the experience of it. We helped with all of it from the live crawfish, to boiling them, to setting everything up to be eaten. There was so much crawfish that they put it in a kiddie swimming pool on one of those big round church tables, and it BROKE THE TABLE. It was funny. The pictures I have of the crawfish in the swimming pool were actually only about the first 5 sacks of crawfish. There were still 7 more sacks! The thing is though, you hardly eat any of the crawfish. It's a lot of work for hardly any meat, but it's really good, and it's all about being with people. Also, you boil potatoes, corn, garlic, and sausage with the crawfish and they taste amazing with all the spices on them, so that fills you up more than the crawfish. There were SO many less actives and investigators there. More than active members actually, which was awesome to see. I guess we should have free food at church and then more people would come more often. :)
Things are going SUPER well here in Houma! I wish I could describe the feeling all the missionaries down here have right now. We can literally feel the potential here, and we can feel that it's all about to burst. The work is moving forward so fast, and there are so many convert baptisms that have just happened/are happening this week/will happen in the next month or so. We've all been finding a ton of new super prepared people. The biggest miracle is the Spanish work! When I got to this area, there were about 2 Spanish investigators between us and the Spanish elders. Now, there is talk of starting a branch! The elders have found some less actives that never had their records transferred after they moved to the United States, and they're all amazing. We're both finding a TON of Spanish investigators, and Spanish FAMILIES at that! We have enough now that we have a whole Gospel Principles class in Spanish, and it's amazing. For the first time in a really long time, we had a WHOLE SPANISH FAMILY come to church on Sunday! We almost cried. They also came to the ward crawfish boil, and when they showed up it took us a solid 30 seconds of staring at them to believe our eyes. They loved church so much and said that they were coming back next week. They have a 3-year-old daughter, and she absolutely LOVED primary. After primary, she came out skipping and said, "Mami! Vamos a esta iglesia ahora!" ("Mommy! We're going to this church now!") and we're like "heck yeah you are!" Or at least that's what we said in our heads. It was amazing because so many members that we didn't know spoke Spanish are jumping in and coming to lessons and helping to fellowship them all at church, so that we hardly have to do anything at church except say hi. We're teaching a ton of Spanish people right now, and most of them are concentrated on just two streets. As soon as one of them gets baptized, I'm pretty sure the rest of them will get baptized too. The goal is to have enough to at least start a Spanish group this summer, with the hope of having a branch here in the next year. It is definitely possible, and we're all so on fire. We love the work so much and we're all willing to do whatever it takes to build el Reino de Dios (Kingdom of God) here in Houma!
The unfortunate part of the week was the down pouring of rain all of Saturday and Sunday. We were on lockdown for a good portion of both days because flash flooding is a real thing in Louisiana. Everything is so wet here that the ground can't hold any more moisture, so even with not very much rain, the roads all flood. And we got a ton of rain, so we had to be in a lot. Not fun. But we went through a ton of our area book and called about a million people to see if their records were any kind of accurate. Most of them were not. But we did get a few people who said, "Hey we miss you guys! When can you come over?" So it's definitely worth going through all the disconnected numbers. We're really just trying to leave this area better than we found it, so that future missionaries can enjoy their time in this area and really harvest all the potential here. Even if we do a ton of planting seeds here and we don't end up seeing the rewards, it's still incredibly rewarding because we know we're still part of this amazing work!
The unfortunate part of the week was the down pouring of rain all of Saturday and Sunday. We were on lockdown for a good portion of both days because flash flooding is a real thing in Louisiana. Everything is so wet here that the ground can't hold any more moisture, so even with not very much rain, the roads all flood. And we got a ton of rain, so we had to be in a lot. Not fun. But we went through a ton of our area book and called about a million people to see if their records were any kind of accurate. Most of them were not. But we did get a few people who said, "Hey we miss you guys! When can you come over?" So it's definitely worth going through all the disconnected numbers. We're really just trying to leave this area better than we found it, so that future missionaries can enjoy their time in this area and really harvest all the potential here. Even if we do a ton of planting seeds here and we don't end up seeing the rewards, it's still incredibly rewarding because we know we're still part of this amazing work!
Also, if any of you have not read Jesus The Christ by James E. Talmage, DO IT. I'm almost done with it and it's absolutely amazing! So many things I never really understood before are coming to life as I read it. I especially love the part about the apostles after the resurrection of the Savior as they begin to organize the Church and preach the Gospel. It's amazing to see the change in each one of the Apostles from their original calling, to their ministries after the resurrection. I was studying Peter a lot the last couple days, and his change from being timid, to denying Christ, and then to his bold testimony. After Christ was resurrected, the people asked Peter, "What shall we do?" and he simply said, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." (Acts 2:37-39). This passage hit me really hard because if we will let Christ change us to the point of true conversion, we can have this same power to be able to invite people to repent. Also, I love that all it takes is a call to repentance to help other people change. Sometimes I forget that our calling is to call people to repentance. This scripture helped to change my perspective because the simple answer to what we need to do is, repent and come unto Christ. If we do that every day, we have no reason to doubt that we will inherit eternal life. This passage is also cool because not only did 3,000 people get baptized because of this call to repentance, but they also "continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers." So they did not become less actives! It was all because of repentance. Just these few verses of scripture helped completely change my perspective and focus with the people we're teaching, and I'm going to apply it this week and talk a ton more about true repentance and conversion.
I love this work so much!! The excitement is literally tangible. There is nothing more rewarding and more exciting than doing the work of the Lord and watching the miracle of the Atonement work wonders in people's lives every day.
I love you all so much! Hasta luego!
Hermana Sorensen
I love this work so much!! The excitement is literally tangible. There is nothing more rewarding and more exciting than doing the work of the Lord and watching the miracle of the Atonement work wonders in people's lives every day.
I love you all so much! Hasta luego!
Hermana Sorensen
Lindsey sent us a photo collage of "A Day in the Life of a Missionary". She said that it was interrupted by a full day of rain and being stuck inside, but the following pictures give you a snapshot of what her days look like. Enjoy! - Christine (aka Lindsey's mom)