hola familia!!
Sounds like everything is going great. I hope you enjoyed Halloween.

Well the time is really flying by now. We just finished this change, and i'm not training - thank goodness. My new comp is Elder Barajas. He's a Mexican who speaks less English than my old companion. He's a really spiritual guy. He is going to help em a ton with Spanish i think. My old comp helped a lot but he was trying to learn English, so i spoke it a lot. So this change I'm going to learn a ton, spiritually and verbally.

We got to the house (which was really dirty) and my new comp just got to work cleaning. He asked me like 4 times "why is the house so dirty". So now the house is spotless. Its crazy. When all was said and done my comp said something like, "cant you feel the spirit better here now?" Which was true, you could feel a difference.

I'm really exited for this change. We didnt really baptise a lot in the last 2 changes, only 5 total.
Which for mexico is a little. My new comp just finnished training one of the kids I roomed with in the MTC. They had about 15 baptisms I think. I think what was wrong was that my comp didnt have any faith in the area. He told me over and over the ward we were in was awesome, the best. But that our area sucked. So i think that he was just burt out of the area, we worked and we worked here, but we didnt really have the expectations of baptizing. My new compainon should fix that. My zone leader read me part of a talk that said, when missionaries arent baptizing, its not the area, not the that the missionaries arent working (most of the time) or stuff like that, its there attitude and their expectations. So im going to baptise a ton this transfer and they will be active in the church too. So i can't tell you how excited I am for this change.

Our baptism didn't quite work out this last weekend. He needed a special interview (which isn't anything rare here). He did want to get baptised that next hour for some reason, but we are going to find out here in a bit. My comp has asked a lot of questions like why doesn't this person want to be baptised... and i don't really know why. so i plan on learning how to find whats going on with people better, and then teaching those needs. Everyone should want baptism.

Hey i thought of one more thing that would be nice to have. And that is a flash drive for my pictures and stuff. I can have a backup of everything encase some one steals my camera. I am not really woried about it. The pres has really cracked down on obedience, and when he did that all the problems they were having with people getting robbed vanished, so i've been told. So like a 8 or 16 gig flash drive would go a long way, I would get one here but there really expensive here, like 2X as expensive
Well I'm out of time, I love you all a ton.

love you forever
Elder Sorensen

I’ve learned a ton this week. M y companion has been teaching me how to work when my companion is a slacker. So I’ve gotten to do most all of the planning, gotten to pick where we go, what we teach, practically everything. I’ve realized how much I don’t know, so I’ve learned a lot.

Today the zone leaders picked us to go with them to the Federal District of Mexico. It was really cool; it’s a city that was built on city that was built on a lake. So it doesn’t have a very good foundation, and all the building are sinking, and leaning pretty well.

We also got to Roam around a Catholic Cathedral, it was cool they had some really elaborate designs, and stuff all over. I couldn’t help thinking how funny we must look, a group of 6 LDS Missionaries walking around in there. First off the building is huge, and has tons of random statues all over the place. They have shrines all over the place for their saints, they must have taken years to make, and have cost tons of money to build. Each of them all for a different saint.



 The saints (statues) here are weird, I don’t know that much about them but I catch on to stuff here and there. One of the popular saints (I have no idea of his name, same with my comp) but is always depicted sitting on a horse wearing really rich fancy robs, cutting the cape part off and giving it to some balding old, almost naked man on the side of the road. I have no idea why that earns him the right to be worshiped. But the most beloved is the Virgin Marry, the Mother of Jesus. There are shrines all over the city for her, in all shapes and sizes. That is one of the biggest questions were asked, ¨do you believe in the virgin¨ and we say ¨yes because it talks about her in the bible, but we don’t worship her because the first and second Commandment says........¨ something along those lines.
I’ve learned so much about other religions, Catholic, Jehovah Whiteness, other ¨Christians¨. And lots about the bible, I had no idea how many different versions of the bible there are, for example in English the church uses the King James Bible, but in Spanish we use a version of the Catholic bible not a translation. Then they have the New World Bible for the Jehovah Witnesses (which has entire scriptures deleted), and what seems like a limitless amount for the Christian churches that very in levels of distortion, so we try to use whatever bible to teach them in the beginning but some it would take forever to explain what it says. It just adds to how important the Book of Mormon is.

The cathedral was cool, but in the end turned out to be a large, spacious, and somewhat empty building.
Everything just looks cool in the Federal District, even though it has McDonalds and countless other fast food and moderns shops everywhere. It was fun to walk around and shop for ties. I bought 6 ties for 150 paceos or about 12 bucks ha-ha and there cool ties. There’s lots of cool cheep stuff here. Some of it isn’t pirated, stolen, or knock offs.
About the intestine taco- it actually wasn’t that bad, intestine - I think costs more than good ribs here (which are better than intestine), but the Mexicans love it.
Thanks for all your prayers and support.
Love you forever
Elder Sorensen

Happy Hallowean!!!

Its been a good week. It's weird to think that i only have 2 more Sundays in this change and for all i know i could be a trainer, I doubt it though I'm not fluent enough to train an American, and I have tons to learn about how to teach. My comp told me that the Mission Pres asked him if I was ready to train, I some what hope that Pres was just joking. In 2 weeks I'm officially trained, so who knows what will happen.

We had a baptism this week. His name is Nicasio, he is a older man. My comp was going to baptize him year ago (this is the 2 time hes been here, he started his mission in Jardines too) but Nicasio´s wife freaked out on him, and didn't give him permission to get baptized. So we got everything straightened out with him and got him baptized. I'll sent you a picture if i can get the computer to work, there are very few computer labs that are reliable.

So Tuesday we had interviews with the Mission Pres. It was cool, it was really quick though. I'm new here so mine was really quick. The whole zone got interviewed so it took forever. I waited from 11:00 in the morning to close to 5:00 in the night. So it was some what redundant but that's alright. I learned a lot in that 5 min.

I got to spent 2 days out of my zone this week, because we had interchanges with the zone leaders. It was cool. I got to see what it was like to be a zone leader a little bit, and how they work their area. It was cool. I learned a lot with the zone leader.

You might have noticed that i didn't send you a email yesterday sorry about that, but we had our P-day changed so the Zone Leaders could go to a meeting. So today is my p-day.

The members feed us Tues - Sunday and not on Monday because its our P-day, so we go to make our own food, which wouldn't be a problem, but it was the end of the month and we were out of food and money. (We get money on the first day of the month). My comp had absolutely nothing and i only had $106 pesos or like 7bucks. We needed 28 for 2 buses to get money today. So we had hamburgers. We bought the hamburger from a little slaughter shop like place, that just sells meet. When i asked for the hamburger, the lady threw up a slab of what looked like some sort of really thick stake, weighed it and said this is 1/2 kilo. So I said ok cool, do you have hamburger for hamburgers? To that she said this is hamburger. So I asked something like do you have hamburger meat for hamburgers. To that she some how got the message and ground the beef for us (with adding some carrots) which was about $50. So then we bought some buns and a tomato and with some of the left over bacon we had, made hamburgers. They were really good. It has to be some of the best hamburger meat I have ever had. It was really fresh too. I think she cut the chunk of meat off of a cow leg when i asked for it. so I'm 98% sure that its never been frozen either.

Today the zone is going to DF. or where i went before with all the cool buildings, but this time its not Monday so all the museums will be open I'm really kind of exited.

Well it sounds like everything is going good at home. Keep up all the good work.

I love you guys and think about you daily, thanks for all your prayers.

love you forever
Elder Sorensen

¡¡¡Hola Familia!!!

It’s good to hear from you all!! It sounds like everything is going good.

This week has been crazy we´ve been busy. I just finished my first transfer here in Mexico. It’s crazy to think that I’ve almost been here for 2 months, I only have 626 more day’s before I come home, the mission pres told us to count them so I am. So I’m sending a picture home of my first district, my comp is on my left, he has the peace sign thrown up with his hand bandaged. I have one more transfer with him, and then I’m officially trained and ready to go out on my own (without a trainer).

My comp is cool his name is Elder Figueroa he’s from Bearacruse Mexico, loves soccer, somewhat knows how to cook, doesn’t speak English, is obedient, patent, and the mission Pres thinks a lot of him. The first week or so was tough, not only because it would take forever to communicate but I’d never know where we were going or what we would be doing there once we got there. The first day was the most serial, it was funny I was so lost all I did was follow in my comps foot steeps, I was so surprised that night when we ended up at the apartment again.

Spanish is coming. It seems slow to me but I get complements all the time for it after people find out how long I’ve been studying Spanish, and some people who say ¨I don’t speak English¨ after I try to contact them in Spanish, it’s really funny when that happens. One of the things that I wasn’t expecting when I got here was that the mission president doesn’t give us a language study in the morning. He said that we will be speaking Spanish 24/7 so we wouldn’t need it. That is true. Somehow I’m learning the language. I would have loved to have an hour or so to study grammar, the stuff my comp doesn’t know. It’s been an awesome help to have a companion who doesn’t speak English, He´s good at remembering English vocabulary even though he can’t speak very well, and its help a lot with the accent an saying stuff right. But like us with English he doesn’t fully understand the grammar and why word order is how it is. Which, to be honest I couldn’t explain the English grammar to him, trust I’ve tried. But all and all he’s been a lot of help with the language. I’m starting to understand most of what people are here, but I still can’t get around some peoples accent, my comp has even had issues understanding some people. But all and all Spanish is really coming; the other day one of the American Missionaries said that my Spanish was really good for only being in Mexico for almost 2 months. He even said that I’m a Spanish speaker. But I still have a lot of vocabulary to learn. Thank you for all your prayers.

Food - food has been a new experience for me here. Nothing tastes the same here. Not anything, even if it’s an American product like sprite and looks exactly the same, the taste is different. The only exception I think is the candy bars. I’m sending a picture of some Mexican tacos; they are nothing like anything you can get at any of the Mexican restaurants I know. All they are is a tortea about the 5 inches wide with some meat of something laid on top with some I think onions and something else green. And that’s it. They cost about 7 pesos on the street. My favorite is the ¨tacos al pastor¨ (the red one in picture DSCF9036). I’ll have to take a picture of how they make it because I can’t really describe how they do it. But they have tacos made of everything you can think of, chicken, beef, pork, eyes, brains, and intestines. I had a ¨taco de tripas¨ (the brown one in picture DSCF9036) or a taco made of intestines. I didn’t mean to but I didn’t know what ¨tripas¨ meant in English until after I had ordered it. The reason I ordered it was because it looked like bacon and wanted to try new stuff before I declared al pastor as my favorite. So I pointed to the stuff that looked like bacon and said what’s that he said something I didn’t understand so I said ok ill take one. Then I looked at my comp and he was laughing and that’s when I found out what I had order. It didn’t taste that bad and it didn’t kill me even or make me sick. And they usually have some sort of salsa or hot sauce with it. and Saturday I conquered what one my American friends said was the hottest one they had in Mexico, I think its jalapeño, and I didn’t even go easy with it. I tested it and then layered my taco with it. It was hot and was hot for a very long time after I ate it.

So to say the least I have learned a lot about cooking for myself here. We went to Costco and bought a huge bag of instant pancake mix. So we have had a lot of pancakes, and eggs and bacon sandwiches. We eat lunch with the members, and they feed us a tone here like a 2 to 4 course meal, so we usually don’t need much of a dinner, just breakfast.

¡¡¡¡¡thanks a tone for the Package!!!!!!!! I got everything!!! Thanks especially for the backpack cover it saved my butt. The day I got the package it rained a ton, the roads were like rivers. Thanks for all the Notes candy and cleaning stuff.

Thank you for all your prayers

Love you forever
Elder Steven Tray Sorensen

Hola!!

We had a baptism this week, his name is Juan Daniel. He’s a cool guy. He proves that you don’t need to know Spanish to contact people. He was walking up the street carrying a box of fruit when the idea came to my mind to ask him if we could help him. So I did, I tried to say ¨do you need help? ¨ In Spanish but I didn’t change my voice right so he understood it as ¨you need help¨. He stopped, looked at me and started talking. I didn’t understand a word but I pretended I understood. He just went on and on and on, eventually my comp Elder Figueroa came and rescued me. Juan asked for one of our pamphlets, so we gave him one about the Restoration, and set a date for when we could come teach him.

After we went our different ways, I asked my comp if we were really going to go and teach him. Because something just seemed off about him. I’ve talked to drunks before and we haven’t gone to teach them because they don’t really mean (or remember) what they say when they are drunk. When I talked to my comp I found out that he was sober. I am getting better at telling when someone is drunk or high. He had lived a rough life, but was now only smoking normal cigarettes. This is awesome because it meant he was actively trying to change his life.

So when we went to teach him he was excited to see us again and to get to talk with us. He had read much if not the entire pamphlet we gave him. And he wouldn’t stop talking. He was so excited to learn more but wouldn’t stop talking long enough to for us to teach him, so we had to interrupt him a ton to teach him. But he was thirsty for the gospel. So we invited him to church and told him that we would have a friend of ours (the young man on the right in the picture) come and pick him up and take him to church he said ok, but wasn’t there when he went to pick him up. It kind of bummed me out a little. So latter that next week we went and talked to him, and gave him a Book of Mormon. You should have seen it. He was so excited when we gave it to him; he kicked himself back into his chair and shouted for joy! It was cool.

So we made a goal for him to quit smoking and get baptized he was really excited about that. We told him that he needed to come to church before he could get baptized and told him where the church was and what time he needed to be there, and set everything up for that. But he didn’t show up again. We really got bummed out about that, but with about 20 min left of sacrament one of the other elders said ¨isn’t that your investigator? ¨ It was. He found his own way there which made my day. So we invited him to come and watch a baptism that was for Mariana and her mom. He thought that was awesome. He even asked if there was a way for him to get baptized sooner.

So the next Sunday we went to pick him up. Because of General Conference we were meeting in a different building. He wasn’t there. He had left and gone on his own to church. We didn’t know what church he went to because the building was different. So we went and tried to hunt him down. We were a little freaked out. But somehow he had found his way to the stake center and was waiting patiently for Conference to start. The baptism was awsome we had a member baptize him because for some reason the Mission Pres. wants members to baptize.

We finished up my first transfer I still have the same comp and the same area because I’m new.
Love you forever

Elder Sorensen

September 26, 2011

¡¡¡Hola familia!!! 

This week has been crazy!! Our zone has been having a slow transfer as far as baptisms go. So at our last zone conference our zone leaders challenged us to have 50 interviews for baptism last week. I don’t know if our zone made it but we have been interviewing like crazy. My Companion is a district leader so he gets to help out with the interviews. I have had 1-2 companion exchanges close to everyday for the past week. I had one companion who did not know our area or our investigators. So I have had the privilege of navigating and somewhat trying to lead on the lessons. It’s been a good growing experience for me. I've learned what I need to work on improving, and how to deal with some of the people here. Some of the other missionaries I've been on exchanges with just take off somewhat with what they think the investigator needs before I explain it to them, and don’t give me any room to talk. But I've learned a lot; like how to navigate in Mexico (which sucks) and how to somewhat lead a companionship through the day. 

 Mariana Castañeda Ruis (younger) and Maria de Jesús Ruis Gusman (not so young).

We had 2 baptisms this week! Their names are Mariana Castañeda Ruis (younger) and Maria de Jesús Ruis Gusman (not so young). We have been teaching them since I got here (give or take a few days), and they have been a fight every step of the way. Mariana (catholic) was who we first initially contacted, and had problems from the second lesson when she didn’t get an answer (mainly about the Book of Mormon, and didn’t feel any different during sacrament) so we explained and testified and explained and testified some more, but got nowhere. So after many prayers her mother came to visit for a few weeks. And she was what we needed. She is also catholic and just loved our lessons and made remarks like how beautiful our lesson is and how awesome we are stuff like that. When she was there Mariana never had many doubts.

 So we tried to commit her to baptism (her mom wasn’t there by the way) and she said she’d have to pray about it first. We said ok and ended the lesson. Then we had the talk given to us by our zone leaders and the assistants to the president so in one of our exchanges I took our ZL to interview her. The interviews here are really more of a one on one lesson where they talk about the interview questions with a district leader, zone leader or a branch president. And because it’s a one on one setting the missionary can really dig in and find what’s holding the investigator back if they’re not interested, or get them exited if they lack the desire to do it. So in the interview my Zone Leader found out that she had some issues in the past and wasn’t letting herself feel the spirit, and committed her to a baptism by faith, and she accepted. The next day we committed her mom to baptism and got her an interview.

The day before the baptism she called us at about 6:30ish and told us that they didn’t want baptized. It just so happened that Elder Figueroa and I had a exchange scheduled from 7:00 to 9:00 and I’m not that competent teaching when it’s to explain random questions like why do we need the Book of Mormon if we have the Bible and both teach the same thing, why do we need a Prophet if I can receive revelation from God on my own, stuff like that. Mainly because I don’t have the vocabulary that strong in not the 4 main lessons we teach and second I know nothing about the bible. So I was a nervous to go and try to re- convince these two women to be baptized in about 14 hours. So we get there and right after the prayer my temporary companion starts to explain why we have the Book of Mormon and throws out all the scriptures in the bible that he can think of and testifying. This somewhat helped Maria out but I knew that it wouldn’t help Mariana out because we had already explained it using the same references at least twice. But he just kept going and didn’t let me talk. That is kind of the problem when I have an exchange with a Latino; they think - he´s the new guy and does not speak Spanish that well so I’ll just take care of the lesson. So after a while of trying to butt in I just straight up raised my hand and asked if I could say something. That gave everyone a somewhat of a laugh, but at the same time gave me a chance to talk. So I explained how baptism would give her the opportunity to start to grow a testimony (relating a testimony to a plant and our soul to a tree). And after that I testified that only through baptism could she be forgiven of all her sins and feel joy and hear the Holy Ghost. During that testimony I was filled with the spirit for the first time. Now I understand and know what that means - it’s an awesome, powerful feeling. After my testimony we talked a little more and they ended up being baptized the next day. Mariana still was a little scared or nervous but thanks to her mom she got baptized.

Love you forever

Elder Sorensen

September 19, 2011

Hola!

It’s good to hear from you guys! We are back on the regular schedule for P-Days now. It’s weird to think that there are only 2 more weeks of this transfer (even though I will be with my same companion). The Independence Day was cool; There were a lot of drunks. Two or so nights ago we got woken up to TNT at 5:45 - 6:00 it was really kind of annoying. Most of the fireworks here are lame except for the occasional good ones. My favorite is a rocket with TNT on top, they are so loud. You can hear them from miles when they go off. The rest are just cheep and junky.

The temple sounds like it was a good time. I somewhat miss it; they don’t let us go out here. The only time we can go is when one of our investigators goes through the temple and right before I come home.

I’m sure Zach did great on his talk. I’m also sure he’s nervous but probably more excited than nervous. Have him send me his address for the MTC or give it to you and send it to me. Tell him that the the MTC is awesome, he’s going to meet lots of new friends, he’s ready, that time flies once you get in to the mission field, it has for me. Do everything you can to keep focused, and to keep in touch with me.

Captain Moroni is my favorite leader in the Book of Mormon. I wish I could study better and more in depth in the book of Mormon than I get to right now. One of the things that my Mission Pres. told me before I got into the field was to not study in English, and if I wanted I could read in Spanish then English. But reading in both takes longer so right now I’m studding the pamphlets about the lesson and figuring out what the most important parts are (writing down all the words that I don’t know, sometimes translating them at the same time) so I only get to read for about 15 -20 min in the Book of Mormon every day in Spanish. But I’m starting to get the lessons down. I’m about to the point where I can teach without my companions help (not perfect, but I can explain most of it on my own).

Spanish is coming I’m starting to understand what the speakers are saying on Sunday and can understand most of what my comp says when he slows down a little. Thanks for all your prayers.

¡Hola!

Sorry it didn't write on Monday. We had our p-day changed to tomorrow because today is the Independence day of Mexico. So everyone and their dog is going to be drunk tomorrow so that's going to be our p-day. I'm writing you today because tomorrow there is a good chance that the internet shops are not going to be open.

Like I said today is the independence day of Mexico, so there are tons of little firework shops EVERY WHERE!!! It’s so hard not to buy them. I've figured out all the prices and there really cheap. You can get 3 mortar shells (the real loud ones that get shot into the air and explode) that are the size of a tennis ball for 10 bucks. And to make things easier there are kids everywhere that are playing with them. They have some cool ones. One is just a stick of dynamite that they catapult into the air it’s really sweet. But I expect tonight to be a little crazy.

Last Tuesday I had my first dream with Spanish in it, and I'm finding that when i go to write words I use a ton in Spanish and I have to translate it from Spanish to English. So Spanish is starting to come. I still can’t fully understand the natives but I can pick more words out every day.

Trackting in Spanish is difficult at times because I don't know exactly the words that I need to say and the key parts of the doctrine for all the lessons. I really like how we tract though. In lesson 1 we get the investigator to say that their church isn't true. We use the Bible almost more that we use the Book of Mormon, because all the people believe in the bible here, whether they worship the grim reaper, Virgin Mary or are just straight up Catholic. So we explain to them using the Bible that the Church of Christ had 4 things:
1. Prophets
2. 12 apostles
3. The authority of god (priesthood)
4. Received revelation
Using Ephesians’ 2:20, or others, and then ask if the Church of Jesus Christ was perfect. They always say yes. Then we ask if we change the church of Christ is it still perfect? They again say no. Then ask if they know of a church that has all of those 4 characteristics, and they say no. It’s cool. I like it.

My companion can teach almost all of the principles of the Gospel from the Bible, at least enough to disprove all the weird things that people ask and or believe. I'm sure I will know it really well by the time this transfers over.

My companion is from Bearacruze Mexico. He is an only child and was converted when he was 8 years old. He says hola ha ha.

Fried pig skin is............. different, and doesn't taste like bacon. It’s hard to believe that isn't the weirdest thing that I’ve eaten.

I'm kind of getting use to living in Mexico, teaching and walking a ton - the hills are straight up. Although it is still weird at times, I'm the minority here and I am the butt end of a lot of jokes. The buses keep things fun.

Love ya forever

Elder Sorensen

Here are few pictures. I will do my best to describe what they are of:

One is of a pet paret that was at an investigators house. It was fun to play with, and it only pooped on me twice.

 Ha ha it was cool. I've seen lots of random things that i didnt think were in mexico, like white Frogs. Also there are tons of stray dogs here. I see close to 100 a day, and there all some what scared of humans.

Here is a picture of this weird drink that i had at a members house. Its some tree seeds/branches sooked in water and mixed with suger, it wasn't bad but, i'm not a huge fan of it.  I had some interesting things to eat here, one of them being fried pig skin. I dont really know spanish well enough to ask what I'm eatng ha ha.

The other  picture is of the rain. Its the middle of the raining season here. It will look nice in the morning so we dont think we will need rain coats, but then it dumps every night. Most of the time we are fine, but others times it turns every road into a river. 

      

The Spanish is coming. Thanks for all your prayers. From what I under stand I'll understand people before I will be able to talk back. I can understand my companion and members enough to know that i don't know the word they are using, but at least I know that the word is one that I don't know. Thanks for all your prayers. 

I love you all 

Elder Sorensen  

August 29 2011

              

Mom and family!!!

Now that I've gotten into my area, its been more like what I expected.

Here's what i don't like so much:

The food all tastes that same and I have no idea where it came from.

I can't drink the water.

I can't understand anyone.

Here is what i like:

My companion rocks.

I have a bed.

The temperature is awesome here. Perfect all day

I can brush my teeth with the water here(weird i know).

They have a MC Donald!!

I HAVEN'T  GOTTEN SICK!!!!

and the people are awesome here!

I had my first baptism on Sunday :) his name is Juan Paublo Gonzalis Aguilar, they have 2 last names because they take the last name of the dad and mom. Juan is 10 years old his mom is a member but his dad isn't. So we mainly needed the dads permission. So we taught the dad and he said it was OK. I wish i could say i helped more but i couldn't understand anyone so most of the time, so i just smiled. I have done a good bunch of teaching here - I'm good at listing for ¨and my companion will teach us more about....¨

My companions name is Elder Figueroa. He's a stud. He's from Bearacruse Mexico and speaks almost no English. Hes been learning what he can from his companions but that is not a lot. The Mission pres told me that he was one of the best missionaries in field right now.

Communication has been tough with my companion we use lots of pointing. I can understand most of what he says (given i know the words), but i think its because he slows down a little when he talks. I hate when i have to say slower, he says it slower and i still don't understand the words. It makes me feel like an idiot.

I haven't gotten sick yet :) but i think that its because I've stayed away from the tacos. The food is really.... tasteless here and all tastes the same, I am not a big fan of it.

The pictures that i am sending are of my First Baptism, Apartment, and the city

Its really weird to have so much poor next to the rich. They have a mall here that is awesome its the coolest I've seen. It has McDonald and  Subway... and all sorts of good stuff.

The one Major bad thing about this place is that they don't have a good trash system and its EVERYWHERE!  We have a ton in our apartment because we don't have a place to get rid of it. 

I thought I was in the get-tows for the first couple of days. But i asked a American about how my area compares and he said it was one of the nicer ones. So I am glad I am where I am at. I've seen some houses that are the size of our living room. We were at the Sanches Dieas; they are a married couple with 4 kids.  In the living room there is literally a bunk bed, another bed and a couch. So when they gave us a big cup of Coke a Cola we drank it and were very great full.

Its so different here and i don't have the time to explain why, but everything is different then it is in America.

Driving here seems like suicide. everyone is crazy. The buses/taxis/everyone trys to get to place to place as fast as they can. There are rules, but no one follows them. Today we were going to get on a buss and the guy started to drive away before i got on, because he was in the middle of a intersection (diagonally, he had stopped just to pick up a bunch of elders) and everyone was honking at him. But i haven't seen any wrecks.

The people are nice here, and good at trying to help me with Spanish. I've gotten a lot better. But sometimes i don't think the word they tell me is the right words for what i want to know. Its hard to explain an idea like ¨one day at a time¨ in Spanish because the direct translation does not mean the same thing. 

All the houses are made of concrete and the doors are steal. and it just so happens that my apartment is next to a somewhat busy street. and concrete does not  do anything to help with keeping noise out.  I hear car after car after car all night long. But some how I sleep.

The funniest thing I've seen are the druggies. They see that I'm American and come up to me to talk English. They speak perfect English and when I ask them if they speak English they say ¨nope, none¨ its funny. I saw a guy just passed out face first on the concrete, sleeping like a baby. My companion and I got a kick out of that.

some things i need would be:

1 or 2 more long sleeve shirts

some Cd's of Mormon tabernacle choir...

sour patch kids

hand sanitiser

Thank you for everything
Love you forever
Tray

       

August 12 2011

Dear Family
It has been a crazy week here at the MTC! I've finally had something new in the week! It has been nice to finally break out of the normal routine. This last Wednesday I got to be a host and welcome new missionaries to the MTC. It was an awesome experience. I love unloading the missionaries. It is one, if not my favorite things to do here at the MTC. It's interesting to see how different families take the good bye. Some are quick, some long and take forever. Although I've noticed that the sister missionary say good by the fastest. I helped one sister that came, it took like 30 sec to say good by. It took longer to get her bag out of the car than it did to say good bye. It was crazy. Then the Elders take longer by 2 or 3 min. Id guess it's because the sisters missionaries have made up there mind before hand because they don't have to go. But the elders are a lot younger, there are some more mature sisters here and it is more expected for them to go. And the sisters most likely have already left home for at least 2 years, and elders haven't lived a way from home for a significant amount of time. It was really and interesting experience. I really enjoyed it. I am looking forward to next week when I get to do it again.

I am most excited to tell you about my Travel Plans!!!!!!! I am so excited to finally get out of here, yet slightly terrified at the same time. Here is the flight plan:
US Airways flight 158 out of SLC at 7:10 am Aug 2011 to Phoenix
Then at 9:45 I fly on US Airways flight 173 from Phoenix to Mexico City arriving at 2:55 pm.

I think I get to call you from Phoenix, but I might call from Mexico. I will have a 2 hour layover in Phoenix and it would be cheaper. Ill send word as soon a I learn more.

Everything is good here at the MTC. We listened to some native speakers translate talks on the fly today. The were recordings of Interpreters and I could understand a good portion of the espanol.

I love you and look forward to talking to you on the 22.

Love ya for ever
Para Siempre Dios Esta con Vos
Elder Sorensen




1

July 29

Life is good here at the MTC. Although I'm ready to go to Mexico.  I should get my flight plans in a week from thursday.

My companion Elder McAllister and I had our first investigator comit to baptism. It might have only been our teacher pretending to be someone he taught while he was on his mission, but it still way powerful and and an exiting experience. I cant wait untill there real people. Its amazing how close to feeling like a real investigator my teachers can get, even though they are RMs. The Holy Ghost can even tell us a head of time what the mock investigator needs to here to want to learn more. Its amazing.

I also gave my first talk in spanish last Sunday. The first day we are here they give us a paper with a list of topics on it. Every Sunday they have 2 random missionaries speak for 3 min in Spanish. Last weeks was on the Holy Ghost. I still cant believe he called on me. I was so nervous when I went up to speak, I said a prayer and went for it. It was funny the sooner i looked up and stopped using my notes the better the talk went. The first half of the talk was a paragraph i coppied stright out of the PMG (Preach my gospel) and the rest was something I came up with and translated my self. I read the part that was from the PMG then looked up and just talked. It was cool. I didn't think that i would be able to do that in Spanish yet.

I haven't meet Elder Murdoch yet. All the Spanish missionaries hang out together that are in my branch. We have 4 districts in my branch. Our branch presidency got a 4th member Sunday - its a huge branch. Theres about 1200 Spanish speeking missionaries here at any one given time. thats more than doubble the 500 english missionaries that are here. although the english missionaries are only here for 3 weeks so if they would have to stay here for 9 weeks there would be 1500 English.  So there are a ton of Spanish missionaries here.

I really hope they don't change my language during my mission, i'm having a hard of enough time learning Spanish  Although its not unheard of up here.

I love you guys

Elder Sorensen

July 8

Dear Mom and Dad
Thank you for the gum and the Letters! The only problem is that its against the rules to chew gum here and in the mission field. It's kind of a bummer I know but I  know if i follow the rules I will be blessed with the gift of tongs.

Sounds Like there is a lot of things going on. I'm really sad to here about Ray. That really stinks. At least we know where he's at. But it is still hard. That is good Kelsey's surgery went OK. I don't blame her for not liking the brace, I wouldn't like it either. She will be grateful later in life.

The days are starting to blend together. I can't believe that It's been 16 days since I've gotten here.   The routine really works for me and all the other elders. The only frustrating thing here is the fact that I can't say the things on my mind in Spanish. It is a huge handy capt when I am teaching because I know what I need to say, I just don't know how. But I'll get it. Just like it says in 1 Nephi 3:7 The Lord giveth no commandment unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way that they may accomplish the things he commandth them.  For example we ( my companion and I ) had a killer lesson planned for one of our investigators and when we went to translate it we had to go to a "last minuet meeting" for the Maestros. So we didn't get to translate it. It was so frustrating because we still had to teach. So we said a prayer and just went for it. The lesson went OK, but it wasn't the knock out we had in mind. But the spirit guided us and we didn't scare her off. We were very blessed to have the ability given to us.

We haven't had a Speak your language night yet, but tomorrow my companion and I are going to try to "no hablo ingles" Or not speak English. It is going to be crazy hard. Thanks for all your support
Love you for always
Elder Sorensen

My District at the MTC

July 3

Elder Sorensen and Elder McCallister
Provo Temple

July 2

Dear Family

Haha thats funny Abbie said that. Is Abbie still trying to move jacob out?

I bet Jess and Kate love having there own room, i know i loved it when i first got my own room. Thanks for the package i really apreciate the shirts and the shorts, and i really injoyed the oreos and kit kats. A big thanks for all the leters from the family, it meant alot :) a kid that rooms with me Elder Cummings isnt getting any mail from his family at the moment and its really starting to get to him. Hes writing a gilt trip letter right now. It probably dosent help that my compainion is the most popular person in the world and has 1 to 2 care packages delivered to him a day.  Im not trying to hint at sending me more packages, i don't need to compete.

My P-day is today (friday) so i got to go to the temple today, no i can't tell you what time we go. But it was awesome, it was powerful to get to go with all the missionaries in my district's. I didnt know that the session only took place in one room.

Spanish is comming, slowley but surly, we already teaching investigators, we started monday or tuesday (i cant remember which, the time is flying by) my companions first lession was really ruff. Our teacher just come in and and told us we were going to teach her. We had 30 sec to find all the phrases we needed to teach here the first lesson  So we bomed the first lesson. But i am proud to say that we rocked one of our lessons today, it was awesome. I've decided that not knowing the language is a huge handy cap when trying to teach. Yes, all of our investigators are RM's who speek english, but they are really good at staying in character. all of the people they act as, are people they got to teach in there missions.

So it turns out the DearElder can get mail to me the day you send it. I think they just print it of at the MTC/mission home. So when I'm in the mission field you can use that. but i like the hand written letters better. but still go look into it so you know how it works when i go to the mission field

Love Elder Sorensen

June 23

The MTC is awesome! I wish I could tell you just how awesome it is here, but I can't even start. When I got here one of my good friends from Cedar Badge, Jeff Hatch, was the one who took my bags and gave me a tour of the MTC. After he took my bags I went into one of the main buildings. I got my missionary name tag, my "White bible" and a room Key. Guess what my name tag is in Spanish. I still can't read everything on it, but i'm getting closer. I can sort of pronounce it.

It is true the first thing my teacher here at the MTC taught us is how to pray to "Nestro Padre Celestial" aka "our Heavenly Father". Spanish is going to be tough, but I've been told the gift of tongs is given to every foreign missionary here - just in different amounts.

I've got a good companion by the name of Elder Mcallister. He is cool. We have gotten along fine so far.

Entering the MTC

The last three months have gone by so fast and finally the day is here. We got up early and drove down to Provo, just the three of us. After a quick lunch at the Golden Corral we drove up to the MTC. We were greeted by two missionaries who opened our doors and got out the luggage. One of the elders just happened to have been at Cedar Badge with Tray. After a quick picture, and a quick hug the boys ran off and we headed for home. How exciting!!!

getting the call

 March 3 2011

The letter we have been waiting  for is finally here!!!!!!!

Any where but Salt Lake City!!! (or within driving distance for my mom)

Finally the day we had been waiting for was finally here!!
 After a big dinner and we opened up the call. Tray will be going to the Mexico City West Mission. He will enter the MTC on June 22. How exciting!!!

WhaHOOO!!!! Mexico City West !!!!!!!

      Everything is great here! I cant believe how smooth everything went the first day. First they took me through a line where i got my name tag and my white bible, and all my spanish material. It weighs a ton, i hope i have enough room in my bags to pack it all. I wish I took spanish in highschool, it would have been a great help.

     Haha thats way funny that abby wants Jacob to go on a mission. What did he do to not be friends with Abby? But thats funny, how does Jess like my room?

     Friday we had a devotional, guess who spoke?..... it was Elder Bednar who spoke! And there were 7 of the quorm of the 12 there and 5 of the 70's also in attendance. To say the least it was an awesome devotional.

     I also get a lot of study time here, three hours a day set a side where I have personal study. My daily schedual has been like this, I get up at 6:30 sometimes we get up at 6:15 so we can get a work out in before the day starts. Then at 7:10 we have breakfast, and then we have an hour of personal study. Then its into the class room, to learn how to teach. The only problem is that the teacher hardly ever uses English!! It is kind of frusterating because almost everyone here has taken a Spanish class before, in junior high if not high school. And i took German. So tell jake to drop italian and take Spanish. But its so cool here, I'm here with 6 elders going to the exact same mission, and 4 to other misison in mexico city. I even just figured out what my mission tag says, instead of the church of jesus christ of laterday saints, its the church of jesus christ of the saints of the latter days (but in spanish)

     It turns out that 2 shirts is way to little, and somehow i have over 7 pair of white socks. I have no idea how they got there, but they did. Also my gym shorts are to small, or my garments are to long. So if you could send me a shirt, and some gym shorts that would be awesome 

      -love