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