Week 49

Hey Guys

Well it has been a pretty great  this week! We worked really hard to find some people and in the end everything worked out. We ended up having the 3 baptism!  We had 9 investigators and 9 less active people at church. The ward missionaries were pretty happy to see that all their worked paid off. It was really cool.

The people that got baptized are Yajaira, Johana, and Dalenber. They are a family. Their mom has was also at church Sunday, so maybe pretty soon we will be baptizing her. She plays a lot of bingo which is a pretty big thing here, and so she usually can not go to church on Sundays.

We will not be having any baptism this week, but the next week we should be having 2 more. They are named Rodrigo and Ediin. Rodrigo is 18 and his mom and sisters are members, he just never wanted to be baptized until now. Ediin is 12 and his cousins are the family who got baptized and he too would like to be baptized.  

We were busy working to teach a lot of people and thats about all we did this weeSorense
nt to find a bunch of people and had quite a bit of success in the end. We are going to have another great week and it will be fun to see who gets to church this next week. I hope everyone has a great week!

Love, Elder Sorensen

 

Week 50

Hey  guys!

Well we had another great week here in Diamante. We have been working hard to find some people to teach. It is pretty cool to see how some people are put in our path because it is their time to be baptized. We will be baptizing Rodrigo this week. We are pretty excited and his mom is too. It should be a great baptism. We have a family home evening with them tonight to get him more excited. Justin went out of town so he was not able to get to church but he should get baptized the next week.    

One thing that was really cool this week is the ward went to the temple. We were getting everyone of the converts excited to go, and in the end all of the recent converts were there. It is pretty cool because there is a lot of young men and young woman that are helping and getting their friends to church and they are starting to see the success of doing it. 

We also have another investigator names Mercedes. She is seems to be really interested and she went to the temple too. She just was outside of the temple, but she told us that she liked it alot. She was at church last week, and liked it too. It is pretty funny because as we were teaching her, one of her grandkids walked in, and it turns out he is a member that just has not been going to church.   

 Well that was pretty much our week. We worked hard and are starting to see the success of our work. I hope that everyone has a great week!

Love, Elder Sorensen

Week 48

Hey! 

Well some big news! I was transfered last week. I got the call Monday night at like 9 that I had transfers and had to be in Guayaquil in the morning at like 7. So I got my stuff packed and left. I am now back in Guayaquil in the sector Diamante. My companion is Elder Munoz from Hondorus. 

We will be having three baptisms this week, so I am pretty excited. There are 2 other people that could also be baptized we just got to get them excited for it, so in all we could have 5 baptisms this week if we work super hard. I am pretty excited about it. This ward is really cool. We have some ward missionaries that help us alot. They leave with us to help with visits every day for the entire day. It has been nice and they have helped us alot. We have a lot more people going to church in this ward too. There is 130 active members right now. My companion tells me that last month when he got here there were 70 people attending, so it is on the rise. 

Oh, and when I got here there was some other great news. Elder Williams is in the zone too! So I will be able to talk to him on Tuesdays and Saturdays. So I am pretty excited for that. Christmas was the last time I saw him. We had 8 people at church yesterday, and a bunch of less active people too. There is a lady we did not think was going to go to church because we went to her house and she was not there. We got to church and then like 20 minutes later she walked in with her kids, so that was pretty cool. 

It is very hot all week long. I forgot how hot it is here. The heat you can not leave it behind! The shade is just as hot as it is out in the sun. Everywhere you go is just hot! I am starting to get used to it again. 

Well that was my week, we have worked really hard and it was worth it because we had 8 investigators at church.  I am excited to see what we can do here in Diamante!

Love, Elder Sorensen

Week 47

Hey guys!

Well it has been another week that went by really fast! It is pretty crazy how fast the time is going by. We talk a lot of people and found a less active member that is pretty cool. Termo was at the church again so that was pretty cool. He is doing good he only needs to go to church one more time to get baptized, and get married too, but they should be doing that pretty soon. 

Termo is doing really good. His wife is doing really good now and they recently had their baby. His wife gave birth to the baby 1 and 1/2 months early, but the baby is doing good. It is cool to see how much Termo has changed. We actually met him like 3 months ago and he did not want to listen to us at all. But having his baby born and everything has really changed him. He went to church with his wife's and her 2 daughters. His wife Ximena is a member. She is the Aunt of Xavier. They are all doing good right now and they will soon be married,  then Termo can get baptized. 

We have been teaching Martin too. He will be getting out of classes next week than he can get to church. He has a plan to get baptized the 25th of July so we are pretty excited for that. We only have to wait a little bit longer until he is out of classes.

We also met a less active member Enrique Muñoz. He is really cool, and he is the reason the bishop in this ward got baptized and he baptized our ward mission leader. So hopefully he can help us out with some more great references. 

Overall it was a good week. The time went by super fast and I am excited to work every week I have here in Cuenca. I think I am going to end up serving like 1/4 of my mission in this sector. I am coming up on 5 months here. 

Well I hope that everyone has a great week! 

Love, Elder Sorensen

Week 46

Hey guys!

Well it has been a pretty good week! We found a new investigator that is interested in the church. His name is Termo. He was at church on Sunday and it seemed like he really enjoyed church. The members were really nice to make him feel welcome.

 

David is doing really good. He loves the church and is still reading the Book of Mormon every day. He told us that last night he was on the church's web page and he was up until 2 watching all of the videos of the church. He will be receiving the Priesthood  this Sunday. He has had his interview and everything.
 

It was the end of the Corpus Christi Celebration were they sell a whole bunch of candy on the street, so that was pretty sad. There was some really good brownies that they were selling. They would shoot off fireworks every night for it too. We were not able to see them though because it starts late.

 

Well that was my week. I hope that everyone has a great week!

Love, Elder Sorensen



Corpus Christi Celebration

Week 45

Hey!

Well it has been a really good week! We got a lot of stuff done and I ate something that I have never eaten before. To end it all off we had the baptism! It will definitely be a week that I will never forget!!!

Well most of the days we spent getting David ready for the baptism and finding other people to teach. The time sure did go by pretty fast and we had a good time doing it.

The baptism of David was a pretty experience. He got baptized at 8 in the morning, so we had to get up at 4 to start filling up the baptismal font. He arrived at like and he brought his parents too. We were pretty scared because he told us that his Mom said he could investigate the church but not be baptized. He had made his decision that he would get baptized the night before. When we saw them we were pretty scared that they were there to stop the baptism, but the went to support their son. It was cool after he was baptized he bore his testimony and his Dad started to cry. It was a really cool experience and I hope that his great example will help his parents get baptized too. We have a family home evening planned with them so I am excited to see what happens with them.

In the afternoon is when I ate the new thing. It is something common here in Cuenca.  After 4 months here it was about time. It was Guinea Pig! It is called Cuy here. It is not as bad as I thought it would be. It just tastes like any other kind of meat. It was quite the process to cook it. (about 1 hour). The member thought it was pretty funny because most gringos don't eat it I guess. She was laughing the whole time.

(I think he has been looking forward to this his whole mission...)

Looks like those Pro Start cooking classes really paid off!

                                    

           

We also had stake conference yesterday. It was a good conference. I really like the Temple President's wife's talk. She does not know Spanish, so she just read what was written on a paper. After,  I asked my companion if he could understand her and he said yes, just about all of it. It was cool to see that when the Lord wants his children to learn, it does not matter how well the person knows the language.

Hot Pepper

Dinner with 1 of 2 families that cook for the missionaries

Well that was my week. It was a good one! It will be a week to remember! I hope everyone has a great week!

Love, Elder Sorensen

Newspaper article written about the service project that they did last week.

Week 44

Hey guys!

Well it has been a pretty good week once again. We had some good times and it looks like this next Saturday will be a good one!
David was at church again and he now has attended church 3 times. That means that this Saturday he will be baptized. I am pretty excited for his baptism! Now we need to convince him to go on a mission. It would be pretty cool if he ended up going. And I think he would like to do it so we will see.

We also had a service activity on Saturday. It was a lot of fun. We went to a part of Cuenca up in the mountains to clean up some garbage and then plant trees. It was pretty cool because the mayor of Cuenca was there to thank us. It had a really pretty view up their too. We could see all of Cuenca. It is crazy how big the city really is.

Everything else was pretty much the same. Just going around and finding people to teach and everything. We will be having a family home evening with the Perez family so I am excited for that! 

Well I hope everyone has a great week! 

Love, Elder Sorensen

Both Cuenca Zones during service project

Zone

Zone with Cuenca behind them

Cuenca

Elder Sorensen & Elder Aliaga

Elder Sorensen & Elder Childs

 Sorensen &Elder Elder Bleazard

Sorensen Saturday Service Selfie