Apostasy of Investigators

Greetings from Taiwan! 

Well, as the subject line implies, we are still in a little rut of having very few investigators. What do we do with this? We take it from a sign from Heavenly Father to focus our efforts elsewhere. We were pretty dilligent in setting up appointments to get to better know some members in the ward yesterday, and this week we will be meeting with a member family everyday this week. YES! Even two on some days. I'm super excited. One member family somehow tricked me into agreeing to treat his whole family Pizza Hut... I say tricked, but the thought of eating Pizza Hut made me super excited, so everything happened exactly how I thought it would. Maybe i'll be able to baptize another pizza delivery man? Who knows. 

Tuesday was one of those ALL FINDING death days. We were seriously sitting on our bikes from 1:00-7:00 looking for people interested in the gospel. We even tried to find some that weren't so interested. haha. We got to meet with the Lin family that lives in our part of Gaoxiong. They were really fun to talk to and are super solid in the faith. We got down there a little early before meeting them and decided to go tracting. We prayerfully selected a house, and the guy answered and told us we could come back the next week! So, we'll see what happens with that. It should be this weekend. That's probably the first time somebody showed interest in the gospel in all my attempts at tracting. Wednesday, they decided to have me teach Children's class (because my district thinks I have the most patience in that area), so I took a stab at it... don't worry... only two children left crying. Haha. It was actually pretty fun. I was just exhausted after about an hour. I told the parents that brought their kids that I would work the kinks out and be better able to teach this week. And some kids can't eat candy. I'll try bribing them with Tomatoes because EVERYONE here loves eating tomatos plain. They think it's a fruit here. Yuck. Thursday was Zone Conference, which means I got to go back to my home in Shizhong! We got there early and visited Brother Li, the 1st counselor in the bishopbric there who has a super cool breakfast shop. Yeah! It was super fun to talk to him. Zone conference was great and got us pumped to find people, so we got back home, went crazy in talking to people and... saw no success. Haha. But, we know that this is just a cycle that missionaries go through. A ton of investigators, baptism, no investigators, search for hours, finally find, etc... 

I want to take a minute or two to talk about Saturday. We are working with our only investigator name Dylan Lin. He's pretty cool. We met with him once last week and he didn't seem promising then, but we managed to set another time with him for Saturday. In the afternoon, we got a call from a guy that said "Hey. We want to eat dinner with you. We'll be by the church to pick you up around 6." ... Who are you? I was asking who he was because I couldn't find his name on any of our investigator sheets. He told me who he was. Oh.. I remember. You're that Investigator we met with last week but ended up living in the other Elder's area. Well, we can, we just have to be back for an appointment at 8. "Oh. It doesn't start until 7 and it gets over at 9" Oh. Well we'll have to leave early. He told us that there was probably no way. Okay. after hanging up the phone, Elder Noll and I felt that we should move our appointment that night to another day so we could go to dinner and meet more people. So, we did, I called the investigator back (Name is Zhang), and said we could go as long as we were back to the church for our bikes at 8:40. He said okay. I asked him more about the dinner. He said it's his mom and dad making food for some people and we were invited. Oh great! A dinner party where we could meet a lot of people. We met with our investigator Dylan, who actually felt really good about prayer and how it is literally talking with Heavenly Father. We taught the Plan of Salvation and talked a little more about baptism. He said he would have to think about it, but he was super interested in the Plan of Salvation and how Heavenly Father gave us this plan so we can eventually return to his presence. He maybe even cried during his prayer when we finished the lesson? I don't know. He may have just been laughing. We waited for Zhang to get to the church. He said the car was full, but we could sit on his scooter... we'll ride our bikes. I asked him where it was. Over by the Carrefour (like Wal-Mart)... oh great. It's that far. I asked where we were meeting and a little more about where it was because he said it wasn't at his house. He said it was at a place where people get together and eat and talk. "Is this at a bar?" I asked. He responded with "Uh... Bu Suan" which is a way of saying "Uh... doesn't really count as a bar but very similar." I said okay, we'll go see and if it's sketchy, we'll leave. I'm sure it won't be because his parents are the ones that are cooking. But his mom might be like the mom on Mean Girls... who knows. He told us to meet him at a "Boat world" or what I took as a Boat yard by the Carrefour. We were laughing so hard the whole way over. "We're totally going to get mugged" Elder Noll told me. The whole thing really did sound shady. Zhang was being super weird about it all. But, we had faith and determination, and a little bit of hope that maybe, just maybe we could get a new investigator out of this. Well, we made the 20 minute bike ride to the carrefour and saw them across the street at a furniture store called "Bed World" I laughed at myself. Bed and Boat in chinese are very similar sounding, just different tones. Okay. So it's a little less shady. We got there and kept asking them where this place was. It's in a building where there a bunch of business offices and such. Okay. So it's not really a bar. It might be a club or KTV. "We're not getting off this elevator if the doors open into a club... no matter how much fun it looks." I told Elder Noll when we stepped inside. The doors opened and it was just what they said it was, an office building. Okay. Not bad. We noticed a few middle aged woman dressed nice in their pink suits and wearing "Fine" jewlery. So, it's not a hooker house. We can get off the elevator. We walked into an office and Zhang told us "Yeah. We pay this receptionist 50 cents to pay for the food that everybody eats." Not bad. 50 cent dinner is okay with me. They then motioned us into a room. We walked in and my heart dropped. As if the 200+ chairs facing the podium and microphone in the front didn't give it away, the Amas and fancy dressed people googling over some super shiny nice pots did. We had walked into a conference room to witness the demonstration of some new cookware. I would have taken the club over this. Elder Noll said "I'm gonna kill you." and we just started to laugh. We sat down by our friend and everybody was staring at us. Some people came and talked to us, handing us their business card. So, we did get a couple of people's information. The presentation started where some cook showed us how to make a variety of dishes. She started speaking in Taiwanese at one point, looked at the two of us and started making fun of us, asking if we understood what she was saying. We just looked at her with blank stares and everybody roared with laughter. We were definitely the center of attention for a minute. I took it as an opportunity to say "Jesus Loves You" and they kept on with their presentation, ignoring my loving comment. I guess I should have gone with the "Oh ye children of hell!" approach. It might have gotten more attention. At one point, the M.C. let me come and pick up the lid off a pot to see how heavy it was and how good it worked at staying on during cook mode. After about thirty minutes of us sitting there, and after our investigator gave us a pill, which very well may have been ecstasy for all I know (actually. He told us it's a pill that get's rid of the fat in your blood stream after I had thought it was a mint that just tasted like brown sugar), Elder Noll said "I don't think we're going to get any food here..." While they were doing another demonstration to show what happens when you put cold water inside the super hot pot or something like that, everybody jumped up front to see, and we slid out the back. Zhang tried telling us "Wait. You haven't even eaten yet!" We told him we had to go, and so we did. We laughed the entire way home about the whole thing. Did we really just take an hour of our saturday night watching a cooking show? It was pretty awesome. I don't know if any of you think this is funny, but just know I was laughing at how stupid the whole situation was. I'll send you the DVD they gave me and you can tell me what you think. 

We've started reading three pages of the Book of Mormon everyday as a mission, and it's going great! I'm really liking it because I just started over a month ago, so I'm reading what I just read and getting a lot out of it. I encourage everyone to do the same. Just try and take a few minutes of the day to read three pages and soak in what you can. If some goes over your head, that's okay. You don't have a read one time limit on the Book. It's not going anywhere, so you can re-read it later. Just show Heavenly Father your willing to read it. Don't believe in Heavenly Father? Read the book and think "A crazy man wrote a book on getting closer to God that I don't believe exists. Why would he do that? I'm going to read it to prove it." and see what feelings you get. You very well may be surprised at what feelings you get afterward. 

I love you all! 

Love, Elder Mitchell R. Sorensen

          Elder Noll and I riding brooms at a garden on P-Day.

I forgot how much I hate Stinky Tofu (Letter #8)

Dajia hao!

Hello everybody! It's your favorite person in the world here, emailing from a shady internet cafe in Taiwan! Haha. I have a really big thing to say...

I'M LOVING IT!

Being back is totally awesome! I am doing so great! It is totally better than last time (in the aspect of happiness levels). Let me just go over the past few days:

I got to the airport and met the group of missionaries I was traveling with. Some of them were really cool and we became good friends. When we got to LAX, nobody wanted to listen to me. They all wanted to call on the phones in Terminal 3 and wait for an announcement for our plane to board... Uhhhh... dumb idea. So I FINALLY convinced them otherwise. Oh well. It was still fun. When we got around our gate, I got to talk with so many Chinese people! I was reminded of how much I love them right away. I met some woman who was a member from Houston Texas in the Mandarin Branch. Her name is Zhen Jiemei. She was on her way back home just to vote for the next President. Haha. Pretty serious business I guess. The plane was full and I was assigned a middle seat. Blegh. I was one of the last ones on the plane because my zone number was super lame. I got to my seat and I was sitting next to the member Zhen Jiemei (Jiemei means Sister FYI). She was so excited and said "I prayed to Heavenly Father that I wouldn't sit next to a fat person! I'm so glad it's you next to me!" I lauged so hard. The girl on my other side was living and going to school in America. We talked for a while about the church, and it was nice to have help from Zhen Jiemei. The girl said "Wow. I think there was a reason you two sat by me." I think we helped prepare her. Mid flight, I got up and walked around the plane and talked with people. I was standing by the galley and one woman asked if she could walk through the galley. I said of course. Then, some other woman came up and asked if she could fill up her water bottle from the galley. A little later, I was talking to some woman who was really funny. She was talking about how she just woke up and that's why she looked drunk. We were laughing so hard just talking that a real flight attendant came and scolded us for being too loud. Haha. I couldn't help it. Then the woman looks at me and said "You don't work here?" haha. apparently everyone thought I was a flight attendant. Haha.

When we got to Taiwan, I got so nervous, but excited at the same time. It seemed like it took FOREVER to get our bags and clear customs. Walking through the doors and seeing President Bishop was one of the best moments of my life. Sister Bishop said "I wish I could give you hug right now!!!" President Bishop and I cried when we hugged. It felt so good to be back. The next couple days at the mission home were not bad. I did not feel tired at ALL, even just running on four hours of sleep the past couple days. We went to a really fancy restaurant and I volunteered to eat the eye of a fish we were served. Nobody else wanted it, so I thought it would be good just to jump into the whole weird food thing. After that, we did Dan Jones where we stand on a box in the middle of a night market and preach/scream the gospel. It was super fun! OH. I also got to see Elder Siebert! He was in the office. He's so cool. We talked for a while before I was off to new places.

The next day, we met our companions. Trainer 2.0 is: Elder Oram from Kaysville. He's really awesome. Super hard working, but not a stiff. Haha. He's already helped me a ton with my teaching and chinese. Super great. I'm now in an area called ShiZhong. It's a district inside Gaoxiong (Kaohsiung)! So i'm pretty close to where I started! This is one of the greatest cities EVER!!! We've already started teaching a couple of great people. Wu Dixiong (Means Brother Wu) was hit by a huge metal rod at a factory where he worked. It hit him in the brain stem, causing him to get really sick and lose some functioning in his body, but he is still really happy and wants to go back to church. He stopped going to his church because they passed around a collection bucket, and he's spent all his money on multiple surgeries, he was super buhaoyisi (embarrased is a rough translation) about not putting money in that he stopped going. He came to church yesterday and loved it. I have good feelings about him. There was one Recent Convert that was baptized just a little while ago that I am super impressed with. We met with him last night and his testimony is SOOO strong. I was loving every minute of him sharing with us his new and improved life. I was reminded of why I love this place so much and why this work is so important. I know this gospel is true. I love everything about it. I know that Heavenly Father blesses us so much when we are faithful and do the things he asks. Keep the commandments and endure to the end. Life is just that simple!

I love you all! I'm super thankful for all of your prayers and support. The journey to get here has been rough, but it's the best thing ever!!! (I know. I've said that like 2 or 3 times). Keep the faith and know that I pray for all my friends and family at home daily.

Love,
Elder Mitchell Rhead Sorensen

P.S. - I still hate the smell of Stinky Tofu. HATE HATE HATE HATE.

Letter #7 from Elder Mitchell Rhead Sorensen

Hello Everyone!

Greetings from the mission field! This week has been a pretty good week! There is the usual homesickness that I get during study times, but it always leave when I go out and start my missionary work. I guess the reason for that is I'm too busy focusing on praying for safety as I bike than to think of home. Biking has been intense. One night, we had five minutes to get to our apartment, and we were a solid 20 minutes away. My companion, having trained his legs for the past year and a half, thought it would be alright to push it. I tried my best to keep up, but somewhere between dodging taxis, scooters, and hitting a pothole, I failed. He complimented my riding skills, because somehow, we made it back with a minute to spare. I guess you could count that a spiritual experience. Haha. Our investigators are great! We have had 9 investigators come to church the past three weeks in a row! It's always great to see their faces. I haven't been the one to find most of them, but there is one guy that I found, and he is loving the lessons! He is always very willing to meet. He's awesome. So the missionary work is good. The worst part of teaching lessons? When I don't have the vocabulary to teach, so I start to fall asleep when Elder Vance takes the reigns. I deserve "Worst Missionary for Teaching Lessons of Eternity" award. Haha. But I do my best. There have been a few firsts that have happened this week. One of the members of the ward named Yi Zhong, is the first one to compliment on my not so good physique. He loves squeezing my love handles when he sees me. He thinks it's the funniest thing ever. I had my first ice cream. It was soooo good! I don't know how to describe it, but the fruit in it was incredible! Maybe because it was my first ice cream in a month. Who knows. We went to the Zoo today, because it is Elder Vance's birthday tomorrow, and Yi Zhong wanted to take us to the zoo. I decided since it's my half birthday today, I would consider this a gift. The Highlight of the Zoo: We were staring at one of the exhibits, when a few monkeys came out of the forest and onto the path. People were taking pictures of them and having fun watching the monkeys. Out of no where, a man flies into the crowd and starts firing paintballs into the trees to scare the monkeys off. It was bizarre. I think it might be one of those "You had to be there" moments.
I'm still loving Taiwan! One of the negatives is driving past a stinky tofu shack on the side of the road. Rancid. But other than that, it's great. I'm progressing in talking to people, and still striving to help people join this church. I love the impact that this church has on peoples lives. It's great to see the joy that the truthfulness gives people. I still need your prayers, and thank you for the ones that you have already given me! I love you all so much! I look forward to hearing from you!

With All my Love,
Elder Mitchell R. Sorensen

Letter #6 from Elder Mitchell Rhead Sorensen

Hey everyone!

I don't have much time, so this will be brief. This past week marks me being here for one whole week in a transfer... and i'm barely alive! (Literally. I almost got in a head on collision with a scooter that cut a corner. Oh. And my muscles wanted to murder me in my sleep for tormenting them by riding my bike everywhere). I am still loving the people here! I don't know what they are saying, but I can tell when they are feeling emotions by the way they laugh and smile. I can't help but smile with them and try and put in my 2 cents. It's rough when I go and contact people on my own because I don't know what they are saying back, but I proceed anyway. Sorry this letter is so short. We had to do a power clean day where we deep cleaned our apartment. We're still not done, and we have to start proselyting in twenty minutes! So I must leave. Just know that I love you all so much! I ask that you pray for me. In learning this language and riding around the streets safely (they're pretty wicked. My companion compared them to a Star Wars battle, darting inbetween cars, scooters, busses, potholes, and the occasional old man on his jazzy). I look forward to writing you next week!

With All my Love,
Elder Mitchell R. Sorensen

Letter #5 from Elder Mitchell Rhead Sorensen *First letter from Taiwan!!

Greetings From Taiwan!

Okay. Seriously. Taiwan is soooo crazy! Haha. I haven't even been here for a week and I am loving it!
I left the MTC on Tuesday. FINALLY! I was there for such a long time! The airport was awesome and so were the flights. I'm glad I got to talk to all of you at LAX. Sorry some of our conversations were very brief. My calling card stopped working when I was supposed to have seven minutes left, the phone at some of my precious quarters without allowing me to use them, and all the stores in my terminal wouldn't exchange change. With that being said, I loved hearing from home. The flight here to Taiwan was most excellent! The plane was huge, and all of the people on it were fascinated with our chinese. I contacted the flight attendant while I was waiting in line for the bathroom. I told her about God is our loving Heavenly Father. She thought about it for a minute, and then sent me to another bathroom. Haha. I guess she didn't like that. That was my very first try at conversion, and it went pretty well :-) I only slept for two hours which really took it's toll on me later because our plane landed at 10:30PM and it wasn't until 11:30 that we had all of our bags. We took about a two and a half hour bus ride from the airport to the mission home. We did a little bit of orientation stuff, so no time to sleep. It was dark outside, so I didn't really get to look at Taiwan. We got to bed about 2:30 and woke up at 6:00. Doesn't that sound miserable? It wasn't. We went running and all I could think was... Wow. We were running through the streets of Taiwan! I could not stop looking around at all of the buildings, with their flashing signs, and advertising in characters. It was incredible! The people all stare at us as we run by. There are a TON of scooters. That's all everybody rides. There are very few cars. We got to the track and ran around for twenty minutes. The peole here are BIG on exercise. We had orientation at the mission home after that. We were fed a traditional chinese breakfast. Holy cow. It was seriously the best breakfast I have ever had! Bread dipped in soy milk, baozi (dumplings), some other bread, and a lot of fruit. It really was celestial. We did more orientation... and more orientation... and more orientation... we ate lunch at a place where we do hot pot (throw everything into a pot of boiling water and spices). It was pretty good. And then I was adventurous at dinner and tried some fish that they pulled out. It wasn't even fishy tasting. I could get used to that. The only negative about it was the fish waving high to me as it layed there, staring into my soul. The mission has a tradition of doing "Dan Jones Night". Dan Jones is the missionary that baptised thousands and he would stand on a box and bear testimony in big crowds... That's what we did. We walked to this really busy street. There were a ton of shops, and a ton of people. We all sung "Love at Home" and then one by one, called everyone to repentance. When we finished yelling on the box, an experienced missionary grabbed us, and we began contacting. It was really annoying realizing that everything you had practiced at the MTC wasn't understood by everyone. Haha. I couldn't even say Shen (God) without having to repeat it three times. Haha. But it really got me some good practice. We returned to the mission home and then to the apartment that the elders were staying at. I had a mattress the consistency of a brick, but I think it was the best sleep that I have ever had. The next day, we had a little walking tour of Taiwan with some of the zone leaders. We walked to a confucious temple. It was so neat to see some of the focus of Chinese beliefs. We went to the mission office and had a little more orientation and waited for President Bishop to tell us what to do next. As we were sitting there, anticipating over our companion and first area, I told everyone I was going to Kaosiung (pronounced - Gaoshung). I have felt like that ever since I saw one of my teachers pictures where there was a sign that said Kaosiung. Afterward, we went to the church and watched some footage of our Dan Jones night. To no surprise, I looked like an idiot, but it's fine. No one could understand me anyway. I'm not even sure I was speaking Chinese :-) We received a red envelope with our trainers name in it and where we were going. I got Elder Vance, and I was going to Daliao, an area in Kaosiung. Cool, right? Haha. We went to TGIFridays for lunch to get to know our companions. Elder Vance is awesome. He seems to know how to do everything right, so I'm really excited. I said goodbye to the missionaries that I have spent 12 weeks with at the MTC, and we were on our way. Haha. I wish you could have seen me. I wish I could have seen me. I was pulling my two big suitcases and duffel bag through the middle of the streets in Taichung. Haha. We walked a quarter of a mile to a bus stop and took that to a train station. We did some contacting while waiting for our train. It was more fun contacting this time because I wasn't in the middle of a lot of noise. We had a three hour train ride to my area. I looked out the window the whole time, staring in awe at rust covered buildings, rice fields, and the sun set. The sun set was way awesome! The sun looked so close to earth. That's when I thought "I hope they manufacture SPF 200 here." We got off the train, and got right onto a subway. Haha. It was a twenty minute subway ride to my apartment. Keep in mind, I'm still lugging my luggage around. We talked to some really nice people. The people here are so friendly. They are always trying to help me with my chinese, and show excitement that my chinese is as good as it is for being on island for 2 days. We did some proselyting for an hour, and then It was time to go back. Wow. What a day. The next day was my first real day. My bike wasn't at my apartment yet, so I borrowed Elder Vance's old companion's bike. I was super nervous. We had to ride to the church to fill up the baptismal font. It's about a 15 minute ride of scooters flying by you and people running red lights. Haha. I was used to it by the end of the night. Everyone knows how to drive here, so i'm not even worried about anything. There was a baptism, and I got to stand in the font with Wan Jiemei (Sister Wan). She is a really nice woman who fell out of a tree so she needed a second person in the font to help her. Even though I didn't perform the baptism, it was a special occasion for me to be there with her. We went and taught a couple of lessons. I mainly sit there and listen to it and pretend I know what's going on. Elder Vance will translate for me and then I say a couple of sentences. Biking from one house to the next is really working my legs out. Haha. I was thinking while biking "Even though my legs hurt and I'm really hot, it's always worth it when I visit those investigators." I already love the people here. Especially the ward members. They are all really friendly and loving. Everything about this place is really awesome, and I'm always thinking you would love it if you were here. I especially think of Amanda as the garbage trucks pass by playing ice cream truck music (there are people like you in Asia sister). Haha. Well, my time has come to an end. I can not describe my true emotions over email. I am really excited to be here. I got a little homesick this morning, but it passed once I got out onto the streets and realized where I am and what I am doing. I'm so thrilled that I get to be here and share the true gospel with these people. I know it's where i'm supposed to be and that it will go by really fast. I love you all! Please keep praying for me because I need them more than ever now. Talk to you next week!

With All my Love,
Elder Mitchell R. Sorensen

Letter #4 from Elder Mitchell Rhead Sorensen

Hello everyone!

This week has been a really good week for me. Our lessons are totally improving, and the spirit is so strong when we teach them. The language is coming easier. I can bear my testimony without having to really stop and think. Prayers are good in chinese. I still miss nap time :-( but i'm actually finding myself less tired recently (Thank Heavens).

In sacrament meeting yesterday, Elder Jenkins from my district played his arrangement of "I Believe in Christ", the spirit was so strong as he played. That's the spiritual experience I had for the week (sorry these letters probably aren't that juicy. The MTC is really monotonous and nothing really changes. It's all the same).

Something funny that happened this week:
My volleyball skills have improved Immensely (sp?) (And Amanda, more sisters play basketball than volleyball). Sister Bray is a sister that comes and plays but never touches the ball. We've started to get her to not be afraid of it. She's starting to get good... and so is my serve. When I served, I hit the ball with a lot of force... A LOT... Long Story Short: I didn't get it over the net. It went straight for the person in front of me... that was Sister Bray. It nailed her in the side of the head. Don't worry. She is fine. But I thought it was funny.

Anyway, there's not a whole lot more to say. It's all the same here. You lose track of days and are always looking forward to the next break. I love you all! Thanks for the letters/packages and the prayers. They really help! Write me more letteerrss if you can. I love them!

With Love,
Elder Mitchell Rhead Sorensen

Letter #3 From Elder Mitchell Rhead Sorensen

Hello everyone!

Some beginning announcements to make -
The last day for Christmas packages to be delivered by USPS is December 22nd, so if you want to send me some for Christmas (please?), make sure they are in by then. And if you want me to wait for Christmas to open them, just say so on the box. I will try and excercise all will power to wait.
Another thing, letters are AWESOME! Keep them coming. I try to write back in my free time (which usually is never. Sometimes I get 10 minutes if I'm lucky). But I get to read them every day of the week, and they are some of the best pick me ups. Mailbox # Changed to 360. Don't forget.

This week was really difficult for me. As we practiced a lesson, we totally went off course and started talking about stuff like Ordinances and Tithing. Those aren't in the first lesson. It was so bad, but it was very good for us to have that. We practiced a few hours later and tought the best lesson we've ever tought before. And then on Saturday, we tought at the TRC (they make us teach someone we don't know as if they are truly investigating). For the first five minutes, you are supposed to get to know them using just chinese. It is so tough! Haha. Half the time I just say the same thing over and over. How is your family? haha. But the lesson went well. Always room for imporvement. Later that day, we had this object lesson where someone out of a companionship is the "investigator" and their companion is writing on the board what you should say next (Holy Ghost). It got sooooooooo frustrating cause we would be way off topic and weren't saying what the "Holy Ghost" wanted us to say (no one would have been able to follow them. They are the French elders that already have their Masters degree). I was almost brought to tears (I know I know.... DQ). And that made me really stressed, but it led to a pep talk later given to us by Elder Gubbay telling us the only person we are racing is our best self. It was really helpful and definitely something I needed to hear.

I've always liked hymns before my mission, but being here has made me realize that I LOVE them. Every time we have a devotional, we do 3 prelude hymns. One of them that we sung yesterday was "Come Unto Jesus". I've never heard it before, but I really liked it. After firesides on sunday, they play movies. This week was the Joseph Smith movie. I cried so hard watching it! The spirit was so strong. It was wonderful.

We went to the temple this morning. I've realized how important temple work is and I love going. Today I especially felt the spirit while I prayed in the Celestial Room. It is such a magnificent place. Everytime I go through the temple though, I always think of my family and how I wish they were there with me :( But it's not about me, it's about others. I also thought of Alisha today and how I got to baptize her when we did some work at the Jordan River Temple. I can't wait to do it again!

Well, my time is running out. I love and miss you all! Keep the letters coming!

With all my love,
Elder Mitchell R. Sorensen