2020-02-24: Training Two!!

New missionaries with their trainers with
President and Sister Whitesides.

HELLO!!! This week was pretty crazy and super awesome!! Last week we had transfers. So I spent Monday and Tuesday with Elder Norton. (He was my comp when we were in Bolivia. Now we are in the same zone, and we are both training.) We worked super hard together, and we had some awesome lessons. We were both super happy to finally have a good comp and lessons that flow well. It was awesome. Wednesday we went to Cali to receive our new comps. They are brand new, fresh out of the MTC. And turns out... we are both training two new elders. So now I’m with Elder Ortigoza from Guatemala (from San Felipe) and Elder Ferreira, from Cartagena, Colombia. Elder Ferreira is going to the Ecuador Quito Mission, but he doesn’t have his visa yet so he will be here for a while. We don’t know how long. They are both awesome missionaries and super excited to work hard. We got back to Cerrito Wednesday night.

Since then, we have being working super hard, learning how to teach and contact and all that awesomeness. We’ve been finding lots of awesome people, and we have several awesome, awesome investigators progressing really well.

This week we had an awesome lesson with Nicol. She’s only 13, but she’s super smart and has gone to several different churches looking for the truth. She loves reading the Book of Mormon and has a very strong testimony about its truthfulness. We taught the Plan of Salvation, and she quickly realized where she is right now and told us, “I need to start taking this more seriously, and I need to get baptized.” WOOOOO!!! She is planning to be baptized the 7th of March. GOD IS GOOD.

We have also been working with Rainir and his mom Reina. They are awesome. Rainir is an industrial engineer and very smart. He just listens intently and accepts everything we teach him. He is reading the Book of Mormon and praying lots, wanting to know if it’s all true. And he came to church on Sunday! GOD IS GOOD.

We also found this awesome family. The son/dad’s name is Segundo. We haven’t really got to know the entire family. They are all aunts and uncles and cousins living in the same house. Segundo is the most interested, and we had two awesome lessons with him this week, and then he came to church on Sunday! He is going to travel in March, but he told us he would like to keep learning and going to church in April.

Talking with Elder Norton, we discussed how many awesome people there are that haven’t heard this message yet and really are waiting to hear and act. We decided we need to contact like crazy and find the elect people that God is preparing. This week I’ve definitely seen the truth of that. We found lots of awesome people, and we are starting to drop the people that aren’t progressing. How do we know they aren’t progressing? They decide it themselves. We invite them to read the Book of Mormon or go to church and if they don’t comply, they show us that they aren’t willing to learn more. It’s been very interesting.

We also talked about the discouragement and how to avoid it. As a district here in Cerrito, we talked about all the things that are tough for us and that discourage us. Then we talked about how we responded to those things. And then we decided to change our reactions to each rejection. Attitude is everything in the mission. It makes the difference in everything. Rejection is inevitable in the mission. The difference is how we respond and react.

Life is good. God is good. My comps are learning quickly to overcome their fears :) Our area is awesome. I love being a missionary. I know the Book of Mormon is the word of God. I know this is the true church. I know Joseph Smith was a prophet and really saw God and Jesus like he says he did.

Les amo

Elder Sorensen