We Love Peten!

My favorite part of the week was learning how to make empanadas. Like 3 times a week this Evangelist church is always selling these delicious empanadas from these cute old ladies. We are best friends and they love me. So one day one of them asked if I wanted to learn how to make them and last Saturday we went to her house and learned. Love sees no religion. haha

Also,  Hna Faught's last lesson with our favorite investigator,Jorge Mario. He bought us a whole pizza to say goodbye to her! But is was soooo funny because one of the members we brought said 'oh! That is so nice to buy to say goodbye to Hna Fuaght!' And he just says 'whos's Hna Faught?' He can't ever remember our English names!

Mom asked for my favorite scripture of the week, so I will answer all her questions, because I love her.  I loved 2 nefi 1 :15 this week  "But behold, the Lord hath redeemed my soul from hell; I have beheld his glory, and I am encircled about eternally in the arms of his love." I  realize what I sinner I am sometimes and God really has saved me from hell... how beautiful to think that we are always encircled in his arms.  Also, one day we went and taught one of our investigators about the restoration! She was so mesmerized and excited to hear that we have a prophet on the earth today!   This week we had interviews with Pres. and Hna Curtiss. We were talking about the attributes of Christ. (right now I am working on Charity.. no matter what happens I always find myself coming back to that one....) I just got started to thinking the only way we can ever really know our Savior is when we are not only studying about him and getting to know him, but really striving to be more like him. I can feel myself becoming nearer to him when I make changes in my life.

It is soooo hot, but we are dealing with it by putting on sunscreen and fanning  with folletos.... and walking in the shade.. haha  So you ask what was the best and worst thing that happened this week.  The worst thing that happened is this week, we were basically swimming we were sweating so much, but we did A LOT of contacting. Yesterday Jorge Mario was the only house we entered... even the members were gone. I felt sad that Hna Faught had to end her mission on a sad day like that.  To describe the last week with my dear Hermana Faught:  Really depressing. I was so ready for the week to be over. But sad a la vez because I knew I would miss her a lot!  So, I had a roughish week but also, always good! We did  lots of contacting and I was pretty anxious cuz I knew Tiana was getting home. Well that was fine, but today I had to say goodbye to Hna Faught and I just cried my eyeballs out! It was reeeaaalllyyy embarrasssing but I just am getting so sad of saying goodbye to people I love. And as the STL,  we had all these other sisters in our house for changes.   I just got them busy and started them playing janga while I went to the bathroom and cried cuz my heart hurt from missing Hna Faught, and Tiana and  you  and Liz and my sisters. Ugh. But I did what you said, and turned it around!  I prayed to stop looking at myself and serve all the cute missionaries in our little room and I taught them some games and we laughed and I just was happy to be in the moment! But it was sad for a second. But now I am good!

Hna Gomez from Mexico is my new companion and she was with Hna. Faught for 6 months.  She is SO CUTE! I am way stoked to be with her. Plus I will improve my Spanish!

 What are you looking forward to? Elder. Alonso from the Area Presidency is coming down to talk to our mission! I AM SO EXCITED! I know he will give this mission the motivation we need to see more success.

 How is the area and the apartment that you live in?  Area... hot... Apartment... small but I can't complain because we have a big fridge and I find myself frequently shoving my head in the freezer when we come home to fill up our waterbottles. We are renting a room so we have 2 room things next to us... I will have to take pictures. But one of the rooms is of our Dueno (Landlord) and he always sits out front with his shirt off and pants unzipped... whenever we have a problem and have to talk to him about it, he blames it on me....

One of the biggest problems I see with the sisters we help out is a lack of self confidence. It is pretty depressing. Here we have the cutest girls in the world! Just sharing the gospel but Satan is just so smart and always whispering things in there ear. It is hard because I know that it really prevents them from reaching their full potential

 Best advice for someone preparing for a mission?  BE OBEDIENT! Obedience brings blessings. No matter how stupid the rules may sound they are for your good and if you follow every single little one, you will see miracles.

Love you all!

Dearest family!

 This week, I not only had plenty of sunshine in a happy spiritual and funny way, but also a very literal sense. It's HOT FOLKS! The sun just attacks you. We had to go and sit down in the shade a few times this week for five minutes so that we didn't turn into roasted human beings. However, I am still alive and using sunscreen like nobody's business, so thank goodness for that invention.

This week we saw some pretty lovely miracles! First of all we had divisions on Tuesday, and I was reunited with Hna. Guerrero! We were very happy, but also we weren't having a very lucky day. We had an Hna. Come from the ward with us on some visits, and after contacting for an hour, she told us that there was a sister in the ward who is super, super sick. So we went to go visit her. It was sooo sad! The sister was just laid out on her bed when we got there and her husband was feeding her a bottle. Apparently she has a tumor or something on her brain and her body is just slowly giving out every day. Well,she can't talk so we just sang a hymn and then she fell asleep and we washed some dishes for her husband. After washing we started talking to the husband and it turns out he actually isn't a member of the church. He had attended a few times and felt the peace there, but it never really called his interest. Well, let me just explain to you, in the short hour we were there all he could talk about was how much he loved his sweet wife. We are talking the movie 'The Notebook' people. I HAVE FOUND ALLI AND NOAH! Haha!  But he was so cute! He says he prays for her so much! It was so exciting for us to be able to tell him a little about the Plan of Salvation. That God loves his children enough that we will see all of our loved ones beyond the grave. He was so excited and wants to know more! I just know that it wasn't coincidence that God sent us there exactly at this time in his life.

Today for P-day we went to some caves in Flores.... without a guide.. cuz' apparently we didn't want to pay for one. Well.. it was very dark and wet and muddy and we were climbing on our bellies and swinging on ropès and really just trying to find a way out cuz'. . . . . It was sketchy people. On the other hand, a giant adventure. We liked it alright.

Everyone remember to keep applying their general conference goals!

Happy 1 year mark to me! How weird is that!? 

Hna. Sorensen

Happy Easter Weekend! WOOT WOOT WOOT! I hope everyone was as spiritually fed as I was. I am dying thinking about waiting another 6 months but the last wait wasn't too awful, I guess it's alright when you are busy!  We watched General Conference in a room in the church with all the other English speakers, haha. I LOVED E. Bednar’s talk. I loved when he gave the example of Peter walking on the water. All he had to do was focus on Christ and he wouldn't have fallen. But he looked away for just one second. One TINY second and fell. How often are we looking at the world and not at Christ? Just that tiny second is what will bring us down. So I am putting goals of how I can stay 100 percent focused on my Savior.

You asked about where we serve and travel as sister leaders.  I think the farthest we travel usually is Poptun. It is 2 hours from here. This week we went to San Andres again though and it was 45 minutes. However these are nothing compared to the Coban trips we take for consilio, which are 6 hours! We left last Monday at 3 in the morning and came back on Tuesday. We traveled A LOT this week. But it is fine because Guatemala is BEAUTIFUL AND GREEN!  I get to see a lot of scenery.

So funniest moment of the week was our bus ride back from Coban. We have 8 of us on the bus; Hna Faught and I and the 4 Zone Leaders from Peten and the Bakes. Well, it was starting to get late and we were almost to Peten when one of the Elders starts to play the EFY music on his little Portable DVD Player. It was SO funny because all of us have heard these songs SO MANY TIMES on our missions and none of us even said anything, we all just started singing at the top of our lungs the EFY music. It was just funny cuz’ most of those elders are the serious Zone Leaders who are all business. But that's what happens when you are on a bus for 12 hours in 2 days!

This week we tried to share the gospel with EVERYBODY, and nobody at the same time haha. Semana Santa is a little crazy here and everyone just left to go to the beaches. The streets were dead. So we just found whoever we could and watched the “Gracias a que El Vive” video. Can I just tell you people if you haven’t watched it yet, DO IT NOW! It was such a cool experience. No matter who we found, we just pulled it out of our backpacks on our little portable DVD player. We watched it in doorways, in the street, porches, gardens, you name it! People let us borrow three minutes of their time. But every time we watched it, I would just watch their faces and get all excited because I could see that they felt the spirit! And I knew that that they were recognizing something. And then it is just funny because we ask if we can come back and they say “Nope, I’m Catholic, or Evangilist.”  And I just want to shout at them like 'Helllooooo i know you just felt something SO special!' Gosh dang that albedrio.... SO we did a lot of contacting but not a lot of work with our progressing investigators.

This week I did splits with Hna. Portillo from Hondorus. She is the cutest, shyest little girl! But it was SO funny! We just showed the video and laughed. We only do 24 hours splits so in the morning we took the bus back to San Andres.

Hermana Faught is doing great in her final weeks.  We are working hard. She is scared to go home and not happy that they talked so much about marriage in Conference. She is getting tired of running with slow me and has changed to doing the circuit workouts that Mally sent me the beginning of my mission... awkward. I am just working on my stretching because I can't touch my toes....

Celebrating Easter was interesting and very Catholic here.  Yesirreeee. I was going to send pictures buttt...#Guatprobzzzz. We saw a lot of the cool rug things they draw on the road! They get like... I don’t even know, sand or something and it is SO BEAUTIFUL! ?And then in the night is kinda scary because they carry this giant Jesus statue with a virgin Mary behind and swing incense and play scary Star Wars Music and everyone just follows behind like a parade. We watched for a little second when we were passing by, and it just made me sad to see Jesus up there dead. However, to each his own! It was a fun different cultural experience.

 IT IS GETTING SO HOT! But we are hot and happy. Also, fun little side story/comment. It is so hot here at night so we have our little fan on all night long, and then I freeze icepacks and put them all over my body to feel better.    –Kewl. . .  bye

Love you all! Have a good week!

Hermana Sorensen

I Am Guatemalan.

Me, thinking of my dear sister, Kenzy and her baby boy!