The Great Artisan

Alohaaaaaaaaa

      This week has been long but soooo goood! So many wonderful things have happened and are in the process of happening. I'm so excited for the upcoming months. We have had rain for 3 weeks straight. it reminds me of home. Sun. Rain. Sun. rain all in the same day. i love it tho it makes things interesting and fun! 

       Our area has been slow.  Almost every lesson and church tour we set up this week fell through. So it was a little discouraging. But Elder Jones and i know that the Lord is saving something great for us. Elder Jones is such a great leader. He is teaching me and helping me become the missionary i want to be for the rest of my life. I am so grateful for him and his example. He helps me do things that i am not normally comfortable with but he told me,

"when you have to do something you don't want to do, when its uncomfortable and hard, that's the Lord molding you"

****** I thought of a Great Sculptor with a piece of clay. At first the clay its rough, its course, full of  impurities, its plain and just a simple piece of clay. I imagined my self as that piece of clay. The Lord is the artist. He takes each of us by hand and starts pushing, kneading with his thumbs, he starts spreading us out flat, squishing and flattening, rolling and folding. How uncomfortable that would be. But after years of this process. After many long nights in the studio (My mom can attest) the Lord spends individually molding us, literally blood, sweat, and tears goes into a single piece of clay. We become someone we never thought we could become. We become a smooth, round, perfected piece of art. what comes to my mind are the Greek statues of their *Gods*. Christ literally molds us into such divine beings. Molds us into who we long to become, like our Father in Heaven.

The moral of the story, when we are tossed into such uncomfortable situations, things we wouldn't normally do, when there's pressure and heavy burdens weighing upon you, remember that it is the Lord molding you. You are in His hands. He is Perfecting you. Trust in him. For He is The Great Artist. He is the Creator. He is our Savior.   

i found a perfect scripture in Isaiah after i had this thought which was funny. 

Isaiah 64:8 "Yet, the Lord, You are our Father. We are the clay, You are the Potter; We are all the work of your hand"

    I also received a letter from a friend who re-emphasized an important principal of life and added some profound knowledge to this principal that i was taught by one of my best friends earlier a couple years ago. And that is seeing things with an Eternal Perspective.  Seeing my mission as 2 years to learn everything of this life to bless my future family and i in the next. She had me understand that i need to learn what it means to truly "Keep my Eye Single to the Glory of God". Nevah mind the fame, the fortune, the temporal vices we have in this earthly life. And to do my best to look to God for the rest of my time here on earth. This has helped me see my mission as an opportunity to know HOW life works, to learn HOW to keep the commandments, and HOW to enjoy to the end.  And everything else we are to learn in preparation of meeting our Father.

Now I think of my mission as "Earthly Paradise" no.. not the beautiful place where i come from but like "Spirit Paradise" where we go to wait, to serve, to teach and to lead others to Christ... after this life. No worries of the world, no distractions, somewhat resting from our troubles, and being able to fulfill our fathers will leaving all other affairs behind. To those of you who have served missions and who are currently on missions and those who know what missionary work is, doesn't that seem right? 

What a blessing it is to be able to feel what "Spirit Paradise" feels like. This may be Doctrine of Elder Soren but thats how i see it. It helps me appreciate  more of what God has given me, this opportunity to be a Full time missionary. To know what my Dad is doing and experiencing right now.  

I will continue to testify that Jesus Is the Christ and how much i love my mission.

I miss you all, Love you more

Stoked to Serve, 

Elder Soren

XOxoOOXXO

Elder Soren on Splits!

Elder Jones & a very cool creation!

From The Isles of The Sea

Solidddddddd

What's goooood?

        This week was great! we've had a ton of miracles! Life's good.

     We've been working our butts off this week. We found a whole house of 18 year old boys that moved in together! there's 6 of them all YSA AGE!!!! we taught all of them the first lesson. They were so humble and open to listen. Not to many 18 year old boys would listen to something about religion. So these are a special bunch. We're excited to hopefully start teaching them and helping them know the truth of the restored gospel!

     Sad news but good. Jaque is moving to Logan for school she leaves tmr morning. So we've been trying to see her a lot lately.  We had her start teaching us because she knows so much about the gospel haha we couldn't figure out what to teach her. we gave her scriptures and principals to teach us and she said it better than i ever could. She's been going out with the sister missionaries teaching. Its soooo awesome! We had her teach us about Sabbath day observance and keeping it holy. She said "During the week i get so stressed out with work and moving i just can't wait for Sunday to come! I look forward to Sundays so i can feel at peace and devote that day to the Lord." How great was my joy as Jaque testified and expressed her feelings about the Sabbath day. I am so happy for Jaque and her progression and learning. I hope one day she serves a mission.

       We had a missionary Musical Fireside Last night and it was awesome!!! there was a performance by some of the Polynesian sisters in our mission! Fiji, Tonga, Micronesia, and Samoa. Their song reminded me so much of home and they brought that cultural spirit into the room. Something that i miss more than i thought i did. I have a strong desire that when i come home to embrace more of my culture and learn more about the history, Language and so on. I took it for granted growing up. But now i miss it and want to be apart of it. It's crazy that being in IDAHO would i ever find a desire like this hahah. 

        SOOOO Sick i had FISH AND POI!!!!! a member who has a local restaurant always hooks it up with all the good hawaiian fooodd! i miss food.  

         Elder Jones is such an amazing missionary. I am so grateful for his example and dedication to the work. he has taught me so much and is helping me become the missionary i want to be. We get along really well together and love the missionaries we serve. it's so awesome. 

         I heard this story this week and i loved it and want to share it with you.

A man was walking along a deserted beach at sunset. As he walked he could see a young boy in the distance, as he drew nearer he noticed that the boy kept bending down, picking something up and throwing it into the water.
Time and again he kept hurling things into the ocean.

As the man approached even closer, he was able to see that the boy was picking up starfish that had been washed up on the beach and, one at a time he was throwing them back into the water.

The man asked the boy what he was doing, the boy replied,"I am throwing these washed up starfish back into the ocean, or else they will die through lack of oxygen. "But", said the man, "You can't possibly save them all, there are thousands on this beach, and this must be happening on hundreds of beaches along the coast. You can't possibly make a difference."
The boy looked down, frowning for a moment; then bent down to pick up another starfish, smiling as he threw it back into the sea. He replied,

"I made a huge difference to that one!" 

~Author Unknown~

       There are many of our Fathers children here on earth, How could we save them all? Could we possibly make a difference to every single one? No... But there will be people placed in our path that we can share the gospel of Jesus Christ with and make a difference to that ONE.

I love missionary work and i love these beautiful truths that have been restored through living Prophets today. What a blessing it is to be apart of something so extraordinary.

Love you all miss you much

Stoked to Serve 

Elder Soren

Cupcakes with Elder Jones

Pork, Poke, Poi - say that 3x fast

saw this mahu last pday hahah 

Bacon wrapped spammmmmm

Sister Faagai and Sister Collins 

Elder Woodshed and Erickson

Aug. 11. 2014

YOOOOOOOOO!

       This week was awesome! Things have been falling into place as they should and the work is moving forward. I love this area and i love serving in the young single adult stake. Everything is so good.

        I am so grateful for Elder Jones and his example. It has been a blessing to have have him as a companion. He is teaching me how to be more diligent and hard working. We have been working hard and loving every second of it. I'm glad the Lord has always blessed me with great companions to help me reach my potential. The Lord knows i need it ;) He has always blessed me with amazing people to look up to and learn from. I am very lucky for all my inspiring family and friends i have who have helped me get to where i am today.

       We were able to teach a lot of lessons this week. Mostly with Less Active members but we are seeing the miracles that come from going out and working. We have been able to meet some of our Heavenly Father's children who are really struggling in life. It makes my heart sad to see the sorrow within them and it motivates me to do everything i can to help them feel the spirit. I know that as we continue to have the spirit in our companionship we will be able to say the things that will be most beneficial to those we meet. 

        On Saturday we took our friend Develle on a church tour for our first lesson. It was awesome. Develle is African American and moved from Minnesota to go to school at ISU. He is the funniest person ive met in Poky. He reminds me of Tau always cracking jokes, getting super stoked about everything and saying words and phrases that ive never heard before hahah "Yeah my friend shes a hooper, She pretty crafty with the rock" (My friend playes basketball. She has a lot of tricks with the ball). haha i love it! We took him throughout the chapel, he had a ton of questions. He liked it a lot and has a great testimony of the Savior. We ended in the baptismal font and there we invited him to be baptized and he said YES. it was powerful to be in the font and invite someone to be baptized. We set a goal for baptism for Sep. 3rd and are excited to start teaching him about the gospel.

         There are planny of times where the mission gets tough but its when we are at the brink of giving up that success follows. 

          

          At MLC our President talked about how we as leaders are no more than servants. " when you go home no one will ask you if you were a district leader, a zone leader or and assistant on your mission. They will ask who did you serve."  

         I thought about this a lot that day. Often times we think about our position and life and sometimes it out weighs our real purpose to be servants of our fellow men. 

         We only have a short time on the mission to serve and then rest of our life to think about what we did in those 2 years. As with life we only have a few short 80-90 years if were lucky to perform our service unto the Lord. When compared to Eternity the 80 years here on earth is literally "But a small moment". 

        The Presiding Bishop at this past General Conference talked more about our "4 minutes" to do the best we can to prepare to meet god.

I am so happy to be a missionary. I am grateful that i still have a lot of time to serve as a fulltime missionary. But even more grateful to be a member missionary even after.

I love you all and hope your week was great like mine!

Stoked to Serve, 

Elder Soren

NEW COMP!

Si Siqua 

          These past 4 days have been soooo sick! I got a new Comp! Elder Jones! he's awesome! We call him General Conference Jones. Idk if yalls remember the general conference talk when President Beck talked about the girl who was bullied and the football team protected her? He's the one that Elder Beck was talking about! Elder Jones is one of the most humble guys i know. We are already best friends. We have been getting along so well and im stoked to be comps with him. He has been a great example to me these past couple days and has straighten me out! haha. 

         We already have had miracles! We were contacting some people but they werent home or too busy. We saw a couple talking on the street and we decided to talk to them even though they werent YSA age. The the guy just got out of jail and has been reading the bible. We talked with him and he was interested. But he said His LDS room mate was new to pocatello and has been looking for his ward. So he went in the house to get him. His room mate came out Matt was his name. He expressed how all day we was stressing out trying to find his ward in an unknown city. He was looking through phone books, calling numbers, doing everything he could to find a church. Matt just got out of jail 3 days ago too and wanted to become an active member again but didnt know how to or even where to start. He told us we were an answer to his prayers. We were so grateful to meet Matt. He happen to be YSA age. We invited him to church. And he came. He even bore his testimony.

       

           I'm looking forward to this next transfer and all the exciting things coming up! The Zone we have is stacked with great missionaries!  Even a sister missionary from Kapolei who knows Joe Fonoimoana, crazy. 

            

            I got to talk to one of President Pere's (grandpa!) missionaries on the phone!  An Elder Furniss. It was awesome to hear stories about him and how strict he was lol. 

           

 What a blessing it is to be a missionary. I love this work.  

Stoked to Serve

Elder Soren

Elder Jones and Elder Soren

Elder Duano, Elder Soren, & Sisters