Monday, February 22, 2016

"This day we sailed on ..."

Annyeonghaseyo, everyone.

First, I am so sorry that none of my emails went through last week. As you probably know (because it was a worldwide thing), myldsmail.net was having some problems. We were informed at zone conference on Thursday that none of our emails had gone through, and to try and resend them ASAP. I'm still not sure if all of them went through. Hopefully you get this one.

It was a good week. I can't get enough of the ocean air and the beautiful country.

On Thursday and Friday I went on exchanges with the one and only... Elder Oh Euichan (my trainer). He is the new zone leader for my area, so I got to go up to the city of Masan and spend a couple of days with him. It was wonderful to be back together for a short time.

We are working really hard to find people to teach here in Tongyeoung, but so far we haven't had much success. We spend most days out knocking doors or proselyting. As difficult as rejection is, I still feel my purpose burning inside me, and I know that somewhere, there is someone who is looking for this gospel. And I know that the Lord is aware of our efforts here, and He will lead us according to His will. In the words of Elder Bednar: "Extraordinary things come from ordinary people doing simple and correct things before God." I know as we keep working and we keep putting forth our best effort, God will provide the miracles.

Speaking of miracles. We actually do have one investigator, and his name is Ravee. He is from Sri Lanka, and only speaks a small amount of English. We taught him the Plan of Salvation, and he left with the biggest smile on his face. Immediately after meeting, we left the church building and right outside, in the dark, we ran into a man named Mohammad from Pakistan that we have run into three times in the past week. We talked to him a bit, then left him waiting in the dark outside the church as we ran home and grabbed a Book of Mormon in his native language (Urdu). He started reading right away, and we set up plans to meet again.

In the Book of Mormon, it talks about one of the signs of the times being that the Jews will come to know that they crucified the Christ. Both Ravee and Mohammad mentioned that in their religions they believe that Jesus was only a prophet, not the Messiah. I find it interesting that the two investigators we have come from Muslim backgrounds...

I read this morning an excerpt from a talk from President Monson. He briefly relates the journey of Christopher Columbus. While searching for the new world, with the setting of the sun and another day gone by without finding what he had been looking for, Christopher Columbus recorded in his journal multiple times the simple line, "This day we sailed on."

Sometimes that's the trick, isn't it? Part of the journey is to just keep going, to keep trying, and to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Eventually, Christopher Columbus did find what he was searching for, and his journey had an end. And so, my simple thought for this week is to just "sail on." God knows you, and He loves you, and He is and forever will be guiding your journey.

And so, this week we sailed on.

Love you all,

Elder Sorensen