Monday, January 23, 2017
Music of the Gospel

I started off my email this afternoon with one from the BYU admissions office. "Elder Sorensen.... it's time." It sent a shock of anxiety through me. I submitted my application paper to President Barrow (he has to endorse it), and it looks like I'm re-enrolled and back on track to begin school at BYU in a few months. Yikes. No time to think about that now. I still have plenty of time.

My companion and I got to travel back to and spend a couple of hours in beautiful Tongyoung this week to exchange with the missionaries down there. It was strange going back. Like stepping into a distant memory. The last image in my head of Tongyoung before leaving 8 months ago was of a rainy, misty morning watching the islands pass outside the bus window and wondering if I would ever be back. Walking those streets again, it felt like I had never left.

Mom, you asked how we get around. Masan has no subway system, but it is a decent sized city so it has a pretty good bus system. Mostly, however, we just walk. Lots and lots of walking. The Changweon zone contains the areas of Masan, Jinhae, Dogye, Miryang, Sancheon, Jinju, Tongyoung, and Geoje, so when we travel to one of those areas we take a large intercity bus. The furthest areas from us are Tongyoung and Sacheon, each about a 2 hour bus ride away.

We committed a second one of our investigators to baptism this week, a 25 year old boy named Jo Jaemin. If things hold out, we have one baptism scheduled for February 5th, and one on the 12th. We are seeing so many miracles here every day. People are opening up to us! We are also seeing lots of rejection. Many people give us a chance to share our message, but when we ask them to read the Book of Mormon and pray about its message, it surprises me how many people just flat out say 'no.' In many of our meetings with people, the Spirit is very powerfully present. And yet, people still say no. It's difficult for me to understand sometimes, but everyone has their agency. We are offering people evidence of the restoration of the gospel, and all we are asking them to do is look at it, but many refuse. It reminds me a little of Moses and the brass serpent. Because of the easiness of the way, many perish.

Tomorrow we will be holding zone training meeting here in Masan. Many of the thoughts that I wish to share at tomorrow's meeting are about the "music of the gospel." I thought a lot about how for many years, I really didn't care for classical music. To me, it was just noise. Nothing special. Maybe a little boring. As the years went by, and as I learned more and more from mom and dad about music, and especially as I attended concerts and worked in the garage with dad, I began to develop a love for the classics. Slowly I went from hearing just noise, to hearing real music. My last couple years of high school, I spent lots of time driving by myself and listening to things like Chopin and Ravel and such.

I believe our love for the gospel develops in much the same way. For many who reject us, our message is simply "noise" to them. The joy of the gospel is experienced only when we come to hear the music. That "music" the gospel brings is a personal witness from the Spirit that Jesus is the Christ. The trick for all of us is to turn that "noise" into "music," as we come to know that Jesus Christ lived and died for us, and that this is His restored church.

3 Nephi 11:3

"... nevertheless, and notwithstanding it being a small voice, it did pierce them that did hear to the center..."

Much love,

Elder Sorensen