8-30-10 "The First Vision...at 15 mph"

Hello family. It sounds like everything is going well in good old Idaho. I cannot believe that Eli is already a third-grader. He looks so grown-up. I especially love the Converse. That's my brother, all right. Benny "The Jet" Rodriguez would also be proud. It's hard to belive that he's already that old, especially when I think back on a year ago, going "by the time Eli is in third grade, I'll almost be home. By the time Cassidy is a sophomore in college, I'll almost be home." Speaking of which, I'm not sure if December 1 is the exact day anymore, but I have been assured by President Hansen that I will be home before Christmas. As far as what needs to be done to get school set up, I will obviously have to be registered for classes. I should have everything all planned out already on my BYU account. I'll obviously need a place to live. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Good to know that the Colonial theater is still thriving. Speaking of which, Sister Layton and I were looking through my pictures and she actually knows the person who played Daddy Warbucks in "Annie." And someone named Carrie Darrington, which sounds very familiar to me, but I can't remember why, but it seems like Mom and Cassidy are the ones who know her. Plus, when we arrived at zone conference on Wednesday morning, Sister Layton was saying something about a song she likes about the stripling warriors, but I was concentrating on driving so I wasn't totally listening. But it registered in at least some part of my head, and so I said, "Who was that?" And she said, "My seminary teacher wrote a song about the stripling warriors." "Brother Kunz?" "Yeah." "He's my neighbor." So, yes, Brother Kunz, your fame has preceded you. She also wondered if you couldn't send the CD to us for our listening pleasure.

Zone Conference: Elder Kikuchi is amazing. It was such a blessing to have his wisdom with us. The predominant impression I got from him is that he is constantly in perfect tune with the Spirit. Not easy to do, and it requires you to go a a bit of a slower pace, but doing so leaves more room for others to learn by the Spirit. He shook everyone's hand, and I actually got to play the opening hymn. How often does one get to play the piano with a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy listening? He taught us that "tithing for the missionaries is obedience." You have to pay 100% of your tithing to be qualified for a temple recommend, so you have to follow 100% of the rules to be fully qualified for the Spirit. And you had to know he knew what he was talking about, that his testimony of that principle is true, because you cannot deny that he is living it and reaping the benefits. He also taught us to be very simple with our tracting approach, just asking people if we can ask them a few questions and asking about Heavenly Father and His plan for us. "You don't want to argue on the doorstep." True. We've already been using it a little bit, and so far we get some of the same reactions but at least now I'm not doubting myself, wondering if I'm tracting wrong or not listening closely enough to the Spirit that everyone lets us in. The final thing he taught us was about how to teach the First Vision. You have to go very slow. 15 miles an hour. Any slower, and it just gets lost and people don't realize what you've said. He first had some elders do a teaching demonstration, and then he critiqued them, but very nicely. And then he had Sister Layton and I do it. It was one of the most powerful experiences of my mission. As Sister Layton was telling the account from Joseph Smith history, I could feel the Spirit welling up inside of me so deeply. I knew in that moment that my efforts as a missionary were pleasing to the Lord, and those feelings were only confirmed when, after our demonstration was concluded, Elder Kikuchi looked at me and said, "I could feel your testimony even while you were not speaking." I knew that he was perfectly in tune with the Spirit of the Lord; I knew that he could not lie; and I knew I was a good missionary. It was a very good feeling.

We had something of a crazy Friday. Elder Kikuchi was still in town, and on Friday night we got a call from the zone leaders that he and President Hansen had received revelation that the Katy zone could have two baptisms on Saturday--unplanned baptisms--if we would start fasting and praying and then go out on Friday and teach our investigators the First Vision the way we had learned in zone conference and commit them to be baptized the next day. Well, in the end, we did have one baptism of an investigator that had been vacilating about her baptism for a long time, but it still put us out there and made us challenge investigators that we hadn't been challenging as much as we should have and it led us to get appointments with former investigators that hadn't met with missionaries in a while. Crazy.

Anyway, that's the news from Katy. Happy everything!

Love,

Sister Whitney Mikell Sorensen

PS Please shine!

PPS I have a bit of a cold, so I hope this all makes sense. My head is kind of stuffy.