Reuben's Baptism :)

Dear Family and Friends,

     It has been a wonderful week! So much has happened that I don't even know where to begin. Well first off Reuben got baptized this last saturday. What a beautiful day that was and it was such a great baptismal service. There was another guy named David that the elders worked with that was just baptized with Reuben as well. Reuben's family was all able to come as well. Both of Reuben's grandmothers came and they are both non-members so it was so great to have them there. This area is amazing and so much work is being done. Brother Baker (our ward mission leader) mentioned that the 4 elders serving in our ward are really struggling because they have never had so much work to do in their life and they are struggling with prioritizing their time to get everything done. We need to teach them a little bit about stress management. haha!

   So many miracles have happened this week that I think the best way to do it is to write them in bullet points.

 - Last monday night we had dinner with the Travers family and they invited a friend of theirs named Felicity. She is a 21 year old girl but is a single mum with a boy named Will who is 5 years old. We had a wonderful dinner with them and was able to teach Felicity. She is so keen to learn! We are so excited to be working with her. She actually just came to church on her own on Sunday and we were so happy to see her there. We feel like she is the next one to be baptized because of her great desire and we are praying that she will accept.

-This last week I went on trade offs with a sister named Sister Elliot. She came into my area and so I was taking her around. Sister Schwab left me with a lot of potentials to go try again. I felt the need to try this woman who lived in Belconnen. She didn't even know the name of the woman, she just thought it started with a "W." All we had was the address so we tried it. We walked up to the door and knocked on the door. Soon after someone came through the gate behind us and invited us in without even asking us who we were. So here I am not knowing who this is, no name, nothing and they just openly invite us in. And so we walk into this home and we sit down introducing ourselves and getting to know what their names were. They then asked us who we were and what denomination we were apart of. So then I realized that they didn't even know who we were but they are islanders so they are so welcoming and invite everyone in. So we begin to tell them more of who we are as missionaries. They said that they were from a little island in the pacific named Tuvalu. (Look it up because I had never heard of it). But they had said that they knew of many mormons. So we taught them some of our beliefs. They then invited us to eat dinner with them. We couldn't believe it! This was truly a miracle that we were sent to that family at that time and I know that they are ready to hear the gospel. I can't wait for them to hear more and for them to grow in their testimony of the Savior. We meet with them tonight so I will have to let you know how it goes.

-We had a great lesson with Erin Hurley this week. She is apart of that family that we met while tracting one day. She is so keen! That family is so ready to receive the gospel it is amazing! We can't wait to teach all 3 of them more and more. We will be hoping to set a baptismal date with Erin here in the next visit.

     There is so much more that is happening that I can't even begin to express. But miracles are happening each and every day. So many less-actives are coming back to church and so many are desiring to hear the gospel. It is truly amazing! I'm so grateful to be a missionary at this time. I've have gained such a great testimony lately of how important it is to talk to everyone. I have made it a point to make every opportunity a teaching opportunity because every single person we meet needs the gospel of Jesus Christ and we are the ones that need to share it. Remember that everyone on earth decided to follow God's plan they just have forgotten. We need to be the ones to remind them of who they really are. So I encourage everyone to reach out to EVERYONE that you know to share the gospel. Even if you think that they may not be interested give it a try anyways because they just don't know what they are missing out on. It is not until they get a little taste of the gospel of Jesus Christ that they will desire more. INVITE EVERYONE TO COME UNTO CHRIST.

   I love you all so much and am so grateful for each and everyone  of you in my life. I hope you have a wonderful week. My commitment for you all is to read Alma 5 this week. It helped me a lot to examine my life and if I truly have a relationship with my Savior. I hope to hear about what you have learned next week.

Love always,

    Sister Sorensen

Oh yeah and I forgot that we had Zone Conference this past week. This is the Canberra Zone. We have such a great zone!

For Sister Tito's B-day last week we went to lunch at this really good mexican restaurant. (In Australia Mexican food doesn't really exist so I love it when I can have some of it.) I never knew how much I loved mexican food until I came here and they don't really have much.

Reuben's big happy family. They don't really like pictures too much as you may notice. It is hilarious, they just describes they so well. haha

Reuben after his baptism. He was so happy!

This is my new best friend Shayla. She is such a cute little girl. She is the daughter of one of the less actives we are working with and I absolutely love this little one.

Yesterday we had a meeting but we had to join in via Skype because we have another meeting to go to on Saturday so they only wanted to have us drive once. It was such a long meeting but we enjoyed ourselves. This is Sister Tito and I and Elder Bryce and Elder Tingey (Zone Leaders).