7/23/09

Hello everyone! How are you all? Things are going well here for me. I´m liking it a lot in Spain. So we do get to go out of the MTC. Everyday actually if we want. For Gym if we play soccer or a number of other things we go to a concrete pit (kind of a medium stadium with grafitti and such all over) to play soccer, or we can go to the gym in the stake center right by us which is what I usually do. We get some pretty intense games of basketball going. Oh, so with pictures, I can´t open them here. The server´s too slow. They´ll let you open them but you have to go to President Hill´s office to do so since he´s on a separate server or something, but I don´t want to have to do that everytime. So yeah. Probably just don´t email me any pictures yet. Thanks for them though, I just won´t get to see them for a while. So yeah. Things are going well for me though. Oh, also, we can go running every morning if we want, and we can just run out and about Madrid. We have breakfast at 7:30 so we have an hour to get ready, which leaves time to go running if we want. I´ve been once, but I´ve been feeling sick this past week, so I haven´t gone for a couple days. I´m getting better though. I´ve just been so stuffed up and coughing and feeling terrible. I think I told you my companion, Elder Bodily, was sick, so a few of us got sick. I´m improving though. So companions, I was in a trio, but Elder Kellar go put into our district, so my other companion, Elder Cook, got put with him, so now it´s just me and Elder Bodily. We get along really well. It´s good. I don´t think we´ll have any problems really the whole time. Oh, also, I´m District Leader, so that´s cool. We have six elders and one hermana in our district. We all get along really well, so that´s good. Okay, so the park last Saturday. Every Saturday we go to this massive park in Madrid. We´re there for an hour just contacting. So I was put with Elder Cook last week. We got rejected so many times. So many people would just stick there hand at us saying to leave, some one just completely ignore us and stare in another direction, and some would talk, but then tell us they didn´t want to hear more or take anything. But, here´s the story, we had five minutes left, Elder Cook and I decided to do one more. So we started walking. Then we noticed a guy walking up from behind us, like walking for exercise. So we just walked at his pace and walked with him talking for probably 15-20 minutes. It was awesome. He used to be a Catholic, but had changed a couple years ago because he didn´t think the Catholics had the full truth. We went on to tell him that we believed the same thing. Then we explained a little about God calling a prophet in our day and gave him a Book of Mormon. We had him read Moroni 10:3-5 right there and so yeah. It was awesome. He was from Colombia. He said he walks there every day, so we´ll try and find each other this upcoming Saturday. So that´s really cool. Also, we take the Metro over to the park, so we have like 8 minutes either way to do contacts on there. My companion and I had 5 I believe. I had two, one each way, and he had three. So that was good. I´m looking forward to it tomorrow. Okay, so now for important visitors. Brother Allen was here this past week. He´s the mission director, or something like that. He´s the head of the mission department of the church. Since there´s only like 25 missionaries or so we all got to meet him and talk with him. He had Elder Bodily and I teach him, so it was just the three of us in a room, and he was playing an investigator. He taught us a lot about applying lessons to individuals. We´re not teaching lessons, we´re teaching people. We always wanted to get into the lesson and just start teaching, but it´s really important to get to know them really well, asking questions, and get them to open up to you, until the Spirit tells you, that´s the route you need to take this lesson. So that was way cool. Oh, my district´s doing the musical number in Sacrament meeting this week. We´re going to sing The Spirit of God, but in Spanish. It should be good. I think we´re going to try and do like one verse normal, then an acapello verse without the chorus, then a quick solo by the piano, then into the last verses. It should be good hopefully. Well, it sounds like you all had fun in Canada. That´s good. I´m glad you played horseshoes in remembrance of me. That´s always good. And there was only one ringer the whole time? Crazy. As always, remember to forward this to Jen so she can put it up wherever. Oh, I´m going to Sol today, it´s in the center of Madrid, a tourist area. I´ll be gone for 3 hours. I´m excited. I´ll let you know how it is next week probably. I´m going to send this so I don´t accidentally lose it or anything. Have a fantastic week. -Elder Sommerfeldt