9/7/09

Family, and everyone else! How are you guys? THings are going well here for me. I tried to send some pictures, but it took forever. I still sent two to Pete, so he´ll forward them around to people hopefully. The internet must be way slow though because It took like ten minutes to download them. So I won´t be sending pictures like was the original plan. Anyways, things are going well here. This past week was good and bad. One day we were in Gavá, another small city outside Cornellá, and yes, Cornellá is kind of a suburb of Barcelona. Anyways, we were in Gavá walking down the street when all of a sudden a lady walks out a door right as we´re passing it and just says, Elders. So we turned around and long story short it turns out she´s from a less active family and so we went and visited them, and have visited them once since then, and are visiting them again tomorrow. The dad isn´t a member, so we´re hoping we can get him eventually to want to hear and listen to the gospel. So that´s good. They came to church too, and they´re from Bolivia Kevin, as are a TON of the people here we talk to. It´s crazy. There´s another family that was less active that we´ve been passing by and they´re more activated now and there´s a boyfriend, and the grandparents that live with them that aren´t members, so we´ll see what we can do there too. Let´s see, what else. Oh, yesterday was terrible. We had four citas, visits/appointments, lined up with a member assigned to come to each one. 3 of our members fell through, so only one was able to come, and they all cancelled on us or didn´t want us to come when we got there. So we went from having a ton of stuff to absolutely nothing. It was way frustrating. But apparently a lot of times right before a really good thing happens, a really bad thing happens. So we´ll see what happens there. So yeah. Let´s see, today´s Dia de Preparación. We went Bowling! It was way fun. It was only 5 euros for shoes and two games of bowling. I got 152 and 147, so it looks like I´ve still got a bit of my talent left for bowling. It wasn´t quite as fun as it was when I would go with Jen, but it was still a ton of fun. The second time was a competition between companions and whichever companionship got the highest score with them added together won and the others had to pitch in and buy them a kebab ( a thing with a bunch of meet and vegetables in it in a tortilla and cooked, they´re all over here). We won, so we didn´t have to pay for our kebabs. That was nice. Then we played soccer at the church, that was fun, but I got hurt. My leg has this huge bump on it, but hopefully it´s better soon. Okay, so now a bit about my schedule now. I wake up each morning at 7:30, pray and exercise for 30 minutes, then get ready (shower, eat, iron, etc) until 9. Then from 9-10 is personal study, from 10-11 is companion study, then from 11-11:30 is language study. Then we go out and proselyte, unless we have meetings or something until 2. From 2-4 we´re either in our Piso for lunch, or we go to a members. It´s called Medio Día here, and basically everything shuts down during those 2 hours. It´s crazy. All the stores, everything closes. And everyone´s home either eating or sleeping for a bit. Just a little different from the US. Then we go from 4-10 working again. We´re not allowed dinner unless a member invites us over (which is usually about half the time or so), then we go there for an hour. Then from 10-11 we plan and read from the missionary handbook, then we get ready and go to bed by 11:30. So that´s the schedule. It´s good. We usually get quite a few eating citas with members. Our ward´s way good. So usually anywhere from 6-10 a week I´d say. So that´s nice, but I have a hard time eating it all. At every single one so far it´s been meat, not fish. The other elders said they´ve had fish a few times, but rarely. So that´s nice. Let´s see, what else to say. Oh, we had interviews with the president this past Wednesday. That was fun. I also got a letter from Jen she´d sent to the CCM in Madrid but it didn´t get to me in time. Oh, that reminds me, if it´s ever near a time when I might not be staying in the same place, you can send things to the mission home and I´ll get them, but I´ll ge tthings faster if you send them directly to me, the address I gave you last week. So yeah. Oh, I bore my testimony yesterday. I had to do it, but it wasn´t bad at all. I´m getting better at being able to talk to people too. So that´s nice. It all depends on the person, some people I understand just fine, others have a way thick accent. Well, I need to run on to individual´s now, I´m almost out of time. ¡Chao!
Elder Sommerfeldt
P.S. GO BYU!!!!! I was excited to hear that.