Family and Friends!!! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How is everyone? Things are going great here for me. I´m going to start off with some pictures. I´m thinking it´s going to take two e-mails to send all of it though. Okay, so first off we have me in Barcelona in front of a thing at Plaça Espanya, then we have me and Hermana Johns (one of the hermanas from my group that goes home this next transfer), then me and Hermana Bustamante (another hermana from my group that goes home this transfer), then me on Christmas morning with the jersey Jen gave me (It´s awesome by the way), then one with all four of us Christmas morning with (left to right) Elder Bennington, Elder Keeler, me, and Elder Hunsaker, then on with me and what we ate for lunch. So yeah. That´s that. Okay, so now the second e-mail with the next batch of pictures. The first two are of the baptism that there was out in Manacor. First off we have one with a lot of people. It´s (left to right) me, Elder Greep (Elder Jacinto and I trained him second), Augusto (Elder Jacinto, Elder Bennington, and I taught him everything before he went out to Manacor), Francisco (I interviewed him), Elder Egan, and Elder Bennington (the first person Elder Jacinto and I trained). The next picture is of me and Augusto, and the next 3 are of my shoes. So yeah. My old shoes were pretty beat up, but I have really nice shoes now. They´re from Damaris, but I feel kind of bad because they probably cost her like 60-70 euros. She´s basically my mom here in Palma. She calls Elder Jacinto and I her hijos. It´ll be sad when I get transferred having to leave her family (Damaris, Dayana, and Dana), we´re really close.
Okay, so I can´t think of what I should really say, because we just talked a couple days ago. It was great getting to talk to all of you, and I´m glad the conference call thing worked out in the end. I meant to tell you guys to say hi to John, but the calling card died before I had time to. I hope it was fun talking to him too. maybe we could work something out so we can all talk at the same time for Mother´s Day, I don´t know though. We´ll see. So yesterday was a pretty good day. The only bad thing about it is that no investigators came to church. I was pretty mad about that. We had everything set up, but most of them "slept in." I guess that´s the problem with having church right after Christmas. Even a lot of the members didn´t come. Mabel came though. She and Robert are doing great. We actually just started teaching one of her friends, so we´ll still be passing by her house a few times a week probably to teach her friend (Anita). Yesterday we also went to visit some less actives that are almost re-activated, and they invited their neighbor, Marinela. I don´t know if you remember the 9-year old girl from Romania named Mihaela that wanted to get baptized but her mom wouldn´t give her permission, well this is her aunt, she´s 23. I had one of the most awkward situations because we´re not supposed to give besos like everyone does here in Spain so I stuck my hand out and she grabbed it but just got closer and closer, but I´m taller so she was just like waiting for me to bend down for the besos and I had to awkwardly explain that as missionaries we don´t give besos, only a hand shake. It would have almost been better to just have done besos and then explained it after, which they say if it´s going to be super awkward to just do that, but I didn´t. She´s a new investigator now though.
We´ve been watching the video "Joy to the World" with a lot of people. They all really like it. I love it too. It makes me remember Christmas and gets me excited for Christmas. It might be after Christmas day, but as far as I´m concerned Christmas goes until sometime in January. Anyways, I want to thank Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa Sommerfeldt, Grandma and Grandpa Brockbank, and Jen for the packages. I loved all of them. Thank you so much. It made my Christmas even more fun.
So for Christmas Eve Damaris invited us over to eat. We got there at 8:00 and ate and exchanged gifts and shared a quick message about Christmas. It was really good. She got all of the missionaries a really nice shirt (and we saw the price tags later and they were 30 euros each), then she got me the new shoes. It´s because my old ones were destroyed. Now I understand why a week or so ago Dayana (her daughter, 18 years old, almost 19, hopefully will get batized in a couple weeks), was putting her foot up next to mine in church and asking what size I wear. I didn´t think anything of it at the time, but now I get it. It was really nice of them though. We´re going there this Wednesday to celebrate Dayana and Elder Hunsaker´s birthdays, and we´re also eating there for New Year´s Eve. It´ll be good.
Well, sorry this e-mail is really rambled and everything, but I need to go. I hope everything goes well with everyone there though and have a Happy New Year!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
12/30/10
12/21/2010
Family and friends! How´s everyone doing? Things are going great here. I have a lot of pictures to send home though. So I might have to do a couple emails with that. First off, Mabel got baptized!!!!! Okay, so I´m not going to talk about each one. The first five though are all of Mabel´s baptism. The guy that baptized her is Presidente Carballo. He´s one of the counselors in the district presidency that she wanted to baptize her, so that´s good. Then she had Presidente Balcázar, our branch president, confirm her. There´s one picture with her and her family. It´s her (Mabel), her husband (John Robert), her son (Bill), and her daughter (Elena). They´re a really good family. So that was fun that she got to be baptized. Then the other Nigerian that was baptized that you see in the big picture is in the Levante branch. His name is Victor. So yeah. It was a great baptism and she was excited the whole time. The only bad part about it is that about an hour before the baptism we still didn´t have the baptismal clothes for her. A member from the LEvante branch accidentally took them home. In the end we got some though, it was just super stressful. Okay, so that´s it for those five. Now I¨m going to attach more pictures.
Okay, so of the next five. THe first is of me on the wall. Next is me on the Castle bridge going out to the tower. Next is of me and Elder Bennington in the courtyard thing. Next is of me pretending like I´m in the first vision because there was a spot where the sun was coming in, and the next is a view of the Meditteranean sea. So that´s cool. Okay, I´m going to send 5 more.
Okay, so the last five. The first is of Lais, Paula, me, and Elder Keeler (Elder Keeler´s from Levante, but we were doing intercambios/exchanges). Next is a picture of the Cathedral taken from the castle. Next is of me climbing up a place where I´m not sure if we were allowed to go, but we had to see what was up there, and the next one is me up there. The last one is of a harbor that we saw as well from the top of the castle. And we were in regular clothes because we had to hike to get to the castle, so that´s why we´re not in white shirts and ties. It was a fun preparation day. The castle is Castillo de Bellver.
This week has been a really good week. The only bad part is that right now we don´t have any investigators currently working towards a specific baptismal date. We have a lot of investigators that are really close though. So first off, I´d say the closest is Dayana. SHe´s doing SUPER good right now. She´s Dana´s older sister. She´s 18, but turns 19 soon. She listed to missionaries like a year ago, but never got baptized, and with us when we taught her the first time she didn´t seem too good, but like the second time she´d completely changed. I´m really excited for her. Right now her most recent homework is to read 2 Nephi 31 and ask God when she should be baptized. We´ve given her assignments to do and everything and she always does them really well. WE had a cita this past week and we got to where we were asking a bunch of questions and we ended up learning from her that when she prayed she said she felt something weird. So we kept probing and she described it as "cosquillas en me corazon" (tickles on my heart). I´m really excited for her. NExt we have Junior and Juan, who are both also doing well, they just need to read and pray. They´re reading now, but in their prayers they´re not specifically asking God if the Book of Mormon is true. They´re so close though. Then we have Paula. She finally wants to be baptized, but her dad still isn´t giving permission. We´re hoping that changes this week and she can be baptized on Christmas Day. We´ll see though. WEll, We have a bunch of other investigators, but those are the main ones. Hey, I´m sorry this e-mail is so short, but I spent a ton of time attaching pictures this week. This next week is CHRISTMAS though!!!! MERRY CHRISTMAS on Saturday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hope you all have a fantabulous Christmas. WEll, I need to be going now, but I´ll talk to you all later. ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
Okay, so of the next five. THe first is of me on the wall. Next is me on the Castle bridge going out to the tower. Next is of me and Elder Bennington in the courtyard thing. Next is of me pretending like I´m in the first vision because there was a spot where the sun was coming in, and the next is a view of the Meditteranean sea. So that´s cool. Okay, I´m going to send 5 more.
Okay, so the last five. The first is of Lais, Paula, me, and Elder Keeler (Elder Keeler´s from Levante, but we were doing intercambios/exchanges). Next is a picture of the Cathedral taken from the castle. Next is of me climbing up a place where I´m not sure if we were allowed to go, but we had to see what was up there, and the next one is me up there. The last one is of a harbor that we saw as well from the top of the castle. And we were in regular clothes because we had to hike to get to the castle, so that´s why we´re not in white shirts and ties. It was a fun preparation day. The castle is Castillo de Bellver.
This week has been a really good week. The only bad part is that right now we don´t have any investigators currently working towards a specific baptismal date. We have a lot of investigators that are really close though. So first off, I´d say the closest is Dayana. SHe´s doing SUPER good right now. She´s Dana´s older sister. She´s 18, but turns 19 soon. She listed to missionaries like a year ago, but never got baptized, and with us when we taught her the first time she didn´t seem too good, but like the second time she´d completely changed. I´m really excited for her. Right now her most recent homework is to read 2 Nephi 31 and ask God when she should be baptized. We´ve given her assignments to do and everything and she always does them really well. WE had a cita this past week and we got to where we were asking a bunch of questions and we ended up learning from her that when she prayed she said she felt something weird. So we kept probing and she described it as "cosquillas en me corazon" (tickles on my heart). I´m really excited for her. NExt we have Junior and Juan, who are both also doing well, they just need to read and pray. They´re reading now, but in their prayers they´re not specifically asking God if the Book of Mormon is true. They´re so close though. Then we have Paula. She finally wants to be baptized, but her dad still isn´t giving permission. We´re hoping that changes this week and she can be baptized on Christmas Day. We´ll see though. WEll, We have a bunch of other investigators, but those are the main ones. Hey, I´m sorry this e-mail is so short, but I spent a ton of time attaching pictures this week. This next week is CHRISTMAS though!!!! MERRY CHRISTMAS on Saturday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hope you all have a fantabulous Christmas. WEll, I need to be going now, but I´ll talk to you all later. ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
12/13/10
12/13/2010
Family and friends! How´s everyone doing? THings are going great here. This past week has been crazy busy, I´ll tell you about it a little later. First off though I´m going to send a few pictures. Okay, so first off is a picture that Elder Estrada e-mailed me of Edith´s baptism down in Castellón. She´s the one that I was teaching for the longest time, then when I went down there for residency stuff I set the date with her and she wanted me to baptize her, but I was going to be in Palma, and she had Armando do it in the end. I´m super happy for her. She´s going to be a great member. Okay, the next picture is of me buying some candy last preparation day and a candy stand they have out in one of the ramblas here. It was good candy. The next picture is of Elder Hunsaker, Elder Bennington, me, and Elder Keeler in a picture that the mission is going to use in a book they´re making for the Hinckleys. Each district had to have a word in the picture and in the end it´s going to say a message. We had "YOU!" as our word. So yeah. Next up is a picture of our tree, it´s a little small. I also have put up a lot of stockings on the wall too. It´s a pretty good Christmassy piso now. I like it. Also, mom and dad, I got your package. THank you so much. I love it. I´m not opening the presents until Christmas, but thank you so much for all of the reeses and the reeses nutrageous, and the reeses christmas trees, and the reeses fast break, etc. I love REESES! Anyways, that´s about it for pictures this week. I´ll hopefully send some more next week.
Anyways, so I said this past week was crazy busy. It was crazy busy because Elder Hunsaker and I taught 30 total lessons, with 20 of those lessons being member present lessons, we found 10 new investigators, and we had 5 in church. We met the standard of excellence for investigators in church, and we about doubled every other standard of excellence. So that was fun. I was really tired when we got in last night though. It´s good we have this preparation day to recover a bit. We´re probably going to play RISK again. It´s a fun game. Anyways, we also now have 3 investigators preparing for baptism. We have Mabel who will for sure be baptized this Saturday. She´s incredible. She´s from Nigeria and is Robert´s (a member who less active for a while) wife. She´ll for sure be baptized this next Saturday at 12:00 a.m., which will be 4:00 a.m. your time. So that´s nice. I´m excited about that. Next up we have Paula. She finally wants to get baptized, but her dad, who´s not a member (everyone else in her family is a member though) won´t let her. We fasted and prayed with her this past weekend though, so we´re hoping that they dad changes before this Saturday. We´ll see. She´s 14, turns 15 tomorrow, and is from Bolivia. She´s doing really well though. The other is with a guy we just met last night. His name is Stali and he´s from Nigeria. He´s Kevin´s (an investigator from Levante) friend. He seems really good. His date is for January 2nd. So we´ll see how all that goes.
Also this past week we did intercambios (exchanges) with Inca/Manacor. I was with Elder Egan for Tuesday and Wednesday. It went really well. Basically, our whole week has just been perfect, except for Paula´s dad, and Elder Hunsaker´s been pretty sick, so I´ve been having to set everything up and such so he can hopefully get better soon. He´s getting a little better now though, so that´s good. We also started teaching these two guys this past week named Juan and Junior. Juan´s probably 35 or so and is the son of Remedios (a member). He´s super good. His roommate is Junior and Junior is 21 and from Brasil. THey´re both super good and they both came to church this past week. They could get baptized on Christmas day. THey´re praying about it, so we´ll see what happens. We´re also teaching a girl named Dayana who´s doing really well. She´s Damaris´s other daugther, which means Dana´s (the girl Elder Jacinto and I baptized) older sister. She´s 18, almost 19, and just recently started doing really well. She could also potentially be baptized on Christmas day, we´ll see what happens though. I´m super excited though, because everything is going really well here.
Also, just so everyone knows, everyone here knows I´m going to be president of the United States and they all know I love Christmas. When members see me they´ll see, how long until Christmas, and I´ll quickly calculate and tell them how many days, hours and minutes. It´s fun. And a lot of members also call me Señor Don Presidente, or something like that. It´s good. WEll, I need to be going and start writing individuals now. I love you all though and I wish you a very Merry Christmas in 12 DAYS!!!!!!!!! ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
Anyways, so I said this past week was crazy busy. It was crazy busy because Elder Hunsaker and I taught 30 total lessons, with 20 of those lessons being member present lessons, we found 10 new investigators, and we had 5 in church. We met the standard of excellence for investigators in church, and we about doubled every other standard of excellence. So that was fun. I was really tired when we got in last night though. It´s good we have this preparation day to recover a bit. We´re probably going to play RISK again. It´s a fun game. Anyways, we also now have 3 investigators preparing for baptism. We have Mabel who will for sure be baptized this Saturday. She´s incredible. She´s from Nigeria and is Robert´s (a member who less active for a while) wife. She´ll for sure be baptized this next Saturday at 12:00 a.m., which will be 4:00 a.m. your time. So that´s nice. I´m excited about that. Next up we have Paula. She finally wants to get baptized, but her dad, who´s not a member (everyone else in her family is a member though) won´t let her. We fasted and prayed with her this past weekend though, so we´re hoping that they dad changes before this Saturday. We´ll see. She´s 14, turns 15 tomorrow, and is from Bolivia. She´s doing really well though. The other is with a guy we just met last night. His name is Stali and he´s from Nigeria. He´s Kevin´s (an investigator from Levante) friend. He seems really good. His date is for January 2nd. So we´ll see how all that goes.
Also this past week we did intercambios (exchanges) with Inca/Manacor. I was with Elder Egan for Tuesday and Wednesday. It went really well. Basically, our whole week has just been perfect, except for Paula´s dad, and Elder Hunsaker´s been pretty sick, so I´ve been having to set everything up and such so he can hopefully get better soon. He´s getting a little better now though, so that´s good. We also started teaching these two guys this past week named Juan and Junior. Juan´s probably 35 or so and is the son of Remedios (a member). He´s super good. His roommate is Junior and Junior is 21 and from Brasil. THey´re both super good and they both came to church this past week. They could get baptized on Christmas day. THey´re praying about it, so we´ll see what happens. We´re also teaching a girl named Dayana who´s doing really well. She´s Damaris´s other daugther, which means Dana´s (the girl Elder Jacinto and I baptized) older sister. She´s 18, almost 19, and just recently started doing really well. She could also potentially be baptized on Christmas day, we´ll see what happens though. I´m super excited though, because everything is going really well here.
Also, just so everyone knows, everyone here knows I´m going to be president of the United States and they all know I love Christmas. When members see me they´ll see, how long until Christmas, and I´ll quickly calculate and tell them how many days, hours and minutes. It´s fun. And a lot of members also call me Señor Don Presidente, or something like that. It´s good. WEll, I need to be going and start writing individuals now. I love you all though and I wish you a very Merry Christmas in 12 DAYS!!!!!!!!! ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
12/6/2010
Family and Friends! How´s everyone doing? So first off, it´s December!!!! Which means it´s almost Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!! I have a countdown going and all. So that´s good. So I´m going to start off attaching some pictures. Okay, so I´m not sure the order they all got attached. But one of them is of Elder Cannell, then me, then Elder Jacinto, then Elder Greep, then Elder Bowers. It was their last night there in our piso. It was also the night Barcelona beat Real Madrid 5-0, hence Elder Jacinto and I are in our Barcelona jerseys. Next is of a little adventure we had this past week that involved being on a boat. I´ll tell you more about it later. Anyways, one is of me eating with Elder Hunsaker in the background holding the receipt, because it was expensive. Next is one of the boat that we were on that was taken from a helicopter or something. Next is me at like 6 in the morning dead tired, and next is right after we got off the boat with the Boat name and the sunrise in the background. So yeah, I hope you enjoy those pictures.
So now for the stories of this past week. So on Tuesday is when Elder Hunsaker came in. A problem that happened is that Elder Cannell accidentally took our phone with him when he went to Barcelona, so we had no phone. Anyways, what ended up happening is that Elder Bennington and his new companion, Elder Keeler (he´s a really good missionary) missed their plane. We didn´t have a plane so no one could tell us. WE were planning on them getting back to piso around 11 or 11:30 at night, so we were up waiting for them and it got to midnight and they still weren´t back. So we walked down to the church and called them and they told us they´d missed their plane and went back to the office to spend the night there. So that was a late night. Anyways, then on Thursday night we had to catch a plane that left at 9:55 at night and got to barcelona and 10:45, but it was delayed a bit, so we got there a bit after 11 at night. So that was another late night. Then we had concilio on Friday. It was really good. Concilio is the meeting that the zone leaders have once a month or once a transfer with President and Hermana Hinckley and the Ayudantes (assistants to the president). It was a really good meeting and we talked a lot about how we can be even better, not just obeying all the rules, but obeying all the principles as well. Anyways, so then we had to catch a plan that left Barcelona at 8:30 at night. WE got there just before 7:30 and there were news cameras and such there, so we were all confused. Anyways, what happened is around 6:30 or 7:00 the air control people went on strike, and all flights were cancelled. THey´re still having problems with it. So we called the office and we didn´t know what to do. We were waiting in a line with like 2,000 people in line to try and find out what we could do, but it became clear that no planes would be leaving for at least a day or two. I think they´ve just recently started having planes moving again. So yeah. So President Hinckley through the idea out of us taking a ferry. So we ended up taking a bus and the metro over to the port in Barcelona and we caught a ferry that left at 11 at night. That was a huge pain in and of itself, but it all turned out okay in the end, we just spent hours in line though with thousands of people. Anyways, we went on a ferry across the Mediterranean Sea! It was pretty fun. The only downside is that we were in chairs the whole time, we didn´t get into port until 7 a.m. So I was dead tired. I´d say I got like 2 hours of sleep all night Friday night. We got back to our piso at 8:00 in the morning, then I took a half hour nap, then got ready and we went out to work again. I´m still way tired from it. But it´s getting better and better each day. It was really fun though to be on a boat. It was basically a cruise ship too. They had restaurants, a pool, which was closed, so I still took a picture of it, they had a movie theater, but we´re missionaries so we didn´t go there either. It was just fun being on a cruise ship, but it was a little weird feeling too. And I was super tired the whole time. We bought some dinner on the boat, ate, then we tried to sleep. We also went up on deck a couple times, that was fun. We could still see Barcelona in the distance even like 2 hours after we left. So, that was my adventure of the week.
Next, and more important, Paula and Mabel are still doing good for their baptismal dates for the 18th. Especially Mabel, Paula´s going to be a bit more difficult, but I think it´ll all turn out good. Mabel wasn´t able to come to church this past week because they´re getting their baby a Nigerian Passport and the Nigerian embassy was in Palma this past weekend, but they were there Saturday until Midnight and all day Sunday doing it. So yeah, that was sad, but she´ll come every week, so she´s still doing well. Also, we started teaching two new people. One is named Juan and is the son of Remedios, a less active. He´s about 40 years old and his daughter has down sindrome I think is what she has. He seems like he could be pretty good. Next we went to teach Giovanni, this guy we haven´t taught for a long time, and his friend Miguel was there. WE taught both of them and set up a cita with Miguel and his wife for this next week. SO yeah, things are going well. It was a slower week than normal with transfers and with going to Barcelona, but we´re still doing good.
Elder Hunsaker is from Wyoming, and as he says, there´s 100 cows for every person there. Crazy! He´s a good missionary. He´s really lost in the work. He really likes reading and studying, which is the opposite as me, but that´s okay. He did Martial Arts before the mission, but that´s the only real sport he did seriously. He´s a convert, but he was baptized when he was like 9 or 10. His mom was less active, but the missionaries came and reactivated her and baptized the rest of the family and ever since then he´s wanted to serve a mission. So yeah, now you know a bit more about my companion. Well, I need to be going now, but I hope you all have fantastic weeks. Also, just so you know, I´m not planning on sending anything home for Christmas, but I´ll get you something and bring it back in June, packages are expensive... Sorry. Anyways, things are going great and I´ll talk to you all next week. ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
So now for the stories of this past week. So on Tuesday is when Elder Hunsaker came in. A problem that happened is that Elder Cannell accidentally took our phone with him when he went to Barcelona, so we had no phone. Anyways, what ended up happening is that Elder Bennington and his new companion, Elder Keeler (he´s a really good missionary) missed their plane. We didn´t have a plane so no one could tell us. WE were planning on them getting back to piso around 11 or 11:30 at night, so we were up waiting for them and it got to midnight and they still weren´t back. So we walked down to the church and called them and they told us they´d missed their plane and went back to the office to spend the night there. So that was a late night. Anyways, then on Thursday night we had to catch a plane that left at 9:55 at night and got to barcelona and 10:45, but it was delayed a bit, so we got there a bit after 11 at night. So that was another late night. Then we had concilio on Friday. It was really good. Concilio is the meeting that the zone leaders have once a month or once a transfer with President and Hermana Hinckley and the Ayudantes (assistants to the president). It was a really good meeting and we talked a lot about how we can be even better, not just obeying all the rules, but obeying all the principles as well. Anyways, so then we had to catch a plan that left Barcelona at 8:30 at night. WE got there just before 7:30 and there were news cameras and such there, so we were all confused. Anyways, what happened is around 6:30 or 7:00 the air control people went on strike, and all flights were cancelled. THey´re still having problems with it. So we called the office and we didn´t know what to do. We were waiting in a line with like 2,000 people in line to try and find out what we could do, but it became clear that no planes would be leaving for at least a day or two. I think they´ve just recently started having planes moving again. So yeah. So President Hinckley through the idea out of us taking a ferry. So we ended up taking a bus and the metro over to the port in Barcelona and we caught a ferry that left at 11 at night. That was a huge pain in and of itself, but it all turned out okay in the end, we just spent hours in line though with thousands of people. Anyways, we went on a ferry across the Mediterranean Sea! It was pretty fun. The only downside is that we were in chairs the whole time, we didn´t get into port until 7 a.m. So I was dead tired. I´d say I got like 2 hours of sleep all night Friday night. We got back to our piso at 8:00 in the morning, then I took a half hour nap, then got ready and we went out to work again. I´m still way tired from it. But it´s getting better and better each day. It was really fun though to be on a boat. It was basically a cruise ship too. They had restaurants, a pool, which was closed, so I still took a picture of it, they had a movie theater, but we´re missionaries so we didn´t go there either. It was just fun being on a cruise ship, but it was a little weird feeling too. And I was super tired the whole time. We bought some dinner on the boat, ate, then we tried to sleep. We also went up on deck a couple times, that was fun. We could still see Barcelona in the distance even like 2 hours after we left. So, that was my adventure of the week.
Next, and more important, Paula and Mabel are still doing good for their baptismal dates for the 18th. Especially Mabel, Paula´s going to be a bit more difficult, but I think it´ll all turn out good. Mabel wasn´t able to come to church this past week because they´re getting their baby a Nigerian Passport and the Nigerian embassy was in Palma this past weekend, but they were there Saturday until Midnight and all day Sunday doing it. So yeah, that was sad, but she´ll come every week, so she´s still doing well. Also, we started teaching two new people. One is named Juan and is the son of Remedios, a less active. He´s about 40 years old and his daughter has down sindrome I think is what she has. He seems like he could be pretty good. Next we went to teach Giovanni, this guy we haven´t taught for a long time, and his friend Miguel was there. WE taught both of them and set up a cita with Miguel and his wife for this next week. SO yeah, things are going well. It was a slower week than normal with transfers and with going to Barcelona, but we´re still doing good.
Elder Hunsaker is from Wyoming, and as he says, there´s 100 cows for every person there. Crazy! He´s a good missionary. He´s really lost in the work. He really likes reading and studying, which is the opposite as me, but that´s okay. He did Martial Arts before the mission, but that´s the only real sport he did seriously. He´s a convert, but he was baptized when he was like 9 or 10. His mom was less active, but the missionaries came and reactivated her and baptized the rest of the family and ever since then he´s wanted to serve a mission. So yeah, now you know a bit more about my companion. Well, I need to be going now, but I hope you all have fantastic weeks. Also, just so you know, I´m not planning on sending anything home for Christmas, but I´ll get you something and bring it back in June, packages are expensive... Sorry. Anyways, things are going great and I´ll talk to you all next week. ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
11/30/2010
Family! How´s everyone doing? Things are going great here, except for the fact that Elder Jacinto left... He went to Zaragoza to be a zone leader in the new zone that just got created, the Lleida Zone. I´m staying out here for at least one more transfer and my new companion is Elder Hunsaker. I don´t know him very well yet, we came straight from the airport to do internet, so yeah. He seems nice though and he´s from Wyoming I believe. He has the same amount of time in the mission as Elder Jacinto did. He´ll be going home the first part of April.
Alright, so I´m going to attach a few pictures. Okay, the first one is all of us with David and Vanessa and their kids Marta, Jorge, and Carla, the next one is of me in a big chair that was in the street in front of a chair, and we couldn´t help but hurry and jump up there to take a picture. Next is of Aura, Mario, Elder Jacinto, and I, next is of all of us with Carolina and Pancho, and their kids Panchito and Carolita, and the last picture is one of Elder Jacinto and I that I copied from his camera of us when we were at Aura´s with the ocean in the background. Well, enjoy.
Okay, so the big news is that we now have 2 investigators with a baptismal date. First off we have Paula. It was super hard with her. She´s the 14 year old girl that´s Lais´s sister (Lais is a recent convert). She set a date for the 18th of December. Next is with a lady named Mabel, from Nigeria. Her husband, Robert, is a member, but he´s been less-active for a bit, but I think just because of work. Anyways, we had one cita with her and she accepted right away. It was super good. So we´ve made conversion plans for both of them and they´re doing really well. Mabel came to church for the first time this past week even. We also have an investigator named Jefferson who teaches Capoera, it´s like a martial art thing, but like a dance thing too. It´s pretty cool. He´s from Brasil. It´s a place kind of close to Sao Paolo, but not super close. He came to church this past week for the first time as well and loved it.
Oh, this past week we also went out to visit this lady that the branch assigned us to visit because they thought she was less-active. We got out there and found out she isn´t. She´s just been traveling a lot. She´s from England. Do you want to hear the crazy part. So we got talking and she told us that she works for NuSkin, and I told her that my best friend´s dad also worked for Nuskin. She said, what´s his name, I said Brent Goddard, Jon Goddard´s dad, and she´s like, Brent, I know Brent. Apparently when Jon and his family went to Africa a few years ago for the Nourish the Children program, she was there too. She said they work together a lot, so that´s crazy. That´s cool though. She said she was going to tell him that she knows me.
Okay, so with transfers, Elder Jacinto left. Also, Elder Cannell´s leaving to go be a zone leader in Barcelona. Elder Bowers, from Inca also left. So my new companion is Elder Hunsaker. Elder Bennington, the first person Elder Jacinto and I trained, who still lives in the same piso as me, is training too! That´ll be fun for him. He told me he´s going to be asking me a lot of questions. He´s still fairly new himself. He´ll do great though. THe other nice thing is that this past week we had 2 baptisms in our zone. One in Menorca and the other one here in Palma, in the Levante branch. I did the interview for her. Her name´s Lidia. The baptism went really well. Her mom´s been a member for like 17 years now, and her daughter, who´s 22, finally decided to get baptized too. So that was fun to see. For the past 8 weeks we´ve averaged a baptism every week in our zone, and that´s with only 4 companionships. So on average each companionship has been baptizing every other week. THat´s pretty good.
THis past week was Thanksgiving. We ate 3 Thanksgiving meals. It was super good. Although I dídn´t get any chocolate cream pie... That´s okay though.
Alright, the other big news is that Barcelona beat Madrid last night 5-0!!!! That´s crazy. That´s a complete blow out. Well, I can´t think of much more to say, and so I´m going to end this so I can write the individuals. Have great weeks though. ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
Alright, so I´m going to attach a few pictures. Okay, the first one is all of us with David and Vanessa and their kids Marta, Jorge, and Carla, the next one is of me in a big chair that was in the street in front of a chair, and we couldn´t help but hurry and jump up there to take a picture. Next is of Aura, Mario, Elder Jacinto, and I, next is of all of us with Carolina and Pancho, and their kids Panchito and Carolita, and the last picture is one of Elder Jacinto and I that I copied from his camera of us when we were at Aura´s with the ocean in the background. Well, enjoy.
Okay, so the big news is that we now have 2 investigators with a baptismal date. First off we have Paula. It was super hard with her. She´s the 14 year old girl that´s Lais´s sister (Lais is a recent convert). She set a date for the 18th of December. Next is with a lady named Mabel, from Nigeria. Her husband, Robert, is a member, but he´s been less-active for a bit, but I think just because of work. Anyways, we had one cita with her and she accepted right away. It was super good. So we´ve made conversion plans for both of them and they´re doing really well. Mabel came to church for the first time this past week even. We also have an investigator named Jefferson who teaches Capoera, it´s like a martial art thing, but like a dance thing too. It´s pretty cool. He´s from Brasil. It´s a place kind of close to Sao Paolo, but not super close. He came to church this past week for the first time as well and loved it.
Oh, this past week we also went out to visit this lady that the branch assigned us to visit because they thought she was less-active. We got out there and found out she isn´t. She´s just been traveling a lot. She´s from England. Do you want to hear the crazy part. So we got talking and she told us that she works for NuSkin, and I told her that my best friend´s dad also worked for Nuskin. She said, what´s his name, I said Brent Goddard, Jon Goddard´s dad, and she´s like, Brent, I know Brent. Apparently when Jon and his family went to Africa a few years ago for the Nourish the Children program, she was there too. She said they work together a lot, so that´s crazy. That´s cool though. She said she was going to tell him that she knows me.
Okay, so with transfers, Elder Jacinto left. Also, Elder Cannell´s leaving to go be a zone leader in Barcelona. Elder Bowers, from Inca also left. So my new companion is Elder Hunsaker. Elder Bennington, the first person Elder Jacinto and I trained, who still lives in the same piso as me, is training too! That´ll be fun for him. He told me he´s going to be asking me a lot of questions. He´s still fairly new himself. He´ll do great though. THe other nice thing is that this past week we had 2 baptisms in our zone. One in Menorca and the other one here in Palma, in the Levante branch. I did the interview for her. Her name´s Lidia. The baptism went really well. Her mom´s been a member for like 17 years now, and her daughter, who´s 22, finally decided to get baptized too. So that was fun to see. For the past 8 weeks we´ve averaged a baptism every week in our zone, and that´s with only 4 companionships. So on average each companionship has been baptizing every other week. THat´s pretty good.
THis past week was Thanksgiving. We ate 3 Thanksgiving meals. It was super good. Although I dídn´t get any chocolate cream pie... That´s okay though.
Alright, the other big news is that Barcelona beat Madrid last night 5-0!!!! That´s crazy. That´s a complete blow out. Well, I can´t think of much more to say, and so I´m going to end this so I can write the individuals. Have great weeks though. ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
11/25/10
11-23-2010
Family and friends!!! How´s everyone doing? So this week I can send pictures finally! So I´m attaching five to this one. First off we have two with me and my Barça Jersey, then the next is a thing that Elizabeth made for me for Christmas, then all of us in our zone at the Mini-CCM, then one of Paul, me, and Edith, and her baby Rodrigo (down in Castellón, I went there this past week, I´ll write about that more later.) Okay, I´m going to send this e-mail and attach five more onto my next e-mail.
The next five are of today. Today we went to a place called Porto Colom. It was so cool. It was probably one of the most beautiful places I´ve ever been. I´m trying to attach 6 pictures. Okay, so the first one is of me with a hawk on my arm. We met this guy while we were there and just started talking. Anyways, he had a hawk and let us wear the glove and had the hawk fly from the trees and land on our arm. It was awesome. The next is of me with the harbor behind me. The next is of Elder Jacinto, Elder Bennington, Elder Cannell, and I in front of two boats that were up on the land. The next is of me sitting on a dock right next to a boat. The next is one of me fishing, and the last one is right before we left with the harbor in the background and the wind blowing. It was probably the best preparation day yet. It was so pretty. THere´s a recent convert in the Manacor branch that lives out there and we talked to him and he took us fishing. It was a ton of fun.
Okay, so I went to Castellón. I´ll talk about that a bit. So we were doing planning on Thursday and I got a call from the lawyer saying I needed to be in Castellón yesterday to be able to pay some fees/taxes and sign some papers. He said if I waited too long then they might deny my residency, which would be super bad. So I called the office and about 4 hours later I caught a plane to Castellón. It was really weird, because I traveled alone, so I was by myself for a long time. On the way there on the plane I met a guy named Thomás, and we became friends. He ended up not being interested in the gospel, but he paid for a taxi to take me from the airport to the train station (about 20 euros), so that was super nice of him. Then I got there and I got to see Armando. Friday morning everything went well and I´m now legal until July 2012. Next, we went and visited Edith. Edith, Paul, and Geraldine. Elder Hancock and I visited them a ton when I was there. Anyways, she´s getting baptized this weekend!!!! I was so excited. She was doubting when I got there, but then I asked her, and she said yes. She wanted me to baptize her, but I told her I had to go back to Palma so I wouldn´t be able to be there, so she still wasn´t sure who she was going to choose. It was crazy. Anyways, I´m so excited for her. Paul and Geraldine still aren´t getting baptized, but hopefully after they see the change in their mom they will be. This weekend there´s also 4 other people that are getting baptized in Castellón. Melina, her parents, and their room mate. I taught all of them too. So yeah, It´s really nice to see all that happening. Anyways, I also got to eat with Mariela, and I got to see Charo right before I left. She met me at the train station. I look forward to being able to go back there after my mission and spend a significant time there and visit everyone. Anyways, all of that was a blast though. ON the plane ride home I sat by a german girl. We ended up talking a bunch, but she´s not interested in the gospel, she is going to pray though. So that´s good.
Okay, so here in Palma, we were able to teach 21 lessons this past week! It was crazy. It was super hard, but in the end we did it. The only bad part is that we still have nobody with a baptismal date, but we will soon. So, what else is new. Leticia almost accepted a baptismal date for this Saturday, but in the end she didn´t because she couldn´t come to church. We´re still working with her though. We started teaching 2 other girls, they´re 12 years old each. As of right now we haven´t been able to teach the families, but we´ll keep working at it. I think one of the main reasons we can sometimes teach people´s kids, but not the parents is because the parents think they don´t have time. I say "think" because most of the time they really do, they just don´t have time to visit with us and watch T.V. for as long as they want to too.
Anyways, transfers are this week, so we´ll see if I leave or if Elder Jacinto leaves. I still think there´s a slight chance we both stay, but it´s very slim. We´ll see how it all turns out in the end. Well, that´s the biggest news. I can´t think of anything else huge that happened. I continue reading The Book of Mormon to try and finish it by the end of the year. I´m near the end of Mosiah. It´s going well. I´m marking everywhere it talks about Faith, Repentance, Baptism, The Holy Ghost, and Endure to the End, with a different color for each one. So yeah. It´s going well. Oh, also, yesterday I put up two Christmas trees in our Piso!!!! It´s almost here. Well, I need to go now and write the individuals. Have a great day though and I´ll write more next week. ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
The next five are of today. Today we went to a place called Porto Colom. It was so cool. It was probably one of the most beautiful places I´ve ever been. I´m trying to attach 6 pictures. Okay, so the first one is of me with a hawk on my arm. We met this guy while we were there and just started talking. Anyways, he had a hawk and let us wear the glove and had the hawk fly from the trees and land on our arm. It was awesome. The next is of me with the harbor behind me. The next is of Elder Jacinto, Elder Bennington, Elder Cannell, and I in front of two boats that were up on the land. The next is of me sitting on a dock right next to a boat. The next is one of me fishing, and the last one is right before we left with the harbor in the background and the wind blowing. It was probably the best preparation day yet. It was so pretty. THere´s a recent convert in the Manacor branch that lives out there and we talked to him and he took us fishing. It was a ton of fun.
Okay, so I went to Castellón. I´ll talk about that a bit. So we were doing planning on Thursday and I got a call from the lawyer saying I needed to be in Castellón yesterday to be able to pay some fees/taxes and sign some papers. He said if I waited too long then they might deny my residency, which would be super bad. So I called the office and about 4 hours later I caught a plane to Castellón. It was really weird, because I traveled alone, so I was by myself for a long time. On the way there on the plane I met a guy named Thomás, and we became friends. He ended up not being interested in the gospel, but he paid for a taxi to take me from the airport to the train station (about 20 euros), so that was super nice of him. Then I got there and I got to see Armando. Friday morning everything went well and I´m now legal until July 2012. Next, we went and visited Edith. Edith, Paul, and Geraldine. Elder Hancock and I visited them a ton when I was there. Anyways, she´s getting baptized this weekend!!!! I was so excited. She was doubting when I got there, but then I asked her, and she said yes. She wanted me to baptize her, but I told her I had to go back to Palma so I wouldn´t be able to be there, so she still wasn´t sure who she was going to choose. It was crazy. Anyways, I´m so excited for her. Paul and Geraldine still aren´t getting baptized, but hopefully after they see the change in their mom they will be. This weekend there´s also 4 other people that are getting baptized in Castellón. Melina, her parents, and their room mate. I taught all of them too. So yeah, It´s really nice to see all that happening. Anyways, I also got to eat with Mariela, and I got to see Charo right before I left. She met me at the train station. I look forward to being able to go back there after my mission and spend a significant time there and visit everyone. Anyways, all of that was a blast though. ON the plane ride home I sat by a german girl. We ended up talking a bunch, but she´s not interested in the gospel, she is going to pray though. So that´s good.
Okay, so here in Palma, we were able to teach 21 lessons this past week! It was crazy. It was super hard, but in the end we did it. The only bad part is that we still have nobody with a baptismal date, but we will soon. So, what else is new. Leticia almost accepted a baptismal date for this Saturday, but in the end she didn´t because she couldn´t come to church. We´re still working with her though. We started teaching 2 other girls, they´re 12 years old each. As of right now we haven´t been able to teach the families, but we´ll keep working at it. I think one of the main reasons we can sometimes teach people´s kids, but not the parents is because the parents think they don´t have time. I say "think" because most of the time they really do, they just don´t have time to visit with us and watch T.V. for as long as they want to too.
Anyways, transfers are this week, so we´ll see if I leave or if Elder Jacinto leaves. I still think there´s a slight chance we both stay, but it´s very slim. We´ll see how it all turns out in the end. Well, that´s the biggest news. I can´t think of anything else huge that happened. I continue reading The Book of Mormon to try and finish it by the end of the year. I´m near the end of Mosiah. It´s going well. I´m marking everywhere it talks about Faith, Repentance, Baptism, The Holy Ghost, and Endure to the End, with a different color for each one. So yeah. It´s going well. Oh, also, yesterday I put up two Christmas trees in our Piso!!!! It´s almost here. Well, I need to go now and write the individuals. Have a great day though and I´ll write more next week. ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
11-15-2010
Family and friends! How´s everyone doing over there in the United States of America? Things are going great here. First off I´m going to start attaching a few pictures. I don´t know if it´s going to work actually. If it does though, the first picture is of everyone that was at the Teixeira conference that´s from my group, like everyone that was in the MTC / CCM together. The next one is of me with my Barça jersey, the next one is the back of my Barça jersey, the next is of the Santa thing Elizabeth, the recent convert, made for me, and the last one is of The Hinckleys at the Mini CCM with us. I hope it works out, if not, I´m sorry.
So this week has been fairly good here in Palma. We taught 20 lessons. So that was good. The bad part is that we don´t currently have any investigator with a baptismal date right now. But by next week we´ll have at least 5. That´s our goal. We have a Family Home Evening tonight with Damaris´s friends, so that will be a mom and her daughter. Hopefully that goes well. This past week we had the Mini CCM. It was really good. It was Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. every day. We learned a lot of things and reveiwed a lot of things. It was my week to have the phone out of Elder Jacinto and I, so I had to call and order pizza for Wednesday and call and order Kebabs for Thursday. It turned out good though. In the afternoon Elder Jacinto and I did intercambios with the elders from Menorca (another island). So I taught with Elder Jacinto Monday night, then I didn´t actually teach with him again until Saturday. It´s because Thursday, after the Mini CCM, I went out to Manacor and Inca with Elder Bowers for intercambios. That went well. We taught this one girl named Marta out there who´s the wife of a less active member. It was the first time missionaries have taught her. She was really nice, but she´s really set on her Catholic beliefs. She committed to read and pray about the Book of Mormon though, so that´s good. If she really does that, then it´ll go well. Here in Palma there were two baptisms this past week. Geovana and Félix got baptized. They´re from Levante´s branch. They were supposed to get baptized, last week, but didn´t in the end because Félix´s dad took him to Barcelona last minute. I think I wrote about them earlier. Anyways, so that was really good to see them baptized. She has a caste on her arm too, so they had to wrap it all up with plastic wrap, but it worked out good in the end. I don´t know if I told you guys about Mihaela, she´s a little 9 year old girl from Romania. I think I have. Well, we´ve been trying to teach her family for the longest time, but this past week they told us they´re really not intersted, but they gave us permission to teach their daughter. So now we´ll help her get baptized and then she can go to church with her neighbors and all (her neighbors are members, that´s how we met her). There´s also a 12 year old girl that´s a friend of a member that´s come to church for like 4 weeks, and we finally were able to set up a Noche de Hogar with her, and hopefully her whole family comes. She´s going to invite them. Rodrigo, the investigator that was in the hospital, is out of the hospital now. We have a visit with him tonight. Hopefully he progresses well though. Jesus still has been ignoring us. I don´t know what we´re going to do with him. It´s kind of a frustrating situation, but such is life sometimes. Hopefully we get him to change his mind sometime. Augusto went out to another finca, but we´re probably going to have a visit with him this week and we´ll see what ends up happening. Hopefully it goes well though in the end. He could be baptized if he could just find a way to come to chuch on Sundays. Well, I can´t think of much else to say now, so I´m going to go ahead and end this and write the individuals now. Have a great week. ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
So this week has been fairly good here in Palma. We taught 20 lessons. So that was good. The bad part is that we don´t currently have any investigator with a baptismal date right now. But by next week we´ll have at least 5. That´s our goal. We have a Family Home Evening tonight with Damaris´s friends, so that will be a mom and her daughter. Hopefully that goes well. This past week we had the Mini CCM. It was really good. It was Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. every day. We learned a lot of things and reveiwed a lot of things. It was my week to have the phone out of Elder Jacinto and I, so I had to call and order pizza for Wednesday and call and order Kebabs for Thursday. It turned out good though. In the afternoon Elder Jacinto and I did intercambios with the elders from Menorca (another island). So I taught with Elder Jacinto Monday night, then I didn´t actually teach with him again until Saturday. It´s because Thursday, after the Mini CCM, I went out to Manacor and Inca with Elder Bowers for intercambios. That went well. We taught this one girl named Marta out there who´s the wife of a less active member. It was the first time missionaries have taught her. She was really nice, but she´s really set on her Catholic beliefs. She committed to read and pray about the Book of Mormon though, so that´s good. If she really does that, then it´ll go well. Here in Palma there were two baptisms this past week. Geovana and Félix got baptized. They´re from Levante´s branch. They were supposed to get baptized, last week, but didn´t in the end because Félix´s dad took him to Barcelona last minute. I think I wrote about them earlier. Anyways, so that was really good to see them baptized. She has a caste on her arm too, so they had to wrap it all up with plastic wrap, but it worked out good in the end. I don´t know if I told you guys about Mihaela, she´s a little 9 year old girl from Romania. I think I have. Well, we´ve been trying to teach her family for the longest time, but this past week they told us they´re really not intersted, but they gave us permission to teach their daughter. So now we´ll help her get baptized and then she can go to church with her neighbors and all (her neighbors are members, that´s how we met her). There´s also a 12 year old girl that´s a friend of a member that´s come to church for like 4 weeks, and we finally were able to set up a Noche de Hogar with her, and hopefully her whole family comes. She´s going to invite them. Rodrigo, the investigator that was in the hospital, is out of the hospital now. We have a visit with him tonight. Hopefully he progresses well though. Jesus still has been ignoring us. I don´t know what we´re going to do with him. It´s kind of a frustrating situation, but such is life sometimes. Hopefully we get him to change his mind sometime. Augusto went out to another finca, but we´re probably going to have a visit with him this week and we´ll see what ends up happening. Hopefully it goes well though in the end. He could be baptized if he could just find a way to come to chuch on Sundays. Well, I can´t think of much else to say now, so I´m going to go ahead and end this and write the individuals now. Have a great week. ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
11/8/10
11-8-2010
Family and Friends! How´s everyone doing? First off, I meant to say this last week, but I forgot because it was still a bit early, but HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hope you had a fantastic day/week. Anyways, things are going alright here in Palma de Mallorca. This past week had some really good things, but also some really bad things. I´ll start with the bad news. So Jesus called us up Tuesday morning and told us he didn´t want to get baptized and he didn´t want to continue with us. I was so sad. I can´t even describe it. Anyways, we tried calling him several times, but he never answered. We had the member that went with us to the cita last week call him up too, but he didn´t answer him either. We´re pretty sure it´s because his cousin told him a bunch of false stuff about our church, or told him that she wouldn´t take care of him anymore if he got baptized. I hope he changes though... We even passed by this past Saturday and he came out, said he had nothing more to do with us and went back in his house... I don´t know what´s going to happen with that. So that was a bit depressing. Augusto didn´t get baptized either because he wasn´t able to come to church on Sunday. So he´s moving this week and will be baptized in two weeks in Manacor, but they´ll be coming to Palma for the baptism, so we´ll be there and all. So that´s good. Also, Levante was going to have two baptisms that were set. It was a single mom and her 9-year old son. On Friday the dad came and picked up the son and took him to Barcelona. So we had to cancel the baptism completely. They´re going to be baptized this next week though. Okay, also, Elder Harris had to stay in Barcelona because of needing the operation, so Elder Greep had to go to Inca and he´s been there since Friday. Next, Elder Bennington has been really sick, and he got really sick when we were in Barcelona for the conference and he had to stay there. He went to the hospital and they figured out he had an intestinal infection. So he was in the hospital for 3 days. He should be coming back tonight. So that´s the bad news. All of that caused almost everyone´s weeks in the zone to not be as good. It´s okay though, we´ll jump up this week.
So for some good news. We all went out to Barcelona on Wednesday for the conference with Elder Texeira of the seventy. He´s the second counselor in the area presidency of Europe. It was a really good conference. Before the conference we had a little 45 minute meeting with the Texeira´s, the Hinckleys, the Ayudantes, and the Zone Leaders. So that was fun to get to be in a smaller meeting with just 12 people and learn a bit more from Elder Texeira. Let´s just say after that conference I have no doubt that we can reach our goal for 404 baptisms for the year. That´s another thing, we just figured out last night that President Hinckley and Elder Texeira were talking and they decided to change the goal from 400 to 404. That´s what we´ve been saying in our zone the whole time. The Ayudante told us that President Hinckley said to Elder Texeira that he´s learned a bit from two missionaries out in Mallorca, and that´s why they changed the goal. So now we just need to work super hard and do our absolute best, and We´ll reach it. It was a really good conference though. We talked a lot about mining for gold, which is where you not only teach your progressing investigators, but you ask if you can pray for some of their friends, then you ask you if you can visit their friends to help them as well, and within a couple weeks you can have a lot of new investigators and people working towards baptism. We´ve been working on getting that going here in our zone since the conference.
So lets see, what else has happened? Oh, I think I´ve told you about José Luis and Mildred (they´re a super good couple, but he needs to get divorced from his ex-wife, and then they need to get married), but their baby was born this past week. And guess when it was born? November 3rd. I told them that their baby, Derek, shares a birthday with my mom and my nephew. So that was kind of cool. Okay, another thing about Barcelona. The night before Elder Cannell (he served in the 1st ward in Barcelona right before me, I replaced him) and I went and visited a couple people that we know. That was a lot of fun. I wish we could´ve visited a few more people, but oh well. Also, I called up Toni, the guy I baptized from Egypt, and he´s doing really well. His only problem is he had to move and now he´s taking care of old people and has to be there 24/7 and they won´t let him leave on Sunday´s to go to church. So that´s not good. He said he still reads and prays everyday. So now I just hope he can get to be able to go to church again too. He said he wants to see me before I finish my mission, so I´ll have to see him sometime. Lets see what else. Oh, on Thursday after the conference and before our plane left we passed by the Sagrada Familia, but not so much to see the Sagrada Familia, I´ve seen it several times, but to get Barcelona Jerseys! I wasn´t going to get one yet, since they´re pretty expensive, but I got one anyways. I got them to write Sommerfeldt on the back, with the number 13, since that´s my favorite number. I took pictures of it and I was going to send them, but I forgot my camera, so it´ll have to be next week I guess. Well, I can´t think of much else that´s new. This next week is a Mini-CCM (Mini MTC) for us. President Hinckley´s coming out and Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday until 4:00 in the afternoon is going to teach us some of the new lessons that help us apply Preach My Gospel better and be better teachers. So that should be good. It also means we´ll have a lot of missionaries in our piso, so it´ll be a crazy week. It´ll be good though.
We also visited a girl named Dayana this past week. She´s Dana´s sister, Damaris´s daughter. We´ll see if we can get her to follow the example of her little sister and be baptized too. She´s 18, and just came back after living with her boyfriend, now ex-boyfriend in Galicia for a year. So hopefully we can help her out a bit. Well, I can´t think of much else to say, so I´m going to go ahead and end this. I hope you all have a great week though, and I´ll talk to you later.
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
10/19/10
10/18/2010
Family and friends! HOw are you all doing? So this big news of the week here is that Dana got baptized!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It went super well. I want to send a picture home, but the computer doesn´t have a working slot for my SD card... maybe next week. We also just got back from a place called Formentor, you can google it if you want, but it was so beautiful. It´s a little peninsula thing with a lighthouse and the ocean crashes against all the rocks, etc. I took a lot of pictures and video. You´ll be able to see it someday, and hopefully next week I can get some pictures sent out. So yeah. So with Dana´s baptism, it went super good in the end. It was a bit of a hassle though doing everything. It was my week to have the phone too, so I was talking on the phone A LOT this past week. There was another guy named Antonio from the Manacor branch, a branch about an hour away, that also got baptized and they got baptized together. So the Manacor president kept on calling us to see what was going on, see if we had clothes Antonio could use, etc. It was a bit of a hassle. We got the programs all made and everything though and at 5:00 my time they were baptized. It went super, super good. Then on Sunday I confirmed Dana. She was super happy the whole time, and her friend Imma, who´s also super cute, she´s 9, came to the baptism and the confirmation. It was funny, because we had 4 investigators in church this past week, and two of them were primary age... So half of our investigators in church are kids. It´s funny. Well, this past week we had district meeting out in Inca, and right after we did intercambios. Oh, first off, I forgot to tell you about the new missionary Elder Jacinto and I are training.
Okay, so his name is Elder Greep. He´s from Utah, around South Jordan. His plane was supposed to get in at like 9:30, but on our way to the airport we got a call saying his flight was delayed. In the end, it was 11:50 that he got in... So we had a lot of time waiting, and we were really tired the next day. He got in though, so that´s good. It was delayed becuase on Tuesday it was pouring rain here. I´ve never seen so much rain. It felt like I was in a hurricane or something, and we were running around to citas and all, and neither one of us had an umbrella. I lost mine in my last area. maybe I´ll have to buy a new one if it keeps raining. Anyways, Elder Greep´s from Utah and he´s a good missionary. We get along well. Also, it was funny, because Elder Bennington pretended for the entire first day to be from England. He actually did the accent really well, and Elder Greep totally bought all of it.
Anyways, so after the district meeting on Wednesday we did intercambios for a little bit to get some interviews done. Elder Jacinto did this interview, and I´ll do the next one that we have to do. Elder Bowers, from Inca, who was a district leader, has permission to do the interviews that Elder Jacinto and I need, so he came out and interviewed Dana. Anyways, to the interview, Dana´s mom, Damaris, brought two of her friends, Silvia, and Cote, and we started teaching them. Silvia now has a baptismal date for the 13 of November. So that´s really good. Silvia and Cote also came to the baptism and loved it. They helped with cleaning up and such more than anyone else.
Next, there was also a lady we started teaching this past week named Susana. We found her through English Classes. She told us that she wanted to be baptized because she had an experience that let her know that God exists, so she went to the Catholic Church to figure out what she had to do. On the way she saw an English Class advertisement and called us up. Then she was going to start the catholic classes this Tuesday at 6:00, but she set up to visit with us instead. She´s very prepared. So we´ll see what we can do to get her baptized as well. We asked if she´d be baptized after she knows the Book of Mormon is true and she said for sure. She said there´s nothing about the catholic church that´s special, she just had heard of the catholic church more than other churches. So yeah. I´m really excited to help her. So yeah. Things are going really well here. This next Saturday we´re having a Noche de Cine (movie night) that we´re in charge of. We´re going to watch "Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration." It should be really good. Not many people have seen that here either. Only those that have gone to the temple have seen it. So we announced that in church and gave out a ton of little invitations. Hopefullky everyone brings a bunch of friends.
I also had to speak this past week. With the baptism and all I completely forgot about it until Saturday night. I got something ready fast though and it actually went really well. I just talked about why I decided to serve a mission and some of the miracles I´ve seen on my misison and how we can all see miracles and be missionaries. So yeah. Let´s see, I can´t think of what else I should say. It´s been a good week. We also finished the week with 20 lessons, exactly. So that was good. Elder Greep, Elder Jacinto, and I all get along well. Elder Greep still isn´t good with spanish, but that´s understandable, he´s only been here for like a week now. He´s getting better and better each day though and he really wants to help the people.
Well, things are going great here in Palma. There´s always those bad days, but the good things are a lot more than the hard things. So yeah. I love being a missionary. I´ll write to all of you next week. ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
10/13/10
10/12/2010
Family and Friends! How´s everyone going? First off, good luck John! You´re going to love your mission. Okay, so for pictures, the first one is of Elder Bennington, me, Dana (the girl that´s getting baptized this Saturday!), and Elder Jacinto. We all had ginormous grapes in our cheeks, hence the funny faces. Dana´s a really cute girl though. The next one is me in front of this building called Pueblo Español. I was going to get more pictures of it, but my battery on my camera died... The next picture is of all of us missionaries here in Palma with a family. The dad´s name is David, the mom´s name is Vanessa, the oldest daughter´s name is Marta, and the son´s name is Jorge. I can´t remember the little girl´s name though. There members though, and we eat with them usually once a week. WE took the picture because it was Elder Henrie´s last time... he got transferred... We actually just got done dropping him off. Speaking of transfers, I´m staying. I´ll talk more about that later though. The next picture is of a view from up on top of this mountain where we went and took a few pictures. It was raining though, so the pictures didn´t turn out so good... Next is of me when we took all the pictures and I was outside in the rain (actually, I´m not sure if that one attached, sorry...). Finally, the last picture is of Elder Bennington, Elder Henrie, and I right before Elder Henrie left. I cut my hair last night by the way, so my hair´s shorter. I hope it looks good. It´s kind of funny how I´ve learned how to cut my own hair on the mission. It´s not as hard as I would´ve thought it would be.
Anyways, so Elder Henrie left. He´s going to Sabadell. We´ll miss him. Elder Jacinto and I stay companions, but Elder Bennington won´t be our companion anymore... So that´s kind of sad. He was a good companion. He´s going to be Elder Cannell´s companion, which is the other branch in Palma, and we share a piso, so we´re almost still companions. So that´s good. Elder Jacinto and I are going to be training again too... It´s crazy. They´re having zone leaders train a lot of the new missionaries now. I don´t know why, but that´s what the Lord wants now I guess. So I´m training for the third time now, which usually never happens. I´ll let you know how the new companion is next week. He comes in this afternoon. Elder Jacinto and I stay together though for at least another transfer though, so that´s good. We´ve been together for two transfers now, so he´ll be my longest companion yet. So, this past week we had interviews with President Hinckley on Tuesday. So we had our district meeting, and Elder Jacinto and I talked a lot about what we need to do to get 400 baptisms by the end of the year in our mission. It went really good. Then we got kebab, then President came, ate with us, then we had interviews. So that was good. In my interview I basically told President Hinckley that I wanted to stay here with Elder Jacinto for another transfer, and he said they´d decided that they weren´t going to change a good thing, and he told me that unless he got a strong impression before Sunday to change, that we´d be staying companions. And that happened. So that´s good. It´ll be a bit weird without Elder Bennington though. The three of us have become good friends in these past few weeks.
Anyways, the other big thing about this week is that we now have 7 investigators with baptismal dates in our area! We have Dana for this Saturday, she´s doing really well, then we have Augusto, Paula, Cyril, Wally, Segundo, and John. They´re all doing fairly well. Dana´s great, Augusto´s doing really well, and Segundo´s doing really well. The other´s are doing well, but it´s hard to tell right now because they´re still fairly new. I´m excited for that though. In our zone we have 21 investigators with baptismal dates. That´s the highest it´s ever been. THere used to be six companionships in our zone and the most our zone has ever had is 10 investigators with baptismal dates, so we´re more than double that, and we only have 4 companionships... So that´s super good. The whole mission is doing really well. We´re all working hard and we´re determined to get our goal of 400 baptisms, but in our zone we´re shooting for 404. So yeah. It´s an exciting time right now.
This past week we had one day where we did splits with a member and I went around with Miguel Angel. It was really good. He´s a recent convert, so while we were doing splits, we had a visit. We made a mission plan for him to help all of his friends and family, because none of them are members. That went really well. We came up with a bunch of plans and things we can do. So that was good. Well, I don´t really know what else to say. It´s been a good week though. This week is looking like it´ll be a bit stressful, but hopefully it still goes well. Pray for us though.
This past week there´s been a lot of rain too. We were going to go on an excursion this morning with the young single adults and some of our investigators, but it was pouring... so we weren´t able to. Also, Sunday morning it was pouring rain, and none of our investigators came to church, and right at 10:00 when we were supposed to start there were probably only 15 people or so at church. It´s crazy how the rain just kept people from coming. Anyways, I´m going to go and right the individual letters now though. Have a fantastic week. ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
Anyways, so Elder Henrie left. He´s going to Sabadell. We´ll miss him. Elder Jacinto and I stay companions, but Elder Bennington won´t be our companion anymore... So that´s kind of sad. He was a good companion. He´s going to be Elder Cannell´s companion, which is the other branch in Palma, and we share a piso, so we´re almost still companions. So that´s good. Elder Jacinto and I are going to be training again too... It´s crazy. They´re having zone leaders train a lot of the new missionaries now. I don´t know why, but that´s what the Lord wants now I guess. So I´m training for the third time now, which usually never happens. I´ll let you know how the new companion is next week. He comes in this afternoon. Elder Jacinto and I stay together though for at least another transfer though, so that´s good. We´ve been together for two transfers now, so he´ll be my longest companion yet. So, this past week we had interviews with President Hinckley on Tuesday. So we had our district meeting, and Elder Jacinto and I talked a lot about what we need to do to get 400 baptisms by the end of the year in our mission. It went really good. Then we got kebab, then President came, ate with us, then we had interviews. So that was good. In my interview I basically told President Hinckley that I wanted to stay here with Elder Jacinto for another transfer, and he said they´d decided that they weren´t going to change a good thing, and he told me that unless he got a strong impression before Sunday to change, that we´d be staying companions. And that happened. So that´s good. It´ll be a bit weird without Elder Bennington though. The three of us have become good friends in these past few weeks.
Anyways, the other big thing about this week is that we now have 7 investigators with baptismal dates in our area! We have Dana for this Saturday, she´s doing really well, then we have Augusto, Paula, Cyril, Wally, Segundo, and John. They´re all doing fairly well. Dana´s great, Augusto´s doing really well, and Segundo´s doing really well. The other´s are doing well, but it´s hard to tell right now because they´re still fairly new. I´m excited for that though. In our zone we have 21 investigators with baptismal dates. That´s the highest it´s ever been. THere used to be six companionships in our zone and the most our zone has ever had is 10 investigators with baptismal dates, so we´re more than double that, and we only have 4 companionships... So that´s super good. The whole mission is doing really well. We´re all working hard and we´re determined to get our goal of 400 baptisms, but in our zone we´re shooting for 404. So yeah. It´s an exciting time right now.
This past week we had one day where we did splits with a member and I went around with Miguel Angel. It was really good. He´s a recent convert, so while we were doing splits, we had a visit. We made a mission plan for him to help all of his friends and family, because none of them are members. That went really well. We came up with a bunch of plans and things we can do. So that was good. Well, I don´t really know what else to say. It´s been a good week though. This week is looking like it´ll be a bit stressful, but hopefully it still goes well. Pray for us though.
This past week there´s been a lot of rain too. We were going to go on an excursion this morning with the young single adults and some of our investigators, but it was pouring... so we weren´t able to. Also, Sunday morning it was pouring rain, and none of our investigators came to church, and right at 10:00 when we were supposed to start there were probably only 15 people or so at church. It´s crazy how the rain just kept people from coming. Anyways, I´m going to go and right the individual letters now though. Have a fantastic week. ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
10/4/2010
Family and Friends! How´s everyone doing? Things are going pretty good here. Dana is still progressing, but we had to move her baptism back one week because she´s with her mom one week and with her dad the next, so we figured out she´ll be with her dad the week of the 9th, but she has a date for the 16th and is doing really well with that. The family home evening with the president´s family went really well last week. So that´s good. We played a really funny game after too. You pack a cup with flour, then turn it upside down, then you put a coin on it. Everyone takes turns cutting a slice off the flour and the person that makes it fall when they cut it has to get the coin out and in their teeth without using their hands, so they get flour all over their face. It was fun.
Okay, so I can finally send a few pictures. My last card isn´t working great, so these are only the more recent pictures. The first one is of Elder Jacinto and I wearing Elder Bennington´s sunglasses being weird. The next one is of Elder Jacinto, Elder Bennington, and I walking down a strett on Preparation Day and we had the other Elders take a picture of us. Next is of me down town a bit and you can see a bit of the city behind me. The next one is of me with the cathedral behind me. I´m close to the camera and the cathedral´s far away. It´s huge though. The last one is of me, Elder Jacinto, and Elder Bennington in front of the cathedral on some stairs there. So yeah. Now you can see some pictures again. I hope you liked them. I don´t know when I´ll get the DVD made with my pictures from the other card, but hopefully someday.
Okay, moving on. By the way, I started writing with paragraphs to make my e-mails easier to read, due to the fact that one of you (you know who you are) suggested it. Anyways, so this past week was good. We had a cita with that guy named Augusto, that we contacted last week, on Tuesday. It went really good. We had another one on Wednesday and set a baptismal date with him for the 23 of October. So that was good. Then on Thursday right before going to Barcelona we visited with this girl named Paula. She´s 14, daughter of a less active, sister of a recent convert. She even went to EFY this past summer. Anyways, we finally got her to accept a baptismal date, now we just need to help her be ready and feel ready by the 23 of October too.
After that Elder Jacinto and I went to Barcelona and Elder Bennington stayed with Elder Cannell and Elder Henrie (the other missionaries in Palma). Concilio was good. We set a goal of 400 baptisms for the year. We´re at 252 right now, so we need about 50 each month the rest of the year. It´s going to be a lot of work, but it´s possible. You can keep that goal in your prayers. We got to eat pancakes for breakfast with the Hinckleys, and enchiladas for lunch with them. So that was a lot of fun.
Anyways, we came back Friday night. Saturday was a pretty good day. We had a cita with Leticia and she stayed for conference. She was super good. She made all sorts of comments to me during conference asking if she could choose her baptizes her, and if one of us could baptize her, etc. So we´ll have to work with her a lot too. Conference on Sunday was crazy. The satelite was broken and we weren´t able to watch conference that way, but we hooked it up to the internet. I´m just going to copy this from the President´s Letter. Here it is :
We had a really neat experience this past weekend with the power of prayer. So apparently the satelite broke in our capilla. So in the end we had to watch everything on Saturday through the internet hooked up to the projector. Anyways, we got there on Sunday to watch the Priesthood session and the internet was no longer working. They tried, but never got it fixed, so we weren´t able to see the Priesthood Session. Then it got closer to 2:00 to watch the Saturday afternoon session and the internet didn´t work. I was way surprised because the District President started sending everyone home saying we´d watch the conference the first week in November instead. All of us missionaries were really upset. We had investigators coming and we didn´t want to just completely cancel General Conference for the Balearic Islands. So we all went into a room and prayed. After the prayer we went and looked at everything and within a few minutes it was all fixed. We also prayed after it was all working to thank God for the miracle. It really was a miracle. We had to watch most of it in Spanish, so I didn´t get as much out of it as I would have liked to, but it was really neat to see just how powerful prayer is.
It was a really cool. Well, that´s most of it. I´m running really short on time now, so I need to wrap this up so I can get some individual letters written. It´s been a great week though. Things are going really well, every companionship in our zone has at least two investigators with baptismal dates now too. Well, I can´t htink of much else to say, and due to being short on time I´m going to end this. Next week is transfers, but I´m almost certain we´ll both be staying here another transfer just from a comment the Hinckleys made, but we´ll see. I´ll write on Tuesday next week though. Anyways, I hope you all have a great week. Until next week. ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
Okay, so I can finally send a few pictures. My last card isn´t working great, so these are only the more recent pictures. The first one is of Elder Jacinto and I wearing Elder Bennington´s sunglasses being weird. The next one is of Elder Jacinto, Elder Bennington, and I walking down a strett on Preparation Day and we had the other Elders take a picture of us. Next is of me down town a bit and you can see a bit of the city behind me. The next one is of me with the cathedral behind me. I´m close to the camera and the cathedral´s far away. It´s huge though. The last one is of me, Elder Jacinto, and Elder Bennington in front of the cathedral on some stairs there. So yeah. Now you can see some pictures again. I hope you liked them. I don´t know when I´ll get the DVD made with my pictures from the other card, but hopefully someday.
Okay, moving on. By the way, I started writing with paragraphs to make my e-mails easier to read, due to the fact that one of you (you know who you are) suggested it. Anyways, so this past week was good. We had a cita with that guy named Augusto, that we contacted last week, on Tuesday. It went really good. We had another one on Wednesday and set a baptismal date with him for the 23 of October. So that was good. Then on Thursday right before going to Barcelona we visited with this girl named Paula. She´s 14, daughter of a less active, sister of a recent convert. She even went to EFY this past summer. Anyways, we finally got her to accept a baptismal date, now we just need to help her be ready and feel ready by the 23 of October too.
After that Elder Jacinto and I went to Barcelona and Elder Bennington stayed with Elder Cannell and Elder Henrie (the other missionaries in Palma). Concilio was good. We set a goal of 400 baptisms for the year. We´re at 252 right now, so we need about 50 each month the rest of the year. It´s going to be a lot of work, but it´s possible. You can keep that goal in your prayers. We got to eat pancakes for breakfast with the Hinckleys, and enchiladas for lunch with them. So that was a lot of fun.
Anyways, we came back Friday night. Saturday was a pretty good day. We had a cita with Leticia and she stayed for conference. She was super good. She made all sorts of comments to me during conference asking if she could choose her baptizes her, and if one of us could baptize her, etc. So we´ll have to work with her a lot too. Conference on Sunday was crazy. The satelite was broken and we weren´t able to watch conference that way, but we hooked it up to the internet. I´m just going to copy this from the President´s Letter. Here it is :
We had a really neat experience this past weekend with the power of prayer. So apparently the satelite broke in our capilla. So in the end we had to watch everything on Saturday through the internet hooked up to the projector. Anyways, we got there on Sunday to watch the Priesthood session and the internet was no longer working. They tried, but never got it fixed, so we weren´t able to see the Priesthood Session. Then it got closer to 2:00 to watch the Saturday afternoon session and the internet didn´t work. I was way surprised because the District President started sending everyone home saying we´d watch the conference the first week in November instead. All of us missionaries were really upset. We had investigators coming and we didn´t want to just completely cancel General Conference for the Balearic Islands. So we all went into a room and prayed. After the prayer we went and looked at everything and within a few minutes it was all fixed. We also prayed after it was all working to thank God for the miracle. It really was a miracle. We had to watch most of it in Spanish, so I didn´t get as much out of it as I would have liked to, but it was really neat to see just how powerful prayer is.
It was a really cool. Well, that´s most of it. I´m running really short on time now, so I need to wrap this up so I can get some individual letters written. It´s been a great week though. Things are going really well, every companionship in our zone has at least two investigators with baptismal dates now too. Well, I can´t htink of much else to say, and due to being short on time I´m going to end this. Next week is transfers, but I´m almost certain we´ll both be staying here another transfer just from a comment the Hinckleys made, but we´ll see. I´ll write on Tuesday next week though. Anyways, I hope you all have a great week. Until next week. ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
10/3/10
9/27/2010
Family and Friends! How´s everyone doing? So I finally got my memory card back from the member that had it. He wasn´t able to get the DVD´s made, so you´ll have to wait a bit on that... I can send a few pictures home this week though. Actually, it´s not working, and I´ve wasted a ton of time trying to get it to work. SOrry... Maybe next week.
So I guess the biggest news of this week is that Elder Jacinto and I are still companions, but we´re in a trio now. A new Elder, Elder Bennington came and we´re training him together. So yeah. He´s been waiting his for his visa for a while and actually served for 2 months in the Los Angeles mission, then just recently got it, came, and now we´re training him in this mission. So yeah. He´s a good missionary. It´s weird being in a trio. There are some benefits though, one is that we can enter in even if it´s just a single women. The rule is that you need to take another person with you, but President Hinckley said if you have 3 missionaries that it´s okay too. So now if a member cancels on us or something we can still enter. So that´s nice. Also, Dana is still progressing well to be baptized. She´ll be baptized the 9th of October, so that´s good. Let´s see, also we did intercambios this past week. I was with Elder Cannell who is from my group (we started at the same time). So that was fun. It went well. We stayed in our area. Also, on Tuesday we went out to Manacor for a district meeting, and afterwards the Thompsons (a senior couple) took us all out to lunch. We went to a really nice Japanese buffet restaurant. It was a ton of fun. The restuarant had a conveyer belt and the workers just put a bunch of small plates on and we just grabbed the food off as it passed us. I probably had 15 plates or so. It was super good though. Also, this past week one of our investigators, Xisca, asked us to dedicate her store. She has a little sewing store, so we did that. That was interesting. It´s like her house, so we just dedicated it in a prayer and all. It was good though. She´s really good, but we´ve only been able to visit her once, because she´s super busy. Also, when we visited Dana this past week we took the Branch President´s daughter, since she´s about the same age, so that cita went really well. Also, we set up Family Home Evening for tonight with Dana, her mom Damaris, and the Branch President and his family. SO that should be good. All in all, this week was not a very good week. We had one of the worse weeks I´ve had since we got here. Next week will be better though. Another thing that happened this week is that I got a call from a recent convert/less active, but re-activating member on Friday and she had to move out of her Piso that day. So we called the Elder´s Chorum president and the three of us missionaries, plus a couple members moved all her stuff. It took a long time though... It´s all done now though. Her name´s Maria. I feel really bad for her. The guy she was living with before a couple weeks ago drinks a lot, and a couple weeks ago he got drunk, beat her, and almost threw her out the third story window... He´s in jail now and might be deported back to Ecuador. She´s doing a lot better though, so that´s good. I just hope everything works out for her. Oh, do you remember José Luis and Mildred? We haven´t been able to visit them for about a month because of his work, but he finally has more time now, so we visited them twice this past week, and they´re doing super good. They didn´t come to church though... We´ll get them to come this next week. Well, I need to be going and write the individual letters now, but have a great week and I´ll write more next week. ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
So I guess the biggest news of this week is that Elder Jacinto and I are still companions, but we´re in a trio now. A new Elder, Elder Bennington came and we´re training him together. So yeah. He´s been waiting his for his visa for a while and actually served for 2 months in the Los Angeles mission, then just recently got it, came, and now we´re training him in this mission. So yeah. He´s a good missionary. It´s weird being in a trio. There are some benefits though, one is that we can enter in even if it´s just a single women. The rule is that you need to take another person with you, but President Hinckley said if you have 3 missionaries that it´s okay too. So now if a member cancels on us or something we can still enter. So that´s nice. Also, Dana is still progressing well to be baptized. She´ll be baptized the 9th of October, so that´s good. Let´s see, also we did intercambios this past week. I was with Elder Cannell who is from my group (we started at the same time). So that was fun. It went well. We stayed in our area. Also, on Tuesday we went out to Manacor for a district meeting, and afterwards the Thompsons (a senior couple) took us all out to lunch. We went to a really nice Japanese buffet restaurant. It was a ton of fun. The restuarant had a conveyer belt and the workers just put a bunch of small plates on and we just grabbed the food off as it passed us. I probably had 15 plates or so. It was super good though. Also, this past week one of our investigators, Xisca, asked us to dedicate her store. She has a little sewing store, so we did that. That was interesting. It´s like her house, so we just dedicated it in a prayer and all. It was good though. She´s really good, but we´ve only been able to visit her once, because she´s super busy. Also, when we visited Dana this past week we took the Branch President´s daughter, since she´s about the same age, so that cita went really well. Also, we set up Family Home Evening for tonight with Dana, her mom Damaris, and the Branch President and his family. SO that should be good. All in all, this week was not a very good week. We had one of the worse weeks I´ve had since we got here. Next week will be better though. Another thing that happened this week is that I got a call from a recent convert/less active, but re-activating member on Friday and she had to move out of her Piso that day. So we called the Elder´s Chorum president and the three of us missionaries, plus a couple members moved all her stuff. It took a long time though... It´s all done now though. Her name´s Maria. I feel really bad for her. The guy she was living with before a couple weeks ago drinks a lot, and a couple weeks ago he got drunk, beat her, and almost threw her out the third story window... He´s in jail now and might be deported back to Ecuador. She´s doing a lot better though, so that´s good. I just hope everything works out for her. Oh, do you remember José Luis and Mildred? We haven´t been able to visit them for about a month because of his work, but he finally has more time now, so we visited them twice this past week, and they´re doing super good. They didn´t come to church though... We´ll get them to come this next week. Well, I need to be going and write the individual letters now, but have a great week and I´ll write more next week. ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
9/24/10
9/13/2010 - sorry this is out of order...
Family and Friends! How´s everyone doing? THings are going well here in Palma de Mallorca. So BYU lost? That´s too bad. I hope they get everything worked out so that when I´m back we can have a really good season. Anyways, things here are going alright. I don´t have as much to say because it was just last Wednesday that I last wrote. We´re still working with Cyril who has a baptismal date for the 2nd of October. He´s not sure if he´s going to be ready by the 2nd, so we´re trying to help him to just pray and get an answer about The Book of Mormon. That´s really all he needs, then the rest will come after that. He just needs to get that testimony. Overall in the zone things weren´t the greatest this past week. We lost 5 baptismal dates... So that´s not good. HOpefully we can get them all baptized here soon though. Okay, so really quickly, something interesting. So yesterday I got a call from Elder Parry and guess what, he saw Camille (cousin) and Nathan in his ward in Barcelona! He said she asked him how long he´d been in the mission then said, "you wouldn´t happen to know an Elder Sommerfeldt would you?" He said that I was a trainer and yeah. So that´s kind of cool. I guess they were on a cruise or something. Also, a quick update on Elder Jacinto´s ankle and all from last week. So we went to the hospital and after a lot of money we figured out that it´s not broken or anything. It´s just a really bad sprain. The doctor told him not to walk on it for a week or so. We´ve been walking a lot still though... But we´re taking breaks and such. It got way swollen and bruised though. It was pretty bad. It´s still swollen and bruised, but it´s getting better. He can almost walk normal now, so that´s good. But yeah, everything´s pretty much back to normal with that now. Anyways, so that same night we had English Classes starting. So Elder Jacinto went to the hospital in sandals, shorts, and a t-shirt, and I was in my white shirt, tie, with my briefcase, etc. So the doctors all kind of looked at me like I was his lawyer or something, that was funny. Then, we almost didn´t have time to make it to English class, but we got there right when we were supposed to start, but we didn´t have time for Elder Jacinto to change, so he taught the class in short and a t-shirt. That doesn´t happen very often... Then we had a visit with a recent convert right after (we stayed in the church for the visit), so we taught a lesson with him in sandals, shorts, and a t-shirt. It was weird. Anyways, the next day we had District Meeting. Elder Jacinto and I talked about the importance of revelation through prayer. It´s one of the lessons that the church came out with to help people implement Preach My Gospel better. Also Thursday morning, one of our investigators Mildred called us up because she made us empanadas and wanted us to come pick them up. So that was nice of her. She´s almost like a member, except she needs to get married before she can get baptized, and she and her husband (José Luis) need to start coming to church. We´re working on it though. Also, there´s this girl named Alex who´s actually half American. She lived in New York for 12 years. Her mom or dad is from the U.S. and the other one is from France, and she´s married to a Spaniard now. Apparently before we got here though she came to church several times and wanted to get baptized, but went out of town to France for a month or two, but she´s back now! We have a cita set up with her for this next Tuesday, so we´ll see what happens with that in the end. Hopefully we can help her gain a testimony and be baptized in the end. We also have this guy named Herlín that´s just doing really good. He´s really nice too. For example, on Thursday, the day after Elder Jacinto hurt his ankle, he came to the church for the visit so we didn´t have to walk out to his house, then he drove us to our next cita after. Anyways, I´m going to copy and paste from the President´s letter to tell about him. "We also have an investigator named Herlín that´s doing very well. He´s an antiguo investigador who was dropped because he´s not married to his pareja and his ex-wife wanted $18,000 for a divorce. However, when we found him, his ex-wife is now fine with getting ña divorce, and his pareja is going to have a baby any day now, so he´s worried a lot about making his family a really good family. He should be divorced in 2-3 months. Almost every lesson we´ve had with him has gone differently than planned becasue the spirit has guided every lesson. One time we even taught the Word of Wisdom instead of The Restoration. We gave him a blessing of strength afterwards and he´s doing a lot better now. It´s been really nice to see how much better things can go when we follow what the spirit´s planned instead of what we´ve planned." So yeah. He´s doing pretty good. It´ll be a couple months before he can be baptized though. Also, Elizabeth, she got baptized the weekend before Elder Jacinto and I came here is doing really good too. She invited us over to eat on Tuesday and Sunday this past week. We´re becoming better friends with her kids as well, Mariel and Salvador and one day we even got Mariel to stay for the message after eating. So we´ll see if we can´t help them accept the gospel as well. Well, I can´t think of a whole lot more that´s new, so I´m going to go ahead and end this. I hope you all have fantastic weeks though, and I´ll talk to you all later. ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
9/20/2010
Family and friends! How´s everyone doing over there? It sounds like it was a busy week? It was a pretty busy week over here too. First off, congratulations to Laurel and Kevin, that´s way cool with the new baby girl and all. Okay, so this past week was busy here too. I´ll start with last Monday. We started playing a game of the board game RISK for preparation day, but we weren´t able to finish because preparation day ended, so we took a picture of the board and we´re going to finish it today. So that should be fun. Then on Tuesday we had an amazing cita with a girl named Alex. Her dad is American and her mom French, and she lives in Palma married to a Spaniard. She speaks like 7 languages, but she prefers English. She´s doing really well. We were only able to visit her that one time though, because she was really busy last week. We´ll visit her again this week though. She´s really nice though, has a family, and they´re not poor either, so we don´t have to worry about them just wanting money from the church or anything. Anyways, then we had district meeting that Elder Jacinto and I taught and it went well. Then we ate Kebabs. Then we started Intercambios. I went out to Inca, it´s a city in the middle of the island, to be with Elder Harris. Elder Harris is only in his second transfer I believe, but he´s a really good missionary already. So that was a lot of fun. I´d send you a picture of me out there, but the locutorio (internet cafe) where we´re at doesn´t have the camera card reader... Maybe another week. Also, I´m still waiting on the DVD of all my pictures that the member´s making for me, but I´ll send it once I get it. Anyways, here in Palma elder Jacinto and Elder Bowers met with an 11 year old girl named Dana. She´s golden. We´ve visited with her twice since then and she came to district conference with her mom this past week. She´s the daughter of a less-active. Apparently she was going to be baptized in the past, and the morning of her baptism, her mom asked her, why do you want to be baptized, and she didn´t really know, so her mom didn´t think she was ready. But that was when she was 9, and now she´s 11, and she´s really smart. So she´ll for sure be ready. She has a baptismal date for the 9th of October. Also, in Inca, they haven´t had even one investigator with a baptismal date for like 2-3 months, but this past week in one day they set 4 baptismal dates. So that´s super good. We were really happy for them. Our investigator Cyril is still doing well, but he didn´t come to church this past week, so we don´t think he´ll be ready by the 2nd of October, we´ll have to change his baptismal date back one or two weeks. We´re going to visit him today, so we´ll talk to him about all that. Anyways, I don´t know if you remember Charles, but he´s one of our investigators from Nigeria. We went and visited him and his friends John and Wally were there. So they´re both new investigators now too. They´re both praying to know if they should be baptized. So we´ll see what happens there. We have a visit with them tomorrow. Then yesterday was a good day too. We had District Conference in the morning, so President and Hermana Hinckley came out for that and all. Hermana Hinckley took a bunch of pictures that she might put up on the mission blog, so you can look and see if those go up. We also sang in the choir too, so that was fun. Anyways, then in the afternoon we visited with a guy named José, from English classes. He was there, and so was his wife Sofía, and her sister Daisy. So all three of them are now new investigators. We watched Finding Faith in christ with them, and we´re going to go back next week and talk about how Christ´s church was restored (A.K.A. The Restoration with Joseph Smith, etc.). We also visited Leticia, which is this 20 year old girl we visited about 6 weeks ago, but then she´s been avoiding us since then. She said she wants to do better though, so we had a really good cita with her. I feel bad for her. Her mom´s in prison, her dad doesn´t live there, so she´s basically in charge of all her family now. We talked a lot about how having the gift of the Holy Ghost after baptism will help her with those problems. So I´ll let you know what happens with her. Then we visited a less active family, Luzmila, and the daughter´s friend Mihaela was there. She´s 9 years old and she´s super good. I´d love to have a daughter like her, she was just super good. We were teaching and she would raise her hand and say ¿Qué es la fe? (What is faith). She was really interested and very attentive and behaved really well. Then we set up a cita with the less active family, and she said, should my parents come too, and we said yes, so she said, my parent work until 7:00, so we set up a family home evening with the two families for this Thursday at 8:00. It should be good. Mihaela´s from Romania. So yeah, that was really fun. So that´s a little update of me this past week. I can´t think of much else to say. I´m sure there´s other things I could say, but that´s about all I have time for. I´m going to switch to the individuals now. Congratulations again to Scuba and Laurel, and also to Francis, Rachel, and Petey with the triathlon. Have a great week and I´ll write more next week. ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
9/18/10
9/8/2010
Family and Friends! So first off, HAPPY BIRTHDAY PETEY!!!!!!!!! Anyways, how´s everyone doing? Sorry for writing on Wednesday. Our preparation day was switched this past week because of transfers. Elder Jacinto and I stay the same though, so that´s good. I´ll be here at least 6 more weeks, unless there´s an emergency transfer or anything. Last week we went out to Barcelona on Monday. We got there around like 7:00 or so and had a couple hours. So we went and visited Lusmila (one of my converts there). It was a ton of fun seeing her and she was super excited to see me. She told me that the night before she´d had a dream and someone that she couldn´t see who came and visited her. She said it was someone she wasn´t afraid of, that she trusted, etc. She thought it was her dad, but she was confused because her dad´s in Peru, so he wouldn´t have been able to visit her. Then I knocked on her door and she said it was me in her dream. So that was kind of a cool story. She´s doing well, but because of work she hasn´t been able to go to church for about a month, and she hasn´t been visited by missionaries, visiting teachers, home teachers, the whole time. So that´s lame. She´s still reading and praying though, and she wants to go to church. So that´s good. She´s a really good person. Then on Tuesday we had concilio. We got to eat pancakes, so that was nice. It was a good meeting. We talked a lot about making sure our goals are realistic. So we all had to cut our goals down a bunch. We took our goal from 14 baptisms in the month of September in our zone, to 8. So we´ll see how we can do. We have 5 or 6 investigators with fechas right now. We have a small zone, so we historically baptize less than other zones, but we´ll hopefully be able to just baptize more per missionary and still be able to baptize a lot of people. So after concilio we took a bus down to Castellón. It was crazy. It took forever. Half way through they pulled into a stop and announced that everyone had to get off the bus and that there was going to be a 45 minute break. I don´t know why they don´t just get two bus drivers or something. Oh well. Anyways, we got in really late, but luckily we got to see Armando, so that was cool. I also saw one of the jóvenes named Jason, also Bruna, Bianca, and Rhita. So that was good. Armando gave me a picture of Elder Parry and I that was taken at one of the activities. It turned out really good. I´ll show it to you sometime. I´d e-mail pictures home today, but a member has my memory card making a DVD of it so I can send it home. Anyways, so then Wednesday morning we waited in line a long time and finally got the paper that we thought was what we needed. I mailed it overnight to Josué (the guy in charge of residency for all the missionaries in Spain), and we went to Valencia and caught a plane coming home. We had a Family Home Evening that night with a couple in our ward and one of his non-member friends. It went really well. However, the next day I got a call from Josué saying what they gave me in Castellón isn´t what we needed and that he´s worried because I´m not in the system anymore. There´s 4 elders in Spain that were sent back to the US early to finish their missions there because of residency problems they had there. I think it´ll be okay for me probably though, I hope. We´ll see though. So then we had a decent week here in Palma. There´s two big things that happened. The first is that yesterday we went to visit with a guy named Charles for the second time. Cyril (who shares a piso with him) was there as well. So we invited him to join. In the end we invited both of them to be baptized on the 2nd of October and Charles still wouldn´t set a date, but Cyril would!!!!! So that was awesome. We finally have an investigator with a baptismal date. We also invited another girl named Paula to be bapitized, but she doesn´t think she´s ready yet either. She will be though, she´s just super shy. Anyways, Cyril is from Nigeria and he´s been here about 3 years. We have another cita with him tomorrow, so hopefully that goes well. But that´s the big news there. Next, this morning we went and played soccer and Elder Jacinto went to stop the ball and his ankle rolled really bad over the ball. Anyways, he can hardly walk now and his ankle is really swollen, so we´re going to the hospital in about half an hour to get X-rays taken, but hopefully it´s all okay. That might slow us down a bit this week though, because he may be on crutches and everything. We´ll see what happens though. I´ll let you know next week. We also started teaching a guy named Yusef. He´s muslim, but not practicing. So we´ll see what happens with that. He´s really nice though. The first cita he talked about September 11th and how it was all politics and that´s not what muslims do, etc. It was interesting hearing him talk about it. Well, I´m running out of time, so I´m going to write the individual letters now. Have fantastic weeks though, and I´ll write more next Monday, which isn´t too far away. Have a great week. ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
9/4/10
8/30/10
Family and Friends! How´s everyone doing? So I was going to send some pictures this week because I have some pretty good ones with the ocean in the background and all, but I can´t send them because this computer doesn´t have a place to stick the memory card into... Sorry. Next week I´ll do it. So this past week has been pretty good. We were fired on 22 times. That means we had 22 citas (appointments) cancel on us. We still ended up with 20 lessons though, so that was way good. The only problem is that we still don´t have anyone that has a baptismal date yet. We set two baptismal dates this past week, but they both live in Levante´s area. We´re still going hard though, but that´s our biggest area where we need to improve right now. So we are continuing to teach the king´s friend, Jaime. We visited him once this past week, and had another cita with him, but he´s going to his other house that´s in the country (where he has like 7 or 8 people that work there taking care of all the land. He has 5 houses like that.). We´ll go visit him at his house in the country next week though. I don´t know how you´d say it, his "house in the country." We just say "finca," and house in the country is the best translation I can think of to describe it. We also continued teaching Gatha, the investigator from Korea. She came to church this past week as well. I had to translate for her, but we were in the back, the microphone was broken, and there were two kids talking, so it was really hard to translate into english for her. She said she´s leaving today to go to Barcelona though... So we´ll get her info to missionaries in Barcelona, but we won´t be able to continue teaching her it looks like. Things are still going well with Andrea. She´s probably the closest to baptism right now, but she´s super shy and won´t come to church. So we´re still working on that. We´ll see what happens. Well, also, last Monday we went out to Zara to look for suits, but they didn´t have anything. All the stuff on Rebajas was already gone. We did go bowling though. It was only 3,50 euros for two games and shoes. So that was fun. I got 127 the first game, and 146 the second game. So I hope I can still do well after the mission. We played soccer this morning. It was pretty fun. I don´t know if I said this though, but I hurt my ankle last week, and every time we play soccer it seems to hurt a little bit again. It´s not bad though, so hopefully it gets better soon. I don´t want to just completely stop playing soccer though, so yeah. We also had scones this morning. We have an elder in our piso named Elder Cannell and he loves cooking, so whenever we have to eat in Piso he just does all the cooking, and he made scones this morning, so that was nice. We also visited with José Luis and Mildred this past week. They´re doing really well and they want to get baptized, but they´re not married. And in order to get married he needs to get divorced from his ex-wife first. That´s a typical situation with Bolivians... They´re really good though. He got married when he was 18, then split from her, but it´s expensive to get a divorce I guess, then he´s been living with his current "wife" for like 7 years and they have a child and another on the way in November. They committed to start the divorce then marriage process though. It could be like a year though before it´s all done. We´ll see. It´ll work out though. Let´s see, what else is new. I think that´s about it. Oh, I´m writing right now and right after I´m going to Barcelona for a meeting. So that´ll be fun. Then I have to go down to Castellón after to do some residency stuff! So that should all be fun. I´ll be able to see everyone again and all, hopefully. I might get there late at night and have to leave the next morning. We´ll see how it goes. I´ll write about it next week. Well, that´s about it. I´m going to go now. I´ll write more next week. ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
8/23/10
8/23/10
Family and Friends! How´s everyone doing? So this past week was a bit better than last week. Last week we had 15 citas, but this past week we had 17. We´re getting closer and closer to having 20 lessons/week. Also this past week we had zone conference. I´m going to stick a picture on here of it. I hope it works, because for some reason I can´t actually see the picture, so I guessed which one it is. I think the other picture should be of me on our balcony with a bit of our neighborhood in the background. I hope you enjoy it. Let´s see, what else. Oh, so with zone conference Elder Jacinto and I were in charge of a bunch of it. We had to assign everything, and another interesting thing that will make mom happy is that this is the only zone without someone who can play the piano amazingly well, so I had to play the hymns. It turned out good though. Elder Jacinto conducted, and the only other things we had to do was set up, sit in front, and give a little presentation on area books. It went well though. It was a good conference I think. Also with the conference the ayudantes (assistants to the president) came out to do intercambios with Elder Jacinto and I. It was a fairly good intercambio. Do you want to hear something amazing! I sat in a chair where the King of Spain sat just two-three weeks ago! We started teaching this guy that´s been friends with the king of Spain since they were kids. He calls the King by his first name. He was the math tutor for the Prince, and the Prince won´t let him speak to him in usted, only in tu. So yeah, that was awesome. He told us he would get us Spanish nationality if we wanted it, and he has the connections to do it. He´s 80 years old, his name´s Jaime, and hopefully we can help him get baptized. I went with Elder Raban and he knew Elder Raban before and just loves him. He´s a really nice guy, so we´ll see what we can do to help him get baptized. But yeah, I read telegrams from the King of Spain to this guy inviting him over to dine with them. It was pretty cool. So this past week we did an intercambios blitz with the elders in Levante (it´s the other branch here in Palma). We did that Wednesday. First off intercambios means I was with one of the elders from Levante, and Elder Jacinto was with the other one. Then the blitz means that we were both working in their area to help them get more citas and
more investigators and just help their area do a bit better. It went pretty well. They have 3 investigators with baptismal dates right now, so that´s good. We were still fired on a bunch this past week, but not as bad as the last week, so that´s good. So a cool story that happened is that we were walking to go pass by some people and we passed this lady in the cross walk. Elder Jacinto felt like we should contact them, but you can´t contact in the middle of the street, so we walked around the block to find them that way. We got around and we couldn´t find them, so we were about ready to give up, but then we saw them, so we took off after them. It was a lady pushing a stroller with two little girls walking with her. So we were almos caught up, like 20 feet away when she went into a cafetería. So we just walked by and we were going to wait for her come out. After like 5 minutes we figured she might be there a while, so we decided we´d go in, buy some orange fanta, and hopefully start up a conversation. So we went and right before entering two girls called us from the other side of the street. Long story short one of them is interested in learning more, they´re both from the Dominican Republic and have been the church there. They live in the Levante Elder´s area, but that´s good. They have more work now. So after talking to them we went into the cafetería and bought some fantas and sat down at a table next to them. They looked like they were from Bolivia so after a couple minutes and asked where they were from, they said Bolivia, I said I had a brother that was there for 2 years as a missionary and we started talking. Long story short, the dad said he was thinking about finding a priest or someone to come and talk to his daughters so they can learn more about Jesus Christ, and we told him we´d love to go and talk to the whole family. So we got his info and set up a cita. They weren´t there for the first one, but maybe this next week. So that was cool. Also, we had not the greatest week, so we got to Sunday with only 14 lessons, and then we were blessed. We had 4 investigators come to church, and one of them had gotten a pass along card a while back, and just decided to come. Anyways, the one that was there for the first time is named Rigo. So we had a cita with Rigo in the evening, and set a baptismal fecha with him for the 18 of September!!! The only thing is that we figured out after the cita that he lives in the Levante Elder´s area. Now they have someone else to work with. So that´s that. Yesterday we also had a cita with a girl named Gatha. She´s from Korea. So hopefully we can help her get baptized as well. It´s cool, because I´ve always wanted to baptized a rich guy, and I´ve always wanted to baptize an asian. So if Jaime (the king´s friend) gets baptized, that would be the rich guy, then if Gatha gets baptized that would be the asian. They´re all children of God though, so I´ll just baptize whoever´s ready. Well, I can´t think of much else to say. This next week is looking very good. We already have like 15 citas set up, and most of them I don´t think will cancel on us. So that´s good. Today we´re going to play fútbol (soccer) and then go to Zara (a clothes store) and I might get a spanish suit for really cheap. Everything´s on Rebajas (sales) right now, and there´s a girl that´s a member that works there that told us she can get us even more deals. So we´ll see what happens. Well, I need to be going now, but have a great week and I´ll write more next week. Have great weeks. ¡Chao!
more investigators and just help their area do a bit better. It went pretty well. They have 3 investigators with baptismal dates right now, so that´s good. We were still fired on a bunch this past week, but not as bad as the last week, so that´s good. So a cool story that happened is that we were walking to go pass by some people and we passed this lady in the cross walk. Elder Jacinto felt like we should contact them, but you can´t contact in the middle of the street, so we walked around the block to find them that way. We got around and we couldn´t find them, so we were about ready to give up, but then we saw them, so we took off after them. It was a lady pushing a stroller with two little girls walking with her. So we were almos caught up, like 20 feet away when she went into a cafetería. So we just walked by and we were going to wait for her come out. After like 5 minutes we figured she might be there a while, so we decided we´d go in, buy some orange fanta, and hopefully start up a conversation. So we went and right before entering two girls called us from the other side of the street. Long story short one of them is interested in learning more, they´re both from the Dominican Republic and have been the church there. They live in the Levante Elder´s area, but that´s good. They have more work now. So after talking to them we went into the cafetería and bought some fantas and sat down at a table next to them. They looked like they were from Bolivia so after a couple minutes and asked where they were from, they said Bolivia, I said I had a brother that was there for 2 years as a missionary and we started talking. Long story short, the dad said he was thinking about finding a priest or someone to come and talk to his daughters so they can learn more about Jesus Christ, and we told him we´d love to go and talk to the whole family. So we got his info and set up a cita. They weren´t there for the first one, but maybe this next week. So that was cool. Also, we had not the greatest week, so we got to Sunday with only 14 lessons, and then we were blessed. We had 4 investigators come to church, and one of them had gotten a pass along card a while back, and just decided to come. Anyways, the one that was there for the first time is named Rigo. So we had a cita with Rigo in the evening, and set a baptismal fecha with him for the 18 of September!!! The only thing is that we figured out after the cita that he lives in the Levante Elder´s area. Now they have someone else to work with. So that´s that. Yesterday we also had a cita with a girl named Gatha. She´s from Korea. So hopefully we can help her get baptized as well. It´s cool, because I´ve always wanted to baptized a rich guy, and I´ve always wanted to baptize an asian. So if Jaime (the king´s friend) gets baptized, that would be the rich guy, then if Gatha gets baptized that would be the asian. They´re all children of God though, so I´ll just baptize whoever´s ready. Well, I can´t think of much else to say. This next week is looking very good. We already have like 15 citas set up, and most of them I don´t think will cancel on us. So that´s good. Today we´re going to play fútbol (soccer) and then go to Zara (a clothes store) and I might get a spanish suit for really cheap. Everything´s on Rebajas (sales) right now, and there´s a girl that´s a member that works there that told us she can get us even more deals. So we´ll see what happens. Well, I need to be going now, but have a great week and I´ll write more next week. Have great weeks. ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
8/17/10
8/16/2010
Family and Friends! How´s everyone doing? I hope things are going well there? Everything´s good here in Palma de Mallorca. It was nice to finally have a full week here. It was a harder week than normal though. We had 17 people cancel citas on us throughout the week, but such is life.
So with pictures, I actually haven´t taken that many citas. First off though is a place called Plaza de Toros that´s just like 2-3 blocks away from our house. They actually had a concert there a couple weeks ago by The Cranberries and you could hear the music from inside our piso. It was interesting. It´s a cool building though, it looks like a collosseum. The other picture is from last week when we played tennis. I don´t have any other pictures really, so I´m not going to send any others this week. I´m going to make a DVD soon though and mail it home with 8 gigs of pictures, so you can look forward to that.
Well, so as I said this past week has been a bit slow. We still got 15 lessons in the end, but it was hard being fired on 17 times. Elder Jacinto and I had to teach district meeting this past week, so that was fun. It went well, we just didn´thave time to finish talking about everything we had planned. This week on Friday is zone conference, so we need to teach and organize a lot of that. So yeah. Zone Conferences aren´t as fun now because I have to help organize them... just joking. They´ll still be good. It´s not that much we have to do either. I think we just have like 45 minutes or so to teach something. They´re going to tell us what to talk about tonight. So yeah. Anyways, we started teaching some people this week named José Luis and Mildred. They´re a family from Bolivia and they have one son named Luis. Luis is like 4 or 5. They´re super good though. They want to get baptized, they understand their reading, etc. The only problem is they´re not married. They´ve been together for like 7 years though, so we´ll see if we can help them get married. We´re going to talk about it tonight with them. Hopefully it goes well. I´ll let you know how that goes next week. We´re also visited a guy named Wilson this past week. Wilson is from Nigeria. He´s super good too. He wants to work towards baptism. We ´ve only had one cita with him though, and we weren´t able to set a specific date for a baptism with him, but hopefully this next week we´ll be able to. We have a bunch of other people we´re visiting, but they´re not progressing right now. We´re actually going to have to drop a lot of people this next week, just because they´re not progressing. We´ve been working with some less actives as well and this past week one of them came to church, so that´s good. Her name´s Aura. She´s really nice. We eat with her, her husband, and her son every Saturday. So we´ll have to see if we can´t get their whole family reactivated.
Well, I can´t think of much else new this week. Sorry, other than being fired on a ton, it´s been a normal week. Oh, one thing, Elder Parry called me up this past week (he´s the Secretary to the President) and he told me that there were some new missionaries coming in and he wasn´t sure why, but President wanted me to catch a plane into Barcelona the next day, so it sounded like I was going to be transferred and train again and whitewash an area. I was like, are you serious, and he said, nope, I´m just joking. I was nervous for a bit there though. Our mission right now has less people than it´s ever had. We only have around 80 missionaries in the mission right now. There´s like 8 missionaries waiting on Visas, so hopefully they can get here fast. One of the branch/ward that has been closed is in our zone. So it would be nice to get it reopened. Well, I can´t think of much else new, so I´m going to go ahead and end this. I hope you all have a fantastic week though and I´ll talk to you later.
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
So with pictures, I actually haven´t taken that many citas. First off though is a place called Plaza de Toros that´s just like 2-3 blocks away from our house. They actually had a concert there a couple weeks ago by The Cranberries and you could hear the music from inside our piso. It was interesting. It´s a cool building though, it looks like a collosseum. The other picture is from last week when we played tennis. I don´t have any other pictures really, so I´m not going to send any others this week. I´m going to make a DVD soon though and mail it home with 8 gigs of pictures, so you can look forward to that.
Well, so as I said this past week has been a bit slow. We still got 15 lessons in the end, but it was hard being fired on 17 times. Elder Jacinto and I had to teach district meeting this past week, so that was fun. It went well, we just didn´thave time to finish talking about everything we had planned. This week on Friday is zone conference, so we need to teach and organize a lot of that. So yeah. Zone Conferences aren´t as fun now because I have to help organize them... just joking. They´ll still be good. It´s not that much we have to do either. I think we just have like 45 minutes or so to teach something. They´re going to tell us what to talk about tonight. So yeah. Anyways, we started teaching some people this week named José Luis and Mildred. They´re a family from Bolivia and they have one son named Luis. Luis is like 4 or 5. They´re super good though. They want to get baptized, they understand their reading, etc. The only problem is they´re not married. They´ve been together for like 7 years though, so we´ll see if we can help them get married. We´re going to talk about it tonight with them. Hopefully it goes well. I´ll let you know how that goes next week. We´re also visited a guy named Wilson this past week. Wilson is from Nigeria. He´s super good too. He wants to work towards baptism. We ´ve only had one cita with him though, and we weren´t able to set a specific date for a baptism with him, but hopefully this next week we´ll be able to. We have a bunch of other people we´re visiting, but they´re not progressing right now. We´re actually going to have to drop a lot of people this next week, just because they´re not progressing. We´ve been working with some less actives as well and this past week one of them came to church, so that´s good. Her name´s Aura. She´s really nice. We eat with her, her husband, and her son every Saturday. So we´ll have to see if we can´t get their whole family reactivated.
Well, I can´t think of much else new this week. Sorry, other than being fired on a ton, it´s been a normal week. Oh, one thing, Elder Parry called me up this past week (he´s the Secretary to the President) and he told me that there were some new missionaries coming in and he wasn´t sure why, but President wanted me to catch a plane into Barcelona the next day, so it sounded like I was going to be transferred and train again and whitewash an area. I was like, are you serious, and he said, nope, I´m just joking. I was nervous for a bit there though. Our mission right now has less people than it´s ever had. We only have around 80 missionaries in the mission right now. There´s like 8 missionaries waiting on Visas, so hopefully they can get here fast. One of the branch/ward that has been closed is in our zone. So it would be nice to get it reopened. Well, I can´t think of much else new, so I´m going to go ahead and end this. I hope you all have a fantastic week though and I´ll talk to you later.
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
8/13/10
08/09/2010
Family and Friends! How´s everyone doing? So first off I´m going to send home pictures, since I haven´t been able to for so long. The first one is of a bunch of people in the Castellón ward. That seems like it was so long ago. I have a bunch of other pictures from Castellón that you´ll have to see too, but I can´t fit them all on this email. Maybe I´ll finally be able to get a DVD made one of these weeks. I just feel like there´s never time for things, but that´s normal I guess. The second picture is of Francheska and I from Castellòn. You can ask mom and dad to forward all the pictures. The third picture is of me, Valeria, Guadalupe, and Edgar. The fourth picture is of Alex, Adina, and I. The fifth picture is of Armando and I. I think only five pictures fit to an email, so I´m going to send this, then I´ll attach five more.
Okay, so this is the second email. The first five are of me and Elder Morales with in the first one with Pilar and Ignacio, a recent convert that had gone less active and Elder Nelson and I helped her get activated again. The next is of Susana, Elder Morales and I baptized her. The next is of Josué. He´s a really cool kid in Vilafranca that we got to see. The next is of Karlita, Elder Morales and I also baptized her. And the next is of Abraham. Elder Morales and I started baptizing her, but Elder Nelson and I are the one´s that were there when he got baptized. All of those were taken when we were in Vilafranca this past week, which I talked about in my last email. It was a ton of fun. The last photo here is of what we did today for Preparation Day. We played tennis!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was a ton of fun. My companion is the one with a light blue shirt on, if you want to see who he is. There´s a senior couple in our zone and they have money, so they took us all to a tennis club and we played for a couple hours. Last week they took us out to get Kebab (a really good food they have here, and in most of the world I think, just not in the US so much). So that was nice.
So, I wrote on Wednesday, so there´s not a ton new. We came back here on Thursday, and had a cita out here with Elizabeth (a girl that got baptized the weekend before we got here). Anyways, due to being gone all week, last week was not a very good week with teaching lessons. It was a little lame. We only had 7 lessons. We´ll do better this week though. We´re actually set up with three citas this afternoon, starting at 7 (I don´t know if I told you, but our Preparation Day goes until 7 now, since everything´s pushed back an hour from what most of the world does), and we should get 5-7 new investigators this evening. So it should be really good. Well, we also had something good this past week. We were able to set a baptismal date with a girl named Leticia. She´s 20 years old, and she seems super ready to be baptized. The biggest problem is that there´s no other members in her family, and she says her mom makes her do things on Sunday, so she doesn´t want to get baptized if she can´t commit to be able to come every Sunday. So we´ll see what ends up happening with that. I hope it goes well though.
That´s really the gist of what´s happened this past week. There hasn´t been a ton apart from the meetings in Barcelona. We had a less active couple that we´ve taught a few times come to church this past Sunday, so that was good. They left after Sacrament meeting tough. I don´t now, we need to work on having the members grab onto people better. We´ve had investigators come too, but members sometimes don´t be their friends and much as they need to be. So they leave after one or two hours. We´ll get it there though. Well, I can´t think of what else to say, but I hope everyone has a great week. I´m going to go ahead and write the individuals now I guess. I´ll write more next week. ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
Okay, so this is the second email. The first five are of me and Elder Morales with in the first one with Pilar and Ignacio, a recent convert that had gone less active and Elder Nelson and I helped her get activated again. The next is of Susana, Elder Morales and I baptized her. The next is of Josué. He´s a really cool kid in Vilafranca that we got to see. The next is of Karlita, Elder Morales and I also baptized her. And the next is of Abraham. Elder Morales and I started baptizing her, but Elder Nelson and I are the one´s that were there when he got baptized. All of those were taken when we were in Vilafranca this past week, which I talked about in my last email. It was a ton of fun. The last photo here is of what we did today for Preparation Day. We played tennis!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was a ton of fun. My companion is the one with a light blue shirt on, if you want to see who he is. There´s a senior couple in our zone and they have money, so they took us all to a tennis club and we played for a couple hours. Last week they took us out to get Kebab (a really good food they have here, and in most of the world I think, just not in the US so much). So that was nice.
So, I wrote on Wednesday, so there´s not a ton new. We came back here on Thursday, and had a cita out here with Elizabeth (a girl that got baptized the weekend before we got here). Anyways, due to being gone all week, last week was not a very good week with teaching lessons. It was a little lame. We only had 7 lessons. We´ll do better this week though. We´re actually set up with three citas this afternoon, starting at 7 (I don´t know if I told you, but our Preparation Day goes until 7 now, since everything´s pushed back an hour from what most of the world does), and we should get 5-7 new investigators this evening. So it should be really good. Well, we also had something good this past week. We were able to set a baptismal date with a girl named Leticia. She´s 20 years old, and she seems super ready to be baptized. The biggest problem is that there´s no other members in her family, and she says her mom makes her do things on Sunday, so she doesn´t want to get baptized if she can´t commit to be able to come every Sunday. So we´ll see what ends up happening with that. I hope it goes well though.
That´s really the gist of what´s happened this past week. There hasn´t been a ton apart from the meetings in Barcelona. We had a less active couple that we´ve taught a few times come to church this past Sunday, so that was good. They left after Sacrament meeting tough. I don´t now, we need to work on having the members grab onto people better. We´ve had investigators come too, but members sometimes don´t be their friends and much as they need to be. So they leave after one or two hours. We´ll get it there though. Well, I can´t think of what else to say, but I hope everyone has a great week. I´m going to go ahead and write the individuals now I guess. I´ll write more next week. ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
8/4/10
08/04/2010
Family and friends! How are you all doing? So you´re probably all wondering why I´m writing this on Wednesday and not on Monday. Well on Monday we had to go into to Barcelona for concilio. It´s a meeting with all the zone leaders and President and Hermana Hinckley. Anyways, we had to leave our piso in the morning, and the meeting started at 5:00, and with travel and all we didn´t have time for internet. Today President Hinckley told me it was fine if we took an hour sometime and hurried to write home, so yeah. So right now I´m still in Barcelona, but I´ll talk about all that later. First off with last week. So last week was crazy, with a brand new area and all. We were extra blessed though. So the big miracle is that even though we missed the first few days of the week, and we started off Thursday with only 3 lessons, we still reached the goal of 20 lessons. No one in our zone (the baleric islands) has had 20 lessons for a long time. At least for a month or so. So that was good that we were able to do that to hopefully set a standard and help other people get motivated to do the same. We´ll see what we can do though. We had a bunch of crazy stories, one being with a guy named Marco. Marco is from Nigeria and things were going really well with him. We visited him several times last week, but the last time he was just crazy. He was telling us his pastor was the Jesus of our time and the savior and that he (Marco) was a prophet and that he´d lived on the earth before and had been sent back to preach about his pastor. So yeah, that was kind of lame losing an investigator, but I guess now´s not his time. We found a few new investigators as well, including a family from Bolivia. So we´ll see how everything goes with all of that. As far as pictures go, there´s no place to stick the memory card in the computer, so you´ll have to wait another week for more pictures. I have a bunch of pictures you´ll have to see though. I need to just make a DVD and send it to you. Okay, so I´m still in Barcelona because of the new lessons that are coming out to help missionaries with Preach My Gospel. What the General Authorities have asked that they do in every mission is train all the leaders in the mission starting now, so that in a year when new missionaries come having learned these lessons from the MTC that we´ll already know them. They´re not new lessons, but they´re lessons to help us use Preach My Gospel better. Things like "The Doctrine of Christ," "The Role of the Holy Ghost in Conversion," "Reverlation through Prayer," "Revelation through the Book of Mormon," "Revelation through Church Attendance," "Teach People, Not Lessons," "We Invite, They Commit, We Follow Up," and "How to Begin Teaching." Those are the 8 lessons. It´s really nothing new, it´s all in Preach My Gospel. They´re just putting a big emphasis on it though. It´s good. We´ve gone through the first 5, and we have 3 more to go tomorrow. It gives me headaches though just because we´re sitting down from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. with only a couple breaks, but it´s alright. Okay, so now the big news... I got to go to Vilafranca yesterday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And even better, I went with Elder Morales!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We were super lucky. It ended at 4, and both of our areas are far, so they were just going to have everyone who had traveled into Barcelona stay in Barcelona and work, but Elder Morales asked if we could go out there, and Elder Jacinto too, and they let us. So I saw Pilar again, Josué, Susana, Karlita (the first person I actually baptized), and Abraham. It was so fun. What was crazy is that I stil remembered the area perfectly, including which doorbell I had to push, like for the floor and door. It was really cool. I really feel at home there. Also, I figured out I´ll have to go back to Castellón in a few weeks probably for residency things since I was empodronized there. But yeah. It was a ton of fun being in Vilafranca again. I loved it. I can´t wait to be able to go back to all my areas and see everyone. I´d love to live in Spain actually for a year or two sometime after my mission, but we´ll see what happens. Anyways, so yeah, that was a lot of fun, and I got a bunch of pictures with all of them. Okay, so a little about Concilio (the meeting with the zone leaders and President and Hermana Hinckley), that was really cool. We actually have a big say in how we do things in the mission. President Hinckley just brought up topics, then we´d talk about it. For example, when we should wake up and go to bed, because they were doing it slightly different in Bilbao and our mission is now a mixture of the two missions. But we all gave our opinions, then came up with what we should do. It was cool. We also all had to give little presentations on our zones too, and that went well too. Our zone is good, but we need to improve. But that´s alright, we can always be improving. Well, things are going great here. I hope everything´s going well there. I´m going to end this though and write the individual´s now. Have a fantastic week. -Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
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