2/9/10

Hey Family and friends! How´s everyone doing? Well the sad news is that this is my last time writing to you from Vilafranca... I´m going to Barcelona this afternoon to be in the Barcelona 1st ward there. So that will be interesting. I had a few things that I was going to say before I found out I was getting transferred, so I´ll hurry and say those, then talk about the transfer, etc. So, first off, a couple weeks ago I was a genius and mentioned to people that I have a coin collection, but that I didn´t have any coins from any of their countries, so guess what... the next week I got a coin from Chile, a coin from the Dominican Republic, a coin from Bolivia, and a coin that Spain used before the euro. It´s cool. I´ll have to see what I end up with by the end of my mission. Next thing, I got the coin from the Dominican Republic from Belkis. She left this past week to go to Italy, like she moved there. It was kind of sad, but she was doing super well right before and was really excited to get there and find the church, and we talked all about getting her records sent and all, so I think she´ll will be just fine. So yeah, that´s that. What else, oh, I got a letter/birthday card from Jen´s mom this past week and she said something about a temple in Payson! No one´s ever told me about this. So what´s the news with that? That´s cool though, I always figured someday there´d be another temple in Utah Valley. Next, Elder Nelson and I were jogging a couple times a week every morning. It was fun, but super cold. We both only have shorts and t-shirts for exercise, and it was way cold outside, but that´s okay. It wasn´t too cold once we got going. This past week too, we´ve played basketball a couple times at a nearby park. We have half an hour of exercise each morning, so that´s what we were doing for that. It was also fun because a member, Pilar, would come to watch us play basketball in the mornings. She´s changed a ton. She was having a hard time, but now she´s one of my best friends here, and she was always helping us and giving us food, etc. It´ll be sad leaving. What else, oh, the umbrella I had that was really nice from Men´s Wearhouse in the trash now. It broke, and then just got worse and worse until it hardly worked, so I had to trash it. Luckily Pilar had an extra black umbrella, so that´s what I´m using now. So that´s that. Yesterday was a sad/fun day. We passed by Jose, Ibraham, Joseph, Francis, Johny y Aidaley, Hna. Durán, Josué, Pilar, Yirka, Fabiola, and Karlita y Raquel. It was sad saying goodbye to all of them. I got pictures for all of them. I also showed my Sommerfeldt for President shirt to most of them, because they´d heard about it and all. Pilar put it on and I have some pictures of her posing with it, so that´s good. I even have support in Spain now. I also made CDs of a bunch of my pictures this past week. There´s three of them, and I´m sending them to Jen. I just sent them today, so she should get them in a week or so, then get you guys a copy. By the way, with all my pictures, make sure you save them, because I sometimes delete them off my camera, but that´s only because you guys have copies, so don´t delete them, and keep them in a folder somewhere in the computer. Thanks. So I´ll be in Barcelona, my new companion´s name is going to Elder Baugh. He´s in the same group as Elder Nelson so he´ll be going home in July. Oh, also, last night after we had Noche de Hogar it was kind of cool, because everyone got up and talked about me for a while. I didn´t know how to react, but it was good to see I´ll be remembered. I´ll come back here right before leaving to go home though, so no worries. But it´ll be a year and a half. I´ll miss Elder Nelson too. We´ve gotten along really well. A lot of the members here have even said that we´re the best companionship (like working together, getting along, being effective, etc.) that they´ve seen here in Vilafranca. So yeah, it´ll be weird there. But he goes to BYU, so I´ll see him after the mission for sure. Well, oh, another interesting thing. I´m going Barcelona, which means that Elder Morales, my last companion, is going to be my zone leader. So that will be kind of cool. Another thing, I called Elder Baugh this morning to figure out our address there, and he said we´re really close to the office and we pass by there a lot. So for now you guys can just send things there. If anything changes I´ll let you know, but anything that gets sent can go there. I think that´s about it. I´m sad to leave Vilafranca, it´s like leaving my home, but I´ll go where I´m called. Well, I´m going to go now, but have fantastic weeks and I´ll write to you next week from Barcelona. ¡Chao!

-Elder Sommerfeldt