6/21/10

Family and friends! How´s everyone doing? Things are going great here for me in Castellón. THis past week has been incredible with teaching. We were able to teach 32 lessons this past week, plus one to members. So 33, but 32 that count. That´s a lot. The most I´ve ever had before was 27 or 28. Anyways, so that was good. I think it´s mainly because of all of the new investigators we have that we´re visiting with and such, while still trying to visit with all the recent converts and less actives. It´s difficult sometimes, but it´s better to be busy than have nothing to do. Well, first off, I´m going to go ahead and attach some pictures for you guys. The first one is of me in front of one of the tanks. I think it was the one I was going to send last week, that didn´t work. It´s in front of the tank with Nemo. The next one is one of the beluga whale that we saw. The next one is of Bianca, Bruna, me, and Elder Parry (going left to right). They´re the daughters of Celia and they´re going to Germany today for a couple months because Celia´s husband, their dad, is there working right now. So they´ll spend the summer with him, and I probably won´t see them again because I¨ll probably be transferred before they come back. I always imitate Bruna, and she was sitting like that on the couch, so I did the same thing and so Bianca and Elder Parry did the same thing for the photo. The next one is of a poster for a cell phone company here and it has a girl on it and everytime I see it I think it looks a lot like Leah, so you can tell me what you think. And the last picture is of Nemo. So yeah. I hope you enjoy those pictures, and if you want to see them, ask mom and dad for them to forward them to you.
Anyways, everything is going great here. This past Wednesday we had a cool experience. We were coming back from District Meeting in Valencia and Elder Parry wanted a drink, so we went to a Consuum (a grocery store) to get him a drink. Anyways, when we walked out it was raining so he was drinking it under a balcony to stay dry and another lady was there too named Barbara. We started talking to her and she eventually asked what we were doing here, so we told her, and long story short we set up a cita with her for the next day, went and taught her, and her 25 year old (more or less) daughter as well. So that was nice. She´s evangelist, and was at her church this sunday, so she didn´t come to church with us. We´ll see what we can do to help her though. Thing continue going well with Lissette, except we´re pretty sure she´s not married to the guy she´s living with, so that could be a problem, and it kind of seems like she wants to leave him, which would be good, but they have a child, and it seems like she might leave him for another guy. Needless to say we´ll be teaching the Law of Chastity tomorrow, so we´ll see how that all goes. Also, I don´t know if you guys remember hearing about Jhonatan. He´s an investigator that had a baptismal date, then left to Madrid, but he came back this past week, and we re-set it for this Saturday, but then he didn´t come to church and we haven´t been able to get in contact with him. So it´s been a bit of a pain. The member that went to pick him up said that his dad answered and said he was in bed with a hang over... So that´s a problem we´ll have to work with. THe good news is that Alex and Mihaela´s family is doing fairly well. WEll, their children are. THey sitll haven´t come to church, but Alex and Adina both came again, on Saturday Alex went an hour away to Valencia for a 2 hour stake Priesthood meeting and liked it, and he came with us to a FHE last night too. The biggest problem there is that it´s hard to get times that we can visit them. We´re going to start trying to at least visit Alex, and if the rest of the family isn´t there, then we´ll continue with Alex, and the rest of the family will just progress a bit slower. So yeah. That´s the news there. Also, we re-set a date with Kenny, from Jamaica, for July 10th. He also came to church this past week, so that´s good. Julian, from Brasil, continues coming to english classes every saturday and to church every sunday, but he still doesn´t want to get baptized. THis Wednesday´s his birthday, so we set up a little cita to give him cookies/see where he´s at and how he feels about baptism now. We´ll see I guess. Well, I need to be wrapping this up. Overall, it´s been a good week, we have zone conference this week, so I can write about that next week, and have a great week. ¡Chao!

-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt

6/15/2010

Family and friends! How´s everyone doing? So first off, I´m still here in Castellón. I didn´t get transferred. Nothing changed with Elder Parry and me, so we´ll be here for at least another 6 weeks. I´m glad. I like it here. Well, to start off, last week for preparation day as I said we went to the aquarium in Valencia! It was so fun. I´m going to attach some pictures so you can see them. My battery died half way through, so some of them are from Elder Parry´s camera. Also, we couldn´t have flash on, so a lot of them are a bit blurry. Anyways, the first one is a shark we saw. They have tunnels that you go through that are right in the middle of the aquarium. So sharks and everything would swim right over us. It was cool. The next picture is of our zone that went to the aquarium. The next one is of a sea horse. They had a tank with a bunch of little sea horses, so yeah. The next one is of Elder Parry and I while we were waiting for all the missionaries to come so we could go to the aquarium. The last one is of me in front of one of the tanks, there was a Nemo fish in there too. THere´s a lot more, but you´ll just have to see the rest when I send home a DVD or CD of pictures.

So, things are going great here. We did have a few bad things too though. Both Kenny and Jhonatan lost their baptismal dates because neither one of them came to church. However, we set two new baptismal dates that look a lot more hopeful, and we´re still going to work with Kenny, and Jhonatan went to Madrid for a few weeks, so we´ll talk with him when he comes back. Anyways, we set a baptismal date first off with a guy named Francis. Francis is from Nigeria. He is currently looking for work, and just got told he has to move out, and hearing about the gospel and reading in the Book of Mormon brings him peace and such. He´s looking pretty good. This past Sunday he couldn´t come to church, but he said that this next Sunday he´d walk an hour if he had to to follow us to church. It´s only about five minutes away from his house though, so that´s nice. His date is for the 10th of July right now. Next we have Lissette. So we were teaching Guillermo, right? Well, he said he didn´t want to continue, but we asked him who else we could teach, and Lissette happened to be right there, so we started teaching her. She set her date for the 9th of August because it´s her birthday, but she said if she feels ready sooner, like in July, she´ll get baptized sooner. I hope she does too, because the 9th of August I might not be here anymore. We´ll see what happens though I guess. Lissette is a catholic, but she´s a typical catholic that´s never read the bible, and goes to church not very often. She told us when she heard how we baptize by immersion that she had desires to be baptized like that. So now we´ll be working with her a lot. The only potential problem is that she´s married, and her husband is orthodox, and he hasn´t known that we started teaching her, but she told us after setting the baptismal date that she´s going to ask him and make sure it´s okay with him. So that´s good. I´m excited about working with Francis and Lissette. They both seem really good. Also, Paul, who we had to drop, is showing a lot of good signs. We just figured out he had a dream that answered his prayers basically. So that´s a big step. We´re going to visit him tomorrow and figure out a bit more and see what we do with baptism with him. So that´s good. Oh, so we had that class called "Every Member A Missionary" that we were going to teach, right? Well, 2 people showed up, so we didn´t teach it. It was kind of lame. It´s like, people tell us they want us to teach the members how to do missionary work, but a lot of them don´t care. That´s alright though, we´re going to try again and we´ll get something to work out I guess. So let´s see, what else is new. Oh, we started teaching a family this past week. The parents names are Alex and Mihaela, and the kid´s names are Alex and Adina. There a really cool family, and both of the kids came to church this past Sunday and had a really good time. So we´re seeing some potential with them as well. We´re probably going to have to go through and drop a bunch of investigators again this next week, just because they´re not progressing right now, but that´s alright. When we drop those that aren´t progressing, the Lord blesses us with more new investigators. Last week we got 9 new investigators, which for here is a ton. Then we just got another new investigator named Daniel yesterday who looks like he´ll be pretty good. We´re visiting him again tomorrow. Well, I can´t think of much else new that has happened htis past week. That´s just about it. So I´m going to send this off. Have a great week though and I´ll talk to you all next week. ¡Chao!

-Elder Sommerfeldt

6/7/2010

Family and Friends! How´s everyone doing? So first off, there´s going to be no pictures this week, because I´m in Valencia right now and the computers don´t have card readers. I´m in Valencia because we´re going to the aquarium here today. So that should be fun. It´s a bit expensive though, but it´s a really famous aquarium, and it´s not like I´ll always be right by it. So next week you can expect a few good pictures from the aquarium. So, this past week has been good. It´s been a bit dificult in some ways, and good in other ways. First off, this past week they told our district that they wanted us to get 20 lessons by Friday this week, which seems really hard. Anyways, we ended with 21! So that was cool. We ended with 27 by the end of the week, but that was including members. They´re having us teach the members the missionary lessons, and while it doesn´t count in the actual numbers, they want us to at least have 20 lessons that we teach so we keep up our teaching abilities. SO yeah. We started teaching the members about The Restoration this past week and it´s actually gone really well. It´s good, because it´s the most basic stuff, but really it´s the most important, and a lot of people need a refresher course on it all too. So yeah, it´s been good. Okay, so this past week we officially dropped Julian and Edith. It was really hard, becuase they´re two of my favorite people, but it had to be done. I don´t think I´ve ever had dropping citas that went so well either. I had read in Alma 5, and what we did is read Alma 5:49 with them, then we talked about how that´s our role as missionaries, preach repentance and baptism basically, then we read verses 45-46 to see what their role is, which is to learn and know of themselves. So we told them we´re reached this point where we couldn´t force them to know of themselves, so we wanted them to dedicate time to learn for themselves. Julian still came to English class and to church, and we´re still really good friends with he and with Edith and her family. And in a couple weeks we´ll probably pass by again to see how things are, but we can´t be visiting them 3 times a week now if they´re not progressing. Okay, so what else is new. WE set / re-set baptismal dates with Jhonatan (26th of June), Kenny (this guy we met on the street who´s from Jamaica, also for the 26th of June), then we have two others, but they´re not looking so good now, so they don´t really count. Neither Jhonatan nor Kenny came to church though. We called both of them and passed by both of them yesterday but couldn´t get in contact with them, so hopefully things go better next week. They both need to come next week and the following to be baptized on the 26th of June. So l´ll keep you posted on that. Guillermo´s doing well. We don´t have a baptismal date with him, but he knows that´s what we´re working towards. He has a problem with smoking, so we need to help him overcome that before he gets baptized. Anyways, I finished my elephant picture from last week. I gave it away to Valeria though (the recent convert that´s an artist that gave me all the material to draw while I¨m in Castellón). I made some copies though that maybe I can send home though. We´ll see. It was fun drawing with charcoal though. Anyways, we have a new investigator named Mamadou. He´s Kobi´s friend. So we´ll see how things go with that. We also contacted this guy named Lucky from Nigeria this past week, set up a cita, and went we went there there were 4 people that became new investigators. They did´nt seem to understand very well, so we´re going to try teaching it again. We have a cita planned with them for today. Also, we´re starting up this class for the members. We´re calling it "Every Member a Missionary," or actually it´s called "Cada Miembro un Misionero." So yeah. It´s a class where we´re going to teach the members (specifically the ward missionaries) how we teach the lessons and what the lessons consist of etc. So we´ll see how that goes. It should be pretty good. We had Armando make us a little poster thing and all that´s hanging on the bulletin board and the bishop announced it last week too. The Bishop liked the idea too, so that´s good that he´s on with it. The Relief Society President also said it´s good because it´s one of the things from the ward mission plan. There´s a slight problem in that wards always make ward mission plans, but a lot of times they don´t follow through with the plan. So we´re trying to at least do our part. I¨ll keep you posted on how the class goes. Also, we have some potential with two kids that are cousins with Francheska (a member that´s been less active, but only because her mom wouldn´t let her come, but now she can come more often). Anyways, yesterday Francheska (15 years old) and her two cousins Bernardo (13 years old) and Francis (11 years old) both came to church. So we´ll have to see if we can´t get them and their mom (Francheska´s aunt) baptized. They´ve actually listened to missionaries in the past and we´re hoping to get in and visit with them this upcoming week. So yeah. Let´s see. I can´t think of much else new that´s happened, so I´d best start on the individual letters. I hope everyone has a great week and I´ll talk to you next week! ¡Chao!

-Elder Sommerfeldt
P.S. Next week is transfers, so my Preparation Day will be Tuesday. I´m pretty sure I´ll be staying in Castellón too, but there´s a chance I get transferred... a

5/31/2010

Family and Friends! How´s everyone doing? WEll, I guess the big news for the week is CONGRATULATIONS PETEY FOR GETTING THE MISSION CALL!!!!!!!!! That´s sweet. New Hampshire will be great. I´m sure you´ll love it. I´ll write more in your individual paragraph. Anyways, so that´s that. Thigs have been going pretty good here, but this week actually hasn´t been the best week by any means. We´ve had some good things, but bad things too. First off, Julian didn´t get baptized. Long story short, he was gone for several days in a far away pueblo, and we weren´t able to contact him. Anyways, we got back in contact, and he´s not convinced our church is the only one. I do´nt know, we´re probably going to have to drop him temporarily, just because he´s been in the same situation for like 3 weeks, where he´s ready for baptism, we´ve taught him everything, he just won´t get baptized. It´s sad, because he´s a really good guy, but that´s what we´ll probably have to do. He´ll hopefully get baptized in the future though. Okay, I¨m going to attach some pictures. The first one is of the wiseman picture I drew, it´s done now, signed and all. THe second and third pictures are of a picture I started drawing last night. I´ve only worked on it for about half an hour now. It´s an elephant though! I´m doing it with charcoal. I´ve never drawn with charcoal before, but Valeria, the recent convert that´s an artist gave it to me. So yeah. I´m getting some practice with it now. The fourth picture is of me! It´s also so you can see my new haircut, that I cut myself! I´ve learned how to cut my own hair on the mission, to save money, etc. SO yeah, you´ll be able to see what it looks like. I cut it last week, but I took the picture this morning. It´s not bad. Okay, so what else is new. Guillermo called us last Monday and told us he doesn´t want to continue with us anymore. We´ve since then visited with him, and he´s decided he wants to keep listening, he´s just worried that if he gets baptized that he won´t be able to keep all the commandments, and he doesn´t want to let God down. So we´ll see how that goes. Also, I told you about Jhonatan last week. We had three citas set up with him this past week and he´s never been there. WE´ve called him a billion times and he´s never answered. So yeah, we´ll keep trying this week, but he´s not as hopeful now. However, we set two new baptismal dates this past week! ONe with a guy named Reginaldo, but he´s actually going to be going to Valencia, so he´ll probably get baptized there, and the other one´s with someone named Julio that we just met yesterday. And Bruce, here´s something interesting, both Julio and Reginaldo are from Brasil. So maybe I´ll get to baptize a Brasilian here. We have a couple families that are either brasilian or portuguese, so yeah, there´s already a good support for them there. Anyways, let´s see, what else is new here. Oh, the jacket rule came off this past week!!!! SO now we don´t have to wear jackets anymore. That´s nice. This past week we also made no-bake cookies. I haven´t made them since Vilafranca, but they turned out really good. They´re all gone now though. Well, that´s the gist of what´s happened here, and I´m running a little bit shorter on time I think, so I¨m going to go ahead and send this. I hope you all have great weeks with everything though. ¡Chao!-Elder SommerfeldtP.S. If anyone wants to see the pictures, ask mom and dad to send them to you.