7/12/2010

Family and Friends! How´s everyone doing? Things are going great here in Castellón. We had a baptism this past Saturday! So that´s good. It turned out really good. He asked for a kid named Fabio to baptize him. Fabio is from Brasil. I think I´ve sent a picture of him in the past. So I´m trying to send some pictures home right now, but it´s not working now. I have a lame computer. We´ll see what we can do though. We had the baptism of Alex though. Everything´s going great with my new companion, Elder Estrada. We work really well together. We should be having at least two more baptisms in two weeks here. One is of Alex´s sister, Adina, and the other is of Elena, another lady from Romania that we´re teaching. So yeah, that´s good. Overall, things are going great here. We had another successful week too, with a baptism, 25 lessons, and yeah, everything´s going well. So this past week Elder Parry actually had to come down for a couple days. He had to come down on Tuesday because Wednesday morning he was going to do all of his fingerprints/paper work to be legal. So that´s what he was doing, but he couldn´t finish it on Wednesday morning, so he had to stay here an extra day and then we finished them up Thursday morning. It was a bit of a pain, but it´s done now. Now this next week my companion, Elder Estrada´s going to be going up to Lleida, where he was before, to do all of his paperwork and stuff. So yeah. So, with the photos, I can´t do it on my computer, but right at the end, I´m going to us the computer where Elder Estrada is, attach them, and send them off to mom and dad. So if anyone wants them, ask my mom and dad. Okay, so what else has happened this past week. Oh, we got new zone leaders. This past week is when they combined our mission with Bilbao. Well, we lost the stake of Elche, but we gained the stake of Bilbao. So there were a ton of changes this past week, one of which is that we got new zone leaders down here. Also, there´s this girl that was in my mission prep class at BYU named Rachel Patten and she´s in our mission now. So that´ll be cool talking to her. Because Elder Parry´s the secretary to the president he talks to a ton of people. So when he was down here he was telling me a story about someone that called from Bilbao named Hermana Patten, and I was like, her first name isn´t by chance Rachel is it? And he said it was. He actually saw a picture of her too, and I´m almost certain it´s the same one. THere´s also people that I knew in the CCM in Madrid who are in our mission now. So that´s cool. OUr class continues to go well that we´re teaching to the members. We had like 18 people or so this past week. Oh, I¨m going to tell about the baptism with more details now. So it was supposed to start at 7 and Alex was supposed to be there at 6:30. Well, 6:45 came around and he still wasn´t there, so we called him up and they had had some car problems, but we´re on their way. They had to go to the hospital because something had happened to their aunt that day and she had to go to the hospital (Satan sure doesn´t want people to get baptized, but God won, again). Anyways, long story short, everyone was there waiting from 7:00 until 7:30, which is when Alex finally got there. So then we took some pictures really fast, then we started. It went well. He had to be baptized 3 times though. THe first time the tie came out of the water, then the second time the guy baptizing missed one word, but other than that it was perfect. The family all liked it, their were like 30 people there (which is a lot compared to most baptisms), and overall it was just great. We got a new ward mission leader this week. I´m not a huge fan of him right now, but I´m trying to not notice the bad things too much, so that we can still be effective and work together, etc. I´m sure it´ll all turn out well in the end. Oh, so dad mentioned a bunch of you had a cold this past week. I thought I´d share with you guys some Spanish culture. In Spain, if you have a cough for an hour, you go to the hospital. If you have the slightest stomach ache, or head ache, you go to the hospital. It´s interesting. I think in the US we must just be tougher or something. Actually, I think it´s because they have socialized health care, so it´s all free for them. Anyways, it was nice to hear that you guys were all a little sick but that you didn´t go to the hospital. That´s how it ought to be. Oh, I almost forgot, YES! Spain did win the world cup!!!!!! It was fun. WE didn´t actually get to watch or anything, but it ended around 11:00 at night, when we were in piso, so we just were looking out the window yelling with everyone else. Cars just drive past honking, waving flags, people shoot of fireworks, etc. It was fun. We found some New Year´s celebration noise maker things we were blowing into to join into the party. I took a few videos and when I send home the DVD with all my pictures you can see them. It was fun. WEll, I´m going to go ahead and end this and send the individual letters now. Sorry this email´s shorter than normal. I can´t think of what to say. I´ll write more next week though. Have great weeks. -Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt