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

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

9/8/2010

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

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