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

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

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