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
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