Here´s the letter to the President:
President Hinckley, this past week has been great here in Barcelona. Elder Bennington and I are getting along great and things are going really well in our area. We´ve had several miracle stories this week. I´m going to share the one that just happened yesterday. Yesterday Elder Bennington and I were walking to go pass by an investigator and we saw a women with her son walking. We started to walk with her and talk to her. The conversation quickly led to the church and we were able to figure out that she listened to missionaries for a while in the past. As we were talking we also figured out that she lives in the same building as Alberto, our recent convert. So we walked by her house and asked if she´d have a little bit of time right then that we could visit her. She said yes, but there wasn´t a guy in her house. Luckily, it was the same building as Alberto´s, so we went over to his house really quickly and asked if he could help us right then. We woke him up from a nap, but he came with us and we taught her. Her name is Ligiana. We figured out that she really wants to know which church is true, and that she had a daughter that died when she was 3 years old 12 years ago. It still hurts her. Her dad recently died as well. We were able to testify to her that through the restoration of the gospel she can live with her family again. We invited her to be baptized and she accepted. She goes back to her country the 20th of this month though, so we need to figure out what we´ll do with that, but at least she can start to work towards baptism. Also, she has a compañera de piso that we´re going to meet tonight when we go back for a follow up visit. Elder Bennington and I get along great. He´s really energetic, which is really good. I´ve been really tired lately, but he helps me stay excited about everything. This past week we also went up to the Teotuhican exhibition on the aztecs and handed out Book of Mormons. We only had half an hour, but Elder Johnson, Elder Call, Elder Bennington and I handed out 12 Book of Mormons and 20 folletos or so in that half hour. It was a lot of fun. We´ll see if anything comes of it soon. As far as our investigators with baptismal dates go I´m going to write about Arnold. Arnold is 26 and is from Chile. He´s in the military. He went down to Málaga this past week and because of that couldn´t come to church. He was going to go down there, but he also has some spine/dizziness problems and he passed out Saturday night and was in the emergency room and couldn´t go to church. He came back and the army has him detained for a week longer, because he went to Málaga without telling them. He will be able to leave on Saturday though. He really wants to come to church these next two weeks and get baptized the 25th of June. He´s been reading a lot from the Book of Mormon as well and has now read through page 140 or more. So he´s doing really well. We´ve also talked to Vladimir as well to see if he can visit him next week while we´re doing zone conferences to teach several things and he said he can. So that will be good. As far as recent converts I´m going to write about half of them. Mario and Magda are doing great. They brought their son, Christian, to church with them this past week. He´s the one that was taking all of the pictures at their baptism. He lives in Sabadell´s area, but when they called him he told them he´s going back to Perú soon and is going to wait until he goes there. He leaves in a couple weeks, but we´re going to help him get in contact with the missionaries out there. Mario and Magda are both doing great and have home teachers and visiting teachers. I think they still need callings, but we´ve let Vladimir know that already. Julio is also doing well. His wife came to the baptism this past Saturday, so we finally met her. She seems nice, but we can also see where she might create some opposition for him. We had Rosa Tuesta talk to her and she told Rosa that she´ll come to church this next Sunday, so that´s good. The only thing with Julio is that his wife said that he drinks alcohol. We don´t know if she´s thinking before he was baptized or after, but we´re going to reveiw the word of wisdom with Julio tonight to make sure he´s okay with that. Julio didn´t come to church this week, but it´s because of the elections for Peru. Next we have Rocío. She´s doing well. She´s read through into Jacob in the Book of Mormon. She didn´t come to church this past week, and we´re not sure why yet, but we´re going to call her today. Other than that though she´s doing great. We´ve taught her about half of lesson 5 now. Next we have Mila. She´s doing well. She came to church again, but can only come to the first hour. She paid her tithing /fast offerings for the 2nd time yesterday. She´s doing really well, but I think she feels a bit apart since she can´t stay for long, and it´s hard for us to visit her often now due to her work. We´re hoping she can find a way to come to all three hours of church. Elder Bennington is going to write about the other recent converts. Overall, things are going great. I love being a missionary. Thanks for all you do.
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
Family and Friends! How´s everyone doing? Things are going great here for me here in Barcelona. Elder Bennington and I didn´t actually have any baptisms this weekend, but Elder Johnson and Elder Call, and Elder Bronson and Elder Araujo (the four office elders) did. They´re in our ward. So that puts our ward at 15 baptisms for the year. That´s really good. Last year there were 6 total baptisms in our ward all year. So we´re excited. One of the people that was baptized is named George (Jorge). He was born in Spain, but grew up in the U.S. His wife is Ana and she also grew up in the U.S., but has parents from Cuba and Colombia. They both speak English and Spanish though. They´re really good people though. They always call me "Smiley." They say that´s my nickname because even when I´m serious I look like I´m smiling. They baptism went really well though.
Next up, Elder Bennington and I did intercambios with the Bilbao elders this past week right before Concilio. We did it with all four of us here in Barcelona. I was with Elder Harris. I was his zone leader out on the island, so it was fun to be with him again. He´s doing really well. The mission in total is doing really well. I don´t know if I said this last week, but in the month of May we baptized 56 people, which is more than the mission has ever baptized in a month that we have record of. So it´s an exciting time. We´re going to try and do it again this month. We had concilio on Thursday night and Friday. On Thursday night Elder Bennington and I taught. We talked about District Leader responsibilities and doing baptismal interviews (since we had all of the district leaders come in for this concilio). I think it went pretty good, but we didn´t have very much time. On Friday all of the zone leaders talked about the month of May as well as their goals and plans for June. If you add all of the goals up for each zone it adds up to 90 baptisms. So we´re going to see how close we can get to that.
This next week we go to Vitoria, Lleida, and then Elder Bennington and I go to Zaragoza for intercambios. It´ll be good. We´re pretty busy for the next couple of weeks though. Last night we also found a lady named Ligia. I wrote about her in my letter to the president. So you can read about her there. She´s doing well though. We also have Mónica and Jimmy. Jimmy´s 13 years old and Mónica is his mom. They´re doing well, they just haven´t come to church yet, but we´re going to work with them so that they can come this week and every other week after. Overall, things are going great. I can´t think of much else to say. Oh, here´s something really interesting / good that happened. They dedicated the Barcelona Stake Center on Saturday. We went to it. Elder Teixeira came and dedicated it. It was really good. It really is a beautiful building. You should look it up online, I´m sure you can find pictures of it online. It´s really nice though. This past week we also ate lunch with the bishop´s wife again. We invited Julio to come with us too so that they could become friends. That went well. The food was really good too. This Saturday Luis and Julie (two young single adults in the ward, they´re boyfriend / girlfriend) invited us to eat as well in a restaurant. It´ll be the second time they´ve taken us there. It´s really good. Overall, our ward is just great. I love everyone in it. It has it´s weird things and things that are done that I just wonder what they´re thinking, but it really is a good ward with great members.
Well, I need to be going now. I´m going to go write all of the individual letters. Have a great week though.
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
6/6/11
5/25/2011
President Hinckley,
This week has been great here in Barcelona. Elder Bennington and I continue to get along great. The miracle story for the week would have to be with our newest investigator with a baptismal date named Arnold. Elder Bennington will tell more about him, but he was a contact that Barrio 3 did and we just taught him this past week. We talked about Christ with him in the first visit because he didn´t know if Christ really existed, and we left him with Alma 36 to read and "Finding Faith in Christ" to watch. He did both of those and really enjoyed it. Then we had another visit with him and talked about how through Christ we can be baptized and start over again and have direction in our life and he willingly accepted to be baptized. It was a miracle. Then to add to it, this past Monday in the Noche de Hogar, there was an american family that came and sang a lot of really good songs about Christ and it was exactly what he needed. So he´s doing great. It´s just been a miracle how we found him and how quickly he´s becoming converted. Elder Bennington and I get along great. Something I admire about him is how dedicated he is. He doesn´t like to ever do anything that´s not productive. Elder Keller and I used to go into the office most mornings and we always could get a computer and use it to do all the projects we have to do, but with so many people in the office now it´s almost impossible to use a computer. Elder Bennington hates being the office when we can´t be fulfilling our purpose. So I really like that. Today I´m going to write about Julio, who´s getting baptized this week, and Elder Bennington´s going to write about Dress and Arnold. Julio is doing incredible. He came to church this past week. Actually, Mario and Magda have helped him a lot as well. We called up Mario and asked if he could call and congratulate Julio, and they did, then without us saying anything they also invited Julio over to their house and arranged to go to church together the next day. So they´re helping us out a lot. Julio´s given out 15 invitations or so to friends and he´s solid for this week. Most of the friends he´s given them out to are already members. He says he doesn´t have very many non-member friends, but it´s good that he has such a good support system already. With our recent converts, Alberto continues to do well and helps us a lot with visits. He´s actually going to baptize Julio this next week, and he´s really excited to do so. We just had a visit with him last night and he already has all of the words memorized and all. So that will be really good for him. He also has home teachers, and he has a companion and is a home teacher. Next we have Sabrina, who is doing well, but her she hasn´t come to church now for a couple weeks. We´re continuing to work with her though, and the primary calls her when she doesn´t come to church. Mario and Magda are also doing incredible. Mario received the Priesthood this past week and was really happy about that. Also, Mario and Magda have received visits from home and visiting teachers. They´re doing incredible. Elder Bennington is going to write about Mila and Rocío. We continue teaching all of our recent converts about once a week, and we´ve taught through most of lesson 5 with all of them. The thing I read this past week in the white handbook that I want to repent of is to write the converts I taught occasionally. It´s been several months since I´ve written any of them, so I´m going to write them in the next couple weeks. Overall, things are going great for us. I´ve been feeling a bit sick, and Elder Bennington as well. I just have really bad allergies and so this past week I´ve just been dying from that and have had no energy, but I think it will get better here soon, hopefully. I have a goal to baptize 10 more people in my mission, and that means that after baptizing Dress and Julio that we still need to baptize 8 people in June, so we´ll see what we can do. Elder Bennington and I are working hard to make it possible. Overall, things are going great. I love being a missionary. Thanks for all you do.
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
Family and Friends! How´s everything going there in The United States! Everything´s going great here in Barcelona. The only bad part is that I have REALLY bad allergies, so that´s been killing me lately, but I just started taking some medicine, so hopefully it get´s better soon. The good news is that this week Julio and Dress are both going to be baptized! I´m super excited for them. They´re both incredible. I talked a bit about Julio in the letter to the President, and with Dress, he´s also doing great. He quit smoking, he quit drinking a long time ago, and President Hinckley said that for his address we can use the shelter place where he eats food every day, so that´s what we´ll use until he can get a permanent place to stay. He´s such a good guy though. I´d send you pictures now, but I don´t have my camera. I´ll send pictures of the baptisms next week though. Everything´s going well for Elder Bennington and I as well. Last week we made the viejos video. I don´t know if it´s on the blog yet, but if it is, you should go look at it. It´s extra short this time, because only 2 missionaries went home.
The other big news is that this week we set another baptismal date with Arnold. He´s incredible. He´s from Chile. The missionaries in Barrio 3 contacted him and taught him a quick lesson a few weeks ago, and then figured out he lives in our area, so they passed off his information. We were finally able to get a visit with him. In the first visit we talked about Christ and in the second visit we talked about baptism. We´ve talked about the restoration, but not too in depth yet. He´s preparing to be baptized the 11th of June, although we may move it back one week since he´s going out of town for 5 days this next week and will miss church. He´s 26 though, he´s in the military, and he´s just a cool kid. He got in a car crash a while ago and it messed up his spine so he´s always dizzy, and he´s going to have an operation on that here soon. That would be another thing that could change when we do the baptism. He´s doing great though. He always does his reading and he loves it. So I´ll keep you updated on Arnold then.
Next up we have Gina and Jefferson and Mónica and a lot of other people that are kind of progressing, but just super slow. So we´ll see what happens with them. We´re hopefully going to start teaching Magda´s cousin this next week, so that´ll be good as well. Mario and Magda by the way are doing incredible. They´re super good. They just want to invite everyone to listen to us. Mario got the priesthood this past week and he was so excited. He came to church in a suit and all. Also, I don´t know if I said this, but Alberto, the 21 year old we baptized in February, is going to baptize Julio this Saturday. So that´ll be good for Julio and Alberto. This past week we also went and visited the bishop with Elder Bennington for about 15 minutes, and he said he was really happy with the missionaries we had in our ward right now and that they have no complaints. It was great to hear that because in the past it hasn´t always been that way. So that´s good. Things are just going great.
I can´t really think of what else I should write about. It´s starting to get really hot here. I think that´s making my allergies even worse, because we always have our windows open in our piso and we live right by a park with a ton of trees, so there´s always pollen in the air whether I´m inside or outside. Hopefully it get´s better soon though. It would be nice if it rained and could lower the pollen levels in the air. Oh well. Such is life. Elder Bennington and I are doing well together. We´re doing intercambios today and tomorrow with the Barcelona Zone Leaders, then next week we´re doing intercambios with the Bilbao zone leaders and we have Concilio as well. Then the week after that we start zone conferences which goes on for two weeks, we´ll do several intercambios with the zone conferences, then we´re to the last week of the transfer and we´ll have to figure out transfers for next transfer. So that´s where we´re at. It´s a lot of fun, and we´re kept very busy. Well, I can´t think of much else to say, but I hope you all have a great week. I´ll write more next week.
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
This week has been great here in Barcelona. Elder Bennington and I continue to get along great. The miracle story for the week would have to be with our newest investigator with a baptismal date named Arnold. Elder Bennington will tell more about him, but he was a contact that Barrio 3 did and we just taught him this past week. We talked about Christ with him in the first visit because he didn´t know if Christ really existed, and we left him with Alma 36 to read and "Finding Faith in Christ" to watch. He did both of those and really enjoyed it. Then we had another visit with him and talked about how through Christ we can be baptized and start over again and have direction in our life and he willingly accepted to be baptized. It was a miracle. Then to add to it, this past Monday in the Noche de Hogar, there was an american family that came and sang a lot of really good songs about Christ and it was exactly what he needed. So he´s doing great. It´s just been a miracle how we found him and how quickly he´s becoming converted. Elder Bennington and I get along great. Something I admire about him is how dedicated he is. He doesn´t like to ever do anything that´s not productive. Elder Keller and I used to go into the office most mornings and we always could get a computer and use it to do all the projects we have to do, but with so many people in the office now it´s almost impossible to use a computer. Elder Bennington hates being the office when we can´t be fulfilling our purpose. So I really like that. Today I´m going to write about Julio, who´s getting baptized this week, and Elder Bennington´s going to write about Dress and Arnold. Julio is doing incredible. He came to church this past week. Actually, Mario and Magda have helped him a lot as well. We called up Mario and asked if he could call and congratulate Julio, and they did, then without us saying anything they also invited Julio over to their house and arranged to go to church together the next day. So they´re helping us out a lot. Julio´s given out 15 invitations or so to friends and he´s solid for this week. Most of the friends he´s given them out to are already members. He says he doesn´t have very many non-member friends, but it´s good that he has such a good support system already. With our recent converts, Alberto continues to do well and helps us a lot with visits. He´s actually going to baptize Julio this next week, and he´s really excited to do so. We just had a visit with him last night and he already has all of the words memorized and all. So that will be really good for him. He also has home teachers, and he has a companion and is a home teacher. Next we have Sabrina, who is doing well, but her she hasn´t come to church now for a couple weeks. We´re continuing to work with her though, and the primary calls her when she doesn´t come to church. Mario and Magda are also doing incredible. Mario received the Priesthood this past week and was really happy about that. Also, Mario and Magda have received visits from home and visiting teachers. They´re doing incredible. Elder Bennington is going to write about Mila and Rocío. We continue teaching all of our recent converts about once a week, and we´ve taught through most of lesson 5 with all of them. The thing I read this past week in the white handbook that I want to repent of is to write the converts I taught occasionally. It´s been several months since I´ve written any of them, so I´m going to write them in the next couple weeks. Overall, things are going great for us. I´ve been feeling a bit sick, and Elder Bennington as well. I just have really bad allergies and so this past week I´ve just been dying from that and have had no energy, but I think it will get better here soon, hopefully. I have a goal to baptize 10 more people in my mission, and that means that after baptizing Dress and Julio that we still need to baptize 8 people in June, so we´ll see what we can do. Elder Bennington and I are working hard to make it possible. Overall, things are going great. I love being a missionary. Thanks for all you do.
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
Family and Friends! How´s everything going there in The United States! Everything´s going great here in Barcelona. The only bad part is that I have REALLY bad allergies, so that´s been killing me lately, but I just started taking some medicine, so hopefully it get´s better soon. The good news is that this week Julio and Dress are both going to be baptized! I´m super excited for them. They´re both incredible. I talked a bit about Julio in the letter to the President, and with Dress, he´s also doing great. He quit smoking, he quit drinking a long time ago, and President Hinckley said that for his address we can use the shelter place where he eats food every day, so that´s what we´ll use until he can get a permanent place to stay. He´s such a good guy though. I´d send you pictures now, but I don´t have my camera. I´ll send pictures of the baptisms next week though. Everything´s going well for Elder Bennington and I as well. Last week we made the viejos video. I don´t know if it´s on the blog yet, but if it is, you should go look at it. It´s extra short this time, because only 2 missionaries went home.
The other big news is that this week we set another baptismal date with Arnold. He´s incredible. He´s from Chile. The missionaries in Barrio 3 contacted him and taught him a quick lesson a few weeks ago, and then figured out he lives in our area, so they passed off his information. We were finally able to get a visit with him. In the first visit we talked about Christ and in the second visit we talked about baptism. We´ve talked about the restoration, but not too in depth yet. He´s preparing to be baptized the 11th of June, although we may move it back one week since he´s going out of town for 5 days this next week and will miss church. He´s 26 though, he´s in the military, and he´s just a cool kid. He got in a car crash a while ago and it messed up his spine so he´s always dizzy, and he´s going to have an operation on that here soon. That would be another thing that could change when we do the baptism. He´s doing great though. He always does his reading and he loves it. So I´ll keep you updated on Arnold then.
Next up we have Gina and Jefferson and Mónica and a lot of other people that are kind of progressing, but just super slow. So we´ll see what happens with them. We´re hopefully going to start teaching Magda´s cousin this next week, so that´ll be good as well. Mario and Magda by the way are doing incredible. They´re super good. They just want to invite everyone to listen to us. Mario got the priesthood this past week and he was so excited. He came to church in a suit and all. Also, I don´t know if I said this, but Alberto, the 21 year old we baptized in February, is going to baptize Julio this Saturday. So that´ll be good for Julio and Alberto. This past week we also went and visited the bishop with Elder Bennington for about 15 minutes, and he said he was really happy with the missionaries we had in our ward right now and that they have no complaints. It was great to hear that because in the past it hasn´t always been that way. So that´s good. Things are just going great.
I can´t really think of what else I should write about. It´s starting to get really hot here. I think that´s making my allergies even worse, because we always have our windows open in our piso and we live right by a park with a ton of trees, so there´s always pollen in the air whether I´m inside or outside. Hopefully it get´s better soon though. It would be nice if it rained and could lower the pollen levels in the air. Oh well. Such is life. Elder Bennington and I are doing well together. We´re doing intercambios today and tomorrow with the Barcelona Zone Leaders, then next week we´re doing intercambios with the Bilbao zone leaders and we have Concilio as well. Then the week after that we start zone conferences which goes on for two weeks, we´ll do several intercambios with the zone conferences, then we´re to the last week of the transfer and we´ll have to figure out transfers for next transfer. So that´s where we´re at. It´s a lot of fun, and we´re kept very busy. Well, I can´t think of much else to say, but I hope you all have a great week. I´ll write more next week.
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
5/18/2011
Here´s the President´s Letter:
President Hinckley,
This past week has been incredible for us here in Barcelona. I would say the miracle story from our week would have to be the baptism of Mario and Magda. I think you´ve heard the story several times of how we found them and everything, but it really was a miracle how we found them and how fast they´ve been able to progress and become members of the church. They´re doing incredible. I think another miracle story would be with our investigator Gina. She´s been progressing, but really slowly. We had a visit this past week with her though and talked a lot about praying to receive an answer and when we finished we asked her exactly what she had to do, and she said, "I need to pray to know that the Book of Mormon is true and know that I need to be baptized." It was just incredible to see how she was able to see exactly what she needs to do, and she´s going to do it. I think she´ll be baptized within a few weeks. As far as something I admire about my compaion, I really like how dedicated Elder Bennington is. I´ve noticed that after being here for three transfers I´m even more tired than normal. Yesterday after the nuevos all left, but before singing for the angels we had about half an hour or so of time. I just wanted to relax a little bit and get some more energy, but Elder Bennington kept on asking me, now what can we do? So He´s really motivated to just keep working. I´m really sad that Elder Keller and I aren´t companions, since we got along so well and worked together perfectly, but I know that Elder Bennington and I as well will work well and be able to see a lot of success this transfer in our area and in the mission as a whole. We currently have two investigators with a baptismal date. We have Dres and Julio. I´m going to write about Dres. Dres is doing great. He´s so ready to be baptized and really wants to be. His date is for the 28th of May and the only thing we still need to teach him is tithing, fasting, and offerings. We have a visit for tomorrow where we´ll teach that. He´s doing great though. The only issue still is his housing situation. However, we figured out that we can leave notes at the place where he eats and they give them to him, and we can even call and leave them with messages to pass on to him. So I think we´ll be okay using that as his address. If that´s a problem let us know. He also visited with José Luis after the Noche de Hogar on Monday, so now the ward knows about his situation as well. I still need to figure out about that situation. With recent converts I´m going to talk about Alberto, Rocío, Mila, and Sabrina. Alberto continues doing great, and has a the assignment to help with the Noches de Hogar. We´re going to try and have him baptize Julio on the 28th of May. With Rocío, she is also doing great. She wasn´t able to come to church this past week because she got work for 10 days and couldn´t find someone to change with her on Sunday. She´s going to come this next week. She also has visiting and home teachers and is doing great. Mila is also doing great. Mila wants to come to all three hours of church, but she can´t yet because she has to take care of an older man. She´s there every week though for sacrament meeting. She also has visiting and home teachers. Mila, Rocío, Mario, and Magda all said they´d like to go to the temple in July with the ward. We told the ward council and they all seemed to think it was too fast, but in the end they decided they´ll teach a class in Gospel Principles about La Obra Vicaria and then if they want to go they´ll get them recommends and let them go. We also talked to the ward secretary this past week and gave him an informe of our´s and told him that every recent convert on there needs an interview with the bishop. He said he´d do it. So that´s good. Sabrina is doing well, but she didn´t come to church this past week. Her family is having a hard time, but we had a really good lesson guided by the spirit last week where we invited them to all give each other a compliment every night, and we started by doing it right there, and I think it really helped. Overall, things are going great here. We have a lot going on in our area and a lot going on in the mission. I still love being a missionary. Thanks for all you do.
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
Family and Friends! How´s everyone doing? Things are going great here. The bad news is that Elder Keller just left yesterday out to Lleida, so we´re no longer companions... He was a really good companion, it´s okay though, because we´ll still be in contact, and we´ll see each other after the mission a lot. The good news is that, first off, Mario and Magda got baptized!!!!!! It went SO well. It was the best baptismal service I think I´ve had. The Hinckley´s came too and were really impressed with it. They said it was the best baptismal service they´ve seen as well. I´m going to attach some photos. First off I put some photos form a week ago. First off is of us in the office. It´s Elder Araujo, Elder Corbitt, Elder Johnson, the Hinckleys, Me, and Elder Keller. The next one is of our last preparation day with me and Elder Keller and Parc Guëll. The next one is at the baptism with Me, Jared (a priest), Mario, Magda, Carlos (a priest), and Elder Keller. THe next one is of Me, Mario, Magda, and Elder Keller. And the last one is after the baptism with President Hinckley, me, Elder Keller, and Magda and Mario in front. It was a good baptism though, and I hope you enjoy the photos. Mario will get the priesthood this Sunday.
Okay, now you´re also all wondering who my new companion is, unless you read the letter to the president already. My new companion is Elder Bennington! I don´t know if you remember, but we were companions on the island. Elder Jacinto and I trained him for his first 3 weeks out there. He´s really good. So I´ll be with him for my last transfer. He´ll be a good companion. I´m excited. This past week was crazy though. We spent forever on transfers, but in the end got it all done. What we did too is that President wanted to call up each missionary that was going to be transferred and tell them about their new assignment. We thought it would take forever, but President thought we could do it pretty fast, and he was right. We did it in about an hour. Elder Keller and I would call people up on one of our cell phones or on Presidents and have them wait while President finished talking to someone, then we´d had President the phone once he finished and tell him who it was and he´d talk to them for 1-2 minutes each and tell them where they were going. It went really well and it was really fun. Then we had to make the viejos video for all of the missionaries going home. There were only two, so we were able to make it in only 4-5 hours about. Hermana Hinckley let us borrow her mac again, so that was nice of her. It was pretty good, but not as good, just because there were a lot fewer people. It´ll be on the blog within a week or so. Then on Tuesday we picked up the new missionaries. There were 8 of them! It was crazy fitting all of them and their luggage in the cars. We did it though. They´re really good. Of the 8 of them 4 of them are natives. I had to drive, and I´ll have to drive every time from now on because Elder Bennington doesn´t have a license, and he lost his American one, so he probably won´t be able to get an international one for a while, and I´ll be gone before he gets it. Anyways, it was a really good, but really stressful week. The most rewarding part was Mario and Magda´s baptism. They also invited a lot of their family. There were 8 or 9 family members that came with them. So that was fun to see. They live in other areas, but the missionaries there are going to start teaching them. Well, I need to go and write the individuals now, but have a great week. ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
President Hinckley,
This past week has been incredible for us here in Barcelona. I would say the miracle story from our week would have to be the baptism of Mario and Magda. I think you´ve heard the story several times of how we found them and everything, but it really was a miracle how we found them and how fast they´ve been able to progress and become members of the church. They´re doing incredible. I think another miracle story would be with our investigator Gina. She´s been progressing, but really slowly. We had a visit this past week with her though and talked a lot about praying to receive an answer and when we finished we asked her exactly what she had to do, and she said, "I need to pray to know that the Book of Mormon is true and know that I need to be baptized." It was just incredible to see how she was able to see exactly what she needs to do, and she´s going to do it. I think she´ll be baptized within a few weeks. As far as something I admire about my compaion, I really like how dedicated Elder Bennington is. I´ve noticed that after being here for three transfers I´m even more tired than normal. Yesterday after the nuevos all left, but before singing for the angels we had about half an hour or so of time. I just wanted to relax a little bit and get some more energy, but Elder Bennington kept on asking me, now what can we do? So He´s really motivated to just keep working. I´m really sad that Elder Keller and I aren´t companions, since we got along so well and worked together perfectly, but I know that Elder Bennington and I as well will work well and be able to see a lot of success this transfer in our area and in the mission as a whole. We currently have two investigators with a baptismal date. We have Dres and Julio. I´m going to write about Dres. Dres is doing great. He´s so ready to be baptized and really wants to be. His date is for the 28th of May and the only thing we still need to teach him is tithing, fasting, and offerings. We have a visit for tomorrow where we´ll teach that. He´s doing great though. The only issue still is his housing situation. However, we figured out that we can leave notes at the place where he eats and they give them to him, and we can even call and leave them with messages to pass on to him. So I think we´ll be okay using that as his address. If that´s a problem let us know. He also visited with José Luis after the Noche de Hogar on Monday, so now the ward knows about his situation as well. I still need to figure out about that situation. With recent converts I´m going to talk about Alberto, Rocío, Mila, and Sabrina. Alberto continues doing great, and has a the assignment to help with the Noches de Hogar. We´re going to try and have him baptize Julio on the 28th of May. With Rocío, she is also doing great. She wasn´t able to come to church this past week because she got work for 10 days and couldn´t find someone to change with her on Sunday. She´s going to come this next week. She also has visiting and home teachers and is doing great. Mila is also doing great. Mila wants to come to all three hours of church, but she can´t yet because she has to take care of an older man. She´s there every week though for sacrament meeting. She also has visiting and home teachers. Mila, Rocío, Mario, and Magda all said they´d like to go to the temple in July with the ward. We told the ward council and they all seemed to think it was too fast, but in the end they decided they´ll teach a class in Gospel Principles about La Obra Vicaria and then if they want to go they´ll get them recommends and let them go. We also talked to the ward secretary this past week and gave him an informe of our´s and told him that every recent convert on there needs an interview with the bishop. He said he´d do it. So that´s good. Sabrina is doing well, but she didn´t come to church this past week. Her family is having a hard time, but we had a really good lesson guided by the spirit last week where we invited them to all give each other a compliment every night, and we started by doing it right there, and I think it really helped. Overall, things are going great here. We have a lot going on in our area and a lot going on in the mission. I still love being a missionary. Thanks for all you do.
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
Family and Friends! How´s everyone doing? Things are going great here. The bad news is that Elder Keller just left yesterday out to Lleida, so we´re no longer companions... He was a really good companion, it´s okay though, because we´ll still be in contact, and we´ll see each other after the mission a lot. The good news is that, first off, Mario and Magda got baptized!!!!!! It went SO well. It was the best baptismal service I think I´ve had. The Hinckley´s came too and were really impressed with it. They said it was the best baptismal service they´ve seen as well. I´m going to attach some photos. First off I put some photos form a week ago. First off is of us in the office. It´s Elder Araujo, Elder Corbitt, Elder Johnson, the Hinckleys, Me, and Elder Keller. The next one is of our last preparation day with me and Elder Keller and Parc Guëll. The next one is at the baptism with Me, Jared (a priest), Mario, Magda, Carlos (a priest), and Elder Keller. THe next one is of Me, Mario, Magda, and Elder Keller. And the last one is after the baptism with President Hinckley, me, Elder Keller, and Magda and Mario in front. It was a good baptism though, and I hope you enjoy the photos. Mario will get the priesthood this Sunday.
Okay, now you´re also all wondering who my new companion is, unless you read the letter to the president already. My new companion is Elder Bennington! I don´t know if you remember, but we were companions on the island. Elder Jacinto and I trained him for his first 3 weeks out there. He´s really good. So I´ll be with him for my last transfer. He´ll be a good companion. I´m excited. This past week was crazy though. We spent forever on transfers, but in the end got it all done. What we did too is that President wanted to call up each missionary that was going to be transferred and tell them about their new assignment. We thought it would take forever, but President thought we could do it pretty fast, and he was right. We did it in about an hour. Elder Keller and I would call people up on one of our cell phones or on Presidents and have them wait while President finished talking to someone, then we´d had President the phone once he finished and tell him who it was and he´d talk to them for 1-2 minutes each and tell them where they were going. It went really well and it was really fun. Then we had to make the viejos video for all of the missionaries going home. There were only two, so we were able to make it in only 4-5 hours about. Hermana Hinckley let us borrow her mac again, so that was nice of her. It was pretty good, but not as good, just because there were a lot fewer people. It´ll be on the blog within a week or so. Then on Tuesday we picked up the new missionaries. There were 8 of them! It was crazy fitting all of them and their luggage in the cars. We did it though. They´re really good. Of the 8 of them 4 of them are natives. I had to drive, and I´ll have to drive every time from now on because Elder Bennington doesn´t have a license, and he lost his American one, so he probably won´t be able to get an international one for a while, and I´ll be gone before he gets it. Anyways, it was a really good, but really stressful week. The most rewarding part was Mario and Magda´s baptism. They also invited a lot of their family. There were 8 or 9 family members that came with them. So that was fun to see. They live in other areas, but the missionaries there are going to start teaching them. Well, I need to go and write the individuals now, but have a great week. ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
5/11/2011
Here´s the letter to the President:
President Hinckley, this past week has been great here in Barcelona. We´ve been really busy and we´ve been really blessed. We were in piso every single night before 10:00 and we were really able to see how much more effective we were able to be. I think the biggest miracle we saw this past week has to do with Mario and Magda, who will be baptized next week. This past week we taught them Tithing, and it didn´t go over so well. They said they didn´t think they´d be able to do it until next year due to their finances and we ended it basically just inviting them to pray and ask God how they could do it. The next day we went to a baptism in Hospitalet with them and had a quick visit afterwards. We asked them what they thought about tithing after reading the folleto and praying about it, and they told us that it wasn´t a problem anymore, and they were willing to make the sacrifice. They´re doing great, and Elder Keller I think is going to talk more about them in his letter. Elder Keller is probably the best companion I´ve ever had. He´s always working hard and really thinking about the people. He´s driven completely by love, and I´ll miss being able to be with him for this past transfer. We have two other investigators with baptismal dates right now. We have Drés and Sandy, both for the 28-May. Drés Chic is from Túnis, and is doing really well. He used to drink and smoke and he quit it all after the first visit with us. The only problem he has is that he is homeless. He´s in the process of getting his papers, but it could take some time. Elder Keller and I were wondering if you can baptize someone without a house or not. He told us that he does have an address where mail can be sent, but I think it´s just a P.O. Box. He´s currently praying so that he can be able to have a house and be baptized on the 28-May. Sandy Fajardo is from the Dominican Republic and is really nice. He works in an Italian restaurant as a chef. He lives above where Alina Vargas (a member) used to live. She gave us the information for him and his wife Kenya. We´ve only taught him the Restoration, and we haven´t had a second visit. It´s been difficult to visit with him, but we´re doing everything we can so that he and his wife can be baptized. The main thing with them is that we need to set up three visits a week and be able to visit with him and then he can be ready on time. With recent converts I´m going to write about Alberto Román and Mila Sabogal. Alberto was baptized in February and he´s doing great. He has an assignment to help set up and clean up with the noche de hogar on Monday that José Luis gave him. We´ve taught him all of lesson 5 and we´ve re-taught Lessons 1, 2, and 3. We just need to finish up teaching the commandments. He´s doing great though. The only thing he still needs is an interview with the bishop. This Sunday we decided we´re going to talk to the secretary of the ward and just ask if he can set up interviews with all of our recent converts. Mila Sabogal was baptized 2 weeks ago. She´s also doing great. We talked about eternal marriage and temples and she now has the goal to go to the temple in July with the ward for baptisms for the dead, and go again after a year. She´s doing great, the only problem is that she can only come to sacrament meeting right now due to work. I would say the main thing Elder Keller and I have repented of recently is being in piso at 10:00 and filling out the area book after. We´ve been really blessed by doing so. Our planning is better and subsequently the following day always goes better as well. Also, we´re updating the area book so we can now use that as a valuable resource for us and for missionaries in the future. Overall, things are going great here. I´m sad that Elder Keller and I won´t be companions again, but I´m excited to see what me and my new companion can do this next transfer. I have a goal to baptize 6 more people, so I´ll be working a lot, and hopefully I can help even more people than that be baptized. Overall, I still love being a missionary. Thanks for all you do.
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
Family and friends! How´s everyone doing? Things are going great here in Barcelona. I can´t think of a lot to say after talking on the phone just a few days ago, so this may be shorter, I don´t know. Anyways, there is one thing that I was going to tell you that I didn´t tell you on the phone call. I wrote about it in the letter to the president though I just realized, so I´ll just leave it. It´s about the miracle that happened with Mario and Magda with tithing. I´m super excited for them. On Monday we visited with them and went over the interview questions and they´re good on all of them. Tonight we´re going to the family of the relief society president to have a Noche de Hogar (family home evening), then tomorrow morning will be their interviews and Saturday will be their baptisms, at 4:00. We made invitations too. I´ll attach the invitations actually so that you can see them. They turned out pretty well I think. We gave Mario and Magda 20 invitations to give to / invite their friends and families to the baptism, so we can hopefully start to teach even more people. I´m super excited for them though, and they´re excited too. They came to the Noche de Hogar in the church on Monday and we announced the baptism and they had them stand up and they were smiling and so happy. So that´s good. It´s fun too since we just met them 2 weeks ago. I love how the Lord is always preparing people to be baptized and enter into His church. The other news is that Julio, who was going to be baptized this week as well, is not going to be anymore. He didn´t come to church because his wife didn´t want him to go, since it was Mother´s Day. We had a visit with him though and he still wants to be baptized. He´ll be baptized either the 21st or the 28th of May. So that´s fun. Yesterday we had a specialized training for our zone. The zone leaders taught an hour workshop on the role of the spirit in conversion and it went really well. President and Hermana Hinckley taught the rest. Our new schedule in the mission is that one month there´s a zone conference, and that´s where we´ll do stuff, the next month is interviews, and the next month is this specialized zone training, which is basically like a short, less formal zone conference. So yeah, that´s that. It´s going well though. In this next month, in June, we´re going to do zone conferences, so I´ll get to travel all around the mission one more time. Anyways, after the training yesterday the Hinckley´s invited Elder Keller and I to eat with them and their daughter and son-in-law that are visiting. So we ate with them, then we worked on transfers for about 2.5-3 hours. We still have 1-2 hours more to do tomorrow. We´ve basically figured out who my new companion´s going to be, but I´m not going to say yet just in case it changes. I will say though that Elder Keller´s going to Lleida and will be training. He´s really excited. He served there about 8 months ago and it was his favorite area. The missionaries were pulled out for the last 3 weeks of the transfer, so he´ll be white-washing it, but since he already knows the area it will be really good. He´ll be really happy. Things will be good here too. I´ll let you know who my companion is next week, but if it´s the same as is set right now, it´ll be really fun. Well, I can´t think of much else to say. Things are going great here though. We´re still working a lot and we´re going to see a lot of miracles here this last transfer. Also, just so everyone knows, I may not write on Wednesday next week, with transfers and all. I´ll write on either Wednesday or Thursday though. Well, everything´s going great here for me. Have a fantastic week and I´ll write more next week. ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
President Hinckley, this past week has been great here in Barcelona. We´ve been really busy and we´ve been really blessed. We were in piso every single night before 10:00 and we were really able to see how much more effective we were able to be. I think the biggest miracle we saw this past week has to do with Mario and Magda, who will be baptized next week. This past week we taught them Tithing, and it didn´t go over so well. They said they didn´t think they´d be able to do it until next year due to their finances and we ended it basically just inviting them to pray and ask God how they could do it. The next day we went to a baptism in Hospitalet with them and had a quick visit afterwards. We asked them what they thought about tithing after reading the folleto and praying about it, and they told us that it wasn´t a problem anymore, and they were willing to make the sacrifice. They´re doing great, and Elder Keller I think is going to talk more about them in his letter. Elder Keller is probably the best companion I´ve ever had. He´s always working hard and really thinking about the people. He´s driven completely by love, and I´ll miss being able to be with him for this past transfer. We have two other investigators with baptismal dates right now. We have Drés and Sandy, both for the 28-May. Drés Chic is from Túnis, and is doing really well. He used to drink and smoke and he quit it all after the first visit with us. The only problem he has is that he is homeless. He´s in the process of getting his papers, but it could take some time. Elder Keller and I were wondering if you can baptize someone without a house or not. He told us that he does have an address where mail can be sent, but I think it´s just a P.O. Box. He´s currently praying so that he can be able to have a house and be baptized on the 28-May. Sandy Fajardo is from the Dominican Republic and is really nice. He works in an Italian restaurant as a chef. He lives above where Alina Vargas (a member) used to live. She gave us the information for him and his wife Kenya. We´ve only taught him the Restoration, and we haven´t had a second visit. It´s been difficult to visit with him, but we´re doing everything we can so that he and his wife can be baptized. The main thing with them is that we need to set up three visits a week and be able to visit with him and then he can be ready on time. With recent converts I´m going to write about Alberto Román and Mila Sabogal. Alberto was baptized in February and he´s doing great. He has an assignment to help set up and clean up with the noche de hogar on Monday that José Luis gave him. We´ve taught him all of lesson 5 and we´ve re-taught Lessons 1, 2, and 3. We just need to finish up teaching the commandments. He´s doing great though. The only thing he still needs is an interview with the bishop. This Sunday we decided we´re going to talk to the secretary of the ward and just ask if he can set up interviews with all of our recent converts. Mila Sabogal was baptized 2 weeks ago. She´s also doing great. We talked about eternal marriage and temples and she now has the goal to go to the temple in July with the ward for baptisms for the dead, and go again after a year. She´s doing great, the only problem is that she can only come to sacrament meeting right now due to work. I would say the main thing Elder Keller and I have repented of recently is being in piso at 10:00 and filling out the area book after. We´ve been really blessed by doing so. Our planning is better and subsequently the following day always goes better as well. Also, we´re updating the area book so we can now use that as a valuable resource for us and for missionaries in the future. Overall, things are going great here. I´m sad that Elder Keller and I won´t be companions again, but I´m excited to see what me and my new companion can do this next transfer. I have a goal to baptize 6 more people, so I´ll be working a lot, and hopefully I can help even more people than that be baptized. Overall, I still love being a missionary. Thanks for all you do.
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
Family and friends! How´s everyone doing? Things are going great here in Barcelona. I can´t think of a lot to say after talking on the phone just a few days ago, so this may be shorter, I don´t know. Anyways, there is one thing that I was going to tell you that I didn´t tell you on the phone call. I wrote about it in the letter to the president though I just realized, so I´ll just leave it. It´s about the miracle that happened with Mario and Magda with tithing. I´m super excited for them. On Monday we visited with them and went over the interview questions and they´re good on all of them. Tonight we´re going to the family of the relief society president to have a Noche de Hogar (family home evening), then tomorrow morning will be their interviews and Saturday will be their baptisms, at 4:00. We made invitations too. I´ll attach the invitations actually so that you can see them. They turned out pretty well I think. We gave Mario and Magda 20 invitations to give to / invite their friends and families to the baptism, so we can hopefully start to teach even more people. I´m super excited for them though, and they´re excited too. They came to the Noche de Hogar in the church on Monday and we announced the baptism and they had them stand up and they were smiling and so happy. So that´s good. It´s fun too since we just met them 2 weeks ago. I love how the Lord is always preparing people to be baptized and enter into His church. The other news is that Julio, who was going to be baptized this week as well, is not going to be anymore. He didn´t come to church because his wife didn´t want him to go, since it was Mother´s Day. We had a visit with him though and he still wants to be baptized. He´ll be baptized either the 21st or the 28th of May. So that´s fun. Yesterday we had a specialized training for our zone. The zone leaders taught an hour workshop on the role of the spirit in conversion and it went really well. President and Hermana Hinckley taught the rest. Our new schedule in the mission is that one month there´s a zone conference, and that´s where we´ll do stuff, the next month is interviews, and the next month is this specialized zone training, which is basically like a short, less formal zone conference. So yeah, that´s that. It´s going well though. In this next month, in June, we´re going to do zone conferences, so I´ll get to travel all around the mission one more time. Anyways, after the training yesterday the Hinckley´s invited Elder Keller and I to eat with them and their daughter and son-in-law that are visiting. So we ate with them, then we worked on transfers for about 2.5-3 hours. We still have 1-2 hours more to do tomorrow. We´ve basically figured out who my new companion´s going to be, but I´m not going to say yet just in case it changes. I will say though that Elder Keller´s going to Lleida and will be training. He´s really excited. He served there about 8 months ago and it was his favorite area. The missionaries were pulled out for the last 3 weeks of the transfer, so he´ll be white-washing it, but since he already knows the area it will be really good. He´ll be really happy. Things will be good here too. I´ll let you know who my companion is next week, but if it´s the same as is set right now, it´ll be really fun. Well, I can´t think of much else to say. Things are going great here though. We´re still working a lot and we´re going to see a lot of miracles here this last transfer. Also, just so everyone knows, I may not write on Wednesday next week, with transfers and all. I´ll write on either Wednesday or Thursday though. Well, everything´s going great here for me. Have a fantastic week and I´ll write more next week. ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
5/4/11
5/3/2011 (pictures under "Additional Pictures")
Family and friends! How´s everyone doing? Things are going great here this week. We were able to see Sabrina, Mila, and Rocío all baptized last week. It was incredible. I´m going to attach photos of their baptisms. Okay, so the first one is of Sabrina and her whole family. Left to right it´s Israel (her dad), Coral (her sister), Teresa (her mom) Sabrina, me, and Elder Keller. The next one is just of Elder Keller, Sabrina, and me. The next one is of Me, Felipe (the member that baptized Rocío), Rocío, Mila, Rubén (the member that baptized Mila), and Elder Keller. The next one is me, Rocío and Elder Keller, then the last one is me, Mila, and Elder Keller. Sabrina got baptized on Friday, then Rocío and Mila got baptized on Saturday. They all turned out great. It was so fun to see them. They were all so happy too. That´s the biggest news. The next big news is that in a week and a half we´ll have 3 more baptisms. We met a couple named Mario and Magda. I told the story about it in my President´s Letter which I´ll just send to everyone. They´re doing great though. We visit them practically every day. They´re doing incredible though. Also, we have Julio for the 14th of May as well. I also talked about him in my Letter the the President. Next up we have Drés who will be baptized the 28th of May. I talked about him a bit in the letter to the President as well. We contacted Drés on Sunday in the street, and we walked to the church right then, had a tour, and invited him to be baptized. He´s doing really well. He used to drink and smoke, but he quit drinking after Sunday, and he´s dropped from 20 cigarettes a day to just 1 on Monday. So he´s doing really well. We´re really excited for all of them. Mario and Magda, and Julio will all be baptized Elder Keller´s last week here, so that´ll be fun. Also, some people asked about Jean Pierre, Isabel´s 11-year old son who she wants to do the first comunion. We´re still not sure. We had a visit on Sunday, and it was okay, but we´re not sure what´ll happen. He´ll be baptized before I leave, but there´s a chance it´s not until June. We´ll see what happens in the end. We also had to stop teaching Alberto´s family (Alberto´s the one that got baptized the 12th of February). They just weren´t progressing and they said they´d decided they weren´t going to read anymore, so we had to stop teaching them. It was sad, because we´d become good friends. We´re not here to find people and prepare them for baptism though, we´re here to find people that are ready to be baptized now. We´ve talked a lot about how the field is white all ready to harvest, and that´s what we´re focusing on. We´re looking for people that will be baptized this month. I don´t know if anyone´s interested, but I just realized I can attach the message that Elder Keller and I are writing this month in the newsletter. We write one every month. Here´s this months if you´re interested:
Dear fellow missionaries,
The Lord has declared, “The field is white all ready to harvest.” But what does this mean? How many believe you can baptize every month in the Spain Barcelona Mission regardless of where you serve? How many believe that there are at least four to five people who are prepared to accept baptism in your area each and every week?
The Lord and His angels are “declaring it unto many at this time in [Spain]; and this is for the purpose of preparing the hearts of the children of men to receive his word.” (Alma 13:24) Our missionary service is far too valuable to send missionaries to an area where they cannot baptize. In this the eleventh hour, we have been called to gather in the elect in preparation for the second coming of the Messiah. We are not in our assigned areas by accident; nor do we meet prepared individuals by coincidence. The “elect” may live in the same piso as a recent convert. They may have received a Book of Mormon during Sant Jordi. They may be on a bus, the metro, or a train. They may have family who are members. The Lord has said, “[I will] send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.” (Jeremiah 16:16) We are the hunters. Certainly they are there.
We know that there are prepared people in every area, and not just one prepared person. The Lord prepares His children in family units. We believe this is true. We had a thrilling experience this last week running into a woman on the street. Her name is Magdalena. She was carrying heavy grocery bags and a car seat home and looked like she was struggling. We offered to help. She accepted. As we walked to her home together, she asked us who we were, where we were from, what we were doing here in Spain, etc. When we arrived to her home, the recent convert who was helping us for the afternoon asked if she had a few minutes right now to hear our unique message to the world. She gladly accepted the invitation. We entered, were introduced to her husband, Mario, and had a wonderful, spiritual lesson about the Restoration. Without doubting, they both accepted baptismal dates for two and a half weeks later. Mario and Magda attended church with us this last Sunday and are quickly progressing. This week they will be inviting their three children who live away from home to receive the missionaries. This recent miracle illustrates the two truths that the Lord is preparing His children everywhere, and He is preparing their families as well.
Shall we not go on in so great a cause?
B E ! ¡ E V E
Elder Keller y Elder Sommerfeldt
Here´s April´s if you want it too:
Dear Fellow Missionaries,
Every morning when we wake up and see the sun rising over Barcelona we are reminded how lucky we are to be missionaries serving in the Spain Barcelona Mission. We love being missionaries! In the faro there is a deeply bred culture of excellence. We´re exactly obedient; we have great members in our wards and branches and we work effectively with them; we are professional; we like to sip horchata on hot, summer days and snack on napolitanas; we even sweat through the spring in our jackets; and most importantly, WE BAPTIZE WORTHY CONVERTS!
These things are engrained into our culture, and they make us who we are. In recent months we have added even more to our already rich culture. We find ways to better involve members in our missionary purpose; we find, teach, and baptize worthy converted families; we strive to be fully consecrated missionaries; and we understand that the most important converts we make on our missions are ourselves.
This year we have the goal to help 450 worthy converts enter the waters of baptism. This is a big goal. Is it too big? No. Because of who we are as Spain Barcelona missionaries, we know it is possible to help 450 brothers and sisters be baptized this year. It is going to require that we unite together into a band of brothers and sisters. “This sort of brotherhood [and sisterhood] happens when people give their hearts, might, minds, and strength to a cause greater than themselves. When we work together in a bond of brotherhood [and sisterhood], when we love each other and are loyal and faithful to the great cause to which we have been called, the impossible becomes possible.” (Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin, Band of Brothers) President Uchtdorf affirmed that “none of us can or should move the Lord’s work alone. But if we all stand close together in the place the Lord has appointed and lift where we stand, nothing can keep this divine work from moving upward and forward.” May we all unite into a band of brothers and sisters and lift where we stand. Somos el faro! We love you!
-Elder Keller y Elder Sommerfeldt
I hope you enjoy reading those. Maybe I´ll send January through March later if you want. Anyways though, we've talked a lot about how there´s 4-5 people that the Lord has prepared in every single area. It really is true, so we don´t have time to spend on people that aren´t prepared yet.
Anyways, on Monday and yesterday we were on intercambios. I was with Elder Ramírez. He´s from Ecuador, but grew up in Spain. It was fun. I was in Hospitalet, which is a suburb of Barcelona. It´s like Salt Lake and Sandy would be. It was good. We were able to visit with two people they´re teaching that will be baptized this month, and they´re both doing really well. One of them is getting baptized this Saturday and Elder Keller and I are going to go there with Mario and Magda so they can see a baptism before their own. Okay, with calling me this weekend, it looks like I can do it on Saturday, if it´s 9:00 p.m. my time, so I think that´d be 1:00 your time. If dad can go to his work, then all of you, brothers and sisters and in-laws, can be in on a conference call. That would be good. So yeah. I´ll plan on that. Well, I can´t think of anything else that I need to talk about. I´m doing great and I love being here as a missionary. Have a fantastic week and I´ll talk to you (at least family members) on Saturday, and the rest I´ll write next Wednesday. Have a great week. ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
Dear fellow missionaries,
The Lord has declared, “The field is white all ready to harvest.” But what does this mean? How many believe you can baptize every month in the Spain Barcelona Mission regardless of where you serve? How many believe that there are at least four to five people who are prepared to accept baptism in your area each and every week?
The Lord and His angels are “declaring it unto many at this time in [Spain]; and this is for the purpose of preparing the hearts of the children of men to receive his word.” (Alma 13:24) Our missionary service is far too valuable to send missionaries to an area where they cannot baptize. In this the eleventh hour, we have been called to gather in the elect in preparation for the second coming of the Messiah. We are not in our assigned areas by accident; nor do we meet prepared individuals by coincidence. The “elect” may live in the same piso as a recent convert. They may have received a Book of Mormon during Sant Jordi. They may be on a bus, the metro, or a train. They may have family who are members. The Lord has said, “[I will] send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.” (Jeremiah 16:16) We are the hunters. Certainly they are there.
We know that there are prepared people in every area, and not just one prepared person. The Lord prepares His children in family units. We believe this is true. We had a thrilling experience this last week running into a woman on the street. Her name is Magdalena. She was carrying heavy grocery bags and a car seat home and looked like she was struggling. We offered to help. She accepted. As we walked to her home together, she asked us who we were, where we were from, what we were doing here in Spain, etc. When we arrived to her home, the recent convert who was helping us for the afternoon asked if she had a few minutes right now to hear our unique message to the world. She gladly accepted the invitation. We entered, were introduced to her husband, Mario, and had a wonderful, spiritual lesson about the Restoration. Without doubting, they both accepted baptismal dates for two and a half weeks later. Mario and Magda attended church with us this last Sunday and are quickly progressing. This week they will be inviting their three children who live away from home to receive the missionaries. This recent miracle illustrates the two truths that the Lord is preparing His children everywhere, and He is preparing their families as well.
Shall we not go on in so great a cause?
B E ! ¡ E V E
Elder Keller y Elder Sommerfeldt
Here´s April´s if you want it too:
Dear Fellow Missionaries,
Every morning when we wake up and see the sun rising over Barcelona we are reminded how lucky we are to be missionaries serving in the Spain Barcelona Mission. We love being missionaries! In the faro there is a deeply bred culture of excellence. We´re exactly obedient; we have great members in our wards and branches and we work effectively with them; we are professional; we like to sip horchata on hot, summer days and snack on napolitanas; we even sweat through the spring in our jackets; and most importantly, WE BAPTIZE WORTHY CONVERTS!
These things are engrained into our culture, and they make us who we are. In recent months we have added even more to our already rich culture. We find ways to better involve members in our missionary purpose; we find, teach, and baptize worthy converted families; we strive to be fully consecrated missionaries; and we understand that the most important converts we make on our missions are ourselves.
This year we have the goal to help 450 worthy converts enter the waters of baptism. This is a big goal. Is it too big? No. Because of who we are as Spain Barcelona missionaries, we know it is possible to help 450 brothers and sisters be baptized this year. It is going to require that we unite together into a band of brothers and sisters. “This sort of brotherhood [and sisterhood] happens when people give their hearts, might, minds, and strength to a cause greater than themselves. When we work together in a bond of brotherhood [and sisterhood], when we love each other and are loyal and faithful to the great cause to which we have been called, the impossible becomes possible.” (Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin, Band of Brothers) President Uchtdorf affirmed that “none of us can or should move the Lord’s work alone. But if we all stand close together in the place the Lord has appointed and lift where we stand, nothing can keep this divine work from moving upward and forward.” May we all unite into a band of brothers and sisters and lift where we stand. Somos el faro! We love you!
-Elder Keller y Elder Sommerfeldt
I hope you enjoy reading those. Maybe I´ll send January through March later if you want. Anyways though, we've talked a lot about how there´s 4-5 people that the Lord has prepared in every single area. It really is true, so we don´t have time to spend on people that aren´t prepared yet.
Anyways, on Monday and yesterday we were on intercambios. I was with Elder Ramírez. He´s from Ecuador, but grew up in Spain. It was fun. I was in Hospitalet, which is a suburb of Barcelona. It´s like Salt Lake and Sandy would be. It was good. We were able to visit with two people they´re teaching that will be baptized this month, and they´re both doing really well. One of them is getting baptized this Saturday and Elder Keller and I are going to go there with Mario and Magda so they can see a baptism before their own. Okay, with calling me this weekend, it looks like I can do it on Saturday, if it´s 9:00 p.m. my time, so I think that´d be 1:00 your time. If dad can go to his work, then all of you, brothers and sisters and in-laws, can be in on a conference call. That would be good. So yeah. I´ll plan on that. Well, I can´t think of anything else that I need to talk about. I´m doing great and I love being here as a missionary. Have a fantastic week and I´ll talk to you (at least family members) on Saturday, and the rest I´ll write next Wednesday. Have a great week. ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
4/27/2011
Family and Friends! How´s everyone doing? Things are going great here. We had an incredible week last week and we have a lot of things that´ll be happening this week. Rocío didn´t get baptized last week, but she´s probably going to be baptized this week, along with two other people, Mila and Sabrina. Rocío Popo is from Colombia. We met her about a month ago, and she´s incredible. She´s had this sickness for a long time though that really impedes her reading as much as she needs to, etc., but she´s ready to be baptized this Saturday. I´m 90% sure she will be. Next up we have Mila Sabogal. She´s for sure getting baptized. Rubén (a member from the ward) is going to baptize her. Both Rocío and Mila will be baptized on Saturday at 6:00. Sabrina Ledo was going to be baptized on Saturday as well, but she´s a 9-year old and last night her mom said she wants her to wait until next week and be baptized during the week so it´s just her that gets baptized. We were able to capitilize on that though and instead of moving her baptism back a week, we moved it up to Friday. So she´ll be baptized this Friday at 8:30. The other exciting news is that she wants me to baptize her. I thought I was never going to be able to baptize anyone the rest of my mission because our bishop doesn´t like the missionaries baptizing people, but she asked if I would, so hopefully the Bishop´s okay with that. So that´s good. Also, her dad is doing incredible. He used to never talk to us, but now we´re great friends and all. It´s great. Anyways, I´ll send pictures of all three baptisms home next week. Well, that´s the biggest part of what´s going on here. We also have Jean Pierre, Isabel´s 11 year old son who´s getting ready to be baptized the 14-May. The only issue there is that Isabel finally confessed that he´s been preparing for the first comunion for a long time, so we´re seeing what we can do to help her realize that he shouldn´t do the first comunion, and that he should just be baptized instead. We´ll see how it all goes.
That´s the gist of my week though. We also have a lot of other people, like Gina, Roxana (the girl Elder Keller contacted last week that works in the meat shop), Lidia, etc. So we´ll keep helping people come unto Christ by helping them be baptized worthy converts. Let´s see, this past week we also had a holiday in Spain. Well, it was easter, but also semana santa. On top of that, the 23-April is a holiday called Sant Jordi, where guys buy roses and give them to girls (don´t worry, I didn´t participate in that part), and where girls buy books to give to guys. In this one all of the missionaries participated. We set up a stand at the new Stake Center in Barcelona and handed out Book of Mormon´s all day. We were only there in the morning, but throughout the day they handed out over 400 Book of Mormons, so that was really neat. They had 4 people that just walked into church the next day that had received a Book of Mormon the previous day.
We also had a little issue with some missionaries in Lleida (2 hours away driving) and we had to go up there and help them get moved out and clean the piso too, so that took up our entire day on Monday. It´s crazy how every day´s a different day here. We also have something to do. So yeah, we´re busy, but I´m loving it. Well, I can´t think of much else to say about my week, so I´m going to send this off. Have a great week and I´ll write more next week.
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
That´s the gist of my week though. We also have a lot of other people, like Gina, Roxana (the girl Elder Keller contacted last week that works in the meat shop), Lidia, etc. So we´ll keep helping people come unto Christ by helping them be baptized worthy converts. Let´s see, this past week we also had a holiday in Spain. Well, it was easter, but also semana santa. On top of that, the 23-April is a holiday called Sant Jordi, where guys buy roses and give them to girls (don´t worry, I didn´t participate in that part), and where girls buy books to give to guys. In this one all of the missionaries participated. We set up a stand at the new Stake Center in Barcelona and handed out Book of Mormon´s all day. We were only there in the morning, but throughout the day they handed out over 400 Book of Mormons, so that was really neat. They had 4 people that just walked into church the next day that had received a Book of Mormon the previous day.
We also had a little issue with some missionaries in Lleida (2 hours away driving) and we had to go up there and help them get moved out and clean the piso too, so that took up our entire day on Monday. It´s crazy how every day´s a different day here. We also have something to do. So yeah, we´re busy, but I´m loving it. Well, I can´t think of much else to say about my week, so I´m going to send this off. Have a great week and I´ll write more next week.
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
4/15/11
4/15/2011
Family and friends! How´s everyone doing? Things are going great here. We just got done with a three-day leadership training conference that we had. We pulled in all of the zone leaders, district leaders, trainers and new missionaries, into Barcelona for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. We reviewed all of the eight lessons that are newer with Preach My Gospel. The Fundamentals of Preach My Gospel, is what they´re called. Starting in May they´ll be teaching these lessons to everyone in the MTC´s all around the world. Elder Keller and I didn´t have to do too much, except for assign everyone that traveled in a place to work in the afternoons. The conference only went from 9:30 until 4:00 each day, so in the afternoons we had to assign other missionaries to go work in other missionaries´ areas. It worked out well. We also had to translate again for the conference. We have a microphone, and then all of the natives have head-sets that they use and they hear us as we translate. I actually like translating, it´s fun to see that the Spanish words come to me so fast, usually at least. It was a really good conference though. We talked a lot about having the faith that we can baptize every month in every area of the mission. So speaking of that, guess who´s getting baptized this week... Rocio! She´s so good. It was close though, because last week she was still a little bit shaky on Joseph Smith, so on Tuesday we watched "Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration." Then we talked about it. Then on Wednesday we talked about The Book of Mormon and how it´s evidence of Joseph Smith, and she was praying about it, and we don´t know how, but she has no doubts about Joseph Smith now, so that´s good. She´s super good. I feel bad for her though. She has a sickness. We think it´s cancer, but she hasn´t told us all of the details, but we know that she has to go to the hospital three times a week for 3-4 hours a time. She´s a really good lady though. She´s from Columbia. I´ll send pictures next week. She´s doing great now though. We also have a ton of other people that are doing great. We have Jean Pierre, Isabel´s son, who finally set a baptismal date. He´ll be baptized the 14-May. It´s pretty far out there, but it´s the day he came to Spain, and we couldn´t get them to move it up. Then we have Mila Sabogal who will be baptized the 7-May, but we´re probably going to move it up to the 30-April because she´s so prepared. Then we have a bunch of other people that are so close. We had a lady named Angela that we were working with who was going to be baptized the 30-april, but she´s fired on all of her visits, so I don´t know what will end up happening with her. I´m trying to think of what else has happened this week, but I can´t think of what else to write. It´s been a super busy week, but I can´t remember everything we did. Oh, last Friday we had Concilio. Concilio went really well. On Thursday night Elder Keller and I taught an hour session, then the rest was on Friday. I didn´t have to do anything on Friday except translate. It was a good Concilio though. We have 4 new zone leaders, so we have a lot of new missionaries. In the group on 9 missionaries that went home we lost 4 zone leaders and 5 district leaders, so we have a lot of new leaders this transfer. We´re working on making sure they´ll all trained in their duties so that we can continue progressing as a mission. We also were able to visit with Nancy. She´s going to come to church this Sunday. So hopefully we can get her into the habit of doing that again, and then hopefully her husband will let her be baptized here soon. Things are also going well with Alberto´s family. Iveris, his 17-year old sister, finally came to church this past Sunday, and it looks like she´ll come again this next Sunday. She´s praying every day to know if she should be baptized. So that´s the news on things here. Everything´s going great. I love being a missionary. Also, I was going to say, congratulations to Rachel! That´s super neat. I´ll be there this time. Well, I hope everyone has a great week and I´ll talk to you next week. I think my preparation day will be on Wednesday next week. Anyways, ¡Chao! -Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
4/6/2011
Hello everyone! Things are going great here in Barcelona. It´s a little weird though because we just got back from the airport from taking 9 missionaries home... So the mission is very different now. Among those 9 missionaries is Elder Jacinto and Elder Hunsaker, my two companions from out in Palma. They were both great missionaries, and it was sad to see them leave. I´ll see them in a few months at BYU though since they´ll both be going there. We lost 9 missionaries though and only gained one hermana. So we went down a total of 8 missionaries this transfer. We had to close a few areas, but next transfer we only send home two and we get like 10 new missionaries or something like that, so we´ll be able to get back to where we were. The hermana that came in is named Hermana Soderquist, she knows two of the elders in our mission and was in Jen´s singles ward at BYU, so that´s fun. When we saw her at the train station I said I´m Elder Sommerfeldt, and she said, oh, you´re Jen´s friend, right? So that´s fun how many connections she has with everyone. Anyways, she´s going to be a really good missionary. She´s being trained by a native up in Pamplona, which is 5 hours away or so by train. Okay, next off General Conference was great this past week. I loved it. I don´t know if I´ve told you, but every time we have a conference or something we write down questions we have, and there´s a promise that if we have the question written down and we´re looking for the answer, that we´ll find it. So I had 4 questions written down and I got answers to all of them. So it was a beneficial conference. In Spain we watch the Saturday sessions and the Sunday morning session, but we don´t get to see the Sunday afternoon session because it starts at 10:00 on Sunday night. Maybe I´ll be able to see it or parts of it though since we´re in the office a substantial amount now. We´ll see. This past week with transfers we also had a lot to do. One of the most time consuming project was making the Viejos video. It´s not on the Mission Blog yet, but it should be within a week. It took us so long to make. We filmed all of them Sunday and Monday and made it all on Monday. We finished with it super late and didn´t get much sleep that night, then this morning we had to wake up early again to drive people down to the airport, so I´m really tired. Yesterday I was feeling a bit sick actually, like a really bad headache/dizzy, etc., but I´m feeling a lot better today, so that´s good. With our investigators things continue giong well. Rocio came to conference and liked it. She´s still going well for the 16th-April, except we were going to have a visit with her yesterday, but she wasn´t there, so we need to figure out what´s going on there. Next, Julio wasn´t able to come to conference because his wife made them do something, so we had to move his date to the 23rd, but we saw him last night, and he´s doing well. Next we have Angela and her family. I don´t know if I told you about them. Actually, I know I didn´t, we just set the date on Saturday. It´s a family from Ecuador. There´s a mom (Angela), a dad (Cesar) and two kids (Javier-27 yrs old and Jimmy-18 yrs old). The only one right now that´s official with the date is Angela. Cesar has to work Sundays, and the kids weren´t home when we had the visit where we set the baptismal dates. But Angela really wants them to be baptized too, and they´ve both read in the Book of Mormon quite a bit too, so I think for sure Angela and the 2 kids will be baptized the 30th of April, and if Cesar can get his work changed then hopefully he can too. They´re a really good family though. The biggest problem is that they´re always super busy, and there´s only one time each week when they´re all home, unless it´s at 11:00 at night, which is too late for us. But we´re going to start visiting the whole family on Saturdays and then visit with people individually once or twice during the week so they can all be ready by the 30th. They´re a really good family though. I´m excited for them. we also have several other investigators that are doing really well, and I think they´ll be baptized this month as well, but we haven´t been able to set baptismal dates with them yet. We will soon here though. We also finally got a hold of Nancy again. We´re going to visit her tomorrow. Then we´re going to talk about a time we can just meet her husband, not to teach or convince him or anything, mainly just to become friends and hopefuly gain his trust. We´ll see how it all goes. This Friday is Concilio, which is when all of the zone leaders fly in to Barcelona and we have a meeting. Elder Keller and I are in charge of an hour long meeting on Thursday night, and then on Friday we´re up in the mission home with the Hinckleys. It´ll be good. Overall, things are going great here. I can´t think of what else to say. Here´s a question though, when´s Easter? I was just curious. Oh, some other big news is that Ana María finally came to church this past week, to General Conference. The only funny part is that she came to the Priesthood Session... Oh well. In Spain some people are weird and there was like 10 girls there anyways, so it turned out okay. We´re going to talk with them this week and see how it went. She´s Alberto´s mom (Alberto´s the recent convert that Elder Keller and I baptized). Also, Iveris (Alberto´s sister) promised to come to church this next Sunday, so we´ll see what we can get going there. Basically, right now we´re just overwhelmed with a ton of things we need to do in the office, and we still have a ton of things going on in our area where we need to work a lot. It´s going though. It´s good to be busy. Well, I can´t think of much else new to say, so I think I´ll go ahead and wrap this up. I hope you all have great weeks though. I´ll talk to you later. ¡Chao! -Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
4/4/11
3/30/2011
Family and friends! How´s everyone doing out there! Things are going great here in Barcelona. So the good news is that yesterday we did the preliminary transfers with President Hinckley and Elder Keller and I will be together for one more transfer. We´re both really excited about that. He basically let us choose. Well, he let Elder Keller decide if he wanted to leave this transfer or wait one more. He also asked who I want to have as my companion for the next transfer. So I have six weeks or so to pick who will be my companion for my last transfer. I´ve got some ideas, but we´ll see what´s best over the next six weeks. Anyways, things are giong great in our area too. We have some bad news with Nancy. We haven´t been able to talk to her for 4-5 days. We´re not sure what´s wrong. We´ve called her, but she doesn´t answer anymore, and everyone time we´ve passed by her house she hasn´t been there. We think it´s one of two things. Either she got a job and really has zero time, or else she talked to her husband and her husband told her not to even visit with us anymore. We´re not sure, but we´ll keep on trying. She´s too good to just drop. With Juana, we re-set her date for the 30-April to be baptized. She´s actually moving today though to the Hermana´s area in Hospitalet. She lives right on the border of our area, and she´s moving over just two metro stops, but it puts her into their area. We´ve already warned the hermanas, so she´ll be fine. The other big news is that we have two new people who are both working towards the 16th of April to be baptized and are doing great. One of them is named Julio Vargas, and the other is Rocio Popo. Julio Vargas is a guy that was visited by missionaries about six months ago and he was preparing to be baptized. Then he had to go to Peru and never got baptized. He came back to Spain on Wednesday, and on Thursday bought a phone and found the card he´d saved from the missionaries six months ago, Elder Raban and Elder Southwick, and called us. So we visited with him on Sunday and he´s now going great for the 16th of April. He´s even going to help an older lady with cancer move today with the Elder´s Chorum,s o that´ll be good for him. Also, we have Rocio. She´s a room mate of Christian. I don´t know if I´ve said this, but in Spain, people rent out rooms, so there´s always multiple people /families living in the pisos. So we got fired on on Saturday and decided to pass by Christian, one of our investigators, and she was there. We´d invited her to listen in the past, but she´d always been busy. Anyways, this time she came in. Elder Keller and I taught better than I think we ever have, and the spirit was there super strong, and she accepted to be baptized on the 16th of April. She´s an active member of another church as well, and goes every Sunday and every Wednesday, but our visit was on Saturday, and the next day she didn´t go her church, and she came to our church instead. Christian, our investigator that´ll be baptized in Columbia, also told us that she got called to work Sunday morning, which here with the crisis people take work whenever they can, but she turned it down because she was coming to church. So she´s doing really well. We left her with 3 Nephi 11-26 to read, which is a lot, but she wanted to know all about when Christ visited the americas, so I´m really excited for her. She´s doing great. I never said with Julio either. The first day missionaries contacted him 7-8 months ago he had prayed that morning because he was having problems, and he said to God that he would go to the first church that God showed him. He´d gone throughout the day and had nothing, then Elder Raban and Elder Southwick were walking and they were with a member. The member had asked them how they know who they need to contact and in the middle of explaining it to the member they saw Julio and stopped him. He told them about his prayer and started right from there to prepare himself to be baptized. Miracles happen. I love this work. It´s clearly directed by God. So that´s the big update on our investigators for this week. Things are going great here in Barcelona. I love it. I´m so happy that Elder Keller and I get to stay together for another transfer as well. The other day we had an investigator that we ran into invite us to go to a Kebab place and get kebabs, so we did. While we were eating he was telling us that we were really good missionaries, and that you could just tell that we worked really well together and that we were really unified and worked for the same purpose. This was from Christian, the investigator that´s been investigating for 15 years and knows hundreds of missionaries. He´s going to be baptized in 2-3 weeks. Right after he goes back to Columbia. I don´t know if I ever told you, but we were pushing him to be baptized here, and then we just randomly read a chapter from the Book of Mormon with him one day, and it happened to be the only chapter where it talked about the people postponing the day of their baptism, so he´s going to wait now. It was a direct answer from God. It´s neat to see God answer prayers. I love it. I´m sorry BYU lost. That´s too bad. In Jimmer going to be playing for us again next year, or does he graduate? Well, I can´t think of much else I should say, so I´m going to go ahead and finish this up. Thanks for all of the e-mails and all of the prayers and support. I´ll write more next week. ¡Chao! -Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
3/25/2011
Family and friends! How´s everyone doing? Things are going great here for me. We just got done with all of the zone conferences. They were really good zone conferences. We talked a lot about working with members, extending commitments, and being consecrated missionaries. I learned a lot, especially since I got to be in 6 zone conferences within 2 weeks. Elder Keller and I had to teach a workshop on working effectively with the Ward Council. I think it actually went really well though. President Hinckley just asked us yesterday if tomorrow, on Saturday, we can share it in a meeting they´re having with all of the stake presidents in the mission, as well as Elder Paya, of the seventy. So we´ll have to do really good with it tomorrow. With all of the conferences we also had pizza from dominoes, so the Hinckleys, Elder Keller, and I all ate pizza a lot these past couple of weeks. Okay, so I have several stories to tell. The first is that on our way to Lleida with the Hinckleys they told us an interesting e-mail they had received. What happened is that a couple weeks ago when Elder Keller and I went to Bilbao, in the airport in Barcelona upon returning we contacted a mom and a daughter from Italy. They were really nice. We offered to help them with their bags and as it turned out the mom had just recently broke her arm and was really appreciative of our help. We also helped them find where they needed to go since they don´t speak spanish, and so we were with them 5 minutes or so. Anyways, then we left and we even commented that it was kind of sad that we´d probably never see them again. However, President Hinckley got an e-mail that said the following: Goodmorning, I'm an italian student from Rome,my name is Lavinia Rutigliano and I'm sending you an e-mail because I met two american boys who were very kind with me and my mum at Barcelona Airport.They helped us in carrying our luggage(my mum has a broken arm),they are missionaries,they told us they come from Utah and they're staying in Spain for two years.They gave us a card with this website www.sud.org.es and an address : C/Marquès de Sentmenat 35-37 Metro:Plaça del Centre.We would like to contact them,unluckly we don't know their names,we only know that they are 21 and one of them studies chemistry and physics and the other one studies finances. We were in Bacelona for Comenius Project involving students of my mum's high school,Liceo Ginnasio Augusto in Rome and Joan Brossa's students in Barcelona,we thank you in advance if you will be able to keep us in touch with these american students. Our best regards. Lavinia Rutigliano Lucrezia Lopopolo So that was a lot of fun to see. We´re going to send them an e-mail and get missionaries out to them here soon. They had to have gone through a lot to be able to find President Hinckley´s e-mail. I don´t know how they did it. I´ll keep you updated on that though if I hear anything that happens with it. Okay, the other fun thing is that on the way from Lleida to Barcelona Elder Keller fell asleep and Hermana Hinckley was in and out of sleep, so I got to talk to President Hinckley and learn a lot more about him. I learned how he and Hermana Hinckley met, I learned what it was like when his dad became a general authority and an apostle, etc. It was fun. Anyways, after that we got to go to PALMA!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was so fun. I had a blast. I was with Elder Bennington and Elder Keller was with Elder Hunsaker. We got to go to eat lunch with Damaris and Dana, so that was fun. It was sad though, because we got there late, and Dana had to leave 10 minutes later. I took a picture with her and she started crying and ran out the door crying without even saying good bye and said, you were supposed to come earlier as she walked out the door. She had to go to school, and was sad that she didn´t get to be there while I was there. Luckily though I got to see her the next day, because we worked it out so Damaris could meet us at the church and then I talked to Dana a bit more, then Damaris drove us to the airport. So it all turned out good in the end. In Palma I also got to see a bunch of other people, like Sergio, Lais and Paula, Yomaira and Edgar, Mabel and Robert, Luis, and Elizabeth. So that was fun to see everyone again. I was super sad leaving when we got on the plane. I love it there. The zone conference went super well too. Well, things continue going well here in our area as well. The only slight issue is that Nancy´s husband, Johnny, said she can´t be baptized. I think it´s just because he doesn´t know us yet. I bet after he gets to know us though that he´ll change. We´ll see what ends up happening. We have a visit with her tonight, and the Hinckleys actually had us invite Nancy and Johnny over to their house sometime, so that should hopefully help. Things continue the same with Juana. I hope everything goes well with her in the end, but we´ll see. Well, I need to wrap this up, but I hope everyone has a fantastic week. I´ll talk to you later. ¡Chao! -Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt P.S. GO BYU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
3/14/11
3/14/2011
Family and Friends! How´s everyone doing? Things are going great here. Our preparation day´s earlier on this week because this afternoon we´re headed off to Bilbao. Then tomorrow morning we´re catching a bus to Vitoria for the zone conference there. Then after the conference we´ll drive with the Hinckleys to Lleida for a zone conference there, then after that we drive back to Barcelona, but Elder Keller and I will just be dropped off at the airport to fly out to Palma. We´ll be in Palma all day Thursday doing intercambios with them. Then on Friday we have the conference in Palma and Friday night we´ll get back to Barcelona. So it´s fun stuff. Things are going great here though. We had an incredible week here in our area, and the mission´s doing really well too. Elder Keller and I got all of the standards of excellence this past week. That´s super hard to do as ayudantes, because we don´t have as much time. We got all of the standards of excellence and we taught 20 lessons. The standards of excellence is to have 2 investigators with a baptismal date (which is what we have), 5 investigators in church (which is what we had), 10 lessons to investigators with a member present (we had 11), 4 new investigators (we had 11). So we´re pretty excited about how well the week went. Nancy is doing great for the 26th of March. We´ve taught her everything, and she would be baptized sooner, but she needs to talk to her husband first. Mom, you asked if she needs permission from them to be baptized. We´re not supposed to baptize someone without their spouses consent. With kids under 18 the parents need to sign. In this case he doesn´t need to sign, but it just wouldn´t be good if she got baptized and he wasn´t okay with it. Nancy came to church this past week though, and she came a little bit late so there wasn´t a seat by Elder Keller and I, but she sat next to another lady who started talking to her, then she went to gospel principles and someone else sat by her, and overall she´s doing great. So we´re really excited. This next week with us being gone, we´re going to call her twice, but the other 4 days other hermanas in the relief society are going to call her and see how she´s doing, etc. She´ll be baptized in about 2 weeks. We´re still working with her daughter, Stefani, to hopefully help her be baptized as well.
We also continue working with Juana. She fired on her second visit because she had to go to Madrid. Then we passed by Saturday night to see if she was back (her phone broke, so we couldn´t call her), and she had a ton of people over for a party/dinner thing. We only had like 2 minutes but she insisted we come in and she presented us to all of her friends and all. So that´s good she´s not embarrassed about investigating the church. She´s set to be baptized the 9th of April, and she has an 8 year old son, Carlos, who I´m sure will be baptized with her. We also have Gina and Jorge who are doing well. Jorge´s a less-active member, and Gina, his wife, is not a member. She hasn´t accepted to be baptized yet, but we started taking a lady with us, Fabiola, who has helped a ton. Gina and Fabiola have become good friends, so I think Fabiola will be key in helping Gina get baptized.
So today for preparation day it´s going to be another day where we don´t do much. We have to go to a car place and get new cars. The church is having us renew all the cars. So that´ll be a fun day. Then we have to end our preparation day a little early so we can be to the airport on time. We also need to finish planning for the workshop we´re doing in all the zone conferences with working more effectively with members, so that will take up a bunch of our time. It´ll still be a good day though. Well, I can´t think of much else new. I think I might wrap this up. I think next week we´re taking our preparation day on Monday, so I´ll write more next week. Have a great week. ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
We also continue working with Juana. She fired on her second visit because she had to go to Madrid. Then we passed by Saturday night to see if she was back (her phone broke, so we couldn´t call her), and she had a ton of people over for a party/dinner thing. We only had like 2 minutes but she insisted we come in and she presented us to all of her friends and all. So that´s good she´s not embarrassed about investigating the church. She´s set to be baptized the 9th of April, and she has an 8 year old son, Carlos, who I´m sure will be baptized with her. We also have Gina and Jorge who are doing well. Jorge´s a less-active member, and Gina, his wife, is not a member. She hasn´t accepted to be baptized yet, but we started taking a lady with us, Fabiola, who has helped a ton. Gina and Fabiola have become good friends, so I think Fabiola will be key in helping Gina get baptized.
So today for preparation day it´s going to be another day where we don´t do much. We have to go to a car place and get new cars. The church is having us renew all the cars. So that´ll be a fun day. Then we have to end our preparation day a little early so we can be to the airport on time. We also need to finish planning for the workshop we´re doing in all the zone conferences with working more effectively with members, so that will take up a bunch of our time. It´ll still be a good day though. Well, I can´t think of much else new. I think I might wrap this up. I think next week we´re taking our preparation day on Monday, so I´ll write more next week. Have a great week. ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
3/10/2011
Family and friends! How´s everyone doing? I´m doing great this morning here in Barcelona. We just got done studying and I feel so inspired and excited now, so that´s good. I decided this week I´m going to attach my letter to the President to everyone so that I don´t have to repeat as much stuff. So here it is:
President Hinckley, this past week has been incredible here in Barcelona. We continue to be blessed with miracles. Nancy continues working towards baptism, and we now have a lady named Juana who is also going to be baptized. Nancy´s daughter will also probably be baptized with her at the end of this month, and Juana´s 8 year old son will also probably be baptized with her on April 9th. We´re also starting to change how we work to see even more miracles. We just got done reading The Sister Susan Fulcher case and The Everett Ward in our personal and companionship studies. It went along perfectly with what we´ve been talking about the past few days. This past week Elder Keller and I have been talking about how we feel like we´ve been doing really well at contacting, and as a result we´re getting a lot of new investigators, teaching a lot, etc. However, many of the investigators really aren´t progressing. We were talking about how we feel like we need to work a lot more with the members and develop a better relationship with the members, then yesterday we got the e-mail from you with the Sister Susan Fulcher and the Everett Ward cases. It was perfect. We can really tell that you received revelation. We´ve already talked about some things that we´re going to start doing to be able to step up to the next level, where instead of having 4 missionaries in our ward, we can get everyone involved and essentially have over 100 missionaries. We´re going to learn a lot more about our current investigators so that the ward can help more with them and know who they are. WE´re also going to put pictures of the investigators on our informe de progresso, as well as a paragraph or two describing each of our progressing investigators. We´re also going to start visiting members. We´ve visited a few members, but we really haven´t developed a really good relationship with many members, we´re changing that now. I can hardly describe how excited I am now. I just see how much better we can become. This is something that as it gets hold around the whole mission is going to make us "much, much better." Also, I don´t know what the plans are for transfers, but Elder Keller and I have talked about it, and we would love to be able to stay together one more transfer. There is so much potential and I fell like we´re starting to see a lot of success come into our area and the mission as a whole. So if that´s an option we would love to stay together one more transfer. This past week we also did intercambios with the Barcelona Zone Leaders. I was with Elder Cannell. It went really well. My studies are going well. I continue reading in the Book of Mormon everyday and applying it to our area and the mission as a whole. I love it. Elder Keller and I get along great and we´ve become a very unified companionship. Overall, I love being a missionary. Thanks for all you do.
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
There´s the letter to the president. I hope you enjoy it. Also, I´m going to try and attach a few pictures. Actually, I don´t know why, but it won´t read my card. I´ll send home a DVD in a few weeks instead with 1000 pictures or so that you can see. Alright, so I said in my President´s Letter that Nancy and Juana both have baptismal dates. Nancy is doing incredible. We set the date last week, and she´s just completely changed. She´ll be baptized the 26th of March. WE´re also working a lot with her 16-year old daughter so that she can be baptized the same day. Her husband is in Perú right now, but he comes back the 15th of March, so we´ll see what we can do after he gets back. She said he´s not very religious, but we´ll get something worked out. Okay, what else. So a few days ago Elder Keller and I contacted a lady named Juana. We had a visit with her this past week and she´s incredible. She´s from the Dominican Republic. She has an 8-year old son named Carlos. She was living with a guy for a long time (I don´t think they were married, but they were pretty much a family), and then he died 3 years ago. Also, 5 years ago her mom died. She´s sad about it, but she´s still a really happy, fun person. She´s probably about 35 or so, and we invited her to be baptized and she accepted, as well as accepting to come to church every Sunday, to visit with us 3 times a week, and to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. She also gave us the information of one of her friends to teach, and said she´s going to bring her son, Carlos to church. So we´ll hopefully get both of them baptized on April 9th. I´m super excited for them. We also continue working a lot with our other investigators. We have Jean Pierre, Isabel´s son, who´s doing really well. Also, Christian continues to do well, and could be baptized any day here. Things are just going great. THis next week we´re going to be gone almost all week with zone conferences, but we´ll keep in contact by phone with everyone. We´re flying to Bilbao Monday night, then on Tuesday we´ll have the zone conference in Bilbao, then we´ll drive with the Hinckleys to Lleida, have the zone conference there, then we´ll drive back to Barcelona and that same night Elder Keller and I will fly out to Palma! I´m going back finally! I´m so happy. We´ll do intercambios with them on Thursday, then on Friday we´ll have zone conference with them. I´ll get to see Damaris and Dana again, so that will be a lot of fun. Well, overall things are going great here. I love being a missionary. I´m going to end this though so I still have a little time to write the individuals. Have a great week! ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
President Hinckley, this past week has been incredible here in Barcelona. We continue to be blessed with miracles. Nancy continues working towards baptism, and we now have a lady named Juana who is also going to be baptized. Nancy´s daughter will also probably be baptized with her at the end of this month, and Juana´s 8 year old son will also probably be baptized with her on April 9th. We´re also starting to change how we work to see even more miracles. We just got done reading The Sister Susan Fulcher case and The Everett Ward in our personal and companionship studies. It went along perfectly with what we´ve been talking about the past few days. This past week Elder Keller and I have been talking about how we feel like we´ve been doing really well at contacting, and as a result we´re getting a lot of new investigators, teaching a lot, etc. However, many of the investigators really aren´t progressing. We were talking about how we feel like we need to work a lot more with the members and develop a better relationship with the members, then yesterday we got the e-mail from you with the Sister Susan Fulcher and the Everett Ward cases. It was perfect. We can really tell that you received revelation. We´ve already talked about some things that we´re going to start doing to be able to step up to the next level, where instead of having 4 missionaries in our ward, we can get everyone involved and essentially have over 100 missionaries. We´re going to learn a lot more about our current investigators so that the ward can help more with them and know who they are. WE´re also going to put pictures of the investigators on our informe de progresso, as well as a paragraph or two describing each of our progressing investigators. We´re also going to start visiting members. We´ve visited a few members, but we really haven´t developed a really good relationship with many members, we´re changing that now. I can hardly describe how excited I am now. I just see how much better we can become. This is something that as it gets hold around the whole mission is going to make us "much, much better." Also, I don´t know what the plans are for transfers, but Elder Keller and I have talked about it, and we would love to be able to stay together one more transfer. There is so much potential and I fell like we´re starting to see a lot of success come into our area and the mission as a whole. So if that´s an option we would love to stay together one more transfer. This past week we also did intercambios with the Barcelona Zone Leaders. I was with Elder Cannell. It went really well. My studies are going well. I continue reading in the Book of Mormon everyday and applying it to our area and the mission as a whole. I love it. Elder Keller and I get along great and we´ve become a very unified companionship. Overall, I love being a missionary. Thanks for all you do.
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
There´s the letter to the president. I hope you enjoy it. Also, I´m going to try and attach a few pictures. Actually, I don´t know why, but it won´t read my card. I´ll send home a DVD in a few weeks instead with 1000 pictures or so that you can see. Alright, so I said in my President´s Letter that Nancy and Juana both have baptismal dates. Nancy is doing incredible. We set the date last week, and she´s just completely changed. She´ll be baptized the 26th of March. WE´re also working a lot with her 16-year old daughter so that she can be baptized the same day. Her husband is in Perú right now, but he comes back the 15th of March, so we´ll see what we can do after he gets back. She said he´s not very religious, but we´ll get something worked out. Okay, what else. So a few days ago Elder Keller and I contacted a lady named Juana. We had a visit with her this past week and she´s incredible. She´s from the Dominican Republic. She has an 8-year old son named Carlos. She was living with a guy for a long time (I don´t think they were married, but they were pretty much a family), and then he died 3 years ago. Also, 5 years ago her mom died. She´s sad about it, but she´s still a really happy, fun person. She´s probably about 35 or so, and we invited her to be baptized and she accepted, as well as accepting to come to church every Sunday, to visit with us 3 times a week, and to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. She also gave us the information of one of her friends to teach, and said she´s going to bring her son, Carlos to church. So we´ll hopefully get both of them baptized on April 9th. I´m super excited for them. We also continue working a lot with our other investigators. We have Jean Pierre, Isabel´s son, who´s doing really well. Also, Christian continues to do well, and could be baptized any day here. Things are just going great. THis next week we´re going to be gone almost all week with zone conferences, but we´ll keep in contact by phone with everyone. We´re flying to Bilbao Monday night, then on Tuesday we´ll have the zone conference in Bilbao, then we´ll drive with the Hinckleys to Lleida, have the zone conference there, then we´ll drive back to Barcelona and that same night Elder Keller and I will fly out to Palma! I´m going back finally! I´m so happy. We´ll do intercambios with them on Thursday, then on Friday we´ll have zone conference with them. I´ll get to see Damaris and Dana again, so that will be a lot of fun. Well, overall things are going great here. I love being a missionary. I´m going to end this though so I still have a little time to write the individuals. Have a great week! ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
3/5/11
3/4/2011
Family and Friends! How´s everyone doing over there? I´m hardly having a preparation day today, so this e-mail might not make a ton of sense because I´m thinking about a lot of things right now. Today we got a new missionary in, his name is Elder Hastings. He seems really good. You can probably look on the mission blog and see him and us there. We went down to the train station to pick him up. I had one of the most nerve-racking times of my mission today, because I had to drive. It was my first time driving with the Hinckleys, so it was super scary. Driving in Barcelona is very different from driving in the U.S. It´s good though. I had to drive a big van too because we had me, Elder Keller, the Browns (a senior couple), the new missionary, and the Hinckleys. It was crazy. We all made it alive though, so that´s good. So this past week we did intercambios. It went really well. I was here in Barcelona with Elder Bajaña. He´s from Ecuador. Elder Keller went up to be with Elder Bajaña´s compaion, Elder Awerkamp, in Bilbao. It´s an hour and a little bit flight. So we did that Tuesday, then on Thursday morning Elder Bajaña and I flew out there, then I was in the airport for an hour to get with Elder Keller again, then I flew right back. It was good. It was a day just full of traveling though. So I´m pretty tired, as always, but that´s good.
Alright, so let´s see what else is new. We still don´t have any investigators with a baptismal date, but we´re going to have some really soon. Just the other day we were going to have a visit with an investigator that has a baptismal date that some other missionaries visited and set the date. Her name´s Adriana, but she lives in our area, so now we´re going to start teaching her. She´ll be baptized here the 26th of March, so that´s good. I´m excited.
Okay, also this past week we had Concilio. It was really good. It was a very spiritual meeting. Concilio is when the Hinckleys, us, and all the zone leaders get together and we have a meeting. We usually have breakfast together and then we have a meeting/instruction/discussion until 2:00-ish, then we have lunch, then we have about an hour left. We watched the video that Elder Keller and I made, that mom said she watched on the blog. I like it a lot. This movie turned out really well. That´s the second one that Elder Keller and I have made. We made it on Hermana Hinckleys mac, because apple has better video editing stuff.
Also, this past week has been a week full of miracles. We´ve had several people that will just call us that we gave them a pass-along card, but they were getting off the bus/metro, so we didn´t have time to get their info, and they´ll text of call us just wanting to give us their information so we can pass by them. It´s incredible. We´re in a time of miracles.
We have several people that are really close to being baptized. We have Jean Pierre (Isabel´s, a recent convert, son), Christian, Sabrina, Gina, and many other people that we just met this past week that are really promising. We´ve noticed that when we contact someone and we´re just super happy, that they´ll usually catch some of that and they become friendly and give us their information and end up wanting to learn more. It´s great.
Okay, well, I can´t think of much else to say. A lot more has happened, but there´s other missionaries here now so it´s hard to focus. Actually Elder Parry´s here, the missionary I trained, so it´s fun to see him again. His companion, Elder Anstenson, is going to train the new missionary, so Elder Parry´s being transferred out to Mataró. He´ll get out there just in time for three baptisms that will be his recent converts, so that´s fun. Well, I can´t think of much else to say, so I´m going to wrap this up. Have a great week. ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
Alright, so let´s see what else is new. We still don´t have any investigators with a baptismal date, but we´re going to have some really soon. Just the other day we were going to have a visit with an investigator that has a baptismal date that some other missionaries visited and set the date. Her name´s Adriana, but she lives in our area, so now we´re going to start teaching her. She´ll be baptized here the 26th of March, so that´s good. I´m excited.
Okay, also this past week we had Concilio. It was really good. It was a very spiritual meeting. Concilio is when the Hinckleys, us, and all the zone leaders get together and we have a meeting. We usually have breakfast together and then we have a meeting/instruction/discussion until 2:00-ish, then we have lunch, then we have about an hour left. We watched the video that Elder Keller and I made, that mom said she watched on the blog. I like it a lot. This movie turned out really well. That´s the second one that Elder Keller and I have made. We made it on Hermana Hinckleys mac, because apple has better video editing stuff.
Also, this past week has been a week full of miracles. We´ve had several people that will just call us that we gave them a pass-along card, but they were getting off the bus/metro, so we didn´t have time to get their info, and they´ll text of call us just wanting to give us their information so we can pass by them. It´s incredible. We´re in a time of miracles.
We have several people that are really close to being baptized. We have Jean Pierre (Isabel´s, a recent convert, son), Christian, Sabrina, Gina, and many other people that we just met this past week that are really promising. We´ve noticed that when we contact someone and we´re just super happy, that they´ll usually catch some of that and they become friendly and give us their information and end up wanting to learn more. It´s great.
Okay, well, I can´t think of much else to say. A lot more has happened, but there´s other missionaries here now so it´s hard to focus. Actually Elder Parry´s here, the missionary I trained, so it´s fun to see him again. His companion, Elder Anstenson, is going to train the new missionary, so Elder Parry´s being transferred out to Mataró. He´ll get out there just in time for three baptisms that will be his recent converts, so that´s fun. Well, I can´t think of much else to say, so I´m going to wrap this up. Have a great week. ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
3/2/11
2/23/2011
Family and Friends! How´s everyone doing there in the United States! Things are going great here. I don´t know what all to say this week. It was transfers. I´m still here. It was fun being able to play a big role in transfers. Mom asked if Elder Keller and I have a say in transfers, and we actually do. President Hinckley has the final say, but we´ll throw out suggestions and he´ll often time use what we suggest. So that´s fun. It was really good, and I feel really good about the transfers.
So I´m putting some pictures on here. The first one is a picture when we taught Alberto, his mom, and his sister how to tie ties. It goes left to right: Elder Keller, Ana María (Alberto´s mom), Alberto, me, Íviris (Alberto´s sister). Things continue going well with them. They´re progressing slowly, but they´re progressing. The next picture is of me on a street that we took one night. The next is of (left to right) Vladimir (our ward mission leader), me, Elder Keller, Ana María, Alberto, and Jaime. It was at a ward activity for Valentines day. It went really well, and Alberto´s mom came, so that was fun. Now we just need to find a way to get her there on Sunday morning for church. The next picture is of President and Hermana Hinckley in front of a building that we think should be the temple site for the Spain Barcelona Temple. It´s on a hill/mountain called Tibidabo. Next is a street sign that explains what happens in the Spain Barcelona street. Alright. That´s it for pictures.
This past week Elder Keller and I taught 20 lessons! So that was good. It´s really hard with all of the other things we have to do to teach 20 lessons, but we were able to get it done. This week, with transfers and all, we´re a bit behind, but we´ll see if we can do it. All of the missionaries going home left this morning. Elder Keller and I didn´t get to go to the airport this time, because there were only four missionaries going, so they figured they could fit everyone in one van if we didn´t go. So that´s what happened. I don´t know if I told all of you, but I drive now. It´s crazy driving here too. There´s so much traffic, and the lanes are narrow, and they have huge multi-lane roundabouts, and motorcycles and scooters always are driving inbetween you, etc. It´s crazy. It´s fun though. Anyways, also with transfers Elder Keller and I had to film all of the missionaries going home for the movie we make each transfer. I don´t know if you know, but the Hinckleys said they put the movie up on the blog. I guess there´s a lot of stuff on the mission blog, so you should all follow that and you´ll know a lot more what it´s like here. Last night we had "Singing for the Angels," which is where we go down to Plaça Catalunya and sing. We have four companionships out contacting people when they stop to listen to us. I was contacting a guy yesterday that was really good. He was on a bike, but stopped to talk for a while. I gave him a Book of Mormon and he loved it. I hope he gets baptized soon. Anyways, I saw President Hinckley take a picture of me while I was contacting him, so you might be able to see that on the blog sometime soon.
Today we´re hopefully going to do something fun for Preparation Day. We might go see Tibidabo, which is a catholic church where tradition says is the mountain where Christ was taken when he was fasting. It overlooks Barcelona, and the traditions say that Satan took Christ up there and tempted him with the city of Barcelona. Anyways, if we go I´ll take pictures.
Well, I can´t think of much else to say. Things are going great here. I´m going to go write the individual letters now though. Have a great week.
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
So I´m putting some pictures on here. The first one is a picture when we taught Alberto, his mom, and his sister how to tie ties. It goes left to right: Elder Keller, Ana María (Alberto´s mom), Alberto, me, Íviris (Alberto´s sister). Things continue going well with them. They´re progressing slowly, but they´re progressing. The next picture is of me on a street that we took one night. The next is of (left to right) Vladimir (our ward mission leader), me, Elder Keller, Ana María, Alberto, and Jaime. It was at a ward activity for Valentines day. It went really well, and Alberto´s mom came, so that was fun. Now we just need to find a way to get her there on Sunday morning for church. The next picture is of President and Hermana Hinckley in front of a building that we think should be the temple site for the Spain Barcelona Temple. It´s on a hill/mountain called Tibidabo. Next is a street sign that explains what happens in the Spain Barcelona street. Alright. That´s it for pictures.
This past week Elder Keller and I taught 20 lessons! So that was good. It´s really hard with all of the other things we have to do to teach 20 lessons, but we were able to get it done. This week, with transfers and all, we´re a bit behind, but we´ll see if we can do it. All of the missionaries going home left this morning. Elder Keller and I didn´t get to go to the airport this time, because there were only four missionaries going, so they figured they could fit everyone in one van if we didn´t go. So that´s what happened. I don´t know if I told all of you, but I drive now. It´s crazy driving here too. There´s so much traffic, and the lanes are narrow, and they have huge multi-lane roundabouts, and motorcycles and scooters always are driving inbetween you, etc. It´s crazy. It´s fun though. Anyways, also with transfers Elder Keller and I had to film all of the missionaries going home for the movie we make each transfer. I don´t know if you know, but the Hinckleys said they put the movie up on the blog. I guess there´s a lot of stuff on the mission blog, so you should all follow that and you´ll know a lot more what it´s like here. Last night we had "Singing for the Angels," which is where we go down to Plaça Catalunya and sing. We have four companionships out contacting people when they stop to listen to us. I was contacting a guy yesterday that was really good. He was on a bike, but stopped to talk for a while. I gave him a Book of Mormon and he loved it. I hope he gets baptized soon. Anyways, I saw President Hinckley take a picture of me while I was contacting him, so you might be able to see that on the blog sometime soon.
Today we´re hopefully going to do something fun for Preparation Day. We might go see Tibidabo, which is a catholic church where tradition says is the mountain where Christ was taken when he was fasting. It overlooks Barcelona, and the traditions say that Satan took Christ up there and tempted him with the city of Barcelona. Anyways, if we go I´ll take pictures.
Well, I can´t think of much else to say. Things are going great here. I´m going to go write the individual letters now though. Have a great week.
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
2/18/11
2/15/2011
Family and Friends! How´s everyone doing? Things are going great here in Barcelona. I guess the big news is that Alberto was able to get baptized!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He got baptized on my birthday, February 12th. So that was a lot of fun. I don´t have a ton to say since the last time, since my last preparation day was on Friday, but that´s okay. On my birthday though we had a normal day for the most part. We did go out to eat though. We were going to go to a place called Freeway which is an Argentine meat buffet, but because it was Saturday it was way expensive, so we went to this other place and got some take-out food. We got pizza and some other meal thing. It was good, and fairly expensive. So that was fun. Later, we got ready for the baptism and had a couple visits, then at 7:00 we had the baptism. President and Hermana Hinckley were able to come too, so that was nice of them. They actually invited Elder Keller and I over for lunch Sunday after church to celebrate my birthday. It was a really quick lunch because they had to leave for Bilbao Sunday afternoon, but it was still good. It was good too, because it also gave us time to talk about a few things we needed to talk about in the mission before transfers get made this week. Just so you all know, transfers are this week, but I won´t be leaving. I´ll probably finish my mission here in Barcelona. That could change, but I´m pretty sure it won´t.
Anyways, so with Alberto´s baptism, a Young single adult named Cesar baptized him. Then on Sunday he was able to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost and the Priesthood. So he´s doing really well. I gave him a pair of my suit pants and one of my white shirts and I´m going to give him my suit when we don´t have to wear suits anymore. It´s not in terrible condition, but it´s falling apart a bit. So I figure I wasn´t going to bring it home, so I´ll just leave it with him. He was super excited at his baptism too. The other elders told us when he and Cesar walked out of the font that Cesar was bauling and Alberto was just beaming and smiling so much. So that was good. His mom came too. We´re trying to get the whole family baptized, but it´s been a bit difficult to be able to visit with his family. We´re hopefully going to visit with him and his sister this Thursday, so we´ll see how that goes.
We also have an investigator named Christian that´s doing well, so that´s good. He just doesn´t know if he should get baptized now, or wait until he goes back to Colombia. We´re going to fast with him this week so he can figure out what he should do. We also have another girl we´re teaching named Sabrina that´s nine years old, and we just need her dad to give permission. He basically has given permission for her to be baptized, we just need it to be more firm. So hopefully both of them can be baptized here within in couple weeks.
Well, I can´t think of much else that´s new to say. Everything´s going well. Sorry this e-mail is shorter than normal.
I´m going to attach a few pictures though. The first is of me in Bilbao a few weeks ago in front of a massive dog statue made of flowers. Next is me on my birthday with presents I´d just opened. Next is me, Cesar, Alberto, Ana María (Alberto´s mom), and Elder Keller. Next is Me, Alberto, and Elder Keller. Next is last night at a FHE, Gladys, Isabel (one of our recent converts), Elder Southwick (the missionary I replaced, he had to come back for a day to have a medical checkup), Jaime, Elder Keller, me, and Archie and Coral on the front row. So there´s some pictures. Sorry I haven´t sent home pictures for so long. Well, I´m running out of time now, but have fantastic weeks. I´ll write more next week. ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
Anyways, so with Alberto´s baptism, a Young single adult named Cesar baptized him. Then on Sunday he was able to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost and the Priesthood. So he´s doing really well. I gave him a pair of my suit pants and one of my white shirts and I´m going to give him my suit when we don´t have to wear suits anymore. It´s not in terrible condition, but it´s falling apart a bit. So I figure I wasn´t going to bring it home, so I´ll just leave it with him. He was super excited at his baptism too. The other elders told us when he and Cesar walked out of the font that Cesar was bauling and Alberto was just beaming and smiling so much. So that was good. His mom came too. We´re trying to get the whole family baptized, but it´s been a bit difficult to be able to visit with his family. We´re hopefully going to visit with him and his sister this Thursday, so we´ll see how that goes.
We also have an investigator named Christian that´s doing well, so that´s good. He just doesn´t know if he should get baptized now, or wait until he goes back to Colombia. We´re going to fast with him this week so he can figure out what he should do. We also have another girl we´re teaching named Sabrina that´s nine years old, and we just need her dad to give permission. He basically has given permission for her to be baptized, we just need it to be more firm. So hopefully both of them can be baptized here within in couple weeks.
Well, I can´t think of much else that´s new to say. Everything´s going well. Sorry this e-mail is shorter than normal.
I´m going to attach a few pictures though. The first is of me in Bilbao a few weeks ago in front of a massive dog statue made of flowers. Next is me on my birthday with presents I´d just opened. Next is me, Cesar, Alberto, Ana María (Alberto´s mom), and Elder Keller. Next is Me, Alberto, and Elder Keller. Next is last night at a FHE, Gladys, Isabel (one of our recent converts), Elder Southwick (the missionary I replaced, he had to come back for a day to have a medical checkup), Jaime, Elder Keller, me, and Archie and Coral on the front row. So there´s some pictures. Sorry I haven´t sent home pictures for so long. Well, I´m running out of time now, but have fantastic weeks. I´ll write more next week. ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
2/8/11
2/2/2011
Family! How´s everyone doing? Things are going great here. I don´t have as much time today, because we put internet off until the last minute, so I´ll be a little rushed today. Things are going great though. This past week we finished off all of the zone conferences. We went first off on Monday to Bilbao. That was a lot of fun. We went to the airport and flew over with the Hinckleys. We had to go to a piso that´s further away, so we didn´t get to bed until like 12:30, then we had to get up early, again, at 7:00. It´s fun though. I´m still doing fine. I´m always tired, but it´s a good tired. Anyways, that conference was incredible. There was just a great spirit in that zone. Then we flew back Tuesday night to Barcelona and Wednesday morning we woke up early, again, and went to the Barcelona zone conference in the new stake center. It´s really nice. It´s like as nice as the conference center. You should look it up online. It´s the most expensive church the church has built. One reason is because Barcelona is an expensive place to build, but also because it´s really nice.
Anyways, that was also a good conference, then we went down that night on train to Valencia. We taught a guy on the train and gave him a Book of Mormon. He lives in Castellón actually. We gave his information to them, so hopefully something good happens of that. The conference there was also good. Thursday night Elder Keller and Elder Ames, from Valencia went back to Barcelona and I stayed with Elder Atkin for intercambios there in Valencia. Then Saturday morning Elder Keller came back and we switched back. It´s a 4 hour train ride back to Barcelona, so that was fun / tiring.
Anyways, this week we´re in our area the entire week and we have a ton of work to do. We´re teaching two families. One is a family where the dad is less active, but coming back, and his wife is listening as well as his wife´s sister. The other is a family who has cousins that are members, and they´re doing really well. All of them will come on Sunday. Then we´re still teaching Alberto who is doing really well to be baptized on the 12-Feb, (my birthday), so that should be good. I´m excited for that. Well, let´s see, what else. We´re also teaching another couple where the wife is a less active and her husband (Enrique) is a non-member. They came to church this past Sunday and liked it a lot, so that´s good. We´ll see what happens with that, but I´m thinking we´ll have 3 baptisms or so in February, and a few more in March too, so that´s good. It´s a really good area, we just need to learn how to do everything with the mission and with our area all at the same time. It´s good though.
This past Wednesday we went to a Noche de Hogar that the Young Single Adults center does every Monday night. We went, but our investigators that were going to come didn´t. We had seen a bunch of 17 year old kids just outside on our way in though smoking and what not, but we thought hey, let´s go invite them. So we did. They came, and it went okay. It wasn´t the best lesson for a bunch of 17 year olds. It was just extra boring, and a little long. But, we invited them to come back the next day, and they came back, plus two others, so five total, and we gave them a tour of the church. None of them believe in God, so now we just need to help them with that. It might be a slow a process, but we´ll see how it goes in the end.
Also, this past Sunday there was a guy that went to the first ward in Barcelona and told the hermanas there that he just got here from Colombia, he´s been taught everything, and he wants to be baptized as soon as possible. Well, it turn out he lives in our area! So that´s fun. We´ve called, but he´s living in a welcome center right now, and we haven´t been able to get a hold of him for a bit now, but we´re still working on it. It´s only open after 8 p.m., and we´ve called, but they can´t get him since we don´t know his last name. We´re going to go up there sometime this week and try and find him. Worse case scenario we´ll see him on Sunday and go from there. It´d be nice to meet him as soon as possible though. His name is Carlos.
The other families we´re working with, just so you know, are Ivan, Patricia, and their son Fran, then Jorge, Gina, and Gina´s sister Yexenia, then Enrique and Leidy. There´s a few others too, but they´re progressing the most. Tonight we´re also going to visit with a family that´s part way active, and part way inactive. The dad in the past wouldn´t let the nine-year old daughter, Sabrina, get baptized, but just a few days ago they told us that he´d changed. So we´re visiting with them tonight, we´ll see how that goes. Well, that´s about all I can think of. Things are going great though. I love being a missionary.
Well family and friends, have a great week! ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
Anyways, that was also a good conference, then we went down that night on train to Valencia. We taught a guy on the train and gave him a Book of Mormon. He lives in Castellón actually. We gave his information to them, so hopefully something good happens of that. The conference there was also good. Thursday night Elder Keller and Elder Ames, from Valencia went back to Barcelona and I stayed with Elder Atkin for intercambios there in Valencia. Then Saturday morning Elder Keller came back and we switched back. It´s a 4 hour train ride back to Barcelona, so that was fun / tiring.
Anyways, this week we´re in our area the entire week and we have a ton of work to do. We´re teaching two families. One is a family where the dad is less active, but coming back, and his wife is listening as well as his wife´s sister. The other is a family who has cousins that are members, and they´re doing really well. All of them will come on Sunday. Then we´re still teaching Alberto who is doing really well to be baptized on the 12-Feb, (my birthday), so that should be good. I´m excited for that. Well, let´s see, what else. We´re also teaching another couple where the wife is a less active and her husband (Enrique) is a non-member. They came to church this past Sunday and liked it a lot, so that´s good. We´ll see what happens with that, but I´m thinking we´ll have 3 baptisms or so in February, and a few more in March too, so that´s good. It´s a really good area, we just need to learn how to do everything with the mission and with our area all at the same time. It´s good though.
This past Wednesday we went to a Noche de Hogar that the Young Single Adults center does every Monday night. We went, but our investigators that were going to come didn´t. We had seen a bunch of 17 year old kids just outside on our way in though smoking and what not, but we thought hey, let´s go invite them. So we did. They came, and it went okay. It wasn´t the best lesson for a bunch of 17 year olds. It was just extra boring, and a little long. But, we invited them to come back the next day, and they came back, plus two others, so five total, and we gave them a tour of the church. None of them believe in God, so now we just need to help them with that. It might be a slow a process, but we´ll see how it goes in the end.
Also, this past Sunday there was a guy that went to the first ward in Barcelona and told the hermanas there that he just got here from Colombia, he´s been taught everything, and he wants to be baptized as soon as possible. Well, it turn out he lives in our area! So that´s fun. We´ve called, but he´s living in a welcome center right now, and we haven´t been able to get a hold of him for a bit now, but we´re still working on it. It´s only open after 8 p.m., and we´ve called, but they can´t get him since we don´t know his last name. We´re going to go up there sometime this week and try and find him. Worse case scenario we´ll see him on Sunday and go from there. It´d be nice to meet him as soon as possible though. His name is Carlos.
The other families we´re working with, just so you know, are Ivan, Patricia, and their son Fran, then Jorge, Gina, and Gina´s sister Yexenia, then Enrique and Leidy. There´s a few others too, but they´re progressing the most. Tonight we´re also going to visit with a family that´s part way active, and part way inactive. The dad in the past wouldn´t let the nine-year old daughter, Sabrina, get baptized, but just a few days ago they told us that he´d changed. So we´re visiting with them tonight, we´ll see how that goes. Well, that´s about all I can think of. Things are going great though. I love being a missionary.
Well family and friends, have a great week! ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
1/25/11
1/24/2011
Family and friends! How´s everyone doing? Things are going great here in Barcelona. This past week was a lot better week than the first week. We were able to teach a bit more, we have three investigators that have baptismal dates for February now, and we went to two zone conferences. On Monday we took our preparation day. It was pretty good. We did some things to be all the way moved into our new piso. I don´t know if I told you, but we moved pisos a week and a half ago. We used to live in a really old trashy piso, now we live where one of the senior couple missionaries lived that recently went home. It´s a lot nicer. I like it a lot. We just needed a few things though, like a bar for my closet, etc. So we did that last week. This week we´re going to have another short preparation day. We´re leaving here at like 5:00 or something like that, so we get like 2 hours cut off our preparation day, plus in the morning we had a meeting from 11:45-12:45, so we got like another hour cut off in the morning. We basically don´t have a good preparation day this week. That´s okay though, we´re going to go to a restaurant to eat to try and get a little bit of time to relax after we do e-mail. This past week though we visited our chinese investigator named Marina, and she said she talked to her dad and she can´t continue. She comes from a completely non-God background, so her dad doesn´t want her to continue. She´ll continue just a bit, but it´s going to take a lot for her to be baptized. We also started teaching a girl that lives in that same piso from Holland named Corinne. She seems like she might be good. She didn´t believe in God, but she committed to read. When we went back she had read, but she hadn´t prayed, so we left her to do that. We´ll see what happens there. Then we also set a baptismal date with a guy named Alberto. Alberto´s been coming to church for like a year and a half, but no one´s ever been able to help him get a baptismal date, but now he has one. We took two members with us and they basically did all of the work for us. They invited him and helped him get rid of all of his doubts. He came to a baptism that we went to in the new stake center here in Barcelona this past Saturday, and he´s doing really well. Anyways, we also started teaching a kid and his dad. The kid´s name is Fran and his dad is Ivan. They´re from Bolivia. They´re really good though. Fran will get baptized in February I think, but the parents might take a few weeks longer. We´ll see what happens there. He´s only 10 years old, but he´s super good. We´ve also been teaching an investigator named Eric from Africa. He´s not exactly the best though. We just had a visit with him yesterday and the whole time he was just trying to prove us wrong and the spirit wasn´t there the entire time. He just tried to argue, so we told him, you know what Eric, you´re never going to learn this for yourself if you don´t read The Book of Mormon and pray about it. So we said, we´re going to end now, and we want you to read, pray, and call when you´re done. We´ll see if he calls us back. Anyways, then on Wednesday we had a zone conference in Hospitalet. It turned out really well. I had to translate for half the time from English to Spanish. It was crazy how not hard it was. There were some words that were a little difficult, but it was actually kind of fun. Maybe Jen and I will both be able to translate after the mission... Anyways, right after the conference we drove up to Lleida and got ready for the conference there, then we visited some people that Elder Keller knew from back when he served there. He baptized like 10 people in Lleida, so we visited a bunch of them. That was fun. Then we had the zone conference there, then I went back to Zaragoza with Elder Ryser to do intercambios with him. That went well. The only bad thing is that it was in Zaragoza, and it was FREEZING there. I had a really nice coat that Elder Jacinto let me use, but I still froze. Anyways, I was there Thursday afternoon, then all day Friday. We set one baptismal date, and there´s like 3 or 4 other people praying about dates there now. So it was good. Then Saturday morning I came back to Barcelona. Yesterday, on Sunday, we visited a lady named Iveth. She´s really good. Elder Keller and Elder Southwick, the missionary that was here before me, contacted her a few weeks ago. We had the first visit with her though and it went super good. We didn´t even talk about Joseph Smith due to time, but we invited her to be baptized by someone holding the authority on the 19th of February and she said yes. I´m excited about that. Anyways, that´s that. That´s the gist of my week. This next week is going to be crazier. Tonight we fly to Bilbao, then tomorrow night we come back to Barcelona. We´ll have the conference here in Barcelona, then we go straight to Valencia for the conference on Thursday there. Then Elder Keller and I are doing intercambios with the zone leaders in Valencia on Thursday afternoon and all day Friday. So it´ll be a crazy week. It´s good though.
Overall things are going really well here. There´s a lot going on, but I like it. I think I´m more lost in the work now than ever, just because there´s not time to not be lost in the work. Dad said something about how we´d be blessed if we keep working hard, and that´s something I´ve noticed. Even though we have a lot less time than normal, and there´s a lot of things going against us, I think that because we´re doing our best, even though we don´t have time, the Lord blesses us with a lot of miracles in the short time we do have so we can still be successful. It´s good. Well, I can´t think of what else to say. It´s my companion´s birthday this week on Friday. I won´t even see him though, because we´ll be on intercambios... I´ll give him something on Saturday I guess. I don´t know if I´ve told you about Elder Keller. He´s a really good missionary. We started together. We were in the same district in the Provo MTC and in the CCM in Madrid. He´s from Salt Lake. He actually went to East High, that´s where they filmed High School Musical. Also, just a little side note, his family is friends with Elder Holland, so he knows Elder Holland. That´s interesting. Well, overall, he´s a good missionary. I´m going to finish this e-mail now and write the individuals, but I hope you all have a fantastic week. Also, GO BYU!!!!! It´s good to hear they´re doing so well. Anyways, ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
Overall things are going really well here. There´s a lot going on, but I like it. I think I´m more lost in the work now than ever, just because there´s not time to not be lost in the work. Dad said something about how we´d be blessed if we keep working hard, and that´s something I´ve noticed. Even though we have a lot less time than normal, and there´s a lot of things going against us, I think that because we´re doing our best, even though we don´t have time, the Lord blesses us with a lot of miracles in the short time we do have so we can still be successful. It´s good. Well, I can´t think of what else to say. It´s my companion´s birthday this week on Friday. I won´t even see him though, because we´ll be on intercambios... I´ll give him something on Saturday I guess. I don´t know if I´ve told you about Elder Keller. He´s a really good missionary. We started together. We were in the same district in the Provo MTC and in the CCM in Madrid. He´s from Salt Lake. He actually went to East High, that´s where they filmed High School Musical. Also, just a little side note, his family is friends with Elder Holland, so he knows Elder Holland. That´s interesting. Well, overall, he´s a good missionary. I´m going to finish this e-mail now and write the individuals, but I hope you all have a fantastic week. Also, GO BYU!!!!! It´s good to hear they´re doing so well. Anyways, ¡Chao!
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt
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