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
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