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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!