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