1/18/10

Family and friends! How´s everyone doing? THings are going great here in Vilafranca. I just got back from Barcelona. I had to go there to get my DNI, which is like my ID here. So now I have a Spanish ID and all. It´s pretty cool.
Let´s see, what else is new this week. THat guy that called us who had the pamphlet, we went out to visit them on Wednesday and it´s a whole family! THere´s Alex (the dad), Olga (the mom), Romina (the daughter, 16 years old), and Sebastian (the son, 4 or 5 years old). So yeah. That´s that. We were going to have another cita with them on Friday, but the dad had to work, and Sunday was the same, but we have another one scheduled for the Wednesday. It´s going to be a home evening thing in the house of some other members, so we´ll see if we can´t help them to get baptized here soon.
Also, there´s a guy named Jose Luis that lives out there in Vilanova too who was taught by the missionaries in Bilbao. THings are going well with him as well. I hope we can get all these people baptized before I get transferred from here. THere´s a chance I get transferred like Feb. 8th, if not then it´d be the end of march. So yeah. Speaking of that, if anyone sends me packages for my birthday, if it´s here before Feb. 8th then it´s for sure good, if not it might be better to send it to the office in Barcelona. We´ll see what happens though. That´s the thing with transfers, is you have no idea what´s going to happen. So yeah.
Anyways, what else is new here. Oh, we went to Alicante at the beginning of the week. We had to go there because that´s where Elder Nelson was impodronized, meaning that´s where legally it said he was living, and it hasn´t changed yet, so he has to do all the government stuff down there where he was living. Kind of interesting, but that´s how it is. THat´s why I had to go to Barcelona to get my DNI instead of doing it here in Vilafranca, because I´m impodronized as if I´m living in the office. So yeah. The whole papers and everything is a little annoying because it takes time sometimes, but we have to be legal I guess.
So Belkis is still on to be baptized this Saturday. Everything should hopefully go well with that too. She´s stopped smoking and drinking coffee, but if for some reason she slips then it would be delayed a week or two. We´ll be having daily visits with her though, so hopefully everything goes well with her.
Last week remember how I said Elder Nelson and I led the mission? We had 23 citas. Well, this past week we had 25. I don´t know if we led the mission or not, but it was another really good week. The other thing that happened this past week is that we've been trying to contact our ward misison leader for the past 4 days or so and haven´t been able to. He didn´t come to church either, and as it turns out it´s the missionary work sacrament meeting and he was supposed to have things prepared. Anyways, he didn´t, so we ended up not having any speakers, so guess who had 10 minutes or so to prepare a talk... Me and Elder Nelson. It went well though I think. We were the only two people that spoke and we took up the whole time. Elder Nelson timed mine and said it was like 15 minutes and 36 seconds. So that´s not bad for being in Spanish and not having time to prepare I guess.
Also, yesterday Ibraham got the priesthood. THere was a bit of a problem because we didn´t figure out who was going to do it, so guess who had to do it last minute... Me. I´d never done it before, so I had to hurry and review it in the missionary handbook, but it wasn´t bad, and it went really well I think. I also had to translate for his interview with the branch president. I was going to ask you dad, is there a rule with that? I don´t know if I should technically be there for the interview, but where the Branch PResident doesn´t speak English, and Ibraham doesn´t speak Spanish, what do you do?
Anyways, so that´s that. I´m going to wrap this up and write the individuals now. I hope you all have great weeks, enjoy the snow, and go skiing if you can. I´ll write again next week.

-Elder Sommerfeldt

1/11/10

Family and Friends! HOw´s everyone doing? So right now I´m not in Vilafranca. I´m here in Barcelona! Elder Nelson has to go to Alicante, about 5-6 hours away in train, and we leave this afternoon, so we came out to Barcelona for our Preparation Day. We won´t be back in Vilafranca until Tuesday evening, just in time to be able to teach English Class at 8:30. SO this morning we went to the Sagrada Familia. It was pretty cool. I took a whole bunch of pictures and such, so when I send home pictures you guys can see them. It was pretty cool. I also saw the giant bullet building. I don´t know what it´s actually called, but that´s what it looks like, and at night it lights up and all. So yeah, that was fun.
Last week, I also got to go McDonalds for lunch, we walked about 20 minutes to get there, but it was well worth it. Okay, now for the most important news of the week, this past week Ibraham (you pronounce it Abraham, but it´s spelled with an I for some reason) was baptized! It was really good. He´s from Ghana and is friends with another recent convert that was baptized last March. So that all went well. You can see pictures of that too when I send home a CD. THis past week we also did really good with lessons. We had 23 lessons in total with 12 member presents. We were in the office this morning to drop off some paper work from the baptism and the ayudantes told us we led the mission this week in citas, so that was pretty cool. Belkis is still doing well, so hopefully she will be able to be baptized the 23rd of January as scheduled. She just needs to stop smoking, but we taught it this past week and went really well, so now we just need to help her all we can.
Also this past week we went out to Vilanova twice, it´s a pueblo or neighboring town to vilafranca. I´d never been there but we have a menos activo family out there. Anyways, on Sunday we met a guy there whose name we got from missionaries in Bilbao, they taught him and he was going to be baptized out there, but he had to move, so we´ll probably baptize him the end of this month too. Also, this past week while we were out there we were passing by some names we had and at one we just talked a bit but he wasn´t too interested. We left him with a folleto (pamphlet) though and this morning he called and wants us to go out there this WEdnesday to meet with him about it. THat rarely happens, so that´s really cool. We´re really blessed by the Lord as missionaries. People get prepared, then we help them continue following the Lord. So, what else new happened.
Oh, this past week we had a Zone Conference and it was really good. They talked about asking references from everyone, the Book of Mormon, etc. With the Book of Mormon we learned that 99% of the Book of Mormon was written by 4 people, Nephi, Jacob, Mormon, and Moroni. Anyways, all four of them saw Christ. So at least 99% of The Book of Mormon is written by peole who saw Christ. As a gift for los magos (it´s what they do for Christmas here jkind of) they gave us all new Book of Mormons in our native language and told us to read through marking wherever it says Christ or a pronoun (the Lord, the Lamb, Him, etc.), wherever it gives an attribute of Christ in a different color, and wherever Christ is talking in a different color. It´s going really well right now and it´s crazy just how much The BOok of MOrmon really does talk about Christ. Afterall, it´s Another Testament of Jesus Christ. So everything´s going well here. Also this past week I got a ton of packages!!!!!! I finally got Grandma and Grandpa´s package and it was super good, and I also got the packages from Kevin and Bruce, and the one from Michelle. So that was a lot of fun. Well, I can´t htink of much else now, so I´m going to start writing the individuals. Have a great week. ¡Chao!

-Elder Sommerfeldt

1/4/2010

Family! How´s everything doing there? THings are going great here. My new companion is named Elder Nelson, he´s from Phoenix, Arizona, and he´s a Suns fan. Let´s see, he went to BYU for two years before his mission studying first Chemistry, but then switched to Biology and is going to go to dental school to be a dentist. So yeah. He´s also a tennis player and took like second in state or something like that his senior year. So let´s see, this past week Elder Morales left. It was pretty sad. We were really good friends, but I guess that´s what had to happen. I mentioned a little about it in my letter to president last week and he wrote me back this week saying that Elder Morales and I were a model companionship and that perhaps it needed to spread out to other missionaries. SO that´s good I guess. So I´m just doing my best to still work as hard as I did with Elder Morales, especially since I¨m leadering the area a lot now since Elder Nelson is new. I don´t know if I said earlier, but he´s been out for about a year and a half, he has 4-5 transfers left. So lets see, what else. Abraham still has his baptismal fecha for this Saturday and things seem to be going really well with him. We figured out the whole program and all this past week, so I think we shouldn´t have any problems there. Also, this past week we were walking the first day Elder Nelson was here and this lady, Belkis, stopped us with a couple of her family members. Anyways, what ended up happening is that she has a son and the son and his girlfriend and members of the church. I guess the son told her to investigate our church, so she went to where the church used to be, but couldn´t find it. Her cousin had heard from missionaries before and helped her find where the church used to be. Then she was walking with her cousin the day after they went there and her cousin said to her, I think those are the mormons, or something like that, so they stopped us. We´ve taught her two times since then and she´s doing really well and now has a baptismal date for the 23rd of January. So that´s really good. Let´s see, what else is new for me. Oh, on New Years Eve we went to the church where they had a little ward activity, we had permission to stay out until 11:30, so that was fun. We just ate and some of the members danced, but we couldn´t. It was fun. THen we went home and we got ready for bed and at midnight did a famous Spain tradition. You have 12 grapes and you eat a grape on each of the 12 dongs to celebrate the new year. It´s interesting. I think I made a video of it that you guys can see when I mail a CD or DVD home with pictures and such. Then New Years Day the Branch President invited us over for lunch. Afterwards we played a little ping pong because he has a table, and I did terrible. I lost every game I played. I don´t know why, I´m losing my talent though. I´ll have to practice a bunch when I come back, but that´s not too important right now. Let´s see, what else. Things continue going well with Montse and Susana, it was Montse´s birthday this past week and we visited her and brought her a little present and they pulled out some food for us, but we were fasting because it was the weekend of fast sunday. Here everyone starts fasting Saturday after lunch, which we eat at 2 or 3, then fasts until Sunday when they eat lunch again. Because here lunch is the big meal. So yeah. Oh, also this past week I was able to go to the office and they had a scale so I weighed myself, I was only 165 lbs., crazy. Elder Bodily, my companion from the CCM who weighed like five pounds less than me in the CCM now weighs like 15-20 more. Oh well I guess. They say your weight fluctuates a lot on your mission depending on your area and how often you eat with members etc., and here we don´t eat a ton with members, so that would explain why I don´t weigh as much now. Anyways, I also got Jen´s package at the office. It was a way good package, so that was fun. Iris also sent me a package, so mom and dad, if you can thank her, I don´t really want to pay postage, it´s expensive if I mail a whole bunch of things home. Also thank the Larsens, they sent me a Christmas card that was fun. So yeah. That´s the gist of my week. Everything´s going well, we´ll have a baptism this next week, and we continue finding people to teach who are ready. So yeah, it´s good. I can´t think of anything else to say now, so I´m going to go ahead and end this. I hope you all have a fantastic week and a happy new year! ¡Chao!
-Elder Sommerfeldt

12/29/2009

Family and friends! How´s everyone doing? So I´ll start with the good news first. Montse was baptized this past Tuesday, I baptized her, then on Sunday she was confirmed by Elder Morales. It was way good. Then on Sunday Rachel, from South Carolina was baptized and confirmed by her grandpa. They´re such a good family. I´m going to miss them. They go home this week. Rachel and Lauren and such cute kids though. At least it´ll be easier to stay in contact with them after my mission since they live in the same country. Well, now for the bad news, Sunday night President Hinckley called and Elder Morales is being transferred. He´s going to be a zone leader over the Barcelona zone. Crazy. We were both super sad though. We´ve had a lot of success together and we´ve become basically best friends, but now he´s leaving. Actually, we´re leaving to the office in about 1- 1 1/2 hours. He wants to say something though, so here it is:

> > Hey!! I'm leaving, so this is my last oportunity to tell something to all of you.> I've been serving with Elder Ryan David Sommerfeldt for 2 transfers (3 months). We have seen miracles together. This last month has been the most productive month of all my mission. We baptized 5 children of God. Now, I'm leaving, but I trust completely in Elder Sommerfeldt, I know he's gonna do it well here.> Just so you know, you have a really good missionary son (or brother). He is, without any doubt, the best companion that I ever had. (dang it!!, I don't wanna leave!!) Thanks for your gifts for Xmas too!!
> Bye!!

> > Okay, I´m back, I wrote to his family too. He´s a really good companion, so it´s kind of hard to think about anything else that has happened this past week since he´s leaving. My new companion´s name is Elder Nelson. He´s been in the mission for a year and half or so I think. Anyways, this past week was good. It was Christmas. We went over to a family´s house on Christmas day to eat lunch and all, and it was also that day that we did everything, the interview, etc, for Rachel. Then calling home was so much fun. It was good to hear all of your voices again, and sorry Ben, Laurel, and Rachel, for not talking to you guys as much... I´ll try and do better on Mother´s Day. I was thinking maybe I could have a few minutes with each person, but everyone else can listen so I don´t just repeat the same things over and over... Well, sorry this is shorter than normal, but if I´m going to have time to write individuals too I need to go. Have fantastic weeks and enjoy the New Year! ¡Chao!
> > -Elder Sommerfeldt

12/22/2009

Hello everyone! Things are going really well here. I´m short on time today, so to describe some of the things that have happened I´m going to copy part out of what I wrote to President Hinckley to describe the past week. :
President Hinckley, this past week has been amazing out here in Vilafranca. With the help of The Lord we have seen may miracles. The first of which is that we figured out the situation of Montse and Emmanuel, and we were able to find a way that Montse can still be baptized. When we told her what had happened and that we´d learned that she could still be baptized she started crying because she was so happy. It was really nice to see the great desires she has to enter into the covenant of baptism. That was all we needed to have an amazing week out here, but there were even more miracles. One day we went to teach someone and a member was going to meet us there. We got there and the member had a friend, Abraham, who had come with him. We set up a time to visit with Abraham in the member´s house and taught him the message of the Restoration. He believed everything we taught and wanted to learn more. So we comitted him to come to church and to be baptized the 9th of January. He excepted both. He came to church and after Sunday School told us he´d learned a lot. He said he was already a member of another church, but that we were able to help him learn so much more than he´d learned before and he was excited to continue coming to church, learning from us, and progressing towards baptism. Then we were able to see another miracle yesterday. We were reveiwing things with the girl, Rachel, fom the United States who is here with her family visiting grandparents. We found out that the parents weren´t so set on her being baptized, but rather that it was the grandparents who were pressuring it a lot. The family from America has been less active for the past several years and thus they were unsure as to whether or not their daughter was ready. After talking to the daughter for a while, it became clear that she was ready, she just needed support from her parents and the whole family needs to go to church again. They are all great people though. Well, those are some of the miracles that have occurred this past week here in Vilafranca.

> So yeah, there´s a brief summary. So we´re going to be baptizing Montse tomorrow, the 22nd of December. I´m super excited. She asked me to baptize her, and Elder Morales to confirm her. SO that should be another good experience. Our mission has a goal of 400 baptisms for the year, and right now we´re at 387, with 17 planned for this next week, so if at least 13 of them go through we´ll reach it. I think we will, we´re all working really hard. Elder Morales and I will have had 4 baptisms by the end of this transfer, so hopefully the leaders see the success we´re having and don´t transfer us at all. Transfers are December 27th, so we´ll see if Elder Morales is staying or going next week. Hopefully he stays. Along with that, my Preparation Day will be on Tuesday next week, just so you know.

Well, let´s see, what else is new. We had the Christmas Conference this past week, it was a lot of fun. We did some skits using a Disney Song. They were all really funny. Later we ate dominoes pizza, It was so good. I love pizza, and I don´t think I´ve had some good pizza like that since I started my mission. So that was fun. Things are really busy this next week with Christmas a lot of members want us to come over, we´re still trying to teach, we have to do intercambios this week, and we call home this week. There´s a lot going on, but it´s fun and good. Hakuna Matata, it means no worries. Anyways, our heater got temporarily fixed. It´s working now, but they don´t think it will last much longer. The first part of this week they´re planning on coming by and putting a brand new one in, so that should be really nice. Hopefully by the time we talk on Christmas we´ll have a new heater and all. For now though it´s really good. It gets way cold here though. Well, not really. It´s like anywhere from 0-6 degrees celcius here though. Which isn´t bad, but without gloves, and not having a big winter coat it´s cold.

Anyways, I think I said earlier in the letter to president, but we set a baptismal goal with Abraham. He´s from Ghana. We teach him in English. Also, yesterday we taught a girl named Rachel, the grand daughter of a member here, who´s 11 but not baptized yet because her parents have been inactive for a while. There´s a chance she´ll get baptized while she´s here visiting though. She´s from South Carolina, so that´s fun talking to her in English and all. Her dad´s from Texas though, from around Houston, which reminds me, Kevin, what city exactly do you live in. He said the city he´s from there were a lot of accountants that lived there, so it may be the same city. So yeah, that would be cool.
Well, I´m short on time today, so I´m going to end this, have great weeks and MERRY CHRISTMAS! / ¡FELIZ NAVIDAD!
-Elder Sommerfeldt

12/14/2009

Family (and friends who read this)! How´s everyone doing? THings are going well here. We haven´t found Iván yet. I think he probably left, like maybe even left Spain. We´ve passed by daily and called several times and we haven´t been able to get in contact with him. So who knows what happened to him. The last time we talked to him he was thinking about going back to Colombia sometime, so maybe he just did that out of the blue, who knows. So, let´s see, what´s the new news this week. I don´t know if I told you, but Karlita and Raquel (two of the people we baptized a couple weeks ago) are going to go to Peru for a month. So that might not be good. We figured out that there´s some chapels in the city they´re going to, and we´ve made them each a calendar with a chapter or a few versus to read each day while they´re gone. We taught them enduring to the end yesterday, and I think they´ll be okay. The main sad thing is that it´s possible that Elder MOrales will be gone when they get back. WE don´t know yet, but transfers are the 27th of December, so it could happen, hopefully not though. I almost certainly won´t be transferred though. Well, I would say some of the worse news this past week is that we´ve been without hot water for the majority of it. It´s so cold here, and we have no heat, and no hot water, so the only warm place is in bed with the covers over my head. It´s going okay though, and tomorrow someone´s supposed to hopefully come fix it. Now for some good news, maybe. Montse, the mom of Susana (one of the people that got baptized a couple weeks ago), is ready to be baptized, but she´s still living with that guy. They´re super poor, so we´ve been hesitant in saying you need to split up, because with all three of them they´re barely paying the rent, and went the last week of the month with very limited food. HOwever, this past week we had intercambios, I was with Elder Hansen (he´s cool, but he played football at Utah before his mission... Just joking, he´s good). Anyways, on the intercambios I asked them if they could live separately at least until they get married, which they´re planning on having happening in January or February. They said they would think about it and let us know this next week. We really want her to be baptized, not just because she needs it, but also because our branch has a goal of 10 baptisms for this year, and right now we´re at 9... Anyways, yesterday we had Ward Counsel and the Stake Presidency was there. When we explained the situation the stake presidency suggested that the branch could pay rent for one of them for one or two months to be able to live separately until they can get married! So that was exciting. I really hope we can help them except it. WE talked to Montse last night about it and she didn´t look super excited and she said she´d have to talk to Emmanuel and she didn´t know if he´d want to, but we´re going to do all we can to help it happen. I´ll let you all know what happens with that though. Let´s see, what else has happened this past week. We also had a baptism in our district in Tarragona this past weekend. Because Elder Morales is the District Leader he had to go out there to do the interview, and thus we had intercambios. Anyways, we ended up changing back right before the baptism so we just stayed and watched the baptism, it was really good. We´re also working with a bunch of less active families and three of them are progressing really well and are coming to church most weeks now. So that´s good as well. Oh, I don´t know if I told all you that we´re in the branch choir. This past Sunday was Branch Conference and so we sang. We sang Cantan Santos Ángeles, or Angels we have heard on high. There´s a Christmas concert that we´re singing in this next Saturday and we´re singing in Catalán, crazy huh? Anyways, I may have told this story, so sorry if it´s a repeat, but last week in practice they didn´t know how to sing a part of the song and I was like, no, it goes like this, and they were all like, oh yeah, that´s right, then someone said it was funny that an american has come to spain and is teaching them how to sing in Catalán. It was kind of funny. Anyways, everything´s going well here for me, although it´s quite cold. I hope it doesn´t get much colder here, I don´t have the proper clothing for temperatures this cold, so yeah. Well, I´m going to go now, but have a fantastic week. ¡Chao!
-Elder Sommerfeldt

12/11/09

Hello everyone! How is everyone doing? Things are going great here for me in Spain. Things have been really good this past week, and really bad all at once. I´ll start with the bad I guess. Okay, the worse thing is that Iván, he had a baptismal fecha for the 19th, disappeared. We have no idea where he is. We haven´t talked to him for like 3 or 4 days now. The last cita we had with him was way good, and since then we´ve passed by and or called 50 times or so but haven´t been able to get a hold of him. He was having problems paying rent, so we´re wondering if maybe he was kicked out, but we have no idea. Hopefully we can find him this week though. He lost his fecha though, because he needed to come to church this past Sunday to keep that fecha, so that was a bummer. Let´s see, also this past week one day I had to wake up at 6:30 and get ready to go to do my fingerprints to get my DNI, my identification. We had to go to Barcelona, because according to the paperwork and all I´m ¨living¨at the office right now. It´s so the office elders can deal with all the legal stuff. I had to go get fingerprints and sign some stuff though, and it took the entire morning. We left at like 7:00 a.m. and didn´t get back until after 2:00 p.m. So that was a bit of a bummer, but at least we were able to do it all in one morning, and we ended up having a pretty productive afternoon. Oh, this past week we had a meeting with the whole zone and afterwards we went to a restuarant called Freeway. It´s an all you can eat argentinian buffet. It was way good. I ate a lot of meat and crepes and ice cream and a lot of other good food. It was like 11 euros or so though, which is a bit much... But yeah, let´s see, what else has happened. This past week in church we had three menos activos that we´ve been working with come to church. So that´s good. The number of fechas in the mission went from like 35 to 73 in 3 or 4 days because the leaders said they wanted to double the number invitations by the end of the week. So that was nice to see. I was just thinking about some things that are normal for me, that maybe I haven´t told you about. Every Monday night we do a Noche de Hogar (Family Home Evening) mainly for investigators and single people, or families with just a mom and a son, etc. Anyways, that´s something I don´t think I´ve said. We always do a game or activity to explain a gospel principle. Also, this past week we started English Classes. We had 6 people come the first night and 1 the second night. So we may be switching it to just one night, we´ll see. Things are going well here for me though. We found 4 new investigators and we´re going to see if we can´t help at least one of them to get baptized by the end of this year. That would be nice. Well, I´m just a little short on time, so I´m going to send this, but I´ll talk to you later and have a fantastic week.-Elder SommerfeldtAnd enjoy the SNOW!!!! (That´s something I don´t get here, just cold...)