Hey everyone, things are going well here. I don't have nearly as much time as I did last week though. I used half my time reading all of the emails... Things are going well for me. I leave here a week from today. I leave the MTC at 5:00 a.m... So that'll be a bit earlier than usual. I fly through Atlanta, but I can't remember the time I'd be calling. The papers are in my room. I'll write a letter and mail it so that you know about when I would call. I assume I'll be calling from the Atlanta airport sometime in the afternoon. We'll see though. Anyways, this week has been good. It feels like I've been here forever, but it's only been two weeks. I got my haircut today. That was fun. Oh, so with swine flu, I can't remember if I told you, the quarantine area is directly beneath my floor. A few times this past week they've been out in the hallway with the doors open and everyone gets mad because we don't want to get sick. I'm the only one in my district that has my visa, but hopefully the others get them soon enough to fly out the same time as me. We'll see. So I got a new companion. His name is Elder Stull. He's really cool. He was on BYU's Track and Field Team as a thrower. He threw shotput and javeline. He can bench 320, and squats somewhere in the 400's. So he's pretty strong. I always tease him that I'm just as big and strong as he is. We get along very well though. So now for the spiritual experience of the week. In class our teacher had us each draw a name and then prepare a message that we felt they needed to hear, after praying and asking for revelation. I was way scared because I didn't think I'd come up with anything. I prayed though and had some thoughts come into my head that I wrote down. Anwyays, long story short, while I was teaching him the spirit was so strong, and it even brought him to tears. I don't know what it was I said, but he needed to hear it. It was way cool. Anyways, volleyball's still good. We did get to watch the fireworks. They were good. I think you guys probably left early. There was about 5-10 minutes with no fireworks, then they came back. The second half was way way good. My companion and old companions wanted to leave early too, but I said let's wait, so we did, and they were way good. We didn't get to bed until 11:00 that night, but they told us that was okay for that one night. Anyways, I need to go, and I'll write you that letter about my travel plans.
-Elder Karl

Hello everyone, how are you guys doing? It's my first P-day,so I can finally email. I only have a short amount of time, and I'm doing laundry at the same time, so it may not be too long. I'll write as long as I can though. Mom and dad, if you can forward this to Jen so she can put it up on facebook and my blog if I have one already that'd be great. Thanks. Anyways, my first day here was a little weird. They changed where I was. I was originally scheduled to be in beginner spanish, but they tested my spanish and I'll be in intermediate spanish. I'm not in advanced. Advanced spanish speakers are already fluent. They don't learn anything with the language at the MTC, just how to teach. They're also only in the MTC for 3 weeks total. Intermediate, what I am, does the language, but ahead a bit. It's good. So I got put into a 3-some companionship. It's really good though. We all have fun. Each day we have two classes with instructors. They're each several hours long. My companion just came up to me and said there's a new guy coming in tomorrow. They're going to put him with our companionship and split us up into two companionships. So that's kind of cool I guess. I wonder who they'll put with the new guy. Hopefully he's cool. He gets here tomorrow. So we'll find out then. Anyways, we have to classes, then we have a few hours of personal study, companion study, and language study every day. It's pretty fun. I got us to start playing games to memorize some of the vocab. words, and that's been a lot of fun. Life is good here though. I can't think of much else to say. I play sand volleyball almost every day and it's a ton of fun. Elder Holland, not Thomas S. Monson spoke at the devotional on Friday. It was really good. He said to all of us, "Welcome to the work of angels." It was really cool. I liked it a lot. I can't think of much else to say, but yeah. Oh, Jen, I forgot to say in your letter, thanks for the little book thing. I've used it a ton already for taking notes and such. I've also used the quote/scripture book a lot too. Well, just a note for everyone, you can write me as often as you want. I can read letters every evening. I can only write back on Tuesdays. Anyways, I'm going to send this now. I hope everything's going well for everyone back there, and know that I am enjoying my mission and I know this is where I'm supposed to be. I'll talk to you later.
-Elder Ryan Sommerfeldt