Valencia, Spain
Elder Dana Sorensen

Thanks for all your emails. I enjoy reading them and I especially enjoy the pictures!

This has been a really great week. Our investigators are progressing, I´m starting to remember some of the names of the members, I´m starting to get the hang of Spanish, and I´m having fun!

Do you remember Peter, who I told you about last week? He´s from Nigeria. We met with him last Monday night and taught him about the restoration. And... we committed him to be baptized this Saturday (21st)! He has a lot of faith and a good friend that´s been a member for a year. It´s exciting to share with him the Gospel.

Well, it turns out that all the Nigerians in Valencia are practically falling into the baptismal font. There really aren´t that many in Spain, but many of them are members of the church, so all the people from Nigeria have friends that are members and are willing to talk about Christ with us. There are about 20 African and South American baptisms per Spaniard baptism. But, it used to be 1 in 100, so it´s improving. In fact, we have a progressing family and another progressing investigator from Spain.

Anyway, this whole experience for me so far has been great. Sometimes I get frustrated, tired, or discouraged with the language and with other people. But, I enjoy those times because that´s when I get to practice being Christlike. It's easy to be happy and nice when everything´s good; the trick is learning to remain Christlike during times of trouble, because that´s how we learn the most.

I´ve been reading the Book of Mormon in my personal study time. It´s such a great book! Every time I read it it just gets better and better. Favorite scripture of the week: 2 Nephi 4:16-35. It´s Nephi´s testimony. It hit me so hard that I re-read it twice and have been thinking about it a lot. Especially in verses 26-30. We really don´t have any cause to sorrow because of what the Savior has done for us. So, we should be happy! Because of His sacrifice we can have True Happiness, which repels temptations and invites blessings and the spirit in our lives. It seems so easy: Do the right thing and you´ll be happy, have true happiness and you´ll do the right thing. It´s an upward spiral of happiness.

I´m about out of time. I´ll send some pictures later. Have fun at home, and live the gospel! One of the things I learned in the MTC is that the only real difference between a member and a full-time missionary is that the missionary can set a baptismal date. So, be a member missionary! The full-time missionaries can help, but really the responsibility is that of the members.

I love you all and wish you the best,

-Élder Sorensen

Question answering time:

In Spain apartments are called pisos. In American Spanish, piso means floor, but in Spain it´s the equivalent of a British flat. The building is six floors high, and our piso is on the fifth floor. It´s pretty big, and there´s two companionships living there: Elder Perez and I, and Elders Daines and Silva. The address is Avenida Constitución 143, 14. But, send packages/mail to the mission home and they´ll get it to me.

During siesta hours we have Medio Día (middle day). We eat at a member's home or in the piso, then do language study for an hour (it´s from 2-4 pm).

Hermana Barker was in the MTC in Madrid, and now she´s in my district here. So, I know her pretty well. I´ll have to tell her about Sister Dana.

We walk everywhere. Well, we walk to the nearest bus or metro (subway) station. The public transport system is extensive, so we spend A LOT of time riding buses and trains.

In Spain, Lunch is the biggest meal of the day. It´s eaten around 2pm. Most of the members are not from Spain, so we have a variety of foods from Bolivia, United Kingdom, Africa, etc. Usually chicken and rice are involved.

We attend the same ward every week, and actually usually we attend two of the wards (for the investigators that can´t come to church in the morning). There are three wards in the city itself. They each have around 80 members, and 6-8 missionaries each.

We are not using media for missionary work, at least not yet. By the end of 2014 every missionary companionship in the world will have an iPad and iPhone, so it´ll probably change then. Right now we have a cheap Nokia phone, which is all we need to contact investigators, members, and other missionaries. I have looked at the blog, and it looks great. I´m glad that there´s one place to see all the miracles from the missionaries in our ward.

As for my package, I called the office this morning to see if they had it, and they do. So, I´ll get it Wednesday when the President comes down for Zone Conference. So excited!

My companion is not a convert, he grew up in the church. We speak Spanish in the streets and a mix in the piso. He´s been learning English for the last 7-8 months or so, so it´s pretty good but he loves learning more. So, we´re teaching each other our languages.

I think that´s all of them =). I´m out of time now. Until next week!

-Élder Sorensen

Sorry, I don´t have any pictures of the streets or of me in a missionary outfit... but I have some pictures from last Preparation day.

In Valencia there used to be a river called Túria that ran right through the middle of the city. They diverted the river and turned the entire river-bed into a huge park that snakes all the way through the city. At the end of it there are a bunch of cool futuristic-looking museums. We had a ton of fun walking through the park and playing around like children with the other missionaries on a big rope-web thing. Got to go now. Until next week.