Sam's First Email From Madrid, Spain MTC

 A sailboat works ONLY with the presence of wind.

Similarly, life ONLY works with the presence of trials.
Our life is the ocean. We Must Have Wind to go anywhere!
KNOW that the Lord will never give you more wind 

than you can withstand. 

1 Cor 10:13
When we do have wind, we can be confident we are learning
and growing. When we think we can no longer withstand how
much wind we have blowing at us, remember that the Lord

can and will stop the winds when we come unto him.

Matt 8:24-27.

Hello!! We are in Madrid! FYI, the keyboards for the computers here are weird.. haha they're in Spanish so i´ll probably be typing stuff wrong a lot cuz the spacing is all different. Aannnyways!

We ran out of time on the phone when I was at the SLC airport but I got what you were saying and I went and bought an SD card. We flew to Atlanta and we had to book it hardcore to catch our connecting flight.. so we got there with like 2 mins before we had to board.. so I tried to call home again and dad picked up but he couldn´t hear me talking but I could hear him...:/ so I jumped over to a different phone and called again and it ate my dollar and then cut my call off............ D: so <i had no more coins and no more time.. Haha lo siento, encerio. But anyways! Todo bien!

Our flight to Madrid was.. long. But good. They served us snacks, dinner, and breakfast... and I didn´t sleep at all. My mind focuses on like anything that is going on so it has always been hard for me to fall asleep when everyone i´m with is not sleeping. So its 3:00 pm here and I haven´t slept since... like 6 am Tuesday morning. Sorry if I sound like I´m dead or something... i´m just super tired. And they're having us not sleep so we can get on the right sleep schedule, which makes sense but its just rough cuz we all want to nap.  ADAM. I wish I could've talked to you today when they picked you up from school but like I said, the pay phones were eating my coins ... I officially dislike payphones. :)

Everything here is good. We´re trying to get all situated. I´m in a room with three other elders. We all got new comps and my new comp is Elder Vosters. He and his twin brother are both here. One is going to Barcelona and my comp is going to Málaga. They're from Alta area I guess. I really like the other districts we´re gonna be working with.. or at least that we traveled with. E. Peters and I are in different districts now but esta bien. We´ll still see each other often, this mtc is relatively small.

Oh so BTW, the temple is honestly 30 yards from the mtc here. Like, you ``look out the window and what do you see?´´ The super bright and shining white templo!! Its really great. Anyways, don´t have much to say.. the food is good, the weather hasn´t been bad, President and Sister Sitterud recognized me right away....  and I told him y'all said hi. They say hi back! President also asked about everyone coming to Italy. When is everyone coming out?

Anywhoo, all is well in Zion/... Madrid/... when you´re serving the Lord. I just need more sleep. :)

I love you Mom! I love you Dad! I love you Mitch Jennica Caden Branson and soon-to-be-number-three! I love you Hilary! I love you Adam! I know that sounds really generic(¿sp?) but I promise I truly mean it for each of you! I think of each of you daily!

-Elder Norton