"Yank your socks up to your armpits!" (Or, work HARD.)

Dear family,

I love you all so much! Thank you for your emails. So cool to see where Sam is! It's so much more European than Peru. I love that we get to have such similar experiences in two totally awesome, completely different places. Mom, I can't believe all the news you packed into that email! So much is going on at home! And aside from the news about Sister P. and Aretha, it sounds like things are very good at home. Go enjoy a free bean burrito combo meal at Taco Amigo for me with one of your coupons you got during the parade.

Okay, things are good here. I think we leave Tuesday or Monday. We don´t have our flight plans yet. But I'm ready to get out of here. This place is so amazing and every day is so fun and I'm learning so much. But, I'm looking forward to the real work. I'm looking forward to new people and real investigators. A big chunk of our district left Monday because they're getting a new mission president and the current one wanted to bring in the new missionaries to deal with that so that the new one didn't have to... Does that make sense? Anyway, that was one of the hardest goodbyes I have ever had. Right next to saying goodbye to my family at the MTC and Hna. Masquez. I feel like we've grown so much together that I have really great friendships with them. Anyway, I miss them a lot and I hope to be able to attend their homecomings. I just got an email from one of the sweet sisters that was in our group the last time. These people are so great.

So in that Elder Holland talk I mentioned, one thing he said was, "Yank your socks up to your armpits!" (Or, work HARD.) Since we have like five days left, I've chosen this to be our district's theme for this next little bit. We're working hard. But. There's a lot of room for improvement.

My English scriptures are falling apart. Could you buy a new set and send them to my mission home? I'd like them in black with the two different books, the triple and the bible, in the normal size, not my small size. Thank you very very much. I love you.

Okay, time for the random little things. I got my hair cut. I cut off like four inches! It was kind of on a whim. The hair-cutters (jajaj) I forgot what they're called) came to the MTC and I didn't know until they got there and Hna. Ellis and I were like, "Let's go get our hair cut!" Also, I don't think I have mentioned that I'm the Coordinating Sister. Basically I'm just the helper sister with all of the North American sisters. So it's fun to have that calling. Good experience.

One of the teachers here at the CCM served in our mission and is so awesome and has just adopted us as his little siblings. He is so great. He gave me a blessing when I was sick and he brings us treats and gets copies of music that we want to sing (we have to perform in the firesides and stuff). Last night we had a little testimony meeting with him and he told us about his family. I'll have to write a letter about it because I'm almost out of time. I have five minutes left.

Hna. Ellis and I have been scheduling our bad days. That's a really cool thing to do. We heard it in a talk so when something is going wrong on any day we say, "But today is a good day so we can't complain." And then on our "bad" day, we're overdramatic about everything so it's hilarious and it ends up being really good.

Our lessons are going really well. I can definitely see so much improvement. Some days my comps tell me that I talk too much and so then when I talk less they ask me to talk more. (They know a little less Spanish than I do and have hard time. We all need prayers for our Spanish.) It's funny.

Reading the Book of Mormon is my absolute favorite pastime. It's like a treat when we get to read. We'll have grammar class and then a workshop and then a fundamentals class and then thirty min to read the BOM and it's like YAYAYAY.

Okay, gotta go. I love you all! Hopefully I write you in a week! Hope all is well! Love you MOm! Love you Dad! Love you Adam! Love you Mitch! Love you Sam! I pray for you all ten times a day!

Hermana Hilary Norton