"I can´t believe i´m saying this but I would love to be baptized..." (Sam)

Hey family and friends! Oh how I wish we could catch up face to face! :D

A 3year old Elder Norton

Things are great here. The missions going fast and its not slowing down. My last summer in the mission is phasing out... O.O... and with this new group of 37 missionaries coming into to missing next week 2/3 of the mission will have 3 transfers or less of field experience............. WOAH. Sooo many new missionaries, its incredible. We gotta go back to the basics and build a good base of good simple proven principles. We teach simple doctrine. The investigator feels the Spirit's simple promptings. Then once investigators take the simple step of entering into God´s path they become a changed person.

It sounds like things are going well back home. Busy busy people!! A HUGE part of me does not want to get thrown back into the busy stressful world.... and now that I think about it.. its not really the busy or stressful part of it that matter.. in fact, our work here in the office is busy and stressful.... haha but the thing that sets it apart is that its for a more important purpose than what I see myself doing after the mission. SALVATION.. hah thats why we can just go and go and go here. That´s why young talented people with huge potential devote priceless time of their lives to do something that to the world seems pointless. WE KNOW BETTER. :D

I never did get last weeks emails.. and it did seem weird to me but you don´t have to worry so much! :P hah Hermana Deere did call me and told me what was up. She told me about her dream too.. haha did she give you guys a detailed version? I can fill you in if not, it was funny.

Our week was good. Actually got a lot of stuff done.. that our numbers obviously don´t show.. we had a good week. We have been really blessed. Like REALLY blessed with good, prepared investigators that want to learn and attend church and make covenants with God. Heavenly Father knows our situation.. but he also knows our desires to teach and find and baptize. He´s got us in the back of his mind.. ;) The two philipino ladies are doing well. Working a ton.. and the daughter had to move into Málaga for work and we don´t think she´s going to be able to come to church on sundays..... :\ we don´t know how long she´ll have the job either. Maybe when summer ends she´ll move back this way. We don´t know. Last week they didn´t come to church cuz they were talking with their boss about not having to work on sundays. COOL. See how prepared these people are?????? :D We just waiting now since we can´t meet with them during the work cuz of work... >:\ We visited M and her family yesterday with the branch president´s son S thats the same age as M's oldest son. They´re doing well and have been able to receive a little bit of funding from the church to travel to church this sunday. I guess the branch president has tried it before but there were problems with catching the 6:45 am bus with 4 kids........ understandable. We committed her to coming this sunday, tomorrow, and she said she would leave her two young daughters with her mother and come with the boys. We´re calling tonight to confirm and tomorrow morning at SIX AM to help wake them up. We´ll see! Pray with us please!! :) The Lord blessed us with an incredible miracle about a week ago! A fantastic woman that is friends with one of the english members that spends half the year in england and half in spain starting meeting with the missionaries and attending church in england when she was visiting home (she lives in spain). Her name is Ma. and she came back to spain ready and searching for the missionaries so that she could continue with what she had started there in england. She is soooo prepared! She met a LOT with the missionaries in england and they basically prepared her like a birthday cake; measured, mixed, poured, baked, frosted, and ready with a cherry on top. :D We received this ´´cake´´ in the form of an email to our branch mission leader. He printed it off and handed it over to us. I called her the day after she got to spain and we met with her the next night at a members house that lives close by. She was ecstatic to meet again and we felt the spirit and the love that the members had for her so strongly that night. My companion and I both felt strongly to invite her to baptism in this lesson and she accepted like this... ´´I would love to be baptized. I can´t believe i´m saying that but I would love to be baptized...´´ ................O.O.......... :D So she has a baptismal date for the 15th of september, the same day as the two philipinos. We´re really excited for her. She´s coming to church this sunday and trying to bring her mom who is ´´interested´´ in her words. hmmmm we´ll see! :) So anyways, we´re seeing miracles!!

The apartment hunt is moving along. We´ve been having some struggles with two or three cities but I think we´ll figure it out. Its all coming together. Don´t worry about the money thing with the realtors agencies. I basically can never do that cuz I´m never really in the cities that we rent apartments in. I did for that one cuz it was in Málaga, 25 minutes away. It was actually a really cool experience. Something I won´t forget. The missionaries are all coming a week from this tuesday. the 3rd and 4th of september. The BIG TRANSFER WEEK! We´re excited.

Oh! One other thing real quick before I end.. This week has been FINDING WEEK in our mission. Its been so interesting to see how President Clegg did things as mission president and now how President Deere does things as mission president.. cuz the way they do things is soo different.  ...... President Deere has organized, with the help of the APs and the Zone Leaders,  three huge goals. 555 new investigators in one week. 250 baptismal dates the next week, and 100 baptisms in September. A ´´new investigator´´ is someone you pray with, teach something, and set up a return appointment with. This week is the week we are shooting for that goal and right now we are at 436 new investigators.... as of yesterday actually.. :) so we´re ahead by a little... (and to put things into perspective.... we normally find between 160 and 200 investigators every week. Our record is... like 230.. or something.) And out of the news from this week we´re gonna set 250 baptismal dates in the next two weeks and then in september we´ll baptize 100! Anyways, thought I´d fill you in on our goals.

I gotta run! Love you guys!

Élder Norton

PS   I did receive the two packages you sent recently by the way. I´m sending an SD card back soon. Thanks!