"Love my mission president" (Sam)

Group Hug?

Hi there, I think I´m emailing a little early this week.. though I think you are in New York right now so we might not overlap at all today. No problem. We´ve had another good week. Things are pretty cooled down from the transfer and we´re basically caught up here. Its going to be interesting to watch what happens here in the office now that the big ´´wave of missionaries´´ has hit and is integrated into the field and not lingering over our heads so to speak.. :) I for one have definitely felt the impact of soo many more missionaries. One of my main jobs has to do with accounting/´´journaling´´ its called all missionary purchases that are not food basically... haha so missionaries will save all of the receipts they get from things like travel, butane (that some apartments require to heat the water), paper copies they make, or furnishings for the apartments, and they send them all to me and I do ´´a journal´´ or basically account for/declare all the purchases and then I refund them all that money. You can imagine... we´ve hit I think 220 missionaries.. and last week alone I did this process for 108 of them... I counted. :) hah My drawer that I normally keep all of the receipts and the documents in is filling like super fast. Haha

My companion is feeling it too cuz one of his main jobs is keeping each missionary up to date on their residency in Spain. Basically in each city you live in you have to tell the city hall or ´´ayuntamiento´´ where you are living.. Who you are living with.. you have to show them your european residency card that we get for the missionaries, and you have to show them the apartment contract. I´d say about a third of the mission (or more maybe) gets moved each transfer.. so right now, thats about 75 people... and Elder Crapo has to keep up on each of them and help them through that registration process.. and then we get all caught up and the next transfer hits... :D

Anyways, the good (bitter sweet) part is that the growth of the mission is kind of leveling off. The size of the groups going home are more or less the same size of the groups coming in. That eases a lot of stress off of the situation actually. Its going to be really interesting to see the changes made in the near future.

Every monday morning at 12 we have our weekly ´´Staff Meeting´´ with President Deere, Hermana Deere, the APs, Elder Crapo and I, the Castillos, and the other senior sister thats working here in the office named Hernana Chantrill from wyoming. This past monday, we had our normal meeting, we finished with a prayer, etc.. everyone gets up and walks out, and president turns to elder crapo and me and is like, hey can I have a work with you too?.. so we sit down, he´s in his mission president seat, hermana deere stays in the room but kinda moves over to the side and sits in a chair......... and we totally had like a heart to heart with president! :P Hah it was basically just president wanting us to hear some of his thoughts about the future of the office and him wanting some of our input..

It was actually a really great little conversation we had. One thing I love about President Deere is that he really looks into the future and always has high hopes for the future. Not necessarily specific goals.. and not really like ´´you´re doing this and I want you to be doing this´´... but more like.. He recognizes the past.. learns from it.. and then talks about his hopes or vision of the future. And just by giving us that idea.. that vision, we can work together better because we have the same end goal.

He was really appreciative of my work. It really felt good. Don´t mean to be mushy but I felt his appreciation for what I´ve been doing. I´ve known it all along.. but its easy to doubt your success or effectiveness if no outside opinions give you words of thanks or encouragement. He said something that really stuck with me.. he was talking about what Elder Butler and I have done over the last 6 months.. and he turned to me and goes.. ´´I recognize that we as a mission have basically sacrificed you here in the office.´´ Just that. Then he kept talking and went on.. but that really stuck with me. He recognizes that I´ve kind of been here without being able to go to misisonary conferences.. never being about to dedicate all my time, energy, or mind to missionary work on the street.. having to sacrifice study time, language time, meal time sometimes.. sleep time especially. He recognizes it. Anyways, it was like a weight off my shoulders. My mind was saying ´´okay so all this time i´ve felt disobedient for not studying as much as I should or not getting exactly 8 hours of sleep, or not having 20 lessons a week... all that he understands and isn´t disappointed´´. Good feeling. Love my mission president.

P-day we went to the Deere´s house and played volleyball and dodgeball in their backyard, and then went inside and had baked potatoes for lunch and play NERTZ after. :D Reminded me soo much of sitting around our dark stained wooden table playing cards and settlers and ´´the bean game´´. :D I hope you all still play!! or are at least ready to play when Hil and I are home!!

I just saw your email mom. I´m gonna go read it and reply if there´s anything I missed. Love you all! I love seeing pictures and/or videos if you have em. you all have big fancy nice smart phones now so it shouldn´t be too hard to send them ;P don´t worry, i´m gonna want one too when I´m home. Ha!

Love you all!

-Élder Norton