"he has decided to leave everything behind and be baptized" (Sam)

Hello!

This was a great week. Not fantastic numbers but the work we did was more important than the numbers we could have "achieved".

We organized and had this awesome JAS (jovenes adultos solteros- young single adults) activity on tuesday with ping pong, desserts, and UNO that turned out well and helped fellowship a couple new members and investigators. We are working with a girl named P. who´s parents are less active from something that happened like years ago but she was never baptized. She has a lot of friends in the church, including the bishops daughter and we´ve been getting to know her a lot more. The three companionships here in Jerez have been working really well together. P technically lives in the Hermanas area but we agreed that a companionship of elders would probably be better for her right now. This saturday and sunday were our stake conferences and P attended both saturday night and sunday morning! :P We set up a Noche de Hogar with her and a really solid family in the ward that she´s good friends with. We´re pumped!

We set a baptismal date with an "eternigator" that is finally going to get baptized! His name is J. J. and couldn´t be baptized before for a long list of weird little things and obstacles. Due to a series of events that have gone down the month or two, everything has "cleared up" so to speak and he has decided to leave everything behind and be baptized. We´re working closely with the bishop because he has obviously known J. J. a lot longer than we have.. but Bishop agreed to letting us set and baptismal date with him for the 15th of February!.. the weekend before Elder Crandall will leave! QUÉ BENDICIÓN. I´ll keep you updated!

Hey I love you all! Thanks for your support and prayers. We need them.

!Hasta la otra semana!

ADIOS

Élder Norton

* Wondering what "Noche de Hogar" is? 

Here in the U.S. we call it "Family Home Evening" or "FHE"

It's a night we set aside weekly (typically Mondays) to spend quality time with our family.

What makes family home evening successful?

• Start and end with prayer. This invites the Spirit, increases love, and teaches your family how to pray.
• Learn from the scriptures and the words of latter-day prophets to help your family live the gospel.
• Add music, such as hymns and Primary songs, to create an atmosphere of love, peace, and joy. 
• Make it fun by playing games, acting out scripture stories, and making treats. Keep the atmosphere light and loving.
• Be consistent. Monday nights are set aside by the Church for family home evening. If that doesn’t work, find a night that does.
• Add variety. Help a neighbor in need, hold a lesson at the park, or go for a walk as a family.

"We cannot afford to neglect this heaven-inspired program. 

It can bring spiritual growth to each member of the family, helping him or her to 

withstand the temptations which are everywhere. 

The lessons learned in the home are those that last the longest.” 

resident Thomas S. Monson

"AND WE HAVE A BOOK THAT HAS ALL THE DETAILS" (Sam)

January 27, 2014 

Hello everyone! 

Things keep moving forward here in Jerez. Poco a poco we´re gathering momentum and seeing the fruits. We are loving missionary work right now. ITS HARD but we are loving it. We are seeing the important things in the work and balancing and organizing our time and our work. Between the three companionships in Jerez, it has been established that mine and Elder Crandall´s area has the least members, is furthest from the church, and is the richer, more closed off side of town.. With that being said, we´ve picked up where the area was left off and we´ve established really good relationships with the members in our area and the leaders in the ward. We are feeling their confidence and support a lot more now and its allowing us to create good consistent work. Once you get an area in a grove, things start too flow without you manually making things happen. That´s what we´re seeing. 

The three main people we are working with are Jo, J. J., and H.. Jo. is a former investigator that got married to the woman he´s been with for the last 20 years to be able to be baptized. Up to that point everything was going great but because of the pressure of everything all at the same time, they got married and then kind of disappeared. We were able to find him again and start from scratch and he´s been making incredible progress. He´s dropping bad habits and replacing them with new, edifying ones. His family is sadly closed off to the situation now but with his progress, we´re seeing them open up more and more. He received an interesting blessing last week.. they called him to go to work down in Algeciras that is several hours away from Jerez from monday to saturday and some sundays...... so his family is staying here and he will be gone most weeks. He´s excited for his time alone because he has made good habits and knows that he will be able to continue reading and praying. When he has a free sunday, he says he´s going to come back to Jerez and attend church here. We´re happy that he was able to get more work but it obviously throws a wrench into things. Guess we just need some patience

J. J. is also a former investigator that is basically un miembro seco.. a dry member. He and his girlfriend were both basically active members but couldn´t be baptized cuz they weren´t married. Just recently there was a problem in the relationship which caused them to separate for a time. They are back on good terms but J. J. has made the decision to be baptized instead of returning to live with M.. We´re working closely with the bishop and getting him completely ready for baptism. We´re thinking he´ll be baptized middle or end of February.

H. is a spaniard. He is in a relationship with a woman who moved to spain without getting divorced from her husband. She was in a really bad situation and just left.... which is obviously causing tons of problems now. The last lesson we had with H. he RE-realized what the BoM was.. haha He kind of flipped when he really realized what we had been teaching the whole time. Those are the memorable lessons... when someone really comes to a realization of the fact that Christ visited the ancient inhabitants of America directly following his resurrection and time with his apostles.... AND WE HAVE A BOOK THAT HAS ALL THE DETAILS!! Ahh what the world doesn´t know.

Anyways, that´s a quick update. I did get your package and although I don´t really need anything else in the birthday package, some small american treats would be greatly appreciated. :D Thanks!

Thanks for the update on Jennica! I had very very little idea of the situation! We´ve been praying for her. Keep us in the loop.

I love you all! Talk to you soon!

Élder Norton