"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

"the look on his face was priceless!" (Sam)

January 20, 2014

Hi everyone!

Good to hear from you this week. Happy to hear you are well and busy. Sorry I couldn´t write last week. It was my bad. Today I´ll give a good update.

The mission is so different than when I came in. 80 percent of the areas have more than one companionship. Jerez, where I am right now, has three companionships. We are Jerez A.. I´m the district leader here and Elder Crandall just finished his training. Jerez B are the Hermanas Brown and Anderson and they are the sister trainers (what hilary was in her mish) which are basically the equivalent to a zone leader except they do the splits with the hermanas.. and Jerez C are the zone leaders Elder Vergara who I was companions with in Aljarafe and Elder Berrett, who trained me as Financiero. Really great group.

The ward here is growing soo quickly. With the three baptisms the ward had this weekend, I think there are 21 Recent converts in the last 9 months. Its incredible. Elder Crandall and I really wish there was more happening in our area.. but more than anything, we have been supporting the two other companionships with the last little push needed to get their investigators to the waters of baptism. This last week I did 5 baptismal interviews, 1 follow-up, and we taught two appointments to investigators that were not ours. We spend just as much time IN our area last week as we did OUT of our area. Like I said, we´d obviously like to see more success come from our area but we´re happy with the three baptisms that the hermanas had last week and the two the elders will have this weekend.

Really cool thing happened this last week. Elder Crandall, just starting his third transfer, has been stressing about a goal he set for himself. Its a great goal and I had the same one when I started. It was to baptize in every area. He´s a third into what will be his last transfer here and hasn´t baptized yet. Well to make a long story short, we´ve been working quite a bit the the hermanas investigators this week, Ph. from brasil and Al. from bolivia, and about mid-week, Al. called the hermanas and told them she wanted me to baptize her instead of what was previously planned. I was honored and accepted. On friday, we went back for a quick follow up interview with Ph. and at the end I mentioned how I thought it would be cool if Elder Crandall could be involved in the baptism since it would be his first. He said that he didn´t know what she would say but that he´d ask her. We finished the follow-up and we left. About 2 minutes later, I got a phone call from him saying that Al. loved the idea and wanted Elder Crandall to baptize her! :D I hung up and stopped Elder Crandall on the street and said, "hey, buckle up."... and he just looked at me weird... :P and then I said, "Al. wants you to baptize her." haha the look on his face was priceless! He was so happy and had a great experience saturday night. The baptisms went down perfectly. She was baptized the first try.. etc. :) So that was really fun.

Anyways, I know you wanted me to write more this week. Sorry I´ve run out of time. I´m going to try to send some pictures really quick. Love you all!

Élder Norton

ps.. I´ve started claiming all the advertisements that come in our mailbox cuz Elder crandall gets so many letters I have to boost my self confidence somehow! :D..... haha

"I'm walking up to my train … was like 50 feet away … and it starts pulling away…" (Sam)

December 23, 2013

Hello!

So much to tell! Where to start?

I´m so excited for Christmas! We´ll be calling at 6:30pm our time which is 10:30am your time. You think thats gonna work? This will be the first time that I´m gonna call from the equivelant of an internet cafe thing.The last two times we´ve talked I´ve done it from american members house's.. way easier.. but the internet place will work too.

Well, the transfer and this last week has been crazy. I´ll try to explain it all...

I was hoping that monday morning, the packages were gonna get to the office so I could take them when I left tuesday.. but they didn´t come.. so tuesday morning, I finished getting everything ready, we put everything in the car, drove to the post office to check one more time if the packages were there, they weren´t and it took so long that it back up our schedule, we pulled up to the train station in málaga I ran inside, went through, was walking up to my train, was like 50 feet away, and it starts pulling away......... hahah so I turned around and walked out, met up with elder flint and elder crapo, we went over and changed my tickets to the next one that is luckily free of charge, we grabbed some food and then I caught the next train. I got to my area right before 6pm, elder erickson (6 months in the mission-trainer) and elder crandall (3 months-in training) picked me up, took me to the apartment, we dropped stuff off and went out to hit up some appointments and get to know the city. At like 8pm that night, President Deere called while we were talking with a less active woman on the street outside her house. I answered, told him what we were doing and asked it if was alright if I called back in just a minute. He said that was fine. About 5 minutes later I called and he didn´t answer. (Let the phone tag being!!!) At like 10 as we were walking home he called again but we didn´t feel the vibration. We planned that night for the next day and then called him. I talked to him first just for like a minute, he asked how my first day was, I told him good. Then he asked to speak with Elder Erickson....... So I passed it over. He had talked with Elder Erickson for less than a minute and his face totally dropped. hah all we hear is "WOW......Yes president, that sounds alright.... Yeah I think I can.... Yeah.... Well... yeah."

Turns out, one of the zone leaders in malaga had hurt his leg. and needed to be on full rest. a missionary from cartagena was transferred to fill his spot and President needed elder erickson to go to cartagena. WOAH.

I was with elder erickson for 16 hours.... and then he left. That phone call was tuesday night. He left wednesday at 4pm.

Needless to say, its been crazy. He wasn´t been able to say goodbye to almost anyone. A family of converts of his drove across the city and found us when they found out he was leaving just to say bye and to take pictures. The mom was crying. Its been hard to tell everyone cuz they loved him. He started here and has been here for 4 transfers... 6 months... then just disappears. :\

I was really blessed to be able to learn the area and learn the names of all the people we are working with quickly. I feel that the Lord has blessed me and that that´s an ability that He has taught me on my mission. Elder Crandall (now my step-son in mission terms cuz i´m finishing his training) and I have worked really hard and are meeting a lot of members.  I have learned, through companions and lessons from God, to like a different kind of work. Elder Crandall and I have met a ton of members that they never really even worked with before and we´re going to try to meet the others that we haven´t met yet. I don´t have time to explain this type of work but to put it short and simple, it is work that stablizes and slowly fortifies the ward. ANY MISSIONARY OR PREMISSIONARY READING THIS... WORK WITH MEMBERS.

Saturday was the ward chirstmas party. I wanted to forward you some pictures that were taken but no one sent them to me. At the end of the party they needed a "santa" to pass out the presents to the kids and because I was new, and no one knew me yet, they asked me if I would do it. :PPPP soo fun!

They gave me this suit and hat and beard and 

I came out and was like

"HO HO HO FELIZ NAVIDAD!! 

MERRRRRY CHRISTMASS! "

And all the kids just stopped in their tracks ... frozen. Haha, I went over to the seat they had prepared for me and like as if they were all like programmed to at the same time, they all got up and just like ran for me! haha and like attacked me!! haha they like swarmed and crowded around me and the adults had to like push them away hahah so funny! I´ll tell you more about it on Christmas.

Yesterday in church was awesome cuz we were able/I was able to meet tons of new people. I´m really excited for this ward. Big ward with Lots and Lots of recent converts.

Hey we gotta go but I love you all! See you soon!

Élder Norton