"We had two baptisms Saturday!" (Sam)

Hello family and friends!

   Everything is going so well here! We had two baptisms this last saturday, and we´re possibly going to have one every saturday this month. Pray with us for our goals! :)

   P. and R. were baptized this last saturday! P. knew it was going to be my first baptism so she asked me to baptize her. :) So that was super awesome. R. was baptized first and a member in our branch named J. M. performed the baptism, and then P. was going to go second. R. is a big kid... and when he got baptized in that little(ish) font, P. got a little nervous. She started worrying after she saw R.´s baptism that one of us would slip or that I wouldn't be able to help her out of the water or something..... So we got in and she was a bit out of breath so we waited for almost 2 minutes before she told me she was ready. When I baptized her it was super tranquilo.. super chill. She´s a very small person and it was really easy to just help her under and pull her right back out. I think she was surprised at how quick it was. :) Anyways, everything went really well and the confirmations were done Sunday in church and we had 9 INVESTIGATORS IN CHURCH. It was super awesome. At the baptism, there were 15 non members and 14 members. :) kinda funny, there were more non members than members... and then Sunday there were 9 non members. It was awesome! The two sisters of R. now want to be baptized.. :) but their mom is still very hesitant. We are working with them. Just building the relationship so she will really listen to what we are saying. Anyways, its all good! And this Saturday, we will have the baptism of una española named M. She is really, really awesome. At first, she would always say, well thats good... but... everyone has there point of view.... or cada persona su manera... :) but we really taught to her needs, aka about the family, plan of salvation, how we can be with our families if we follow Christ, and it really really caught her attention. She has attended church every Sunday since we first met her and she told us that she received a very firm answer during one of her prayers. Anyways, she's awesome. Her ex-husband came unexpectantly to visit the kids the day of the baptism of P. and R. and she still found a way to make it to the baptism. She was crying basically the whole time and she told us how happy she is for her baptism the coming Saturday. We´re pumped. :)
   I´m glad you got my package! They´re kinda pricy to send... :( or I would send more.. but i´m glad you liked it! ADAM. MEMORIZE THAT BOOK. Its awesome. And work on it WITH mom. It is meant to be used with other people, practicing and having conversations. As you read, read everything outloud. It is probably the best way to learn spanish because you are learning words, practicing pronunciation, and hearing Spanish all at the same time. So read outloud. Mom, I will tell P. you love the fan. :) She´s awesome. We played soccer last pday and she found out and she gave me cleats and a jersey and shorts....... She just randomly gives us stuff. She gave me this huge Spanish book too... Anyways. :) You got my letter too.. Good.

   I don´t really need anything... dinero, no. Medicina, no. Ropa, no. I do have both SD cards, and i´m filling it up as fast as I can. :) Para que sepáis, I got your package in like exactly one week. :) Thats pretty good. Letters, its about the same. I think 5 days. The last day of this transfer is the 19th of this month. Most likely,  Elder Jones will go. There's a chance that I will go.. there's a chance that neither of us will go... We´ll see!

   Wow. You´re package was GREAT. Loved every bit of it. Really, when you send packages, I love getting random bits of home. Mostly things that I can eat... :) cuz they don´t have a lot of the same stuff here.  Anyways, sorry my emails are always so scattered and random. Haha, I just spit everything and anything comes to mind out onto the screen. I read Hermana Norton´s emails and they are all perfectly formatted (not to mention that shee spellz evreething rite), super neat, well thought out... mine on the other hand, not so much. :) 

   I love everyone! I hope all is going well there. Everything here is great. We struggle and work but its all for the right reasons. Elder Holland once stated...  

 “I am convinced that missionary work is not easy 

because salvation is not a cheap experience. 

Salvation never was easy. 

We are the Church of Jesus Christ, this is the truth, 

and He is our Great Eternal Head. 

How could we believe it would be easy for us 

when it was never, ever, 

easy for Him?”

... but in his awesome, Jeffery R. Holland- strongly encouraging- chastening voice ... wow, is he powerful. The work IS hard. But its only because salvation is SO worth it. Never forget who we are. We are members of the one and only true church on the face of the earth. Participants in pure and holy saving ordinances that can ONLY be brought about by the perfect authority of God. Do we constantly thank our Father in Heaven for what he has given us? We must always strive to thank him more. I love each and every one of you. Yes, if you are reading this, I love you! The work is true. Many have some of the truth. Few have all of the truth. And now we much share it with everyone else. Until next time!

-Elder Norton

Happy 4th of July!

Hello mother!! and friends and family! Ha.. I guess i´m just a mammas boy..

The work is great in Huércal-Overa! This part of the Lords vineyard! We had a couple of pretty major bumps last week.. but todavia... the work is great!

As of early last week, P. started getting sick... she has had respiratory problems for most of her life due to her smoking but as of recently, she got very sick to the point where she wasn´t eating very much. It got really hard to stay in contact with her as well and we finally had to get in contact with her daughter who doesn´t live with her. She too had been worrying. Turns out, early thursday she went with her daughter to a hospital in almeria and has been there ever since. :/// So please pray for her.. We´ll see.

R. gave us a little surprise early last week. We were just going forward with our lessons.. and this day, we were talking about having the gift of the holy ghost and how we receive it at baptism. We started talking about his baptismal fecha, which was set for the 14th of this month and he stopped us and told us that he didn´t want to wait for the 14th. He wanted to do it this saturday.... So obviously we got really really excited and started moving forward with planning the baptism and the final interview and whatnot... BUT... between the next 2 days... an immense amount of doubt set in. We even warned him that satan would attack him with doubts and fears and to seguir adelante... or... keep going forward i guess is the translation.. but something happened. Something changed him. We think it may have been his mom.. or something he may have read... We don´t know. He told us he wanted to experience the world. We obviously had several more lessons with him where we just sat down and talked.. and i´m just gonna be honest.. we answered evvvery little question he had or doubt he brought up... or.... whatever.. but he was firm. That's why we think someone or something changed him. Not just his own mind. Anyways... rough... and we´re still trying to work with him... but the work moves on!! We have a bunch of new investigators and people coming to our english classes and the work is flourishing..........!

To answer your questions, most of the people we work with are our investigators, not ones that other missionaries worked with. And we are the only two missionaries in our area. I learned that at least in our mission, the missionaries are dispersed through the mission by amount of members in the cities, not by the amount of people in the cities. Usually the bigger cities have more members anyways but they missionaries are dispersed by amount of members and we only have like 24ish members.. hah nuestra ramita = our little branch.

Ahhh! I love the updates on everything! We´re already out of time here AGAIN... but its fine. I don´t have much else to say... other than.... its getting WICKED HOT here. It has hit 46 degrees here... I´ll let you all look that up in farenheit(sp) as some homework. Either way... Its hot. Also, a couple other things.. I bought myself a translater. Its awesome. Really look into getting one for Hil. Dictionaries are a mega pain to carry... so much to the point that we don´t carry them.. but we NEED a way to find and learn words... look into that one I sent you the name of. I bought a ´´Franklin Advanced Global Translater´´ and its good. Also, I got a letter from elder Thunell. I may have already told you. I´m going to write him back and send it home to you guys. then just give it their family or just mail it to wherever he is. Anyways... I think that's all. I love you! I hope the Fourth of July goes great there. Everything really is going awesome here. The church makes it soo easy for the missionaries. Honestly all we have to think about is eating, sleeping, preaching, and ironing our shirts. :) It really puts the pressure on us to do all we can. They make it so easy for us to work, if we don´t do it............. you can finish that sentence how you want to. I guess my.. invitation to all who read this is pray a little more, work a little longer, try a little harder to do your part in the missionary work where you are. ´´Lift where YOU stand´´ as Pres Uchdorf says. :) I love each of you! God be with you...

-Elder Norton

Mosiah 7:19 "Therefore, lift up your heads, and rejoice, and put your trust in God"

Wow! Soo much!

Its so good to hear from/about everyone! I really do love all the info, stories, and jokes. Everythings going really well here too! The work is harrrrd. Missionary work is just that... work. :) sin embargo, todo vale la pena! Its all so worth it! Its been getting reeally hot here too. Hah.. We were eating at this members house the other day and there was a plate of cheese on the table for us to use with our food and it was honestly melting right there on the plate. I tried to pick some up and it barely stayed together. You know its hot when cheese just melts... sitting there on the table... haha its been up in the high thirties recently.. which is like 98ish in fahrenheit.. hah.... whooooo hoo... :) but its great.

Its great to hear about adam and baseball! Sorry I haven´t been able to write you an email recently adam, we write our mission president an email every week too with info and numbers about the week so its hard to smash it all in. I´ll do my best.. but honestly, I lose my mind when I read about how baseball has been going recently. There is ALWAYS something I can brag about when it comes to Adam Norton.

Its good to hear about the family get togethers! Really! School just barely finished here but you guys are right in the middle of summer there. Anyways, tell them I love them next time you see any of the extended family por favor! Wow, I had no idea Sister P. had passed away. :( Sounds like it was a great service though.. And one of our chickens too! Wow, all sorts of deaths back home! We killed the freakiest wasp hornet thing here today. We can add that to the list.. I´ll try to attach a picture of it.

OHMYGOSH. I knew Brave was going to be sooo good! AHHH. I want to see it soo bad! Anyways, I´m giving my 2 year movie fast right now. I´ll see it later!

Our baptism is still on for Saturday. Our investigators are doing well! Satan works very hard but things are going well. P. has incredible faith! Its hard at times because she is slowing down a lot. She smoked a lot when she was younger and it has really taken a toll on her, but she´s still moving forward.

We´re excited! R. is growing too. Its great. He had a bad experience with this other church trying to baptize him when we wasn´t ready so he was a bit tentative but he has a lot of faith and confidence in us. Its great. We actually almost baptized this whole family yesterday too.. haha funny story/awesome miracle. We met this girl in the street one night and she told us to come by one day but when we stopped by she told us she didn´t want anything to do with us and closed the door... we were kinda confused but the guy across the hall had heard us out there and he opened his door. Turns out he´s been looking for a church and he let us in without hesitation. He and his wife are from Colombia and they have two kids, a 16 yr old son with slight retardation, and a 4 year old girl. They were both without work and without options. They listened to our every word and were very interested. We came back the next night and he told us that he found work and that he believed it was a blessing from god. We testified to him that it was because of his desires to find a church and his trust in God and they agreed whole heartedly. The problem is that his work is in France and he was leaving 4 days later without his family to live in France for 3 months. We called Pres Clegg for permission to baptize them if they agreed and he said to move forward. They obviously tentative because of the rush and quickness of it all but we continued to work with them. We did all we could to help them read and pray and know how to find their answer but they didn´t end up reading and praying to know. Kinda a let down but they still believe very strongly and they came to church yesterday which was great. He is going to leave for France for 3 months and when he returns... ¡VAMOS A MOJARLES! WE GONNA GET EM WET!

Anyways! :) everything is great here. Nuestra obra misional es la obra del Señor! Lo sabemos! Couple of things... I got the package. AWESOME. Thank you much! Something I realized... we all say the exact same things alllll around the world. Exact same things. Por ejemplo.. this lady interrupted(sp) E. Jones the other day and then she paused and said, excuse me for interrupting... in spanish obvio but it is the Exact same phrase I have heard a million times back in the states. Thats only one example.. Oh another one! I found out that they say the... You´re in trouble!!... phrase.. with the same inflection and everything too. Kinda funny.

BTW... I guess there was an earthquake here in Huercal recently.. like... a week ago. We were visiting a neighboring pueblo when it happened so we didn´t feel it but I guess there was just a really small one.. like nothing was destroyed or anything.. just a little wobble... AND I MISSED IT! :( haha. Oh last thing... I may have mentioned this before.. not sure but we teach almost exclusively south Americans. And, like 90 percent are Ecuadorians. No joke. Hilary is going to have soo much success. Soo much.

Anyways, Gotta go! But I love you! Yes you, if you are reading this! :) Mom, I love you! Have fun in southern Utah! Dad, I love you! Play a lot of golf in Cali! Admo! I love you! Have a blast at scout camp and play a lot of golf this summer! Mitch and Jennica and family, I love you guys! Hope all is well with the kids! Hilary-- Hermana Norton, I love you! Be Bold. Talk to everyone. Be Happy.

-Elder Norton

"our investigators are progressing" and ... photos!

Sam's district dining room ... Elder Jones, A.P.'s ... and bedroom.

Um, is it just me, or is this place waaay too nice to be a missionary apartment? joanna

Hello family and friends!

I hope all is well back in the states! WOW. This past week was absolutely amazing. Absolutely crazy. Elder Jones and I did our numbers last night and he said that this last week may have been the best week he has had his whole mission.. Hah so we´re gonna do our best to keep it up! Keep praying for us! :) Here are our numbers for this week...

Investigators with fechas bautismales...5 a couple of our people dropped us.. :/

Investigators that attended church... 4 woot!!

Lessons taught with members present... 6... btw 4 of those were in one day.. haha boo yaa

other lessons taught this week..... 19. WOW.

Investigators progressing... 3... esta bien..

Less active and recent convert lessons... 2

Active member lessons... 3

New Investigators...... 16.... BOOM.

Honestly, I wish I could have a little camera on my should every day so I could better explain everything that's going on here. Like, this week was suuper awesome but the numbers don´t even capture all of it. It was just awesome! People didn´t cancel on us much, our investigators that are progressing are coming to conclusions and spiritual experiences on their own without our help... Ahhh its just great.

Some updates.. P., doing better than ever. I don´t know if I said this in my last email but we came to one of our visits with her and she told us that she was cleaning her house and whenever she would get tired, she would sit down, read the Book of Mormon, and pray on her knees. We gave her this little prayer card that she uses to help her and she saw on the picture, the people kneeling down so she just decided to do the same... she told us that every time she read and prayed, she received strength to keep cleaning... and then she showed us the bruises on her knees....... hah... the faith of some people. WOW. We have another kid named R, he's like 18 and he´s got the best heart. He lives with his mom and his sister and when we first started meeting with him he told us that he already prays. We asked him what he prays from and he told us mostly just his mom and family. his mom works suuper suuper long day from early early in the morning till way late at night and he says that she´s always dead exhausted. He prays for her and more or less takes care of his sister. He even helped her build/built this house project with an electrically powered windmill in the front for her sister. He´s awesome. He´s come to church the last to weeks in a row and he's on his way! We´ll keep working!

Anyways, Elder Jones and I are getting along soo well! Honestly! His personality and mine just mesh so well. We are both just pretty chill with whatever but not to the point where we can´t make decisions. We are both just 100% open and then we just talk till we reach a verdict. That right there is something I love in people. When people express their opinions but are willing to talk and listen and aren´t offended when we don´t end up going through with their idea. Anyways, we are getting so much done and setting goals that crazy.

And yes, the Ex-word EW-S200 Casio is that translator thing. If you can´t find it for anything cheaper than that I think I´ll buy it here. I actually haven´t touched any of my money yet. ps.. Hilary probably wont be able to find it out there. Whenever you can, just buy it and send it to her. she will be glad. promise.

Anyways, I gotta go but I love everyone! Dad, I hope Fathers Day was great! Sorry I never sent you anything! Expect something in the mail! :) I got the letter from Clay. Thank you much. BOUT TIME I heard from him.. :) just kidding. Others that have written me, Thank you! Expect letters back! They are coming.

HEY. The work of the lord is great. The church is true. And your testimony grows when you share it! See you in a couple years! -Elder Norton

"Her name is Pepa. She is fantastic."

Hello! Everything is great! The work here is going SO WELL! Just from last week alone we had... 8 people with baptismal fechas 3 people in church on sunday 20 total lessons taught 2 progressing investigators 14 received references 13 new investigators and in the course of the week we got either a phone number or address out of 105 people!! Those are called futures. Obviously, all of those people and investigators don´t all turn into baptisms but the important thing is that we are working hard and talking to everyone. Honestly, our duty is to just talk and contact and do our best to find people. We present ourselves and our message as best as we can to as many people as we can and we work with those that accept it.. even if its just a little.. :) Yes, I have had at least 3 doors slammed in my face already haha but do I walk away laughing? Yes. haha this is the work of The Lord. We represent Christ and people accept or reject. We are simple the conduits.
 STORY. We have been traveling a ton. Multiple missionaries have told me that my first week and a half to two weeks in the mission are the craziest they have ever heard... COOL :) but anyways, we were traveling again the other day, we had to go all the way back up to Madrid to get my residency card and then all the way back to Huercal in one day.... haha so we got back really late.. so we´re walking back to our piso and there is this little frail looking lady sitting over on this bench thing so what do we do? Obvio, we go and contact her. She started of verrry very quiet and reserved but as we showed that we only wanted to help her she started to open up. Turns out she lives alone, her husband has died, her family has all moved out and never contact her. Her neighbors always tell her how ugly and worthless she is and she has actually lost a lot of weight because what they are saying is effecting her mentally as well as physically.. I guess she stopped eating for a while and dropped a lot of weight almost dangerously quick.. anyways, we found her and she was just at the depths of despair and we shared a lot about God and how he loves her and how she has a purpose on earth and she ate it up. We told her about Joseph Smith and shared that Christ's church that was on the earth at His time is restored through Joseph Smith. Well anyways, we set up a cita or visit with her for the very next day and it went soooo well! And then she came to an awesome activity that night... this was Saturday... and then members picked her up for church and she loved it and then they took her back home after and then we visited her last night and she is eating everything up!! She has terrible terrible problems breathing and walking far cuz her heart rate shoots up way quick and she runs out of breath. So last night, when we went over, we offered to give her a blessing and she gladly accepted. Our first visit, we set a baptismal date for the 30th of this month and I think she is going to be more than ready! I´m so excited. Her name is P. She is fantastic. Anyways, that's my story.
Like I said, we have like 7 other baptismal fechas or dates and we are working with each of them. If only they were all as awesome as P. :) Anyways, all is well. I´m gonna try to send some pictures home this time. I have an sd card with a bunch of pictures, I´ll send it home too. I love everyone! JESUS CHRIST IS THE TRUTH. -Elder Norton ps. AHH look up the ´´ EW-S200 Casio´´ Elder Pedersen, has one and he loves it. Supposedly I can get one here but it's way more expensive here. Will you PLEASE buy one for me and send it to me when you can? Annnd as soon as Hilary can get packages, send one to her too. Missionaries that have had them say they wish they would´ve gotten it day one cuz they use it everyday... allll they way till the end of their missions. Por Favor! :) Love you again! Hasta ver!