New photos from Elder Norton!

Mariachi band street performers

Men in Black (ties)

remember "the Giant Finn" post from May 5th? This is the "Giant Finn"!!!

Sam's LAST email from the Spain MTC!

Hello to all!!

  So tomorrow morning, all the Russian, Ukranian, and Italian missionaries are shipping out... As well as all the missionaries serving in Barcelona and Madrid. The Málaga missionaries will be getting on a train Wednesday morning around 11 am I think to head down to the mission home. Entonces, we are given the opportunity today to get on and email home. I surely hope this email finds everyone well and happy. All is well here and only getting better! :)

  When I get the opportunity to sit down at a computer and organize my thoughts into an email, I can´t help but be grateful. All that happens here is so spiritual and beneficial for everyone involved. Although some missionaries have a hard time staying focused and really trying to learn from every experience, it is all given to us so we can use our agency. It is something that we can compare to life. Often times, we receive all that we ask for and we are given all that we need in order to succeed. All we need to do is take action and fulfill our side of commitments. Many people have the mentality that they "deserve this"or "deserve that" but we must each realize that we must strive to follow each commandment, whether large or small, to "deserve" anything. And even then, we will still be indebted to the Lord. Life can bog us down with things to do and thoughts to think and people to please. If we have our priorities straight, we will realize that the things like daily reading in the BOM, weekly church and temple attendance, and frequent service to others are what should be put first on our priority list. And as we STRIVE, we will be BLESSED.

  Anyways! I love you all! We still don´t know where we will be serving specifically but the Málaga mission president came to the mtc for something and we got to talk to him for like 20 mins and he said that they have already assigned the missionaries that will be serving in Morocco so I don´t think I´ll be assigned there..... YET...... :) Cross your fingers for me! Anyways, when I get that info, I´ll let you know. Adios!

-Elder Norton

Tender Mercy

Ahhhhh So much to say!! I love it! :)  Just know that my comp doesn´t always necessarily want to stay on the computers as long as I do.. :) Take that how you want to.. The joys of having a buddy at your side 24/7. I absolutely love the kid. No lie.

   LIFE IN SPAIN. It rocks. It´s wicked hard but soo good. Learning a ton. Serving as best I can. Trying to be as Christ would... Its kind of a hard goal though.. hah. Point is, pray for the missionaries. :)

   I WANT TO BE ADAM NORTON WHEN I GROW UP. Nuff said. Love you kid. I LOVE the updates of everything back home and in the world. We hear nothing. Nothing.. Haha we went to this store today and they were playing a song that we used to listen to and it was honestly the wierdest experience. We are in a bubble. We have a week and then our little bubble will be popped and we'll be stuck in the real world again. We ship out to our missions wednesday. We don´t have our specific areas yet but GUESS WHATTTTTTTTTTT? The Morocco side of the Málaga mission HAS BEEN OPENED. Booooyah! Until recently it was closed but it is now open!

   I did hear a little bit from Hilary. She sounds so good! Keep sending me her emails please! Love them.  Anyways! I have to goooooo. But I´ll let you know as soon as I can when I get my specific call and my area. I love you all!

-Elder Norton

 

When I read this I just had a feeling Sam hadn't received the email I wrote the day before. I went back through my inbox and found a failure notification saying that my email to him had not sent. I felt awful so I quickly copied and pasted what I had sent with this additional note attached:

 

       Sam, I emailed you Wednesday and when we got your email today I could tell you hadn't              received mine. I looked back through my "sent" box and it looks like mine sent but in my "inbox" there is a "failure" notification saying it actually didn't send. Not sure why ... sorry. I love you so much and I'm sad that you may have thought I didn't write :(  Anyway, I have copied and pasted it below, just in case you check again. Love you!

Mom

 

Later that evening I got this from Sam: 

 

Mama! I knew I needed to get back on! I emailed earlier, like you know, and then we left and did things for Pday. We just got all ready for dinner and the rest of the day and we had a couple minutes. I finally convinced my comp we should go check our emails one more time and i´m glad I did. Its so funny to me. I have seen so many people, friends, a brother, cousins, everyone who go on missions, and you wonder what they do all day and you wonder so much what they are thinking about. I want the family to know and You especially, that I think about you constantly. Constantly. Not in a homesick trunky kind of way, but rather loving, caring, connected kind of way. I feel the same thing  about Hilary. KNOW that we love you and think about you as much as you think about us. I Love You Mom.

Your grateful son, Elder Norton

 

 then he added   THIS 

Sam's 5th Email Madrid Spain

Hello!

  So good to talk to everyone! Some people really had a tough time getting back in the groove after talking with thier families but our phone call just gave me a lot of energy to keep working and learning and growing. Thanks again! I´m glad to heard that Mother´s day went well! :)

  Thank you thank you for Hilary´s email! I loved it! The food here isn't bad, just different. I am getting used to it and I actually eat everything that I am served. Another elder and I always check each others trays to make sure we ate everything. :) So no worries about the nutrition. And honestly, I have not gained or lost 1 pound since the day I stepped out of the car.... everyone is changing weights and stuff and I honestly have not changed at all. I think i´ve been this weight the last 5 years of my life.... Haha

 We don´t know exactly when we´re leaving for our missions but it will be like..... the 29th or 30th. And I think we just go straight to our area. We´ll see. I will not be with Elder Vosters.. I will be with my trainer.. AHHHH.

 Let me know about that referal from the Robleys and tell her thank you! They don´t really teach us the cultural side of things.. I think just cuz its hard to say exactly what it is.. you just have to experience it. No worries. I´ll catch on quick! :) Thank you for the spiritual thoughts! So good!

A couple things..

I´d love to hear how dads calling is going.. specifics por favor.. I wanna see some pictures of the yard and the chickens and the coop/tiles. Email me some! :)

Love everyone!! Glad to hear everyones doing well! Godspeed!

Everythings great! My comp just wanted to go quicker today..... :/ haha no prob. Love you! Love everyone!

-Elder Norton

So, that was a very short email, I guess at the request of his companion, but I also received a letter from Sam this past week. It was a beautiful Mother's Day / Birthday letter, and here is a portion of it I want to share:                                                                                                             Joanna

"I don't want to stop writing because for some reason this feels more real than emailing ...:) Everything here is great! So, so good. It is all etremely hard. HaHa  I'll be honest ... but the positive consequences of our doings are great and thats what allows us to continually move forward and learn. I am constantly amazed by the missionaries that struggle so much with the language, or don't know a lot of the doctrine, or have families that aren't supportive, (I've seen many of these) because they are so filled with determination and drive! They keep moving forward, even through struggles. They are amazing!

  One thing I have come to know for sure is that through total devotion, meaning as much as you can give at that moment in your life, the Lord can do amazing things for you and with you. When we devote ourselves as much as we can to His cause, we become instruments by which the Lord can bring others into the fold of His happiness. If we are living that way, we only have to be ourselves and Christ will shine through us in order to bring Eternal happiness to others.

  I love you Mother! Not a day goes by that I don't think about you and everyone back home."

 - Love, Elder Norton

Sam's 4th Email Madrid, Spain MTC

This .....

plus this .....

equals THIS!

Hello everyone!

¡Todo bien aqui!

Everything is really great here! Learning a ton, being expected of a ton.. hah learning even more! Meeting legit Spaniards and understanding more and more each time.. getting used to everything here.. aka lots of fish (probably 5 lunches a week and 3 or 4 dinners a week are fish), I´m adjusted to the time change.. more or less adjusted to the sleep schedule, adjusted to the workload and daily study schedule.. really really pumped about being able to spend more and more time learning the gospel more deeply, and about being able to share these truths with so many in Spain.

Hermana Norton´s farewell sounded super funny! Happy to hear that Elder Alder is home. Tell him hi for me! It also sounded like the mtc drop off was crazy! Haha I LOVED the picture of her being dropped off! And all the other pictures too! Haha so great! ADAM. What a boss! And I know exactly how you feel about being able to hear their voice through the text... I can hear each of your as well. Thanks for all the support. I really do love all the emails and we were notified that we are allowed 1 hour to email instead of just 30 mins. Everyone was trying to finish in 30 and just going over and then someone told us that we have an hour so family emails are welcome. I´ll try to communicate with everyone!  I´ll do my best ! We do get to call on mothers day!!! WOOOOP!

I will be calling on Sunday at 5:30 pm HERE and it will be 9:30 AM THERE, IN UTAH. I think your church is at 1 so I hope that will work. We get 30 mins to talk and we call from the mtc so we don´t need any cards or money or anything. If that time or something doesn´t work just email me asap and i´ll let them know. As for the package... I just finished those chocolate covered raisins (they are theee best treat to have cuz basically no one here likes then but I love them so I get them all to myself... :)) so if you have room for those that would be nice.. Haha also, so more asea again, I mentioned that last time.. my first camera card (cleared off) with some of the best pictures printed off would be cool. A picture of Christ taped on the box helps the packages to go untouched as well. Everyone says that mail system here is good. Lots better than some south american countries but still it wouldn't hurt to tape one on. And that's all! Thanks! Packages are taking about 2 weeks so if you send it soon(next 1,2,3 days), send it to the madrid, mtc.

Now for my semanalmente lista de random cosas!!

-I just got called to be District Leader. Cool! :)

-Haha I was looking through those pictures you attached to the last email and I was looking at the one of Hilary and Samantha and the elder next to me was like.........who's that??? and after I told him hes like..... Well... I'll be facebook friends with her after the mission?! :) hahah so funny.

-Sooo coool! This mtc is for missionaries that will serve in Spain that come here to learn Spanish, and ALSO for missionaries from European countries that will be serving in their native country that need to go to an MTC for three weeks to go through the teaching and doctrinal training and whatnot so its so awesome here! Our first three weeks, we had like 10 missionaries that are from Portugal that will be serving in either Portugal or South Africa and most of them only spoke portugese.... no idea how to spell that... and then there were a couple, including their teachers that could speak portugese, spanish, and most of them english as well so it was soo cool to hear all the languages. NOW, because we just finished our 3rd week here, they all left and like 12 or 14 Russian, Ukrainian, and Italian missionaries just got here yesterday! SOOO COOOL. We did a session this morning cuz we do one every week and this one was in russian for several of the missionaries that hadn´t yet gone through. It was so interesting! We get little radios and head phones that have all these different language translations too so we can listen to it in spanish and english. I´ve been doing a little of both to help me learn. Its fun. :) Anyways, its super cool. I really would love to come home and learn 1, 2, 3 more languages. There's a teacher here that knows 7 languages and is currently working on spanish and portugese. He says after you learn your second and third language it get easier to learn cuz you know how you learn and they best way to learn. AHH so cool.

-I sang "I Know That My Redeemer Lives" this past Sunday.

-We heard the goals for barcelona and malaga... barcelona´s yearly baptism goal is 600 and they met that last year... and malaga´s is around 350 a year. :) exciting. I guess the malaga mission surpassed that last year too. So pumped!

-Aaaaaaaand thats all!!!!!

I love everyone!! So much! Mother! Happy mothers day very soon! We will talk sunday morning at 9:30 am, utah time. Remember, every missionary a member, every member a missionary!!

-Elder Norton

Nutella and the Giant Finn (Sam's 3rd email from Spain)

 

Hey hey hey!

Thanks for your e-mail!  That article is so awesome. We honestly just walked in from doing a temple session today so everything is fresh. Interesting stuff.. :)

  Ok, so i´m emailing a day early, yes, because today is our p day this week. Today is Labor Day and tomorrow is another holliday for Spain.. so all the teachers had to switch their schedules around and it would work better to have pday today so anyways, sorry if this throws anything off but today is pday and then next week it will be back to Thursday.
  Soo everything is suuper awesome. It really is! I love it. We´re working super, super hard and trying to SYL/HSI (speak Spanish exclusively) a lot.. its just hard cuz we are all so close and we want to just talk and talk all the time and its tough.. :) esta bien!

Haha honestly.. this is random but I can´t help but express how good life is right now. I wish I could share what I am feeling right now.. I love you all so much. There is so much love in our family and I can´t help but feel it day in and day out. Thank you all for the love you have showed to me through the years and also for all the little emails and things that I get from you. I miss you all so very much but I know i´m where i´m supposed to be. I´m serving our Savior and I know He will bless me and Hilary as we serve, as well as the family at home for supporting us. Thanks. Never take anything for granted because it ALL comes from the Lord.

-My comp and I are doing sooo good! We really have been working way hard and I am so amazed at how much we're learning and retaining. It is hard. It´s really hard but he´s doing it. Basically everything we were taught in the first 3 and a half weeks, he has relearned as we´ve worked together in just over a week. We´re both learning so much and maturing so much and I know it is all thanks to the Spirit. Please continue to pray for me and Elder V. as well. Thanks!

-Oh, this is kinda funny... You know Nutella... The really good chocolate spread... Well I don´t know if they eat it in spain a lot but they have it in the mtc here and everyone loves it. Its soo good. Haha so we basically have nutella every meal... :) Whether its with fruit... or on bread or toast... orr.... with whatever! We have it all the time. If you don´t know what i´m talking about you haven´t lived yet.........

-Haha we have this super funny companionship in our district. Funny/ikindaworryaboutthemsometimes... Its this kid from Orem high who is a sick wrestler, ju jit su (?) fighter, and UFC fighter basically.. and his comp is from Finland...  just think of the epitome of a northern europe fin and thats who this is. He´s like 6´3, a little bit bigger, and he has like the driest sense of humor ever. He´s kind of intimidating sometimes. Haha so put him with a short, stalky ju jit su fighter that doesn´t like people touching him.... They're so hilarious together. They're actually doing well though. They´re both softening up a little and becoming more humble so its great. The fighter one was shining his shoes the other day and actually offered to shine my shoes for me... Hah.. I was like yeah sure! And he´s like.. just a little charity.. :) Now I just gotta get him to have some of that charity for his stubborn Finish comp. :D

-Oh! I´m playing tons of piano.. tons. Like, basically all the meetings I play the prelude, the hymns, and the postlude. Theres one other guy that plays too but people always ask him to acompany them in musical numbers so he was like, "you can play the hymns during meetings". I´m really glad I am cuz its forcing me to use my music and try to learn more. I constantly have a list of like 10 hymns that I´m trying to play well enough that they could be sung to.. Its hard when people are singing and someone is leading the music cuz you have to stay in time.. we´ll see!

-ADAM. Pull out your ESPAÑOL sticks!!! Helaman 10:4-5!!!!!!!! Hah those two verses use a word that I knew and no one else knew. You wanna know how I knew it?¿?¿? YOU!!!!! Thank You BRO.

- Yesterday we had this maestra with a wigidy wack accent. I wish I could record a couple of sentences in normal spain spanish that we´ve been hearing and then the same sentences in her spanish cuz it was weird! Like... any word that ended in an N she would half swallow the last part of the word and put a Gish sound after the N... its hard to explain.. just say ´´con´´ and then say ´´cong´´... or say ´´situación´´ and then say ´´situacióngg´´........ basically that. Oh and plus that ´ceta´ so it would be more like ´´situathióngg´´.. she would also drop the ends of the words sometimes or just totally drop our ´S´s entirely.... like for example if she was saying madrid spain it would sound like Madri Epañia instead of Madrid Españia. or instead of felizidad for happyness it would be felithida... mas or menos. Haha I was understanding most of it but still it was... weird. :) If Hilary reads this before she goes in, (........ AHHHHHH..........) just be glad your learning that spainish... Haha I don´t know if i´ll be saying that when I come home.. I may have too much spain spanish pride but it is definitely difficult.

-Last thing I'd really love to get addresses of where my friends will be in the summer and fall so I can write to them. Can you guys try to get those for me? thanks!

Anyways! I love you all! Hilary, I love you! Do well in the MTC! You´ll do great! I´m over 1/24th done! AHH! :)

-Elder Norton

Sam's 2nd email Madrid, Spain MTC

 Who played hard core soccer with real Spaniards??? This Guy!

Hola a todos!!

Hilary and Adam, I am going to try to answer your emails so this email won't have much to you..

Its great to hear that everyone is doing great! I wish I could better convey how I am doing. Its is awesome here and although it really is a lot of work and very challenging, I am loving every minute of it, and I wouldn't be any other place. I remember so many times thinking about missionaries and wishing I could call them up and see how thier doing. Now I'm the missionary and I wish I could call home and update with everyone there. Just know that I'm doing well!! :)

Ok so randomly throughout the week, things pop into my head and I write them down so I can tell you. Let me start my list of random things..... :)

-I saw a mini cooper one time and it reminded me of mom.. :)

-Hilary! Every Sunday at the Provo mtc, they have a devotional at night and then everyone gets to go to reruns of devotionals or a church movie after the live devotional. GO TO ´´The Character of Christ´´ by David A. Bednar... Soo good. And if you can find it before you go in, watch it with Adam! Please!

-Basically here, we have fish every day.. at least one meal a day, if not two will have some sort of fish dish or shrimp or muscle in it.... Mmmmmm! :)

-I am actually really liking the lisp accent. It sounds suuuper wierd when you first hear it but I have grown to like it and I like using it. Just be prepped to hear it when I come home.. :)

-Madrid has soccer fields called soccer courts all over the place! Its so sweet! When we have work out time, we run like 4 or 5 minutes down the street to this sweeeet cement soccer court stadium. I´ll take a picture or two of it and send it home but picture a cement court with full seating around the whole thing... and.. how should I explain this.. its like the top seat in the bleachers is street level so you walk up to it and it drops way down to the court and its almost always open! :) I think everyones gonna go play after we email actually. :) (btw, I blocked a PK when we were playing on it yesterday... I was kinda proud..)

-OH! I'm really really glad we got another suit. Thank you mother! We don't use them a ton cuz its decently warm weather but we go to the temple weekly and we have two devotionals a week and we use them enough that im really glad I have it. Thanks again.

-On that note.. the weather has been super nice. Not as bad as I had expected and/or heard it would be. Like today, its been kinda rainy and overcast. Not complaining though! :)

-Ok so mom, you mentioned that we all went to the park... ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE PARK  huuuuge... has this lake in the middle of it where people can go boating and it has these little street shops all through it... and has massive fountains that are super old school and old, old building ruins that are crumbling and cool stuff like that. so anyways, we get to go and talk to people every Saturday and you do little comp exchanges and I actually got paired up with Elder Archulettas old comp.. Hah kinda cool. His name is Elder Escobar. He leaves for Barcelona tonight. He was on the three week plan thing. So the park was really awesome. At the end of our hour and a halfish time there we all met back together at one of the main spots in the middle of the park and we sang three hymns. Elder Escobar and I were asked to be the ones that contacted people that stopped to listen. We didn´t have a ton of success but we learned a lot and had a couple of reeeally interesting conversations.. :) Some people start talking and then they don´t stop.... haha and quite a few actually have horrible mumbling and slurring problems.. Like I'm not just saying that cuz I couldn't understand their Spanish, i´m saying it cuz they honestly could not form words.... haha so anyways, we´re doin our best but its tough. Quite a few people from other countries too.. that surprised me.. lots of travelers that didn´t speak english or spanish. Frustrating.

  ...... I KNOW the Spirit is prompting me and I KNOW that the Spirit is helping me learn.

We had to go get some passport picture for our residency forms (like 16 or 18 missionaries... we kinda filled the shop) went to this shop to get pictures and no one could understand the lady and so I went up and figured it out :) and then a missionary wanted to buy a watch too so I helped him and then she explained where to go to get the links out and I had this little convo with her.... Haha it felt really good. But anyways, we´re learning... Spanish, the Gospel, and how to get through life WITH THE SPIRIT. We are all learning so much about that and its awesome. Elder Vosters, my comp, testified last night in a little district testimony meeting we had of the things he is learning and feeling and it was a happy moment for me. :) Anyways, I´m over and I gotta go kick some trash on the soccer court. Love you all!!!!

                  -Elder Norton

Sam's First Email From Madrid, Spain MTC

 A sailboat works ONLY with the presence of wind.

Similarly, life ONLY works with the presence of trials.
Our life is the ocean. We Must Have Wind to go anywhere!
KNOW that the Lord will never give you more wind 

than you can withstand. 

1 Cor 10:13
When we do have wind, we can be confident we are learning
and growing. When we think we can no longer withstand how
much wind we have blowing at us, remember that the Lord

can and will stop the winds when we come unto him.

Matt 8:24-27.

Hello!! We are in Madrid! FYI, the keyboards for the computers here are weird.. haha they're in Spanish so i´ll probably be typing stuff wrong a lot cuz the spacing is all different. Aannnyways!

We ran out of time on the phone when I was at the SLC airport but I got what you were saying and I went and bought an SD card. We flew to Atlanta and we had to book it hardcore to catch our connecting flight.. so we got there with like 2 mins before we had to board.. so I tried to call home again and dad picked up but he couldn´t hear me talking but I could hear him...:/ so I jumped over to a different phone and called again and it ate my dollar and then cut my call off............ D: so <i had no more coins and no more time.. Haha lo siento, encerio. But anyways! Todo bien!

Our flight to Madrid was.. long. But good. They served us snacks, dinner, and breakfast... and I didn´t sleep at all. My mind focuses on like anything that is going on so it has always been hard for me to fall asleep when everyone i´m with is not sleeping. So its 3:00 pm here and I haven´t slept since... like 6 am Tuesday morning. Sorry if I sound like I´m dead or something... i´m just super tired. And they're having us not sleep so we can get on the right sleep schedule, which makes sense but its just rough cuz we all want to nap.  ADAM. I wish I could've talked to you today when they picked you up from school but like I said, the pay phones were eating my coins ... I officially dislike payphones. :)

Everything here is good. We´re trying to get all situated. I´m in a room with three other elders. We all got new comps and my new comp is Elder Vosters. He and his twin brother are both here. One is going to Barcelona and my comp is going to Málaga. They're from Alta area I guess. I really like the other districts we´re gonna be working with.. or at least that we traveled with. E. Peters and I are in different districts now but esta bien. We´ll still see each other often, this mtc is relatively small.

Oh so BTW, the temple is honestly 30 yards from the mtc here. Like, you ``look out the window and what do you see?´´ The super bright and shining white templo!! Its really great. Anyways, don´t have much to say.. the food is good, the weather hasn´t been bad, President and Sister Sitterud recognized me right away....  and I told him y'all said hi. They say hi back! President also asked about everyone coming to Italy. When is everyone coming out?

Anywhoo, all is well in Zion/... Madrid/... when you´re serving the Lord. I just need more sleep. :)

I love you Mom! I love you Dad! I love you Mitch Jennica Caden Branson and soon-to-be-number-three! I love you Hilary! I love you Adam! I know that sounds really generic(¿sp?) but I promise I truly mean it for each of you! I think of each of you daily!

-Elder Norton

On a plane...to Spain...in the rain

Madrid Spain Missionary Training Center

Elder Samuel Norton and about 10 or 12 other missionaries left the Provo MTC this morning headed for Spain. The itinerary included an early flight to Atlanta, Georgia, a two hour layover there, and then a long fight to Spain arriving early tomorrow morning.

Sam called us from the Salt Lake Airport to say goodbye (normal church procedure) and told us their flight to Atlanta was delayed. We only spoke for a couple of minutes because he wanted to call later in the day when Adam was home. The time came and went and we never heard from him. Jon did a little research and found out that the morning SLC flight to ATL was very late .... maybe late enough to make them miss the connection to Spain ... ? We don't know so .... stay tuned
                                                                                                                                       Joanna