"The Priesthood is Real ... wow...miracles!" (Sam)

Elder Norton received his package of birthday letters.
A BIG thanks to all you you that helped out!

Hello!

   Sorry its taken forever to write; this week has been crazy! I got the package with the letters and the suckers. :) The best. Ahh and thank you for putting money in my account, you guys are the best!

   SIGH.... ok a quick update on whats happened lately.. President called us saturday morning and informed us that I was going to Sevilla to train and REopen an area that has been absorbed into another area for now. There are two wards in Sevilla and the elders in Sevilla 1 are working in both areas so its more or less ´´closed´´.. and President also told us that Pascua would train and whatnot. 

Saturday, we had an awwesome noche de hogar with this part member family! Ahhh fantastic people. They are from Bolivia and the mom is a member from when she was little. Most of the brothers and sisters(now all grown ups) are less active. Well she, Aa, is married to Cs and the have a son named C as well. He has had word of wisdom problems but he was able to quit when he listened to some Jehovah´s Witnesses. Its interesting how the Lord prepares people... :) So anyways, our awesome líder misional called her one day and invited her to church... and she came and brought her husband and son! So anyways, we had an awesome Family Home Evening on saturday and then Sunday was testimony meeting. I gave my testimony and basically my ´´last words´´.. haha and then Sunday night we had a charla fogonera or a fireside. It was an hour long and we (Pascua y yo) taught for like 50 minutes. We were given all the time and it was awwesome! We spoke on la obra misional, the missionary work, and we involved the members and watched a video from the Preach My Gospel dvd´s that train the missionaries and then we did practices on how to talk with their friends and introduce the Gospel in the conversations. :) We enjoyed seeing members practice and repractice and get down how to speak  fluidly about the gospel. I ended up saying "goodbyes" again though.. hah kinda awkward.

   Monday, instead of P-day, we went to Alicante and listened to the Europe area Seventy Elder Tiexeira ?... And it was amazing! We left that building with soo many new ideas that we´re already putting into practice.

   Yesterday and today have been a lot of goodbyes. I have never liked goodbyes.. I always feel like they're weird.. and awkward like.. ok well, thanks for everything.. it was great to meet you.. thanks for all the food you made us... and well thanks.. and add me on facebook, I´ll accept you in a year.. and.... well ok bye! Hah :) We´ve been taking pictures though. A lot we´ve taken with other cameras cuz my camera is junky. I need a new one. I´ll send you some of the pictures next p-day... IN MY NEXT AREA. 

Wow. I just got here! Hah sorry, the mission is just rough.. always meeting new people.. putting so much energy, thought and worry into them, and then they change you... I guess its a good thing that the Lord has a purpose for everything.

   Anyways, I´m rambling now.. To answer some of your questions.. I have mixed feelings about leaving Alcoy already. We have soooo much going here. We honestly have set up an immense train of "dominoes" here. Someone will be baptized and it will set off the huge train and honestly like 8 people will be baptized! Ha! This always happens to me! :) But it makes me so happy to see people get baptized and receive the blessings of baptism. Anyways, Elder Pascua and I have really been led by the Spirit to start this place off well and leave a good name and work here for other missionaries that will be coming. This will not be a dead area. I´m very proud of our work. Its a hard, hard area but it will be changing. I know very little about Sevilla. It won´t be nearly as cold there!.. thats good! and I THINK.. i think... I´ll be with my pops! Elder Jones! I hope!

   Well, we have to go and give a blessing before our english class... I love you all so much!! The Priesthood Is Real. We have given like 4 or 5 blessings in the last week and a half.. and WOW.. miracles! I´ll fill you all in one day! Love you!

-Elder Norton

ps: sorry this message was so scattered... ha!

"Everyone tells me that I have the Andelucía accent which is like more.... more.. hick ish.." (Sam)

"I don't talk like no hick!"

Good morning family and friends!

   The ESPAÑA MÁLAGA mission is the best!

   Things are great! Alcoy is a very hard area but Elder Pascua and I are tearing it up! :) ¡Estamos a fuegote! (we're on fire!) :) Later in the email I´ll update you on everything.

   First things first... Papa, about picking us up from our missions.. I´m easy. I´ll do what the mayoría wants. My opinion would be wait till after and visit both places like you said. They advise us to not be picked up directly from the mission.. and I think more than anything its because it messes with the visas. And with the visas... how they are... I don´t want to be adding to the problem. I think it would be better that way anyways. Me da equal if we go to Ecuador or España first... I´m good with either way... but I would LOVE to go see ecuador. Ohh! I would love to. Anyways, thats my opinion.. but like I said, I´m easy.

   Ok, anyways! I sent you my address just barely in another email... and we are waiting for a couple things for Elder Pascua here at that address so we will be here a while. We both hope to change pisos after he gets his stuff though so I´ll keep you updated. I´m really glad you got my package! Hah it totally arrived late.. but just cuz I didn´t send it with enough time before christmas. The mail systems get all clogged up, I know, but I had to learn it the hard way. hah I don´t know if you remember during our phone call on christmas, I paused for a second like I was going to ask you something and then I said.. oh nevermind....... haha I was going to ask if you had gotten the package.... haha but you hadn´t said anything about it so I left it alone.... so that it´d be a surprise! :) I´m glad you enjoyed it. Sorry the presents are kinda dumb.. haha I couldn´t send too big of things cuz it costs a ton but I found what I could. :)

   Elder Hafen has called me a couple times with questions or little things and he said that the day I left (I left early in the morning) two letters arrived to our piso.. hah.... one from you guys.. probably the christmas card, and one from the Luis´, the family in our ward I think. I still don´t have them but i´ll get´em soon. No os preocupéis.

   Ok, a little update. Last week was great! Los estandartes de excelencia de la misión or The Mission Standards of Excelence are the goals that we want to achieve every week. We set specific goals for our areas every week as companionships but Los estandartes and mission-wide general goals.. The goal for amount of lessons taught in one week is 20 and obviously depending on the area and the missionaries and everything its different.. but this last week we taught 14 and we are very content with that. We are reopening the area.. the missionaries from before left us with........ nada.. basically.. haha and we have also heard that ´´when alcoy was part of the barcelona mission it was a dead area..´´ PSH! WE LOVE THIS PLACE. :) yes its hard but that doesn't mean its dead! It just means you gotta look harder and smarter in the places you haven´t looked yet! We´re really enjoying this place and we have several awesome families we´re working with right now.

   The ward here is good. We have heard that there may have been some confusion somewhere in the past here that helped the branch receive its own capilla and become a ´´ward´´..  There are few priesthood holders.. many many less actives...... its a very interesting situation.. ... Anyways, there are great people here! Really. .........  We´ll see how everything goes! Jacob 2:11-14&19-22......

   Elder Pascua and I are getting along great. I´ve been really tired lately and every once and a while I´ll get kinda sick of speaking spanish all the time and he´s really good cuz he´s more than happy to switch over the english and work on his english. Thats one thing we need to do more of is practice his english. He knows bastante but we just need to practice more. The language here is cool. This part of spain is super prideful and there is a huge part of spain that considers itself its one country... like not part of spain. Or they are trying to separate themselves from Spain or something dumb.. but they all speak this other language, Catalán.. and then there´s another separation inside of Cataluña (the part that wants to separate)... and thats Valencia.. and they speak valenciano...... which is the exactly the same language as catalán.. its just they are too prideful to agree on a name.. so anyways, here, ´´they speak valenciano´´ cuz they get offended if you call it catalán.. and Elder Pascua grew up in Barcelona learning Catalán so he´s teaching me. Everyone speaks both languages here. Valenciano (catalán) and Spanish (castellano they call it). Its super complicated but everyone speaks the spanish i´ve been learning my whole mission down more south in murcia and malaga and whatnot. Haha its funny though. Everyone tells me that I have the Andelucía accent which is like more.... more.. hick ish.. or more just like a different accent. One of the first member families that we ate with was commenting on my accent and everything and how they liked it and thought it was funny and one of the older women said to me.. ´´I´ll be honest, its better to have the accent that you have.´´ She was like... ´´You don´t have an american accent at all...´´ :) Yaaay!!! That made me super happy! I´ve been working really hard on my accent and that it flows out fluidly and not all choppy and that felt really good to hear that. Dad, what did you think of the lispy ´´graTHias´´ ´´diTHe´´ accent?´´ :) Did you notice it? It´ll be really fun to all speak spanish together!

   Oh, a couple things...

-Pops, I got the jump drive thing. Its awesome! There is actually some music still left on it. Like rock or country or somethin.. haha can I erase what i want? Thanks again, it works great!

-THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL MY CHRISTMAS STUFF. I never really thanked you for everything. WOW. Thank you so much for the candy the presents the notes the cards and letters and clothes, everything! Thank you!

-Oh, hah.. I thought of something the other day.. next time a package comes my way could you stuff so good beef jerky in the box. :) No rush.. just the next one. That would rock.

-Could you please send me my priesthood line? If you could, I would like a smallish page or something with my priesthood line back to Jesus Christ. We obviously teach that point a lot and its one thing to explain the unbroken chain to Christ, and its another thing to show them la cadena ininterrumpida. :) Maybe something the size of like an english Book of Mormon cover. That size of paper. I have a side bag that I carry with me and a paper that size would be awesome. Ask me if you have specific questions of how you should do it. I trust your judgement.

-annnd thats all.

   I love you all very much! Thanks for your support and prayers! We feel it.

   Read daily! It will give you strength.

-Elder Norton