"Amazing man ... Great little lesson!" (Sam)

Hello!!

   Wow the weeks are flying by! Its going too fast! I have to slow this down somehow. Its great to hear from each of you - I love the updates and I´m happy to hear you´re all well. I´m doing great here, a little sunburnt from soccer this morning but doing very well!

   This past week has been great. Sunday, we had an attendance at our english branch of 30 people! Which is 150% of what we usually have. Being stationed here along the most sunny/vacationy spots in this part of the world, we get quite a few families and people that end up coming to our ward on Sundays because they´re away from their home ward. There is a large, (100 people weekly) Spanish ward here but all of the vacationers come to our branch because English is a more commonly spoken language than Spanish throughout the rest of Europe. This last Sunday we had a visiting family of 4 from Finland and a visiting family of 5 from Sweden. We have several members here from the Philipines and a member here from Egypt as well.. kind of a fun group. :) After church we all went over the missionary couple´s apartment for the ´´munch and mingle´´ that we have once a month.. name chosen by our members from england obviously. :)

   On wednesday we went out to visit a family in the Spanish ward that are basically the housekeepers of this reeeally nice house owned by a very wealthy man from eastern europe. They invited us out to the big house to ´help with some cleaning´ (and we honestly thought we were going to clean with them) but then they ended up just purposefully finishing early and just giving us a tour of the house and lunch..... haha SCORE. :) They told us that this guy has houses in about 8 countries in europe so when he´s not in spain they spend a good amount of time in the house......... Haha :D DOUBLE SCORE!

   After that we visited a recent convert of the APs (they had planned to visit and ran out of  time) . This guy lives (or lived I guess) in the coolest little town. Look it up on google images.. its called Benahavis. I would live there if I came back to live in Spain... so anyways, he used to live there but he has very very little money and he had to leave his house, so he found this torn down old shack of a restaurant... and he´s living in it now.. :)  And the man is SO happy and content! I love it! We had decided before hand that we would teach about tithing and when we pulled into the town he flags us down from his car and has us follow him aaaaall the way up the mountain to his little broken down shack... and we just looked at each other and said...... ´´diezmo ¿no?...´´ :) ´´tithing, right?´´.... so we go in and begin teaching--- go in, not really in.... we walked through the front gate where had several old chairs set up.. and we sat there and caught up a bit.  We had the first prayer and mentioned our topic and began teaching a little and he cut us off and said, can I go grab something..? and he runs inside and comes back out with this metal can with a slit cut in the top side big enough to fit a coin in... and he says.. ´´whenever I can, I run down to this parking lot down in the city and I traffic the people and cars that are parking and sometimes they give me a little tip. When I come home, I thank the Lord for what he has given me and I always put a tenth of what I earn in this can, feel it.´´.. and he passes it over to me.. It was surprisingly heavy and I passed it over to Elder Butler.. so anyways, I learned a coool lesson that day. Or better said, I was reminded of a cool lesson that day... Having a lot or having a little doesn´t necesarily make you happy or sad, what makes you happy or sad is your outlook on what you have or don´t have. Amazing man. Great little lesson.

   Everything else this week has been boring office stuff... :) Paying rent for all the pisos in the mission, ordering new cell phones for the new misisonaries that are coming, paying bills, renting tons of new pisos, car breaking down twice, missionaries cell phones and credit cards getting lost, stolen, or broken... you know, the works. :) 

I do get to speak tomorrow in the English branch! I gave my testimony at the start of the month and had only brought my Spanish scriptures, I got up there thinking about a scripture I wanted to share, and thinking I´d just be able to translate it quick or think of the English version of it.. and I looked down at the scripture and said....... basically nothing.... cuz I couldn´t translate it into MY OWN LANGUAGE....... haha so i´m sittin there struggling and a big arm reaches over my shoulder and sets a big english ´´quad´´ down in front of me with the scripture open... :) Thanks branch presidency!... haha so anyways, we´ll see how this talk goes tomorrow. The topic the branch president gave me was ´´The Atonement and Missionary Work´´................................ The most open, broad topic EVER. hahah We´ll see!

   Hey I gotta go, Love You! Thanks for everything! Keep the people/marriage/mission updates coming!! I thought the world back home was gonna stop when I left but I was wrong!! :) Keep me informed! BYE!

-Élder Norton

ps: how much time do Sam Johnson and Will Montgomery have in the mission? They´ll totally be serving at the same time right?? I WANT TO ROOM WITH THOSE TO GUYS AFTER THE MISH! THEY ARE THE BEST!

Watch as the Savior teaches about the Widow's Mite

Mark 12:41–44

"we peeled off the wings and shell, fried them and ate them with salt." (Hilary)

Dear everyone,

Mom, I imagine you are in your piano lessons or in the temple by this point. Dad, probably working. Mitch, also working. Sam, probably in una cita. And Adam, probably studying or learning something new. Sorry I didn't write yesterday. I hope Monday went well for you all. I love you more than I can say.

Yesterday we had a training meeting that we weren't told about until Saturday, so sorry I couldn't give you all a heads up. It was with Elder Waddell, a seventy, who learned his Spanish in Spain serving his mission in Barcelona and then later returning to be a mission president. I got a glimpse of what Sam's accent will be like. He began by talking about the organithathion de la Iglesia and lo que tenemos que hather para mejorar and stuff like that. No, but really, it was super powerful and exactly what I needed. I am going to include some of what I learned...
Entonthes...

Our calling as missionaries is to recoger (D&C 29:7) those who are chosen, or, those who will listen to the voice of the Lord.

Exito en la mision es lograr su capacidad.

Saber + hacer = exalta. Saber + no hacer = condena

L has really had a huge change from the first day we met him, when he didn't believe in God. We taught him about tithing the other day and it was the first lesson that he didn't accept. But when we saw him Sunday, he said he had been thinking about it and would strive to pay his tithing. Previously (before we met him) he had problems with the Word of Wisdom and we have been contacting him daily to help him to keep from falling. He explained to us how Saturday and Sunday God helped to keep him from drinking. He had been doing his part, and when it got tough, Heavenly Father kept His end of the promise as well. We have another investigator that is searching for the truth like Joseph Smith. Her name is N. The other day she fasted. I have really learned a lot from how hard she is working to come to the truth and we are trying to do what we can to help her along the way. M is doing so well. Her baptism reactivated her husband's whole family. JM is doing okay. His daughter really wants to be baptized but isn't getting the support she needs.  We are working really hard with her.

Okay, as for this week on the food update,Tuesday we had Cathso (escarabajo [beatles]). Eeeaaaaaarly in the morning, the Otavaleños hike up to the mountains and gather the white beatles and then we peeled off the wings and the shell parts and fried them and ate them with salt. I have some videos I am going to see if I can send somehow. Exciting experience!

Okay, please let Caitlin know that I love her, got her email, and I am responding tonight. And that I miss her. And that she is one of my best friends ever. And that I say hi to CJ and thanks for taking good care of her. It was fun to hear from her. I love receiving email and letters because it is so much easier to see how great our lives are from the outside.

Mom, don't worry about the flash drives. It will work. And although the first time on the mission I heard Christmas, it did make me homesick, now I am singing Christmas hymns all the time. So don't worry. I love you, Mom and Dad.

My red shoes are 6.5 and they fit perfectly. I hope the new ones you bought are okay. And the make-up is the Bare Essentials powder.

Okay, tell Bryce and Mel that I say congratulations. Yesterday Hermana Ghent told me that I have a "missionary family." It is so true. I love that we are all on different ends of this work. And I love the quote that Brother Berry shared. It is so true.

Okay, wait, Trevor is engaged?¿ I need to conocerla! Where is she from? Please tell Trev to send me a letter and picture.
 Grathias.

Okay, Sam. I literally was laughing out loud when I read the first line of your letter. I tried to explain it to my companion, but realized it wasn't that funny. Just funny for me because I could see your face and hear your voice when I read it. I hope the work is going well for you. I love you and pray for you every day (and really you're getting double the blessings because you fall into two circles of the venn diagram ["Please bless my family.", "Please bless the missionaries serving at this time."]). I laughed when I read about the woman who was "active" in the wrong church. A while ago we contacted a woman and helped her and her sick daughter by explaining that she can receive a priesthood blessing. Now she is attending her old church, although she understands that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the church that has the authority to offer this blessing. Somewhere there is a disconnect that I don't understand. Ha. Oh, and Kati's car was a PT Cruiser.

Yesterday, the closing song for the meeting was "La Luz de la Verdad." Yesterday's training meeting was with about half of the mission and I have never heard a group of people singing so loudly. It was so powerful.

Also, I saw Sam Harris yesterday!!!! She got to the mission like seven weeks ago and sent me a note and I wrote her back and a couple people have mentioned that she says hi, but it was so good to be able to see her! I love her and we feel like a little piece of home is here with us in Ecuador. I hope someday we can be companions.

Saturday was a baptism of some elders in our zone. We brought L and the elders knew he had been struggling with the idea of paying his tithing. They are so great. Our zone leader gave a talk and it was literally exactly what this investigator needed. These kids are great. I have a lot of respect for them.

Mom, please tell everyone that wrote me in October that I say thank you for the letters and advice. I don't have lots of time to respond, and I now have a list of 31 people to respond to. But let them know that I AM grateful.

Okay, I love you all. Live according to what you know. Live in harmony with your understanding, as PMG says. Be what God wants and needs you to be.

Hermana Norton