"…last thing she said was 'I'm so excited for my baptism!' " (Sam)

Hello! Good to hear from you. Thanks for always trying to send me the emails before I get on. I know its weird with my P-day on saturday but fyi I´ve received them in time every week so we´re good.

I cut my hear like right after I sent the last SD card.. hah so all the pictures you saw were before my hair cut. Its nice and short now.

After I emailed last week I remembered other things that I hadn´t told you about.. so this week you´re gonna a two week mix. :D

This week has been good. The normal people that we visit have been gone or busy this week so the few lessons that we usually teach are even fewer this week. Its alright. We have found (and preach my gospel says) that daily contact, even a phone call, text, or a little note will help maintain trust and a good relationship with investigators and members. We have very little time to proselyte but if (and when) we use it right, we see the fruits. For example, S and A  that were baptized. ALSO, an incredible woman from Iran that the Elders here in Fuengirola found. She´s from Iran, speaks persian and a little bit of english, has been studying Christianity for 12 years, moved to spain like 2 months ago, found the elders and immediately started coming to church and IS BEING BAPTIZED TOMORROW. Incredible. 

She is soo couragous and so so ready. I KNOW she has been prepared and desired to follow God´s plan before she came to earth. She just believes! Her name is G and president Deere is baptizing her. We started working with her a few  weeks ago because she doesn´t speak spanish and has been attending our branch for the last while. Plus she just knows people in our english branch and the members have really brought her in. She´s unreal. 

We´re excited and yesterday we met with her and the last thing she said was

 "I´m so excited for my baptism!" WOW

We got a new car this week. Like.. new new. Like, I-drove-it-off-the-lot new. Like it had 13 kilometers and basically zero gas cuz IT HAD NEVER BEEN USED..... I guess ever like 5 or 8 years each car is switched out and we were just lucky that we had the car when they switched it! Its an automatic too. Suuper weird change from driving stick for the last 9 months of my life.. I swung in, sat down, put my right foot on the brake, and my left foot on the............ nothing. :) hah also weird when it starts moving forward without you having to do anything! Woah! Technology...!

Last week basically all of these months of brainbusting overwhelming office work came to fruition when I found a huge mistake in the financial archives of the mission´s payment system... (if you don´t know anything about accounting like I didn´t before I came to the office this probably won´t make much sense to you... sorry). My job here is basically declare or ´´journal´´ (the term used to declare or report) all of the expenses (and ALL means ALL)(down to every penny that every missionary uses) of our mission. To shorten the story a little bit, we have a program in the office, made by the church, that allows me to make all 90 (or so) monthly rent payments for all the apartments in the mission just by clicks basically.. instead of going to the bank in person with written bank transfers or writing checks to each landlord. It makes my job a lot easier and a lot more effective time-wise. Turns out, these monthly payments have a programmed account code ("chart of accounts" accounting stuffs) attached to each payment that will in turn automatically "journal" or declare the money payed to its corresponding account. (those of you that just reread that last sentence to try to understand it better, don´t worry, just continue reading and pretend to understand.... :D) Well a huge chunk of these automatic payments had an incorrectly assigned account code... and month after month after month the payments were made to the landlord, but the money was declared in a wrong account. SSSOOoooo I went back month by month through every monthly payment from this year (cuz last year has already been closed out and you can´t really get back into it) and fixed (correction journals) anywhere between 6 and 18 payments, for each month, to their correct accounts.  It ended up being this huuge project that took the entire afternoon and evening and when I finished I turned around to my companion and was like.. Look! Look what i just did! And tried to explain the whole thing to him... and he gave me the same kind of confused face you guys had when you read about all the accounting stuff. Haha It was like he wanted to be proud of me but didn´t reeeeally get the whole picture... so I just said NVM and texted elder castillo who knows a lot about accounting. :) Elder Castillo is awesome. He has called himself to be the organizer and planner of celebrations. :P so he invited us over a couple nights later for dinner and made me an apple pie to celebrate my good work. :) Don´t worry mom! They´re taking good care of me!

One last thing before I gotta go. Today we went with the Castillos, the three fuengirola hermanas, and the other single office sister that got to our mission at the beginning of october to a city down the coast from malaga called Nerja. Elder Núñez is there right now with an Elder named Elder Allen who´s birthday is on monday. We went to some cool caverns at about 10 and then went to a brazilian meat place for lunch with the Nerja Elders for Elder Allens birthday. I´ll attach pictures of these caverns. Incredible!! You can look up "cueva de nerja".

Anyways, I think thats all I we gotta go. Transfers are in a week and a half and my replacement will get transfered here! We´re excited for him to come! I´m still really torn about leaving. I feel like I´m finally really in a groove and now their booting me! :S hah Ehh! Thats the mish!

Love you all! Give Hilary a huge hug for me!

Élder Norton

"Love my mission president" (Sam)

Group Hug?

Hi there, I think I´m emailing a little early this week.. though I think you are in New York right now so we might not overlap at all today. No problem. We´ve had another good week. Things are pretty cooled down from the transfer and we´re basically caught up here. Its going to be interesting to watch what happens here in the office now that the big ´´wave of missionaries´´ has hit and is integrated into the field and not lingering over our heads so to speak.. :) I for one have definitely felt the impact of soo many more missionaries. One of my main jobs has to do with accounting/´´journaling´´ its called all missionary purchases that are not food basically... haha so missionaries will save all of the receipts they get from things like travel, butane (that some apartments require to heat the water), paper copies they make, or furnishings for the apartments, and they send them all to me and I do ´´a journal´´ or basically account for/declare all the purchases and then I refund them all that money. You can imagine... we´ve hit I think 220 missionaries.. and last week alone I did this process for 108 of them... I counted. :) hah My drawer that I normally keep all of the receipts and the documents in is filling like super fast. Haha

My companion is feeling it too cuz one of his main jobs is keeping each missionary up to date on their residency in Spain. Basically in each city you live in you have to tell the city hall or ´´ayuntamiento´´ where you are living.. Who you are living with.. you have to show them your european residency card that we get for the missionaries, and you have to show them the apartment contract. I´d say about a third of the mission (or more maybe) gets moved each transfer.. so right now, thats about 75 people... and Elder Crapo has to keep up on each of them and help them through that registration process.. and then we get all caught up and the next transfer hits... :D

Anyways, the good (bitter sweet) part is that the growth of the mission is kind of leveling off. The size of the groups going home are more or less the same size of the groups coming in. That eases a lot of stress off of the situation actually. Its going to be really interesting to see the changes made in the near future.

Every monday morning at 12 we have our weekly ´´Staff Meeting´´ with President Deere, Hermana Deere, the APs, Elder Crapo and I, the Castillos, and the other senior sister thats working here in the office named Hernana Chantrill from wyoming. This past monday, we had our normal meeting, we finished with a prayer, etc.. everyone gets up and walks out, and president turns to elder crapo and me and is like, hey can I have a work with you too?.. so we sit down, he´s in his mission president seat, hermana deere stays in the room but kinda moves over to the side and sits in a chair......... and we totally had like a heart to heart with president! :P Hah it was basically just president wanting us to hear some of his thoughts about the future of the office and him wanting some of our input..

It was actually a really great little conversation we had. One thing I love about President Deere is that he really looks into the future and always has high hopes for the future. Not necessarily specific goals.. and not really like ´´you´re doing this and I want you to be doing this´´... but more like.. He recognizes the past.. learns from it.. and then talks about his hopes or vision of the future. And just by giving us that idea.. that vision, we can work together better because we have the same end goal.

He was really appreciative of my work. It really felt good. Don´t mean to be mushy but I felt his appreciation for what I´ve been doing. I´ve known it all along.. but its easy to doubt your success or effectiveness if no outside opinions give you words of thanks or encouragement. He said something that really stuck with me.. he was talking about what Elder Butler and I have done over the last 6 months.. and he turned to me and goes.. ´´I recognize that we as a mission have basically sacrificed you here in the office.´´ Just that. Then he kept talking and went on.. but that really stuck with me. He recognizes that I´ve kind of been here without being able to go to misisonary conferences.. never being about to dedicate all my time, energy, or mind to missionary work on the street.. having to sacrifice study time, language time, meal time sometimes.. sleep time especially. He recognizes it. Anyways, it was like a weight off my shoulders. My mind was saying ´´okay so all this time i´ve felt disobedient for not studying as much as I should or not getting exactly 8 hours of sleep, or not having 20 lessons a week... all that he understands and isn´t disappointed´´. Good feeling. Love my mission president.

P-day we went to the Deere´s house and played volleyball and dodgeball in their backyard, and then went inside and had baked potatoes for lunch and play NERTZ after. :D Reminded me soo much of sitting around our dark stained wooden table playing cards and settlers and ´´the bean game´´. :D I hope you all still play!! or are at least ready to play when Hil and I are home!!

I just saw your email mom. I´m gonna go read it and reply if there´s anything I missed. Love you all! I love seeing pictures and/or videos if you have em. you all have big fancy nice smart phones now so it shouldn´t be too hard to send them ;P don´t worry, i´m gonna want one too when I´m home. Ha!

Love you all!

-Élder Norton

"I will boast of my God" (Sam)

Good to hear from you and great to see those pictures!

Things are really great and I´m doing well. Really, my health is good and we´ve been able to catch up on some sleep that we totally lost during the crazy days of transfers week. Things are great.

The weather here is cooling down a lot but its not quite cold yet. Its perfect. I´ve been wearing long sleeves recently and I´m gonna get rid of my old super used short sleeves shirts. I put them on now and they are like TENTS. They´re huge!! American clothing is so different from european clothing! Plus I think I´ve lost the (little) upper body size that I had from working out with Nate before the mission. Weird... he´s home... AHH!

We have a car here in the office so we listen to CDs all the time. And we usually put the music on the computers in the office so we can listen to music while we work. Thanks for sending a package. I´ll let you know when I get it. And I´m excited for that one CD. If you do send other ones, try to find Christmasy ones from those artists. :)

ALMA 26:12! Exactly! Its been interesting, I´ve spoken with Elder Castillo a couple of times about this exact same concept recently. So so many miracles happen here in the office. To an incredulous person, they would seem like nothing or maybe a really nice coincidence, but we know and we recognize that they happen for a reason a they happen because we have done our part, or as Elder Castillo puts it, we´ve put in the leg work... literally sometimes. :)

Yea, I know that I am ^anothing; as to my strength I am weak; 

therefore I will ^bnot boast of myself, but I will ^cboast of my God, 

for in his ^dstrength I can do all ^ethings; 

yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, 

for which we will praise his name forever.

I had heard how dad broke his arm but I didn´t hear many other details.. mostly just cuz I think it makes him slow at typing so he can´t write much.. :) right dad? No worries, I understand! Thanks for the update. Keep me in the loop.

Today was an eventful P-day. I´ll explain it all in more detail a little later but basically there were five of us living in our apartment (big apartment.. for like 6 or 8 people) before this transfer ended, but as of this transfer, Élder Crapo and I are the only ones that live there. Its been nice to have the place all to ourselves but transfers are always crazy and when the other three left, they didn´t really clean.... anything. haha So Elder Crapo and I cleaned for about 4 and half hours this morning and Mom, you would be proud. :D No, really. It looks good.

 And we did a really deep clean. Hah and then honestly within the 5 minutes between finishing cleaning and me getting in the shower, the water for the entire building got cut...... haha so that was interesting. We went and bought groceries and a new shower head for my shower... (that was left broken by the three that left... :P) and when we got back the water was on again, so I started the laundry back up and showered and we got ready. Right before we left, I pulled the clean laundry out and found that it had pieces of.... who knows what.... speckled through it from when the water was turned off and on.. hah cool! Eventful day.. but not really compared to the past couple of days...(transfers).. :D

I love reading Hilary´s emails. Its so interesting to me how different our emails and our missions are right now. I love hearing about all of her investigators and everything.. and sometimes I feel like my emails need to have that too! We do need to try to get out more but I shouldn´t compare our emails. We have different jobs. So we´ll have different fruits of our labors. I´m really glad she is having the experiences and the success she´s having.

Thanks again for everything. I loved the photos you sent! WOW. So weird to see you all. But you all look so great!

Love you all!

Élder Norton

"I'll go where you want me to go, dear Lord, I'll be what You want me to be" (Sam)

Most productive week of my life.

Hello!

Wow, incredible week this week! Really.. I have honestly been seeing the Lord´s hand and the talents he has given me working together in preparation for this transfer. That may sound boastful but hear me out! :D So last transfer, as you will remember, it was a group of 37 missionaries that came in.......... which is the largest group of new missionaries the mission has ever seen. EVERYTHING was crazy. Preparation was not just normal preparation.. it was preparation times three....... just because of the mass numbers. What President ended up doing was instead of spreading ourselves too thin when that big group of missionaries came, he decided to form quite a few trios of missionaries to compensate for the high influx of missionaries and then the outflux of missionaries that will be happening this transfer and the next. That actually relieved some stress off of me because instead of creating more two somes and needing more apartments, three somes were made.

This transfer, those trios are all separating, and we have a group of 12 coming in.. and what early on seemed like a relatively normal transfer for the things I´m in charge of, has expanded and hit all at one time. Last transfer I was given quite of few (probably 7 of the 15) of the areas that were going to open up about 9 weeks in advance so that I could start renting the apartments early on. Then I received the other areas as the transfer got closer.. that also relieved a little pressure. This transfer, we all expected things to be a lot more simple.. hah but as I explained.. about two weeks ago, President realized how many areas would have to be open due to the trios changing to duos and whatnot............. so basically what I´m saying is.. that within the last 2 or 3 weeks, I have had to do almost exactly what I did in about 9 weeks last transfer.. that is, rent 14 apartments..................................

Now... go back up to the top of my email and read that first line........... I wasn´t boasting.... I´m just stating what I´m seeing. :) I just hit 3 and a half transfers here and I´m realizing that The Lord Prepares Who He Calls. I really have seen everything come together reeally really miraculously this week. Almost every day this week has been full of effective consistent work. I get home aaaabsolutely exhausted.. :) but from the time I get up till the time I walk in our apartment at night, I´m doing something productive. IT FEELS GREAT.

Its interesting the things that the mission teaches you. I have learned a lot of things here.. but one that has really jumped out at me lately is that the more you require of someone, the more they will give. The bigger ´´the shoes you have to fill´´ are, the more you will fill them. I´m excited for a lot of things in my life head of me, but one thing I´m really excited for is hard, effective work. Whether it be at school, at work, at church, at home, wherever.. I understand hard effective work.

I hear elder Crosland went by and visited!... :D thats cool! He said you weren´t home mom. I can not believe he is home. I can´t believe it. Elder Jeremy Jensen is finishing in a couple of weeks and I think elders harding and harris go home the first couple weeks of november. Elder Harris broke his right arm and might have to have surgery. :///

President called me last week while in a meeting at the mission home with the APs. They were finalizing transfers and the changes that were going to happen and he needed to ask me about how I felt about staying in the office a little longer. I think it had something to do with the january transfer that was moved up several weeks to fall before Christmas. Because of the change it falls right in the middle of the transfer and he was wondering if I would be willing to stay not only to the november transfer but till the middle of december. I told him I would and I think that means I´ll be here till like the 17th of december. Happy to be where the Lord needs me!

I did get your letter and I´m glad you got my SD card. Empty it off onto the computer if you can and send it back in the package. :) Thanks! I actually do have a couple requests before you close it. Mint or double stuff OREOS :D. Cool, upbeat, or musical CDs that missionaries could listen to. Maybe a christmas one or two.. If you could look up some of these names you might find something good... Kalai, pianoguys, vocal point, eclipse.. or whatever else you think I might like. :D we have some music here but it gets old.... and especially the christmas stuff we have. Might as well ask for it now and get into the Christmas spirit early! :P Thanks!

Just one more thing! I love seeing pictures of you guys! And stuff you do or things you see or the family or the house. Like dads arm for example.. no surgery or anything right? Those would´ve been cool pictures. :)

I love you all! Thanks for your prayers! Keep praying for the missionaries but pray that you too can find missionary opportunities. I hear somewhere recently that most members DON´T pray for personal missionary opportunities because they are scared they will recieve one! Ha! D&C 100: 1-8

 Therefore, verily I say unto you,

lift up your voices unto this people; 

speak the thoughts that I shall put into your hearts,

 and you shall not be confounded before men;

 For it shall be given you in the very hour,

 yea, in the very moment, what ye shall say.

  But a commandment I give unto you,

that ye shall declare whatsoever thing ye declare

 in my name, in solemnity of heart,

in the spirit of meekness, in all things.

 And I give unto you this promise,

that inasmuch as ye do this

the Holy Ghost shall be shed forth in bearing record

unto all things whatsoever ye shall say.

LOVES

Élder Norton

Mom, we as a mission have just started the Book of Mormon again. President has challenged us to read it before Christmas and I´m doing what you´re doing. The only thing I am highlighting this time is the ´´happenings´´ the places, actions, and storylines.. to get the same overview that you were talking about. If you haven´t grabbed a new blank BoM to read I challenge you to. Its soo much better than reading in the scriptures that already have markings and notes, cuz it makes you pay attention. :) your choice but i´m sure the missionaries at home would have an extra blank copy lying around.... :D

"ready to apply everything I know and give it all to the Lord" (Sam)

Sam's post this week is a letter he wrote to his big brother Mitch

Mitch, Thanks for always writing. It means a lot to me.

Things are great great! My companion, Elder Butler, just received his replacement a couple days ago so we´ll be a trio till the end of the transfer. He´s kinda ready to go... haha he´s loved it but as you know, the office drains you and he´s ready to get back to the street. We honestly have felt very useful here. the Elder in a married couple thats here in the office put it really simply and I like what he said... he was like... "the Lord needs people who will give EVERYTHING.. and then when they´ve been squeezed dry from working non stop and giving their all, they get switched out and the Lord calls new people in." My comp has been like that. He´s awesome.. he´s an idaho farm boy that would probably rather look up tractors all day on google than any kind of supercar... and he´d probably rather spend an entire day fixing up a tractor than even driving a supercar... so needless to say, being the mission secretary at a desk all day has been hard for him... but he´s done it, and done it well. And still really pushed for proselyting efforts every day. He´s done well here. 

Your ward sounds crazy! Recently I´ve had a weird desire to go see other states and visit places.. maybe you guys could show me around NJ or tell me where some cool stuff is. I will come visit you some day!

I love the pic mom put on the nortonmissionary blog of the boys and sienna. You have beautiful kids. They´re gonna be so big when I get back!

I love you man! Thanks for the emails! I am loving my mission! We FINALLY baptized again! Such a great blessing. And TODAY i hit 18 months. I´m pumped for these last 6 months cuz I´m at my prime here in the office and in about a transfer and a little I´ll be back on the street, ready to apply everything I know and give it all to the Lord. Pray for us! Please! Pray to help us be obedient so we can have the spirit.

Thanks, love you. Tell your fam I love them.

Élder Norton
Financiero
La Misión España Málaga
La Iglesia de Jesucristo S.U.D.

"WOW. Young, young mission." (Sam)

Wow! I just hit my 3rd transfer mark in the office. TIME FLIES WHEN YOU'RE RENTING APARTMENTS! :D

Things are great here in FUEN (fuengirola). Already having to think seriously about the next transfer thats coming in three weeks but the cool part is that elder butlers replacement should be coming in by the end of this week. EXCITING CHANGES. We both love to office, don't think that because I say "exciting" means that we don't love it. They just honestly are exciting things. The mission is moving forward, growing, maturing, and won't stop for little elder norton or elder butler. :D

And if we look hard enough into the crystal ball we'd probably see that in exactly one transfer from now, my replacement would be coming in as well. THAT BLOWS ME AWAY. I feel like I was just getting over the "new financial clerk" shock. haha

Attached is a picture of the baptism we had! so exciting! Sa on the left and her daughter A on the right. Everything went great! Our branch president baptized A and his 17 year old son S baptized Sa, S's first baptims! :D They've asked us to do the confirmations so that'll happen tomorrow.

Just a quick mission numbers update.. I may have already told you this but its amazing so I'm saying it again...

the mission consists of 206 missionaries currently... that includes President and the three senior couples... ok?.... 117 of those missionaries have 3 transfers or less in the mission. That is over 50% of the mission that has been out either 4 months or less. WOW. Young young mission.

Anyways, I know this hasn't been much but know I'm doing well.. actually better! Last week I was little down but we're on the upslope as an office. Things are great and looking up. Thanks for your prayers and support. Pray specifically that missionaries can overcome temptations to be able to have the spirit.

Love you all!

Eder Norton

"and then we turn and look at each other and laugh, cuz thats us!" (Sam)

I found this old Photo Booth picture on my computer and had to share it 

Hello to one and all!

   I´m not going to be able to write a lot this week, but know that all is well. We´ve been able to have several really good lessons with people and it feels so good to get out and teach. We met with the estonian family again and they´re doing great. They read, pray, they have questions for us. I think the mom and the two older sons are coming to church this sunday!.. Its exciting!! We´ve completely lost contact with the german man we had set a baptismal date with. We´ve gone by his house (house... I say house but its honestly a poorly made long wood shed.. that doesn´t even really belong to him) several times and he´s never there... We´re worried they kicked him off of that land cuz its not his. We´ll see.

   The piso hunt is going well. I got in contact with like 4 more this last week. I´m finishing them up and I honestly feel like such a boss sometimes.... :) cuz i´m working with all these real people and dealing with such real situations. I know that sounds weird but the Lord trusts us with such important things.. and sometimes it just hits me about how real our work is! I got a phone call today from and Elder that had been pick-pocketed on a train and his two credit cards and his passport along with a bunch of money were stolen... And he called me! :D So we´re helping him get new cards and a new passport and everything. Hah sometimes we joke about when there's some big job or big assignment that has to get done... my comp and I look at each other and say... "oh no! Problem, we´ll just call  the mission office elders and they´ll take care of it" ............................ and then we turn and look at each other and laugh cuz thats us! We´re totally learning the ins and outs and little itty bitty small details of the office and how to run an organization. It is amazing how much goes into it. The mutual goal of ours, as well as the office couple, is to: save/take care of the street missionaries time. We want to do everything we can so that all the other missionaries don´t even have to worry, and so they can just work work work. I feel fulfilled getting to do things like that and help missionaries with those kinds of things. And, at the same time, i´m learning more about myself... for example, how I wouldn´t like to have an office or even a sit down computer job for my career. Cada persona tiene su manera. The people say that a lot. "everyone´s got their own way" basically... their own way of doing things. I´ve realized I like to be with people more and I like hands on tasks. Things I can start and finish, and things that allow me to help people be happy.

   I don´t know if I ever mentioned this family I worked with in Málaga... a family of romanians that the parents couldn´t get married cuz of the money issue but the kids were all baptized except for the youngest cuz she was like 7. Well, now that i´m back in the málaga fuengirola area... p-day mornings we play soccer at the same court we played at when I was serving in malaga ... and I saw that family today. They´re doing great! They are active, the youngest one is getting baptized tonight! Its fun. They´re so happy.

   The APs mentioned something the other day... I don´t know how legit it is yet.......... but they said that president has been thinking about testing some iPads in the mission and would probably start with the APs and probably the office elders! :P :P :P I´m pumped! It will not only make teaching more fun for us but soo much more interactive for the people and way more effective. Really! So i´ll keep you updated on that one. 

   Well I love you all! Mom, I agree with you one hundred percent about the Holy Ghost. It is often the last person we recognize when in reality it is the source of so much help from heaven. I have been receiving lessons on his role a lot lately. I think about teaching situations as missionaries. Honestly one of the hardest things for missionaries in general is sharing the teaching time. I am the biggest victim... I can speak when I want ... but sometimes I get carried away Because I Can say what i want... you know? So many times my companions bring that up with me and its something I´m constantly working on. But think about it... How often does the Holy Ghost get his chance to teach a little, and explain a little, and maybe share a spiritual experience or two........... never! And too often do we exclude his clear teachings just because of pure ignorance... when in reality we need to try to have those ´´awkward silences´´... because that is the moment the Spirit confirms the message to the investigators mind. It is true for Any teaching situation. 3 seconds minimum after teaching any principle for that principle to STICK... Interesting thoughts. LISTEN TO THE SPIRIT. HAVE MORE ´´down time´´ TO JUST MEDITATE. 

 Mom I got your letter and your talk! Read it that day and used it in the lesson with the Estonian family. M., the mother, was having those exact questions. THANK YOU FOR FOLLOWING THE SPIRIT AND SENDING THAT TO ME.

Love you all!

BYE

Élder Norton

"Just being in Spain makes you better at soccer... gotta be something about the air I think." (Sam)

The mission is the best! My list in preach my gospel of people my companionship has baptized is about a fourth of the length of the list of people that I´ve taught but that were baptized after I left the area...... Either way, S AND F WERE BAPTIZED! Wooooh! I´m just happy that they finally made it there. :) No importa quien. No importa cuando.

   Well things here are great. Yesterday we drove out an hour to visit the estonian family. They´re doing great! :) the mom is a great example and is encouraging her kids to listen and learn without forcing them. The second oldest son asked me a question when we finished the lesson and were about to walk out... he says, "what can I do so that God gives me a sign? Can I ask him for that?" :D 

YES YES YES... is what I wanted to say... but I just smiled and re explained prayer and what we say and how. Its SO fun helping people that WANT to learn through a learning process:

We explain it ... they think about it

We show them through example ... they may worry that they won´t know how

We explain it through the scriptures ... they think, try to imagine a prayer and what they'd say 

We ask them to finish with a prayer ... they're all nervous

We help them along ... and then we get an awesome investigator that just 'gets it' and says 

"So I can ask God for a sign to know this is true??? 

Haha those are honestly the best moments. Tough situation with this family... but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Its a very complicated long story but basically this family is related one way or another to a member the attends here when he can and the branch president is trying to find a way to help this family come to chruch since they are related to a member. Pray with us!! They will be able to come! We know it.

   

We played soccer this morning in Málaga. Gonna be fun to play back home with all my soccer buddies. Just being in Spain makes you better at soccer... gotta be something about the air I think. :) I was wearing a v neck shirt and now i´ve got a big pink V on my chest... forgot that that skin hadn´t seen sunlight for a while.. haha. Tonight President and Hermana Deere are giving a fireside in the Spanish ward, afterwards I´m going to interview one the Fuengirola hermana´s investigators (I may have mentioned him before... R... great guy that elder butler and I met at the church and showed him the baptismal font..) And then we have our correlation meeting with the ward mission leader and the other missionaries.

.........what you read there is normal missionary life stuff that we´ve been doing... now i´m gonna go over the last couple of days of non normal missionary life stuff we´ve been doing............. hah

   La búsqueda de pisos va bien... In the 9 weeks that i´ve been here I have rented 24 apartments. WOW. And in the next 6 weeks I have 14 more to rent. WOOOW. Wow. Right now with the 24 that i´ve rented, i´m at just over 2 and a half apartments rented a week. At the end of these 6 weeks i´ll have rented 38 apartments in 15 weeks. SIIIighh. :D

   Yesterday 13 missionaries came in from all over the mission came to Fuengirola to finish residency papers, place fingerprints, and pick up their D.N.I. card.. basically their residency cards here in Spain. They´ve been in the field 6 weeks and sometimes it honestly feels like herding sheep............ haha that sounds horrible!... but they are the youngest group in the mission and its funny how much two years can change you. :) Not to mention they were in the Provo and Madrid mtc´s together... they´ll obviously be happy to see each other... but when a group of happy young friends don´t know really what they´re doing or where they´re going, you get to the point where you just start herding them out or in doors and around the city. :) Now with that being said, this Tuesday, a group of 20 come from the madrid mtc... down to the mission office... and their trainers, 20 missionaries from all over the mission, will be coming in as well. So the last week now we´ve been planning every minute of this Monday through Thursday... preparing financial wise, travel wise, and schedule wise. My companion is a beast, he´s been buying the travel for the 20 trainers to come in fuengirola and also the whole rest of the mission considering transfers happen this week. The office is SO different. And we feel so helpful, its the best!

   Oh other side note, just wanna brag a little.. hah its interesting how office elders can really affect productivity of the mission in general. I could take this paragraph a lot of different ways but what I was going to mention is the fact that depending on how thoroughly an office elder does (or can do) his work effects the later office elders a LOT. There is a one page paper that can be easily looked over by the financiero or by the apartment owners that allows me to make ALL the payments to a specific owner through a program the church uses instead of through handwritten bank transfers or online payments systems. I´ve been really pushing the owners I rent from and the owners of the apartments elder Berrett rented to fill it out and get it to me. I´m excited cuz its already paying off! If you are just bold and tell them that the system is changing and they have to fill this paper out so that we can continue pay them they say... ´´oh well.. ok sure. Send it to me.´´ :) I´m excited to get a better hold on the apartment payment situation.

   Anyways, that was a lot of thoughts in my head right now.. I hope you enjoyed this weeks episode of The Office. Tune in next week for more details on how Transfer Week went down. Love you all! I´m proud to be a Norton and I´m proud to wear the Lord´s name on my chest. Don´t forget that we´ve all taken that same name upon us. Be proud of it even if you don´t wear it.

Élder Norton

´´minor side affects may include, drowsiness, minor headaches, loss of sleep, minor back pains from sitting at a desk all day, reduced morning study time, accelerated hearing degeneration from constant phone calls, little to no lessons taught weekly due to ´TO DO LISTS´ the size of spain, etc.....´´ (Sam)

Hi Blog followers! Because of family vacations, etc I got behind a week with Sam's emails as well.  Below I'm posting one from last week and then this week's.

Jon bought this t-shirt for Sam...
Elder Samuel Parker Norton

July  6, 2013

What a week!!

   I hope you´re all doing as well as I am! Its been a craazy week but things are great. The older AP thats here right now goes home at the end of this transfer aka in 2 and a half weeks and I had forgotten how different it is living with missionaries that are so close to going home.... haha he´s a great elder and his not slowing down or anything, (he actually teaches TONS of lessons especially for being AP) but today we ended up going to a mall and to a bunch of clothes stores cuz he´s buying all of his clothes for home here...... super weird! 

   You guys remember how a couple of weeks ago I had the ´´busiest week of my mission´´?? That was transfers week...... Aaaaaaand, we´re already closer to THE NEXT TRANSFERS WEEK than we are to the last one. ITS COMING BACK TO HAUNT US! :) The truth is though, that´s what we´re here for... I´ve been having a little inner lucha against myself about what is required of us here in the office/how we´re supposed to work here in the office. The truth is that we may never know exactly, and I don´t think we´ll never completely agree as an office staff either, but my take on it is that we have been called to... how would you say it?... save or protect... the rest of the mission´s time. WE (the office missionaries) have to do the not-so-fun, too-hard-to-do-so-i´ll-forget-about-it-for-now kind of things that missionaries don´t want to think about... for example..... residency, looking up/buying travel stuff, apartment finding, paying rent and bills, phone bills and problems, money refunds for cost of living, scheduling and daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly planning for the mission......... are all things that any normal person in the world would have to think about. THE REASON office missionaries exist, is so that street missionaries DON´T have to worry about that stuff, and so that they can ONLY focus on the people.... Cool right? Yes. ´´minor side affects may include, drowsiness, minor headaches, loss of sleep, minor back pains from sitting at a desk all day, reduced morning study time, accelerated hearing degeneration from constant phone calls, little to no lessons taught weekly due to ´TO DO LISTS´ the size of spain, etc.....´´ :D haha but THAT is why I´m here right now.

   I´m out of time but thank you so much for your emails and support. I´ll be fasting with you! Those of you out there that have written me letters, I WILL WRITE BACK! Mama, I got my international drivers permit and the spanish songs cd. That was the one I was looking for! Thank you! I´ll let you know next week if anything else comes. Thanks! Love you!

Élder Norton

Financiero

La Misión España Málaga

La Iglesia de Jesucristo S.U.D.

(^ what I put on each of my emails that I send out from the office..... :D)

July 13, 2013

Heey! Great to hear from you! We had an awesome week here. Its starting to get pretty hot here too!

Well the week was actually quite eventful, so i´m gonna go in chronological order...

Our car broke down exactly two weeks ago and last week I think I mentioned that we took a taxi out to the dealership to pick it up and it was closed so we had to walk all the way back.. hah so this monday morning we went and picked it up. Monday mornings are probably the busiest day for us cuz we have a meeting with president in the morning that we have to get everything ready for, its the rest of the mission's pday and we have to get the mission bulletin and message and stuff ready and just for being the first ´work day´ after the weekend everything just starts back up on monday.. So anyways, we got a ton of work done on monday and I got a bunch of huge pieces of apartment rents done too. It felt really good.

Tuesday morning was normal office work and tuesday night and wednesday morning was district leader training. I´m district leader her so elder butler and I were able to go attend that meeting. It was really fun to go see a bunch of people again too.. elder núñez was there, a buddy named elder hooper, a bunch of people, so that was fun. We learned in the conference about why and how we should use the Book of Mormon in our teaching. and then that night we were actually able to put it into practice with one of our less actives thats struggling. Really cool to help him feel the spirit again.

Thursday we drove out to a morning cita about 45 minutes from the office and the family wasn´t there. :\ ...... It was family of one of our Filipino members and we were going to meet up at a spot to then go to there house but when we got there they were already gone... :( huge let down. That afternoon the hermanas here in fuengirola had a baptismal interview set up with one of their investigators. They met with him at about 5:45 and the interview was going to start at 6:45. My comp and I got there at about 6:35, and waited outside the room for them to finish. A man walked up to the church about 6:55 for the english classes the hermanas were gonna do at 7 and when he presented himself I recognized his name as another one of the hermanas investigators. It was nice to meet him and we talked for about 15 minutes outside and then we realized he didn´t really know how a baptism would happen so we showed him the baptismal font. We walked in the room and you could just feel his interest.. and that he was intrigued. :) The spirit was really strong there and my companion and I were very pleased to be able to show that to him. The hermanas walked out of their cita and started their class and my comp and I walked outside to our car. The hermanas investigator left the building the same way and we got another really good chance to just stop and talk with their investigator. Great guy with a really hard life. Trying to get things figured out and I think a simple conversation with some simple Q and A´s with us really helped him. Its interesting how the work is changing with so many new sister missionaries. Almost ALL the areas that are open now either have or will have at least one set of elders and at least one set of sisters by october. It is a huuuge blessing. What president is doing (he is so inspired) is encourage teamwork... meaning, the elders come and visit once with the hermanas so that the investigator meets more members/missionaries. Or things like doing a contacting activity all together in one of the areas to help specifically that area and all the contacts from both companionships go to that companionship. Anyways, things that build unity and friendship. Things that help us remember we are all a team. And for the most part, its working! I love meeting the hermanas investigators... and the hermanas know that we aren´t gonna try to take their investigators or anything and so they actually want us to meet their investigators too! So its fun. The work is moving well.

Friday morning we had a short, sweet, and powerful district meeting. I have the best district! (Elder Castillo, Hermana Castillo, Hermana Ramsay, Hermana Theobald, Elder Butler, Elder Norton, Elder Estrada, and Elder Góchez) Friday evening we went out to a town about an hour from fuengirola to visit the family from estonia. Its been soo hard to visit them for 

1) cuz they are so far from the office and 2) just because of the sheer demand of the office work. But we finally got to visit them and Elder Castillo came! He´s soo awesome! He´s actually really funny too! I don´t know if you could get that over the phone but he is hilarious. Ex-drama teacher btw. We talk drama and shows all the time. Anyways, the family is doing great. The mother, oldest son, and second oldest all accepted the baptismal invitation. The youngest two are not 8 yet.. but the only problem is the distance... and money. They have no way to get to church.. cuz its basically 14 euros a person to and from church... and if all 5 go.. 70 euros a sunday..... imposible. So we´re praying... and they´re praying... pray with us please! After that cita, Elder Castillo took us out to dinner....... :D and we went to a cool restaurant that had everything in english, spanish, and german... just cuz there are so many different types of people that come through. I think we had Russians on our left, English in front of us, and Scandanavians to our right.. the waiters were Spanish and we were Americans. 5 nationalities at one restaurant. :) fun night.

Saturday! P-DAY. The AP´s went with my comp and a member this morning to malaga to play soccer with the missionaries there and I went with the Spainhowers (the missionary couple that let us use their skype at christmas time) to go golfing! :D They finish their mission in a week and a half and I mentioned that i wanted to go golfing and they said well lets go before we go home cuz we haven´t golfed yet!.. I invited president too cuz I think he´s been itchin to go but he couldn´t make it so I said, ´´we´ll go another time´´ and he goes ´´good cuz I want to go!´´ :) I mentioned it to justin, presidents son and he said, if you guys go i´ll go! So I´m gonna go golfin with my mission president and his son!! :P I´ll attach you some pictures from today. It was suuuunny! We had fun. The course was really small, basically a chip and putt course.. (I used a 52º and a putter the whole time........ and the one time I used a 7 iron a overshot the green and hit it into the street... hahah :) but I played all right for so long without playing.

Elder Spainhower and Elder Norton

A couple of interesting things going on in the mish! just to finish up...

- Khaki pants are now allowed.... as well as sweater vests, tie pins, and a couple other random things...

-They are starting to ask that we don´t use backpacks... interesting...

-They are suuper downgrading the phones we buy for missionaries to use....

hmmmmmm the work is changing! I think the last one is cuz one day iPads will be used here.. and the only thing the iPad won´t do is call so they just want the cheapest gadgit that can do the job.. (might as well just go back to smoke signals though.. they suuuper downgraded the phones.. look up the nokia 100 if you wanna see what we have to use now.. haha)

Anyways! Thats it for now! That was a really long email! Sorry.. Love you!

Élder Norton

ps. Elder Castillo relayed your message back to me and I couldn´t wipe the smile off my face. :) Love you.