"Wherefore, how great the importance to make these things known unto the inhabitants of the earth, that they may know that there is no flesh that can dwell in the presence of God, save it be through the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah."

Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 2:8

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Fourth of July and Meeting Pres. and Sister Watts

Happy Independence day to everyone back in the states from Guate! I hope you are all listening to patriotic music and watching cool patriotic movies for me. I think we are going to try and cook something really American tonight. Like hot dogs with real american chips and soda. I wish I could eat some apple pie!! Oh well, I'll just have to wait for a while.

Well, nobody has emailed me yet so hopefully you guys are out celebrating the 4th of July or something fun haha. (We forgot to email him on Monday morning because we are hosting some Australian descendants of Joseph Smith in our home for their reunion in Independence this week.  It was a little crazy, and we were running around and forgot to do it before he emailed us : (  So sad!)    Hopefully you aren't all sitting at home playing on your iphones and ipads =P This week was a pretty good week. Going to the temple was a big spiritual boost for me that I really needed. We had some really neat lessons and ended up putting 2 baptismal dates with two different families. First we put a baptismal date with Hermano Juan Antonio who has been one of our most pilas investigators. He is just a very neat person and he really wants to know the truth. We also put a baptismal date with another lady, Alejandra, whose husband is a less active member. She really was interested about doing the work for her grandma in the temple so we taught her about that and she was excited and then accepted to be baptized. So we were pretty excited about all of that! Then Sunday rolled around and neither of the two families that we had put baptismal dates with came to church. We also went to go and try to bring a family that we have taught a few times to church, but they told us they couldn't come. So that was a little sad. But the good news was that we had another person come to church for the first time that we had just met on Saturday! He lives in a place pretty far away, about 10 minutes in bus, but he found someone to give him a ride and was there early for church! His name is Jónatan (Johnathan) and he is 15 years old. He really wants to learn English and that was probably his main motivation for coming, but he also really liked church and wanted to come back. So that's pretty cool. We've asked about his family (we haven't met them yet) and all he says is "well...they are very Evangelical."  So we'll see how they are. We are planning to go and meet with them on Friday. So that just shows that sometimes even though we work really hard and things look like they are going to turn out great, sometimes the Lord blesses us in ways we weren't thinking of. At first I kind of felt a little bummed because we had worked hard, had set baptismal dates, and had gone out before church about 20 minutes away to bring a family and none of that really turned out. But the Lord still blessed us for the work we did. So it was good. We are going to keep working with the people that we have baptismal dates with so that they can come to church and keep coming closer to Jesus Christ and towards baptism in His true and living church.

Other than that the week was pretty normal. We are working in a trio again which is a little different, but it's a lot of fun. Elder Mitchell and I were worried that we were going to have to deal with a lot of trouble with Elder Vindel because he had an emergency change and everything, but he's a great guy! He works hard with us, is super nice, and we all get along really, really well. So I'm really happy in my companionship right now. Being with Elder Mitchell is seriously a blast. He's just a lot of fun and is hilarious. He reminds me a LOT of Matt haha. I know I say that everyone reminds me of Matt probably just cause I miss him haha. But Elder Mitchell even looks like him a little bit. He's kind of like a combination of me and Matt together. He is really into computers and games and does programming and all of that stuff. But he's really obedient and likes to work hard. And we get to keep talking in Q'eqchi' a little bit! So I'm having a lot of fun and we are trying to work hard.

OH! Something really awesome that I forgot to talk about was getting to meet President and Sister Watts! They are probably the neatest people ever! We went and had a little meeting with them with just our district, and then we all had interviews with them. We could all just feel how much they loved us and how excited they were to be here and to work with us. President Watts is such a great man. He was so nice and loving and from the very first interview I could just feel his Christlike love for me and for the gospel. We talked about my mission so far and I told him about my recent fall and we talked about that for a while. He asked about my Q'eqchi' and I told him that I felt good about it and about how I was able to listen to the Temple session in Q'eqchi and how much I loved it. So it was cool. Then Sister Watts is just as cool! She is just the sweetest person and she just reminded me a lot of Mom haha. She doesn't hardly know Spanish at all but she is trying harder than I've ever seen anyone try. It's really neat. I'm really really excited to work with them. So please keep them in your prayers as they start!

I think I'm going to buy my camera today, and I'm paying off the rest of my glasses. The glasses ended up being 1200 for everything which is 150 in American money. Which means I will try not to spent much more than 150 on the camera. I want to try and get a more durable one though so that I don't have to get any more cameras before I go home! Elder Mitchell has a really cool Lumix camera that is pretty much "like a tank" and is waterproof as well, but I think it was somewhere around 300. So I'll look for something like that..only half the price.

Alright well I don't think I replied too much to your emails last week so I'll answer a little bit more of your questions:

Dad- haha actually a toe on my left foot was hurting right after it happened, but in the end it was fine. I think in the accidents that I have in life, I either am completely fine and have nothing wrong except for an injured toe, or I get really beat up haha. (He always thinks that he breaks his toes, so Mike was giving him a hard time about it.) California would be fun. I'm sure you probably don't think it's quite as fun since you are always there for business haha. But I can understand Matt wanting to go back and visit. I would go back all the time if it was going to be as close/ easy for me  as it is for Matt! Plus maybe he can look up one of the girls from his old areas and take her out or something =P But don't worry Guatemala will be VERY fun and different I can assure you. And 2013 we'll have to do something simple but somewhere beautiful and fun. South Carolina or Michigan would be awesome for me. I don't know about a cruise. They are pretty expensive! Besides we'd have to go somewhere cold so that there would not be a ton of girls in swimsuits everywhere (the good looking ones scare me just as much as the fat ones haha.) But we'll see I guess. Love you dad, thanks for being so great!

Mom-how did the Jospeh Smith family reunion go? I hope you guys had a fun time doing everything and that it turned out really well. Interestingly enough President and Sister Watts have some really good friends who happen to be the new mission president in our mission (Missouri Independence) and so we talked a little about the reunion and everything and they said they were going to have to talk to the new mission president there and tell them that they have a missionary whose family lives in KCMO and to look out for you guys there. So that's kind of cool. Now that I'm in the capital I can actually cook things! So I want you to send me some recipes if you could just of some good things that are fairly easy please! Including Munchy Crunchy Good Stuff! I love you tons mom, thanks for being awesome!

Alright well my time is up now so I have to go, but I love you all and you are all in my thoughts and prayers. Happy Independence Day!

Love,
Elder Norton


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