Are Your Hearts Happy?

K'alen taq jaw eh tuut! Suq na ak'ux taq? (hello ladies and gentlemen! Are your hearts happy?)

Hope everyone is doing well back home and that everyone is happy and healthy. Things are going well here in beautiful Taktik, but it's been super rainy here lately. But, today we played basketball in spite of the rain and it was SO refreshing. It makes me sort of wish that I had played more sports way back when. (you guys didn't let me play any sports! *reference to Worlds of Fun*)

I felt a little bit sick at the beginning of this week but after a few days and a couple of cokes I'm feeling much better and today was able to eat 5 pupusas (typical food from El Salvador. it's just like thick tortillas stuffed with really good cheese and pork and it's SUPER good. We had a couple of days that were a little bit disappointing. We have basically 2 areas that are pretty far away that we have to take a bus to get to where we really have one main person that we teach. So when we go to those places and our main people aren't there it kind of ruins the whole day. Well that happened twice this week which was pretty lame. But the good news is that the Lord still blessed us for our efforts and we were able to have 6 investigators in church yesterday.(Woo!) We were also able to put 2 more baptismal dates yesterday with the little brother and sister a few really active and awesome youth in our branch. Their parents aren't members yet, but with these two kids, all but one of their kids will be members. So we are excited for them. The two kids and Miguel make up 3 of the 6 people we had in church. The other three is the family of an ex-communicated member that we are teaching in the area closest to Tukuru. They have a lot of things to work out before they can get baptized though. The ex-communicated member has to get divorced and then get married to his wife that he lives with now, then his wife and daughter can get baptized, and 6 months later he can get rebaptized. So it was cool to have them in church since they haven't come the whole time I've been here.

Other than that things are still going well with some other families. The family where I was teaching the little kids and the mom about the Book of Mormon- we have gone back there a few times and haven't been able to find the mom. One time though we thought we'd try waiting for the mom a little bit so I sat outside with the kids and showed them pictures from the gospel art book and explained the stories to them. Those kids are so dang cute. The littlest boy and a little girl who both don't know Spansih super well just kept repeating the names of the people that I said and kept saying what I said. It was so cute I just wanted to take them all and put them in a box and send them home. (maybe that's why all of the poeple here are scared that the "gringos" will steal their little kids..)

Anyways, interviews are tomorrow and the zone conference is the next day. We'll be going to Coban which will be cool (it was something much cooler when I was in the Polochik). It's weird since we are about 30 minutes away from Coban, but we're not allowed to go there since it's a different zone. Our zone leaders are about an hour and a half away. But I'm excited for another interview with President Watts. He really is a great president. I saw him again in the captial last week and he was just really nice and was "fasting" from English.

On to some personal notes:

Mom- ok good! I'm glad that all of you can come to pick me up! I was really hoping for that because that will be the most fun. Don't worry about accomadations or rides or anything like that, TRUST me. We will only stay in the places where there are actually nice hotels. We can stay in Coban for a night or 2, Senahu for one night, Rio Dulce for a night and in Peten there will be nice hotels. After that we can go to Belize if you guys want! I think that would be a better option instead of going to Lago Atitlan or other parts of Guate since it would be right in the route of our travels and everything. Then we could just fly out of there. I've heard of a few different missionaries who have done that where they have gone to belize and they have really like it a lot. Don't worry it will be fun. But tell me what you think. Love you mom!

Dad- Sorry to hear about your nagging injury. But don't overwork yourself and hurt yourself or anything like that. Like the scripture that says not to run faster than you have strength. Mom says you had a pretty awesome power point for the new seminary class. Don't worry about falling into the same routines. If you follow the Spirit, you will say what you are supposed to and what the kids need to hear. Your teaching is always awesome dad! Don't worry about that. Keep bleeding blue for me as the BYU season kicks off and let me know how the schedule goes. Say "hola" to everyone in TX for me! Let me know how they are all doing and tell the Gutierrez and the Diaz that I am writing them letters. Love you dad!

Alright, well time is up. Thanks for the emails and for all of your support and prayers. Love you all!

Chawil taq awib'
Elder Norton