God Answers Prayers

Hello¡ 

First of all, you might notice that all of the exclamation points in my email will be upside down and that's just because the key for the regular exclamation point doesn't work on my computer..so instead of not using any and having a boring email, I'll just put them in upsdie down. 

How is everyone doing these days? I hope you guys are all in good health and happy in spite of BYU's loss. and KU's loss too I guess.. Oh well, life goes on¡  I just want them to do well when I get home. That's awesome about the KC temple too¡  That makes me excited to be able to come home and go to the temple with EVERYONE since Jack is old enough now too¡  We need to do some family history work too and go to the temple and do work for some of our ancestors. That will be a lot of fun.

Alright, well this past week was pretty lame I have to admit. We didn't get back up to Yalijux until Thursday night again. We had to take up two big box springs to go underneath our beds up in Yalijux and so we were a little late getting to the place where the cars going to Yalijux leave on Tuesdays. We only ended up finding a car that took us to San Francisco where we waited for a car, but nothing came. We stayed there Wednesday and waited and nothing came still. So finally we decided just to leave the darn things in San Francisco and just walk up to Yalijux. To add insult to injury, right when we got to Yalijux, a car was also coming in from Senahu that we could have taken us with our box springs and gotten to Yalijux the same time. So that was pretty lame. We were with the Elders from Chijolom who were working in San Francisco, so we weren't completely alone, but it was slightly boring. Friday we went to San Antonio las Puertas to visit the family that lives there who are members. It's about an hour's walk completely uphill if you walk fast. So we went there all day and found a new family there and were able to contact a lot of people and find some potential new investigators and things like that which was good. Then Saturday we had our weekly planning which took out the morning and around 4 we went to go to a meeting of a bunch of church members in a less active member's house. So we didn't really have a ton of time to work which was kind of lame. And this week will be General Conference which means we will have to come down on Friday. But I love General Conference, so I'm ok with that.

So we didn't get to do a ton of working, but I did have a neat experience. While we were waiting in San Francisco I decided to read the new Liahona that I had just gotten. I read one article about a family in Puerta Rica who were trapped in a flood and about how they all prayed to be saved from the flood. I thought it was a cool story and was thinking about it when all of the sudden I started thinking about when we got in our car accident. I had forgotten a little bit of what had happened, but I'm really glad now that the Lord helped me to remember exactly what happened because it was an experience that looking back now has helped me out a lot. I remember that we got in the accident and Mom jumping out of the car and all of that stuff and I remember being really scared and confused. I was only 11 years old, and to make things worse, as you guys know I was a huge worry wart about everything. But I remember a lady coming to the window to help us out of the car. She told me to come over to the window and she would help me out. I told her to wait and that I wanted to say a prayer first. So we all said a prayer and I thanked God for His Son, Jesus Christ and for everything He had given us. Then, I desperately asked Him to please help us so that we would be ok. Looking back now at all of the blessings that the Lord gave me personally and to us as a family, I know that God answers prayers. For someone who was such a worry wart and who always was afraid of dying and weird things like that, once we had all gotten out of the car and the ambulances started coming, I was unusually calm and didn't really feel scared. I didn't think too much about it in the moment, but looking back now I know that the Lord blessed me with His Spirit to help calm me down and comfort me. Not to mention the miracles that we witnessed too-- the first highway patrolman on the scene was a faithful member of the church.  He was able to call his Stake President who sent one of his counselors to the hospital we were at. I remember the stake presidency member's wife, or at least I think it was, who stood by where I was strapped down waiting for exams and everything and how she talked to me and kept me company. Not to mention that everyone in our family was ok in the end, even though Dad and Matt had fairly serious injuries. The whole experience was a miracle for our family and I had forgotten a little bit how important that experience was for our family. Looking and thinking back on that experience, there's no way I can doubt that God answers prayers. Sometimes I have prayed to God to feel confirmation of His love or the truthfulness of this church, and have felt at times like I haven't exactly felt an answer. But when I think of this experience I can't doubt that God is there, that this is His church with real priesthood power, and that He loves and watches over me. Now I truly understand what the Lord meant when he said to Oliver Cowdrey that he needed to think back on the time when the Lord had already answered his prayer. I need to let go of day to day doubts or fears and think back to experiences like this one to 'know that the Lord is God, and be not afraid.' So that's just a thought for all of us to consider and to be thankful for continually.

Alright now on to your questions a little bit:

Dad- hahaha I laughed so hard about your Q'eqchi' words that you added to your email¡ I didn't know that 'sik' meant paralyzed, but thankfully Elder Larsen was next to me to tell me haha. He told me ' man, your dad is hilarious¡' haha so thanks dad. I love you for being the kind of dad to do stuff like that. Nakatinrah chi anchal inch'ool, at inyuwa. Thanks for being a fun dad. Haha and thanks for all of the bloopers, they were pretty dang funny. Stinks that you didn't get to go to the temple to see them put up Moroni, but that's still cool about how the temple is progressing. Too bad about BYU, but oh well they had a good season again. So here's just a random question that I had been thinking about. Terry Sexton was in the marines right? I was just curious as to what he did like if he went to a military school before entering, how much time he served and just stuff like that. I don't know why, I was just thinking about random stuff like that when I was waiting in San Francisco. How's bicycling coming? I'm going to start working out as much as possible every day so I won't be so dang skinny when I get back haha. Love you dad¡

Mom- hey¡ Thanks for the email. I know you're bummed about BYU losing but I'm just glad that my family is cool enough to be so into college basketball. Tell McKinzie that I'm sorry if her bracket didn't work out haha but she should keep doing it to be cool. Sounds fun about the Relief Society brithday party thing.   I'll be watching General Conference here in Senahu and I guess I could watch it in whatever language I want, but I think I'll choose English. They will have a room for Spanish, and room for Q'eqchi', and a room for English for the missionaries, so I'll watch it in English. But my last conference I think I might try and watch it in Q'eqchi'. As for the pillows, there's actually a pillow up in Yalijux that I've been using and I left the pillows you sent me in Senahu where I sleep Mondays since there's no pillows there. In San Francisco I just use blankets or a hammock for my pillow haha and it works out. I don't have to sleep there too often though so don't worry. I have had the opportunity to sing in special musical numbers in pretty much all of the zone conferences that we've had and I got to direct the hymns when Elder Martino came, but other than that I haven't done anything especially not solos or anything like that. But it's better that way haha. As for my birthday package the only thing I can think of that I really want is the perfect pushup things and a bungee workout cord thing with handles so I can workout better. I need to work out a lot and I want to do it consistently haha. Other than that, and other than an ipad, anything you send me would be fine haha. but PICTURES would be nice. I want a whole bunch to show to other missionaries and all of the people. So send me a bunch please.

Alright, well my time is up, but I love you all tons and I hope you all have a really spiritual week as you get ready for General Conference this week. I know it will be an awesome spiritual experience¡ Make sure to tell me what you thought of the conference next week. Love you guys tons¡

Love,
Elder Norton

The Lord is Working Within Me to Help Me Move Forward

Hello my dear family and friends!

Chan ru wankex? (how are you all?) I hope you guys are having fun and enjoying the success of BYU basketball. I'm really excited that BYU is going to the Sweet 16 and I'm going to work really hard this week so that they will go all the way haha. I'm glad that you guys are as into it as I would be (especially Kinzie with her bracket haha! that's awesome kinz! :) )  Thanks for the pictures and for all of the updates about everything going on with the temple and with everything else. The temple looks awesome! I'm so excited to be able to go there whenever I want when I get back!

Alright so first things first, I have my new companion now up in Yalijux and his name is Elder Gutierres! He came from a different part of Polochik and we met up on Thursday to go up to Yalijux. I already knew him because he was in my zone my in Polochik and because his comp left the same time elder Wixom did, so we were together in Tucuru a couple of days. When we were on divisions there,  I wished that he was my comp, so it's pretty cool that he is now! I LOVE Elder Gutierres haha. He's from Solola, the same place in Guatemala where Elder Xocop is from and he's a super funny, nice, and just a great guy. We've only been together a few days and it already feels like we've been comps for a while. We get along really well and he is humble and hardworking as well. He has 13 months in the mission and like me he has been in Q'eqchi' areas his whole mission. So he knows a lot of Q'eqchi' and speaks it really well. The best part is though that he wants to work hard.

My new companion, Elder Gutierres!

Last week we had a zone meeting and we talked a lot about Alma 26 and about the success of Ammon and his brothers as missionaries. I felt the Spirit really strongly during the meeting telling me things I needed to change and do differently. I realized a lot of my weaknesses and sins that I need to turn to the Lord to fix and correct. So I was feeling very motivated to start fresh and begin to change and rely more on the Lord. In light of that, Elder Gutierres' and my first day we sat down and talked about diligence. We talked about what it means, why it's so important, and the blessings of being diligent in the work of the Lord. After we studied diligence for  a while we came up with some goals for this change that we want to accomplish to help us be more diligent. A lot of our goals are little things that might not seem that important, but in reality will help us in the work here so much. For example, since everybody goes to sleep here around 7, we usually just come home around 7 and we lose an hour of work. So we decided to start leaving at 10 in the morning and then using the extra hour at night to study Q'eqchi' instead of studying from 10 to 11. We also set a goal not to come back to the house until we have 20 contacts every day. We just set a bunch of goals to help us be diligent and to have the Spirit more with us to teach this people. The blessings have been immediate from our efforts to be diligent. We only had 3 days of work in our area and we were able to find 3 new families and we had an investigator come to church for the firs time on Sunday. It has been really refreshing for me to work as hard as I can and to do all that I can do to serve the people here. Now that I'm the one that knows the area and has to take control a little bit more of what we do, I've really done my best to do my absolute very best and to give all of my time and talents to the Lord. It has been so satisfying to feel the Lord begin to work within me and to feel like I'm truly giving my best. I have such a long way to go still before I'm even close to the missionary that the Lord wants me to be, but the Lord is working within me to help me move forward and come closer to Christ. So I'm really, really excited for this change and I feel really good about everything. 

Last night I went to sleep around 10:00 ish and then woke up at 11:45 to get ready to leave by midnight for Senahu. There's a meeting type thing that everybody here, and seriously that means EVERYBODY, goes to called mi familia progresa. They pretty much just give money to people who have kids. And the dads usually go out and get drunk with it. So it's not really that effective a lot of the time, but everybody goes. So the trucks started leaving at midnight for Senahu. BUT, we didn't end up leaving Yalijux until about 1:30am because our truck couldn't make it up the mountain that goes out of Yalijux. It was too muddy and the truck wasn't all that great. They kept trying over and over again for about 45 minutes and nothing happened. Finally, all of the men (including me and Elder Gutieres) got out and tied a big rope to the truck (and this isn't like a pickup truck, it's a HUGE truck) and we pulled it up the mountain. It was hard haha but Elder Gutierres and I had a fun time. The pictures I'm sending are of this morning (really more like last night...). So I didn't get a whole lot of sleep last night since we didn't get to sleep in Senahu until about 4:30 and we still woke up at 7. But I feel good so far. Tomorrow I might be really tired though haha. 

Pulling the truck up the mountain : )

There were a few of us on the truck.

 Also, I have been given my official real Q'eqchi' name. I had to change it from Kaqi Wiinq because there was already another red headed missionary here with that name. But after a lot of thinking and talking with people, my new name is "laj Pich' " which means "woodpecker". They gave me that name because woodpeckers have red heads haha so I like it and everyone in Yalijux calls me that now when I walk down the streets and things like that. So that's kind of fun.

Oh! And I forgot to tell you something exciting a little while ago. Ubando, my investigator from Tucuru, just got baptized a couple weeks ago and I guess a lot of his family are planning on getting baptized soon too. I love that family so much so I'm excited for that.

Alright some quick shoutouts:

Dad- thanks for always thinking of me. I was thinking a lot about you this past week too and I tried to think about how I want to be more like you as I try to be a better missionary. Haha I love your use of Q'eqchi' haha, you'll be fluent in no time! haha. I love you dad!

Mom- Go Cougars!!! haha I'm excited for them too. Keep cheering hard for me. Of course I'm the same weird brother/ son haha. Today when I got to Senahu, Elder Larsen told me that he wanted me to talk in my King Julian voice all day haha so I'm still weird and try to stay fun. I love you tons mom and I have to go but I love you!

Alight well times up but I have to go now. I love you all tons! Keep being pilas and keep looking for missionary opportunities.


Love,
Elder Norton

Staying in Yalijux

At Rio Dulce.

Things aren't that bad Elder Norton!

Jamaica or Guatemala?????

Ma sa sa' lee ch'ool?? I hope that you guys are having a good spring break so far and that you are all happy and doing well!

This email might not be quite as long as they usual are because I was waiting for mom to write so I could write and also cause I'm attaching a bunch of pictures. (don't worry about it though mom, I'm a fast typer and I can still whip out a good email.)

Sooo, first of all I have to say that we got changes and I will be staying in Yalijux like I thought, and Elder Xocop is leaving which is sad cause I really love that Elder, but I was thinking that he would leave. So I'll be getting a new comp pretty soon. A lot of people think that a new person might come up with me to Yalijux (not someone new to the mission but to the Polochik) so I kind of hope that happens cause I want to train in the Polochik and I think it would be a lot of fun. So we'll see what happens.

Last week I didn't get much time to work in my area because of changes and the conference and everything so nothing really happened at all in my area this last week. I'm excited for a fresh new change and to get to work hard with my new comp, whoever he is. There are a lot of possibilities in Yalijux but it's going to take a lot of hard work. President Torres told us that the area that has had the most baptisms in Senahu for the past 5 years is Yalijux. Apparently there's quite a history there, but I still don't know what that history is yet... But I'm determined to keep up the good name of Yalijux and put in my effort to work really hard and baptize a lot of families. Yesterday we had to come down from Yalijux early to be ready to leave today for our zone activity. Since it was Sunday there weren't any cars so we had to walk all the way to Seritkiche to catch a car of some of the church leaders of Senahu. We had to go pretty darn fast to get there on time and Elder Xocop had a small suitcase of all of his stuff that I helped him carry half of the time. We walked from 9:30 until 1:30 pretty much nonstop. But it wasn't near as hard for me as it was last time and I felt good the whole time. Today for a zone activity we went to a place called Rio Dulce which is a little bit further than El Estor which I've told you about before. It's the river that leads into Lake Isabal and is really pretty. It was a lot of fun and the pictures I'm sending you are all from there. We went to this little castle and took lots of pictures and it was way fun. I hate to say it, but I kept thinking  that I have to take you guys there when you come to pick me up. Speaking of that issue, what I say is, everybody has to come to pick me up, or I'd rather just go home and do a different vacation. I want everyone to be there so if money is an issue or if there's some other kind of issue with the kids, I'd rather come home and do a little vacation in the states or something and then wait and go back with you guys the next spring or summer. I don't know. Tell me what you guys think about that. The other thing I was thinking about is that if we wait to do it for a year I will for sure be able to come back later. Cause if you guys just come pick me up, I don't know when I'll be able to go back. So let me know what you think.

Thanks for your emails as always and thanks for the spirit that you guys help me to feel every time I read your emails. You guys are awesome.

Mom- wow sounds like a kind of lame way to start off spring break with snow! But that's good that nice weather will come. We heard all about the earthquake and tsunami, but we just heard it was really bad, we didn't know too much about it. That's crazy. I really like the part of the song that you sent me, so thanks for that. I'd never noticed that before, but it's really powerful. Haha I'm glad that Twoody's mom is sympathetic. Tell her I'll be spending a month in Colorado when I get back for treatment to recover haha. My back's not hurting too bad, it's more of an annoyance than anything. And I want to be as healthy as I can be and not look like a weirdo. But thanks for being such a loving mom. Love you! ps, I had some alfredo pasta yesterday and almost cried.

Dad- jaja first off I love how you used Q'eqchi' for your subject. That just made you even cooler haha. Are you guys going to go maybe watch the tournament if BYU goes far? If you do I will be SO jealous! That's cool though about them getting 3rd seed. I'll keep`them in the back of my mind and I'll be cheering for them! I have been thinking exactly the same things lately about how far the world is sinking. In buses and on the streets sometimes we hear music from the states and I almost can't believe how vulgar all of it is getting. It was always bad, but now it's just plain disgusting a lot of it. It's really sad, but I know that as a family we can help each other get through it. I want us all to live close together too if we can so that all of us can have a support system and we can all go to church and eat dinner Sunday nights and stuff like that. Plus I just love you guys. Love you dad!

Kinzie- thanks for the email.  You are pilas for liking basketball and I love you immensely!! :) keep being awesome, I'll write more next week.

Alright well times up but I love you all tons!! Write you next week!! Keep being the best.

Love,
Elder Norton

We Have to Show Our Gratitude to the Lord for the Gospel by Sharing It

Hello wonderful family of mine! 


How is everyone doing?? Thanks for all of your emails this week, I'm always glad when I get a lot haha. And also thank you SO much for the packages that you sent me! I got all three of them yesterday and I almost fainted when I saw all of the good stuff that you sent me! Haha thank you so much. I will be eating REALLY well for the next couple of months. But not this week. Because changes are next week and also because there probably won't be a car up to Yalijux since we are leaving tomorrow. But next week I will start feasting on the abundance of food you sent me. (I am especially excited for the blueberry syrup that you sent me.)

Ok. So this last week was kind of lame actually. I was sick for a couple of days and so we didn't go out to work. Nothing too serious, just a weird cold/ eye infections that made me so that I couldn't breathe or concentrate.  So we only had 1 full day of work during the week which was kind of lame.  We didn't really have any great lessons or any cool experiences or anything during the week. We did find a couple new families to teach but we'll see if any of them will progress. So it was kind of a boring week. Then we came down to Senahu Monday, but we slept in San Francisco Sunday night. We had pday as usual yesterday, but the internet was down in all of Senahu apparently, so we had to wait until today (cheekuy inmaak= may you (plural) endure/bear my sin) to write emails. Yesterday we played frisbee which was fun and refreshing and then we played Uno a little bit and did our usual divisions with the other elders here in Senahu. Then today we had training all day from 9 until 4 and it was a good zone conference. We watched a lot from the new Preach My Gospel Dvds which are pretty good, and we talked about using the Book of Mormon more and about asking questions and a bunch of other things. I felt very enlightened after the meeting and it was a good conference. We talked about our new mission president President Watts, but all of us already knew thanks to your email mom :) So it was a pretty good conference.

I have been having back pain at night and it wakes me up and then in the morning. Nothing too bad, just kind of annoying I guess. So I went today and talked to Hermana Torres about all of my back problems and everything that happened over the summer and about what the doctors said and everything. So she told me just to have you guys send me exercises for strengthening my lower back and for stretching and stuff like that and told me to ask you to send me maybe a generic back brace to pull my shoulders back. So don't feel like you have to go out and buy it and send it right away cause it's really not a pressing matter or anything. Just when you send me my next package, maybe for my  birthday or something. :) But she said that she had scoliosis  when she was in high school, so she knew what it was like and she said that it wasn't too big or a deal, that I just need to keep working at it on my own. So. That was good. All of the elders where giving me a hard time and saying that I was going to get sent to the cap and a couple people were saying things like "you better be careful elder, you might get transferred to the states". But nothing like that is going to happen.

With changes coming up this next week, all of the elders are talking about everything that's going to happen and all that jazz. It's pretty sure that I will be staying in Yalijux and most people think that Elder Xocop will be leaving Yalijux since he's been there for 4 changes now. So we'll see what happens. I'm not too worried or concerned really, but I just want a companion who I can work really hard with and do our best in Yalijux. So I'm sure all of you moms are all talking about the changes as much, if not more than us, so we'll see what happens haha.

That's too bad about Brandon Davies.  But I'm proud of good old BYU for keeping their standards. It's sad for him, but if there wasn't such a strict honor code he maybe wouldn't be brought to repentance like he is going to have to go through right now. I'm praying for the Lord to bless BYU for sticking to the code and not punishing the team for Davies trangressions.

Alright now for some shoutouts!

Jack- Hey Bud!! Thanks for writing me! I was really excited to get an email from you this week. If you're just now figuring out that Kinzie is a freak, where have you been the past 12 years? (jk kinz ;)) That's cool about your classes. That'd be cool to do the 200 M dash. Weird that you are already signing up for next years classes! That makes me feel weird! That's dumb about the teenagers that did that, but there will always be weird people who just want to be cool. Just ingore them like you did. You're awesome bud. You already sound like you are like...older and smarter man. it's weird. Stop growing up! Make sure you keep those grades up and figure out about that C. Thanks for being an awesome brother. Love you and miss you too!

Dad- haha I know exactly how you feel dad. I inheirited your emotional attachment to sports too I think. But things like that are good to keep us rooted in the things that matter most. Even though BYU basketball will pass away and die, the word of the Lord will never pass away. =P Cool poem dad! I didn't know you could write! That's cool haha. I wish I had talked to you more about your mission and found out more about your experiences. But when I get back we can compare experiences and talk lots more. Thanks for being such an awesome Dad. You've taught me so much and I just really admire you a lot. Mom sent me that picture of my eagle scout haha and all of the missionaries were like "your dad must be a funny guy" and I said, yes he is haha. Thanks for your input on Norma and Ricardo. I'm going to try to use that soon. Thanks for being the best! Love you! (ps haha dang I wish I had been there to see the rancid mess segment)

Mom- well, well, well, you got yourself an iPhone eh? After all that you said about how you wouldn't want to have a phone and the ipod in the same thing. Haha you're funny. I don't know, I think I might want one when I come back...haha but being here has taught me a lot about that kind of stuff. We just have to be so careful that we don't get attached or too dependant on technology and nice things. But you guys are all great and I'm sure you won't ever have any problems :) It made me really happy to hear about your missionary efforts and I know that the Lord will bless you! I encourage you all to try a little harder to be a missionary. We have to show our gratitude to the Lord for the Gospel in our lives by sharing it with other people. If we aren't sharing it, we aren't truly grateful for it. I love how it says in Preach My Gospel that our desires to share the Gospel are based on our understanding of the atonement of Jesus Christ. So if you ever don't feel like sharing or being a missionary, study the atonement a little more. 


As for daily living, it's good. A little dirty sometimes and sometimes kind of rugged, but I like it and I'm happy every day. I think that everyone needs a mom like you and Sister Torres talked to me about how great you are and about how supportive you are. So thanks for being the best mom ever! I love you :)

Well, I love you all and I'm thankful for all you do. Keep doing your best to do the Lord's will and share the gospel. Always try to help the missionaries by giving them referrals. I challenge you as a family to just go with the missionaries to present them to a family in the neighborhood this week. Elder Clark talked about how as missionaries we just want the members to introduce us and present us to people and that after that they can keep trying to teach them. 


Thanks for being such a great family and I love you all tons. Next week we're doing a zone activity Monday so I'm not sure if I'll write Monday or Tuesday. Love you all tons!

Love,
Elder Norton

Seven Months in the Mission Today!

Hello! from the beautiful center of Senahu. It's a bright sunny day here and it's pretty warm. Today I complete 7 months in my mission (wuqub'=7 ; po= moon/ month; wan: exists ; we: from my mouth/ that are mine) which is good, but time is going by way too fast! I can hardly believe it. I judge my time based off of Elder Lusty since he was born in Tucuru with me. I have the same time as he did when I entered the mission now (he has 6 more months than me.) so I am starting to feel really weird. Now if another new missionary enters the Polochik like I did, I will really start to feel weird. This change is already almost over and February is gone, which means only 2 more months until my birthday and when I get to call!! I'm excited for that. I imagine that I'll probably be in Yalijux around 6 months or so which means that I'll hit a year in Yalijux if stay here which is a weird thought. Next change will be General Conference, and the change after that I'll be calling home! So only a couple more months!

Alright so this week: I was on divisions in Seamay (seh-ah-MY) which is Elder Larsen's area. He went up to Yalijux with Elder Xocop and I was with Elder Hale.  Seamay isn't even in my district but the ZL's wanted everyone to go on divisions to try and help with our goals to try and have a progressing family in every area. So I was there most of the week. Seamay is right next to Senahu, probably abut a 20 minute walk. The best part was having a warm shower every day, having electricity, and being able to go to the "comedor" (kitchen) for lunch every day. And I also ate corn flakes with sugar and cinnamon every morning which was pretty heavenly. Elder Hale is a cool elder from Arizona. He's got 11 months in the mission and this is his first change in Senahu, so he still doesn't know Q'eqchi' (but he knows a lot more than I did when I had his time here so he's pretty pilas) so I had to take the lead and talk to everybody. It was a humbling experience to see how much the Lord has helped me to learn Q'eqchi' so that I was able to understand everybody and say what we needed to and translate for Elder Hale too. I know the Lord has blessed me so much with Q'eqchi' because I didn't get to really practice Q'eqchi' very much in Tucuru with Elder Lopez because he didn't want to go anywhere Q'eqchi' speaking.  So I'm really thankful to the Lord for helping me so much and for blessing me with His Spirit to be able to understand and speak this ridiculously hard language.  So I had a good time in Seamay and I really love the people in this area. I would maybe like to serve here some day, maybe to train. Friday I went back up to Yalijux and we found a car that took us all the way up and didn't charge us (another blessing from the Lord which I was really thankful for.) 


The weekend in Yalijux was a bit disappointing. Our baptismal date with Mateo fell through because he and his family moved on Sunday to Teleman and aren't coming back. So that was a kind of a bummer. Then on Sunday we didn't have any families or any investigators at all come to church. We have one family that we have been trying to work really hard with, Vicente and his wife, Magdalena. Vicente always listens to us and...sort of understands things. He knows how to read a little bit so we've been leaving him reading assignments in the Book of Mormon and he says he's been reading it and he says he believes it. The wife doesn't really show interest too much and doesn't really pay attention to us when we teach because she always tells us that she didn't understand, but it's more like she doesn't really want to understand. We had a pretty good lesson with them Sunday, so I'm really hoping that they will come to church this Sunday. We'll probably go and try and bring them from their house to take them to church. Other than them, we have some other possiblities for future progressing investigators, but we don't really have anyone progressing right now. We're working with a girl named Norma and her husband Ricardo, who is a member, to try to get them married so she can get baptized. She usually comes to church and she believes in the church, but they don't want to get married yet. The "custom" here when you get married is to have a big party with everyone and feed everyone and stuff, so they tell us that they don't have any money and want to wait until they've saved up some money for their wedding party. So we're going to keep trying to help them see things in a bigger perspective. I appreciate your prayers on my behalf and on behalf of all of the people in Yalijux. We have a lot of work to do, but the Lord is with is.

Sounds like BYU B-Ball is going really well still which makes me happy jaja! I haven't been thinking about them or anything during the week, but I'm always excited on Mondays to hear how things are going. I really hope they get a first seed in the NCAA tournament and I hope they go all the way to win!! Who are the other first seed possibilities? Who else is in the top 5? BYU better do this well when I get home! They won't though since Jimmer will be gone. I'm still holding on for Hawes and some of the other younger ones. I'm glad that you guys are rooting them on for me!

Alright time for some shoutouts:

Mom- yeah it's pretty amazing and sickening to see how bad the world is getting. Everything in the music/movie industry is moving so much further and further into sin. It really is true that Satan is trying as hard as he can to destroy the family. That's sad about the marriage defense act. I think that we already are seeing the consequences and will see a lot worse consequences soon of the "destruction foretold by both ancient and modern prophets" as the family and the morals needed in a good family keep disintegrating. Kind of scary, but I can't tell you how glad I am to have grown up in such a strong and Christ centered family. I think about it every day and I thank God every day that I have been taught so well by my parents. I was thinking a lot about prophets lately too and how thankful I am that there is a prophet on the earth to lead us and guide us now, especially with things like the family. I am REALLY excited for General Conference, I can hardly wait! It's so uplifting and spiritual, I love it. I love reading the talks in the Ensign afterwards too. Jaja I know it's kind of funny about the ramen noodles, but these aren't the same brand, they are a weird "international brand" and supposedly ramen noodles are a lot better jaja. So don't worry. And don't worry about my birthday. I've got pretty much all I want and you guys are already spending tons of money on packages and stuff so don't worry! :) love you!

Dad- Thanks for your insights on building things after the manner of God and not after men. It's true, everything we do in life we have to do God's way, not man's way and if we do it God's way, some people will ridicule us like Nephi's brothers, but we will be led to where Heavenly Father wants us to be and in Heaven with Him. Yeah it's definitely true about mountains too. The climbs are always hard, but you can only get to the top if you climb. There's no way around it. I can't wait for when I get back and we can get into BYU sports together jaja and we can keep having a great relationship. I know we always will. Thanks for being such a great dad and for being an example of who I want to be.

Well I'm out of time now, sorry I have to cut this a little short, but I love you guys tons and I'm thinking about you and praying for you. Thanks for all of your support and for being so great. As for the plans about coming to pick me up, I try not to think about that too much, but I'll talk more about it next email. Love you guys tons!!

Love,
Elder Norton

A Great Week In Yalijux

Hola querida familia mia!

How is everyone doing? Sounds like you are all doing well and that everyone is happy back "where the buffaloes roam and the deer and the antelope play." (I'm still a loyal and patriotic Kansan at heart.) Thanks for your letters and for keeping me up to date on everything.

This week has been a great week for me and I've felt really good working in Yalijux. It was nice to have the whole week to be able to work (or at least Wednesday through Sunday) and we are trying to give it our all. Our mission is focused mainly on the family and we are encouraged to look for families instead of individuals to baptize. Elder Martino, who came a couple of weeks ago for our conference, really stressed the importance of families and set goals with all of the ZL's about families. Because of that, our zone has been really focusing on finding new families and baptizing families. We had a zone meeting last week where we set goals and talked about how we can find more families. To go along with that, we just got the translation of "The Family: A Proclamation to the World" in Q'eqchi' last week. So this week Elder Xocop and I tried really hard to plead with the Lord to help us find families, and to have at least one progressing family by the end of the month and to keep stressing the importance of families. We taught a lot of people using the Proclamation and it helped us with pretty much everything we did. We used it to contact and to let people know about how God intends for the family to be eternal and asked if they want to know how theirs can be. We used it with recent converts to help begin to prepare them to enter the temple and be sealed there as a family, and we did the same with less active families who haven't been sealed yet. And finally we used it yesterday to set 2 baptismal dates with a dad and his son who are the only members of their family who aren't members. The mom and the rest of the kids were baptized a few months ago, but the dad hadn't been yet, and the son just turned 8. The dad's name is Mateo and the son is Felix. Mateo had a baptismal date but ended up having some type of problem right  before and didn't end up getting baptized. But after teaching him using the proclamation, we were able to explain to him that his family needed him to go with them in the "path of the Lord" (Q'eqchi's always use path or road to talk about things like this.) He knew that he needed to get baptized for his family and was excited when we told him that he could get baptized with his son Felix. So they have a date for the 5th of March and they will be a complete family, so we're already working towards our goals and the Lord has blessed us a lot. We were also able to find about 3 or 4 new families that seem like they will progress. It was really cool with one new family because at the end of the lesson that we taught, he said "I believe everything that you said." So I'm really grateful to the Lord for helping us so much and I'm so grateful for the words and message of inspired prophets of God about the family. I encourage you all to read the Proclamation for family home evening and try to see how you can apply it's principles more as a family and just think about how important the family is. For me, there's nothing more important in the world, and when I think about how I want to be with my family forever, I want to be the absolute best I can be so that I can be with you guys forever some day. Truly the family is ordained of God and the most important social unit in the world. I'm so grateful for my family and I love you guys so much!

Other than that, nothing too unusual happened this week. We went to a place called San Antonio Las Puertas which is about a 2 and a half hour's hike (going fast) away. It was a pretty tough climb, but it was really beautiful. I didn't get the chance to take any pictures yet but I'm sure I'll go there again. There are some recent converts of about 9 months that live there and they faithfully make the hike every Sunday to be there at 9 in the morning and after church is over they walk all the way back. All of them come to church too. So it really was nothing to have to go there one time and their faith has really touched me. On Saturday we had a service project at the church where we cleaned everything and did some work on the grounds (digging a big hole for trash and cutting stuff with machetes.) Almost the entire branch was there helping out so there were a ton of kids running around. The kids kept me pretty busy trying to see if I have katz katz (if I'm ticklish) and they kept pulling my arms from both sides trying to pull me down or something like that haha. So I may have actually played with the kids more than I did work...but there were lots of people to help out. I felt a lot of love for my branch, especially for the kids. They are great people. Things are going fantastic in Yalijux and I just love being there.

On to the shoutouts:

Dad- Yeah I'm sure that it's hard to actually make a decision for yourself about seminary. I'm sure that you are such a great teacher that they don't want to release you, but you have been doing it for so long that it's kind of hard. Ok here is a little more of my daily activities/interaction with the people: Everywhere we go, and I seriously mean everywhere, as we walk down the streets and on the little paths all of the little kids come out of the houses and say "Ani laa k'ab'a?" which means "what is your name?"  Seriously I think that I say my name about 50 times in one day. No one can ever say my name though, they just say "Elmer Norte" which is kind of funny. I've started saying my name Elder NorTON (with the emphasis on the last syllable since everything is on the last syllable here in q'eqchi') and it kind of helps a little bit I guess. The adults aren't much better, they always say things like "your boots are really big" or "your hair is beautiful" or "your hair is yellow" or "you're really tall". So it's kind of funny and I usually take the oportuninty when they say things to me to go and talk to them and contact them and tell them about the gospel. The people are generally nice and respectful and when they say things like that they are just being their childish selves, so I just smile and laugh and answer them all and go and talk to them. Some people don't want to talk to us, some people let us in to talk to them but they aren't really interested at all at don't listen. Some people just want to talk with a white guy and some people are actually interested in what we have to say. So we try and contact everybody and give everyone a chance to hear our message. We contact houses a lot and just go in and teach them. I think it's fun Jaja, and I'm glad you know how we say "haha" in Spanish!

Mom- Ok first I'll answer your questions: 1)Yes I got my valentines package! Sorry I forgot to tell you last week. Thank you so much! The candy was delicious and it's pretty much all gone already jaja. I loved the clever scriptures relating to the candy haha. You're the best mom. 2) Yes the members and even the people who aren't members feed us a lot. They give us avacados (in qeqchi "o" means avacado.), beans, caldo, and eggs- always with tortillas. A lot of times they just give us something to drink. But we usually get fed something every day. 3) Yes, I will try really hard to do that for you. The testimony will be a tiny bit hard since people don't really know how to write, but I'll just have someone say theirs and I'll write it down. :)  4) other than the couple of baptismal dates we have, I don't know the names of any investigators that we have, but we have a couple of families. I'll give more details later. 5) Yes I am in Zone senahu and yes Elder Larsen is in my zone. He was my ZL all three changes that I was in Tucuru and he is super funny and a great elder. I see him every Monday and Tuesday when I'm here in Senahu for pday and we always have a lot of fun. He likes to do weird stuff like impersonations like me haha, and he reminds me a little bit of Mark Johnson. I'm sure you and his mom are in cahoots with each other through your little group so that's probably why you asked. Haha I loved the story about dad and black beans and eggs. It's not actually that bad at all. I like black beans and eggs a lot actually. (p.s. It's slightly humorous that you sent me ramen noodles when that is one of the the few things that we can buy it Yalijux! haha but thank you all the same :) ) Weird about Nick Jonas being in Broadway plays. But that's cool I guess. I'm anxious to see the changes you are talking about to Les Mis. Thanks for the info about the new mission president! Looks like he'll be a great mission president. You're the best mom, Love you!

Alright, well times up, but I love you all tons and I'm thankful for all of your support. Thanks for being the best family I could ask for!

Love,
Elder Norton

I Am Grateful to the Lord For the Things I Have

Oooo! ¿Ma sa sa' lee ch'ool sa' li kutan re li rahok a'in? (Are your hearts happy on this Valentines Day?) 


I hope you are all in a loving mood today and that you are all doing well. I'm doing really well and am feeling el espíritu de amor here in Yalijux, or the musiq'ej re li rahok as I would say here. But don't worry it's a Christlike love, not a romancy type of love. Things are going really well for me and I am very happy right now. Haha I'm really grateful for all of your concern and your love that you always show me, but don't worry I am well taken care of in Yalijux. It's not near as bad as you think it is. We have running water from a spicket that we use to wash dishes and things like that and we have plastic bag type things to put over the holes in the shower so that the Q'eqchi' people don't see me showering.  We also have a really good water filter that we use, so we get all the clean water that we want. The water is very cold and it's a generally cold place, but it's not bad at all. The first night I was really cold, but now I've adjusted and figured out how to keep warm at night and I haven't had any problems since. I bought gloves and a hat in Coban and they have been doing wonders for me. 


As for the food, it's true that there's not a ton to buy from the stores where I'm at, mostly just ramen noodles, eggs, and beans, but every week I come down to Senahu to buy some groceries, so I can get things like pasta, jelly and bread for sandwiches, and pretty much anything I want. But if I only ate beans and eggs every day I would eat more than a lot of the people in my area eat. I've eaten a little bit with some people and so far I've had eggs, beans, avacado/ guacamole (avacado in q'eqchi' is "O". yep, just the vowel) and chile. Of course everything is eaten with corn tortillas. It's actually all been tasty and I haven't had anything really gross yet. (Although one family gave me something called an "ox" (osh) which was a weird and dry thing that I can't even really explain. It was kind of gross, but not too bad. So I really appreciate how concerned you guys are about me and I'm grateful for the packages you sent me and everything, but in all honesty things couldn't be better. I like living like the people do in Yalijux because I get more of a feel for how they live their lives and how much faith and courage all of the people have here. I might not have very many commodities and it's a lot different from living like we do in the states, but the Lord is literally giving me everything that I could ever want. I never was that big on camping, but I think when I get back I will be a lot more friendly to the idea, haha. So don't worry.


My area is such a special place and I am really happy there. The Lord is protecting and watching over me every day and I can feel Him giving me literal power and strength to keep working hard and doing what He wants me to do. The only real hard part about my area is getting there and getting to Senahu! It's pretty far away from Senahu. Every Sunday we go down to San Francisco where the wooden church is, and we sleep on chairs and hammocks and then catch a truck from there in the morning to Senahu. Sleeping in San Francisco is pretty painful haha. Sleeping on the chairs hurts my back (they're metal chairs, not the plastic ones, although there are 4 slightly cushioned ones.) and sleeping in a hammock hurts my collar bones and shoulders. But like I said, I'm grateful to the Lord for the things that I do have and there are a lot of people who sleep in worse conditions every night, so I can't complain. 


Q'eqchi' is coming along really fast now that I'm only speaking Q'eqchi'. But I know that the Lord has truly blessed me so much since I didn't get all that much practice in Tucuru. It's still kind of hard to understand people sometimes. There are days when I feel like I understand everything and others where I have to have people repeat everything they say 2 or 3 times. Elder Xocop is from a place called Chimaltenango (or maybe Chimeltenango?) and the people there speak Kaqchikel, not Q'eqchi'. He spoke mostly only Spanish before the mission though from what he tells me. His parents spoke Kaqchikel a lot, but he didn't ever really learn it really well. He says he knows more Q'eqchi' now than Kaqchikel.  Anyways, we both are at about the same level in Q'eqchi'. We have the same time in the Polochik and he actually came up to the Polochik with me when I entered in the mission (It seems weird to think that I entered the mission a while ago now..) He's great and we get along super well. He's a little more quiet and is super humble and a great person. So far we're doing really well. He will probably have a change though this next change I think since he will have been in yalijux for 4 changes. Maybe not though. We'll see what happens. 

Happy Birthday Mom! I'm glad you got my little package and I'm glad you liked the pictures! (Yes it was corn silk and yes it matched pretty nicely with my hair color haha)  I hope that you had a fun birthday and that you had Dad buy you something nice for me. Sounds like you guys had a really fun time in Chicago. I'm jealous! I want to go to Chicago sometime. Maybe in a few years. I'm glad to hear that Les Mis was much better than the Tuacahn rendition. (It would be challenging to be worse...) I had a bunch of Les Mis songs stuck in my head this past week thinking about you guys seeing it. And thanks for those verses in Alma 26- those are pretty awesome verses and it really hits home to me because I literally am with the Lamanite people. I'm just about to get to Alma in my personal study in Spanish, so I'm really excited to study it really well and to think about how I can be a better missionary like Ammon and his brethren. You're the best and I love you too!

Dad- loved the Jimmer article, I would have done the same thing to that girl. "With the same judgement that you judge Jimmer, you will be judged." I'm glad that BYU beat Utah, and it made me laugh to hear that you made mom and Kinzie go to 810 zone to watch the game. I am going to really think a lot about your advice that you gave about idleness. It's really true that idleness isn't just not doing anything, but is also misusing time. I'm going to try hard to make this next week a really fruitful week directed by the Spirit so that I can work hard and feel the "sweat" and at the same time feel approval of the Lord that I am doing everything possible to use His time well. Thanks dad for your advice. Love you tons!

Jack- hey bud, I hope your talk went well.  I heard you did a great job. Thanks for being a good example to me. Love you so!

Kinzie- thanks for your email! You are the best sister ever! I love you and you already look different from when I left! Quit growing up! And  stay away from boys!

Ok well times up, but I know this work is true and I couldn't be happier. I love you all so much and I hope that more than anything you feel the Love of the Lord this week.

Love you!

Elder Norton