What I Would Give to Have Just One Slice of Apple Pie Right Now!

Hey family! Chan xeeril? (how did you watch yourselves?)

How are all of you doing? Sounds like from your emails that you are all doing really great.

Ok so let me talk more now about the actual work I'm doing since I haven't told you all very much about that. This week was not very good in terms of the work because of what's been going on and because Elder Lopez was sick. But generally things are going really well! We have 3 youth that we are working with to get baptized that all want to be baptized. They are Carlos, 14 years old, Gilberto, 17 years old, and Yasmin, 21 years old. There's just one tiny little problem: their dad has 7 wives. So they live in a house where the dad lives with 7 other women all in the same place. We talked to President Torres about this and because they live in a place where the Spirit can't be, it's going to take longer for them to get baptized and he is going to have to come and interview them and their parents in order for them to be baptized. And they have to all be baptized at once or not at all is the deal. 

Then we also have Carlos and Yuli Rax. They are a funny couple and are really ready for baptism. Neither of them speaks Spanish as their maternal language but she doesn't speak Q'eqchi', so they have to speak in Spanish to each other. Honestly they are very simple people with very simple minds. We have to teach them like little children because they just don't understand things very well, but they have really strong faith and really want to get baptized. They have been investigating the church since before I came here but haven't been able to get baptized because they haven't been able to get married yet. Here you have to take your identification papers out from a civil registry to get married and she is only 14 so she's a minor. To make things worse she didn't really know her full name or her birthday for sure, so we had to guess on some things to be able to take her papers out. But we were able to go to the civil registry and work things out with them. So the plan is to get her papers on Thursday and from there we're going to see how soon we can get them married and baptized! We think definitely in the next month or so, maybe even next week. So that's pretty exciting. 

With Elder Lopez, we've mostly only worked in the center and in the playa which is close to the center and where most of the people speak Spanish. We haven't been teaching hardly at all in Q'eqchi' even when the people understand Q'eqchi' better which isn't good. Elder Lopez says that he would rather just teach in Spanish, so I'm going to try really hard to help with that so we can teach more in Q'eqchi'. This past week our branch president was made district president (like stake president, only for branches) and we got a new branch president. Our new president is really great and has already given us references and I can tell that he is going to help us out a ton. So I'm excited to get to work with him. We have a ton of inactive families here. There are about 500 members here and only about 70 come to church, so we're going to work hard to try and reactivate some of the families here. I promised one less active family that if they came to church 4 times in a row I'd make them a cake. They have 3 times coming to church in a row, so I'm getting a little nervous because I have no idea how to make a cake. Looks Like I'll have to get the help of a member here haha!

Q'eqchi' is coming along really really well. This past week I've learned a ton of Q'eqchi'. I started reading Lix Hu Laj Mormon and tinxtenq'a chi tzolok lie q'eqchi' (it will help me to learn Q'eqchi'.) It takes forever to read because I analyze everything grammatically and try and figure out what everything says literally and what it means and I have to look words up all the time. But It's really helped me a ton. I write down all of the words I don't know that aren't in the dictionary in my little notebook and I write all of the things that I want to know down and I've been having members help me figure out what they mean and how to say things. This week I've really felt like I've learned a ton and I feel like already I can talk more and can say more things. There is truly a power in the Book of Mormon with languages that I can feel.

Well it sounds like you all had a fun Thanksgiving. Glad to hear that Harry Potter wasn't a disaster like the last one. I can't tell you what I would give to have just one slice of apple pie right now. I would give a LOT. I'm sorry I wasn't there to help you finish off the pies. It's crazy that Christmas is coming up so soon right? I'm excited for Christmas here even though it will be hard without you, the members are great and I know that they'll take good care of me. I think that my packages are already both here so I should get them by next week at the latest. I haven't read kinzie's patriarchal blessing yet but I am going to print it off and read it today. Same with Matt's talk actually. Sounds like Matt gave an awesome talk and long too! Haha way to go Matt. And let me know how FF 13 is haha. And Kinzie, Dad told me about the "waldo rapist" stroy haha. I think you were thinking of the "where's waldo rapist" which is completely different haha =P.  (There is an area of Kansas City called Waldo, and they have been trying to catch a rapist there.  McKinzie thought that he was called the Waldo rapist because they were having such a hard time catching him, just like Where's Waldo.  We all got a good laugh out of that!)

Well shoot, I'm pretty much out of time, but I really love and miss all of you. Thank you so much for your support and your love that I feel every week. I couldn't do what I do here without you to lift me up and keep me going. I love you all tons and I'm so thankful for a family that is so strong in the Gospel. I can't wait to talk to you all in a month! Love you all tons!

Love,

Elder Norton

Loq'laj Kaqi Wiinq