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
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