More Miracles

Hey guys!!

This week was fantastic. One of the best weeks of work of my whole mission. We saw a lot of miracles and worked really hard this week. Last Sunday we found out that there was a new investigator in church that is the girlfriend of a member. (Among the Q'eqchi', it's pretty much just: flirt, find out you like each other, move in the live with the man.) So I say girlfriend because they're not married yet, but really it's pretty much his wife. We set up an appointment with them this last Friday and went to go and meet her and see how she felt about the church. We made the hour long walk (and we walked pretty darn fast) up the mountainside, which was exhausting for me since I haven't been walking in mountains for pretty much 8 months or so now. But we got there and she asked us if she could get baptized. We, of course, said yes and made plans to visit her 3 or 4 other times during this week, even though she lives a wee bit far away. We visited her again yesterday and started teaching her with the family of her husband about the gospel. The husband's family are REALLY faithful members. They come every Sunday even though they live so far away and they are always happy. They were really happy that we started visiting them since no one really visited them before. So we put our first baptismal date with her and we were very blessed by the Lord to find her. 


After that we went with our investigator, Juana, who is also the wife of a member of the church. (they aren't married either) Her husband says he doesn't want to get married yet...But we went to go talk with Juana about baptism and marriage. Her answer pretty much knocked me off my feet. She told us that she had had a dream that two missionaries gave her a book and told her to read it (not so coincidentally we gave her a new Q'eqchi' triple the visit before) She told us that she had felt in her heart that this was God's church and that she wanted to be baptized and that this was the church where she knew that she needed to work all of her life. We called her husband (who works in the Cap and was supposedly going to be home that day to talk with us but didn't end up coming) and asked him if he wanted to get married. He told us that he still didn't want to. We were all pretty let down by his answer. But then Juana told us "I'm going to fast tomorrow so that I can get baptized". This was a big deal because we had talked to her a couple of days before about doing a fast and she said that she didn't want to because she had never done one before and didn't know how. We fasted with her Saturday and Sunday so that the Lord would soften her husband's heart so that they could get married and she could get baptized the 31st. Please especially pray for her and her husband will you?  Apart from her we put a baptismal and marriage date with Miguel , also for the 31st. He is really funny and I really love him and want to help him. He comes to church every Sunday that he isn't working and really loves his family so we are teaching him about how to be a forever family. We were able to teach a great lesson about how he has to choose to have an eternal family and that he has to choose to stop drinking and smoking and it touched his heart. Please also pray for him because we have a lot of work to do before he can get baptized the 31st. Finally, we put a baptismal date with a 10 year old boy named Edgar whose parents are a little bit less active but have been coming back to church now.

In the end, right now we have 4 baptismal dates with 3 families that will be completed. We have another family that we would put a baptismal date with, but the mom is right about to have a baby and she is the one who needs to get baptized. Due to the tradition here of not leaving the house for 40 days after giving birth, she will have to wait to get baptized until April or May. Hopefully I'll still be here!! The members here have started leaving with us to go and teach families, they have started holding family home evenings with other less active members and making visits to the sick and the needy in the branch. They are doing all of this on their own initiative and we feel like the whole area here is reviving. The church attendance rose to 175 this past week and we expect it to keep rising. I'm pretty much seeing everything that happened in Salama happening here all over again. That just goes to show that the Lord blesses His children in the same way no matter who they are, where they are,or what language they speak.

Alright I have to finish kind of quick to get back to you guys on the baggy questions a bit: here are some shootouts.

Dad- thanks for the info about classes. I am in agreement with the Spanish class and I think that will be perfect. I'm honestly not sure if I want to stay in neuroscience or not. I'm thinking about switching to linguistics. I don't know yet though. I would like to take maybe a piano class though? Something like that. I also think that New Testament would be great. Todd Parker teaches New testament so I'd like to have him as my teacher if possible. Also, I want to know more about a class called "Living Prophets" I think? I think you're right that I'm not going to jump head in my first semester. I'll keep thinking about it and let you know more next week. You keep thinking about it too and give me all the info you can will you? Interesting dream...It kind of reminds me of a story that we read about in the teahings of George Albert Smith on Sunday in the chapter about the blessings of temple work about a man who had a dream. Since Pres. Hinckley is on the other side of the veil, it could mean that maybe you need to do more work for your needy relatives on the other side of the veil. There may be some "widows" who need your help to receive the sealing ordinance to be united to their husbands again. And maybe mom is your companion. Just a thought. Pray about it though! Love you dad thanks for everything!

Mom- haha you are so stinkin' funny! =P It's really weird that everything's coming down to the line already. But as for the baggy questions, I think I just want to go sing with the choir in Senahu after the change conference, go to see Tikal with you guys, come back to see the rest of my areas and then head home. I just want to be with you guys, visit my old areas, and maybe visit some of my converts to say goodbye and then leave. We could hire someone to drive us around. When Elder Wixom came they came with a tour guide that did Book of Mormon tours and that spoke English and it looks like he was pretty flexible in taking them wherever. They came to church with him Sunday. So I'm not sure. Look it up and let me know more.

I love you all!! My time is up for this week, so we'll talk to you all again next week!!

Love,
Elder Norton