Wib' Po Chik (2 Months Left)

Saludes to everyone from down here in rainy Polochik.

This week has been RAINY. Saturday night was the worst with a big storm that passed through and took the power out for about 15 hours during the night. My companion didn't hear it but I swear that a bolt of lightning hit the house. Nearly scared me to death while I was trying to sleep. My companion's a VERY heavy sleeper though. He usually talks to me or at least someone in his dream all night haha. It's kind of funny. Anyways then yesterday there was another big storm during the night and it rained quite a bit. Today it was HOT and really sunny in the morning while we played soccer but right now it's raining a lot. We went back and played some good old Monopoly where I dominated the board. I'm starting to like Monopoly a lot. It's a fun game.

This week was also a week with lots of "auk" (planting). We went twice to go and plant corn with two members. It's fun the traditions that they have here for when they go to plant seeds. They usually call family members and friends to come and help them. In return for their work the wife of the person that is planting makes a really big "caldo" which is just soup. Here they mostly make soup with chicken (in Yalijux they always made it with beef). Its a soup with a huge chunk of chicken or a huge chunk of cow and lots of tortillas and "poch" which are like tamales of corn dough. They also eat a lot of bean tamales before going out to work, so it is a lot of fun. The first time we went to go plant corn it was on the side of a REALLY steep mountain and we weren't able to do very much. The second time it was completely flat and the guy that we went to plant with made it super organized and measured with a little rope where we had to plant each seed. It was just a little rope that he tied knots in through the whole thing a certain distance apart. So that was fun. I thought to myself "it would be cool to plant corn in Kansas."

Anyways, this Sunday was great because we had 9 investigators come to church! Erlinda, who is the wife of an inactive member named Carlos, came to church with her daughter and her husband too. It made me super happy because I've really come to love that family a lot and they always tell me that they are going to cry when I leave because "they are accustomed to see my face and hear my voice" already. So we went with them on Thursday with a member who is really great and likes to help us. We committed them to come to church on Sunday, they accepted, we went to go get them Sunday morning, and they were already on their way down the mountain. It felt great. We also started teaching a gospel principles class with our mission leader with all of our investigators and it turned out well. We are working a lot with our branch president to start up a new branch mission plan. We are dividing the area into 3 areas and calling members to be coordinators and ward missionaries for each area to direct some family home evenings and "Mormon nights" as they say here. Our branch president says that next week he'll be extending the calls so we're excited to start working with that. This week we are having interviews with President Watts which is always something to look forward too. Not to be too baggy but it will be my last interview with President Watts before my exit interview...

Speaking of baggy, today I officially complete 22 months of being out on the mission. You know what that means. This weekend is possibly the most baggy weekend for me in my whole mission because I have a lot of great memories of family tradtitions, especially Celebration at the Station and Worlds Of Fun. I MISS YOU GUYS! haha ok well the good news is that I will never miss Celebration at the Station with you guys again. I hope it was fun. Send me pictures next week!!

Alright well here are some personal comments:

Dad- haha yeah dad I was actually just thinking about how I miss watching manly Memorial Day movies with you. I didn't really watch too many with you other years but I just thought about how I really wanted to watch some good old fashion war movies with you while eating some Minute Made lemonade popsicle things or Luigi's lemon ice. We'll have to do that with Jack and Matt when I get back. Things are going well with my companion. Honestly learning Q'eqchi¡' just takes time haha. But I really want to leave him knowing Q'eqchi' really well. He just has to put in a LOT of his part now and hopefully he'll be a Q'eqchi' master. WOW..that's pretty ridiculous about the shoving lawyers. You should sue them. Did you tell the guy to "TAKE IT EASY!" (Nacho Libre accent) ? And ok well I guess if you count today as well it would be 10, but I don't count today. So to me 9 Mondays left haha. Alright dad thanks. I love you a lot dad. I'm really excited to have some good fatherly son bonding time when I get back. Love you tons!

Mom- haha I'm glad that the weather was perfect for the concert. I'm super jealous! What a great family tradition. We should make more family traditions!! haha don't worry mom. Your suffering and afflictions will be but a small moment before I get home and we can make secret trips to eat fast food together and escape from the "nasty hobitses". haha. Yes, you'll have to show me all of your new BBC classic movies. I'm excited for that. BUT we have to go out and do lots of fun things too and just spend good old quality time together. That really is stupid that BVN didn't participate in those awards! I could have gotten famous! Oh well I guess fame isn't all it's made out to be. =P Wow. I'm kind of mad that I didn't go to Blue Valley too! It sounds like it is overall a much better school for the things that I liked to do and everything. Oh well. I'll make my kids go there and live out my dreams through them haha. Yeah we are mostly working with people to convince them to get married. It's hard because they just have silly little things that keep them from getting married like "well I want to have money to buy my wife a nice new set of clothes (about Q1000 sometimes)" or "I need money to be able to pay for the transportation for my wife's family to come see the family" or "to make a big meal for everyone". So it's mostly with money. But we just promise blessings and try to help people understand that it really is a grave sin and that if they die in their sins it will be pretty hard to get into heaven. Alright well I love you mom and I can't wait to see you soon!!!!

Alright folks. Time is up on yet another Monday. Thanks for the emails and for all of your prayers and support. Love you all!! WIB' PO CHIK! (2 months left)

Elder Norton