It's great to hear about the weekend! All day yesterday at church and everywhere we went I was saying "The prophet is in Arizona right now dedicating the temple and my family is right there to see it!" It would have been pretty cool to have been there, but you're right nothing like the mission!
So real quick random story. This morning Elder Eliot and I were driving down to the library and side quick story to this one we live out in the country hills in the forest and so we almost hit like 10 different kinds of animals every day driving to and from home so anyway back to my other story we were driving and saw this HUGE turtle laying in the road. We've seen many others that were small and we'd get out and look at them or take a picture but this guy was like half the size of a tortoise! Anyway we got out and ran back to him (while recording on video) and were looking at it. We were both trying to pet his face or feed him plastic to see if he was a snapping turtle but he just sat there.
(While doing this in the back of my mind I was having deja vu of being bit by a "lizard"! haha you'd think I'd learn. Mother's note: Chris was bitten by a Gila Monster when he was about 5)) Anyway I decided to pick the guy up while elder Eliot filmed. He opened his mouth wide the second i picked him up which i now know that that means they're angry:) Elder Eliot had the bright idea that i should put him up to my face, so I did. I was just smiling away and he had his mouth wide open and then out of nowhere..........WAMMOOO! He struck my fore skull and tried to kill me!
haha I'm from Arizona so I thought it was all fun and games but Elder Eliot I guess "knows" about snapping turtles and so he was in horror when I dropped the turtle and reached for my head. He thought it like bit my ear off or something."That little booger just bit off my arm...that's gonna take a tourniquet!" (inside family joke) It didn't hurt me or anything and I was ok but he was freaking out. I ended up picking him up again and putting him off of the road so no one would run him over but it was a pretty funny experience. I just came away with some mud on my face from where he tried to impale me! We're going to try to send the video to you somehow :)
Ok that was long sorry. The week went great. Vince and Devon were going to be baptized this next weekend but Vince is pretty nervous about it. They're both actually going to the same military camp for the next 6 months on Ft. Knox in June and so Vince said he thinks he wants to wait until he gets back to be baptized.....NO! Satan wants us to put off the things of God so he can slowly drag us down to HELL!
We're praying and working hard for him. He tells his friends and family he wants to be baptized. We know he's ready. We set a date with Kevin, Chris' younger brother. June 19th! I'll have been here 6 months by then....crazy! We are still teaching Ronnie Walker and he's SO close! Mom you know that really nice copy of Jesus the Christ you got me before I left. Well I put it in his mail box one day and wrote a letter on it to read a certain chapter and lo and behold he's almost read the whole thing. Yesterday he said "That book is awesome! Tell your mom thank you for sending it to you! I'm going to personally add her on facebook and thank her!" The facebook part was a joke but he really likes it. The only problem is that I haven't read all of it so I can't tell exactly what he likes about it! We're excited for him though. Mom his wife's name is Kristy Walker and they live in Ghent, Kentucky if you want to try to look her up on facebook.
We received a referral for a guy who was being taught by the missionaries up in Louisville and he just moved down here. His name is Julius Jones (i was excited dad when I heard his name) He's really cool though and wants to be sealed to his family for time and all eternity and is just really excited to live the gospel. He wants to get baptized when he's ready. There's a lot of other great people we're teaching and it's just been a huge blessing to be a part of it all! Hopefully President will keep me here for the next 3 or 4 months because these people will all be getting baptized around then. Things are going great!
Yeah don't stress about the shirts mom just whenever you can send them will be ok. Yesterday was the hottest day of the mish so far. 90 and 80% humidity. I'm excited for the summer! Well I'm out of things to say for now. Tell all my brothers and sisters I love them. I know dad probably said "What a doofus!" when he read my story but hey it happens haha Your letters are a great strength to me. The days and weeks are just flying by now and it won't stop. Give Joseph a big hug for me and congratulate him on his graduation! He's my hero! Hope you all have a great week! Hurrah for Israel!
The Brother of Joseph!
additional excerpt:
That's so cool about the temple! You got to sit close to the prophet and Elder Holland! Crazy. I bet the spirit was strong. It's cool how no matter what language you speak, the spirit is still the same. We took a less active and her fiance to a spanish fireside because he's hispanic and can't read or write in spanish so he can't read the book of mormon. Anyway it was about an hour and a half long, I didn't understand one word that was said but it was really powerful. There were a couple times were I just opened my scriptures and just started reading because it was hard to follow, but you knew when they were bearing there testimonies. It was really humbling to me. They were speaking a foreign tongue, i had no clue what they were saying, but I knew what they were teaching and saying was true! Probably doesn't compare to the experience you guys had yesterday but for me that was my experience that strengthened my testimony and was really powerful. I know the spirit is real!
If you ever see a snapping turtle don't put it next to your face! I better go.
Elder Norton #2
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