Addison
Tenesha
Elders training on his birthday
Let them eat cake!
September 6
This last week was AWESOME! Without a doubt the greatest birthday of my life! No offense to all the previous ones mom and dad :) You know what I mean.
So, we were in Louisville all last week. They had my bud Elder Gardner and I stayin in the Louisville singles apartment, where I spent the first 3 months of my mission. It was weird to be back there. So first with the training, we learned a lot of things that aren't really new, there was just a new emphasis on them. It was great. I have a new focus. It pretty much just got me in the mindset of SWSWSWSW mom! (Some will, some won't, so what? Someone's's waiting?)
So Tuesday, it was awesome. I was with all of my mission buddies on my birthday. The week before I was praying that I would be able to strengthen my testimony in the first vision/prophet joseph smith. While we were learning Pres Glende walked up to me and quietly asked if I would feel comfortable sharing the first vision in front of everybody. I said I woudln't mind. So, when the time came, I got up in front of about 50 missionaries and my mission president and his wife and gave the first vision and bore my testimony on it. WOW! I don't know why my MP asked me to do it but it was what I needed. I have a strong testimony that the Lord answers our prayers when we need it! Oh and right as I got up there to say it, Sister Glende said oh by the way it's Elder Nortons birthday today and so Pres Glende hopped on the piano real quick and every one sang happy birthday to me! It was awesome!
Then at lunch they brought out the huge cakes! Thank you so much for that mom! All of the elders and sisters were pretty happy for that too! I have a picture of all of us but this computer is dumb so I'll have to send it next week. So, next awesome thing that happened on my bday was I received a gift from Rebecca Singleton (ohio river baptism) She just sent me a little birthday card but it was the greatest gift I've ever received. In it she thanked me for having the courage to knock on her door, and then just bore here testimony to me. It brought me to tears. That would have been enough to finish my birthday, but it got better.
So as I mentioned before, I was staying in the UofL singles apartment. Well our meeting were from 10 to 5 each day and so they let us go out and proselyte for the rest of the day. So the area Elder Gardner and I got to work in all week was my old area! Well, I decided to go see if anyone was still there. We went to go see a recent convert with the actual Singles elders and as we drove by these apartments I saw Addison Berg's car! They dropped us off and we went over to her apartment and knocked on the door. No one answered at first so I started to write a little note card for her and then she opened it! She jumped with surprise to see me standing there. It was awesome! She told me that everyone but her in the apartments moved out. She was going to move to another building but "felt" she needed to stay in the same one. What are the chances? To make it even better, the last lesson I taught her before I left was the word of wisdom. She hasn't smoked or drank in 6 months! She also can't drink tea because it hurts her stomach. She is so prepared! So we set up a time for the next day to see her again. I'll get to that.
To finish the day we went out and ate in a little restaurant in downtown louisville. It was awesome! I will never forget this day! So day two was awesome as well! Learned some new stuff and they let us go to try it out on people. We went on exchanges with the assistants so they could meet and start teaching Addie. I was wrestling with who we should have go teach her. If you remember the assistants and the UofL singles cover the same area so we often would battle for investigators. Well, I felt like if I gave her to the assistants the UofL elders would be angry with me. So I prayed about it and felt like the assistants should teach her. Elder Davis and I went and taught her and it went so well! Elder Davis shared his testimony with her at the end about some personal family struggles he had had and it was exactly what she needed. She's had some rough trials in her life and his testimony just went straight to her heart. He had no clue because she hadn't told him everything yet but when he shared his testimony to her it confirmed to me why they needed to teach her. His testimony is what she needed. We committed her to be baptized on the 26th of Sept! I won't be able to be there for it but it was such a blessing to be a part of.
After that I found Tenesha! She came out waving here arms and yelling with joy! That was a cool experience. I guess she missed Elder Ralston and I. We set up for the assistants to teach her as well so it was good to see her again. Elder Ralston actually was there too but his area he was staying in was across the river in Indiana. He was going crazy not being able to see them. He was glad for the success though. It was just a wonderful week. We came back to Greenville Friday night. Saturday we met with the Mercer family. Going into the lesson Sister Mercer said she had 3 concerns, but she didn't tell us what they were. In her mind she said if they can resolve these three concerns, then this is meant to be! Well, I have a testimony that the spirit truly works through us because as we taught her we resolved all three of her concerns. We committed them to be baptized as a family on October 8th and they accepted! They have 3 sons, 11, 9, and 7. So 4 of them will be baptized! It was such an awesome experience. She said she felt very angry when we started teaching them because she had had a rough week. When we finished she said she felt so peaceful, and that all her worries were gone! The Lord completely softened their hearts!
We're also teaching a man named Rick. He told us a couple weeks ago that he wasn't interested in learning anymore about our church but Elder Hart was bold with him and asked if we could continue to teach him. He agreed. I don't know how he did it lol. Greeny fire i guess! Well we had a good lesson with him before I left for Louisville. When we got back Elder Hart asked if he had read and he said he started and couldn't put it down. He read all the way through Jacob and into Mosiah! No way! He's going to come to church with us next week so we're stoked for that. He's excited for conference. Also for stake conference the next weekend Elder Andersen is going to speak to us. He's excited for that too. We're so stoked for the work here. We're only focusing on the positive and it makes all the difference.
Hey what is great grandma's first name? We met a lady yesterday who was taught by some sisters a long time ago and she gave us her old 1950's copy of the book of mormon. She said she wasn't going to make use of it so we asked if the least we could do is give her a new one. She gladly accepted. It has the first names of the sisters on there. If one of them is grandma's that would be so crazy! So let me know asap. It's pretty cool though has an angel moroni on the cover. When did grandma actually serve here? Can you give me the years? Well I don't know what more to write. We have awesome stuff happening every single day! The Lord blesses us so much. I really feel like my time is short. I still have a year but it just feels like it speeds up every day. Not cool. Glad I have a great example in my older brother. Just work until your times up. I love this work.
Thanks again for all the birthday stuff. The package was great! I stopped eating sugar the week before because one of our investigators is trying to stop drinking coffee so it was hard lol I took a break on my bday though. He said it was ok. haha Grandmas cookies were awesome! Made me feel like I was taking them from her cookie jar. Thank you so much grandma! I love you! Well I look forward to hearing from you again. Before you know it we'll be talking on the phone again. Until then, do all you can to share the gospel! Hope you all have a great week! Love you!
Elder Norton
Sept 13
So Elder Hart and I had a good week. Glad they're letting us stay together again. I don't know how they transfer a missionary and their trainers after the first transfer. It's barely enough time to get to know them and get used to how they teach and really build a friendship and then BAAM! Glad it's not us. Besides I still feel there's a lot more work I need to do here! So where to start? I guess to answer your first questions, I did talk to the other missionaries about RH....(legal challenges he asked me to edit) It was extremely saddening to me because elder Ralston and I really got him going in the right direction, not to say the other missionaries did something wrong but he just gave into some temptations and it put him back where he started. All I can do now is pray for him. I remember Elder Webb. My first transfer in the mission was his last transfer but we were in different areas so I never saw him. I know who he is though. I'm going to send you something in a separate letter about the comment about him talking with Pres Glende. To be honest I actually didn't get choked up when they all sang to me. It was awesome seeing my mission heroes and friends all there with me. Now right after when I gave the first vision, that was another story :)
Ok, where to start. First off about the missionary "feed me" calendar, you should just rip it down! Now, I guess if the mission pres authorized that then never mind but we've had trouble with that out here that all the members are so worried about us missionaries being fed and just want a calendar so they can sign up and just feed us and shoot the breeze.....Not cool. I'm not going to lie, I love being fed, but just think about a friend or a relative who you could invite over to be spiritually fed by those great missionaries everyone loves to feed. If we were more worried about our Father's "other" children and making sure they are spiritually fed first, I'm sure the Lord would take care of the physical food for the Elders. Maybe making like a calendar for signing up to have the missionaries teach in your home, and if you want to add a double bonus, you can throw in a meal? I really just thought of that while I was typing. I'm going to try that in our ward and see how it goes. I just personally feel there's a lot of time wasted with missionaries and members eating meals together.
The weather here is starting to get pretty dang nice! It's cool in the mornings. No more stinkin' humidity! That's crazy about elder hicks? and his dad and elder norton numero uno! He just has all sorts of neat experiences happening. I keep forgetting to bring up the whole idea of jobo coming out here. I'll try to remember in interviews this transfer. That's going to be such a sweet experience for drew. Going to the temple and seeing the whole fam! They were talking about having a ward social thing in PEC yesterday and it was when he comes home and so it was weird to think about. No more 3 way calls! Yeah Elder Hatch informed me he was going to be there with you guys on Christmas when I call so just a heads up. haha
I love family history. That's another thing that I really had no interest in or cared about before the mish that now I wish I could learn all the history about my family. I'm just dying to find someone that knew Grandma Webb! I know I will. There's no way I was just sent here just to say my grandma served here too. There's someone the Lord needs me to find. We work hard every day to find them! Elder Hart is pretty anxious about it too! Don't worry Great Grandma, Elder Norton #2 will find your long lost golden family and open the doors for all of them to receive and accept the gospel!!!!! That's my drive this transfer!
So we were tracting on saturday I believe, and we came up to this really really nice house. Knocked on the door, and this older man came out to talk to us. He told us that he always tries to do the Lord's will. We talked a little bit and we tried to intro the BofM to him but he said he's not interested in reading any book, but that he knew we were supposed to be talking to him. Elder Hart and I were a little confused at his statement. He then told us that that morning the Lord "told" him that he was going to meet two men. He said he had previously that morning met two men, but he knew they were not the ones. He then said, "I know you two are the ones. Excuse me for a second." He then walked back into his house. Elder Hart said is he going to get a gun? I thought he was going to get a briefcase of money. I was more right. He came back out and said, like I said I want to do the Lord's will, and handed Elder Hart a $100 bill. We both looked at each other, and then he walked back inside. We turned and walked a few feet down his driveway and stopped. We knew we couldn't take the money. We didn't know if it was some kind of test or what, so we turned around and went back and knocked on his door. He came out again and said oh don't want the money huh. We gave it back to him and explained our purpose and that we had something much greater than money for him. He still wouldn't accept letting us teach him and continued to try and get us to accept his money but we couldn't. He wished us well, we left with a prayer, and then headed off. We still don't know if we did the right thing but hopefully we'll find out one day. I just wish he would have let us teach him.
We taught the Mercer's again. Had a church tour with them. The members were so perfect for them. Pretty much the same conversion story went to the same type of church and so they really connected well. Guess what, Sister Mercer wants to be baptized in the RIVER AND THE RIVER ONLY!!!!!!!!!!! "If Jesus can be baptized in the river, so can I!!!" So we're going to baptize the whole family in the river. I don't know what rivers we have around here but I'm excited for round 2! Sister Singleton will be happy to get a picture of that :) No one made it to church this sunday again though! It was a huge bummer! We've tried so hard since we've been here and haven't been able to get anyone to make it yet. We're working on it though. The ward here is very supportive and so it'll happen.
You guys should just like, record dad's lessons and talks he gives in church and then send them to me! He's the man. 6 miles mom?!?! I can barely run 2!!!! I guess that's a motive for me to get my lazy bum up and outside. Your a great inspiration to me mom! Not just because of your desire to push yourself but your positive attitude of gratitude for everything! I need to do better! Well I think my letter is getting lengthy as well. Hope everyone has a great week! I know I sure will! I LOVE YOU FAMILY!
Elder Norton #2
Sept 20
Hump days are overrated! Don't worry about it. Was it the 17th that you realized you didn't do anything? I was set apart on the 20th and didn't report to the MTC until the 23rd because I spent the 21st and 22nd with Drew and I'm not going home until the 28th so technically you're still good to go. So I have over a year left still mother so there! haha Yeah Jericho Road just came out with a new CD. That might be more then you were planning on sending me anyway but I'd be happy with that. Or you could send me a temple recommend holder. Those are pretty sweet. I was looking at the deseret book magazine and they had one of the first vision, joseph kneeling in the grove and a pillar of light above him. Pretty neat!
Well I've had a pretty hard week. Really, it hasn't been hard at all physically, although Elder Hart and I get up and go running every morning. It's just been a pretty rough mental week for me. Trying to keep my thoughts positive. Doing everything we can to get investigators to church and no one still coming. It's been 7 weeks since an investigator has come to church. I guess since being in Carrollton so long I'm not used to not seeing our "fruits" so quick. It's hard to make the thoughts in your mind become reality. I can see myself converting (with the help of the Lord) preachers of other faiths and their congregations converting with them and having hundreds of baptisms. Why isn't it possible? I know it can happen. I can see myself being a part of such a great miracle, but why doesn't it happen? The Lord wants all of these children baptized, why can't we be the ones to do it? Idk. I guess turning 20 and realizing that I've hit the stinkin' "hump" I've let the optimistic side I've had for so long slip away. I'm seeing the glass as half empty. Not cool. I feel like I'm sort of in the slump I was through middle school. Remember mom when you'd always sit down with me and tell me my time would come, that I was better then what everyone else thought, and I was always down on myself. I'm really trying hard not to be. I guess I've looked at the past year at what I haven't accomplished instead of what I have. Just really being selfish. I apologize.
Well about G-ville, we are the only missionaries serving here currently. Elder Whipple is in Crestwood just east of Louisville. I told you that last letter didn't I? He's in a bike area :) Poor kid. Hopefully he doesn't loose his teddy bear figure haha Sorry if I offended you mom about the whole meal thing. Didn't mean to. It's no big deal. Unfortunately we don't live in a perfect world and I know it's huge to have members trust so just pretend I didn't say anything. We actually received a referral from a member after sacrament meeting yesterday. It was sweet! First one here! She said it was an older couple. Wife KNOWS the gospel is true but husband is an atheist. We'll see how it goes. We're going to see them this week. The weather is almost back to the normal beautiful cool breezy weather that it was when I first got here. The trees are all starting to change colors. Next week will be in the low 90's high 80's and then I think we're done! No more hot and humid!
Well, we did a lot of service for this part member family the Pipers. The wife quit one of her two jobs so she can start coming back to church. Her husband is not a member but is awesome! We've only known him for a week are best friends with him. He had open heart surgery a couple months ago and was in the process of re-shingling his roof and so he was half way done and had to stop because he physically can't do it himself. So, we're doing it. Got some pretty good sunburns while we were at it but it felt good to get up and work. She has an older son who's 13, he's a member and then a younger son who's 9 and he wants to be baptized. Bro Piper has a son who's 12 and hasn't been baptized so we're working on getting the 3 of them to do it all together! We're stoked for that family.
There's a less active man we met a week and a half ago and started making it a routine visit each week to see him. He said visiting with the missionaries is the highlight of his life. So, we've had only 3 visits with him. Gave him a blessing tuesday because he wasn't feeling well and then he had a stroke yesterday morning. His fiance/caretaker who lives next door to him said they flew him down to louisville. She's going there today but she said they told her to come prepared to make some decisions. Not a lot of hope he'll make it through. I'm pretty sad about that. Such a great man. It's hard not to get attached for reasons like that but it's impossible to do. You just grow to love these people, but you always know that eventually you have to leave. Elder Eliot has a new companion in Carrollton. It was a missionary that was in my district last transfer. This is his last transfer here so he'll go home. Looks like Elder Eliot will stay another after this. He'll probably end up being there at least 9 months. Crazy. He told me Vince's mom is going to be baptized in a couple weeks. BOOYAH! I miss them pretty bad. He's an awesome missionary. Maybe we'll be able to serve together again further down the road. I hope they'll keep me here until Christmas. Guess we'll see.
I'm pretty dang stoked for General Conference. The next week after that we have stake conference and Elder Andersen of the 12 is coming to speak to us. Double dosage! It's going to be a great opportunity for our investigators. Things are going well here. Trying to hold on to those we're teaching by fighting off the dang "christians" that like to anti them! It's a fun experience here. Gotta keep the dobber up. I know the Lord is in charge and His will, will be done! It can't be stopped. Keep working on your running mom. Don't give up. If I get home and you still have those feelings, then you can, but until I'm home, I don't want you to quit. If I don't quit, you can't either. I love you guys so much. You're the best ever. The Lord takes care of those who are obedient to his commandments. I'm trying my best to keep them, and so he's taking care of me. I know there's plenty of jobs down there for jobo, but a lot of them will probably take sacrifice. Guess he'll have to decide. Hope you all have a great week. Love you so much! Give my other brothers hugs for me when they get home. I'll be home soon enough. Too soon I'm afraid. Talk to you soon!
Elder Norton#2
Sept 27
WE HAD INVESTIGATORS AT CHURCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The drought is over! It's BAPTIZING time!!!! (Picture it in the voice of Sanka when he says to his coach, It's butt whipping time! haha cool runnings!) Anyway the Piper's are a family sent to us from Heavenly Father! Roger is just so open and prepared to be part of the church. They both have had separate marriages and so the boys that live with them are Justin, Drake, and Hunter. Justin has been baptized but Hunter and Drake haven't. Drake is Roger's son. He's 12. Hunter is 9 and he's SO excited to be baptized! Sister Piper is super excited too because she knows in a year she will have an eternal family! I'm definitely going to have to come back for that one! They all made it to church yesterday and the ward just ate them up! Roger couldn't believe the love that was shown to him, especially since he's not even a member yet. The boys loved it and the mother was shown a lot of love and gladness for her to be back. I've never felt so much love and joy amongst a family before on my mission! Every time you walk into their home you can just feel it. So awesome!
We've almost finished the roof. We're going to ridgecap it this week and then we'll be done. I'm gettin a nice tan up in the sun :) It's starting to get cold. It's funny how you complain all summer about the heat and the second it gets cold you wish it was back. I need to be more grateful. There's a couple other people we set baptismal dates with this week. We're excited to get them to conference and stake conference as well. We haven't been able to have contact with the Mercer's all last week. It's a huge bummer. I just feel like they're slipping away from us. We dropped the date for baptism that we set. When we get back into the house we're going to just let them know what we're offering them. We love them so much, but if they won't keep commitments there's really not much more we can do.
We have a lot of tracting scheduled for this next week. Just the daily missionary work. We're starting to receive referrrals from the ward. YES!!!! We're going to be teaching a member's sister at their house this week. His whole family is baptist. His father was a baptist preacher. He converted when he married his wife. He has a strong testimony now and is trying to reach out to his family. We're stoked for it. Elder Hart just showed me some pictures of drew and his family. I guess he was on splits and found elder hart's family. Pretty cool. One of the pictures has a picture of me in it on the coffee table. It's funny to think about. I"ll send them to you. Things are going well here though. I hope they'll at least keep me here until christmas. Obviously if the Lord needs otherwise then I'll accept that.
Mom, I can relate to you experience you had somewhat. You start to plan things out in your mind things that you expect to happen, and then when it doesn't, you're heartbroken. That's happened to me a couple times so far, I'll share those experiences later, but I think that story was fitting for me at the point that I'm at right now in my mission. We'll see what happens. Until then, we're working as hard as we can with the time we have here. I've been talking to a lot of the "older" members of the ward and no one seems to remember Grandma. If you have any more info let me know. I haven't received your package yet so it'll probably come today or tomorrow. Thanks for the love and support. I love you all so much. Hope your week is great and look forward to talking with you all soon!
Elder Norton #2
No comments:
Post a Comment