... can you get pneumonia on the equator?

Hey Mom ~ Thanks for sending the comments you received from Grandma & Grandpa, Sister Molloy, Sister Wunderli, and Sister White. I love you all so much and appreciate your support and love! It's been a pretty hard week, so it was such a blessing to open up my email today and read all of your sweet comments. Grandma Dionne, I didn't know Grandma Zola liked to sing! You know how much I can't wait to meet her someday :) Diana, I am assigned to the Singapore 1st Expat ward. It's a pan-island assignment so I'm all over the place. In a usual day I'm out to Pasir Ris, over to Jurong East, up to the Woodlands, by Orchard, and then we live over by Little India in Boon Keng. Thank goodness for the MRT. Most importantly, Callie, whom I sang with at Michelle’s baptism, is amazing. Everyone needs to look her up on YouTube please! ~ Callie Moore, you'll love her too!

Stoney buddy! Bonjour! How is your French coming along? Hopefully better than mine...I love you bud. I'll send you some cool pictures soon. Jenna Douglass, send me your address please. And Kimmy Lane....what in the world?? I haven't heard from you since I left the MTC.

Ok. It's been a hard week like I said. We've been here for a little over five weeks now. It's been so wonderful to work with Michelle in helping her prepare for baptism and to be able to see that happen for her. Now we're helping Benjamin, and hopefully he'll be getting baptized at the end of the month. We've met so many wonderful people, but Singapore is a very interesting area...contacting, we are finding is not an affective use of time. (For anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about, this is where we go to public places, approach people, get to know them a little bit and share a little bit about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Then we ask them if they'd be interested in learning more. Usually they say they'll call us back if they're interested, and that never happens.) The members here are so strong, the people to whom they've extended an invitation to learn more are like a billion times more likely to progress towards baptism. There are some members who have been on fire with missionary work (Callie Moore and her husband included), but it's very hard to get referrals otherwise. What we'd like is to have no time to contact or "find" on the street because we're so busy teaching member's referrals :) It's not happening yet...but we've got plans….and it's going to happen :) And if anyone else has some great ideas about how to get referrals from members, feel free to send them this way.

In other news, it's not supposed to be rainy season, but it's rained non-stop this past week. We have to walk a good distance to get to the MRT and then from the MRT to church, so by the time I got there on Sunday, I honestly had to wring out my clothes. Three hours of air-con church...and I was frozen!! I'm gaining quite the reputation as the sister who is always freezing. I have a reserved part of the room for district meeting, far away from the air con. Oh ... and also I taught a short lesson on eternal families to a 6'1" Russian supermodel on the MRT a few days ago. Not intimidating at all.

We're still meeting with Michelle for her recent-convert lessons. We were quite worried for the week after her baptism because she kept canceling on us and we were pretty sure something was up. We finally were able to meet with her last night, and found out she's just been super stressed because she has moved up her date to move back to China...to JULY 10. So....we've got a lot of ground to cover. She's in the middle of packing and resigning from her job, but we were all so happy that we found time to meet last night, the Spirit was once again there in so much abundance, as it always is with Michelle. We were able to give her a book of remembrance to record the experiences of learning about the gospel, her baptism, and to get her started on her family history, getting her on track to go to the Hong Kong temple in one year. Temples are something that Michelle connects with so much. When we showed her the picture of the Hong Kong temple, her eyes lit up. "That's our temple?! Someday I think they'll have one in PRChina." Yeah yeah me too, Michelle! Oh it was so awesome. So, she'll move back to Chengdu soon, and then she'll move to Shanghai after a while to continue her studies. She is determined to stay strong in Chengdu, where she won't be able to attend a church service. She's such an inspiration to me. Her prayers are so full of faith. I still can't believe how blessed I am to have met her so soon in the mission. I've learned so much from her that has really built my faith.

Ready for the coolest story of my week? I bought a suitcase on the side of the street on the way home a few nights ago. The second I got it on the MRT, I started playing with the combo that locked the zippers. Of course I messed it up and locked it without seeing what the code was. The whole train was cracking up as I was standing there laughing so hard that I was almost in tears. I consider this quite the feat. No one shows emotion like that in public. Hello we're in ASIA. So, these two Chinese girls were laughing at me and Sister Howard started talking to them. They spoke no English so I hopped in and started talking to them about my broken suitcase. They of course wanted to know how I knew Mandarin and what I was doing there, so I pulled out our name card and showed them. It has a picture of Christ on it. One of the girls saw Christ and just flipped out, saying how she heard about how He died for us on the cross and how easy that makes her heart feel and how touching she thought it was and she wanted to learn more. CAN! I haven't been able to remember how to ask for a phone number in Chinese. So simple, so pathetic, I know. But of course I remembered just in time. She scribbled her number down as she was rushing to get off the train at her stop before they closed the doors. It was so killer! So, she's a referral for the Chinese elders now. Heaven knows I can't teach in Mandarin. But it was so cool to know that we were on that train with her at that time for a reason. And I bought the stupid suitcase and broke it for a reason. God has a plan for everything.

I love you all and hope you have the most incredible week!!

Sister Norton

HFI

Below are some very kind words received from Callie Moore last week regarding Mikelle's roll in Michelle's baptism. Thank you for keeping us updated Callie! Bless you!

Hi! My name is Callie Moore. I am a ward missionary in the Singapore 1st ward where your lovely daughter is serving her mission :). First off, I just want to tell you that Sister Norton is an absolutely amazing missionary! You have so much to be proud of! When I sat through a discussion with her teaching an investigator for the first time I thought she had been out on her mission for a long time. I can't believe this is her first area of only a month or so. Her thoughts and insight are so beautiful and her testimony is so strong and pure.

We have been teaching a girl named Michelle for the last month. She is from China and came to the church with very little knowledge of any of the doctrine. Sister Norton always gives visual examples and analogies that make perfect sense and explains things in such a clear way. Several times I could see Michelle's face as a concept that she had a hard time understanding just clicked after Sister Norton would explain it. The last discussion before Michelle's baptism date was about the prophet Joseph Smith. The sisters explained the story and answered her questions. After thinking for a few minutes, Michelle asked "Do you really believe this happened?" with a hint of surprise. We all briefly explained that we really do believe it happened. Then Sister Norton proceeded to bear a beautiful testimony of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, saying that everything in the church comes down to this. If Joseph Smith lied about what he saw, then nothing in the church is valid. If he told the truth, then this is the everlasting gospel and the only full truth on earth. She talked about how many people may think she is crazy for giving up her personal life and ambitions for 18 months to serve a mission, but that she is making that sacrifice because she knows without a doubt that this gospel is true and that Joseph Smith saw what he said he saw. After hearing all of this Michelle thought to herself for a moment, then the sisters asked her if it made sense to her and if she thought this story could possibly be true. What she said was "I trust what Sister Norton said. She is making this sacrifice because she believes it, and I trust her. I hope that I can come to believe as well." What a beautiful act of faith inspired by a sincere testimony!

Last Saturday Michelle was baptized and I was asked to sing for her baptism. I love singing and I always prefer harmonies over performing solo. By now the rumor has spread far and wide that Sister Norton has a lovely voice! :) So I asked her to sing with me. Here is the video! ♡ Callie

(Note from Mikelle's Mom: Sorry, I am unable to load the video "I Know That My Redeemer Lives" in the format in which it was received ... just know that Callie has an amazing voice and Sister Norton did a beautiful job harmonizing with her :) Thanks again Callie! (You can check out Callie Moore on youtube.com! )