selamat hari merdeka!

Of course they would loosen up firework restrictions once I'm out of the country. Reeeal nice. I hope everyone had a happy 4th! Any firework accidents? No burned limbs? No burned down ancient Buddhist shrines? Hope not. This was my first Independence Day outside of the U.S. ... so weird. I studied the Captain Moroni chapters that morning and we sang the National Anthem :) I am so grateful to be an American. I love Singapore, I love China, I love all the cultures that I've been exposed to and I have so much respect for all of them as well, but I'm an American and I love that. That's all.

We picked up a new person to teach this past week! She's so wonderful. She's from China and one of the members in the ward has hired her to teach her kids Chinese, so she introduced us to her as well. We had a wonderful lesson on faith. Knowing with a surety vs. faith and what people sometimes call blind faith. That's an issue that has been coming up a lot lately, everyone wants to see something to convince them. There's this wonderful quote from Joseph Fielding Smith Jr. that says, "When a man has the manifestation from the Holy Ghost, it leaves an indelible impression on his soul, one that is not easily erased. It is Spirit speaking to spirit, and it comes with convincing force. A manifestation of an angel, or even of the Son of God himself, would impress the eye and mind, and eventually become dimmed, but the impressions of the Holy Ghost sink deeper into the soul and are more difficult to erase." That's exactly what I've found to be true. I felt that convincing feeling in my heart that this gospel is true. It is the Restored Church of Jesus Christ. And feeling that testimony given by the Holy Ghost is more powerful than anything I could ever see. It's something that's inside of me that no one could ever tamper with. It's my own and that's what I trust. Now, it's just helping other people to understand that and to have the desire to find that for themselves. My words will never convince anyone, they have to find it for themselves. I love that. I hope that this woman will be able to find that inner strength as well.

SARAH LOVE! Sarah is going on a mission to Canada if anyone hasn't heard! I'm so excited for you! When I got your letter this week I just wanted to give you the biggest hug in the world! Obviously I'll write back soon, don't you even worry :) I love you!

In other news? We're still teaching a few people from the open house, still working with a few people towards baptism dates at the end of July :) Sorry, I've got to work out a way to tell you about the awesome people we're teaching without actually disclosing so much info on them. Maybe I'll give them alias names. I'll think on it. Hope you all had a great fourth of July! I love you all!

Sister Norton
HFI