well flip, elder, i'll try not to say it anymore.

Hey! I really hope that I can make sense of what I'm about to write...we're in the mission office right now and it's kind of crazy, so I keep getting distracted. Sorry :) First, my parents send the best letters in the world. Thank you guys! I love reading them. You crack me up. Ricki's wedding sounds like it was wonderful! So happy for you, buddy!

Hey mom, you said that you saw a link for the Compassvale Chapel on lds.org, surrounded by skyscrapers? Those are HDB flats (government subsidized housing). It's a very residential area. Welcome to Singapore haha. And that chapel is about 15 minutes away from where I live! Just google Mustafa's. I'm right up the road. It's fun :)

Want to hear the most amazing thing? Remember Deborah? She was living here in Singapore and learning about the church when we first got here. She was the one that asked me if I ever feel embarrassed wearing a nametag. We had a chance to teach her a few times before she returned to the states. SHE AND HER THREE SONS GOT BAPTIZED LAST WEEK. I cried when the ward members told me. You're always told that you never know what happens to the seeds you plant, it was such a blessing to know about this one. She's such an amazing woman. So happy for her.

We met with our new friend, Mr. S. last week. He's Christian and he tends to call anyone who isn't Christian an infidel...makes for a pretty amusing lesson. We'll try to work on the whole love for everyone deal. He's really sweet though. We're excited to meet with him more.

Last Friday was the beginning of the Lantern Festival for Mid-Autumn Festival and we got to go to the Chinese Gardens to see all the lanterns with L and her husband, K! L has been praying more and more and is loving having that be part of her life now. K is a bit critical of it, but he's still nice and willing to meet with us to learn more. But L left for China today, so we'll see how that pans out.

A member in a ward invited us to meet with his friend, M, on Saturday. They're both in Secondary School so we had to have permission from her parents. This young man gave her a Book of Mormon about a year ago and she's read more than half of it on her own. She's grown up basically atheist and never really thought about God. The deal is she became friends with many of the young men in the expat ward here and she wanted to know what they all seemed to have in common to give them such strong morals and a positive outlook on life, and they have all been sharing more and more about the gospel with her over the past few months. She had so many questions for us, I loved it. She's not sure if she'll be able to meet with us again (her mom wants to know everything she was taught before she agrees to let her see us again) but she wants to. And she wants to come to church. So, right now we're just praying for her and encouraging her to pray for the desires of her heart.

On Saturday night, F invited us over to her flat for dinner and a short lesson. She is so lonely, it breaks my heart. It's a really slow process with her, so we haven't really gotten past the Restoration. Her faith is amazing though. She is constantly talking about her Savior and listening to Christian music. Being at her house was a little bit of an eye-opener for me. Her expressions of faith are very different from what I've grown up with and been comfortable with all my life, but it made me realize that it was extremely honorable and I could probably learn a lot from her devout expressions of faith. She shows it more than many Latter-day Saints, and I think we could all learn from that. We shouldn't ever be comfortable in our progression towards Christ. There's always more room to grow, and we can learn so many lessons from people not of our own faith.

We were supposed to meet with N at the Compassvale Chapel yesterday, like usual, but we got to the chapel and realized we forgot the key. It ended up being a huge blessing because N invited us back to his home to meet his family instead of just cancelling the appointment. And then, he prayed for the very first time with us. Huge progress. Sikit sikit lama lama.

Last night we had were able to meet with L & E again and just set out our expectations. They both married into LDS families and have been around the church and members for years. Unfortunately, they've felt very pressured and offended on occasions, so it was progress that we even got an appointment with them. They made us this wonderful dinner and then we just laid everything out on the table. I told them that we don't want any elephants in the room (trying explaining that one to someone whose first language is Tagalog...), that we know the church isn't a new thing to them, and that we know they already have strong faith in Christ. We don't want to meet with them to destroy that faith, we just want to explain what we believe and let them make the decision if they think they could add it to the truths they already know. Something triggered something, because the ice melted almost instantly, their body language did a complete 180 and they just opened up to us and told us how grateful they are that we were wanting to listen to them and let them learn at a slower pace. We've got standing appointments for every Monday night, so we're excited :)

NG finally texted back!!!!! She can come to church next week. Updates later. I cried once again.

We made a paper chain to count down to my birthday! Birthday month starts in two days! I've been gone six months...crazy huh? I've got to go or we'll be late for the Hari Raya BBQ! Selamat Hari Raya! I love you all so much and hope you have a great week!

Sister Norton

HFI!

is this going to be forever??

We've been having fun with our new Toa Payoh area! It's crazy busy now, trying to juggle two wards that both meet at 9:00 am on Sundays, so we'll always be on splits on Sundays now. My companion this last week was the lovely Callie Moore! She was great. And a HUGE cockroach just crawled out from under the computer, the Indian man who works at the computer shop wouldn't stop laughing at me because I was maybe freaking out a bit. Ewww.

Ok, bust it out. First to answer the Mommy's questions, my Malay is ok...I get chances here and there to practice, usually with Y & I, but sometimes on the train or with taxi drivers. Mandarin is not as ok as Malay, but it's coming along. I did learn how to pray in Mandarin by my goal date, and it was so good that I did! You'll see why if you keep reading :) TT is not back from China yet, but we did hear from her and she misses us and can't wait to meet when she gets back. That's always good to hear. We're expecting about two weeks or so on that one. NG still doesn't answer calls or respond to SMS. It seriously breaks my heart. I feel like such a baby because I just cry about it sometimes, especially when her baptism date came and passed and no word. It's got to work out eventually though. I know that she felt this is the truth, so she'll come back. Maybe I won't be the one that gets to see her baptism, but it will happen eventually. I wasn't able to see Y & I this past week, but the other sisters did and they're still doing well. Rindu kamu!

Friday night was such a treat. We were finally able to meet with J, she's been coming to church for quite a while with a member, but has been very reluctant to let people in. When we told our ward mission leader that she had invited us over for dinner, he was shocked. And it was so great! She made popiah and shark fin soup and made us eat so much I wanted to die, but it was delicious. We were able to share one of our favorite scriptures with her (Ether 12:4) and her brother and sister-in-law and talk a bit about what faith in Jesus Christ can do for us. Then she came to Relief Society on Sunday, which is a huge step because she usually only goes to Sunday School. She's a sweetheart. It's going to be very slow with her, but she's ready to start learning. I can't wait to help her along the way, she's so eager to understand more about the gospel.

Saturday morning we went out to the Chinese Gardens and walked around the lake with L. We met her a little over a week ago on the MRT. She was standing facing us but a few people were standing in between, so she leaned through them and smiled and just said, "Hi!" Then she asked us who we were and what were we doing? We had to get off the train, but we were able to get her number and give her a call so we could meet up. On Saturday, she told us that she had wanted to say hi to us on the train because we had "shining smiles" and she knew we were good people. She's incredible. She's from China and living here with her husband right now. So at the lake, we talked a little bit about who God is and what we do as missionaries, helping people understand how they can have a relationship with God and learn of the plan that He has for them. It was such a foreign idea to her, but she embraced it and just kept saying how hopeful it all seemed and she wanted it. She introduced us to her husband too, he's also very nice. Then yesterday, we went back to teach her more. We covered a lot of material, but after, she said that she wanted to know more, and then she prayed for her first time in her life with us. It was awesome. The Mandarin came in handy when we were trying to explain a few different parts of the gospel, and I told her that she can pray in Mandarin or English, whichever is more comfortable for her. She said she wouldn't know how to pray because she's never learned words for God or anything like that in Mandarin, so I was able to teach her how to pray very simply in Mandarin. So, definitely a blessing that I learned that last week. We'll see her again on Friday night and Sunday, but then she'll go back to China next week for anywhere from 1-6 months....so....we'll see.

Our friend, C, has been here all summer for a dance internship and we got permission to go see it on Saturday night. It was amazing! There was no stage and no seats, so you just couldn't stand in a spotlight in the room because that's where the dancers would be and other than that you could walk around and see the dance from different angles. It was incredible. And she got an offer to come back and dance with their company permanently after she graduates! So proud of her. She'll leave tomorrow for the states and hopefully continue learning about the gospel there. C is very artistic and naturally spiritual, just not very religious. I was kind of thinking about something that we have in common, we both really loved the book Eat, Pray, Love and that kind of quest for inner peace and understanding. That's something that's always interested me. So many world religions are focused on finding that, kind of a nirvana idea. I've come to learn more and more out here that that inner peace comes from having harmony in your life, and for me, it's harmony with the plan that God has for me. Just knowing that I'm on the path that He wants me to be on, the one that leads back to Him. That's the most beautiful thing about the gift of the Holy Ghost. When you have the Holy Ghost with you, you feel peace. I truly believe that it's the same peace everyone else is searching for, and it's something that's attainable in this lifetime, it's a gift that's there to help us. I think some of the people out here would be shocked to see how easy it is to have once you begin following Jesus Christ. Just a thought.I hope you're all doing well! I love you so much!! Have a great week :) Email me early if you're going to email this next week, we've got zone conference so it will need to be on Tuesday. Sarah love, please know that I love you and am praying for you. I'm so excited for your mission to start. I would write you now, but it wouldn't get to you before you enter the MTC, so just send me your MTC box # and all that and I'll get one to you there. Do it fast though :) You'll be there a short amount of time so I need to get it off soon. CADE. I need your address. Someone send it to me please? I doubt he reads this. The giant cockroach is now sitting on the wall next to me, I can't take my eyes off it. Why did God create cockroaches?!

Sayangi semua kamu!

Sister Norton

HFI

This guy is way cool! Check it out ~ http://mormon.org/me/3D6F/

Another beautiful night!

parrish, you're 6'3"...get it over the net!

We were working on zone unity today, so we all went to west coast and had a zipline relay and played volleyball....obviously it brought us really close together, no competition there :)

Sister Howard and I are the lucky new recipients of a second ward (and area) here in Singapore, the Toa Payoh ward! So, just as we thought things were picking up and getting pretty busy with just one area, we get a new one (in addition to the expat ward). I don't think we'll be trying too hard to fill our time anymore. I'm so excited to be able to work with a local ward too. It's going to be awesome.

The bad news first: NG still won't answer SMS or calls :( All we can do is wait and pray that she'll come back now. The other bad news, we have to stop teaching N pretty soon. It's so hard because he just keeps trying to turn it into a religion bash and proving that his church is right. That's not what we're there to do. There's no point to our meetings if we can't have the Spirit there with us and trying to prove truth is never going to do that.

The good news: We met with all of our investigators from China last week! The Chinese is not coming along so great on my part...I do have a goal to be able to pray in Mandarin by the end of the week though. Good thing they can tahan in English for the most part.

The big lesson I learned this week: Prayer. We always pray before we leave the apartment, but we've gotten lazy at praying during the day before appointments and contacting. We were at Harbour Front the other night and decided to say a prayer before we tried talking to people. It was crazy, everyone was listening to us after that. People would just have us sit down and tell their whole past history with God and really just open up. We picked up a new investigator from it even, she met with us the very next day. It was just such an apparent tender mercy and pointing us in the right direction, like, "Of course you're supposed to be praying! Keep that up." I always prefer learning by incentive. Just another great reminder that God is in this work with His missionaries. It's His work.

Y and I are still facing a lot of opposition. It's so amazing to meet with them and know without a doubt that we had nothing to do with them coming to learn about the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's exactly how it should be. The Spirit should always be the one teaching. I know you're both on the right track, just be patient. Terus berdoa, terus membaca firman Tuhan yang ditulis untuk membantu kamu. And check this out http://lds.org/general-conference/2003/04/the-sustaining-power-of-faith-in-times-of-uncertainty-and-testing?lang=eng&query=tribulation+patience

Sorry it's a short one today. We still have to make it to Malaysia before pday ends. Hopefully we'll have lots more to tell about our new area next week! I love you all so much and hope you're doing well! Thank you for the letter and pictures of Jenna's final show, Wendy! I loved it! I'll write back soon.

Dengan kasih,

Sister Norton

HFI

i tried to nuzzle the window but my glasses got in the way.

So here's the nature of being in an "expat ward."* It's nomadic. So are the people we teach apparently. Everyone is gone! They are either out of the country for three weeks to four months, or they just started big important jobs that suck up all of their time :( Sedih! So...we hope the work will be rolling a bit more in about two weeks. We do what we can till then.

Happy National Day yesterday! Apparently there were some sick fireworks. We didn't see them. BUT we were meeting with a really great family at the time, showing them around mormon.org and helping them find videos to share with people, so I don't think we missed out on much.

Sister Jensen had to go home (KK, not home, home) eventually. I miss her already! But I'm so grateful that she was here for a few days, it was like someone pressed the reset button on Singapore for me. All of a sudden I just realized how incredible this place is and how awesome the people are, how exciting it is to be sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with them. I think I'm just going to keep that example going for the rest of my mission. Wherever I am, just think what it would be like for someone who hasn't been in the area for three months to come in and take a look. Everywhere is awesome; you just have to keep refreshing your view.

We met a really sweet girl from India at our apartment building last week; we'll call her A. The very next day, we were at Lucky Plaza and bam! There's A. She was pretty excited to see us, and we are going to start meeting with her on Wednesday nights. We've also been talking a lot with the security guard at our complex, V. She's so amazing and we get to speak Malay with her! We talk for about 10-15 minutes every night that she's working when we come home. We've been talking a lot about questions she has about life and her family, so we'll be dropping off a nice little DVD to her next time she's working and asking her when we can meet off the clock. So, I really like where we live :)

Our Chinese friends came to church again last week! Two moms that are friends and their two daughters. We have appointments with all of them this week to explain more about the Restoration of Christ's Church and how we have The Book of Mormon. They're so sweet. I brought my Mandarin hymn book to church so we could sing out of that (thanks for sending it, mommy!) and they were so in shock that I could sing in Mandarin (I think...) that they just sat there smiling and listening to me instead of singing with me...but it was fun. Obviously I'll be hitting my Mandarin studies to help them understand what we're teaching a bit more.

NG isn't answering calls or SMS :( That new job of hers is working her so hard. We're trying to meet with her but the last thing we want to do is stress her out more than she needs to be. Keep her in your prayers please.

I ate crocodile this week! Tasted like turkey...

Here's the fun thing about having a companion. Usually when you're around people you don't know super well, you talk about things to get to know each other more. When you're with someone all day every day for three months, you can have pretty sweet conversations about life and everything you think about. Last night I was telling Sister Howard about how awful I am at judging people and how much being here has made me see my own pride much more than I've ever wanted to. In a very kind way (thank goodness), she started explaining that we never know what people are sensitive about, what weaknesses they have that they're working so hard to change, and when we judge them, we might be hitting right on that subject that's already so tender for them. Progression, improvement, and growing towards our Savior are inseparable. When you progress, you grow closer to Him, and He has a magnetic force. If we want to be closer, He'll give us the strength to progress and grow closer. We never know where others are on that spectrum, how far they've already come, and how much they long to overcome the very things we're judging. It was such a great lesson for me so I just thought I'd pass it forward. Hopefully we'll all be more understanding and loving towards those around us. My kawan is oh so wise.

I hope you're all having a splendid week! I still love letters....:) And I love all of you!

Sister Norton

HFI

*Translation: A ward is a congregation of people, usually divided by geographic location. The expat ward here doesn't pay attention to land boundaries, it's just anyone living anywhere in Singapore who is not a citizen or permanent resident (PR).

mmmmm banana leaf curry :)

Sister Jensen and Sister Norton!!

It was a happy reunion for these two MTC companions!

wait are you doing ramadan, or lent??

Can you believe I've been gone for five months? I can't. Monday was the start of Ramadan here and we decided we're going to "fast" from some things for the month. The way Sister Wong described it, it sounded a little more like Lent! I'm just amped for the "Mormon" fast we're all going to have for Y & I soon.

Let's see...this might be a boring email, it's only been like four days since the last one and nothing has really happened. It's been good for me though, I've had some time to evaluate D&C 64:33 style. Do you remember when Elder Bednar had that great talk about the brushstrokes in a painting and how you only realize the big picture once you take a step back out of the details and observe what they've built up to? That's how I feel about our area right now...in conjunction with D&C 64:33. It's only been small and simple things so it might be hard to notice them, but we sure have a pretty solid foundation being built up here and I'm amped. August is going to be the kicker, I just feel it. I could really be tempted to think that not much has happened here, that it's the same as we found it in the beginning of May, but it's SO MUCH MORE. We just haven't noticed the results of all our efforts. We love the members of the Church in our area. We love having our friends who we're teaching over to visit them. There's a good trust relationship between us and the ward and that's exactly what we said we wanted when we first got here. Check. We've found a lot of people to teach also, it will all start rolling if we just keep pushing and praying. Not pushing people though...that wouldn't be nice.

I had to take this really nice attitude or else I could be really bummed by the fact that B & NG were supposed to get baptized this coming Saturday. Nadai! NG got a new job, which is so, so wonderful, but she doesn't have enough time to meet with us and learn everything before Saturday, so hopefully next Saturday will be more realistic. She still wants it. B is just same old same old and we don't know where to go from here.

We had a pretty cool experience at church on Sunday, a group of about eight uni students showed up to Sacrament Meeting and then came to Sunday School after. Right before class started, they said that they were working on a project for school to research the difference between the LDS Church and other churches here in Singapore. I jumped right on that and told them that Sister Howard and I were full-time missionaries, we teach people about the church all day, every day, and we'd be delighted to meet with them and answer any questions and share a bit :) They took us up on it...right after Sunday School. Three of the ward missionaries and the mission president's wife joined us. I felt like we were at a press conference with them all circled around with their lists of questions. It was awesome though. Pretty laid back and we all just talked and laughed and got to know each other a bit. They said they felt inspired and uplifted by that hour and a half :) We've been SMSing with one of the girls and we know we at least planted some seeds of faith and got rid of some false notions about the Church here. There are so many weird rumors about the Mormons here. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Alison's mom and sister were baptized! It was another great service. It wouldn't have happened without Alison being a pioneer for her family and leading the way. I'm so proud of you and I love you, Alison! The blessings will just keep coming…just keep doing what you know to be right.

Uhhhh I have nothing else, sorry. I love you all very, very much! I got your letter, Kimmy! I'll write back as soon as I can! Tell Nate I'm waiting for my letter! That's all now.

Sayangi!

Sister Norton

HFI