oh wow...if you frolic you can really feel it in your legs!

We've started the 30-day shred. It's intense. And it doesn't help that we are busy out of our minds so we're just exhausted all the time :) It's now been a week with this trio companionship business. We're covering the same amount of work that three companionships would normally do...so I'm kind of tired. But I am actually really enjoying it. I fall asleep really fast at night so that's good :)

I just got back from a funeral service at the Mandai Crematorium for Alison's granny :( It's been a hard few days for her since she passed away on Sunday night, but I'm so glad that I've been able to have her with me on splits and then be able to be there for the service this morning. She is so strong! It was a really nice service and we got to sing a hymn at the end. I just hope that Alison remembers all the things she's learned about the Plan of Salvation and all that she knows about where her granny is now. We got to go to dinner last night and talk about all of her memories with her. It was nice. I just love her so much!

Going back to last Wednesday...we finally got to share the message of the Restoration with E. We talked about Joseph Smith and the questions he had and I think E felt very close to that. She has SO much faith in the Lord, but she feels so confused about how to be following Him. It was nice to be able to share my testimony with her that God doesn't want her to feel confused and she can pray to find out for herself if Joseph Smith was a prophet and the peace that that should then bring her. We'll see how it goes again tonight.

B cancelled his usual appointment on Thursday while we were on the way to meet him...I was maybe a little disappointed because we haven't seen him in so long, and we were at the office, so we just asked if there was anything we could do to help there since we were already out. We ended up volunteering to go to the post office to refill the stamp supply for the office. There's a Sing Post just down the street on Bukit Timah, but we decided to go to Orchard instead. We wandered around in Ion for a while because we've only been to that post office once before and then finally found it. Guess who pranced on in? D! It was so cool. He was elated and told us that he had prayed to see us again soon just that morning...uhhhh glad we decided to go get some stamps :) So we went to lunch with him and had a nice talk about prayer.

We had two awesome appointments with YL this week also. The first one was finishing up The Plan of Salvation and what happens to us after this life, and the next was about prophets and General Conference this weekend. She wanted to come, but left for Indonesia for a week yesterday, so we decided to watch President Monson's address from Sunday morning with her. Man, I love the prophet. He talked about inspiration and recognizing the Holy Ghost, exactly what YL had been asking about before we turned on the computer to watch it. So, we were so excited to hear after that the more she learns about this church, the more she has a desire to be baptized...and she thinks she would like to do that before the end of the year! We're going to figure out exactly when that will be as soon as we meet with her next week :)

We met with this new guy (to Sister Howie and I at least - Sister Ferg had already been meeting with him), T on Thursday night. It was....interesting. We learned that banana trees and babies can be easily taken over by Spirits...and how to sell salt to ghosts before 6 am in a graveyard. I don't even know what else to say about that one.

Saturday was awesome. For the 75th anniversary of the Welfare Program, the Singapore Stake did a "Mormon Helping Hands" project at the Bukit Brown cemetery, one of the oldest cemeteries in the country. We were basically just cleaning off headstones and caring for the graves that have been abandoned. After cleaning for about 45 minutes we started to hear thunder. Then it started pouring and we all got soaked. Like I thought there was a point where you couldn't get any more wet, because you're already drenched...we were wetter than that. And I was freezing! But it was so much fun! YL came too and had a great time.

That night was another highlight. We went to visit a member whose husband recently passed away. Her two sons are no longer active in the church and she just started coming again after quite a while of not attending. We all sat in a circle in their living room and asked if we could share our favorite scriptures. It kind of turned into a mini testimony meeting and the widow started crying while we were sharing the scriptures. It was amazing to me to see the gospel being applied to someone’s life like that, to see that she was actually using it to give her comfort, and to get a reminder that every person I meet with is real, they all have their own trials in their life, and the gospel of Jesus Christ can help every single one of them. The Spirit was felt so strongly in that room. I think it's one of my most favorite experiences that I've had on my mission so far. At least it was until we met with another less-active member last night and just sat there crying and bearing testimony of the power that the Atonement gives us to forgive people. I thought I had maybe overstepped the line when he told us, "If I would have known this would make me so emotional, I wouldn't have come tonight." We all kind of just sat in silence and then he started thanking us, so I guess it turned out ok. It was just a draining week as you can see, but I will never forget those moments.

Sunday was mad. We had to attend all five of those wards....so we went on lots of splits with members. And we made it to them all :) We also made it to meet with J and her family and two friends that they brought along. We talked about the Restoration through the Prophet Joseph Smith and it went really well. Plus the two friends want to learn more too! So that was good.

On Saturday, the office elders met the coolest Japanese guy I have ever met in my life and then referred him to us :) His name is K and he's from Nagoya! He is so incredibly adorable (in a completely appropriate way for me to say that), just very proper and so desirous to learn about Christianity. He told us that there are many Christians in Japan that are famous scientists and doctors and authors and he sees that they do good things so he thinks there must be something to it all. Sweet. I can't wait to keep meeting with him! And he's coming to both sessions of conference on Saturday, and then going to Priesthood session! Bah! I love teaching awesome people.

We taught D & A the Word of Wisdom yesterday and they're all for it! So that's still on track :)

I think that's about it...sorry it's a bland one this week. I hope you're all doing well though! Would love to hear from that lovely sister of mine...:) Have a great week everyone!

Sister Norton

HFI