selamat tahun baru!

I of course didn't expect to be awake when the year changed to 2012, but we live on a hill and there were maybe ten huge firework displays below us, so it woke me up right at midnight and I got to see some of them before falling back asleep. So happy new year to you all!

Maybe holidays are just tough here for the work, but we have not been able to hold onto many teaching appointments over the past two weeks. We have full days, maybe 3-5 appointments and then they fall through, one by one. So it's back to full days of knocking and trying to find more people to teach :)

A few great things happened though: D is getting baptized! She asked her parents and they said that it would be ok. We're looking at the first weekend in February. Last week we watched a film about Christ's life called "Finding Faith in Christ" and she liked it so much, she asked if we could leave the DVD so she could watch it more and then return to us at church on Sunday. So sweet.

We've been working on the goals for the Penang Branch, both with the leaders in the branch and as missionaries on our own. The elders and us (that sounds like bad English but I don't know how to fix it...good thing we're teaching an English class tomorrow night!) have a lot of hope for what can happen here this year, we're in a good place. This year the branch is focusing on The Book of Mormon and reading it every day, so I've started another read-through, but I figured if I have the whole year, I want to really study it, so I'm only reading about two pages a day (in addition to six pages of the Old Testament a day so I can finish the rest of the Bible by the time I go home) and I'm already finding so much that hasn't called my attention before. I love the Book of Mormon, I know it's from God, and I know that what Joseph Smith said about it is true, a man will get closer to God through reading it than through any other book.

We have an awesome new Indian family, M&P. We taught them about prayer on Sunday night and when we called yesterday to see how it was going, M said that he had written out the instructions of "how to pray" for all of his kids. Then he asked if we're vegetarian because they want to cook for us when we go this week. Also can!

The highlight of my week was one of the members of the branch here. She's a recent convert of only a few months and Sister Wilkes and I have been lucky enough to teach her the post-baptism lessons. On Sunday, she bore her testimony about how the sisters had taught her how to give herself CPR :) go to Church, Pray, and Read the scriptures! It made me so happy to hear that and to know we don't have to be worried about her and to know that we've been able to help even if just a little while here in Penang.

We rode bikes into the city today to get some mean banana leaf curry. Sedapnya! I'm fried now though...too long biking in the sun.

I love you all and hope you had a good start to your 2012! Want to make it better? Pick up the Book of Mormon :)

Dengan kasih,

Sister Norton

HFI

Try riding your bike down these streets ...