who's lori sewa and why does she put her number everywhere?

My dear companion makes me laugh sometimes. A lori is a truck. Sewa means to rent. I almost fell off my bike I was laughing so hard.

This week has probably been the best week we've had here in Penang. I am so happy. We worked our butts off and are really seeing the results from it. D will be baptized tomorrow before the branch CNY party and she'll be confirmed on Sunday. We have an appointment tonight in which we hope to begin teaching her parents also.

President and the Assistants were in town last weekend and we got a time to sit down with them as a district and address some concerns coming from this area of the mission. I cried in front of the whole district (poor elders) but it was good. Church was on fire on Sunday. I have never felt the Spirit that strong at the Penang Branch. Attendance was at 60 something from our average of about 45. There were members there that haven't come in a while who we were afraid we had lost. We were able to visit one of those sisters this last week and try to help her address some of her concerns and what's been holding her back from coming. It broke my heart to here that she just doesn't feel the same love at church that she feels when she reads the Book of Mormon. We had a good talk about the perfection of God's plan, Christ's Atonement, and His Restored Church, and the imperfection of all of us. Then we asked her to help there be more love at church and promised we'd do the same. We're going to turn this branch around. She'll be there on Sunday.

There was a baptism on Saturday night in B-worth and we decided we had work to do so we wouldn't be able to attend. About half way through the afternoon I remembered how much we would try to always attend all the baptisms in our district in Singapore and decided we should go. We had already set some lofty goals for the day though and didn't want to go home without reaching them, so we set off on a mad rush to make them or not make it to the baptism. The branch president from B-worth drove past us in Georgetown and asked if we wanted a ride in his car and we told him no, we hadn't reached our goals yet. When we got everything except one new investigator, we had to leave in order to get to the next ferry. I think both of us were a little on edge knowing we had done so much and had to stop just before completing all of the goals. On the ferry, a younger women, JC, saw our name tags and wanted to know what we were doing. We taught her about the Book of Mormon and invited her to learn more and she said we could meet on Monday. Ohh Heavenly Father helps us so much. And the baptism was amazing. Something we couldn't have missed. We had an awesome lesson with JC on Monday also.

We taught A&K on Sunday and invited them to be baptized. It was quiet when we asked how long it would take them to know the things we were talking about and the Book of Mormon were true. I thought maybe we were habis when they all started mumbling in Tamil to each other, and then A looked up and said "a month." Also can! They're set for 10 March.

We ran into DA again...he's reading the Book of Mormon! And really enjoying it. He still hasn't prayed about it though so we promised him that it will never make sense whether or not it's true unless he just gets on his knees and asks.

Our Nigerian friends, J&S, have accepted a date to be baptized at the end of March. They'll be at church on Sunday.

Sister Rinet and Sister Kubota have been assigned to be "Quarterly Traveling Training Sisters," so they came to see us this past week. That's why pday is today (Friday) and wasn't on Wednesday. I love my Sisters here. It was so great to go on splits with them. We learned a lot. We got so much work done. It brought my sister and I closer together. It helped me to realize how special our assignment here in Penang really is. One night after we finished our planning, Sister Kubota and Sister Rinet started telling us that they have never felt "this" way in any other area of the mission. They feel the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost. They feel surrounded by His protection here. I think I've just been to scared out of my mind to realize that but I've been paying attention to it the past few days now and I feel it too. This is an incredibly special call we've been given. I feel like I owe so much to the Lord for entrusting us with this area. We're trying to pay it back now.

I love you all, hope you're doing well. Happy Thaipusam! Penang is going to be insane this week...apparently all the Hindus in Malaysia like to come here for it. Aduh.

Sister Norton

HFI

gong xi fa cai

Happy Chinese New Year. It's a killer for missionary work! Fireworks going off till four in the morning...no one's home and if they are they get mad at us for interrupting all the eating...but it has brought one good thing: lots of visits to members of the branch that no longer come to church. We went around with the Elders Quorum President and his wife all afternoon yesterday, just visiting a few of the less-active members. The EQP may just be the one holding this branch together. As we were thanking him for all his help he said it's his job that he promises to do every week as he takes the sacrament. Then he assured us that it wasn't putting him out at all because he gets blessings for it. Nice understanding of the gospel from a member of less than four years. They told us that they look at us as their daughters anyway so they enjoy helping. Ahh I love them. Last night I was thinking about how much love I felt and realizing that's how I feel the Holy Ghost most of the time. God is love. When I feel the Spirit it's just like a ton of love rushing around in my heart. And I like it.

We had an interesting lesson with A&D (from Indonesia) last week. When we were asking how their reading of the Book of Mormon had been going, A brought up how much it talks about the House of Israel. He was intrigued because his wife is a descendant of Judah. He asked us if we're part of Israel too and we smiled and told him yes, we're both from the tribe of Ephraim. Little things just keep pulling him more and more into finding out about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They're in KL now so they couldn't come to church on Sunday (these are the ones that go to the church depending on time for their kids...) but we'll meet again on Friday.

DA gave up on waiting to "bump" into us again and called us to meet. We had a good discussion and he's on date to be baptized at the end of March. He's still not sure if he believes in God, so there's a long way to go, but I know that it will happen fast once he can just climb to his knees and try praying sincerely. There's not much we can do until he chooses to do that.

Two amazing lessons with D this past week, members helped teach both of them! We taught her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Word of Wisdom, and the Law of Tithing. It was sweet to here her tell us that before we started teaching her she had no direction in life and now she feels like she's on a path. We got a call from her yesterday after she turned down some tea because she remembered "the five words of wisdom." It was cute. She's excited for her baptism next Saturday! Please pray for all of us that it will go through without a problem.

Funny story of the week? I had a sweet lady from Brisbane, Australia come up to me on the ferry yesterday and ask for help in buying a ticket for her and the rest of the travelers with her. As we were standing in the line to change for shillings, she looked at my nametag (that I happened to be wearing in English because I had left the flat without putting on my Malay one), and began to scold me and everything we "Mormons" believe in. At that point I didn't feel like telling her that my brother had served his mission in Brisbane :) She asked me how we even get to teach all these people that don't speak English and I told her it's not a problem because we speak Malay. She expressed her disgust in the work we're doing and told me it was bold of me to be here, so I smiled and said thank you. Sheesh. Some people just have really happy lives eh?

1 Nephi 7:12 continues to amaze me. I've been thinking a lot about it this past week. One morning while I was getting ready, I just started thinking about all the miracles in the Old Testament that I'm starting to read about. It could be easy to think that these miracles are just things that God causes to happen to show His power. Which they are of course, but I think we miss the view of the faith of the men through which God performs His miracles. If Moses didn't have the faith to part the Red Sea, it wouldn't have happened. Sure, the Lord can do all things according to his will for the children of man, but there's a pretty big condition on that..."IF it so be that they exercise faith in him." Faith is a power that will open the windows of heaven. Too often I expect things to just be miracles wrought without the workings of my own faith. It won't happen like that. So let us be faithful to him, and do our part.

I love you all and hope you're doing well! Enjoy that snow...I never thought I'd miss it but the thought of it is seeming pretty nice right now...

Sister Norton

HFI

Mikelle, Sister Wilkes and an investigator ...

Yum Yum ... this is just the way it's done.

i teach good english

We had our first successful English class this last week. I learned that it's easier to teach English in Malay than in English. The best part was steamboat following class :) (See the picture below.)

I GOT TO GO TO SINGAPORE! I thought my heart was going to explode. It smelled so good. It felt like going home. My visa was up, so on Sunday night we hopped on a bus and got into Singapore around 9 on Monday morning. It was Sister Kubota's birthday, so we surprised them at their apartment and then I got to go on splits with her and her brand new greenie all day. We got to go visit one of my old investigators who they're starting to teach again and it was amazing to see how the seeds have worked in her and she's more ready to learn now. We also had dinner with a family in my old ward and had an incredible lesson with them about sharing the gospel with others. Before we left to go out for the day, I asked Sister Kubota what she wanted me to bring in my bag for the lesson and she handed me a Family Proclamation to the World and a Book of Mormon. I looked at it and wondered why the proclamation, but didn't question her. As we met with the family that night, Brother W said that he had a friend he has been thinking about sharing the gospel with, had even written a letter, but had never given it to him because it wasn’t complete. I pulled the Book of Mormon and Proclamation out of my bag and when he saw it his eyes filled with tears and he asked if he could have it. Apparently the reason his letter wasn't complete is he wanted to give his friend a Proclamation with it. Sister Kubota didn't know why she had brought it, but it was good to find out why. It was a special experience for me to be there and see that family as they asked their kids if they knew how the Holy Ghost speaks to them and we all shared experiences of listening to the Spirit. It was such a boost … a boost that I needed. Leaving Singapore was a little too hard...I cried as we sat down on the bus to leave and the little old Chinese auntie next to me didn't know what to do, so she just gave me some mints and patted me on the hand. Sweet. And now we're back in Penang, ready to work!

We had six investigators at church on Sunday. D and her father, and M&P and their daughters. It was wonderful. Everything is continuing forward with them.

I don't have time to write anymore, but I love you all and hope you have a very happy Chinese New Year! Year of the dragon. Rarr!

Kasih,

Sister Norton

HFI

Steamboat! Awwww .... :)

the king of fruits

The durian. I've now tried it twice. It was a little more bearable this time...but I'm still not a fan. All the elders got a nice video of me whining while trying to eat it, so I'm sure that will end up in a zone conference soon.

We're still in Penang! Both of us. Some big transfers happened, and we were the only sisters in the mission that were untouched, so we must have some big work that still needs to be done. Plus a Chinese New Year to be celebrate in "The Pearl of the Orient." I might die if I hear any more Chinese New Year music though.

D is still doing well, she was at church on Sunday, and still getting ready for her baptism at the beginning of February.

We met with A&D again. We hadn't seen them since about the end of October or November. He's the one that knows about the church because his dad was a "Mormon missionary" in Jakarta. It was an awesome lesson. I can't believe how much easier it was to understand the language this time versus the first lesson. We'll see them again this week and hopefully do a better job of explaining the Priesthood authority that is in this church through the Prophet Joseph Smith. Right now they say that they'll just go to whatever church is late enough in the day for them to get their kids awake...

We had five teaching appointments lined up for Saturday and had confirmed them the day before...all but one fell through. And the one that we did meet with was a first and last appointment, as her parents forbid us from coming back. Apuh.

We do have some great families we're teaching now though. M&P are still awesome. We taught them about the Plan of Salvation on Sunday. They're a Hindu family and they asked us to bring them a picture of Christ, so we gave that to them on Sunday also. Yesterday morning we got an SMS saying, "Good morning sisters. I already put frame for Jesus. We are praying with Jesus. Family is very happy." So that was good to wake up to :) We invited them to be baptized and they accepted, but had a hard time picking a date, so we'll work on that this next time. I love them!

This past week I've been in the first five chapters of the Book of Mormon, paying close attention to the differences between Nephi and his brothers, Laman and Lemuel. It never ceases to amaze me that Laman and Lemuel saw an angel of the Lord, were rebuked by him, and immediately after started murmuring and doubting the Lord's ability to help them do what He had asked. But I've noticed that I've been maybe doing a bit of that here in Penang. "Everything is so hard." So? I know the Lord was aware of the challenges that lay ahead of us when Sister Wilkes and I were put here. He still asked us to try though. So I need to quit my murmuring. Bah always to easy to say.

I hope you all have a wonderful week! I love you!

Sister Norton

HFI

I'm acquiring a taste for durian ...

... as long as it's chased down with pizza.

My neighborhood :)

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 ...

A TRUE Christmas

The Christmas package you guys sent got to Malaysia on time! Only problem is it came with the zone leaders...and they left it in Butterworth...so I got it on the 27th. Elder Whittaker apologized and says he owes me sushi for "ruining" my present but also said I'll always remember the year I got to enjoy the true meaning of Christmas, unhindered by presents :) And guess what? I kind of liked it. Don't take that as a hint for next year though, Mommy.

Nearly all of our appointments have dropped within the last week because everyone has been so busy with Christmas and different things, but we've had a lot of time to spend with members and also just going around flats and sharing simple messages about Christ. Most people here admit they don't even know what CHRISTmas is. So we've been helping them out.

I got so many wonderful letters and packages from friends and family back home. I loved them all so much! Thank you! I will be writing back as soon as I can.

The highlight of course was skyping with my family! All 12 of them at the house...it was so good to see everyone.

We do have some great news about J (the Indonesian, not the Nigerian). We met with her last Friday and she had prayed about finding a way to get to church, just as we asked her to. A few weeks ago we knocked on another Indonesian woman's door and the next day we called her back to see if we could come over. She said her mother-in-law wouldn't let us in, but that we've been teaching her friend. We told J about it but didn't think much of it. On Friday J said that we could fix both of their problems, we could teach at her house so Y (her friend) didn't have to worry about the mother-in-law, and Y has a car to take them to church! I know it wasn't a coincidence that we found Y. And it was such a miracle for J to be able to get an answer to how she could get to church. So, now it will just be working to get those plans to follow through. It will happen.

DA forgot about his appt. with us on Thursday, or maybe he was ditching us...either way. After we waited for almost a half hour, we decided to go to BJ to find some people there. The first one we found as we walked in the mall was DA. I don't know who was more surprised about us being able to track him down without even knowing we were doing it. So that's four times we've just run into him now. He still doesn't know if he believes in God though. He's been praying and says he doesn't feel like those prayers are heard or answered. But we've run into four times without an appt. I don't know what that could be...

Saturday we spent some time doing service at the Penang Home, an old folks home. I loved every second of it! It felt so good to be doing something for someone else on Christmas eve instead of running around trying to get last minute things done for parties and what not like I'm usually doing at home. I think I'll make it a tradition :)

That's about it folks. Sorry I'm out of time again. I love you all though and hope you had a marvelous Christmas and that you got a chance to think about why it's such a special time of the year. And Happy New Year too! Be safe please!

Sister Norton

HFI

in all of penang, only you two are on bicycles

We had a guy stop and tell us no one rides bikes here. We told him there had been another guy who just passed on bicycle and he said, "Oh, so you're .03% then," and walked off laughing. Everyone knows we're the white girls that ride bicycles in skirts. And we ride so so much :(

This week has been great. Things are still tough, but I'm still happy. It's my Saviour's birthday! And we all know how much I like birthdays :) I've had a good amount of time to think about why Christmas brings us so much joy, and I think a lot of it has to do with promises. God has promised his children so much, and Christmas is when we celebrate the time when our Saviour was born and those promises started being fulfilled. We can see that God's word is good. We can put complete and total trust in those promises. He has promised us eternal life, and we may not have obtained it yet, but the promised way there was born in the city of David. He has promised us that He'll never leave us alone; He'll come to us and comfort us if we'll just call for Him. And we can have His peace, which is not of this world. He promised that all things would be gathered in one in the Latter-days, and that promise began to be fulfilled when a young boy named Joseph Smith knelt in a grove of trees and the Father and the Son came to him to answer his prayer. And we're promised that our Messiah will come again. What else could we ask for? I love the Lord and I love this season when we get to focus on things that are not of this world. I hope that all of us can have a light heart this year as you think about the love that your Heavenly Father has for you in order for Him to promise you so much.

J&S have been reading the Book of Mormon and we talked about baptism this last week. If you haven't seen the new video on lds.org, watch it! We're going to watch it with them next week :) http://lds.org/pages/mormon-messages?lang=eng#a-book-of-mormon-story

D,D, & A. D is the 16 year old girl we've been teaching, and D&A are her parents. Before we thought we were just teaching the dad, but then her mom came to the Christmas party at the church, and to sacrament meeting on Sunday morning! We'll be going to visit them tonight.

We visited with G&M on Sunday night also. M is not Christian but shared such an awesome yet simple testimony of prayer. We invited her to pray to our Heavenly Father every day and she tried it for a week. At first she said it was like she didn't have problems anymore, then corrected herself saying, "Or I guess I still do have problems, but it's like I know how to get through them better." She said, "It feels wonderful, like nothing I've ever felt before." Luckily we got through that part of the lesson before a bee came into the flat and made the rest of the lesson a little harder to focus on.

Did I tell you about DA? He's a man that the elders used to be teaching, but stopped answering their calls. About a month ago, we were on a bus and he came up to us asking if we were the Mormons. The elders had given us his number to try meeting with him but we couldn't get a hold of him either, and we didn't know he was the man we were talking to on the bus, if that makes sense. He told us his name as he hopped off the bus and we were in shock wondering if it was the same guy we'd been trying to call. Then about two weeks ago, we were biking to an appointment and he biked by going the other direction (see! someone else bikes too!), so we stopped and talked and invited him to come to the Christmas party, and he came to that. Then on Monday, we stopped for dinner and as we were eating we watched a man at another table who was reading a newspaper but had his back to us, thinking that it might be him. When we left, we walked past the table, and it was him! So we sat down and talked for a while just about his life and different things, then got down to God. He is big on science and doesn't believe there is a God or any creator. All we could do was teach and bear simply testimony that there is a God, He is our Father, and we can know Him. We invited him to try praying and he said he would. We're meeting again tomorrow.

Now to R. She's an 18-year-old girl we found in a kampung last week. We asked some people if there were any Christians in the kampung and they pointed us to her house but no one was home so we just left a pamphlet in the window. We went back later to find it was a Jehovah's Witness home, but they let us in and were so nice. We went back to see R last night and had a really great lesson about the Restoration of the gospel. She's still very unsure of the idea of a prophet after Christ, but the amazing part is that she wants to learn and she wants to listen. We were so scared going into the lesson that we would just be confronted with so many verses in the bible and the Spirit would be driven away through contention, but the Spirit was there the whole time. She's sincerely looking for truth. So I'm counting that one as a miracle. I'm excited to see where it goes with her.

Two of the younger girls in the branch have started calling me "Shakira Jie Mei" (Sister Shakira). Don't know where the confusion is coming from, I think it's just the hair.

I hope you all have a happy happy Christmas and your hearts will be light :) I love you all so much! Don't be late for our skype date, dear family :)

Sister Norton

HFI

Presents under the tree :)

Happy Christmas everyone!