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

amen, joseph smith jr.!

I'm not an apostate missionary, I promise! The reason I'm emailing on Saturday this week is our pday was changed so we could help with the 20 missionaries leaving the mission on Tuesday and the 19 new missionaries that came in on Wednesday. New blood! It's weird not being the youngest anymore. Which means we also know about transfers obviously...they already happened. I'm still here in Singapore with Sister Howard and loving life :) Sister Kubota is a mommy! Training before her training is even finished! Crazy. She'll do so great though. So, because we were so busy helping, we got a little reward from President, today is our pday and we get to go see THE LION KING!!! Oh my goodness we're so excited. I saw it in London, but it's supposedly got some Singlish in it here, so it should be grand. I'll let you know next week.

Thank you for sending Jillian...uhh Sister Hicken's posts, Mommy. They're great!

One of the sisters in our ward treated us to fish spa last week for pday! It was the weirdest feeling ever. I couldn't stop laughing.

So here's a little review of the very long week. We met with NG twice and she's still on date to be baptized next week. I love her so much! We had an awesome lesson on the Plan of Salvation at a member's house last Thursday night and then taught her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ on Sunday night at a different member's house. Basically we just like showing off how adorable she is to all the members. Jk! But they love her and she loves them, so it works! She prayed for the first time in our lessons finally. The prayer was in Korean so I obviously couldn't understand it, but she just broke down in tears during it and then gave us a big hug after she ended it, so we're taking that as a good sign. We could all feel the Spirit so strongly. You can just feel Heavenly Father's love for her and how happy He is that she is coming closer to Him and our Savior.

B (uhhh I can't remember what I've called him in the past...) is getting closer and closer to baptism, it's just still this tithing problem. He understands everything, he wants to be baptized, but he's convinced that he can't afford to pay tithing after he's baptized. We really don't know what else we can do. Every lesson is on faith now. Keep him in your prayers please (even though you don't have his name, I'm pretty sure God will know who you're talking about).

We met with TT and she shared some awesome news with us. She's pregnant!!! That baby is going to be adorable. We're so happy for her! We taught her about the Restoration of the Gospel through the Prophet Joseph Smith. I wouldn't say she was skeptical at all, she's so believing by nature, but she didn't accept it without question. Which is what we want of course. We never want people to believe what we teach them just by hearing our words, we want to introduce an idea to them and let them take it straight to our Heavenly Father in prayer. He will teach and testify of the truth. So, we just hope that TT can follow through with that now. With how much she's searching for truth, I know she'll find it in this gospel. She took off for China for a few weeks though, so it's hard to know that we won't have contact with her for so long. Another one to just keep in our prayers.

Y and I. Y is the awesome Muslim guy who we met at Harbour Front a while ago and I is his friend that he brought along to learn. Meeting with them is the highlight of our week. It's really a miracle. It was a miracle the night that we met Y. It's a miracle that he brought I. It's a miracle every time we're able to meet with them, because of certain circumstances, they can't arrange times to meet with us ahead of time. Whenever we're able to meet up, it's because everyone had plans fall through, every single time. It's so blatantly the hand of God in the work. They're hilarious and so earnestly seeking truth, which is why they've found it! I is on date for baptism in August! Y is in a bit more difficult situation, he knows this is true but there are a few big obstacles for him. I have so much respect for how far he has come and how willing he is to follow God. When I think of the situation he's in, it just breaks my heart a little bit. But I know that we can't give him advice on what to do, it's not our place and I wouldn't even know how to begin giving that advice. He just needs to continue praying and fasting for his answer. (You're probably reading this right now anyway, haha. I know that you'll get your answer. God has led you this far and He doesn't plan to desert you now when you need an answer. He'll show you which way to go. You're in every single one of our prayers, day and night! We know Heavenly Father has an extremely special plan for both of you. He loves you!!)

N. He didn't come to church unfortunately. But we invited him to be baptized again and he half way accepted...he's just scared of what his family will think. So, we're going to try and meet with them all next week. Hopefully they'll open their hearts to the message he's been learning about and realize that it will bless their whole family.

Oh goodness. The other sisters met an Indo girl on the MRT who is a student here right now. We'll call her A. She and her friend S were passed to Sister Howard and I and we all went to their hostel a few nights ago, she has about ten friends that she wants to learn with her. Maybe more. Incredible.

For all of these reasons and more, we're just going to call August our "Expect Miracles" month. We couldn't be more excited for all the work that's in store. It's about time we got the Singapore First Ward rolling!

As for my papa's letter. Reeeaaal funny, Daddy. It took me forever to crack the code and figure out how to read your letter. But you know I loved it. Thank you so much for the pictures and details about Cody's wedding. I loved hearing about and seeing all the family! I love you and miss you all! Lily had a skirt for the wedding?? Wasn't it enough that a dog was the flower girl? The women in this family have cracked. I'm so proud to be an Andersen ;) Wasn't there supposed to be a letter from a brother of mine? Apa hal abang saya?! Saya mahu surat dari kau! Kirimlah!

I think that's enough yeah? Thank you all for sending messages to my mommy so she can forward them to me, I love hearing from you! I hope you have a great week. The worst part about actually making an effort for this email is I'll have to top it next week.

Love you all!!!

Kasih,

Sister Norton

HFI

It's kinda like what you wanted, except opposite.

My kawan is so wise.

I just came from the top of the Marina Bay Sands. Holy smokes. That place is crazy. I'll try to send some pictures. We have some amazing people in our ward who took us to the top for free! Gotta love the expat ward.

It's been another roller coaster week. Being in this city is so frustrating sometimes. I miss the mountains and real beauty. We were walking along the boardwalk in front of VivoCity mall the other night as we were contacting, and there were so many people sitting there, staring out at Sentosa Island (a man-made amusement park island), either on their iPhones, iPads, or just listening to music. Everyone is so plugged in! It would be great if the networks failed for even one day here. "National Take-Your-Headphones-Out-Of-Your-Ears Day." That's what I'm pushing for. There might be some serious separation anxiety...but maybe they'd realize how beautiful this island is and how many amazing people are surrounding them. Oooohhh frustration.

It was great for teaching though. We met this man yesterday in the park who asked, "Me??" after EVERY SINGLE question we asked him. I was trying so hard not to laugh. But he wants to meet us again! Happy happy. We were able to meet with N and teach him the Plan of Salvation. He loved hearing about the plan that God has for us and our families, in this life and after. He's finally decided to try coming to church! Then there was NG, when we met with her on Wednesday, she told us she'd heard about not drinking coffee so she was trying to stop. We hadn't even taught her the Word of Wisdom yet and she was already trying to follow it! Luckily we were able to talk about that and help her understand that awesome counsel we have to keep ourselves healthy to help her want to follow it even more. We also had a great lesson with K. It was really neat because during that lesson, I was reminded once more of the strength and power behind my calling as a missionary. He was so surprised by my conviction when we were discussing the gospel of Jesus Christ and how vital it is to our salvation. I do know that it is the only way that we are saved. I was shocked by my own conviction as well. There is only one name by which we are saved, and He requires more than just proclaiming faith on that name. There is a path to follow Christ. It's marked and it's definite. And it's absolutely fair, that's why my calling is so important as a missionary right now. I'm making sure more people hear about it! I love my job.

In other news, I was proposed to once again. You know the conversation isn't going anywhere good when it starts out with, "Sister Norton, may I ask you a personal question please?" So the relationship with that investigator might be a bit awkward now. I also had two terrifying encounters with cockroaches this week. One in our kitchen and one in the church building. It landed on me and ran down my leg which caused a complete meltdown, as you can imagine. Also, be looking for the Singapore Youth's musical in the upcoming issue of the Liahona! Errrr the New Era maybe?? Just look for it :) I know pretty much all of the youth mentioned in the article. They're the best lah!

I love you all and hope you're healthy and loving life! Sorry I don't have time to write more, Mommy. Maybe you can just go watch Harry Potter again with all the extra time I saved you ;) Stinker.

Kasih!

Sister Norton

HFI

Atop Marina Bay Sands … breathtakingly beautiful!!

View from on top looking down.

take a swim ....

or shop ...

... all I can say is if you make it to Singapore,

you won't want to miss this place :)

hey you guys... where's bob?

We were on the MRT the other day and the handicap seat was open, so I told Sister Wong to take it because she has skin tags. She told me to take it because I'm white. There's so much love between us.

Happy "BDay" Alison!!! Best month ever, right? :) (Alison has now been a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for over a month!)

It has been such a great week! There are possible transfers coming up at the end of this month and I'm getting a little worried that things are so great here right now that either Sister Howard or I are going to get shipped out to Malaysia...it just all seems too good to be true. I can't remember if I mentioned NG last week (I've decided on a special abbreviation, so I can remember who I'm talking about without actually disclosing names, sneaky huh?)...she's a young girl from South Korea and a member in our ward invited her to come to church a few weeks ago. She's been coming every Sunday since then and we finally got to meet with her last Thursday. We taught her about the restoration of Christ's true church and asked her how she felt and she replied, "Well it must be true. It happened almost two hundred years ago and it's only been growing since then, I think that means it's good and it's true." Although we were plenty pleased with that response, we told her that she doesn't have to follow something just because so many other people do, that she could have an answer for herself that it's true, directly from God, that we'd actually much prefer that over her trusting our faith. It was so cute when she got so excited to know that she could have that, an answer from God. We're meeting with her again tonight and she's on date to be baptized 30 July :) I love it!*

We taught TT on Friday again as well. We focused on the plan that our Heavenly Father has for all of us to live with Him and our families forever. It meant so much to her as her mother passed away almost three years ago from cancer. She's incredible. We showed up to her house and she pulled out her Plan of Salvation pamphlet with a page of notes, questions, and impressions she had taken down while reading it. Every question that she had just led us into the next part of the plan that we wanted to share with her. She was so engaged in the lesson that it was just a conversation, which is what we always want. When we told her that we know about the entirety of this plan through modern revelation and a living prophet, she was instantly interested in how she could know for herself that he was really a prophet of God. Amazing! So obviously we're excited to see her again this week.

So much more happened but I'm out of time! I love you all and hope you're doing well! You're always in my prayers!

Alex, I got your email and I'll write you a letter today!! I love you so much, sister! Miss you!

Kasih,

Sister Norton

HFI

*Saejin, if you read this ever, she reminds me so much of you!! I wish you could be here to share your conversion story with her! I miss you and love you and hope you're doing well!