go, go ahead, read some books

Halo. So the MTC changed their schedule entirely. On our last week here. It's rotting my brain. There is no longer ANY MDT time. Companionship study is with a teacher. Two hours of personal study (I'm not complaining about that part...it's just hard to keep from going crazy because I usually break things up into half hour segments to stay focused and awake in MDT. Basically, this resulted in an interpretive dance being created for the First Vision. It was quite moving.) Last night Sister Jensen and I were discussing what passage to have our Juni (progressing investigator) read next time we meet with him. She suggested Moroni 7&8 so I turned to "Moroni" 7&8. I was slightly baffled that she wanted our investigator who just accepted the baptismal invitation to read this chapter but I kind of just hinted that maybe we should find something else. Five minutes later I realized I had been reading in Mormon 8. Hell fire and brimstone baby. This schedule will be the death of me. I promise I'm not this dense, I'm familiar with Moroni. I was just extremely tired. And then to make things even more awesome, the cafeteria is under construction so there's one option of deep fried food every meal :) I've never been so excited for airport food in my life.

I think I already told you, mis padres, but I got my flight plans! We leave next Monday at about 5 something and fly to San Fran where we have a 6 or 7 hour layover and then we fly straight to Singapore! On Singapore Airlines! 18 hour flight! Ohhhh baby.

It's only been a few days since I last emailed so I feel like there really isn't much to say. It's not like my best friend got married or anything. I hope everyone starts sending me some pictures stat. I bet she looked so pretty! I bet it was beautiful!

We had an Easter egg hunt on Sunday! It was the best, I loved it. And then a sweet sweet fireside. Stephen Allen spoke to us. He's been in charge of the old Mormon adds on tv for a long time so we got to watch the awesome old ones from the 70's and 80's and related the messages about family to missionary work.

Oh, also this week, Sister Jensen and I were picked to demonstrate how to begin teaching in the new missionary orientation on Wednesday night. So basically we're just missing class left and right this week. I'm not really a fan. I need to speak Malay ya know?

I don't know what else to say to you. I have nothing. I leave for Singapore in 6 days. I'm stoked. It's snowing right now. I'm so glad I will never see that again for a year and a half. Good riddance. But I love you all. Send a letter to Singapore sometime if you want. I'll make sure to get my Malaysian address to you once I get it. Looove you!

Sister Norton

HFI

you go, glen coco!

Selamat pagi!! This is my last Thursday to email from the MTC! The schedules change next week and my pday will be on Tuesday, so expect to hear from me then. And then I'm basically out of here. In 11 days. Finally.

Jenna Eve Morgan. I can't believe you're getting married on Saturday. I love you so so much and I will totally be there in Spirit mmmk? YOU'RE GETTING MARRIED!!

So, surprise surprise. Cool things are still happening at the MTC. But before I get there, let me just mention that church on Sunday was the Sister Norton show. I led all the music, gave a talk (about your cherry trees, daddy!), and the closing prayer. And Sunday was such a sublime day. Seriously, did anyone look outside??? It was gorgeous! We went on our temple walk at about 1 and the flowers were so pretty and everything was green and it was sunny and we took some sweet jumping pictures. It was one of those days where I was in such a good mood that I was writing stuff like this in my journal: "There is seriously never an ordinary day here. How can there be when I'm seeing miracles everyday and everything is so beautiful! You get to talk to amazing people everyday! Life is the coolest gift."

Tuesday was the raddest though. Elder Scott came to speak to us and it blew my mind. Seriously. He answered so many questions that I've had for a while. Then he bestowed an apostolic blessing on all of us learning languages to have the gift of tongues. My friends, apostolic blessings are pretty awesome. The whole time I've been learning Malay, my Mandarin has just slipped, slipped away. After the devotional on Tuesday night, I was showering and phrases of Mandarin just kept coming to my mind. Here's where it gets really cool though. I was a host for new missionaries yesterday, and the sister that I hosted was from SHENZHEN! Shenzhen, as in the place I'd go to church in China. Right next to Zhongshan, my hometown. Sister Yue Gao. And she's the sweetest thing ever! She speaks English but not extremely well, and it just happened to be that all the phrases that I had remembered the night before were the ones that I needed to be able to communicate with her and help her find everything she needs. She was so impressed with my Chinese and I think I was even impressed! It shocked me. I have no doubt in my mind that it was the Spirit because frankly, I seriously fail at Mandarin now. It was the coolest experience.

Also, in the past week I've eaten dinner with President Brown, President Nally, and President McIff...the MTC presidency. It's like every time we sit down to eat one of them pops up and sits down next to us and just wants to chat the whole time. It's been cool getting to know them, they're amazing men. They were shocked to find out that we're an all sister district. Apparently they've never seen it while they've been in the presidency.

I think that pretty much wraps everything up. I have the coolest family in the world. Both sides. Thank you all for writing me this week, Aunt Traci, Stoney, Grandma Dionne, Aunt Shawna, Mom, Dad, Dax. I love you so much and will try to write you soon! I miss you and pray for all of you every day. (Dearelder.com you are seriously so cool! Thank you.)

Have such a happy Easter this Sunday! I know that our Savior lives. Seek Him every single day and I promise you His peace and love will come flowing into your life.

Dengan kasih,

Sister Norton

HFI

(Note from mother ~ Mikelle loves to read comments to her blog ~ I send them to her ... so please leave them if you feel so inclined to. Thank you :)

di sini senang, di sana senang, di mana mana hatiku senang!

Apa khabar! Isn't that the sickest song? I'll sing it for you all someday. It just means I'm happy wherever I am basically.

This morning Sister Jensen walked into a wall. While I was laughing and mocking her, I walked into a door. Evenly matched companionship.

I can't even really remember what happened this week very well, the days are all blurring together. And I get my flight plans in less than a week! 18 days left here! If you're going to write me, you might as well do it now because we all know it probably won't happen once I'm in Malaysia ;)

We taught in Malay at the TRC for the first time last week! All of lesson one! It was sick! A little bit more frustrating than English...but I know it's coming along.

Sister Jensen suggested that I start keeping track of my daily "miracles" this week, and it's been incredible to just pay closer attention to how much my Father in Heaven cares about me. The first tender mercy was on Sunday night. It was an awesome day as far as learning goes (and I had been worrying about how I can get people to understand the importance of this message...of course everything was pointing to D&C 84:88 that day. I just need to teach, they'll know because God will go before me.), but my Malay was hitting a brick wall and I just wanted to hug someone and cry pretty much. When I walked into the fireside that night, I saw these familiar blue and yellow striped ties and then the Men's Chorus badge on a bunch of jackets. BYU Men's Chorus did the whole fireside and I swear everything that was said and sung was just for me. And then....I got to see Ricki!!!!!! It was just what I needed.

Then I was thinking about a friend of mine from China and how in the world I could get her address here in the U.S. so I could write her. I prayed about it and literally the next day got a letter from Abby talking about her and how she thinks we should write. Same wave length here, baby! The Spirit is so cool. Thanks for paying attention to it, Abs.

On Tuesday, Elder Rasband came and spoke to us and just tied everything together for me. It was on the Spirit, surprise surprise. I must have a really thick head because it's taken me till now to realize that pretty much everyone speaks on the Holy Ghost. Maybe it's like an important subject. It was great. And then he testified that we are divinely appointed to our missions. I meet sisters going to Taiwan and Hong Kong and all that all the time here and there's not a bit of jealousy anymore. I'm going to go chum with the Malays and Ibans! Those are my people and I have a work to do there. With all these miracles and tender mercies, whatever you want to call them, it helped me realize that if Malaysia is where God needs me to be, I've got a lot more coming my way. Here in the MTC, it's like I'm in a play pen ya know? Like for a toddler, yes I am using this comparison. His ultimate care and protection isn't needed that much yet. (Ignore that I just stated children don't need care when they're in a play pen. I will be a good mom, I promise.) I'm stoked.

Ohhh here's something funny. I rolled my other ankle yesterday. Just find me a Hercules already (for after the mission of course). It wasn't really my ankle though, it was the same spot that I sprained my foot on the acorn last fall. I felt super smart. I iced it though and it's fine. No set backs just a little swelling.

I want you to know that Jacob Watson is in my prayers and I'll be fasting for him this Sunday. It's been amazing to hear about the ward pulling together to support the Watsons at this time. I know that the priesthood is the authority and power from God and that their family will make it through this time with its blessings. Let them know how much I love them! And I love you all too!

Dengan kasih,

Sister Norton

HFI

tengok. tengok, kitab mormon!

So I've discovered that I love speaking Malay in a Southern accent. Book of Mormon is more like KEETAB MOORMOHN that way. It's so entertaining.

Has it seriously been another week since last pday? You'll only get three more emails (after this one) from me while I'm at the MTC. I should even get flight plans soon, baby! Tidak masuk akal. We had another no English day yesterday...and I didn't want to die by the end of the day. Progress! It's so amazing to me. I've tried learning other languages (Mandarin, Spanish..) and I can have short, limited conversations in them, but I never believed I could ever speak in another language without feeling restricted, for the most part. It seriously blows my mind. Saya berterima kasih atas kurnia lidah lidah :)

Our Malagasy elders left this week. The hall feels empty with just the four of us sisters and the two Mongolian elders in our zone. We're getting the new Malagasy's though. Your brother is included in that, Natalie! They came in yesterday and the other sisters met him, but I haven't yet. I'll give him a hearty handshake when I do. The Mongolians are here for 12 weeks, we're 9, and we leave at the same time...we're both getting sick of watching groups, who came after us, leave before us. Our day will come. And yes, we're still the only sisters in the branch.

So, there's a clothes give-away bin for the sisters here, and I saw a ridiculously sick long green skirt and a matching Tommy Bahama top, so you know I had to grab it and wear it on April 1st. Everyone took it way to seriously. Luckily I ran into someone I know from the outside world, Bryant, so the shame didn't go to waste.

Last night, we learned that there is an abundance of lizards and cockroaches in Malaysia...in our apartments. I was expecting the cockroaches, but lizards?! I was shrieking when I heard that one sister had a huge lizard fall on her when she was sleeping once. I don't know how I'm going to handle this. It was hilarious though. Sister Kubota and I are bound to be comps in an area with them because we're the ones that were freaking out. And I mean that neither of us could put our feet on the ground, and Sister Kubota was convinced that one was in her hair.

Wendy Morgan, you are wonderful! Thank you so much for the care package!! You're the best second mom ever!

OH, guess who graduated from rehab?? Yours truly! So I'm back to volleyball, but all I really can do is serve and play back row ds...it gives me the heebie jeebies to even watch people jumping at the net. I hope I get over that.....but you could send me my ankle braces Mommy :)

Now let me get to my favorite part. I hope everyone watched/listened to conference. Even if you're not LDS, go to lds.org and read the words of our prophet and apostles. They're not just for the Mormon church, they're called of God to lead ALL of God's children and I know that there is a message in them for ALL of God's children. By their fruits ye shall know them, check it out. I loved Uchtdorf's, Bednar's, and Robbin's talks. Ok everyone's really, but it was just comforting to hear the way Elder Bednar described revelation and the Holy Ghost. It went perfectly with Elder Uchtdorf's talk in my mind. I needed to hear that I'm not failing here at the MTC because I haven't seen a vision (don't worry, I wasn't expecting one...I mean I just haven't had any crazy powerful experiences), but it doesn't need to be that. I'm learning line by line. Jangan risau. I had a list of seven questions and every single one of them was answered. I promise you that you can find answers in their words as well. Now go, read!

Mmmk...I think that's all! I hope you all have a fantastic week and I love you!

Dengan kasih,

Sister Norton

HFI

welcome home elder palmer!

Selamat pagi! First things first ... Welcome Home Elder Palmer! I know you were an amazing missionary and that the people in Japan are missing you like crazy! (Someone please dearelder me with Matt's address. My MTC address is listed on the right side of my blog. Thank you!)

Sorry there's nothing way interesting this week. But, I am officially half-way through the MTC! And my ankle is almost normal size again! It really is a miracle. I walk with a little bit of a limp (and there's some nasty nasty bruising), but the physical therapists are shocked that I've come so far in a week. Well, they're shocked and they're not ... they said that there's this amazing thing about the MTC. Every injury they see takes half as long to heal as it does in "the real world." I like it. Gym time (which is every day) is now physical therapy time for me. I hated it at first but it's helping so much that it's hard to hate it anymore.

Ok so TRC last week. No one showed up (no one ever does for us. There are like five Malay speakers in Provo other than our teachers.) so we talked to our very own Bro Maynes! He was being a goof as usual so we were all laughing the whole time we were speaking in Malay, which turned out being exactly what we needed. No pressure=our Malay was flowing. We were just cracking jokes and having a grand old time inviting this "investigator" to come to church with us. Then, we taught lesson 2 (Plan of Salvation) to a girl in English. Totally committed her to being baptized (it's all practice. Even though she's already a member of the church I still almost cried when she said she would ... can't wait for the real thing).

Sunday's fireside was pretty awesome. The main thing I got from it wasn't anything the speaker talked about though. It just suddenly hit me out of the blue, that I want to do therapy with teenage girls at risk. That's it. Feeling great about it. I love the Holy Ghost!

Tuesday was a BIG day. We had our first SYL (speak your language) day. Obviously we speak bahasa every day, but this was a no English allowed day. And my brain was so messed up by the end of it. I had to re-write a sentence four times in my journal that night (writing in English, I couldn't figure out sentence structure). It was crazy hard but more encouraging than discouraging. I found out that I know a lot of Malay! It was pretty cool for all of us to see what we're capable of.

Have I told anything about my sisters? I love them. Sister Jensen and I are getting a little nervous that we won't get another chance to serve with each other in the field. We are very different people but we compliment each other and we do have a lot in common. I'm so glad I got a companion who I actually like being around. (Dax: she's basically my Szekely.) Sister Kubota: our Hawaiian auntie. She knows how to keep everyone in line but she's hilarious and I love her. When she starts laughing (only her crazy-eye laugh) there is no chance for me. We have so much fun. She has a killer testimony too and I can't wait till the field when we'll (hopefully) get to be companions. Sister Ferguson: Fergie Ferg. Our Maryland Sister. She's a genius and so so funny. And she snores super loud which makes all of us laugh at night (only a few times. we're good about no talking after 10:15). And introducing our new sister: Sister Wright! She's going to Tonga and she got in yesterday, but she's a solo sister ... with a solo elder ... which creates sticky situations. So she's in our classroom any time there's no teacher in hers. We love her already.

Our Malagasy elders are leaving next week. Some of them are like brothers to me and it's going to be so sad when they leave, but I'm excited for them to get out there and do some work. NATALIE, your little bro will be in the classroom right next to mine! That's so exciting, thank you for telling me! I will be sure to go welcome him. SARAH WESTOVER .. .You didn't give me your full address so your letter was returned to me. Is it street or road ... what? send me a dearelder with it please :)

That's all I have time for folks! Super enthralling right? Let me leave you all with a little commitment ;) Conference this weekend (it feels like Christmas, that's how excited I am): write down some questions you have about anything in your life, pray about them. I promise the Holy Spirit will bring you your answers.

I love you all!

Dengan kasih,

Sister Norton

HFI

(Note from Mikelle's Mom ~ Mikelle keeps asking me to send her a dearelder.com with any comments made on her blog ... and um, yeah ... I haven't seen any?? So please ... make a comment someone ... anyone :) Thank you.

uhhhh guys? chad fell down.

I write to you this rainy Saturday morning with a baseball-sized lump on the side of my ankle. Why, you ask? Because I didn't listen to all the warnings of "never play volleyball without your ankle braces. (Especially with a bunch of Tongan elders)." But we can start this exciting week back on Saturday.

This week has definitely been a struggle. I just read through my journal and I kid you not, every other day is different. If I felt like I had a good day on Monday, you better believe that Tuesday was crap. Wednesday would be good and look out for Thursday. You get the picture. On Saturday, I decided to fast for a few personal reasons. Without going into detail, we can just sum it up by saying I'm trying to get out of my own head and maybe humble myself a little. It was really rough and maybe I was beating myself up a little more than I needed to. My teacher is oh so wise and sat me and Sister Jensen down to talk to us. We told him that we were studying pride and humility and we get it, we see the need for it, but we don't understand how to do it. Brother Maynes said, "Sisters, if you can't think of any ways to humble yourselves, do you think that feeling of inadequacy is from the Lord??" Blew my mind. I know I have a great work to do out here and I'm not through the fight to get to it yet.

Maybe the rest of the week wasn't so bad until yesterday. I was playing volleyball in gym and went up to block a Tongan elder. I was tight, he was tight, so you can guess what happened. The second I heard the popping noises in my ankle, I thought I was done. No more Singapore, no more MTC. (Maybe a bit dramatic). Then I hit the ground and just lied there thinking how stupid it was. I was really angry. I don't get mad but I was like fuming. Not at anyone but myself. To add to the humor, the trainers rush over and tell the elders to help me into the wheel chair and I heard a bunch of them say, "We don't know if we can touch her!" Now I am all for following rules, don't get me wrong, but there are exceptions, elders! Get me into the dang chair!! Turns out I have a 2nd degree sprain and maybe a few frayed ligaments. But it will be fine and it won't affect my departure date at all. So if I wanted to be humbled, I guess prayers are answered ;) I hate having people help me, so it's not going to be my favorite thing having the sisters in my district carry everything for me for the next little bit.

Here's where the love comes though. I have an amazing zone of elders. The elder who took me out got me a get better card and wouldn't stop asking what he could do for me. All the elders were offering the same thing. I asked for a priesthood blessing and my zone leaders gave it to me, but Elder Lefrandt asked if he could hop in on it too. I don't know why he did, but I'm so grateful for it. I still connect him to Dax a little bit (plus he looks and acts like Cody), so it was just comforting. Look here folks. The priesthood power is the same power from God that Jesus Christ gave to his apostles when He was here on earth. It's one of the main reasons I'm out here, because if this church didn't have that same power, it wouldn't be true. And why would I waste my time trying to spread a message that isn't true? I know that God is our Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ is our Savior through the loving act of the Atonement, but what hope would we have to follow their plan if this gospel wasn't restored in its entirety? When I received that blessing, those elders weren't the ones speaking. I heard what they said but the Holy Ghost was whispering everything else I needed to hear. God wants me to succeed in all the struggles I'm having right now and I'm so grateful that I have the opportunity to always be faced with this challenges so I can learn from them and grow stronger and smarter.

Now let's see if you can help me a bit. I don't communicate well. When I'm teaching, I can get the doctrine, that's great and all, but I don't connect with the people I'm teaching. I love them, I'm teaching out of charity and my love for my Savior, but I can't figure out what things I need to ask to help lead them to the doctrine. As much as I say to them, it's not going to internalize until the Spirit teaches them. So, any advice would be gladly accepted. Send me a dearelder.com ~

Sister Mikelle Dionne Norton

MTC Mailbox # 84

SING-APR 0505

2005 N 900 E

Provo, UT 84604-1793

(My MTC address is also listed on the right side of this blog for future reference.)

Cool Malay fact. We say we feel things in our "hati". I thought this meant heart, because they use it in all the places they would use heart. Nope! It means liver. Man my people are cool. So with a very happy liver, I send my love to you all. You're in my prayers and I know God is watching over you.

Dengan kasih,

Sister Norton

HFI

greetings from hogwarts!

Here's a little update. We have officially been sorted. Serindipitously there are four sisters in our district ... four houses ... get it? Ok so Sister Kubota was called to Slytherin (ha! called? mtc brain), Sister Fergusen to Ravenclaw, Sister Jensen to Hufflepuff (with some disputation), and I'm GRYFFINDOR!! Oh baby.

I've come up with a timeline to chart out our language progress:

Week 1: Deer in headlights. English fully intact. No speak Malay.

Week 2: Language limbo. Still no speak Malay. No speak English no more.

Week 3: English more bad. Saya pandai bercakap Bahasa Malay!

Pretty much no one would understand me over there though, my vocabulary consists largly of English idioms and colloquialisms translated into Malay, such as: "Kata untuk ibu kamu!" (word to your mother) or "Saya tidak tahu kehidupan kamu!" (I don't know your life). It's highly intelligent. We've also found that I speak in an Indian accent by default when I speak Malay. Basically we're just having a lot of fun making witty little jokes and sayings. I have caught on to some actual Malay idioms though. Like "it's only a peanut" or "we are a circle of voice."

So, the other two sisters in our branch leave for Indonesia on Monday; the four of us will be the only sisters in our branch! That's right, branch. That's big folks. Basically I'm getting spoiled wrotten, I never have to open up doors or take my tray back after meals. Tis the life. I am going to miss the Indonesian district though. It's so weird to think they won't be here anymore! Soon the Malagasy district will leave, then the Fijians ... then the Samoans. Then we'll be all alone!! Who will Sister Kubota and I play volleyball with?? (My jump serve is well on it's way back.)

Speaking of the meals. Don't worry, Mama. I eat all my greens. Greens are all I eat ... I strongly dislike most of the food here, so I have them make me a spinach salad at the wrap bar for basically every meal. We don't need to talk about the jolly ranchers that are my salvation in class though.

We had our first TRC appointment last week. For those of you who don't know, that's an opportunity to practice teaching the gospel to "investigators." We had to start out getting to know them in Malay. Fail. Then we switched into English and it went much better. I'm just excited to get another try this week. Oh except this week we have to teach them to pray in Malay! Wooohoo.

Malay. I really like Malay. Like possibly more than Chinese. It's just the coolest language ever. We found out that we'll never really be teaching people whose first language is Malay because all native speakers are Muslim and we're not allowed to teach them in Malaysia. So, I am just keeping my fingers crossed that I get a ton of people who speak Malay AND Mandarin. I think I could teach a wicked first lesson if I switched back and forth between the two.

THANK YOU for the update on Japan. I was worried about Matt, but they did tell us that all the missionaries were safe. It is weird because it's not like we've seen any pictures of it. We've heard it's bad, but that's all we have to go on. You better believe that the people of Japan have been in all our prayers. God looks out for his missionaries. The reason none of them were hurt was they had headed inland for a zone conference. Keep praying for them please!

I ran into more friends this past week! I swear I've seen at least ten people I know. Logan Law teaches here so I saw him, then William Lam, and then Clark Manwaring ... excuse me, Elder Manwaring! He came in last Wednesday and he's headed to Mexico.

AMAZING SUNDAY last week. Don't have time to explain, but Joseph Smith was a prophet of God! Read the JSH if you haven't in a while.

Thank you for the 1/2 birthday package papa!! I hope you all enjoyed my card ... to myself ... to you :)

I'm so grateful that I get to learn to teach in this language. This gospel is beautiful and simple. Learning to teach it in another language forces me to teach it simply. God is our Father in Heaven. He has a plan for us to return to Him. He loves us and sent His Son to die so we can live with Him again. I love it! And I love you all! Please feel free to send me dearelders :) I want to beat Sister Kubota someday. Oh, and tell Zak Corbridge I'm looking for him if you see him!

Dengan kasih,

Sister Norton

HFI