Just kicking it!

soo....a few things. NORTON IS HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! my life is complete. norton, rhodes, can life get better? still love my life in KL. I don't ever want to leave. I'm starting to pick up a bit of arabic. we live in a very....hm. a very strong arabic area. that didn't make sense, but what I mean are a ton of the people that live around us are from the arabic countries. anyway, I pick up a little bit of arabic here and there. I love it. I kindof want to study it after. it's a very interesting language. and culture. the funny thing is, I have asked some arabic students a few times in the last few days what country I come from. (cause they ask) and it has been uzbekistan 5 or 6 times, followed by khazakstan, and then three times said sweden or somewhere scandinavia. success! funny they automatically think I'm some kind of russian. when I say america they don't believe me for a while. also very interesting, I randomly talked to a women from istandbul the other day, she was insanely beautiful. beautiful person inside too. I loved her. her name was faeza. and then the other day I contacted a catholic boy originally from poland, who lives in malaysia. he had the most blue eyes I've ever seen. very interesting conversation. because we are always on LRT to go to and from our places every day, I get the opportunity to talk to a ton of people. it's always interesting to see who I'm gonna get next. but to add to my last, in the last week I met people from: Turkey Poland Chad Mali Russia Costa Rica Tunisia pretty wild place I live in! now for a cool story. about...two weeks ago? maybe three? we went faith finding in the apartment building behind ours. we got let in to this really cool hindu families house, and then as we were leaving, we met this ADORABLE 10 year old indian boy in the elevator. I spoke to him a bit, and then we left. well last week we went back to try to get back in to the first families house. but while trying to find their flat, we walked past the flat of the cute little indian boy. obviously we didn't know he lived there, but he came sprinting out of his flat yelling "KAKAK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" which means older sister. so he invited us in to his flat, where we met his adorable grandma who raised him. they're hindu, but this little boy, his name is garam, loves christ. whenever I would say something about him, or show him a picture, his face would light up. not even kidding. this little boy already loves christ, even though he doesn't know who he is yet. so before we left I taught him how to pray, and explained to him about prayer, how he had a father in heaven that loves him so much and listens to him every time he prays to him. and he was listening soooooo intently. then we went back a few days later, and I asked if he had prayed. with this huge proud smile on his face he goes yep! and we had a really really sweet talk about prayer again with him and his grandma. before we left he said the sweetest little closing prayer that we would be safe and people would be nice to us. seriously, he eats my heart out every time I see him. also something interesting about him, he can't read super well. like can read, but really really slowly and poorly. so I promised him if every single day he would read the book of mormon, even if he could only read a few words a day and he really couldn't understand them, if he'd consistently read every day, and pray every day for God to help him to read, I promised him he would learn to read. the Spirit was so strong in my heart and I had huge tears in my eyes while I was talking to him but I told him if he did that, and he learned to read, and he'd go to church, his entire life would change and his kids and his grandkids lives would also change. it was a long story, too long to write even a fraction of what we talked about at their house, but I suddenly just saw his future so clearly, if he would just start to read the book of mormon, and pray, and go to church. and it's incredible that I could say without any hesitation if he did that his life would be better than he could even imagine. I know that's true. and I love him! oh man. next time I'll try to send a picture. he's the sweetest little boy ever. did I mention his grandma had a stroke and so she can't move super well so he does everything to take care of her? and he gives his lunch away a lot because he sees beggers and wants to give it to them? he is going places. another funny story about him, later that night on the day we met him, he calls us. he only speaks tamil and malay so sister rhodes handed me the phone to talk, and as soon as I say hi he yells "KAKAK! BUKA LAMPU KAMU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" which means turn on your light. at first I was extraordinarily confused. but then I realized why he wanted me to so we turned the light on our balcony and stood out to look towards his apartment and we see this cuuuuute cute little boy jumping up and down, yelling, "KAKAK SAYA NAMPAK KAMU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" or, I see you. :) he was so adorable. I'll close on one cool little epiphany thing I had. so we were watching the longer joseph smith movie with a part member family the other day. they had a lot of questions about him and so we brought the movie for them to see how everything kindof played out. I always get pretty emotional during it, but there was this one particular part where joseph smith was trying to comfort emma and he said something like, "we trust in God and go on." and that was all he said. and I'm not sure why, but it really stuck out to me. and basically every day since then I have thought about that. we trust in God and go on. a while ago I may have thought a phrase like that was kindof silly. or just taking the easy way out to explain or find a solution for a problem. but the longer I've been on my mission, the longer I've realized that to really be true. we can't control how life is going to go, where it's going to take us. we don't have the power to control everything. I can't see the future and even though I have a thousand and 85 questions about what I need to do or what I should do next, especially when I get home, I know I need to take that bit of advice. trust in God. go on. so, I'm going to start trying to do that. do everything I can to do what I need to do right now, which is be a missionary in KL, and have trust in God that whatever happens is gonna be what happens. and leave it at that. hey, I think I get to talk to you guys soon on the phone, right? like two weeks? yay! I'm excited. I love you all so much. thanks for everything you do for me. I've felt your prayers this week. did you pray for me? cause I felt a little something. love you love you. p.s. the subject line is an inside joke between sister rhodes and I and our security guards. one day I will show the movie.