Sibu

Dear family,

well, i forgot to inform you last week that this week is zone conference. so no emails this week... my bad. but it's ok because i have good news! i bet you're wondering what "Sibu" means. well, i haven't the foggiest, but it's my new area! my first transfer! crazy! so i'll tell you all that i know about the situation:

i leave for Sibu on saturday. sibu is in east malaysia where they speak kosong bahasa ingeris (zero english). i'm super pumped about it because my malay is going to get really good and i'm going to learn to speak ibon (EE-bon), which is the native language there. what happened to being called english speaking??? my new companion will be elder Watkins (who i have never met, nor heard anything about. but apparently his ibon is pretty good already), and we'll be opening a new area. right now in sibu there are four elders- two mandarin speaking and two malay speaking. the malay speaking elders have been bringing upwards of thirty investigators to church every week for the past TWO MONTHS! that is nuts. their baptisms are through the roof with an average of around 6 every week! it's grown so much that they're making it it's own zone and we are going to open a new area there. i'm stoked out of my mind!

elder kartchner will be staying here and training a new elder. i'm going to be a grandfather. that's pretty cool. other than that, i have no idea what's in store for me. i hear it's a hard core biking area, which will be good because i'll hopefully lose some of my huge doughnut of fat that i've developed over the past 7 months in klang. i can't even beleive it. it's going to be super hard because it'll be like going through training again having to learn the language, but whom the lord calls, he qualifies. and apparently i've done all the work i was sent to do in klang... FINALLY! time to move on.

so we were supposed to have a baptism for william (the american guy from montana) and this guy named innocent from nigeria on saturday. to make a long story short, we weren't able to contact william all week and he didn't show up for the baptism =( but innocent did! we've worked with him for a long time. we've had to use multiple teaching records for him because we've been to see him so many times. he requested that i perform the baptism, and i stayed up this time! i was so worried. he was confirmed yesterday AND he got the priesthood. i love it.

well i hope everything is going well at home. i don't know the address that i'll have in sibu yet, but i'll have that for you next week... maybe. we've gotta get moving though because we still need to have our interviews with president. i hope everything went well with Pat's funeral. i'm looking forward to hearing about it. i trust everybody is doing well. you're always in my prayers. assalamalayacom!

love,
elder troxel

PS- in answer to grandma and grandpa's questions, elder kartchner is from St. David, Arizona, and it's president skelton, not "skeleton" =)

PSS- i would like some pictures for christmas i think... not emailed though. like real ones