What a Plan!

Note from Dad: This week in our letter to Jordan we had to tell him that a lady that we were home teachers for passed away suddenly from cancer. Pat Harward took a real interest in Jordan and always wanted to hear how he was doing. I was able to visit her in the hospital a few hours before her passing and she asked me to relay to Jordan that she loved him very much. I have been asked to speak at her memorial service and so Jordan was responding to a request for some word to pass on. Even though Jordan had not met many of Pat's friends, all of Pat's friends know Jordan as she would tell them about Jordan and she kept a picture of him on her TV. We will miss Pat.

Dear Family,

i've been thinking about what i should write about Pat. i don't really know. but i've been studying a lot about the plan of salvation lately, and all i can say is that i know it's true. i'm grateful to have been able to know her while she was here, and i'm looking forward to when we will get to meet again. a good thing to read at her funeral would be the "death, physical" section in true to the faith. i really like the quote in there that says "the only way to take pain out of [someone dying], is to take love out of life." it'll always be hard when people die, because we won't get to see them for the rest of our time here, so there's nothing wrong with mourning, but we can take comfort in the fact that we will meet again. what an amazing plan.

anywho, i'm also glad to hear that mike is tearing it up. hopefully i'll get to play with him again in a couple years. that's really good for the mountain west though, to have 3 teams in the top 25. i can't believe it! why couldn't this happen in 2010?! GOO!

so i had an interesting experience yesterday. well, not so much interesting, more just poopy. i spent 9 hours on a bus! turns out that we can get our visas extended in butterworth, which is about 4 1/2 hours away. so we took the trip up there at 8:00 yesterday morning and got our visas extended! then we proceeded to hop on a bus and take the trip all the way back. it's was ridiculous. i hate days when i can't teach. but now i can stay here until january 5th.

so we're having two baptisms this weekend, and one is for an american! his name is william and he's from montana. we've been teaching him for probably 6 months now, so it's good to finally see him baptized. the other guy's name is innocent from nigeria. i'm really excited.

i got a really awesome letter from chelsie this week. it was from egypt and written on papyrus! how crazy is that? thanks chels.

being a missionary is so awesome. whitney- you should go on a mission! get ready. but don't turn into a weird sister missionary, because most of them are really weird. don't be weird. just be strong and be good. i highly recommend it. maybe you'll get to go to malaysia and see all the wonders it holds! like all the fantastic rats and cockroaches! oh, quick story. so i went into my bathroom this week to take a shower. it was after i'd woken up and gone running, so i was still really sleepy and really tired from the run. anywho, i pull the shower curtain, and low and behold, there is a giant cockroach on the curtain! i flipped. i hate those things, so i just tortured it for about ten minutes with water before i just caught it and flushed it down the toilet. they call me the roach slayer around these parts.

i think that's just about everything. if you could mail me some pictures of stuff, that would be great. i'd really like that. and i'm nearly due for another shipment of deodorant =) thanks. there was something i really needed, but i can't remember what it was. i'll just have to ask next week. i love you all.

elder troxel