Baptisms?

dear family,

before i forget to tell you again, i don't know if you realize that you can send packages in boxes... you don't have to just use envelopes. everything gets squished in those.

anywho, the last time i wrote to you, we'd set three baptism dates with investigators. well one week later we have 14 on date for baptism, the first on the 29th of this month. my malay is getting a lot better and things are really starting to roll. i'm super excited.

ok, let me try to answer your questions:

1. i have no idea what the time difference is from here to singapore. but right now it is 1:06pm if that helps at all...

2. sibu happens to have an airport, so i just flew from KL to sibu straight. the airport is barely bigger than a large house, but planes do land there. i was pretty bummed though, i really wanted to go in some kind of crazy boat.

3. my new area is actually quite large, but it's very spread out. we don't really have any dividing lines yet, but come january we will. the one branch we have will be splitting into three, so we will be assigned to the second malay branch. i don't know what the exact boundaries will be, but if you slice sibu in half, i think we pretty much just have the northern half.

4. the food here is horrible. just kidding, it's not bad. but there isn't any real restaurants here like there is in west malaysia. that's a good thing though. with the decrease in food intake and the crazy strenuous biking we do everyday, i'll hopefully lose some fat.

5. it's a lot hotter and a lot more humid here.

6. i'll still have to go back to singapore for visa runs, but i won't go again until the end of january i think. i can get an extension here for two months and my visa doesn't expire until the 25th of this month.

i think i answered everything, but if i didn't, just do another question list like that in the next email. i like that because if you just spread your questions out throughout the email i'll just forget them :). we've been working in an area called Bahagia (which translated means "happiness"). if you look on google earth you should be able to find the road called "Jalan Bahagia." it's pretty far north of where i live. oh yeah, the mall where we go isn't really much of a mall. but it's just west of our house. it takes about two minutes to get there. if you look on the map, just go west on jalan sena and it's right across the street on jalan pedada. that's really cool that you can see where i live. technology these days. oh, but i just looked on the map and the mall wasn't built yet, but it's in that open space right across the street. i'm there right now. and as far as apartment buildings near my house go... nope, there aren't any in sibu. everything is just terrace houses and kompongs.

the work is going very well here. i'm still alive and kicking. tell everybody hello for me. i love you all.

love,
elder troxel
(or as the ibans call me "eller rox" because they can't pronounce multi syllabic names)