The Golden Birthday

dear family,

well i'm officially 20 years old now. i had an epic birthday, too. elder pace and i went out in my area yesterday and we taught a ton of new referrals from our recent converts. we set two baptism dates, and there will be a lot more to come. this week (monday through today) has been amazing. we only had 5 new investigators last week, so the zone leaders commitment to us this week was to double it. well, on monday we ended up with 18 new investigators, and yesterday we had five more. i was starting to get worried because we've been running out of people to teach, but the Lord has again blessed us in abundance. i never want to leave sibu.

we got a new couple this week. we really needed a new one, because with the branch splitting there are going to be a lot of people who need to be trained in leadership. they are from Missouri and their names are Elder and Sister Paul. they are completely shell shocked. Americans are so funny. i hope i wasn't like that when i came into the field. it would probably be a lot harder as a senior couple though. all of us are going over there after this to play "mafia." if you don't know what that game is, you are really missing out. we'll play it when i get back. but the Pauls are really nice and they live really close to elder Watkins and i. hopefully they'll adjust soon...so on to the questions:

1. i haven't gotten any birthday package yet, but i'll be sure and tell you as soon as i get it.

2. yeah, about the wiring of money... probably what i will do is i'll just have elder Pace draw out my money when he goes to singapore next week. i have no idea how i would go about wiring money, but it sounds like a long and grueling process that i don't especially want to bother with, so if elder pace can't do it, i'll just wait. it's not too urgent.

3. no, i just wore the long sleeved shirt that i have. it's not in great condition, but it worked. as far as my pants go, they weren't doing to hot... until this last week. elder watkins was spending quite a bit of time in the bathroom because of some personal issues, so i had some time to do some sewing. i'm not very good, but i was able to fix all the holes. they aren't very pretty (it probably would have helped if i would've used the same colored thread), but they'll do.

4. unfortunately, i think the floods are over. pitty, because they really were pretty fun. i'm used to being soaked all the time. starting from the time when we left our house yesterday to the time when we got home, i was soaked. no biggy. there are a few dangers about being wet all the time though, most of which i won't discuss, but i have been lucky not to have any problems. one of the down sides of the rainy season though is that i haven't seen the sky in more than a week.

that's pretty much it... we're still working hard, and everything is still moving. i can't believe we're approaching the end of january already. i'm almost on the down-hill side :( it's going way too fast, and i don't think it's going to slow down at all. but, "come what may, and love it." stay safe and be good... yeah.

love,
elder troxel
(who is no longer a teenager)