Hey, Hey, Hey

Dear Blog followers,

We are sorry about the delay in Jordan's email, but we did not realize that he sent this to a different account. We knew he was having trouble with his ldsmail account as it looked like he hadn't open any of his emails. We found his email today and feel much better that he is safe and sound.

Mom and Dad Troxel

dear family,

i'm writing this on gmail right now because myldsmail is down (what are the odds?). anywho, i haven't gotten to read your emails yet, but i'll keep trying to get on to myldsmail. but i hope everything is going well. i've had an excellent week. oh yeah, before i forget again, i need to ask you something... i've heard that the shoe brand "Ecco" has two year warranties on all of their shoes. do you think you could check on that for me? because my eccos are pretty shot. both soles are split right in half and their pretty torn up from the bikes, but if the rumors are true, then they should just be able to send a brand new pair. i've heard of missionaries doing that before, and i'm not sure if either pair of my shoes are going to last much more that 3 more months, so if you could check on that i would be very grateful.

this week has been a good one, at least for elder tuckfield and i. we were able to come out of zone conference and do some really good work the rest of the week. i wasn't very pleased with some of the other companionship's in the zone, however. elder tuckfield and i have talked about it though and we've got some good ideas on how to try and motivate the zone and get things going again though. we've got some elders who are getting really close to going home, and they've all but stopped doing missionary work all together. if nothing else though, it's a good example for me of what not to do when i get to that point...

i told you when i talked to you on the phone about how i struggle staying focused in my language study, but i've found something that has snapped me back into focus... i'm learning Jawi! jawi is the traditional written language of malay. it's not used very much, but it's way cool looking because it uses a lot of the arabic alphabet. so the last few days i've spent learning how to read and write the jawi alphabet. i'm planning on writing a letter to chelsie today, and i'll write some jawi words in there so that you can see what it looks like. it's awesome. i'm super pumped about it.

so we've got some really excellent investigators right now. we'll be having a baptism for a lady named Catherine this saturday. she's married and pregnant with her second child. she's 17 years old! ibans are crazy! i don't know if i ever told you, but i baptized an iban sister in sibu who was married when she was 12 and had her first child at 13! that is just gross. but that's what they're all about here. anywho, catherine is really good. she's been taught for along time, but is just now getting baptized. she's got a really good testimony though and she's going to be a good member. we were supposed to have a baptism for another guy named lawrence this week, but he's had trouble stopping smoking, so we've had to push him back a bit. we met with him yesterday and had him write down all the reasons that make him want to smoke. then we had him write down what he needs to do to avoid all of those things. i think it really helped him to see that is possible. the most important thing that we stressed with him was about prayer. he's been smoking for 8 years, and he's only 20. how crazy is that? when i was 12, i don't think i'd ever even seen someone smoking! geez.

anywho, our area is doing great, and the weeks keep flying by. it's a good thing, because i still can't get into myldsmail and it's looking like i'll have to wait a week to read the emails. andrew is probably coming close to having single digits in weeks left! and whoa, whitney is all but graduated! let me know how college is, sis.

anywho, i'm still healthy and happy. everything is great. i hope everyone is good back home. i love you all.

-elder troxel