Double Western Bacon Burger

Dear family,

prayers answered! whitney got some interviews! hopefully she gets one of the jobs... and i cannot believe that progress has been made in the back yard! all i imagine when i think about our backyard is dirt and weeds. i didn't think anything would actually come of it. it'll be fun to come back and see.

so right now i am on a visa run in singapore. it's been fun so far for a few reasons. i'm here with some really awesome missionaries. elder watkins is with me, along with elder pace (who was with me in the MTC and in sibu), elder campbell (who i always have a lot to talk about with because he replaced me in sibu), elder bickmore (who i'm just good friends with) and elder Parker (who is a stud and was with me in sibu). i've gotten to meet a couple new missionaries that i haven't met before. it's funny, because more and more new missionaries, when they meet me ask, "hey, are you the one with the blog?" that was a pretty good idea.

anywho, the way visa runs usually work is that you will go and do splits with one of the other missionaries serving there, but there have been some pretty big changes lately. they've taken almost all of the missionaries out of singapore, so when you get a big group of visa runners that come in now, there aren't enough missionaries serving there to split with. so the new policy is that we just get an all day p-day. so the day is ours to do whatever we want in singapore, and you know what the first thing i'm going to do is??? get myself a Double Western Bacon burger at Carl's Jr! oh baby, it has been 5 long months since i've had one of those!

i'm really excited about our area though, so this visa run is really more of just an unneeded disruption (except it is kinda needed, otherwise my visa would have expired). it's been a little bit rough the last few weeks. when i got there, the area had just had a lot of baptisms, and was on the end of the wave, with not really very many others to work with. so elder Gulbrandsen and i worked extremely hard with the members to get them giving us more referrals, but while i was with him, we didn't get to see many results from it. however, we are seeing them now. we have gotten some really excellent referrals in the last week, including a couple absolutely golden families (knock on wood). the i'm a tad bit concerned about us being gone out of our area for these three days, because there is a huge problem in bintulu with people getting anti-ed. we've had so many golden referrals go down the drain because their poopy anti neighbors got to them before we could sit down and help them build their testimonies. it's hard to help someone get answers to prayers when they won't let you in. the reason everybody is anti is that they've heard about the word of wisdom, and drinking is a HUGE part of Iban culture...but i really hope these "golden investigators" won't have lost any luster by the time we see them again.

so andrew should be home now... wow. i cannot believe it. i don't believe it actually. i'm still only 3 months out! nick morely will be home soon also! then beau, then rittmanic! then everybody will be married. oh no! why do we have to get old?

you mentioned about applying to BYU. yeah, i guess we could start doing that sometime soon. if you could get most of the stuff ready, that would be great... and i wouldn't complain if mom wrote the little essay thing at the end either... i'm not exactly 100% sure about what's going to happen when i get back (i'm actually not even probably 10% sure), but when i get to the point of being only about 4 months left, i will start to think and pray about it. but like dad said, i still have a LOT of time left, so no worries.

i will definitely remember Lincoln in my fast. as far a mission fast goes, we really aren't supposed to involve a lot of other missionaries in fasts for things back home, just like we're not supposed to involve you in our fasts for people here, but i will talk with the people in my district and we might be able to do something like that. i'm sure they would be happy to do anything to help. in the mean time, tell him hello for me. tell him not to worry and that he's not doing this alone. there are a lot of people praying for him, and as much pain and sorrow he might go through, he's not doing it alone. if i recall, someone has already "born our griefs, carried our sorrows, and with HIS stripes, we are healed." just tell him to hang in there.

i'm still toying with the idea of extending. i can't really see any reason not to. i won't make a definite decision until probably octoberish, but if there's any big reasons not to, let me know. i don't think it's a big deal though, it's only a month after all.

anywho, say hello to everybody for me. i hope everybody is healthy and happy. keep the commandments and have a wonderful week!

love,
elder troxel