dear family,
wow, tomorrow i will be an uncle again! i'm pumped for that. i'll be praying especially hard for kimberly the next couple days. child birth must really schmell.
good to hear that mom is such a trooper. i guess it's just in the blood. hang in there mom. know that you're also in my prayers and i would give you my knees if i could.
i can't believe it's football season without me! what is going on in this world?! but round these parts it's baptism season! in the next two weeks we should have 6 baptisms, and in the next month we should have about 10. i'm so excited. we're having a baptism on saturday for this awesome nigerian guy named bright. he's so solid. the way we met him was really cool too. we had just gotten out of an appointment late and needed to grab a taxi because we were supposed to meet a member. we spent probably ten minutes trying to grab a taxi, but traffic was all but completely stopped, so we decided to hoof it. needless to say, i wasn't the happiest of campers, first of all because we were late, second of all it was blisteringly hot, and third of all the walk is about 30 minutes to get where we needed to go. but as we started to walk down this long road, i saw a guy off in the distance walking towards us and i had a strong impression that this is why we hadn't been able to grab a taxi. we stopped him and got his number and the rest is history. he lives with no one, but TWO pastors... and they are the most ridiculous pastors i've ever met. but bright knows it's true, and he's so solid that the two pastors have since moved out of his apartment because they couldn't convince him that the book of mormon wasn't true. what a stud. he's only 21, so we're going to see what we can do to get him on a mission.
next sunday we'll have a baptism for a man named silvan, his wife kamala, and they're son and daughter, deva and thamoli. we met this family my first week in this area, and after dropping us twice, they are finally ready to get baptized. i can't even describe how flabbergasted i am at the change in this family. when we met them it was a completely disfunctional family. now they're so happy! i now know what it means in the book of mormon when it talks about people like Ammon being overcome with joy, even to exhausting their strength. that's how i feel when i see this family. the gospel changes people.
well, we're getting back into the rainy season here. it's rained every day this week... which means we've gotton soaked at least once every day. most days two or three times. umbrellas do absolutely no good, so i don't even carry one anymore.so i had been really wanting to buy a portable DVD player. a lot of missionaries have them and they are really nice because some people here don't have DVD players or TV's, so we can't watch any of the church videos. those are really nice because they have them in their native languages. so i bought i really nice one. i took out some money while i was in singapore for it, so that's where that money went. i'll take some pictures of it and send them to you. don't worry, i am EXTREMELY careful with it. after all, i cost me a bloody arm and a leg =).
i continue to pray for you all everyday. be safe, aight?
love,
elder troxel
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Stupid Malaysian Taxi Drivers
dear family,
i'm glad to hear that mom is slowly but surely improving. don't worry mom, surgery is really fun. i loved it when they put me under. it really was quite refreshing when i woke up. i'm UBER-excited for tj and kimberly's baby. he's going to be such a stud. too bad i won't get to see him until he's almost two.
so i weighed myself again on sunday... and i am FAT! 194! goodness gracious! it's really out of hand. so i've started running every morning instead of just three days a week. it's a little bit harder being the senior companion because i never have time to work out at night like before, i only get the mornings. but the food here is fantastic... and packed with MSG. there's a lot of things that malaysia chooses not to follow; for instance, copyright laws. you can copy anything you want here, no questions asked. i made a sweet mini version of preach my gospel. i don't know why, but we're allowed to copy any church materials we want. cool beans. also, they choose not to follow the food guidelines put out by the FDA. everything here is filled to the brim with MSG. it's delicious, but not healthy in the least. and it's not like you can get away from it either. EVERYTHING you buy here has it. they use it as a substitute to salt or something.
WEEKLY REVELATION: taxi drivers are not very smart. it is against the law here for taxi drivers not to use the meter, but hardly any of them use it. they sit outside all of the big flats and they charge you up the wazoo to go anywhere. i finally got fed up yesterday and decided to test one of them =) i told him where i needed to go, and he wanted 12RM to go there (bologna! it wouldn't have been more than 5 if he used the meter). i asked him why he didn't just use the meter, and he made up some bull-poop story about how the government came and took the meters out of all the taxi's that were there. so i said, "ok kawan (friend), i'll write down the numbers of all of these taxis (there was probably 5 there and all the drivers were sitting together), and i will call and ask if they really did take out the meters. all the other drivers looked at him like, "great job, ya moron." he just went quite for a few seconds, and when i pulled out my planner and pretended to write down all of their numbers, he flipped. it was really funny and he looked like a complete idiot. he tried to threaten me, but he just made himself look like even more stupid. we still had to get a different taxi though, so it didn't really do any good, but i was satisfied.
the work here is still amazing. we had 30 new investigators last week! and we had 21 member present lessons! it was amazing. we've got two baptisms a week from saturday, and then the week after that we've got 4. heavenly father is really blessing this area. i'm just glad i get to be a part of it.
elder kartchner is doing really well. he's growing as a missionary (and in girth, but that's what he gets for being my companion). we're so busy right now and i love it! so many people are making drastic changes in their lives and following the gospel. it's incredible. i read an article the other day in one of the ensigns by neil something anderson. you should look it up, it's called "it's true isn't it? then what else matters?" i gave a talk about it in church on sunday.
anywho, everything here is just peachy. time is flying by! i can't believe it's already p-day again. but i love you all and pray for you every day. stay safe. tell kimberly good luck with the baby!
love,
elder troxel
i'm glad to hear that mom is slowly but surely improving. don't worry mom, surgery is really fun. i loved it when they put me under. it really was quite refreshing when i woke up. i'm UBER-excited for tj and kimberly's baby. he's going to be such a stud. too bad i won't get to see him until he's almost two.
so i weighed myself again on sunday... and i am FAT! 194! goodness gracious! it's really out of hand. so i've started running every morning instead of just three days a week. it's a little bit harder being the senior companion because i never have time to work out at night like before, i only get the mornings. but the food here is fantastic... and packed with MSG. there's a lot of things that malaysia chooses not to follow; for instance, copyright laws. you can copy anything you want here, no questions asked. i made a sweet mini version of preach my gospel. i don't know why, but we're allowed to copy any church materials we want. cool beans. also, they choose not to follow the food guidelines put out by the FDA. everything here is filled to the brim with MSG. it's delicious, but not healthy in the least. and it's not like you can get away from it either. EVERYTHING you buy here has it. they use it as a substitute to salt or something.
WEEKLY REVELATION: taxi drivers are not very smart. it is against the law here for taxi drivers not to use the meter, but hardly any of them use it. they sit outside all of the big flats and they charge you up the wazoo to go anywhere. i finally got fed up yesterday and decided to test one of them =) i told him where i needed to go, and he wanted 12RM to go there (bologna! it wouldn't have been more than 5 if he used the meter). i asked him why he didn't just use the meter, and he made up some bull-poop story about how the government came and took the meters out of all the taxi's that were there. so i said, "ok kawan (friend), i'll write down the numbers of all of these taxis (there was probably 5 there and all the drivers were sitting together), and i will call and ask if they really did take out the meters. all the other drivers looked at him like, "great job, ya moron." he just went quite for a few seconds, and when i pulled out my planner and pretended to write down all of their numbers, he flipped. it was really funny and he looked like a complete idiot. he tried to threaten me, but he just made himself look like even more stupid. we still had to get a different taxi though, so it didn't really do any good, but i was satisfied.
the work here is still amazing. we had 30 new investigators last week! and we had 21 member present lessons! it was amazing. we've got two baptisms a week from saturday, and then the week after that we've got 4. heavenly father is really blessing this area. i'm just glad i get to be a part of it.
elder kartchner is doing really well. he's growing as a missionary (and in girth, but that's what he gets for being my companion). we're so busy right now and i love it! so many people are making drastic changes in their lives and following the gospel. it's incredible. i read an article the other day in one of the ensigns by neil something anderson. you should look it up, it's called "it's true isn't it? then what else matters?" i gave a talk about it in church on sunday.
anywho, everything here is just peachy. time is flying by! i can't believe it's already p-day again. but i love you all and pray for you every day. stay safe. tell kimberly good luck with the baby!
love,
elder troxel
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Phone Tag
dear family,
thanks for the wonderful emails. beau's letter was bust-a-gut funny. he's awesome. if you could email me his address, that would be fantastic.
so this week sounds like it was a fun one. too bad the plays weren't up to snuff. don't worry though, i've been shooting some sweet videos on my camera that will make up for the lack of acting in cedar city. how are kirt and michelle doing? what's drew up to? if you would be kind enough to pass me his address, i would like to write to him. dad said something interesting in his part of the email. he said something about provo not being in the same region next year... what's up with that? are they finally demolishing that heck hole of a school? it's about time.
sorry i didn't have very much time to email last week. the other elders were rushing me... and i guess i kinda really wanted to go play too =) it was a blast. we went to this beach and rented tandem bikes to ride over to carls JR which was about a mile away.
WEEKLY REVELATION: don't rent tandem bikes. i was with elder griffin. he weighs about 210 and i'm above 190 now =( anywho, the bike wasn't made for that much mass. it was pretty bad. the back handle bars broke clean off! they weren't very high quality to begin with though, so it wasn't really our fault.
there was two packages waiting for me in singapore. i was very excited to get the two SD cards back, but even more so for all that jerky and candy! is there any left? nope. none. i am fat.
anywho, when i got back to subang, i found that our phone bill hadn't been paid, so our phones were turned off... and they were like that for the whole week! the guy who takes care of the bills sure took his dear sweet time. it makes it very difficult to do effective missionary work without phones, but we managed. we spent about a total of 20RM on the payphone for the week though. fortunately, they were turned back on this morning, so things are back to normal.
things are still rolling here. we had a baptism for another nepali brother named Deshbandhu. he's such a stud. elder kartchner got to perform the baptism. it was awesome. it was really good for me to be able to perform a baptism during my training, so i wanted him to be able to have that chance also. we've got A LOT coming up in the next month, including a family that we've been working with since my first week in this area. i'm excited.
don't worry dad, i'll still be at the BYU games with you in spirit. keep me updated on how they do, along with how timpview does. it's crazy that school is already starting. summer is almost over already! oh wait, it's always summer here =( i can't tell you how much i miss snow. anywho, i think that's everything. if i forgot to answer any important questions, as them again next week.
i love you all,
elder troxel
thanks for the wonderful emails. beau's letter was bust-a-gut funny. he's awesome. if you could email me his address, that would be fantastic.
so this week sounds like it was a fun one. too bad the plays weren't up to snuff. don't worry though, i've been shooting some sweet videos on my camera that will make up for the lack of acting in cedar city. how are kirt and michelle doing? what's drew up to? if you would be kind enough to pass me his address, i would like to write to him. dad said something interesting in his part of the email. he said something about provo not being in the same region next year... what's up with that? are they finally demolishing that heck hole of a school? it's about time.
sorry i didn't have very much time to email last week. the other elders were rushing me... and i guess i kinda really wanted to go play too =) it was a blast. we went to this beach and rented tandem bikes to ride over to carls JR which was about a mile away.
WEEKLY REVELATION: don't rent tandem bikes. i was with elder griffin. he weighs about 210 and i'm above 190 now =( anywho, the bike wasn't made for that much mass. it was pretty bad. the back handle bars broke clean off! they weren't very high quality to begin with though, so it wasn't really our fault.
there was two packages waiting for me in singapore. i was very excited to get the two SD cards back, but even more so for all that jerky and candy! is there any left? nope. none. i am fat.
anywho, when i got back to subang, i found that our phone bill hadn't been paid, so our phones were turned off... and they were like that for the whole week! the guy who takes care of the bills sure took his dear sweet time. it makes it very difficult to do effective missionary work without phones, but we managed. we spent about a total of 20RM on the payphone for the week though. fortunately, they were turned back on this morning, so things are back to normal.
things are still rolling here. we had a baptism for another nepali brother named Deshbandhu. he's such a stud. elder kartchner got to perform the baptism. it was awesome. it was really good for me to be able to perform a baptism during my training, so i wanted him to be able to have that chance also. we've got A LOT coming up in the next month, including a family that we've been working with since my first week in this area. i'm excited.
don't worry dad, i'll still be at the BYU games with you in spirit. keep me updated on how they do, along with how timpview does. it's crazy that school is already starting. summer is almost over already! oh wait, it's always summer here =( i can't tell you how much i miss snow. anywho, i think that's everything. if i forgot to answer any important questions, as them again next week.
i love you all,
elder troxel
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Singapore
hello family,
singapore is a lot hotter than i remember it being. but it's awesome. i got here yesterday at about 1:00. the situation in this mission is really weird with the visa runs and things because they will often times send you alone, which is what happened to me. it was really strange being by myself. i haven't been alone in 6 months! i felt like i was breaking the rules. but i got to teach some good lesson while traveling and get some referrals for the singapore elders.
i'm glad to hear that mom is progressing. slowly but surely. there's a saying in malay: sikit sikit, lama lama, jadi bukit... which means little little, long long, big hill. i don't know, it doesn't really make very much sense, but neither does anything in malaysia.
it was also good to hear from TJ. i'm really pumped to have another nephew. that kid is going to be so funny.so michael and emily are serious? that's pretty sweet. emily is awesome. i give them my blessing.
so guess what we're going to go do after emailing?! we're going to go play football! and not this malaysian football nonsense, but real american football! when i say that elder griffin had one last night i wanted to cry. it's so beautiful. i can't wait. we're going to the beach to play on the sand, and then we're going to carl's JR. i love singapore!
the work in our area is going really well. mom asked about how things are in our companionship, and things are ok. we're having a lot of success together, and that's really all that i care about. i like to get things moving, but some people aren't quite as motivated.
anywho, i've gotta run. we're leaving to play right now. i love you all. i'm still alive. the mission is awesome.
elder troxel
singapore is a lot hotter than i remember it being. but it's awesome. i got here yesterday at about 1:00. the situation in this mission is really weird with the visa runs and things because they will often times send you alone, which is what happened to me. it was really strange being by myself. i haven't been alone in 6 months! i felt like i was breaking the rules. but i got to teach some good lesson while traveling and get some referrals for the singapore elders.
i'm glad to hear that mom is progressing. slowly but surely. there's a saying in malay: sikit sikit, lama lama, jadi bukit... which means little little, long long, big hill. i don't know, it doesn't really make very much sense, but neither does anything in malaysia.
it was also good to hear from TJ. i'm really pumped to have another nephew. that kid is going to be so funny.so michael and emily are serious? that's pretty sweet. emily is awesome. i give them my blessing.
so guess what we're going to go do after emailing?! we're going to go play football! and not this malaysian football nonsense, but real american football! when i say that elder griffin had one last night i wanted to cry. it's so beautiful. i can't wait. we're going to the beach to play on the sand, and then we're going to carl's JR. i love singapore!
the work in our area is going really well. mom asked about how things are in our companionship, and things are ok. we're having a lot of success together, and that's really all that i care about. i like to get things moving, but some people aren't quite as motivated.
anywho, i've gotta run. we're leaving to play right now. i love you all. i'm still alive. the mission is awesome.
elder troxel
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