Dear all- I want to thank everyone that sent me letter this week. I got a TON of letters and was probably the Elder that got the most out of my whole district. It was awesome.  A lot of people wasnt  sure if I was getting the letters that they did on Dearelder.com, but dont worry, i got all of them. So this week has pretty busy , with a lot of studying and learning. We have 6 hours of classroom study everyday. Then an hour for personal study. And another hour for language study. Pretty packed. There wasnt as many cool eventfull things like there was last week. We has been teaching our "investigator" named Juni (he was just our teacher), but Elder Steadman and I did really well teaching him. We got "transfered" though and so now we are teaching one of our other teachers pretending to be a lady in Malaysia named Siti. The teachers are actually pretty good actors, and it doesnt really seem like we are teaching them. It really seems like we are teaching a lady in Malaysia. They usually try to pick out someone that they taught when they were on their missions, and act exactly like them.  We have only taught Siti once, but I dont think we did too bad. Me and Elder steadman are just starting to get the whole tag team thing down. I usually talk to much and talk over him a lot. That definately something that I have to work on.
          I have one good story about something funny this week.  So in our mission, We have two districts. My district has 4 elders and 3 sisters, while the other district has 8 elders. We have different classrooms and everything. So we only seem them in between classes really. So the other district just put together a bunch of really serious rules about trying to be serious about being on a mission. In their classroom, you can only have gospel conversations, they dont like people laughing a whole lot, and a bunch of other stuff that i wouldnt be able to handle. (im really glad my district isnt like that, cuz we have fun with everything and laugh a lot.)  So me and the 3 other elders in my district thought it would be a good idea to make up a bunch of ridiculous bogus rules while the sisters were out of the room. We wrote it all up and the chalkboard. No laughing at all. Memorize two scriptures a day. Only gospel conversations. And a bunch of other things. The sisters came into the room and read the rules and kind of freaked. we kept it going for a while, and they got kinda mad about it. we didnt tell them until the very end of the day that it was a joke. They were pretty upset. hahah. I guess its not as funny in writing as i thought it was in person. But i guess i have one more story thats more funny.
           A couple of elders were teaching an "investigator" (their teacher) and one of them said something really funny. In response to what that elder said was funny he said that his companion was lucha. But what he really ment to say was that his companion was luchu becuase luchu means funny in malay. what he said- lucha- means pornography. hahahaha. he said his companion was pornography on accident. Well thats all i have for this week. Thanks again for all the letters from everyone! dont forget to keep writing me! i love as many letters as possible.
                                                   Dengan Kasih- Elder Trotter
                    P.s. Malaysia doesnt have toilet paper.

Tuesday 8/23/11

Dear all- I only have a half hour so I have to make this short. Instead of replying by email on this account, please go to dearelder.com and you can write me there and they will print it off for me and put it in my mailbox the same day. you can write everyday if you want! and then i can write back to everyone on here. Ive had great first week at the MTC. It was kind of hecktic coming in here when my aunt Heather dropped me off.  I didnt really know what was going on but i got to lunch right away. After that, we went to our classrooms and the teachers didnt speak anything but Malay. I was glad that i learned the little bit that i did before I came here because that really helped me.  I met my companion Elder Steadman. He is a pretty cool guy from Riverton Utah. We get along pretty good. Which is a big relief because i was nervous about getting some kid that was a goon for a comp. So I room with him and Elder Brown and Elder Meister. These two Elders are great. They are both going to Singapore too. ELder Brown wrestles for Chicago University which is super cool. ive talked wrestling with him a couple times and it makes me really miss is, so i try not to do it too much. Elder Meister is from Australia so all we do is make fun of his accent. But usually he'a alright with it.  So we didnt do much the first day. And the second day was AWESOME! So i guess the elders that lived in our room before us decided to leave us a little present! some elders came to our room and told us to to look around all the hidden spots in the room for candy. we did. and we found A TON! in every little hidden nook and craney. we took off the air vent with a screwdriver and sure enough....FOOD! we got boxes of cheeze its and oreos and tons of king size candy bars. I wish i would have filmed it all. it would have been fun to watch us all freaking out. So in the MTC they give us "investigators" to practice teaching with. Its amazing how fast you can learn the language they are teaching us here. We gave out first lesson completely in Malay to our investigator, Juni, after the third day. Its awesome. There isnt anything that makes you feel as cool as teaching someone the gospel in a completely different language and knowing that they are understanding everything youre telling them. I have only been here for about a week and we are already giving complete lessons, praying, and bearing our testimonies in Malay. Yesterday, Elder Steadman and I taught Juni a lesson on reading the Book of Mormon and praying. It was such a good feeling to see how he took it all in. We gave him a Book of Mormon the day before and he actually read it.  We went over with him the promise at the end of the BOM in moroni. And he was totally stoked on it. then we taught him to pray and he said his own prayer! and we did this all in a different language!  I almost didnt want  today to be P day just so i could teach again and feel like i did last night. It was honestly awesome. So other than that we have been super busy. we dont have any time to rest or do anything for ourselves. Everything is all about the LORD! and for some reason everything seems a lot funnier than it usually would. Things i normally wouldnt laugh at seem like a comedy show. Like last night, Me and Elder Meister just had a laugh attack. He started laughing and then I started laughing and we could stop! it was out of hand haha.  I guess thats what happpens when you have no source of entertainment besides the scriptures and preach my gospel. So thats about all i have time for. Im like the only elder that hasnt got any mail yet from my whole district. hahaha so write back! and as much as you want. mail is like christmas around here. its great. I dont really know what to ask about, but ask me any questions you want! id love to write to everyone!
                                                                                                     Denang Kasih, Elder Jacob Trotter