Letter 8-11-08

Dearest Family,

Byron – I have the answers to your trivia scriptures, which I enjoyed. 1 – Proverbs 28:25; 2 – Acts 20:7-9; 3 – Jacob 6:12; 4 – D&C 88:126. Fun scriptures. Everyone should look them up. That last one gave me a headache. It was hard to find.
I’ve received no response on the current scripture challenge, so they stand again.

One thing real quick, before I move on to me. There is a confused missionary who tells me that no one has ever said that R-Rated movies are bad. I know someone has, but I haven’t bothered remembering who did because I haven’t ever talked to a member who had a problem like that, so someone help me out.

Anyway, quite an eventful week this week. We started the week of on a bang by teaching a new family that really loved the message and accepted the soft baptismal commitment. The kids were key in the lesson. They are the perfect, teachable age, 10, 8, and 6. I think that really helped the parents a lot. The dad had a really horrible accident a few months ago. He was working in the oil field and got nailed with a big pipe and flew 40 feet across and 30 feet down. He broke several ribs, his lung collapsed, his face was shattered, and his hand was bent all the way back. Basically, he almost died on the way to the hospital, but lived and is now almost fully recovered. Now his sister-in-law’s sister died in a car crash this week after we taught them. That is sad, but I’m glad we’re here to help them. They loved the message and I have high hopes for them. They are Eric and Heather Miller. Kids are Damien, Haylee, and Kyle

Next thing I will bring up isn’t so happy. We were in a nice neighborhood, visiting an active member who is going through a hard time. After talking with him for about a half an hour, we came out to get on our bikes and leave, when we found that our bikes were gone. Stolen. They left our helmets though, that was weird. We reported it to the police and have told all the members that we talk with to keep their eyes open, but they haven’t showed up. That bike was expensive and has made me feel a little like Buzz in Toy Story when he figured out that instead of being a spaceman, he was only a toy. Defeated. But all is good. We have borrowed some bikes right now because the people here are nice. After transfers, I’ll figure out what to do if they haven’t showed up yet. I’m hoping they put me in a car area. That would be nice. I’ll probably end up buying a new bike, anyway. It’s all cool. We can do nothing but move forward when bad things happen. Hakunah Mattatah.

Anyway, last of all, yet a new chapter in the Cody Chambers saga has begun. To refresh your memory, Cody Chambers was our investigator that almost was baptized back in May, but fell off the map. When that happened, we decided we needed to teach his mom, so we did. We dropped in on her one night and have been slowly teaching her since, because she is hard to talk to sometimes. So last night, we dropped in on her again with the ward mission leader and guess who was there? Cody Chambers. He sat in on the lesson and was listening intently. We started out by reading Alma 32 with them and that turned into a really good discussion and she started throwing out questions at us, which is really good. If people never ask questions, that usually means that they aren’t fully serious about it. Anyway, a few questions in, guess who starts answering? Cody. He started to basically teach his mom with us, talking about the Spirit World, Baptism, Authority, etc. Pretty soon, she caught on that Cody knew a lot and believed everything, so she called him out and asked him what his problem was and why he didn’t get baptized and stopped coming to church, reading, and praying. She told him that she liked it when he was doing the right thing because he had a spirit about him that she now misses. Then he opened up and said he believes most of it, probably 97% of it, but not all and was also cheating with his smoking. We were then able to commit him to start reading, praying, and letting us teach him again. He accepted on terms that we go slowly this time, which we will. Cody has to work most Sundays now, but will come when he can and Ginger will come to church with Melissa, Cody’s ex-ed wife who was very hesitant, and Cody’s kids who are 5, 3, 2, and 1 and had been asking their parents if they could go to church. Very awesome. It couldn’t have gone any better.

On that note though, I will leave because I am now out of time. Peace out everyone and remember who you are.

Elder Adam R Droge
Befriendor345