Dear Family,
So, as I have been thinking, I have come to realize that there is something that I should’ve done nine months ago (yes, I have now been out nine months. Crazy, isn’t it?) that I never thought of doing. I am going to leave a disclaimer.
DISCLAIMER / CAUTION/ WARNING!!!! – Apparently I have found out through a recent occurrence of events that there are several people out there that don’t know me very well. Ok, I said that wrong. There are people out there that don’t know a certain aspect or attribute of me. I am a writer. Most of you, if not all of you, know that I love sports. If you paid close enough attention, you will also recall that I said I want to be a sportswriter. Well, there’s a reason for that. I didn’t say that I wanted to be a sportscaster, announcer, player, coach, GM, etc. I said a sportswriter. There is a very good reason for that and Greg was the first one to figure it out. I am a writer. As a person, I am very soft spoken. I won’t stand out in crowd. I like flying under the radar. I am not the greatest people person. I have trouble starting conversations and feeling comfortable doing so. Many of you may have figured that out already. I didn’t go on too many dates. I didn’t go on any dances in high school. I had a hard time getting a job, but when I did so, I was given the option to be a cook or counter person. I jumped at the chance to be a cook, because I didn’t have to talk with people or deal with them. However, I found that when I write, I am a different person. I’m confident. I’m bold. I’m direct. I can get off on weird, random tangents when it wasn’t in my intentions to do so. I can be very animated. I can easily write many different emotions right off the bat. I don’t have to feel a certain way in order to write a certain way, and honestly many times that is the case. I love emailing. I love writing letters. I love texting, yet I hate talking on the phone. Just ask Greg or Annie. Very rarely did I ever call them down at BYU. I would always text them instead. I spent much of my time on the internet back home. Doing what? Most of the time I would be on internet forums. What do you do there? You debate and discuss… through writing! I’d write a short column or give my opinion on something and people would write back and we’d talk, discuss, visit, debate, and so on. It was fun. I was my strength. It was me. That is my disclaimer. Think back to all of my letters and you’ll see many of those things evident. Never get annoyed, offended, or angry at something I say. I wasn’t necessarily thinking that way or acting that way in person, I just got off on some weird tangent because I got into it too much. Yeah, I might’ve been thinking of it a little bit, but when I thought about it in my head it was different, then I started to put in into writing and I got carried away and I ended up exaggerating a little too much. Here’s the other part of it. Sometimes I make the mistake of expecting everyone to be the same way. I love writing and I seem to expect people to love writing back. When I emailed or texted someone and they didn’t say anything back, I felt like I just wasted my time. I’m not a big fan of just sending out newsletters because that never gets any response back. That’s why I loved the internet forums, especially cbs.sportsline.com, because every time I said something, I got a response back. One more example. Before my mission, I collected a ton of addresses from a bunch of my friends, male and female. When I got onto my mission, I sent letters to almost every single one of them and vowed to myself to write back to every friend who decides to write me back. Thus I get a little system going in letters. It ends up sifting the wheat from the tares in the sense that the people who don’t like writing so much don’t respond, so only those who have the same mindset of me write letters. It’s done good for most of my mission, although my pool of people to write back has slowly fizzed away. This is why I’ve been mildly bothered with this whole missionary writing system for family. I feel like I send the Elder Droge newsletter out to people, and you know what I said earlier on my opinion of newsletters. No one responds to newsletters. I’ve tried to fix that via trivia and such, but nothing’s worked. Has it really bothered me as much as it seems? No. Not hardly. Only a very tiny bit. I just got carried away like I always do. Kinda like this whole disclaimer thing. I only intended to write a short paragraph and look what’s happened. Does the fact of me not getting letters bother me? Not at all. The only time I ever think of letters is in the few seconds that I am walking up with my companion to the mail box. I’ve gotten so used to the empty mailbox that it doesn’t phase me. The only thing that bothers me a little is feeling obligated to send out this missionary newsletter every week and must I get into that again?
Well, now hopefully you know me better. Now having that said, I’ve pretty much wasted my time to say anything else. I only have an hour to write and you know me. I get carried away, but briefly, Dad just notified me of Dave Skelton dying. That is sad. Dad, no I didn’t already hear that. That is horrible. Give the Skelton family my condolences. But also, I have a favor to ask. Does Julien know? The first thing that jumped into my mind when I read that about Dave Skelton is how much Julien loved and respected Dave Skelton. I feel certain that Dave felt the same way. Every time I saw and talked to him, he’d always ask me how his old neighbor Julien is doing. Someone should call Julien and tell him that if he doesn’t already know.
The only news on my part is transfers. I have stayed put, but Elder Sosi got shipped off. Crazy things happened this transfer. President Robison is really going off the spirit and staying away from old trends. The Abilene (and Eastland) area had 2 district leaders before with 5 sets of missionaries (4 in Abilene, only us in Eastland). One DL had 3 companionships and the other had 2. Well, my district leader last transfer got released as a DL and got sent up here to Eastland to now be my companion. His name is Elder Romney. He is a great missionary and fun guy. This will be a great transfer. The only reason he got released as a DL is because he is in the Branch Presidency now. With him released, the districts are combined with only 1 DL. My old companion, Elder Sosi, got a training call and got sent down to whitewash into one of the Abilene areas. So Elder Sosi is still in my district. Elder Romney’s old companion is now companions with another guy who was in Abilene. They just sent him over to the other side of town and Elder Sosi took over the area. So we did a little trio trade thingy. It was weird. The other crazy things are the fact that I am still a junior companion, but an Elder 1 transfer younger just got a senior and District Leader call and another Elder 2 transfers younger got a senior call. My former companion in Brady was a district leader, but randomly got released. He wasn’t disobedient or anything. He just got called to an area where a DL wasn’t needed, so President released him for the time being. I was expecting a senior call, but didn’t get it. The whole group before me are all seniors, for the most part. That’s why I expected it. Was I disappointed? No way! I was quite relieved. Being a junior companion is a lot easier to do and requires less responsibility. I don’t aspire to leadership. If I get it, I’ll accept it, but if not, I’ll shout for joy in being a normal missionary with less responsibility.
I’ve written too much though. Everyone have a great week and a Happy Thanksgiving!
Elder Adam R Droge
The DrogeMiester
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