Letter 2-2-09

Dear Family,

HAPPY GROUNDHOGS DAY! Another month in the history books. It is February 2009. As I have said at the end of every month in the last year, what in the world happened to January? Time is just flying by. So I realized yesterday that the absolute worst day of the year to try to do missionary work is Super Bowl Sunday. We knock on the door, ‘Hi we’re missionaries…’ ‘Sorry guys, you picked a bad time. We’re fixin to watch the Super Bowl.’ In my mind I am screaming, THE SUPERBOWL DOESN’T START FOR ANOTHER 2 HOURS, YOU BLOKE! LET US IN!!! But no, I just kindly tell them that we’ll stop by later or give them a card for them to call us and we go on our merry way. On the other hand, it provided for a good conversation starter. They tell us that they are “fixin” to watch the Super Bowl, so we’ll just talk to them about the super bowl, who they want to win, and what not. They still didn’t let us in, but at least silly old Elder Droge got to have fun by discussing football again. Here’s one huge accomplishment and I have no idea how I was able to get away with it, but I didn’t even see one second of the game. I didn’t receive one single update while the game was playing. Lastly, I went the whole evening without finding out who won. I was so proud of myself. I still don’t even know who won yet. No one in the family cared to drop a small note in an email about who won. However, even though you may be thinking that this is a good opportunity to keep me in the dark and keep me focused, it ain’t gonna work. This is Texas. The football capital of the world where even high school football seems more important than religion. Everyone and his dog watched the Super Bowl yesterday in Texas and I am going to find out whether I want to or not. Even my companion knows right now. I committed him not to tell until I ask. I thought I’d give someone back home the very pleasurable feeling of breaking the news to their silly football-minded missionary. Speaking of which, if anyone wants to feel that even greater, I still have no idea what happened in the playoffs or what was the final standings in the regular season. I didn’t even think of that before, but since everyone and their dog was thinking football yesterday, it reminded me, so live with it.

Here’s a great transition to more important things, though. The way we dodged the Super Bowl is that we went out with our ward mission leader to give out assignments for the baptism this Saturday of our investigator Paul Schlipf, and then we visited Paul himself. Paul isn’t into football, so it was the perfect visit. In addition to us teaching him a short lesson, he had doughnuts and cookies prepared for us. It was very bueno. The baptism is pretty much set in stone. I know all of you believed me and are praying for me, but in case you aren’t, let me say this, I TOLD YOU SO! This will happen. The mission as a whole got 15 baptisms last week alone. The work is picking up. Its great.

Lastly, I know I told all of you that I don’t care about letters and would rather have prayers, and that is very true, but just know it goes both ways. I’ll continue to pray for you and support you in all you are doing, it just won’t translate into long emails, they’ll get shorter and shorter… partially because I spend my p-day writing to those who did send something and doing other things that will benefit me in the way I spend my time. But I love you all and am praying for you. No angry thoughts. Have a superb week and I’ll do the same!

Elder Adam R Droge
The DrogeMiester