Letter 5-18-09

Dear Family,

Well, once again I am sitting at the computer and writing a letter back home. Weeks keep flying by. So last week I had a story to tell and ran out of time to tell it, so I will do so now. Elder Reed and I were up in Breckenridge, the city with the highest percentage of unsolved murders in the United States, and we were out finding. Well, we knocked on this door and there was a house that was empty. We didn’t know it was empty, or else we would’ve skipped it, but that’s beside the point. A guy drove by that lived a few doors down and was really angry that we knocked on this door. I’m not sure why, but he just was. He yelled at us, told us to get away from that house, and if we didn’t he would file a report against us and call the police. I found his threat quite amusing actually. Knowing how the police are in this town, they wouldn’t have done anything anyway. However, just like dad always told me growing up, there is a space between action and reaction and although my natural, prideful human tendencies wanted to shout back and not let him get the best of me, I chose to react in a nice, polite christlike way. Instead of shouting back at him, telling him that he was overreacting and that we didn’t know any better as well as the police wouldn’t do anything, we chose to just apologize, leave the door, and walk on. As a missionary, you rarely see the fruits of your efforts and your christlike attitude, which is hard sometimes, but this time was different and taught me a great lesson. A few hours later, we were walking back on the same street, when a car pulled over beside us. It was the same guy that yelled at us before. This time he was different. He was very nice and sorrowfully he apologized for his actions earlier in the day. You know me. Just like Nephi did frankly forgive Laman and Lemuel for trying to kill him, I did frankly forgive the guy for yelling at me and we departed on great terms. Now imagine to yourself what would’ve happened if I had chosen to react poorly. Would he have pulled over and apologized? Would he have felt bad about what he did? How do you think he would’ve acted the next time missionaries knocked on his door? How long do you think it would’ve taken for him to accept the fullness of the gospel as opposed to how long it will take him now? I testify that acting in a christlike manner to whatever situation we are placed in will pay off. People will see our humble example and know that there is hope for them in this life.

News-wise this week I have wonderful news. Josh Hasell, the investigator I have talked about, was baptized and confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints this past weekend. Elder Reed performed that baptism and I confirmed him the following day in sacrament meeting. Not that I have ever cared about numbers too much on my mission, but baptism number four is in the books. This baptism was a unique one. The other three came in a manner where we would work our hardest with our investigators and nothing would work out, then we would be blessed with the gift of finding a person that was just plain ready to listen and would get baptized with minimal effort on our part. This time we worked our very hardest with Josh. After nine months and five different missionaries, Josh finally came to realize that the church was true and that he needed to be baptized. I was fortunate enough to be there when he figured that out, even though I was almost positive that I was going to be transferred before I got baptized. We have another baptism of the 8 year old girl whose parents are non-members and are not interested in religion that I mentioned in our phone call planned for this Saturday. I will let you know how that goes.

One last piece of news and I will sign off. On Mother’s Day I told a story of us running into a big wolf spider. Someone asked if I got a picture. I answered no. Well, this last week, we ran into another one sitting there on the side of the house and guess what we did. We took pictures. He was about the size of a quarter or 50 cent piece. He was fat, black, and hairy with white spots on his back. He also had huge fangs and big scary eyes. The pictures I took were wicked awesome. Best spider pictures that I have ever taken and very close up. You’ll enjoy them when you get the photo CD of Eastland part 3, unless of course I get enough pictures to split up Eastland to part 3 and part 4. In that case it’ll be on part 4, but either way, I’m making you wait. It’ll be worth it. :) But anyways, I’ve talked for too long, so I am signing off. Adios Amigos!

Elder Adam R Droge
The DrogeMiester