Letter 8-10-09

Dear Family,

First things first – I responded to Joe in a personal email, but I am not sure if he got it. Joe wondered if I knew his friend’s older brother, Braden Child. The answer is yes. I didn’t know him very well on a personal level, but I definitely know who he is. Small world, eh? Someone pass that on.

So the Roswell saga starts with some very good news. I am surprised at the production that we have going. I talked about the mission doubling baptisms. Well, Elder Droge has seen 5 baptisms on his mission. He credits himself with 6 because one of his investigators got baptized a week after him being transferred. Well, 2 weeks into Roswell and Elder Droge has 5 people getting baptized in the month of August, with a possibility of 6 happening. Elder Droge is going to double his own baptisms. How fun.

The first one is an inspiring story. The previous Elders were in an area and had a prompting to go to a certain house. When they walked up and to their surprise they ran into a older member who is a recent convert of 2 years out working in the barn with his nonmember, 85 year old brother, Charlie Harper. Normally older people are very hard headed and resistant to change, but not this time. They Elders started teaching him and then I came in with to continue. Charlie is very excited about getting baptized and has a strong testimony. He passed his interview yesterday and is excited for his baptism this Saturday.

Next story comes with Marina Cobb. Marina is in her early 30s. She was previously married to a less active member and had the missionary lessons several times in the past. Well, she is now divorced, but a week or so before I got there she attended the baptism of a person in her family and was inspired. The missionaries talked to her and got a return appointment. That return appointment was literally 10 minutes after I got to Roswell. I got out, the Zone Leaders grabbed my stuff, I got my scriptures, and my companion said get in the car, we have an appointment. With no arguing, I went and we taught Marina the first lesson. I don’t quite know what the difference was this time around, but she’s fully commited to baptism. Not only her, though, but her 3 kids are as well. Eli - 12, Lucas – 11, and Amberley – 8. It will be great to see a whole family come into the gospel.

Last story is a young lady named Shameka Hill. Shameka doesn’t have a baptismal date, but she is reading the Book of Mormon and came to church yesterday. From what I have seen, people who do both of those things progress quite quickly. Shameka is a friend of a recent convert of one month. Shameka moved in with that friend right after I got here and was immediately open to hearing our message. We have finished the first two lessons.

So that is the story of this week, way fun stuff. We did have another guy who was going to get baptized, but I told him that Satan believes in Jesus (true doctrine, read James 2 – Satan doesn’t have faith, but he knows that Jesus is the Son of God) and apparently he took it the wrong way and instead of bringing it up, he decided to hold it in and got angry about it when we were gone and now doesn’t want to talk with us. How sad. Oh, well, those things happen. You just gotta move on. Just like me with this letter. Peace out all!

Elder Adam R Droge
The DrogeMiester