Letter 9-14-09

Dear Family,

Well, my new companion is here. Like I said, his name is Elder Gordon Pitts. He is from a town called Spring Creek, Nevada, which is right next to Elko, Nevada. He has been out almost 5 months now, which is quite comical, because he hits 5 months right near when I hit 19 months. Do the math and me and him added together equals 24 months or one full mission. Mwa ha ha! Elder Pitts is an older missionary. He is already 22 years old. After he graduated high school in 2005, he worked as a fire fighter for almost 4 years until he made the decision to come out on a mission. So that is fun. He is a good guy. I'll enjoy this time serving with him.

So this first week of the transfer wasn't all that spectacular. We hit a horrible streak of bad luck with getting in and teaching lessons. That's ok, though. Just part of missionary life. You just gotta keep moving forward and strive to work harder than you did the last week. We did do a lot of service, which was good. 3 different projects came up in which we spent 2 to 3 hours each in the morning hours. We dug a ditch, we helped with a roofing project, and we helped move. Service pays off in the long run. This week it also rained real hard. It almost feels like Roswell is built in a bowl type thing because the streets flood bad every time it rains hard. There was like 3 to 4 inches of water in the streets in some parts. I also got attacked by some ants and got bit a couple times, which hurt for a few hours, but luckily went away. We were talking to a guy and I was unknowingly stepping right on their little lair and apparently they didn't like it, so they started running up my leg. The ants down here are like 5 times the size as they are back home and most of them pack a powerful bite, so they can get creepy, but I think it's way cool… as long as they keep their distance.

So that is all for this week. We hope to be picking things up this week, but we'll see what happens. Yes, being in a slump is part of missionary life, but it still doesn't feel that great, so we hope to end it, with the Lord's help of course. Keep us in your prayers and have a great week.
Elder Adam R Droge
The DrogeMiester