Letter 11-19-09

Dear Family,

November continues to roll on and 2009 is almost in the books. Yet I refuse to accept that. The end of my mission is far away because it’s not till 2010. High School football is finishing up. New Mexico isn’t as big as Texas is with college football, but as I told Joe in a personal email, High School football is huge in Texas (have him share the email with you for details). If you haven’t seen the movie Friday Night Lights, I’d recommend watching it. It’s all about a high school football team in Odessa, Texas, which is 10 minutes away from Midland, Texas, my first area. I’ve seen the stadium and like many stadiums here, it’s ridiculously big for a high school football stadium. Some stadiums are as big as small college stadiums, like say, Weber State. College football is on the downhill slope and yet I still remain top of the standings in Dave’s college football picks competition. Don’t ask me how I have done it, but yet my luck may be running out, since I’m only one point ahead. And no, there aren’t a whole lot of TCU fans in this mission, even though they seem to be ripping apart the Mountain West from what I hear. In Texas, the big 2 teams people like are Texas and Texas Tech. I don’t know who New Mexicans like, certainly not UNM. I’ve seen more BYU fans than UNM fans. New Mexico doesn’t seem to be as big into football as Texas, but that’s ok. I’ll forgive them.

If you remember a story from a few weeks back, we’ve been in conversation with the most unique investigator. A member of the Strangite Mormons. When Joseph Smith died, there was a debate as to who was the next prophet. We know that it was Brigham Young; however, James J Strang seemed to think Joseph Smith appointed him and took 5,000 followers up into Wisconsin. Apparently they were checking out land up in Wisconsin after Strang was baptized in February 1844 and Strang sent a letter to Joseph saying this was a great place to establish Zion. Strang says that Joseph wrote him back on June 19th, 1844 saying that would be a great idea and Strang was to be the leader of the people. Strang claims he had a vision similar to the one Joseph Smith had on the same day that the letter was written. Well, Joseph got martyred soon after and that is when Strang got the followers to come up to Wisconsin with him. Well, Strang got killed 10 years later and his church has gone downhill since then and there was no prophet at the head of their church afterwards. They go by the direction of the presiding high priest and have been waiting for a prophet that hasn’t come yet in the way Joseph and James got called. The church is down to 300 people in the world, most of them residing in Voree, Wisconsin. They don’t have any temples or missionaries and they have a strange set of beliefs that are out of whack. Interesting people. The lady we are talking to is the nicest lady I’ve ever met, just a little lost. My request this week is for someone to dive into church history and research James Strang and send me his true story, because the story I hear from this lady sounds really fishy and many red flags go up in my mind. I think there are some strings attached to this James J Strang dude, but I can’t make a judgment because I don’t have the resources to do some research on him. It would be great if someone could help me out and send some info from church history or something. Curiosity killed the cat and I’d rather not wait 3 months to figure Strang out, but I will if I half to.

Anyways, though, Thanksgiving is a week from today. That will be very fun. I wish everyone here a great and marvelous Thanksgiving and I will to my best to make it good for me. I don’t know when I will be emailing next. Certainly not next Thursday. Libraries will be closed. I suppose I’ll surprise you. Till then!


Elder Adam R Droge
The DrogeMiester