Letter 11-5-09

Dear Family,

Happy Halloween! November is upon us and that means that Halloween 2009 is in the books and it’s on to Thanksgiving season. Halloween this year was kind of a boring day for us. They made us stay in for the evening and there wasn’t a whole lot to do, so we just played Settlers of Catan with the other missionaries in town. I guess that was fun. No one wanted to talk to us that day or the evening before so we got blanked out that weekend as far as production. To make Mom and any others feel a little better about not sending anything, one, I wasn’t expecting anything in the first place, and two, we did wind up with some Halloween candy. The same less active guy who I made the bet with BYU and TCU gave us his whole plate of candy that he had left when we stopped by on Sunday evening. Plus, Elder Thode got a nice Halloween package and he has so generous shared with yours truly. What a nice companion. Thanksgiving this year looks promising. We’ve already had 3 offers for a Thanksgiving dinner and it’s still like 3 weeks away.

So the best news for this past week, which made it a very pleasant Halloween weekend, was the visit of Elder Craig C Christensen of the first quorum of the seventy on Friday October 30th, 2009. If you remember, the last time a general authority visited the mission was last November when Elder Pearson came and tore us all to pieces. Since then, as I’ve consistently mentioned, we’ve made a change in this mission and really focused on the mechanics of missionary work and managed our way into doubling the baptisms here in this mission. Well, Elder Christensen told us what the next step needs to be. He said that we are not going to stop working on the mechanics, but we’re going to have a new focus. He recognized that we have come a long way in this mission and have double baptized, but he said that we are not going to manage our way into doubling again. The way we are going to take this mission to the next level and see greater miracles is by focusing on the spiritual part of missionary work. Developing the true desire and true passion behind the work and developing the great Chirstlike attribute of Charity. That was his message. It really built me up and made me excited for where this mission is going to go. I have enjoyed the success we have been having, but I have been worried that too many missionaries have become “Number Gods”, focusing on solely numbers and getting them as high as possible without seeing the true vision and passion behind it. I truly feel that this message will bring this mission to new heights and new places that no one has ever dreamed and I’m grateful to be a part of it. This is a great work and will continue on. We are all enlisted till the conflict is over. All who have been baptized into this church have signed up to serve Jesus Christ for the rest of their life. You don’t have to be a full-time missionary to serve the Lord; that is just a key springboard for the rest of your life. Peace out all! I’ll write again next week.

Elder Adam R Droge
The DrogeMiester