Letter 4-21-08

Hi Family,

So this week was kinda interesting. I got very few letters from family, but quite a bit from friends. It’s ok, though, I have received evidence that most of you are interested and I’m not as harsh as I sound, so don’t be offended.

So I hear that the laws of physics were defied in Basketball, NCAA and NBA. Good thing there are sports fans out here, because no one has told me much about the sports world. To be honest actually, I had forgotten about the NBA playoffs until the member who fed us this weekend brought it up. The Lakers are number 1 and the Hornets are number 2, the Mavericks are 7 and the Suns are 6, the Jazz get the opportunity to beat down on the Rockets again, the Spurs and Suns are playing each other in the first round, and the Hornets actually beat the Mavs in the first game of that series. Yikes! That’s scary. Not to mention that all number 1 teams in March Madness made it to the final four this year in NCAA. That never happens! EVER! Crazy year.

But like I said, I had forgotten that all this was going on until someone brought it up. That’s all really cool, but do you know what’s better? We have a rock solid investigator. The Ward mission leader started teaching him due to issues in his family. His wife left the church as a teenager because she wasn’t accepted by the young women of her ward (take notes on that) and got involved with the wrong crowd because they did accept her. Anyway, she married this guy and now has four kids. We found them because she actually wanted her youngest to get blessed. We found that her husband was interested so the ward mission leader started teaching them and the guy has shot through the roof. In the last few weeks, he has read all the way through Jacob. But yet, he doesn’t just read, he takes notes, marks his scriptures, and really studies them. His first time in church a question was asked in gospel principles about why it is important to come to church every week. This guy pulled out his scriptures and threw out 2 Nephi 31 where it talks about Enduring to the End. He said that it is important to come to church every week because it is a part of enduring to the end. We haven’t even taught him the third lesson yet where we explain enduring to the end. He got that out of his own personal study. He made the comment about how he is excited about his baptism. He went cold turkey on smoking. The ward mission leader taught him the Word of Wisdom and he just stopped then and there right after the lesson and hasn’t touched a cigarette since. We were teaching him yesterday about tithing and fasting and afterwards he asked where the closest temple was for WHEN he and his wife get married in the temple. His wife has caught fire because of him and is now working on being re-baptized. The lord has prepared people for us if we go out and work.

Remember what Elder Bednar said, “MISSIONARIES ARE FULL-TIME TEACHERS, MEMBERS ARE FULL-TIME FINDERS.” You all need to go out and find people for us missionaries to teach because we can’t do it alone and we need your help in finding the people that the lord has prepared.

We ran into a Muslim guy here that we are trying to teach. It is very interesting teaching him because we have to shift gears completely because we are used to talking to Christians, not Muslims.

I also went on an exchange with the Zone Leader. That was a neat experience. He is a much better missionary then me. I learned a lot.

Bruce – So my whole American Idol thing got trashed now. Michael Johns isn’t supposed to go home this early. He was supposed to make it to the Finale. Grrr… Well, at least my winner is still in, David Cook. I just have to pick a new finalist and Brooke White is next on my list of best candidates.

Joe – I love the comics you send. There has been a couple times where I have felt just like the missionaries in that picture, running into a sign in my head that says if you are here you are lost. But don’t worry, I am finding my way around pretty good, partially because my companion knows where he is going. Teaching is going good and the members here are absolutely amazing. They are really missionary minded, they are all really cool people and amazing fellowshippers if we ever have investigators that decide they want to come to church and keep commitments, and we get fed every night. The meal calendar gets passed around every week and gets filled super fast. We were booked for all of April at the beginning of the month because they pass it 2 months in advance.

It is the end of the first transfer. I look at transfers as a trading deadline in the NBA or NFL. They call you up on Monday morning, the day before transfers and tell you that you have been transferred or you are staying. If you get transferred you are suddenly on the Bus the next day and off to a new city with a new companion, leaving your old city, companion, and investigators behind just like that, without a say in your part. It’s like getting traded from one team to the next at trading deadline. The only difference is that they don’t tell you where you’re going exactly. They just say that you are either getting on the bus and going south on Tuesday or north on Wednesday. At each stop they read off the names of who’s getting off the bus right then and tell you who your companion is. For me this transfer, the trading deadline has passed and I haven’t got traded. I am staying here in Midland with the Bushmans for at least another 6 weeks. My companion didn’t get traded either. But every other companionship in our district had someone get trading. No whitewashing though (whitewashing is when both companions get traded).

Anyway. Peace out. I'll write again next Monday.

Letter 4-14-08

Hi Family,

It’s already the middle of April. Isn’t that crazy? So there’s this funny thing. I kinda told my district that my family would visit our new mission president, John L Robison, who lives in Bountiful, and tell me what he is like, and then I would tell the district what our new mission president will be like. It would be nice if someone in Bountiful would make me an honest man and not a liar.

I also thought of a few other favors. First – there was a quote that I gave in the end of my farewell talk that is from the Count of Monte Cristo that I would like someone to give me. It says something to the effect of look into the storm and say do your worst, for I will do mine.Second – There have been people talking about the Allegory of Zenos because apparently that was the Sunday school lesson this week. I have the packet/workbook thing that I got from my Book of Mormon class at the house. People in Bountiful should know what I am talking about. In there, there is a ton of information about the Allegory of Zenos that makes that chapter a whole lot clearer. If someone could give me the information in that packet so I can understand better, I would greatly appreciate it.

Now this week was funny. I got a ton of old letters. First off I got Joe’s and Dad’s letters from March 16th this week. Dad, that Key to Happiness thing was really good. I thoroughly enjoyed it. As I was reading it, it felt like I was reading a conference talk. It’s something that I will go over many times. Joe mentioned the language in his letter. Mostly the language here is normal, except for a few southern words. Y’all is the most common one. Everyone and his dog says y’all. I’m not joking. I’m trying to not let it get to me, but we’ll see what happens. The other one that I hear occasionally, but not as often is fixing. I find it means that they are about to or preparing to. Like, for example, I’m fixing to go to work. I’m fixing to go to the Doctor. It catches me off guard.The other old mail I got was the mail that my roommates at BYU forwarded me from my apartment at Stadium Terrace. In it was Shawn’s Christmas card, so now it’s cool that I have Shawn, Becca, Sarah, and Ethan in my room. It’s fun. I also got my Harris Interactive W2, so I sent that on. I don’t know if you still need it or not, but I felt you could use it more than me.

Bruce – I got that letter of yours. I was all excited because I saw a 4 page letter from you, then I realized that it was the same paragraph 13 times in a row. Grrr… but I have no idea to do a mirror letter. I looked around just barely but couldn’t find how. Plus if I did know, I don’t think I would want to tell you because then it would be hard to read your letters ☺. So you are on your own on that. I’d be willing to bet that someone like Byron may know how to.

Shawn wrote me and told me about the Tennessee weather and the river about 46 feet deep. That reminded me to talk about the weather here. Mostly it is sunny and windy, but occasionally it gets really stormy. But it is different. It pours like no other, but only for like 15 minutes and then it stops. There’s also lightning storms that are far superior to those in Utah. It’s kinda cool. But there is no draining system in the roads, so there are huge puddles everywhere for a few days when it rains. Then there’s the Rio Grande. I’m not anywhere near it, but the scout troop in the ward here went there and told the ward about it. It’s about as wide as the chapel, so it’s huge that way, but its only 2 feet deep, 4 feet at the deepest. I found that funny.

Now on to this past week.

Good – I ran into an interesting religion this week. It’s an Iranian religion called the Bahai Faith. It is like a combination of Muslim, Buddism, and Chritianity. They believe in a few great manifestations of God: Moses, Abraham, Buddah, Jesus Christ, Muhammed Ali, and Baha Ulah. The Latter is like their latter-day prophet that lived in the 1800’s. Apparantly he was in Prison most of his life, but was let free for the last 2 or 3 years of his life. Someone should do some research on him for me. But the Bahai believe that there is no way you can know about God’s physical attributes or what the afterlife is like, but they believe in living good lives so that you can prepare to meet God. They believe in the Bible and the Koran as high school textbooks and as well as lots of other scripture that was written by Baha Ulah.

Bad – Bad and Ugly are the same thing this week.

Better – Here is an interesting experience. We taught a couple that was fairly religious and believed in prayer and the Spirit. They had never heard of Joseph Smith or the restoration, so after we gave the message, she said, before we challenged them to read or pray, that they are going to have to pray about this, because it is something new. Great! I wish everyone was like that. We taught them more about prayer and the feelings of the Holy Ghost so hopefully something will come out of this. We also have a few great potentials, but I’ll save them for next week.

Ugly – The FLDS church thing that has been going on. Apparently down somewhere in southern Texas they found a place where the FLDS had like 400 women and girls evacuated. They found they had been abused a lot and there where even 14 year old girls that were pregnant. The bad thing is though that everyone here is now mistaking the FLDS for our church. They think that it was us, and there are places on the Radio that talk about the Mormons doing this and also on the front page of the newspaper they had printed that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was doing this, totally leaving out the fundamentalist part. It’s horrible.

Best – Interviews with President Rose this week. He is a great guy. He talked about David and Goliath to the whole district, applying it to missionary work, then in personal interviews we went over being a successful missionary, page 10 of preach my Gospel. Three Main points. One – Success is measured by commitment to go out and work, not by numbers or results. Two – Don’t compare yourself to other missionaries because every missionary is different, in a different area, at a different time, with a different companion. Three – As we raise our expectations, our effectiveness will increase. He also reminded me that “No” means “Not Yet.” They will accept it eventually, even if that’s at judgment, but now is not the right time, so don’t be discouraged when they tell you no. I have kept that in mind and it has really helped a lot.

That’s all for now. Keep writing, preferably snail-mail, because I don’t have much time for checking emails. I do have some friends, they’re not all dead (meaning I got a letter from 2 people not in the family, yay!). Someone wake up Byron and tell him to write me about my knew nephew. He’s the only one that hasn’t written in our family. Tell him that Mandy Gifford, who was formerly in his singles ward as ward choir director, is down here and just got engaged.

Just Kidding 4-14-08

I wrote that last one and realized I did have time. Hehe. Anyway. These pictures are of the Bushmans, his museum, the Texas sunset, a water tower, and us driving really fast (we're going the speed limit, I promise. Just look closer)

Letter 4-07-08

Dearest family,

Well, if there was any debate as to whether or not me not sending emails to anyone was a good idea...um, well...its worked...I got people motivated to write and that was the idea...

In response to some of your letters -

Annie - My companion's name is Elder Hill. He is from a small town in Idaho called Kerry. It's near Sun Valley. I have no idea where either of those towns is, so I can't help you if you are wondering that. Living with members is really fun. The guidelines are pretty strict, but we are lucky enough to meet the guidelines with the couple we are living with. They are great. One of these days I will remember to take a picture of them and the house to send it.

Greg - So you started your letter by saying Wendy was pregnant and got me all excited. CURSES!!! You also made fun of my handwriting. How dare you! My handwriting is wonderful. I can read it perfectly. Just for that I won’t send anymore handwritten letters to the family. I will to friends though. That is if they write me first. Which brings up a point. Email. If you haven’t heard. I can do email, but I can only email family and I really have only one hour once a week. I have to write a letter to the family and to the mission president. And if you know me well enough, you know that I can get carried away easily and write long letters, so 2 letters in one hour takes up my time pretty well. Last week I checked the emails first, wrote my letter, did a pictures letter, and was about to write the president when I was out of time. I didn’t get my letter to the president in and I felt guilty all week long. So priorities are going to be changing. I will write my letter to the president first, then to the family, then I will send some pictures, then if I have time, I will check any of the emails I get. Consequently, if you decide to email me, it may be that I don’t actually read your email for a few weeks so its best to send your letters the old-fashioned way.

Joe – I got a kick out of the comic you sent me and it now on the back cover of my study journal

Bruce – You are signed up for high school now? Holy Cow! We’re all really old. I’ll be 20 next year. Yikes. Oh by the way, I’m still taller than you, right? Ha Ha! And by the way, why did Chikeze go home? I liked him. Keep the American Idol updates coming. I wrote out my predictions based on your top 12 that you have sent out and so far I am doing OK. My top 4 is still in there. David Cook. Michael Johns. Brooke White. David Archuleta.

Dad – I loved the poem. I made a new section in my study journal where I will write those poems down and look over them occasionally. Keep them coming ☺. I haven’t been chased by a dog yet. Not really anyway. There have been a few little dogs that think they are a lot bigger than they really are and have tried to chase us on our bikes and eat us up, but they do much and are easy to scare away.

Thanks for all your other letters. I enjoy them. Remember that most information that many people think is useless is information that I like so you can write me just about anything. Thanks Annie for the political update. I haven’t received an update outside of that. No one has told me about March Madness or the NFL offseason, so I hope someone will step up to the plate. All that I heard about March Madness is that all four number 1 teams made it for the first time in history. Crazy. That never happens. I heard that from a member by the way, so someone should write me and tell me more.

On to my week. Good – We ran into a muslim guy. He invited us back, so we haven’t taught him yet, but he did spend 45 minutes telling us his views on things. That was interesting. We got in and taught a devoted Catholic. He loves hearing from different religions so that’s why he let us in. He did say would read the book of mormon again, so that is good. He went from I won’t change religions, to I probably won’t change religions, so I guess you never know. At least he knows what he is rejecting, unlike most people here who avoid us because of all the false rumors they hear.

Bad – My sinuses have been horrible all week long and I fought a sore throat for a while and a bad cough. I’m getting better, but that was no fun

Better- We have a few investigators that are really progressing. It is great to see. I’ll let you know if anything comes out of it.

Ugly – Revelations 22:18. That scripture has been thrown out at us at almost every door. Its horrible. It says that if anyone adds to the book of this prophesy than the plagues of this book will be added upon him. People see that as meaning the Bible and it causes them to not believe ongoing revelation. Its sad. Good thing we have Elder Holland around. Which leads me to my last point.

Best – Conference was amazing. Let me tell you about the winners in my view as a missionary in random order.

1st – Elder Holland. That talk was beautiful. Throwing down the idea that God doesn’t work by ongoing revelation and explaining how he does, as well as bringing up specifically Revelations 22:18 and explain the real meaning and countering everything beautifully that people take from it.

2nd – Elder Bednar. Missionaries are full time teachers and members are full time finders. Take that to heart and go over how he told every member to pray about teaching the gospel to friends.

3rd – Elder Christofferson. That talk about Being Born Again was beautiful and really made me understand what that phrase means because everyone here says they are born again.

4th – Elder Nelson. A gospel, Plan of Salvation, and a throw down against saved by grace all in one.

5th – Elder Perry. His talk was lesson 3 for us. All we would have to do is play that to our investigators and be done.

6th – Elder Hales. Way to go to lovingly throw down on the Trinity. That was awesome. Jesus doesn’t pray to himself in the Bible and doesn’t introduce himself in there.

7th – Elder Oaks. Bear testimony lovingly and meekly to the people who are anti-mormon. Something I definitely have thought about doing otherwise and I need to change my mindset

8th – Elder Scott. Possibly the most underrated apostle. I never hear anyone talking about him but I love how he lovingly condemns and his talk about abuse was beautiful.

9th,10th,11th – President Monson. President Eyering. President Uchtdorf. I can’t forget our first presidency. We have an amazing first presidency. I will really enjoy hearing them talk twice a conference for the next 10 or 15 years. Elder Uchtdorf’s talk in priesthood about correcting our ways is one to really go over.

Oh, by the way, is F Michael Watson, who got ordained to the 1st quorum of the seventy, the Elder Watson that I am thinking of?

That’s all for this week. Keep your letters coming.

Love,

Elder Droge

Pictures (Finally) 3-31-08

Here are some pictures. So this camera is amazing. It can compress the pictures by itself, but what size is better- 320x240 or 640x480? Anyway the pictures here - we have the difference between Provo Utah and Midland Texas, the Lubbock temple, my companion here in Midland, and my MTC District. I would send more, but this email doesn't let me. The camera is incredible, though. Thanks a lot Dave and Michelle!

Letter 3-31-08

Dear Family,

Well, two weeks ago was spring break and the computer place we use was closed down because it is associated with some sort of school down here. Last week I deleted my whole letter when I only had 5 minutes left, so you got that shortened letter. However, I did send a letter the old-fashioned way both weeks and I thought that it would only take a few days to get there like I get letters here, but I guess that first letter took a week to get there for some reason. Just know I sent a letter both weeks and that I am alive. I heard a rumor that Byron emailed my very first letter, so maybe he can do the same to the other letters. Either that or make friends with the Bountifulites so you can read them. This week hopefully nothing will go wrong.

So it sounds like Joe had a great birthday, going to Boondocks and getting an I-pod. Congratulations Joe! I’m glad your birthday was great.

I got a disturbing letter from Dave about my little idea of letter writing,

“I know how it is to be a missionary wanting letters, but telling people that you won't email them, especially family, probably isn't the best way to do it. Just because people don't write doesn't mean they don't love you, but perhaps they don't think there is a lot going on that they could share with you. They all still want to hear from you and how you are doing. Don't burn your bridges. You never know, maybe 8 months down the road someone will decide to write, but they certainly won't if you refuse to address them in a mass email. It's just childish.”

You all get a letter this week (thanks for the addresses, by the way Dad)Let me justify myself. Letter writing is a funny thing. I don’t want to make people hold grudges or get them mad at me. I don’t have the idea that if they don’t write me it means they don’t love me. It just seems silly that you always want to hear how the missionary is doing, but you don’t bother to tell me how you are doing. Nothing to write about is silly. There are many, many things going on in this world. Almost all missionaries come back stuck in the year they left. If nothing is going on in your life then you can always write about what is going on in the outside world. I am an information type person. I love hearing information that most people think is useless. Tell me about your classes. What happened in the news or on your favorite TV show or the latest movie you just went to see. I don’t want to be stuck in 2008. When I write to others and they don’t respond back at all, it feels like I just wasted a bunch of my time. I want evidence that people are reading and they do care about what I have to say. I love you all and I know you all love me. I’ve seen that letter writing is pointless and if you want to know what is going on in my life, then you’ll tell me what’s going on in yours, otherwise I’ll write someone that I know is interested, because my letter-writing time is limited. I’m trying to break this trend of being stuck in February 2008.

Anyway, before I go on, there are a few addresses of people that I’d like to get. 1-Julien Woodbury – I need to apologize for not telling him about my call and maybe do a little missionary work. 2 – Kenny Adair – He is the Korean guy that works at Arctic Circle. He is going to Texas on his mission and I want to give him a heads up so we can keep in contact.

I have ran into a few Spanish people down here. Greg, since you know Spanish, you can teach me how to do a basic Spanish door approach. Something like, we’re missionaries and we would like to give you card for a free copy of the book of mormon. Call the number so you can get one. Also, can we send some Spanish missionaries to talk to you? Something like that. That would be awesome.

Anyway – I thought a good way to tell about me was through 2 phrases combined – The Good, the bad, and the Ugly combined with Good, better, best. Here we go

Good – There was a guy we ran into that was talking like he was another anti-mormon guy and we were about to leave, but he said he wanted to read our Book of Mormon. That shocked me. That never happens. We gave him a copy. I wonder what will happen. Good things happen to those who read the Book of Mormon, no matter their intent.

Bad – people down here truly believe that we are not Christians. Its kinda funny. Example – We ran into a lady who we started talking to and she interrupted us and said, “You Know, I believe that Jesus is my Savior.” As if we didn’t and almost shut the door on us when we explained that we believed the same thing. Hello!!! We’re the Church of JESUS CHRIST people. How are we not Christians? Oh well.

Better – I actually got into a few houses and taught some people. It’s a miracle! There’s actually people in Texas that are willing to listen! I got here the 10th and didn’t lesson to an investigator until Easter, then we got 2 more lessons since then. Yay!

Ugly – Now here is a horrible story. The ward mission leader told us about a guy that went on a mission, and a good mission at that where he was a zone leader, AP, and everything, went home, got married in the temple, graduated BYU then totally flipped, left the Church, and went anti-mormon and won’t even let his kids get baptized. We ran into him mowing the lawn yesterday. He’s completely atheist. He thinks that there is no God. Bible is a joke. Book of Mormon, Doctrine & Covenants, Pearl of Great Price are all false. Religion in general should be stopped and is a complete waste of time. Wow. I feel bad for that family. The good thing is that his wife is strong and his son wants to be baptized before he leaves to BYU-Idaho. The whole ward has no idea what happened. It’s a confusing and sad story. Like it says in Alma 12:15, he’s going to have to stand before god one day and admit to his everlasting shame that God’s judgements are just. I feel bad for the guy.

Best – My first Zone Conference was last week and it was absolutely amazing. It was a spiritual feast all day. We have a great mission president that is a really powerful speaker. It was awesome.

Anyway, that is all for now. Everyone have a great week. Talk to you later!

Letter from President Rose

Here is a letter and picture from President Rose: