Dear Family,
Right now I am kind of surprised. My thoughts don’t dwell on mail very much. I could care less. However, when I get a week where absolutely no one writes, it shocks me a little. Usually someone from home sends something, but no. No family letters. No friend letters. Not even Mom, Dad, Bruce, or Joe. Outside transfer weeks, I think that’s a first. I’ve been trying to avoid the missionary stereotype where the missionary is obligated to write but people back home don’t have to because they are just too darn busy to say anything. Well, I would promise you that I am busier than all of you combined, but it’s not worth it. I guess this will just have to be like this and I will accept it. I’ve been out long enough that you all just have got used to me not being there so you don’t think to write. Sucks to be me, I guess. I honestly think that it is hypocritical for people to expect me to write every week when they don’t send squat. Well, guess what, I’ve been tempted to go back to what I did earlier in my mission, only send letters to those who deserve to hear from me and haven’t been hypocritical, but I won’t. I had 3 or 4 people hypocritically threaten to disown me earlier, which is why I stopped and decided not to go back, but just know that I still love the idea, so don’t tempt me. Elder Pearson of the First Quorum of the Seventy was bold enough to tell all of us TLM-ites that 2.2 baptisms a year is ridiculous. Well, I can say the same thing. Not writing your missionary is absolutely ridiculous. Nonsense. Garbage. Needs to be stopped. I can be bold in saying that because it’s true and has even been said in conference. Its especially bad for you that have gone on missions and know how it feels not to receive letters. Repent all ye slothful people! I think it’s humorous that the most consistent writers, Mom, Bruce, and Joe, are the ones who have never served a mission. Bruce and Joe – I’ll make a vow right now. When you go on your missions, I will remember my mission and these instances where no one cared enough to say anything and how rejected I felt and on thinking back on these moments I will write consistently and update you on me and everyone else. You can count on it. I feel like Moroni condemning Pahoran. Hopefully I will get the same response saying I’m sorry you were offended, I did have a purpose in not responding, and I will do what I can to help you.
Now, there are a few of you who deserve to hear from me because you have tried your hardest. I won’t point you out, you know who you are. Quietly and silently to you, this condemnation letter doesn’t apply to you. Please read on. I’m not going to put anyone on my blacklist. If I don’t send an email to you, it’s due to my own stupidity in forgetting to check the box. However, if you have gone over a month without sending anything, be honest and close this email right now. I’m finished with this hypocrisy. Repent and send a letter. Then you can open the email back up and see how I’m doing. Then commit yourself to write consistently. That doesn’t mean every week necessarily. That would be nice, of course, but at least every other week or every third week. If you decide to do it monthly, great, just make sure to send some hardcopy pictures or a sports update with your letter and that will make due.
Now on to me. This last week has been great. On Sunday we did a mission wide fast to double the baptisms here in the TLM, like Elder Pearson said needed to happen. Then Tuesday was district meeting / interviews with President Robison. Everything that Elder Pearson said about how much potential this area has and what we need to do here really hit a chord with President Robison in the sense that he sees the same way as Elder Pearson. Everyone has a stereotypical attitude about this area. It is the Bible belt. Very few have had success. It won’t ever go anywhere. Hence the fact that there has been a mission average of 2.2 baptisms per year per missionary. Well, that is what we are trying to get rid of. President Eyring, a while back when he was Elder Eyring, I believe, came to this area and said West Texas will blossom. The stake president back in the Odessa Stake (when I was in Midland) had this same prophetic vision. He pretty much prophesied that there will be many wards, stakes, and temples in West Texas, which is why he was very adamant about BAPTIZE NOW! The bishop back in Midland had a dream one night of the congregation overflowing with people. Now this. President Robison told us in District Meeting that this will happen. It’s not just a dream. It’s reality. They put a temple in Lubbock for a reason. How has it made me feel? Overjoyed. I’ve had a wonderful week. Amazing spirits. Why? Just go ask Mom what has been promised about me on my mission in several occasions. I feel like blessings about me are finally going to be fulfilled. I’ve been confused my whole mission on how few people have listened here, but I have a new resolved drive. President Robison also said that we don’t yet know exactly how this is going to happen, we just know it will. Miracles can happen and they will happen in this mission. In future meetings, we’ll be slowly discussing various things that we can do, but right now the focus President Robison and Elder Pearson have had is mainly obedience. How fitting. Obedience has been my theme for my mission. I’ve tried to be exactly obedient, down to the very letter of the law. That’s how I’ve always been and honestly I’ve been disgusted and appalled by how many missionaries here are disobedient. No real worthiness issues, of course, but disobedient to all the small rules that don’t make sense, like, for example, why to get up at 6:30 when you can get 10 extra minutes of sleep and still make it to studies on time. Little things like that. President threw down on obedience and lovingly chastised us all and quite honestly, I enjoyed every second of it because I have a testimony of obedience and I think everyone else needs one. This won’t happen overnight, but I know that it will and I am excited and pumped.
As for this week, it has been great statistically. We had six new investigators, half of which being a family of three. Coincidence? I think not. Still no investigators of note yet. This area was bone dry when I got here due to the fact that it’s only been opened to missionaries for a few months, but we’re working on it. We’ve got quite a few new investigators now that we’re starting to work with so things are about to catch fire, so that’s a step in the right direction, I guess. I’ll promise to let you know when we have anyone worth talking about that will go somewhere.
Know that I am doing absolutely wonderful. I love it here. I am enjoying every minute of it and not even the fact that my mailbox has been real empty recently can get me down.
Oh before I forget, 2 items of Business.
1 – Bruce – that address you sent me for Julien hasn’t worked. I’ve tried formatting it several ways, but the letter always comes back to me. The only thing I figured out that is the city is Culver City (I looked on a map). If you can somehow manage to get me a correct address that is formatted correctly that would be bueno. If not, I won’t cry too hard.
2 – Mom – I got the most recent bank statement from Zions that was late September and October and that was all peachy, but they never sent a statement for August and Early September. If you could manage to somehow get me a copy for that time period, that would also be bueno. If not…well…I guess I just won’t be able to fully balance my checkbook and that isn’t peachy.
Peace Out and Git-R-Done!!
Elder Adam R Droge
The DrogeMiester
Monday, November 10, 2008
Letter 10-27-08
Dear Family,
Well, I am writing a few hours earlier than usual today. Tomorrow is a combined Zone Conference where Elder Pearson of the Seventy is coming. It is located it good ole Midland Texas. This Morning we are driving up to Abilene where we will depart for Midland at 6 tonight. We are going over early to Abilene so that we can hang out with some other missionaries while we are there. So if you intended to email some small note and missed me, sorry.
So I finally got the letters of who the new bishopric back home is…from two different sources…thanks. And that is really surprising. I didn’t expect Jared Larsen to be the new bishop. Isn’t he only in his 30’s? If he’s older, he doesn’t look like it. I guess that’s not too surprising since he was on the high council, but still.
Hey, Annie, that thing that you sent about President Packer’s testimony in his home ward was really amazing. I thoroughly enjoyed it. If you haven’t read it, read it. Don’t just read it either, listen and follow closely what it says. We are in perilous times and this nation is on its way to being humbled, and if we’re not prepared, that’s a very bad thing. We need to really pray, read, study, and worship the Lord like we mean it.
I also got some crazy, scary news from home. Emily Hartvigsen is getting married next month. Mom asked me if that’s cool. Um, well, kinda and kinda not. To think that someone that is my age and that I have grown up with and graduated with is getting married scares me. That means that I am, theoretically, old enough to getting married. Yikes! Let’s not think of that too much. I’m not really that old. I’m still a teenager! Well, for another 3 months anyway. But hey, on the bright side, tell soon to be Mrs. Emily congrats for me. You could also make mention that I have yet to receive a wedding announcement on my mission. Let me rephrase that. I haven’t ever received a wedding announcement that was directed right to me. It might be cool to get that on my record, if you know what I mean…
So, I haven’t received any political opinions as of yet, but let me switch the trivia right quick. We have an investigator that is part member family and the dude in that couple loves to ask random questions. One of those questions that he asked this week has to do with a subject that I know a little bit about, but I have never looked into that deeply. He asked what our church’s view on astrology. I know that astrology is looked down on. I remember that mom always says that astrology is the devil’s version of astronomy, but that’s about all I know. So 1 – what exactly is astrology and 2 – what is our view on it? I told him that I would email home and ask about it and I would let him know what the response is really fast. So please, chop chop! Don’t make me a liar!
Well, quite honestly, that is about it for me this week. Our one investigator that was going through a rough time with her dad dying officially dropped us. She was honest with us and I commend her for that. Not everyone is. In fact, most people aren’t. I don’t worry about her. She’s only 26 and will get more chances in the future. Before you say that that is horrible and feel all bad, hold yourselves. It didn’t really phase me because I really didn’t know her that well. The only other good investigator we have, I just barely met this last week and haven’t taught him a lesson, so that’s that. I am doing great. Being in the Branch Presidency is a good experience; it gets me overwhelmed at times, but hey, that’s ok. Dad tells me it’s an omen for the future. I would certainly hope not, but I guess you never know. Lift where you stand, right? Don’t seek for a crown and don’t seek for a cave. Just stand close together and lift where you stand. Don’t aspire to certain callings, but if the Lord calls you, magnify your calling. There are many people that could be in leadership callings, but those callings may not be what the Lord has called them to do in this life.
That all came from President Uchtdorf’s talk in priesthood. When the Ensign comes out, that’s definitely a talk to look at and study. But I have to go now. Bye!
[ELDER DROGE HAS LEFT THE BUILDING!!!]
Elder Adam R Droge
The DrogeMiester
Well, I am writing a few hours earlier than usual today. Tomorrow is a combined Zone Conference where Elder Pearson of the Seventy is coming. It is located it good ole Midland Texas. This Morning we are driving up to Abilene where we will depart for Midland at 6 tonight. We are going over early to Abilene so that we can hang out with some other missionaries while we are there. So if you intended to email some small note and missed me, sorry.
So I finally got the letters of who the new bishopric back home is…from two different sources…thanks. And that is really surprising. I didn’t expect Jared Larsen to be the new bishop. Isn’t he only in his 30’s? If he’s older, he doesn’t look like it. I guess that’s not too surprising since he was on the high council, but still.
Hey, Annie, that thing that you sent about President Packer’s testimony in his home ward was really amazing. I thoroughly enjoyed it. If you haven’t read it, read it. Don’t just read it either, listen and follow closely what it says. We are in perilous times and this nation is on its way to being humbled, and if we’re not prepared, that’s a very bad thing. We need to really pray, read, study, and worship the Lord like we mean it.
I also got some crazy, scary news from home. Emily Hartvigsen is getting married next month. Mom asked me if that’s cool. Um, well, kinda and kinda not. To think that someone that is my age and that I have grown up with and graduated with is getting married scares me. That means that I am, theoretically, old enough to getting married. Yikes! Let’s not think of that too much. I’m not really that old. I’m still a teenager! Well, for another 3 months anyway. But hey, on the bright side, tell soon to be Mrs. Emily congrats for me. You could also make mention that I have yet to receive a wedding announcement on my mission. Let me rephrase that. I haven’t ever received a wedding announcement that was directed right to me. It might be cool to get that on my record, if you know what I mean…
So, I haven’t received any political opinions as of yet, but let me switch the trivia right quick. We have an investigator that is part member family and the dude in that couple loves to ask random questions. One of those questions that he asked this week has to do with a subject that I know a little bit about, but I have never looked into that deeply. He asked what our church’s view on astrology. I know that astrology is looked down on. I remember that mom always says that astrology is the devil’s version of astronomy, but that’s about all I know. So 1 – what exactly is astrology and 2 – what is our view on it? I told him that I would email home and ask about it and I would let him know what the response is really fast. So please, chop chop! Don’t make me a liar!
Well, quite honestly, that is about it for me this week. Our one investigator that was going through a rough time with her dad dying officially dropped us. She was honest with us and I commend her for that. Not everyone is. In fact, most people aren’t. I don’t worry about her. She’s only 26 and will get more chances in the future. Before you say that that is horrible and feel all bad, hold yourselves. It didn’t really phase me because I really didn’t know her that well. The only other good investigator we have, I just barely met this last week and haven’t taught him a lesson, so that’s that. I am doing great. Being in the Branch Presidency is a good experience; it gets me overwhelmed at times, but hey, that’s ok. Dad tells me it’s an omen for the future. I would certainly hope not, but I guess you never know. Lift where you stand, right? Don’t seek for a crown and don’t seek for a cave. Just stand close together and lift where you stand. Don’t aspire to certain callings, but if the Lord calls you, magnify your calling. There are many people that could be in leadership callings, but those callings may not be what the Lord has called them to do in this life.
That all came from President Uchtdorf’s talk in priesthood. When the Ensign comes out, that’s definitely a talk to look at and study. But I have to go now. Bye!
[ELDER DROGE HAS LEFT THE BUILDING!!!]
Elder Adam R Droge
The DrogeMiester
Monday, November 3, 2008
Letter 11-3-08
Dear Family,
Well, this has been quite the eventful week. First off, I got both of the answers I wanted from my last two serious trivia questions about Obama and Astrology this last week, so thanks. That really helps. One now I can answer the question that the part member family we're teaching had about Astrology. Two - now I know that the world isn't going to explode when Obama gets elected like them Texans here think. In fact, things are pretty much the same from when I left and now I wished I would've thought to ask for an absentee ballot or what not so I could actually vote. I am supposed to remain silent here and I do, its not worth the contention that I would cause and the instruction about being politically neutral is in the white handbook, so I follow that. I will just be silently glad if/when McCain loses and Obama wins because, I know it's harsh, but I don't think it would be good for a senile old man to run the country when he can't even count to 10 without making a mistake. The fact that he selected Palin as his vice-presidential nominee instead of Romney says a lot. He could've won with Romney. That would've been the best combo. McCain could run the war because he's a POW and Romney could run the rest of the country because he actually knows what he's doing. Did I ever tell you that the people here loved Mitt Romney to death? He would've won Texas in a landslide over McCain and Obama. People were ticked when he dropped out. That would've given us a lot of attention. It really would've. People would've listened to us. Oh well. But no, McCain doesn't select Romney, he selects Palin just so we could make history and say we have the first woman vice president. Anyway, I'll shut up about that. I just had to get that out since I 't been able to and Shawn brought some light on the subject of Obama. Texans have a tendency to be biased, judgemental, and stereotypical. It's quite humorous, really.
Speaking of Shawn's letter, I hear that he is now or very soon going to be officially Chaplin Shawn that could still be going to BYU. That is way fun. Isn't it great that if we trust in the lord with all our hearts and in all our ways acknowledge him that he will direct our paths? Solomon really hit that on the nail. Congrats! So, I ran out of serious trivia questions that actually meant something, but I did think of a small trivia that comes from the Book of Mormon. How old was Mormon (son of Mormon, father of Moroni) when he, 1- was first the leader of the army, abandoned the Nephites as their war leader due to their wickedness, 3 decided to repent of the oath he made and lead them once again, and 4 got killed in battle? So, on to me. This past week was really quite eventful. It started on Monday where me and Elder Sosi drove down to Abilene for P-Day and went paintballing with all of the Abilene missionaries. Paintballing was awesome. I enjoyed it. Getting hit didn't even hurt. If you haven't gone yet, you should go. That could be the next family outing, a paintballing trip. That would be a blast.20 Anyway, after that was over, we headed down for our long drive to the combined Zone Conference, which was why we went to Abilene in the first place. Zone Conference was Tuesday morning. You'll never guess where it was. Good ole Midland, Texas. Yep, I returned home. It was great reliving the memories of being in Midland. Guess what was even better? When we got to Midland Monday night, guess where we stayed? Yep, you got it. Brother and Sister Blaine and Margene Bushman. There were 17 missionaries who slept comfortably in their home that night. It was really nice of them and they loved it to death. When they asked if I was going to be there, they were told that I wasn't going to be there that night. Well, I guess plans changed or something because they got a pleasant surprise when I walked in Monday night. It was great seeing the Bushmans again. They really felt like parents to me and it was great returning home. It's like coming home from college for a weekend. It was great. After Zone Conference was over on Tuesday, us Abilene missionaries went back to pick up some stuff and decided to take pictures around and in their big tree up front. You'll see those pictures in the next CD I send. Then as we were about to leave, the Bushmans got home again and offered us dinner which we gladly accepted. I was sad to leave that night, but knew it had to happen, so I was just grateful to have had the opportunity to return home to Midland. About Zone Conference, though, it was incredible. I don't know if I mentioned this, but Kevin W Pearson of the first quorum of the seventy was there and boy, he's intense. He was just ordained last April, so if you don't recognize the name, don't panic. He was also a mission president of the Tacoma Washington mission, I believe, and definitely fits the general authority mold. His message was basically on how to become a more effective disciple of Christ. In the nicest way possible, he made us feel really small. In a normal sense, I see it as he ripped us into to pieces, threw us in a blender, and turned it on high. He said that 2.2 baptisms per missionary per year (the average here in the TLM) was ridiculous and threw down on obedience hardcore amongst many other things. I really enjoyed it. I took plenty of notes that I can look over and learn how to be a better missionary. It was/is/will be very beneficial. Wednesday, the day after we got home, Elder Sosi got a huge headache and couldn't go out, so we stayed in. That wasn't very fun.
Friday was lots of fun though. It was Halloween. We went over to a potential investigators house who is big on Halloween and tried on a bunch of costumes and got plenty of pictures that you will all enjoy. We then went over to a member's place at the nursing home and got more fun pictures because all the nurses were dressed up for Halloween. Then we had to be done with missionary work at 6, so we went over and hung out at another member's house that evening. It was fun, but can anyone believe Halloween 2008 has passed and it is officially November? Where has this blast year gone?20 Being in the branch presidency continues to be a great experience. This Sunday, I had my first experience conducting Sacrament Meeting. I didn't think I'd do that in at least like 40 years if ever. It was great. I also taught priesthood for the second time this transfer. Elder Sosi and I switch off every other week on that. I also had fun with the financial clerk stuff. It being fast Sunday, there was lots of tithing and fast offerings to do. I also did the reconciliation thing for the month. There were some unreconciled differences. I didn't know what to do and so the stake financial clerk is coming over to help me this week. Don't ask me what all that means. I don't have time to explain it and I hardly know what it is myself, I just do it. Go ask your ward financial clerk what it means.
So to conclude my long epistle this week, mom said that she or someone has been praying for an extended autumn this year and it has worked. I find that humorous. Do you know why? Here in Texas, it doesn't even feel like autumn has even begun. It is still in the 70's and 80s pretty consistently. Its funny how the weather worked out down here this season. May was scorching hot and made me nervous for the summer. It was above 100 and many days close to 110 for the last half of May. June, July and August cooled off a bit but it was consistently in the 90s and upper 80's. There was a good stretch of time where it was actually a degree or two hotter in Utah during July. Now in September, October, and running in to November it has coasted in the 80's and 70's. Very different than Utah. I've been used to having all 4 seasons. That hasn't been the case and I don't think it will be the case. I've really only had 1 season and a small glimpse of a second season. I laughed when I heard it snowed in Utah. Snow hasn't even been a thought in the back of mother nature's head down here. It's nice. But I gotta go. I've spent too much time. Peace Out!
Monday, October 20, 2008
Letter 10-20-2008
Dear Family,
So I was a real genius last week. I gave you my address without remembering to put my apartment number. So neglect that address I sent last week. Here’s the real one:
Elder Adam R Droge
1099 Lago Vista Blvd #116
Eastland, TX 76448
If any letters get sent back to you due to my ignorance, then send them right back to that one.
Last email I forgot to wish everybody a Happy Columbus Day!!! Yay!! That’s why I emailed Tuesday afternoon. The place where we do emails here was closed last Monday due to that silly little holiday. It’s annoying. I hate holidays as missionaries. But if you checked your email on Monday only and didn’t for the rest of the week, just know that I did write and next time I don’t write on Monday, make sure you check your email again on Tuesday evening, because I will write on Tuesday afternoon.
Letters for transfers are mildly bothersome. I will get them, but for some reason they come a week late. Why do I mention that? I just received Dad’s letter telling me that he tried to chop his hand off. Now Dad, I know that at times you may think your left hand is useless, I think that all the time, but it’s no reason to cut it off. …. In all seriousness, though, I’m sorry to hear that happened. Get better soon!
So Mom writes me and tells me that she wants her letters back. Hmm… I have every single that has ever been sent to me saved in a little collection. I was intending to save them my whole mission and constantly sit in awe at my collection, but I guess that if Mom wants to ruin my collection, I can send them back. I won’t cry too hard… . Anyone else want to destroy my collection?
So in a letter last week, Greg gave an incredible response to my past month’s trivia. I wanted to share it with everyone, because it hits it right on the nail.
“I just wanted to comment really quickly on polygamy. I had a professor of religion who is actually in the general sunday school presidency. He doesn't think that polygamy is a celestial law, it will only be for a select few just like on earth. He addressed the issue on the fact that there are a lot of righteous women with two things. First, he said that there are a lot more male infants that die so that helps and the members of the church are a very small percentage of the Lord's children so there will be a lot of gospel preaching to men in the afterlife. Also, the idea that it is 100% the guys fault has no scriptural backing and is totally bogus. One thing that I learned on my mission is that apostasy seems to creep in through speculation over doctrines that we don't know about. The best answer too many of those silly questions is "I don't know." It didn't seem to bother the prophets in the book of Mormon to admit that they didn't know something so why should we be slow to say so. Most of those things are not important to our salvation and if something isn't important to our salvation, the lord doesn't speak a lot about it. My mission president used to quote president Hinkley when things like that came up. The then Elder Hinkley was at a meeting of missionaries and someone asked a question and Elder Hinkley responded saying something to the effect that ‘I don't care which way the doors of heaven open, I just care that they open.’ ”
So next trivia question. This has nothing to do with any doctrinal point. What does everyone think about Barak Obama? The people here in Texas are scared to death of him. They think that he being Muslim and president are a bad combination. They think that he will just destroy America and what it stands for. There is even an email going around that a member showed us that talks about Revelations 13: 1-8 and how it is a prophesy about Obama being elected president and what he will do when he gets to office. There are many people that sincerely think that when he gets elected that he will get assassinated just because he is black. I’ve even seen several people raising the old civil war confederate rebel flag because of it. All this kind of scares me. I wanted to know what the election atmosphere is back in Utah. Obama or McCain? Opinions would be great.
Nothing really new here. The area is bone dry here in Eastland. We are slowly building it up. We only have two good investigators, one of whom is slowly falling off the deep end. She almost got baptized, but then I get here and suddenly her ex-boyfriend stops paying child support. She doesn’t have job, so that hits her hard. Then her Dad just died. That hit her even harder. Now because of her Dad dying, she will inherit $10,000 and right now that’s all she can think of, that money. The other investigator that we have just moved here from another part of the mission. We still have yet to meet them because they live out of town. So that’s that. Outside that, nothing interesting on my side.
By the way, I’m still waiting to hear who the new bishopric back in Bountiful 9th Ward is.
I want to end with an amazing quote. Somehow, last night, we got on to the subject of death, people getting old and dying or dying suddenly. The member we were with knew that we weren’t supposed to watch movies, but he wanted to show us just one small 5 minute clip that was amazing and he wasn’t going to change his mind no matter what we said. You can shoot me later, but we let him, just for those few moments. It was from the movie “Mr. Magoruim Wonder Imporium.” Apparently it is a show about an old guy who has lived a long time and a young girl who thought of him as a father figure. He has decided that he is going to die and she is extremely sad. After a whole day of trying to convince him, her efforts were in vain. That night, they have a touching conversation and this is the quote that was shown us:
“I don’t ask you not to be sad, I just ask you to turn the page and keep reading… Life is an occasion, rise to it.”
I found that so amazingly on target. It literally applies to almost any situation, whether it’s an uncle dying suddenly of a stroke, getting fired from your job, almost chopping your hand off, having a great progressing investigator get anti-ed and start hating the church, getting transferred from your favorite area, having the whole city jump on your back for getting in a minor accident, or having your favorite college football team get thundered by a conference opponent and drop from undefeated at number 9 to number 21 and in third place in the conference in 1 week. It’s ok to be sad. It’s ok to cry. However, we need to move on. We need go forward with our lives. We need to turn the page and keep reading. Why? Because life is an occasion and we need rise to it!
I’ll leave on that note. Have a great week everyone!
Elder Adam R Droge
The DrogeMiester
So I was a real genius last week. I gave you my address without remembering to put my apartment number. So neglect that address I sent last week. Here’s the real one:
Elder Adam R Droge
1099 Lago Vista Blvd #116
Eastland, TX 76448
If any letters get sent back to you due to my ignorance, then send them right back to that one.
Last email I forgot to wish everybody a Happy Columbus Day!!! Yay!! That’s why I emailed Tuesday afternoon. The place where we do emails here was closed last Monday due to that silly little holiday. It’s annoying. I hate holidays as missionaries. But if you checked your email on Monday only and didn’t for the rest of the week, just know that I did write and next time I don’t write on Monday, make sure you check your email again on Tuesday evening, because I will write on Tuesday afternoon.
Letters for transfers are mildly bothersome. I will get them, but for some reason they come a week late. Why do I mention that? I just received Dad’s letter telling me that he tried to chop his hand off. Now Dad, I know that at times you may think your left hand is useless, I think that all the time, but it’s no reason to cut it off. …. In all seriousness, though, I’m sorry to hear that happened. Get better soon!
So Mom writes me and tells me that she wants her letters back. Hmm… I have every single that has ever been sent to me saved in a little collection. I was intending to save them my whole mission and constantly sit in awe at my collection, but I guess that if Mom wants to ruin my collection, I can send them back. I won’t cry too hard… . Anyone else want to destroy my collection?
So in a letter last week, Greg gave an incredible response to my past month’s trivia. I wanted to share it with everyone, because it hits it right on the nail.
“I just wanted to comment really quickly on polygamy. I had a professor of religion who is actually in the general sunday school presidency. He doesn't think that polygamy is a celestial law, it will only be for a select few just like on earth. He addressed the issue on the fact that there are a lot of righteous women with two things. First, he said that there are a lot more male infants that die so that helps and the members of the church are a very small percentage of the Lord's children so there will be a lot of gospel preaching to men in the afterlife. Also, the idea that it is 100% the guys fault has no scriptural backing and is totally bogus. One thing that I learned on my mission is that apostasy seems to creep in through speculation over doctrines that we don't know about. The best answer too many of those silly questions is "I don't know." It didn't seem to bother the prophets in the book of Mormon to admit that they didn't know something so why should we be slow to say so. Most of those things are not important to our salvation and if something isn't important to our salvation, the lord doesn't speak a lot about it. My mission president used to quote president Hinkley when things like that came up. The then Elder Hinkley was at a meeting of missionaries and someone asked a question and Elder Hinkley responded saying something to the effect that ‘I don't care which way the doors of heaven open, I just care that they open.’ ”
So next trivia question. This has nothing to do with any doctrinal point. What does everyone think about Barak Obama? The people here in Texas are scared to death of him. They think that he being Muslim and president are a bad combination. They think that he will just destroy America and what it stands for. There is even an email going around that a member showed us that talks about Revelations 13: 1-8 and how it is a prophesy about Obama being elected president and what he will do when he gets to office. There are many people that sincerely think that when he gets elected that he will get assassinated just because he is black. I’ve even seen several people raising the old civil war confederate rebel flag because of it. All this kind of scares me. I wanted to know what the election atmosphere is back in Utah. Obama or McCain? Opinions would be great.
Nothing really new here. The area is bone dry here in Eastland. We are slowly building it up. We only have two good investigators, one of whom is slowly falling off the deep end. She almost got baptized, but then I get here and suddenly her ex-boyfriend stops paying child support. She doesn’t have job, so that hits her hard. Then her Dad just died. That hit her even harder. Now because of her Dad dying, she will inherit $10,000 and right now that’s all she can think of, that money. The other investigator that we have just moved here from another part of the mission. We still have yet to meet them because they live out of town. So that’s that. Outside that, nothing interesting on my side.
By the way, I’m still waiting to hear who the new bishopric back in Bountiful 9th Ward is.
I want to end with an amazing quote. Somehow, last night, we got on to the subject of death, people getting old and dying or dying suddenly. The member we were with knew that we weren’t supposed to watch movies, but he wanted to show us just one small 5 minute clip that was amazing and he wasn’t going to change his mind no matter what we said. You can shoot me later, but we let him, just for those few moments. It was from the movie “Mr. Magoruim Wonder Imporium.” Apparently it is a show about an old guy who has lived a long time and a young girl who thought of him as a father figure. He has decided that he is going to die and she is extremely sad. After a whole day of trying to convince him, her efforts were in vain. That night, they have a touching conversation and this is the quote that was shown us:
“I don’t ask you not to be sad, I just ask you to turn the page and keep reading… Life is an occasion, rise to it.”
I found that so amazingly on target. It literally applies to almost any situation, whether it’s an uncle dying suddenly of a stroke, getting fired from your job, almost chopping your hand off, having a great progressing investigator get anti-ed and start hating the church, getting transferred from your favorite area, having the whole city jump on your back for getting in a minor accident, or having your favorite college football team get thundered by a conference opponent and drop from undefeated at number 9 to number 21 and in third place in the conference in 1 week. It’s ok to be sad. It’s ok to cry. However, we need to move on. We need go forward with our lives. We need to turn the page and keep reading. Why? Because life is an occasion and we need rise to it!
I’ll leave on that note. Have a great week everyone!
Elder Adam R Droge
The DrogeMiester
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Letter 10-14-08
Dear Family,
1099 Lago Vista Blvd Apt. #116
Eastland, TX 76448
That is my new address for the next while. Hopefully it will be that one for a while. I don’t plan on leaving Eastland for a while, but we’ll see what happens.So, yeah, just like I said. I am in Eastland. Last Monday night, I was all packed up and we drove to San Angelo to stay with the Zone Leaders for the night. The bus got there at 7:10 AM and all of us getting transferred threw our stuff on the bus and left. We in San Angelo were the start of the journey. The last stop is up in Amarillo 12 hours later. I was tired and I was looking forward to having a nice long bus trip all day. That would’ve been fun. However, it was kind of anti-climatic when we stopped at Abilene, the first stop on the trip, an hour and 40 minutes later at 8:50 and I was told to get off because I was to serve in Eastland. That disappointed me for a bit, but it was all cool after that.Eastland is a small town of 4,000 people. So I just jumped from small town to small town. The environment here is also a lot like Brady. Green and Pretty. Brady is greener and hillier, so it beats Eastland that way, but it’s all cool. It is the farthest east the mission goes. Its only 90 miles away from Forth Worth. It is another small town, but that’s ok because, one, I got used to being in a small town in Brady and, two, we are only 60 miles away from Abilene which is about as big as Midland, just over 100,000 and we go over there every week for District Meeting, then go to lunch with all the Abilene missionaries, so I still get a little taste of the big town part of the mission. I am not quite as exiled like I was in Brady. My companion is also way awesome. He is pretty much a legend here in the mission. Everyone loves him. His name is Elder Sosi and he is Samoan. He will hit his year mark the same day that I hit my 8 month mark, the 20th of October, next Monday. We’ll have a party on P-day! He is the friendliest, most loving missionary I’ve met. He also loves talking with people. He gets really sad and depressed when he finds out he offended someone or annoyed them. It’ll be a fun transfer.I echo President Monson’s words when he talked about the fact that things never get easier. That is so true. While I am rid of all the stress and distraction of Brady, things in Eastland surely won’t be easier. Eastland has only been open for 6 months. I am the 5th missionary here. 2 of the last 4 only stayed one transfer. Because of that, the teaching pool isn’t exactly too big. Hopefully that’ll change when I’m through here. That’s not the crazy thing though. In the branch there are around 30 active members, but guess how much of them are active Melchizedek Priesthood holders? 2 or 3. No joke. Most of the ward consists of old widowed ladies. There are a few younger families, but not much. So guess what that means? The missionaries in the branch are in the Branch Presidency. Yep, you heard me right. I am the 2nd counselor in the Branch Presidency and also the financial clerk. We also do most of the home teaching because there aren’t too many home teachers. The Branch President has the sweetest spirit and is a great guy, but he is old, a little slow, and lives out of town, so he doesn’t do much. Sad, but true. So the members rely on the missionaries a ton. It’ll make things fun. They also love us, too, so that is good. The past missionaries have been doing a ton of less work and very little investigator work. They’ve almost done so much less active work, that there isn’t a whole ton left to do that they haven’t tried, so my focus here is to find (tract) this area to death and really build up this area, working myself nearly to death in the process. My eventual goal for the town is for us to get out of the Branch Presidency. Why? Not that I don’t like it, I just want there to be enough male members that we won’t have to be and we can focus on missionary work. Whether or not that will be accomplished while I’m here is another story, but I will do my best and leave the rest up to the lord.So, speaking of Branch Presidency, I was told like 2 or 3 weeks ago by like 50 different people that the bishopric was going to change back home, but guess what? NO EVER TOLD ME!! That’s harsh. You can’t do that. Someone has to inform me of the aftermath.But anyway, life is good. The gas prices here have plummeted from 3.35 when I got to Eastland down to 2.75 in some places. That is crazy. What in the world is happening? Also, if anyone ever tells you that Texas weather is crazy, don’t believe them. It only got over 100 degrees a couple of times the whole summer and it is still in the 80’s right now. The weather is very consistent here and doesn’t change much, unlike Utah, of which it is raining, snowing, and freezing cold! Ha Ha! Losers! Now that I say that, I’ll probably have to spend a winter up in Amarillo sometime in my mission where I here it is miserably cold. Oh, well. Life goes on. Before I sign off this week, a special thanks to Dave who copied and pasted the college football standings as well as the NFL standings in his letter this week. I know you all wanted to write after I went off on a tangent last week, but I just didn’t get many letters because you all just didn’t know where to send it. That’s ok. Now you do. I had a weird dream that I got 12 letters in one day. It would be fun if that dream came true, wouldn’t it? If not, I won’t be offended. I don’t even really think of home too much. I’m too distracted with this missionary work stuff. Weird huh? I even got so distracted with missionary work that I created a whole list of all the missionaries in the mission and use it to predict zone leaders and APs. I update it every transfer with the new added missionaries that are in the newsletter they give us every other zone conference. That makes up for not being able to do NFL predictions. I was even talking the other day about school and instead of saying semester I said transfer. When you start doing stuff like that, where your brain thinks nothing but missionary stuff, you know that you have been out a while. I even looked at a guy on the side walk one day and the first thing that came to mind was that he would make a good counselor in the branch presidency. Wow. I better sign off now. I’m scaring myself. Adios Amigos!
Elder Adam R Droge
The DrogeMiester
1099 Lago Vista Blvd Apt. #116
Eastland, TX 76448
That is my new address for the next while. Hopefully it will be that one for a while. I don’t plan on leaving Eastland for a while, but we’ll see what happens.So, yeah, just like I said. I am in Eastland. Last Monday night, I was all packed up and we drove to San Angelo to stay with the Zone Leaders for the night. The bus got there at 7:10 AM and all of us getting transferred threw our stuff on the bus and left. We in San Angelo were the start of the journey. The last stop is up in Amarillo 12 hours later. I was tired and I was looking forward to having a nice long bus trip all day. That would’ve been fun. However, it was kind of anti-climatic when we stopped at Abilene, the first stop on the trip, an hour and 40 minutes later at 8:50 and I was told to get off because I was to serve in Eastland. That disappointed me for a bit, but it was all cool after that.Eastland is a small town of 4,000 people. So I just jumped from small town to small town. The environment here is also a lot like Brady. Green and Pretty. Brady is greener and hillier, so it beats Eastland that way, but it’s all cool. It is the farthest east the mission goes. Its only 90 miles away from Forth Worth. It is another small town, but that’s ok because, one, I got used to being in a small town in Brady and, two, we are only 60 miles away from Abilene which is about as big as Midland, just over 100,000 and we go over there every week for District Meeting, then go to lunch with all the Abilene missionaries, so I still get a little taste of the big town part of the mission. I am not quite as exiled like I was in Brady. My companion is also way awesome. He is pretty much a legend here in the mission. Everyone loves him. His name is Elder Sosi and he is Samoan. He will hit his year mark the same day that I hit my 8 month mark, the 20th of October, next Monday. We’ll have a party on P-day! He is the friendliest, most loving missionary I’ve met. He also loves talking with people. He gets really sad and depressed when he finds out he offended someone or annoyed them. It’ll be a fun transfer.I echo President Monson’s words when he talked about the fact that things never get easier. That is so true. While I am rid of all the stress and distraction of Brady, things in Eastland surely won’t be easier. Eastland has only been open for 6 months. I am the 5th missionary here. 2 of the last 4 only stayed one transfer. Because of that, the teaching pool isn’t exactly too big. Hopefully that’ll change when I’m through here. That’s not the crazy thing though. In the branch there are around 30 active members, but guess how much of them are active Melchizedek Priesthood holders? 2 or 3. No joke. Most of the ward consists of old widowed ladies. There are a few younger families, but not much. So guess what that means? The missionaries in the branch are in the Branch Presidency. Yep, you heard me right. I am the 2nd counselor in the Branch Presidency and also the financial clerk. We also do most of the home teaching because there aren’t too many home teachers. The Branch President has the sweetest spirit and is a great guy, but he is old, a little slow, and lives out of town, so he doesn’t do much. Sad, but true. So the members rely on the missionaries a ton. It’ll make things fun. They also love us, too, so that is good. The past missionaries have been doing a ton of less work and very little investigator work. They’ve almost done so much less active work, that there isn’t a whole ton left to do that they haven’t tried, so my focus here is to find (tract) this area to death and really build up this area, working myself nearly to death in the process. My eventual goal for the town is for us to get out of the Branch Presidency. Why? Not that I don’t like it, I just want there to be enough male members that we won’t have to be and we can focus on missionary work. Whether or not that will be accomplished while I’m here is another story, but I will do my best and leave the rest up to the lord.So, speaking of Branch Presidency, I was told like 2 or 3 weeks ago by like 50 different people that the bishopric was going to change back home, but guess what? NO EVER TOLD ME!! That’s harsh. You can’t do that. Someone has to inform me of the aftermath.But anyway, life is good. The gas prices here have plummeted from 3.35 when I got to Eastland down to 2.75 in some places. That is crazy. What in the world is happening? Also, if anyone ever tells you that Texas weather is crazy, don’t believe them. It only got over 100 degrees a couple of times the whole summer and it is still in the 80’s right now. The weather is very consistent here and doesn’t change much, unlike Utah, of which it is raining, snowing, and freezing cold! Ha Ha! Losers! Now that I say that, I’ll probably have to spend a winter up in Amarillo sometime in my mission where I here it is miserably cold. Oh, well. Life goes on. Before I sign off this week, a special thanks to Dave who copied and pasted the college football standings as well as the NFL standings in his letter this week. I know you all wanted to write after I went off on a tangent last week, but I just didn’t get many letters because you all just didn’t know where to send it. That’s ok. Now you do. I had a weird dream that I got 12 letters in one day. It would be fun if that dream came true, wouldn’t it? If not, I won’t be offended. I don’t even really think of home too much. I’m too distracted with this missionary work stuff. Weird huh? I even got so distracted with missionary work that I created a whole list of all the missionaries in the mission and use it to predict zone leaders and APs. I update it every transfer with the new added missionaries that are in the newsletter they give us every other zone conference. That makes up for not being able to do NFL predictions. I was even talking the other day about school and instead of saying semester I said transfer. When you start doing stuff like that, where your brain thinks nothing but missionary stuff, you know that you have been out a while. I even looked at a guy on the side walk one day and the first thing that came to mind was that he would make a good counselor in the branch presidency. Wow. I better sign off now. I’m scaring myself. Adios Amigos!
Elder Adam R Droge
The DrogeMiester
Letter 10-6-08
Dear Family,So I have just been devastated and shocked. I just read the email from Mom that informed me that Uncle Dick had a stroke and died on Wednesday. Holy Fire! That’s not what I wanted to hear. I don’t like it when people die. President Monson’s talk on change now rings in my head. This life is fast and we need to stop thinking about tomorrow and focus on today. If we have too many full tomorrows we will have a bunch of empty yesterdays. Also, it was good timing with conference seeming to focus on overcoming our trials. It helped me a lot too with all the fiasco that is going on in Brady.All the talks were really good in conference. I enjoyed it. I’ve been busy between conference and right now (I’ll explain in a second) so I haven’t looked over it extensively to decide what to comment on, but off the top of my head, here are a few winners in a missionary sense. First off, the overall winner for missionaries won by a mile. The little Spanish lady, Sylvia H Allred. Her talk was all about missionary work. Specifically member missionary work. She gave a big huge list of very specific things that the members can do that will help the missionaries out. I listened to the things she said on that list and every single one of them hit right on the nail of what we missionaries need out of the members. Another thing she said was to WRTIE YOUR MISSIONARIES. Most of you are doing a good job, but here is another perspective. Things that are said in conference are doctrine and pretty much scripture. So now it is a commandment from God to write your missionaries, not just a nice thing to do if you have time. COMMANDMENT!! If you don’t have time, make time. If you don’t have anything to say or your life is boring in your eyes, sit down on the computer and just start typing and see what you come up with. If the latter is your excuse, here is something. I love news and have heard hardly any news in a world persective. The NFL is 5 weeks in and I haven’t heard a word. If someone copied and pasted the weekly NFL standings and sent it to me, they would be my new best friend. Also, in accordance to this, here something worth note. I got a letter from a guy from dearelder.com. Apparently that isn’t just for the MTC, so all you that liked that before can still use it. Either way, find something to say, somehow to write, and time to write because you know what happens to those who disobey commandments…right…?Now that I have spent too long on that subject, the other winners that I can think of missionary wise was Marcos A Aidukitisiiswhateverhisnameis who spoke boldy and threw down on the Book of Mormon. Robert D Hales spoke on Christian Courage, basically talking to us people that get squandered with anti from almost every person that we talk to, telling us how to react in the best way possible. I can almost bet that we will be going over that for a Zone Conference or District Meeting. Last but not least, Dallin H Oaks threw down on the Sacrament and now I have material to go read to all them less actives in Texas and bring them back to the fold.So the news here in Brady is this. I’ve know this for a week or two now due to the situation I have been in and several talks with President Robison, the district leader (my companion), and the zone leaders. I am getting transferred. I go from 6 months in my first area to 6 weeks in my second area. Kinda weird, but all is good. I am looking forward to a new area, a new companion, and new experiences. However, even though I don’t know my address, don’t let that stop you from sending letters. Just send them to the old address in Brady and because Elder Pyle (my companiaro right now) is a good missionary he will forward them to me. Aight?So my time is running thin, but let me bring the argument of polygamy up with you so you know where I am coming from. I asked the trivia question, is polygamy a celestial law or not? The reason I asked that stems from the debate I had. Now that I’ve seen one or two responses, let me elaborate. Elder Pyle told me that polygamy is indeed a celestial law. His reasoning though bothered me. He said that women are a lot better than men and because of that they will outnumber men in the CK like 10 to 1. As for all those women who didn’t get married, no problem. It is 100 % the guys’ fault for that and so in order for God to be just, polygamy has to be practiced. All us guys who make it will have like 10 wives because these girls deserve the highest degree in the CK, which marriage is prerequisite, and all the stupid guys don’t deserve. I thought that was a little too intense and it didn’t sit well with me. So now you can give me your thoughts based on that.But I have to log off. I still have a lot to do today. So I have an assignment for you all this week. GIT R DONE!!!!!!
Elder Adam R Droge
The DrogeMiester
Elder Adam R Droge
The DrogeMiester
Letter 9-29-08
Dear family,First off, if you remember from last week, I mentioned how I hit a little 7 year old girl in the car. Well, she is doing perfectly fine. We talked with her and her mom this week and she is the funniest little girl. She is big-boned and hard-headed. She has also grown up with 2 older brothers so she is a very tough little girl. Like I said, she got right up afterwards and walked to her mom. She was at school within a few days and at school she was actually bragging about the fact that she got hit by a car, got up, and walked to her mother. It was quite funny to hear. I bought her a Hannah Montana CD as a little gift. Apparently, Hannah Montana is quite the thing amongst the girls in the younger generation these days. She liked it a lot. So everything is ok.Bruce – you mentioned a few things. First – how did I know that you quit football and band? Well…I’m a missionary. I know everything… Second – how does it work to be writing a non-member and is there any rules or guidelines or anything like that? Well, no rules. No guidelines. I’d just write like I was writing any other person. I’d just talk to him like I have always talked to him. I can just be a little more sneaky and use gentle boldness about the gospel. Ok, I’ll confess. I knew about you quitting band and football because someone named Mom told me. Get mad at her.So last week I forgot to mention, we had one of our investigators get married. Yay!!! She’s not breaking the law of chastity any more. Now she can get baptized. Only one minor problem. She works like all day every day so it is like impossible to get a hold of her to teach her. In the 5 weeks we have been her, we have talked to her a lot, but only had one lesson. We’ve tried, but she is always too busy.So this week has been interesting. A while back, L Tom Perry told the mission presidents that everyone in the states needs to be teaching 20 lessons a week. Well, that’s been kinda hard to reach. The highest total lessons that I’ve had in one week was 12 or 13. Usually its somewhere between 8 and 12. Well, this last week was horrid. We got a total of 5 lessons taught. 2 to investigators and 3 to members. It was bad, but its not like it was our fault. That’s just what happened. We tried our hardest, but we just couldn’t get in if our lives depended on it. However, 5 lessons in one week wasn’t the interesting thing. The interesting thing is what happened at church. We had 6 investigators show up at church. It was quite the pleasant surprise. More investigators at church than lessons taught. If you only look at lessons taught to investigators, our church attendance tripled our lessons. Its not very often that that happens. Now the next task is to get things accomplished with this area and take advantage. We’ll work hard as always and we’ll see what happens. I’ll take the Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego attitude in Daniel chapter 3. I’ll trust that the lord will help us to get this town going and the investigators to progress in the gospel because we have a lot of people at a standstill right now, but if not, we’ll always trust in him and never give up.That’s it for this week. I’d give a new trivia, but this other one in previous weeks still hasn’t been answered.
Peace Out all!
Elder Adam R Droge
The DrogeMiester
Peace Out all!
Elder Adam R Droge
The DrogeMiester
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