Letter 12-30-08

Elder Adam R Droge
2523 Ent
Big Spring, TX 79720

Dear Family,

I didn’t expect to email my address until next Monday, but you are lucky this time. I’ll explain it later.

It was really good talking to everyone last week. It really did make me feel better. Like I said, we got the call on Tuesday and I wasn’t very happy about it. Sometimes it’s hard because we don’t see the big picture to everything. We just see the small picture and sometimes it doesn’t make sense. That’s the lesson I learned. I didn’t like the idea of closing Eastland because I see the huge potential there. It is incredible. However, since there are missionaries still covering it, I did my best to make sure it’s not forgotten. So I made a big detailed list of our investigators, potentials, less actives, etc, to make the Abilene missionaries feel overwhelmed in having to cover such a great area. Sunday we went and said our goodbyes and Sunday afternoon there were two different members who asked us for a list of our investigators so that they wouldn’t be forgotten and so they could progress. That made me feel even better. Also, if you remember, my first companion in Eastland was Elder Sosi, the Samoan. Well, he went to Abilene after Eastland. Eastland was his favorite area. He loved Eastland and Eastland loved him. Well, when we told him Eastland was closed, he felt about like us. Destroyed in spirit. However, we found out last night after we left Eastland to camp out in Abilene for the night that Elder Sosi has been assigned as the Abilene missionary in charge of Eastland. That makes me feel a lot better. Yeah, I was depressed because Eastland was closing, but I didn’t see the big picture and now that I do, a little anyway, I have the faith that the area will be fine in our absence and of course I put my faith to action and did all that I could.

But that’s that. District meeting last week was cool. The assistants at zone conference talked about consecration and said that they will come by all the districts to pick up things that we wanted to consecrate. Not necessarily apostate things, but things that we thought got in the way, even if it’s a sheet of paper saying ‘I will wake up on time’ or ‘I will spend half of lunch studying’ or something like that. It was really cool. I found it cool that Greg said that they did a similar thing in his mission so ask him about it. I thought it was really cool and good for the mission. Wednesday at district meeting that is what they did. I feel kinda bad, because for the life of me I couldn’t find much to consecrate. I still can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but hey.

Yesterday was crazy. We were expecting to pack and clean Monday while leaving Tuesday morning. Well, we got a call from the assistants at 10 o’clock Sunday night saying that we had to be packed and have the apartment spotless by 1 in the afternoon the next day. So we scrambled and what ended up happening is that we did our laundry at a 24 hour laundry mat and packed Sunday night until 4:30 in the morning. After 2 and a half hours of sleep, we got up and cleaned all of Monday. Turns out the office elders that were supposed to get there at 1 to close our apartment weren’t there till 4, so that gave us some breathing room. We got finished cleaning at 5 PM. It was ridiculous. An experience that I don’t wish to repeat. So that’s why I didn’t email yesterday. No time.

About today though, transfer day, like I said, I have this strange desire to serve in all 5 zones, so I was hoping to make it north. Well, I also really wanted to spend a long time on the transfer bus. I love the bus ride because you get to meet a ton of missionaries, talk with everyone, and catch up on sleep. That’s why I was slightly annoyed when I got off at the first stop last time. I wanted to be on longer. Well, today we started at Abilene at 9:30 AM. Still good opportunity to make it north and have a long bus ride. Well, the first stop was in Big Spring, Texas at 11:30 AM. We get there and what do you know. Elder Droge is getting off. NOOOO!!!!!!!! NOT AGAIN!!!!! Oh well. I get a short bus ride again and stay south, but Big Spring will be great. For information on it next week, give you the anticipation of knowing what it is like. Here is the address though, in case you didn’t catch it the first time:

Elder Adam R Droge
2523 Ent
Big Spring, TX 79720

I am signing off, now. Peace out!

Elder Adam R Droge
The DrogeMiester

Letter 12-22-08

Dear Family,

Well, I really don’t have a lot to say today. As far as Christmas phone call goes, here are the options:

1 – I can get a phone card and call whenever.
2 – I can be at a member’s house and you can call me there.
3 – I can call from my cell phone before 7 AM and after 7 PM.

First option wouldn’t work. I don’t feel like going out and buying a phone card. I don’t even know how I would do that. Second option requires too much scheduling and planning that I don’t feel like doing that. Plus, that means you guys have to pay for the call. Third option sounds best to me. It’s easiest and the call would be free for all of us. I believe that a few people said that everyone is gathering at the Droge home at 5 PM. Calling at 7 PM wouldn’t be too late I don’t think. That’s what we’ll plan for right now. If anyone has anything to say, I’ll give you a few numbers to call:

Kathy Doggett – (edited for privacy)
Tim Robertson – (edited for privacy)

If I decide to change anything, I’ll have one of those members call and talk to you.

If I don’t hear anything or you don’t hear anything, then we’ll plan for that. I’ll call at or soon after 7 PM. Now that I think about it, 7 PM for me is 6 PM for you, so keep that in mind.

That’s pretty much all. Usually what I do is think of things I want to say in an email on P-Day and write it down in the notes section of my planner for that P-day. Well, today was blank. We did get an investigator at sacrament meeting this week. That was the first time that had happened in 6 weeks. I was really happy, Her name is Crystal Grumbles. And no, she doesn’t grumble, she’s actually quite nice. The only time she grumbled is when we told her Tea was against the Word of Wisdom. We just barely started teaching her, but I think she’ll do really good because her best friend is a strong missionary-minded member that is involved in every lesson. She actually sets up the lessons for us and calls us when the next lesson is. They work together, so they can do that. It’s quite nice. Both are single females between 20 and 25. Don’t worry, no temptation on our part. Everyone here is a single female. There are like no males that exist. It’s quite annoying.

Anyway, that’s all for now, unless I think of anything in the next 2 seconds. … Nope. Adios Amigos. Talk to you on Christmas… Hey I just thought of one more thing. I have a small Christmas package that I will send this week. Nothing big, so don’t get too excited. I will send it today, hopefully, and tomorrow at latest. If it ends up being a New Years package…so be it. Same things in it. Christmas just jumped up at me. I thought it was farther away and now BANG! Wow. Where’d time go? Guess I’ve just been too distracted with this missionary stuff. Greg’s Bowl Game schedule said BYU played Arizona Saturday. Someone should tell me how that went. Feel free to tell me how other Bowl Games went if you so desire. Anyway, I’m signing off now… yep…bye.

Elder Adam R Droge
The DrogeMiester

Letter 12-16-08

Dear Family,

Hey, it's Greg's Birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY GREG!!!!!!

Life, like always, is treating me good. About the Christmas call. Quite honestly, I haven’t even thought about that too much. I guess it is time to start thinking since Christmas is next week. Wow, that sounds weird. It is strange to think it is Christmas already. I just get exasperated with how fast time has flown since I’ve been on my mission. My 10 month mark is this Saturday. How crazy. But back to the Christmas call, several sources have told me that everyone is going to be around Christmas evening at like 5 PM. That shouldn’t be a problem. All that I know about the specific call is from an email that President Robison just sent. It states:
“There are several options you can use for your Christmas calls to your families. One is to have your family call at a member's home. Another option is for you to use a calling card. The third option is to use your cell phone but we have not received the information from Sprint as to what hours you may call for no charge or a small charge. We will get that information this week and I will include it in an E-mail next Monday.”
So there you go. I’ll have more information next Monday because I would prefer calling you from our cell phone. So that is that.

This last week and a half has been really interesting in a not so good way. Why? Because, like everyone else, I got sick. Not just that though, I was plagued with several different things, one right after another. Starting right after Zone Conference, the first week of December. That Wednesday we were at a teaching appointment and my companion, Elder Romney, started feeling sick. After the appointment, we went home and he, as he described it to me, was exploding out of both ends (sorry if that was graphic, I couldn’t figure a better way to explain it ). I was going to study while he rested, but I was real tired, so I slept as well. That evening, he got feeling better, but it seemed like he passed it right on to me. Only difference from me and him was that mine lasted longer. By Saturday, I started to feel a little better, but then I was stricken with a fever of 101. That wasn’t very fun. The effects of both those illnesses lasted a little bit and as I was recovering, my throat started to hurt. Well, voice officially left me this last Thursday and although we still went out and worked, I was pretty much out of commission. That night was the worst. I couldn’t talk at all and we had an appointment with a part-member family that we’re teaching. Well, Elder Romney pretty much did a lesson all by himself while all I could do was to “sit around looking pretty.” That isn’t fun as a missionary. Well, just a few days ago, by Saturday my voice was back, but Saturday and Sunday evening I was once again stricken with an annoying fever, this one wasn’t as bad, but still. Now it is Tuesday and I am pretty much better, except for a nagging cough that has stayed.

So that is been my week. With no energy on my part, it was hard to feel effective. We still worked, but nothing to brag about. Yesterday was interviews, which is why I am writing today, our P-day got switched for this week only, and Thursday there will be another Zone Conference. This one is pretty much going to be a Christmas Party type thing. Relax and have a good time with the other missionaries. It is in Midland again because it is combined, so it’ll be fun to go back there again. We won’t be staying overnight, so we probably won’t see the Bushmans, but still.

That’s all I have for this week. I have a few more serious trivia questions to ask, but I’ll save that for a later time. Have a great week everyone!

Elder Adam R Droge
The DrogeMiester

Letter 12-8-08

Dear Family,

First and Foremost, I have a serious question. Is Grandpa still alive? I know that he hasn’t been doing great, but in Mom’s letter last week she mentioned in passing about Grandpa’s funeral without saying that he had passed away. I don’t know if she meant that he had died and his funeral is already planned or if mom is just expecting a funeral in the next month or so. If someone could clarify that for me, I would appreciate that.

So last week I totally forgot to mention Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving this year for me was actually kinda boring. We were encouraged to go out and daily contact our investigators, but we weren’t allowed to proselyte. We were also told to keep our dinner appointment to no more than an hour long. Basically, the day ended up being like a normal P-day, except we didn’t email, shop, or do laundry. We had two great Thanksgiving feasts in the space of a week and a half before Thanksgiving, and on Thanksgiving we had chicken and dumplings at a member’s house and helped him wrap presents for Christmas. That was all, though. Nothing exciting at all.

Speaking of Christmas, though, Texans go mad about Christmas. It’s like they are Christmasaholics. Both in terms of worldly Christmas and heavenly Christmas. I see houses that are very heavily decorated on the outside and inside. I’ve seen several places stacked with presents. Wal-Mart had Christmas music playing and Christmas stuff up the second Halloween ended. People here aren’t huge fans of Christ’s restored gospel, but they all love Christ. I’ve seen many manger scenes up and stuff like that. There was a guy the other day that even asked for a ‘Joy to the World’ DVD. So it’ll be a great Christmas season. The only thing that I feel like is missing is the snow. It still feels like we are in September, weather-wise. The snow down here is so rare that when people here see it, they go crazy with their cameras and start taking pictures of their house and yard outside. I’ve heard stories from last year that when it snowed, even less than an inch, all the schools and everything were shut down. It’s quite amusing. People here don’t know how to deal with snow. If you know me well enough, that’s something that doesn’t make me too terribly hurt, if you know what I mean…

So, I read the email from Mom today that had Mom and Dad’s Christmas Wish List. First, I don’t know if I’m the only one that thought this, but I found it amusing that mom made a wish list. She usually just says not to give her anything. I guess that it goes to show that even mom is a normal person and has things that she wants for Christmas, Birthday, Mother’s Day, etc. But getting to what I meant to bring, if I were to make a Christmas wish list, it wouldn’t really be too long, I’m not good at wish lists even when I’m not on a mission. It would include things like ties, CDs (Motab, Jeff Goodrich, etc – CDs that will invite the spirit), LOC, an electric razor, and any other things that I can’t think of that you think I would like as a missionary. By the way, if I don’t get anything, I won’t be offended. So don’t stress too much.

I have a request for everyone. I’m sure you all pray for me all the time and I’m grateful for that. However, I would ask if you could do me a favor and be more specific in your prayers. Pray for me to baptize. I know that I am in the bible-belt and everything and many people are stubborn and hard-hearted, but with a recent turn of events, including President Robison being really focused on us needing to baptize, I have came to the conclusion that I didn’t get sent to Texas to receive opposition, to build myself, to know what the real world is like, etc. I know those things will happen anyway, but I feel strongly that I got sent to the Texas Lubbock mission to baptize. President (then Elder) Eyring came here a year or so ago and said that the members in West Texas would blossom. My Stake President and Bishop back in Midland had the baptizing spirit as well. Elder Pearson of the First Quorum of the Seventy came here a month ago and told us we need to baptize and now, like I’ve said, President Robison is talking specifically about that and how it is not just a good idea in the back of our heads, but that it will happen. This mission will explode and I am grateful to be a part of that. That is where I need your help. I want you all to pray with real intent and a sincere heart that Elder Droge will baptize people and bring many into the people to the gospel. Will you all do that? Thanks, I know that you will be blessed in doing so.

However, now I have to go. Everyone have a great week!

Elder Adam R Droge

The DrogeMiester

Letter 12-1-08

Dear Family,

Wow, it is December and officially Christmas season. Man, time really flies.

So I've developed a new system of how I will do things for email. Ok, not really new, just a tad bit revised. What is it? Well, nothing interesting, so if you really want to know, then you will let me know. Just keep this in mind. Make sure I have your right email address and everyone else's primary email address. How do you find that out? Look in the little box that says "TO" and look at all the email addresses that I've sent the letter to.

Moving on though, I forgot to tell you something about my new companion, Elder Romney. He is from Centerville. I found that real fun to be serving with a very local companion. If you want to visit his parents and learn more about my companion and tell them more about me, here's his address, (edited for safety). Stop by and say hi.

So I have some good news for everyone out there, last transfer I made a record for how many pictures I took in 1 transfer. A few different things went on that helped that, which include my return to Midland and the Bushmans and also Halloween. I also had a companion that loved taking pictures, so that helped. Anyone know what that means? I am "fixin to" make a new picture CD at Wal-Mart and send it home. Slight tangent, "fixin to" is Texan for "about to" or "preparing to." Everyone says that. There's a few other words and phrases that they use that I find fun to use myself, however, one that I have committed myself not to use is y'all. I think it sounds weird and I prefer the Utah version of You all, you guys, or simply just you. Anyway, back on track, I'm not sure if it'll be this week or next, but I will make a new picture CD. I won't do one every transfer, but this one is an exception because I took lots of pictures.

So after all the drama about me telling you that I promised to tell you about investigators here and never doing so because there was never anyone to talk about, I have a few stories for those of you who claim to like hearing about missionary stories. One. There is a lady named Mary Jane Rodriguez. She is married and 26. As you might've found from the last name, she is hispanic. We've taught her the first three lessons already and she really gets the message well. The only problem is her husband. I don't know if Greg has ever ran into this, but he is very possesive of his wife it seems. He is not religious at all. He doesn't want to sit down and listen to us. His wife, Mary Jane, wants to come to church and wants to be baptized, but he won't let her do either. the best that he does is let us talk to her. Greg, since you served in Mexico City, I assume that you know how to deal with hispanics a little bit. If you ever ran into that, you should give me some advise on how we can help her and what we can do to get her baptized.

One other story. I usually won't mention all the first lessons we teach, but here is an exception. We found this lady named Shery Byrd. She has a 7 year old daughter, Lauren, that turns 8 next month. They are both very open and very teachable. They also love talking, especially with us. Well, when we taught the restoration lesson, like I said we did, it went extremely well. They understood and comprended perfectly. They did so well that when I got to telling them about the first vision, I decided not to tell them what Christ said to Joseph Smith. Rather, I decided to ask them what they think Christ said. Here is there response, almost in exact words, "Join none of them because the fullness of Christ's gospel wasn't on the earth." That was amazing! The great thing was that both of them said that at almost the exact same time. Shery actually took notes during the lesson. I've never had that happen before, and Lauren's faith is pretty much stereotypical of that described in Mosiah 3:19. It is through the roof. It's great.

I'll let you know if anything further develops. Those are the stories of the week. I hope you enjoyed. Next week I will let you know how Zone Conference went. That is tomorrow. But in the meantime, my time is up. I am signing off. Everyone have a great week! Let me know how Thanksgiving went.

Elder Adam R Droge
The DrogeMiester

Letter 11-24-08

Dear Family,

So, as I have been thinking, I have come to realize that there is something that I should’ve done nine months ago (yes, I have now been out nine months. Crazy, isn’t it?) that I never thought of doing. I am going to leave a disclaimer.

DISCLAIMER / CAUTION/ WARNING!!!! – Apparently I have found out through a recent occurrence of events that there are several people out there that don’t know me very well. Ok, I said that wrong. There are people out there that don’t know a certain aspect or attribute of me. I am a writer. Most of you, if not all of you, know that I love sports. If you paid close enough attention, you will also recall that I said I want to be a sportswriter. Well, there’s a reason for that. I didn’t say that I wanted to be a sportscaster, announcer, player, coach, GM, etc. I said a sportswriter. There is a very good reason for that and Greg was the first one to figure it out. I am a writer. As a person, I am very soft spoken. I won’t stand out in crowd. I like flying under the radar. I am not the greatest people person. I have trouble starting conversations and feeling comfortable doing so. Many of you may have figured that out already. I didn’t go on too many dates. I didn’t go on any dances in high school. I had a hard time getting a job, but when I did so, I was given the option to be a cook or counter person. I jumped at the chance to be a cook, because I didn’t have to talk with people or deal with them. However, I found that when I write, I am a different person. I’m confident. I’m bold. I’m direct. I can get off on weird, random tangents when it wasn’t in my intentions to do so. I can be very animated. I can easily write many different emotions right off the bat. I don’t have to feel a certain way in order to write a certain way, and honestly many times that is the case. I love emailing. I love writing letters. I love texting, yet I hate talking on the phone. Just ask Greg or Annie. Very rarely did I ever call them down at BYU. I would always text them instead. I spent much of my time on the internet back home. Doing what? Most of the time I would be on internet forums. What do you do there? You debate and discuss… through writing! I’d write a short column or give my opinion on something and people would write back and we’d talk, discuss, visit, debate, and so on. It was fun. I was my strength. It was me. That is my disclaimer. Think back to all of my letters and you’ll see many of those things evident. Never get annoyed, offended, or angry at something I say. I wasn’t necessarily thinking that way or acting that way in person, I just got off on some weird tangent because I got into it too much. Yeah, I might’ve been thinking of it a little bit, but when I thought about it in my head it was different, then I started to put in into writing and I got carried away and I ended up exaggerating a little too much. Here’s the other part of it. Sometimes I make the mistake of expecting everyone to be the same way. I love writing and I seem to expect people to love writing back. When I emailed or texted someone and they didn’t say anything back, I felt like I just wasted my time. I’m not a big fan of just sending out newsletters because that never gets any response back. That’s why I loved the internet forums, especially cbs.sportsline.com, because every time I said something, I got a response back. One more example. Before my mission, I collected a ton of addresses from a bunch of my friends, male and female. When I got onto my mission, I sent letters to almost every single one of them and vowed to myself to write back to every friend who decides to write me back. Thus I get a little system going in letters. It ends up sifting the wheat from the tares in the sense that the people who don’t like writing so much don’t respond, so only those who have the same mindset of me write letters. It’s done good for most of my mission, although my pool of people to write back has slowly fizzed away. This is why I’ve been mildly bothered with this whole missionary writing system for family. I feel like I send the Elder Droge newsletter out to people, and you know what I said earlier on my opinion of newsletters. No one responds to newsletters. I’ve tried to fix that via trivia and such, but nothing’s worked. Has it really bothered me as much as it seems? No. Not hardly. Only a very tiny bit. I just got carried away like I always do. Kinda like this whole disclaimer thing. I only intended to write a short paragraph and look what’s happened. Does the fact of me not getting letters bother me? Not at all. The only time I ever think of letters is in the few seconds that I am walking up with my companion to the mail box. I’ve gotten so used to the empty mailbox that it doesn’t phase me. The only thing that bothers me a little is feeling obligated to send out this missionary newsletter every week and must I get into that again?

Well, now hopefully you know me better. Now having that said, I’ve pretty much wasted my time to say anything else. I only have an hour to write and you know me. I get carried away, but briefly, Dad just notified me of Dave Skelton dying. That is sad. Dad, no I didn’t already hear that. That is horrible. Give the Skelton family my condolences. But also, I have a favor to ask. Does Julien know? The first thing that jumped into my mind when I read that about Dave Skelton is how much Julien loved and respected Dave Skelton. I feel certain that Dave felt the same way. Every time I saw and talked to him, he’d always ask me how his old neighbor Julien is doing. Someone should call Julien and tell him that if he doesn’t already know.

The only news on my part is transfers. I have stayed put, but Elder Sosi got shipped off. Crazy things happened this transfer. President Robison is really going off the spirit and staying away from old trends. The Abilene (and Eastland) area had 2 district leaders before with 5 sets of missionaries (4 in Abilene, only us in Eastland). One DL had 3 companionships and the other had 2. Well, my district leader last transfer got released as a DL and got sent up here to Eastland to now be my companion. His name is Elder Romney. He is a great missionary and fun guy. This will be a great transfer. The only reason he got released as a DL is because he is in the Branch Presidency now. With him released, the districts are combined with only 1 DL. My old companion, Elder Sosi, got a training call and got sent down to whitewash into one of the Abilene areas. So Elder Sosi is still in my district. Elder Romney’s old companion is now companions with another guy who was in Abilene. They just sent him over to the other side of town and Elder Sosi took over the area. So we did a little trio trade thingy. It was weird. The other crazy things are the fact that I am still a junior companion, but an Elder 1 transfer younger just got a senior and District Leader call and another Elder 2 transfers younger got a senior call. My former companion in Brady was a district leader, but randomly got released. He wasn’t disobedient or anything. He just got called to an area where a DL wasn’t needed, so President released him for the time being. I was expecting a senior call, but didn’t get it. The whole group before me are all seniors, for the most part. That’s why I expected it. Was I disappointed? No way! I was quite relieved. Being a junior companion is a lot easier to do and requires less responsibility. I don’t aspire to leadership. If I get it, I’ll accept it, but if not, I’ll shout for joy in being a normal missionary with less responsibility.

I’ve written too much though. Everyone have a great week and a Happy Thanksgiving!

Elder Adam R Droge

The DrogeMiester

Letter 11-17-08

Dear Family,

Howdy-do! Was that Texan? I don’t think so. I just made that up. So, I know what you all are thinking right now. Crazy ole Elder Droge has gone mad! He’s angry as ever and is having a pity party. He is immature and needs to grow up because he has the most negative attitude ever! Why is that mean old hag even a missionary? He’s doing a horrible job and might as well go home.

No.

I love life.

I was just experimenting.

Here’s the thing I was experimenting on. FEAR. DUTY. LOVE. I found it gratefully ironic that the letter Dad sent me talked about just that. That backs me up. It’s an equation that really works. People react 3 different ways. One – Fear. Some people react when they are condemned because it scares them into doing things the right way. Two – Duty. Some people react when you say they have the duty to obey or when you give them a calling of responsibility. Three – Love. Some people react when you show them how much you care for them.

There are numerous examples for all three. Yes, love is the absolute best motivator, and I hate to defy the laws of nature, but it doesn’t work every time. Every person is different. In Brady there is a lady I mentioned named Mae Usher. She is an 84 year old black lady who was investigating the church for 3 years going on 4. She has been loved to death. I am not joking. There is no person on the face of this planet that has been loved more than Miss Mae. However, she hasn’t reacted. She knows it’s true, but won’t be baptized. Normally after a while you’d move on. But no, there was a missionary who did that. He saw that she wasn’t progressing, so he stopped visiting her. Right thing to do? Nope. Worst decision of his mission. The whole branch hated him. No joke. They literally hated him. So we had to visit this lady. Do you know what we decided to do? Yep. Fear approach. We read chapters like Alma 5 and 2 Nephi 9. It made her think. It really did. Now, I don’t know what happened because I got transferred out, but hey. Same situation with a guy in Midland. He has spent his whole life almost searching for the truth. It seemed to pain him a lot. We taught him for a long time. I was the one that found him, so I wasn’t obligated to keep teaching, but I just couldn’t get myself to stop going over there. We were bold. We used the fear approach and it got him to think. Especially when we read 2 Nephi 9. It works with people.

Duty approach works as well. 2 less actives in Midland had been loved to death, but weren’t progressing. With the first guy, he had been on and off his whole life with his testimony. One day (before I got there) someone told him that he has the duty to raise his 8 year old son in the gospel. Well, it worked. His son got baptized and his testimony was really strong. Even though he struggled coming to church with his job, he felt the blessings from the gospel come for the first time in his life. 2nd guy was a recent convert baptized Last November. He was still very new in the gospel and shallow because of a rough life. He had started to slide back a little. What happened. They called him to be the Secretary in the Elders Quorum. Soon after, do you know what happened? Well, we stopped over and he had been reading the Book of Mormon and coming to church more. We asked him what sparked that. His response, ‘I got to. I’m the Elder’s Quorum secretary now.’ He felt the duty of his calling and responded.

Love works best, don’t get me wrong. I’ve had several people respond to us because we were loving and kind and showed them that we were down to earth, normal people. It is the best. I know this goes against the popular vote, but I try to be loving in most of my letters. What happens? People love and respect me back thinking that I am a great missionary, but the missionary stereotype is just too strong and they don’t feel obligated to respond in words. I tried the duty approach at the beginning of the transfer a few weeks ago and that did the opposite effect. People still had the missionary stereotype in mind. So what did I decide to do? Fear approach. Did it work? Well, I got letters from Mom (2 – 4, I believe), Dad, Bruce, Joe, and Dave. You decide for yourself. Just note to self, don’t use fear approach on Dave, he’ll make you look and feel like the smallest person on earth. But hey, I got a sports update out of it, so all’s good right? I commend him for being very blunt about what he says, though. I hate it when people try to sugarcoat their feelings. It happens all the time and it bugs me. Lots of people tell us that they are interested just because they don’t want to hurt our feelings. NO!!!!! TELL ME THE TRUTH, YOU HEFFA; I DON’T WANT TO WASTE MY TIME! But hey, life goes on. Like I told Dave, out here I have been told so many times that I’m not going to make it to heaven because of what I believe, it’s not even funny. Actually it is, but that’s beside the point. Also, I love debating on internet blogs and forums and I spent lots of time on them during high school. It always seemed like I was being attacked. I was told that my view and thoughts were stupid almost every single day, but I loved it. It was fun. I especially enjoyed all the grief I got when I said the Giants will beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl. That was fun. I started to get a little respect when that happened. Nice timing, eh? Now I’ve disappeared off the face of the planet in the internet debating world.

Point being, if you want to give me grief and call me an idiot, bring it on! I’m used to it. Also, if you would like to throw in your opinion on what the rule is on missionaries writing home and what the purpose is in doing so, I have formulated my opinions on that and am ready to respond. Like I said, I enjoy debating.

As for missionary-wise, this week was a dud statistically, so not much interesting things to tell you. Like I said, this area has been bone dry in accordance with investigators when I got here so we have been spending much of our time building it up and I feel we are getting close to getting some investigators that will go somewhere and when it happens you’ll be the first to know. Ok, I lied. My journal will be first to know. Then the district leader, because he calls Sunday night. Then you will know third, maybe fourth, because I have to email President Robison, but you get the point.

Mom – Thanks for those Halloween pictures. It was great to see the fun that you had. Like I said, I had fun on Halloween as well. You’ll see the pictures later. I can’t remember if I got Emily’s wedding announcement from you this last week or the week before. I think it was last, but thanks. That was nice to get and scary as well. It hasn’t really sunk in that Emily is actually married right now. I wonder how many others are married. Someone should find out for me. Ask one of the Pond twins or Emily or someone like that that graduated and let me know or have them let me know. That would be interested. Also Mom, you mentioned something that made me sad. You said that you think I would move to Texas after I finished college. That grieves me. I would never do that, unless the whole family moved down. Even then, I would miss Utah. I would love to visit Texas a few times and keep in contact with some of the people down here, but as for moving permanently, I couldn’t do that. I’m too much of a Utahn.

Bruce – As for Julien, I never actually tried Culver City. After I gave up and decided to bring that back up, I found a map of Los Angeles and found Culver City. But I still need help from everyone, how would you for mat this address, “3742 Hughes Avenue Culver City Los Angeles California 90232.” I don’t think that all goes on one line and I can’t get it to work with the mail system. Also, Bruce, you mention High School and a few of your teachers. I’m glad you find high school easy. I found the same thing. People growing up blew high school out of proportion. You mention 2 teachers, Gunnerson and Springer. I never had Gunnerson, but I remember the name. As for Springer, I did have him and I remember that I was one of the few people that actually liked the guy. I thought he was real cool. Not too many people did, however. But if you take another computer class, here’s the teacher to get: Coach Boog. His real name is Clark Stringfellow, I think. He is the coolest, easiest teacher ever. If you do your work, you get free time to either browse the web and play games and such or do your homework. No joke. He’ll give you an assignment to do that takes 30 minutes or so and you have 2 class periods to do it. It’s awesome.

I have news about transfers, which is this week. My companion is leaving and I am staying. I know my new companion, but I’m not supposed to know, so you get to wait till next week to find out about him. Plus, I’ve spent way too long writing this letter. Don’t expect letters like this in the future. Enjoy my stupidity in getting carried away with my letters because I am going to fix that. I was about to say I will try to fix that, but Elder Pearson said to stop using the word try and Yoda said Do or Do Not, there is no try. But I gotta go. Everyone peace out and know that I am not negative and immature. I have a very good feeling about life and I am enjoying every minute of this. I don’t really want to come home. I’d just assume sign up with the 3 nephites, but that’s not an option here, they have to kick me out eventually, and when they do, don’t worry about me going back. Even though many of you think otherwise right now, my family means a lot to me and that’s who I want to be with during life. So farewell and GIT-R-DONE!!!

Elder Adam R Droge

The DrogeMiester