Letter 6-22-09

Dear Family,

Well another week has come and gone. This last Sunday, as I’m sure all of you know, was Father’s Day. Typically, holidays aren’t too big for missionaries, but it’s nice to have a special day where we can think of our fathers, even though we don’t get to call home on like we get to on Mother’s Day. Nothing too exciting happened, outside the fact that Elder Reed and I spoke in sacrament meeting here in Eastland. That’s happened several times here in Eastland. I think I have spoken 4 or 5 times since coming here last October. Joys of being missionaries in a small branch. This time I talked about a very good story that pertains well to fathers. Alma the younger went about destroying the church and was a very wicked and idolatrous man. What happened? He had a lovely visit from a friendly angel that kinda chastised him a little. Turns out that Alma decided not to argue and was born of God and spent the rest of his life as an amazing servant. Well, it’s not very often that something like that happens. There are a lot of wicked people on the earth and not too many get the opportunity of being chastised by angel from the other side of the veil. So why Alma? Well, in Mosiah 27, verse 12 I think, the angel clearly states that he came to convince Alma of the power of God because his father prayed with much faith that he would. That is a good lesson taught right there. Every one of us should learn from this great father. We have people we know that have strayed from the path or that have never got on the path and we are obligated to pray for them and help them out. We can’t just pray any old prayer. We have to pray with faith. Dad must’ve had a revelation of what story to send this past week because the one he sent went along perfectly and I actually used it in my talk. It’s about a story of a town that is about to die because of no rain. They all gather in to pray and rain comes. As they are celebrating they see a seven year old girl who had an umbrella. What’s the significance to that? Well, she had so much faith that she expected the rain to come, despite the circumstances, and thus brought an umbrella with her. That’s the type of faith we need to have. That is the type of faith that Alma Sr. had towards his son and because of it, a miracle happened. Praying with that type of faith does indeed produce miracles and that is the type of faith we need to have. As I think about that, I have a long way to go; I’ll get there one of these days. But anyway, have a nice week everyone.

Elder Adam R Droge
The DrogeMiester

Letter 6-15-09

Dear family,

So I made mention a few weeks back when I was talking about the cookbook that I may not be in Eastland very much longer. Umm, well, I was wrong. I didn’t think I’d ever pull off a 4 transfer (6 month) companion and a 6 transfer (9 month) area, but I have. I’ll be staying here in Eastland till at least the End of July now. I was thinking, after this transfer I have 5 transfers (7 months) left. If I were to stay in Eastland with Elder Reed for the rest of my mission I will have tied Dad’s record that he always talks about. 15 months in one area and 10 months with the same companion. Think I can make it? Well I certainly hope not. That might drive me crazy. As much as I love Eastland, I would love to go to at least one more area, hopefully two. I have this weird goal of being able to see the whole mission, serving in all 5 zones. Most missionaries get close, but I have a weird record of only hitting 2 zones, those being the two southern zones. I’ve served the Texas Lubbock South mission. I have yet to meet a missionary to pull off the same feat as me. It would be nice to break that streak make it north some time and get to Lubbock, Amarillo, or New Mexico, but we’ll see what happens. In concordance with that (me being in Eastland for a while, I've made the decision to split up the photo CD's for my second stay in Eastland. Eastland part 3 will be coming to you shortly. And no, it will not include pictures of the wolf spider I took. Those will be on Eastland part 4, which will not come till at least August. But I did get some good pictures on part 3, so it'll be ok.

So outside that, the only other news is that I laugh at Texans once again. Every time they see a dark cloud they say that a tornado is coming. It is quite comical. Yes, it is tornado season here in June, but I doubt that I’ll ever see a tornado. I think in the last week Eastland County was under 2 or 3 tornado watches, with surrounding counties getting a tornado warning. We did get some good storms and good pictures for me, but in my opinion, none were even close to what we experienced in Utah that one year. I looked at the clouds and said to myself, ‘we ain’t gonna get no tornado today.’ (I don’t know if I actually said it that way, but that is how any Texan would say it). However, if a tornado does come our way, don’t you worry, I’ll be ready. …ready to take a picture! Mwa ha ha! That would complete my mission. A picture of a hurricane would be fun, too, but those don’t touch our mission. We’re too far west, dangit. All we get when a hurricane hits is a little bit of rain. Anyway, on that note, I’m signing off. Peace out!

Elder Adam R Droge
The DrogeMiester

Letter 6-8-09

Dear Family,

Well I hope all is well with everyone. Thanks for all the recipes that were sent. If you still desire to send some to contribute to the Eastland Branch cookbook, you still have some time. I’d say tomorrow is the deadline to get them sent. So that’s that. I’m still plugging away here in Eastland. Only God knows how long I will remain. Not a whole lot to report on this week. After our two baptisms of Josh and McKayla, we’ve had a minor dry spell. I try not to let that happen, but sometimes it just does. I feel kinda bad. President Robison instructed on the idea of an escalator effect and not an elevator effect. He said that some missionaries will work hard, then get a ton of baptisms at once and then start from scratch and a while later get a ton more baptisms. That’s the elevator effect. What is much better is to have the escalator. Once you get someone baptized you should have someone right behind them ready to get baptized then continue down having someone on each level of progression. Then you don’t skip a beat in your work. I tried to do that here in Eastland, but people just decided jump off my escalator, so once we got our baptisms, there was quite the jump in going to the next step where there was someone present. Oh well. What can you do? When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. We must press forward with a perfect brightness of hope and a love of God and all men, feasting upon the words of Christ. Good things will come. They just don’t always come in the way and time I expect them to. That’s quite alright. I can find comfort in knowing that God hasn’t forgotten about his children in Eastland, Texas. He will prepare a way for them to come to the light. But if not, I will still trust in the Lord. Have a dandy week everyone.

Elder Adam R Droge

The DrogeMiester

Letter 6-1-09

Dear Family,

First item of business in this week's letter is a request from everyone. The Eastland branch is putting together a branch cookbook and one of the members that is heading the project asked Elder Reed and me if we had anything that we could contribute. Well, of course I did. There are many unique and great recipes that I have grown up with that have been family favorites. I would love to contribute. The only problem is that I am not currently in possession of any of them. They are back in Utah. That is the request. Send some recipes to me that could be included in the Eastland Branch recipe book. That would be greatly appreciated. Anything goes, really. The ideal recipes would be those that are unique and/or are family favorites. The two examples that I thought of right off the bat are No-Bake cookies and Peanut Butter Bars. Yet keep in mind that my mind isn't the most creative mind right now. It's been quite some time since I last sat down and browsed through a recipe book. One last thing for this. It's kinda urgent. Yes, it isn't officially due till the latter part of June, but being that I've been in Eastland for a combined total of 7 months now, I may be shipped away before that due date, in fact might I say 2 weeks, so if you could git 'r done this week that would greatly appreciated. Absolute deadline to send recipes would be Monday or Tuesday of next week so I can turn them in either this coming Sunday or the 14th. Thank you. If I don't get any recipes from anyone, I won't be too offended, Eastland Branch just will just not got a contribution from Elder Droge. That would sad. Don't wait for everyone else to send them in, send in some of your favorite. If I get 50 recipes, so much the better. If half of them are duplicates, well then, it doesn't hurt anything, does it? I'll just not turn in the same recipe twice.

So I mentioned that Breckenridge, Texas is the highest city in the nation per capita to get away with murder. I almost added to that number this week. No need to panic. I didn't almost kill people. I almost smashed two animals with our car. Both in the same day. First was as we were about to enter. A turtle, yes, you heard that right, a wild turtle decided that he wanted to cross the very busy highway. Almost the stupidest and last mistake that fellow ever made. Turtles aren't the fastest of creatures. Luckily, because of my exceeding expertise with driving, I saw him just in time and drove right over him, without touching him with the wheels of the car. I say it almost gave me a heart attack, but the turtle probably felt a lot worse. I looked back and he was rightfully all hidden in his shell. There was a big yellow Penske truck right behind me, so I can't say for sure if the turtle ever finished his journey across the road, but I don't recall seeing a smashed turtle so I think he was okay. The second story came later that day as we were driving down the busiest road in Breckenridge. The stupidest squirrel I have ever met. He apparently had no patience in crossing the road, no animals seem to, so he decided to play a live game of Frogger, if you know what I mean. He darted right past me into the next lane where there was a car five feet in front of me. I could've sworn he got smashed, but he darted backwards, right in front of me. It was too late for me to do anything, and I thought I smashed the little bugger, but he escaped again somehow. I looked in the rear view mirror and saw him hanging out in the middle lane ready to cross again. Stupid animals. No wonder Texas is the roadkill capital of the United States. I made up that statistic after being here for 15 months, so I don't know if it actually is, but it sure wouldn't surprise me. Roadkill everywhere here.

So last thought. We talked to an old guy a week or so ago and he told us with a straight face that the second coming would be May 31st of this year. I was quite amused. Well, its June 1st now. Did I miss something? Did Jesus come yesterday and is secretly hanging out somewhere in Missouri or Utah or some other place like that? Let me know if you've talked to him. Hehe... Peace out all!
Elder Adam R Droge
The DrogeMiester

Letter 5-26-09

Dear Family,

Happy Memorial Day everyone! The only thing that happened with us yesterday is that we were reminded that Libraries everywhere are holiday natzis. They close down on every single holiday, big or small. Many of those holidays come on Mondays so it makes it lots of fun when you want to email on P-day. Then you go out in the evening and no one wants to talk to you; they want to spend time with their family and not with missionaries. It makes life fun.

So this last Saturday we had another baptism here in Eastland. It was an eight year old girl named McKayla Williamson. No one in her family are members. She was able to get in contact with a few of the members in the branch. I don't really no the full story, I wasn't here when it started, but somehow she got to the point where she wanted to be baptized, the only problem was that she was only seven years old. So she started to come to church when she could. There is a member that always picked her up. She was going to church for about a year when she turned eight last month. We then got to work, taught her the lessons really briefly and got her baptized Saturday. Because of the fact that her parents aren't members, it counts as a convert baptism. The great thing about it was that her whole family showed up to the baptism to support her. I didn't think they would, but they did. It was great. The idea that I got is that some time down the road, how short or long I do not know, McKayla will make an impact on her family through her example and create a domino effect in which they will want to be baptized.

So that is all I have. I hope all of you have a great week.

Elder Adam R Droge

The DrogeMiester

Letter 5-18-09

Dear Family,

Well, once again I am sitting at the computer and writing a letter back home. Weeks keep flying by. So last week I had a story to tell and ran out of time to tell it, so I will do so now. Elder Reed and I were up in Breckenridge, the city with the highest percentage of unsolved murders in the United States, and we were out finding. Well, we knocked on this door and there was a house that was empty. We didn’t know it was empty, or else we would’ve skipped it, but that’s beside the point. A guy drove by that lived a few doors down and was really angry that we knocked on this door. I’m not sure why, but he just was. He yelled at us, told us to get away from that house, and if we didn’t he would file a report against us and call the police. I found his threat quite amusing actually. Knowing how the police are in this town, they wouldn’t have done anything anyway. However, just like dad always told me growing up, there is a space between action and reaction and although my natural, prideful human tendencies wanted to shout back and not let him get the best of me, I chose to react in a nice, polite christlike way. Instead of shouting back at him, telling him that he was overreacting and that we didn’t know any better as well as the police wouldn’t do anything, we chose to just apologize, leave the door, and walk on. As a missionary, you rarely see the fruits of your efforts and your christlike attitude, which is hard sometimes, but this time was different and taught me a great lesson. A few hours later, we were walking back on the same street, when a car pulled over beside us. It was the same guy that yelled at us before. This time he was different. He was very nice and sorrowfully he apologized for his actions earlier in the day. You know me. Just like Nephi did frankly forgive Laman and Lemuel for trying to kill him, I did frankly forgive the guy for yelling at me and we departed on great terms. Now imagine to yourself what would’ve happened if I had chosen to react poorly. Would he have pulled over and apologized? Would he have felt bad about what he did? How do you think he would’ve acted the next time missionaries knocked on his door? How long do you think it would’ve taken for him to accept the fullness of the gospel as opposed to how long it will take him now? I testify that acting in a christlike manner to whatever situation we are placed in will pay off. People will see our humble example and know that there is hope for them in this life.

News-wise this week I have wonderful news. Josh Hasell, the investigator I have talked about, was baptized and confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints this past weekend. Elder Reed performed that baptism and I confirmed him the following day in sacrament meeting. Not that I have ever cared about numbers too much on my mission, but baptism number four is in the books. This baptism was a unique one. The other three came in a manner where we would work our hardest with our investigators and nothing would work out, then we would be blessed with the gift of finding a person that was just plain ready to listen and would get baptized with minimal effort on our part. This time we worked our very hardest with Josh. After nine months and five different missionaries, Josh finally came to realize that the church was true and that he needed to be baptized. I was fortunate enough to be there when he figured that out, even though I was almost positive that I was going to be transferred before I got baptized. We have another baptism of the 8 year old girl whose parents are non-members and are not interested in religion that I mentioned in our phone call planned for this Saturday. I will let you know how that goes.

One last piece of news and I will sign off. On Mother’s Day I told a story of us running into a big wolf spider. Someone asked if I got a picture. I answered no. Well, this last week, we ran into another one sitting there on the side of the house and guess what we did. We took pictures. He was about the size of a quarter or 50 cent piece. He was fat, black, and hairy with white spots on his back. He also had huge fangs and big scary eyes. The pictures I took were wicked awesome. Best spider pictures that I have ever taken and very close up. You’ll enjoy them when you get the photo CD of Eastland part 3, unless of course I get enough pictures to split up Eastland to part 3 and part 4. In that case it’ll be on part 4, but either way, I’m making you wait. It’ll be worth it. :) But anyways, I’ve talked for too long, so I am signing off. Adios Amigos!

Elder Adam R Droge
The DrogeMiester

Letter 5-11-09

Dear Family,

So the letter to the family right after the phone call home is always a weird one because I already told you everything yesterday and we had a great conversation. That was a lot of fun having that 150 way call. It was like everyone was gathered together in one place. I will admit that I feel bad for David, Greg, and Mike dying down and not being able to talk, but only listening. That's never fun, but I guess it's better than nothing. There was one thing I wanted to talk about. I think it was Annie that asked a question and because of something happening and me getting sidetrack, the question was never answered. The question had to do with the population of the branches/wards that I'd been in and which one was biggest. Well, Midland, my first area was the biggest. It was a normal sized ward like back home. There would be 200 – 300 people at church each week. I went from there to Brady. Brady met in a house that was dedicated into a church and felt like a church inside. 40 – 50 people came each week. Eastland was my next area and there was/is now 30 – 40 people that come every week. Brady and Eastland were branches. My 4th area, Big Spring, was technically a ward, and the chapel was a normal sized chapel, but I considered it a Branch on steroids. 60 – 70 people came each week. That chapel looked fairly empty every week. It could fit 300 people easily. So thats that. I really have nothing else to say. Everyone have a great week. There is a cool story that happened to us in Breckenridge last week, but I'll save that for next week so that I can have something to write about. Mwa ha ha. And no mom, it doesn't have anything to do with Breckenridge being the highest city in the United States per capita to get away with murder (that is worded funny, but you get the idea. Lots of crime). I just hope I don't forget... anyways, peace out.

Elder Adam R Droge

The DrogeMiester