Happy Birthday Elder Draper, Happy Birthday to YOU!

Ignore the candles, she thought he was turning 21...I wish!

The sweet sister, Alma, who feeds Elder Draper lot's of yummy home cooked meals sent me a clip from the birthday celebration she gave him yesterday! This rates pretty close to a phone call home...just seeing him laugh and smile, knowing he's happy and surrounded by people who love and support him is all I ever pray for. I watched it smiling and crying at the same time...

Monday April 25, 2011

Ryan's been sick so I've given him a pass from sending pictures the last two weeks. I like to post pictures with each entry so here's a picture from Easter Sunday 10 years ago of my sweet boys...

and a few from this Easter with Grandma and Grandpa Dokos

Hello Family!

Mom, thanks for the family pictures on Easter with everyone! Dad is going with the surfer hair these days, haha I like it!!! He looks like he has lost a bit of weight too. You still look great and the same mom! None of the members believe your age, just sayin'...that's a good thing! So get this: Juan Carlos Fraire got a job in Regina Sascatchawan starting next week, and Alma and the girls are going back to Mexico...super sad about them leaving. They are such a great family. Yeah I am back to normal this week finally. The week was superrr tough...so weak and sick, must have been weird to see me waddling around trying to talk to people. But I am good now, gonna enjoy the amazing warmth, and play soccer and get tan today! I should get your package today, super excited for that. Thanks for everything mom! You are the best and I love you!

Thank you for all of your testimonies of the Savior, that was really nice for me to read. To be honest (and I hope this doesn't sound like I'm not good), yesterday didn't really feel "different" for me like it did for you it sounds like. The Spanish ward is a little different. One of the talks basically called the ward to repentance, so the meeting was not very Christ focused. Then we had a quiet dinner in our apartment, nothing special. It felt like another day for me, because I guess every day of the mission is like Easter for me...really focusing on the atonement and everything Christ did for us. That perfect act is really the center piece of everything, everyone and everywhere. I have learned to apply it to my daily life, daily situations where I can turn to it and pull from its healing power. Nothing brings me down to the depths of humility more than the Atonement of our Savior, Jesus Christ. I have a firm testimony of it, and I have felt and experienced its healing power.

So President wants us to email you my number for the phone call. It will go down on the 8th after church but we are going to have 5 baptisms that day so hopefully so we'll see how it all works out. My cell number is the exact same too! I am really looking forward to it :)

This week was tough. I came down with the flu and let's just say I had some stomach problems and had to take Pepto Bismal haha. I was super weak and just out of it, plus we had lots of disappointing news, most of it coming on Easter day. We had 4 investigators committed to church: Paty and Ernesto, Jose Antonio (Rocky's coworker) and Lourdes (remember her?) and none of them showed up. That hurt. Then, we went over to visit Martha, the prepared lady so ready for baptism, and she told us that she felt stressed with a baptism, her surgery, her Catholic mother coming up randomly to visit for a month, her school finals, etc. Super depressing, because she is ready. We have a goal of baptizing 5 people on Mother's Day, so we are going to have to pray for miracles and that the people will be put in our path. We feel we are doing everything in our power, so the Lord will do this rest. We also had interviews this week and that is always a great experience.

That was my week basically. Tough, long, but learned a lot. I am so pumped for summer to arrive in Calgary and to see some amazing miracles happen. I love you all and hope you have an amazing week! Take care!

Elder Draper

Tuesday April 19, 2011

No pictures from Elder Draper this week so I'm posting a picture of the two missionaries in our ward. They came to dinner last night and it will probably be the last since they are both almost finished with their missions. We love Elder Odell and Elder Freeman! They are wonderful missionaries and substitute "big brothers" for our kids :)

Como estamos?

Hey mom so a couple favors: I got a watch from Tony Davis a couple years ago and the battery just died...I was wondering if he could hook up his favorite missionary with a new battery?? Also my Wells Fargo card has a crack on it and is about to break...I am going to need a new one if Dad could do that. Thank you! Oh and funny you should ask, I have never been sick on my mission really up until this weekend as you'll find out later in the email...

Well this week was just incredible with hundreds of miracles and I don't have time to explain even half of them! Basically, we picked up 3 new gators, 2 of them have agreed to be baptized on the 8th of May, if they receive an answer to their prayer by then. Their names are Patricia and Ernesto Navarro. They are from the west coast of Mexico. I gotta find out what city because I bet that Dad would know the area from his mish. Super prepared and such a nice couple.

The other lady is Marta Briones from Colombia. Her husband is "retired" from the church and she is not a member. Now this situation has so many awesome mini stories attached to it, but here is one: I have knocked her door like 50 times since I have been in this area, but they are never home. Then on Wed. we knocked and just out of the blue and she answered...she told us that 5 minutes before we knocked she was praying that the missionaries would come to her house. She lived in Utah forever with her inactive husband so knows all about missionaries. So we answered her prayer but didn't know the reason for her prayer yet. Her husband wasn't home so we set a return appointment for Friday. We show up then and they sit us down at the table, and she tells us that the day we came by, she found out she had breast cancer. She has surgery on my birthday, the 27th, and will know more about it then. Just crazy how the Lord really works, his timing, and that I have knocked the door for literally months, but just finally got in contact with her. She loves the LDS church way more than the Catholic church, reads the BoM, and she said she will be baptized! We are shooting for Mother's Day as well for her. The husband also promised that if she gets healed, he will come back to church after 20 years (He kind of put conditions on God). So those are a couple of miracles that happened this week!

This weekend with Elder Scott was so amazing, but also super tough. We started fasting Sunday after lunch to be spiritually ready for him and his message to us. Monday morning I woke up with an awful stomach ache and a super dry mouth. I went into the bathroom to cut my hair (yeah I can cut my own hair now...thanks mission!) and I got superrrrrr pale, felt the same way I did on graduation morning for those that remember that story. Basically I almost passed out, but I grabbed some water and got through it. We drove over to listen to Elder Scott, and it was amazing (besides the fact I felt like I might get sick the entire time). He didn't have anything prepared, he just followed the Spirit. It was interesting because he hardly talked at all about missionary work. He talked mostly about getting home and getting married haha! That must be one of the bigger problems of the church, as we saw in conference too. He of course talked about his wife and how amazing women are, and pretty much bashed men haha, humbling for sure.

After that spiritual experience, we get back to the pad and I feel half dead, so I crashed for an hour and woke up and feeling even worse. We called Sis. Archibald and it turns out I have all the symptoms of the flu. Yesterday I spent all day in bed because I couldn't move. Not fun. Luckily I had a blessing and woke up this morning a lot better, but still not much energy. So it was just really bad timing with the fast for Elder Scott but I'm glad I was still able to see him. Pray that I can get back to work asap because sitting around as a missionary is not fun at all.

That was my week in a nut shell. Well sorry there are no pics this week, I will try to take some more when I'm better. Send me another sd card so I can send you mine with lots of videos!!! I love you mom and hope you feel better to! I will be praying for you!! Love you all and talk to you soon!!

Love,

Elder Draper

Monday April 11, 2011

The latest picture of Elder Draper and Elder Galloway

Wow. After 11 months in I have learned how to actually do missionary work. That is all I can say about my last week. Elder Galloway is so, so awesome and has shown me the best way to do missionary work. We have had so much fun this weekend and have seen soooooo many miracles! The weather is warming up, the sun is out until 8:30 pm so life is just great!

Right when Elder Galloway and I drove off to our area together, he told me something that President told him. President said that the moment he saw me walk off the plane, he saw a leader. That was a very cool and humbling comment to hear. President told Elder Galloway that his main objective this transfer is to train me to be a zone leader. Since 6 elders are leaving in 2 months, I will not have time to be a district leader, so President expects me to be ready to jump to Zone Leader one of the next two transfers....woah that is intimidating! So obviously the Lord has some bigger plans for me than I can comprehend, but I will accept whatever comes and do my best to accomplish it. It is pretty exciting, and I am super grateful for the opportunity to serve the Spanish Elders and help them become better. I feel that leaders become better through their service so that is probably why I will be in this path hahaha. So he has been teaching me the ins and outs of leadership, which is sweet.

So Rocky's friend has not been in contact with him this week. Haven't been able to set anything up with Lourdes tampoco. We were contacting the other day and saw a man working in his front yard, turns out his name is Hector from Mexico. He wants to hear the discussions so he will become a new gator this week. We also met a nice Mexican lady at English class last night and got her address. We have met like 4 other Spanish people who invited us to come back, so we finally got the ball rolling!

The coolest miracle happened on Saturday. We got a call that a member was in serious condition in the hospital, so we went over and gave him a blessing. On the way out this man with one of those IV poles wobbled up to us and was like "Are you the LDS?" His name is Charles, and he's Catholic but knows so much about our church. He has pancreatic cancer with a 10% chance of living. We got his room number and gave it to the English elders. Yesterday they went by and set a baptismal date with him for the 7th of May! So awesome because he just walked right up to us! Just a testimony that the Lord will put the prepared in our path as His servants. So basically it has been miracle after miracle in the Spanish West and I am pumped for all the baptisms we have on the way.

Some exciting news we heard yesterday is that Elder Richard G. Scott of the Quorum of the Twelve is coming to speak to us next Monday. He is reorganizing a stake in Fort McCloud and is setting his Monday morning aside to speak to us. I am super excited for it! He was the Mission President of Elder Christofferson and speaks Spanish obviously (he wrote chapter 7 of preach my gospel). I am totally going to speak Spanish to him when I meet him!

So our pday next week is changed to Tuesday. I will be on the lookout for that care package! My sunglasses broke so I was wondering if you could send me up a pair if you haven't sent that package. The package is for my 18th birthday right? (haha that is what it feels like anyways) YES please send the DVD's from the Distribution Center.

Well I am happy everyone still remembers my name and looks foward to hearing from me haha. Now just imagine how excited I am to hear from all of you being a missionary all the way in cold freezing Canada ;) Thank you all for your examples and love and prayers! Can't believe we are going on the way downhill pretty soon here. It has been a blur!

Love you all and hope you have a good week. DO WORK!!

Elder Draper

Transfer Day Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Mi companero nuevo - Elder Galloway!

The Calgary Temple construction site

Things are really moving quickly now

Snow, salt and tracting all day - my Ecco's tell the story!

Wow what a surprise! For the third time (transfer) here in the west my companion, Elder Walker, is leaving and I am staying in the West Zone. I just emailed President and told him that the Lord is obviously waiting for me to do something here, so I am going to figure it out this transfer! Something cool is that I will have my first two phone calls of the mission in the same area - that is super crazy! I feel like I have been here for like a month, but already have completed 4.

My new comp is Elder Galloway from Wyoming. He is the ex AP! He left the Spanish program for 4 months to serve as AP, and now he is coming here with me. He's such a great missionary and all I know is that this transfer is going to be the busiest one of my whole mission! I am super stoked and ready to work hard and get these people into the waters of baptism.

Yes so conference was amazing! I had some unbelievable moments with the spirit, super powerful answers came to me. Yes Mom I loved how our stake got "airtime"! All of the elders looked over at me and started slapping my back after Elder Cook mentioned that story because they know that's who I represent! I loved really every talk, but my favorite was President Monson in the Priesthood Session. Wow he knows how to call people to repentance. Seriously after watching that I had such a desire to become better it was something I have never felt before. Love that man.

I noticed that it snowed Saturday night there in Utah. It snowed all last week here but the temperatures are supposed to go back up this week. We have sun light until 8:30 pm again which makes me so happy! I don't know why but I get all depressed doing missionary work when the sun goes down at 4:00 pm haha.

So the highlight this week was being able to teach Rocky's friend, Natalio from Saltillo, Mexico. He has a desire to be baptized which is awesome. He told us that the only thing he is worried about is falling back into his same habits and sins after his baptism. He has 2 kids back in Mexico with a woman who he is not married to, and is living with a Canadian woman here. He really wants to stop drinking and change his life and marry his wife in Mexico. We are shooting for the 17th of April for his baptism, and that should go through as long as he can quit drinking the week leading up to the baptism. Haven't heard from Lourdes this week so that's a disappointment. I think we are going to put some pressure on her this week and explain how important this gospel is for each and every one of us on the earth today.

I love you all, glad you are safe and enjoying life. Thanks for all the pictures by the way. Everyone is growing up! Have a great week and talk to you soon!!

Elder Draper