Monday July 11, 2011

Mucho felicidad!
Last picture of Spanish Zone before 6 of them went home
The Three Amigos - Draper, Rios and Rudd
Elder Draper and Rudd knocking on doors of the Calgarians
These are classic, first time in his mission that he's riding a bike

Whats up!? Well kind of a stressful week for us haha. I thought that I had gotten rid of the sickness I had last week but it came back harder this week and so all three of us were super sick with the cold plus allergies. Not fun. And on top of that we were riding around on bikes all day long in our super hilly areas so that was tough. But I loved to get outside and get into shape a little bit.

Juan got the priesthood yesterday so that was awesome. But I was not even there because we went to the old Crescent View ward this week, and it seemed different to me after only 7 weeks of not being there! It was kind of weird, but it was great to see everybody again and catch up with a few people. We did not have any gator lessons this week, but that will change. We have a baptismal goal of 10 this month and we have one so far with Juan. Patricia will be baptized the 22 or 23, but that is all we got progressing right now. It'll take a ton of faith to find the other 8, but we know it can be done. It is obviously the Lord's will that people are baptized so they can return to Him, and it is missionaries jobs to do that. So we know that the Lord will put the prepared in our path as we are out biking around haha.

On Thursday I had to go to my first ZLC, or zone leader council. All the zone leaders in the mission meet at the mission home and we get trained on all the new things in the mission. It was super long, like 8-4. I would much rather be out knocking doors, but just another sacrifice I have to make to learn more and be better at this. Tomorrow we have interviews with president, I always look forward to those. President Archibald will be a general authority very soon, I can almost guarantee that. You can look at him and just know that he is connected with heaven and receiving revelation, it is amazing!

But I am feeling really great today, so much better and I am super excited for the week we have planned. The Lord is stretching me and making me an instrument so that I can do things I would never be able to do not as a missionary. The calling we have is so real, my testimony of that has grown big time. If only I realized the authority I had that night I got set apart and we went to Swirlz! The time is flying by so so fast, and I am having the time of my life here, hope you do too in Maui!

I love you all and hope you have a great week!! Love Elder Draper