Going into the 4th quarter! 6 more months!

Elder Dutson took me out for ice cream on my 18th birthday - 18 months and going strong!
Say cheese Elder Dutson :)
I think he's trying to make his best Kobe face in his favorite Kobe sweatshirt

Que onda!?

I hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and were able to enjoy the time together! You all looked good in the pictures mom sent. You know that I was thinking about all of you too as we had our dinner...I miss spending this time of the year with you! We had a pretty fun "gringo Thanksgiving" as it was called. We went to the Lucambio house and had a hugeee turkey, carrots, corn, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie. It was really good, but I came to the conclusion that really what makes thanksgiving a thanskgiving is who you are with. They are a very nice family and it was a great day!

Yeah I guess you could say my stomach has become stronger, physically and as far as eating sketchy stuff. I thought I was a garbage disposable before the mission, but now I seriously am willing to try anything, because it usually tastes good haha. We didn't eat anything crazy this week though. The turkey and trimmings were a nice taste of back home.

There is no specific date for the Calgary temple dedication yet...probably in the fall. I totally have to take a trip here to the temple this time next year, because our recent convert Rosi is getting married to her boyfriend (and fellowshipper) Jose! I got to see her last night at a baptism and it was so cool to hear about her engagement. Obviously it will be a civil one, but in one years time they will be going to the temple together! Baptism is truly just the first step, to see these people progress in the gospel while you are still in the mission is amazing. I have not heard back from Hayden. I have a feeling that he didn't know he needs two stamps to get a letter here but we'll see.

So this week was pretty good. Things are still going slow, but I know that everything happens in the Lord's time. So we went by Herbert this week. He opened the door and said "Well let's get this over with." That threw Elder Dutson and I off a little bit and kinda worried me that he was going to shoot us down. So we sit down and he says "Well what do you have to say?" Again, I feel shot down. Finally we are able to get a conversation going, and long story short he told us he is a member of the church already. When he was 16 he got baptized in El Salvador, and has been inactive ever since then basically. He said he loved his time in the church, but his life took him in another direction. His wife and two kids of 14 and 19 aren't members. It was a very spiritual conversation as we testified to him that God had not forgotten him, and that He inspired us to go by and and bring him back into the fold. He said after the busy holidays he is going to come back to church and invite his family to join with him. How cool! We thought they were all non-members, but then to hear the whole story and what had happened in his life. It is pretty awesome to be a part of something that is bigger than you, something that you can't see how it happens from above the field.

As we were leaving Thanksgiving dinner, we got a call from Sis. Pavon and she said they were with a lady that was diagnosed with cancer and asked for a blessing, so we shot right over there. We met Diana from Colombia and her family of 5. We gave her a blessing and afterwards we found out that she really appreciated it. We are going to be teaching her and her family this Wednesday! It seems like the Lord is preparing this family and we hope that we can help them see the importance of being baptized and accepting the gospel in their lives. We are also going to be teaching a little boy that turns 8 this week, not technically a convert baptism but it will be fun to teach a child. This past week we picked up a new investigator, Mauricio, from Monterrey, Mexico. He LOVED the plan of salvation and wants to join the church with his finance from Brazil. The only problem is that he will be in Mexico during the holidays. In January he committed to come to church and be baptized. I think that is about all of the major updates for now. It is crazy that I turned 18 this past week (in mission time that is)!! It has flown by for me, and now it is time to echarle ganas and do work in the 4th quarter!

All I have left to say is I love you and get ready because I'm working on a long list of questions for our phone call on Christmas Day! Thanks for everything you do for me and have a great week!

I love you all!!!

Elder Draper

Happy Thanksgiving family!

Cold and clear winter night in the city
View of me typing my weekly emails from the library between the adult non-fiction rows
The Calgary Temple is moving along!
"Cevichi" is a Peruvian dish we had with Amalia. It has everything from the sea in it; optopus, squid, snail and all other sea critters!

YO!

Wow sounds like you had an amazing trip to the bay area! I'm glad everybody had a fun time and enjoyed themselves on mom and dad's anniversary trip haha. By the way congrats on 22 years mom and dad! Holy cow that's sweet that dad was able to track down where he lived (in San Jose) on his mission! 30 years later crazy!

Our week was pretty good...better than last week for sure ha. Yes I got the package so thank you for that! Those are some of my favorite power bars so I guess it was really worth the extra costums charges:)

We did a few interesting things this week. We have been trying to find a way of using family history in our finding and teaching efforts. So we took a trip across the street to the family history center, and I know some people reading this are going to laugh (I would) but it was really cool! This lady showed us how to get started and how it all works. The Spirit of Elijah definitely hit me and now I think it would be way fun to actually do it a little. I found an ancestor a couple hundred years back that needs his endowment and sealing...I am totally going to do it for him! So that was a surprisingly fun trip.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday were officially the first days of winter I think. The temp dropped to -19 Celsius, and with windchill -30. It's gonna be a longgg winter haha. By Sunday night we were cold and tired and did not have a single investigator lesson. We decided to go by this older lady we have been working with, Vilma. She let us in and we had an amazinggg lesson! The Lord has definitely been working with her the last 2 weeks we have not been able to find her at home. The lesson was so spirit driven and she told us that she doesn't want to take the decision of baptism unless her 20 something year old son decides too. But, we extended her the 25th of December to be baptized with her son, and she said she would work towards it, especially because she will be out of school on the 14th I think. So hopefully they will be the first 2 people we have lined up for baptism to complete the zone goal of 25 on Christmas day! Then right after we stopped by this potential family, Sandra and Herbert. Last week Herbert said he was dealing with a major family issue and couldn't let us in. So yesterday when we stopped by Sandra answered and we talked to her about how the message we have blesses families and helps them through trials and have a happier home. Her response was "That is exactly what we need right now...come by Tues. at 5:30". Another example of the Lord preparing His children. We have a new investigator lesson on Tuesday as well with a Mexican named Mauricio and his fiance. He is super interested in the church. Another solid investigator we have is Alexander from Colombia. He lives downtown and we should be setting a baptismal date with him on Saturday. Things are going, just slower than what we would like.

My favorite scripture...hmmm good question. I think over the course of the mission it has become Mosiah 3:19, but lately...Alma 42 is pretty solid haha. But yeah I wish I could just have a camera attached to my head 24/7 so you can really see all the things we are doing, I know I leave out a lot of details. So many crazy experiences, spiritual moments, and just funny or awkward times that you'll just never get to see. The mission is SO amazing and such a blessing. I'm grateful for the things I've learned here in the field and from you back home. It has made me such a better person (hopefully) and has grown my desire to do God's will.

Thanks for everything and have an awesome week!

Love Elder Draper :)

Dad that is such a sweet story! Man that was so awesome to hear about and pumped me up to go find somebody like that to convert! Now that I have been serving a mission and have had similar experiences, I understand and appreciate stories like that so much more. It is really incredible the relationships you build with people as you teach them the gospel in their home. I am stoked to hear all of your conversion stories pretty soon! Plus hearing stories like that remind me that these 2 years are actually real and effect the rest of my life (it is sometimes easy to forget that). Thanks for sharing that, I felt really good reading it :) Thanks for your example and everything that you have done for me over the last 20 years. I'm grateful for our friendship and the experiences we have together on earth. I hope you have a great week!! Good luck with work and stay warm down in Cal ;) Love, Ryan

Monday November 14, 2011

Enjoying the ward activity
The temple wall :)
Menudo - his lunch this afternoon to keep him warm and full

Hello family!

Hi there and sorry that I'm late getting this email off to you. Every single computer at the library was being used by these older people taking a computer seminar or classes of some kind. It's been like this the past two weeks so you can probably plan on this time for the next little while. Elder Dutson and I already got our shopping done this morning so afterward we'll have the afternoon for hoops. It is getting to be so cold for me. It's still bearable but barely! Snow should officially hit this week, probably tonight actually. I can promise you that I will miss a lot of things about my mission but the winter is not one of them!

This week was a little bit more tough for us teaching wise. There were lots of mission trainings and meetings, so we had a hard time getting things going with our pool. We were not able to meet with any investigators, but we have a great week lined up with investigator lessons. Haha yeah pretty crazy about the packages you sent. I knew that that could not be right...$250 dollars for protein bars, Cheez-itz and oreos? That's never happened before.

The elders in the south east had a baptism yesterday, so obviously that was the best highlight. Hopefully we will be the next ones with a baptism. We do not have to teach english class anymore because the stake called some member teachers, thank goodness. It was just wasting our proselyting time and we really need to be knocking doors instead. Yeah we set our clocks back, that was amazinggg. The sun comes up by 7:30 am and it sets around 5:15 pm yeah basically the same as home. In the middle of winter it will be down around 4:30 pm if I remember correctly. Yeah tracting at night now is very demanding and when the doors are opened we feel the heaters and hope to get invited inside. It is always better to have appointments set up so you know you'll be inside and warm.

Yeah I have no idea about when you do classes registration, housing and all of that jazz. I was going to ask Alexa if she could run by the admin office and ask for me. New foods this week...well it isn't new but for lunch today we had menudo...you can look up what that word means because I'm not really sure but it tastes good. I sent some pics of it too. We have not had to cook too much lately, because we have been getting an overload of dinner appointments which is always great. But cooking has definitely become a hobby of mine. The latest things I've learned to make is what they call pita tacos. You heat up a pita bread, slice it down the middle so you can open it up and make a taco, then throw in some ground beef and whatever else you want. They are pretty good with a nice spicy homemade salsa.

Okay I will try to get a zone picture soon. We have zone conference on thanksgiving day, so that will be my best bet. Yeah I honestly can't think of much for Christmas. Ok maybe to reach our goal of 25 baptisms on Christmas Day but I don't think you can wrap that up for me! What I appreciate most is just letters and hearing from you like that. Yes a tan will be my first item of business haha it is insane! Sounds like you have a pretty fun trip planned to San Fran! That will be so awesome for dad to visit his mission. I wish I knew more about dad's mission, I don't ever remember seeing baptismal pics or hearing crazy stories.

Sorry I really don't have too much to share from this week. We have 4 or 5 investigator lessons set up and hopefully will be teaching a new mexican family that just got here last week! That was a pretty cool miracle how we found them...just going by an old potential investigator who had moved. Anyways I gotta go ball it up but thanks for all that you do and know that you are in my prayers!

Love you all!!!

Elder Draper

Monday November 7, 2011

Downtown Calgary at night with the Calgary Tower all lit up
Sad news this week, Nely one of Ryan's converts passed away from a stroke. Her husband survived a stroke years ago and now he is left a widower.

Nelly on her baptism day with Ryan and Elder Rudd

Que honda!?

Yeah that is pretty crazy how much time is left mom! I better step it up and take advantage of the time remaining! Thanks for all of the packages plus the ones the way!! It is so nice to get things from you and to just hear from you. It is a great morale booster for me so thanks!

This week was pretty good. Yes hard to beat a baptism week. Some sad news though to start: Nely who got baptized last December passed away on Saturday. She had a major stroke and was not going to be able to talk/walk, but she ended up dying during the night. That was pretty hard on me and I have been reflecting a lot on how precious our time is here. She was not progressing in the gospel very well, because she wasn't able to get to church much with her husband but I know she had a firm testimony. I know that she is getting a great chance now to learn a ton about the gospel and is converting other stubborn baptists in the spirit world (she was a die hard baptist so we were so surprised when she finally was baptized). I was also thinking this morning in the shower...we gotta share the gospel with Erica! I have been thinking who I want my first prospect to be back home ha. She was the first person who popped in my mind, so let's come up with a plan and get her and her family baptized! It sounds like Dad is on fire right now, so maybe he can pull some Spanish out of his back pocket and preach la palabra to her!

We had a pretty legit miracle this week. It was 8:30PM on Friday night, I was burned out from the day and just wanted to call it a day. We felt like we had to knock this one door that we were pretty sure was Spanish. We knock it and this kid around 20 answers. He goes and grabs his mom and tells us to come in because of the cold. We start talking to her and we learn that her name is Vilma from Colombia. She looks very fragile and has some visible health problems (one of those holes they cut into smoker's throats ouchhh). She tells us that we could not have come by at a better time. She was looking for God and we happened to show up. She asks us to just leave her something to read, because she had no time (she is back in school studying so she can hopefully get a better job). We ask for just 20 minutes and she lets us sit down. She has no idea about her purpose living, so we talk a lot about the plan of salvation. We fulfill our purpose as missionaries by inviting her to come unto Christ through baptism, and she says that she can't compromise her religion (catholic). It was one of the most spiritual lessons of my mission, and she felt it too. By the end of the lesson we got her to commit to meet with us again this week and to pray about what we are asking her to do. She is such a sweet lady and we both feel the Lord has prepared her to receive the gospel at this time. It is so much fun to teach people who have softened hearts, and she definitely has one. Our investigators closest to baptism, Luisa and Brandon, are seeing major opposition from her husband. We stopped by 2 nights ago and he told us never to come to their house again. Luisa definitely has interest, because when she opens the door her face lights up and she is so excited to talk to us. We fasted that his heart will be softened, so we will see what happens I guess.

Anyways I guess that is it for this week. I love you all so much and pray that you have a fun safe week!!!

Love, Elder Draper

Two wonderful baptisms Sunday

The field is white already to harvest...
Amalia's baptism in the Spanish Branch on Sunday with her son, Renzo who baptized her
Rosa's baptism in the Spanish Ward on Sunday with her fellowshipper Jose who baptized her

Elder Draper enjoys a little treat on Halloween to top off a month full of teaching and hard work...and after a lot of prayer and perseverance, the blessings came!

Home made tortillas - oh and I spy the pumpkin halloween lights I sent him in the back ground

HELLO FAMILY!!!!

Wow what a weekend and week! First transfer news: I am staying here in the central as the lone zone leader with Elder Dutson, and I could not be more excited! Wow we are so happy, I have really come to love Elder Dutson. We get along perfectly and we have made some BIG plans for this next transfer, so we are pumped to be together and make things happen. Elder Brandon is still the district leader here in the Spanish branch and Elder Nielson is going back up to the west area to be the second district leader. They will be such a great support.

No it didn't snow yesterday but on Friday morning it snowed for like 15 minutes, very lightly, so I guess you can count it as the first snowfall. It is really has not gotten terribly cold yet, still sunny but with a cold wind. I am happy about that haha. Saturday night we dropped by the ward Halloween party for a few minutes but had to leave pretty quick to go meet with Amalia. Halloween was pretty fun day for us. After pday we changed and went out to Fatburger and brought it back to the house to eat...it is one of only 2 in the whole city, and I had no idea it was here! That was the best treat we got for sure and it tasted just like the ones at home. Then we just went back and hung out really, watched a church movie and had a great night.

But of course the highlight of the week was the baptisms of Rosa, Manuel, and Amalia! Rosa has progressed sooo much in just 2 weeks and it was so much fun to see that. She actually moved up north yesterday, so President Archibald told us to baptize her into Crescent View, rather than the branch here in downtown. So it was interesting that we were able to go up there to baptize her into my old ward. Her baptismal service was shared with Manuel Reyes, the father of a member Emmanuel Reyes. Rosa's fellowshipper, Jose, had to dunk her about 5 times because her dress kept popping up out of the water. So that baptism was at 5:00, and of course it started at 5:20. Amalia's baptism started at 6:30, so at about 6:10 we had to speed down to the Foothills stake center, about a 30 minute drive, to make it on time. We finally got there and everybody was waiting for us, so we took a quick picture with her and the service started right away. The Spirit was so strong and I had a really special experience. We were standing at the top of the stair case in the font, so we had like a side view of the baptism. As her son was saying the baptismal prayer, they were looking right into each other's eyes and I don't know why but that was such a powerful manifestation of the Spirit. I'm sure the veil was very thin and that her husband was there too. What a powerful moment. Seeing the gospel change the countenance of Amalia was one of the best experiences of my mission. Right when she came up out of the water, with a grin from ear to ear, she said "I'm a Mormon now!" Man what a day. It was crazy trying to get everything to run smoothly and to make it to both baptisms, but it all came together for a very successful day. We are still working with a few families and getting them to meet with us.

Other than that things are going so well and we are so excited for this next transfer! Thanks for all of your love and support and prayers and packages! Have a great week!!!

Hey Nick! Haha your picture with the pajamas made me lol! It looks like you have grown a little bit lately...nice! Nice work on the field...do they have you playing foward or midfield? Yeah when the Lord sends you on a assignment to preach the gospel in a certain language, He always gives you extra help. Yeah so keep working hard so we can speak Spanish together in less than 7 months! It'll go by quick. Keep up the good grades and have a great week!

Con amor,

Elder Draper