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