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