Pday goofing off with Elder Davies doing a Elder Draper impression...doing a Kobe impression ;)
So great to see these two boys from way back to their MTC days and now to their final 98 days!Hola compadres!
Finally getting a chance to email this week. Family Day was pretty fun. What is it? I honestly don't know exactly what the holiday commemorates other than a day off to be with your family. In Canada, they have to have one holiday every single month, and this is the holiday for February I guess. We played soccer all afternoon with the ward and branch it was a ton of fun. Zone conference yesterday was great, very possibly my last one!! It was on faith. How are you doing today!?
I hope everyone is doing great and getting ready for a crazyyy summer! Sounds like lots of plans in the works :) You told me you were planning grandma and grandpa's 60th Anniversary, that will be a fun family reunion. I remember their 50th Anniversary on the boat! I love parties and stuff on yachts or boats just cruising in the harbor, super fun atmosphere. Blake was telling me about his paper situation and the timing...I told him to make sure you video the call opening! I guess you would fly him home to do that or has he decided where yet?
The FHE on Tuesday was alright. It was well planned and I had a fun time, but really only a couple families showed up. It wasn't announced very well and I just thought it was going to be a bigger event, like with decorations and music and stuff, but it wasn't. We are still trying so hard to get in with and teach a few new people. Appointments keep canceling, biggest pet peeve of the mission for me haha. We are consistently teaching Estefania, and wow that has been sweet! I can't describe the Spirit that is present in every one of the appointments. We are trying to help her understand that she probably won't receive a sure witness about baptism until she shows faith by accepting to do it. She is waiting for a big "answer" before making the decision. On Wednesday we went by and she said she has been praying about baptism on the 3rd of March. She said she will say a prayer asking God about it, then open up to a random Bible reference, like it is God's answer to her. She has not had any luck with that. Right at that moment her dad said "Why don't you try that with the Book of Mormon?' So she does it. The scripture that she "randomly" opened up to made my heart skip a beat, I couldn't believe it. She opened up to Alma 32:26:
Now, as I said concerning faith—that it was not a perfect knowledge—even so it is with my words. Ye cannot know of their surety at first, unto perfection, any more than faith is a perfect knowledge.
That is the exact principle we are trying to help her understand, that at first you can't have a perfect knowledge that something is true. We spent 10 minutes talking about it and it totally hit her. We promised her that if she accepted to be baptized on March 3rd, and honestly prepared for it, that God would give her a witness during the week leading up to it. She thought about the invitation for about 5 minutes, and finally asked that we let her pray about it. We left her with 3 Nephi 11 to read and we will be following up tomorrow. She is sooo close! We have done everything though, seriously. Fasted, prayed, followed the promptings of the Spirit, we have been super bold and loving. I have never felt like I have followed God's will teaching somebody as closely as I have felt teaching Estefania. We have faith that she can do it!
So this week I got what they call the "trunky call", but I am not trunky haha! Sister Waangsgard in the mission office called me and confirmed my travel plans! I told her to book me into John Wayne airport. So I think I will get my travel plans in couple weeks. Pretty crazy! It definitely has not set in, which is good ha. There will be random moments where my mind wanders off about leaving the mission field, especially listening to called to serve by Mo Tab, and it seriously makes me cry. I can't describe with words what this experience has been to me, serving a mission. It has completely changed my life. Well not only the mission but what it's taught me about the Atonement of Jesus Christ. The mission has just helped me understand it and see the tremendous need for it. There is no way I could have come to the feelings I have about it without serving a mission. Ok I'll stop talking about it I know I still have plenty of time to enjoy it.
Hopefully we will have some new people to talk about for next week! I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!
Love, Elder Draper
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