Nueve Dias Mas!!!

 Awesome missionaries - Elder Rodriquez, Draper, Dutson and Rios

 Rocky drove the whole Spanish Zone to Banff - he's a champ!

 The three amigos - Joey, Ryan and Josh! These three are very close and since I'm friends with both of their families I can call them by their first names now ;)

 Looks like Ryan beat everyone up the hill on their hike

He just looks so happy and so are we! 9 more days!

                          Climbing the mountain!

                                Happy hikers!

                          Hope the log can hold them all

One of the prettiest pictures of Lake Louise in the back ground

Oh my gosh!!! I finally woke up from my dream this week and realized that I am going home. On Saturday my first ward I served in here (Crescent View Ward) had an activity and we had a few potential investigators go, so we got to go to. It was a good chance to see all of the members up there for the last time, and that is when it hit me when everybody was saying, "well I'll talk to you on Facebook next week." Ugh so hard! I have mixed feelings at different times of the day. Some times I get sad and want to ask for a 2 year extension, and other times I think I'm ready to get the rest of my life going. So, to answer your question, it's a mix of everything. I would have liked to end with a couple baptisms, but looks like it won't turn out that way. Victor turned pretty cold. We finally got in with him this past week, and planned a super bold, serious lesson. He knows God's will and has received strong witnesses from the Spirit, so we read with him what the consequences are when we know God's will and don't do it. We are subject to our free will but those are eternal consequences. We gave him one last shot to be baptized this Sunday, if not we are dropping him.

Today we had my LAST district meeting, then we ate at Dennys, then I had to help a member translate at the church employment center, but now I'm finally at the library so I'm a little late today...yeah I'm glad you got my package with the goods in it. So we had a couple of cool miracles this week. There is this lady that lives with a member and has not wanted to meet with us at all. She came to the activity two weeks ago and so we went by the member to ask her what she thought about the activity. After leaving the house, we felt like we needed to walk around the neighborhood, and about 10 minutes later we run into this lady, Marta! We talked to her in the street and she accepted to meet with us. So cool! Then we got a random call from the English missionaries down in High River and they tracted into a Spanish lady and set up an appointment with her for us tomorrow!

Our Spanish Zone road trip to Banff was super fun with Rocky. We did one hike in Canmore and another in Banff. I want to come back and visit after the mission for sure. That was some of the highlights of the week. That is great that they changed my flight plans back to the original time, see you 2 hours sooner! In the prom pictures Rachel looks so much older. I think she has changed the most during my mission, so please Rachel don't be freaked out if you get a weird look from me at the airport haha. It's just that you are as tall as me and look like you are my age too ;) Yeah that would be nice to change into normal clothes after getting released, unless I don't have any clothes there, I don't remember what I left behind. Maybe Blake and I can trade?? Well my last email as a missionary will be next Tuesday because of transfers and then it's off to the mission home for me...wow, it's hard to believe. It has gone by wayy too fast. I've had so many incredible experiences that have strengthened my testimony and my resolve to follow Jesus Christ.  I have a couple scriptures that mean a lot to me because of the mission, but I will share just a fun one now. Deuteronomy 8:2-3, replacing the words "wilderness, 40 years, and manna" with "Calgary, 2 years, and Spanish food". Check it out :)


Love you all so much, and I'll see you next week!!!!!!!


Elder Draper