Elder Zacharee Thomas Draper: Poza rica, mercury, venus, earth, mars, jupiter, saturn, uranus, neptune (pluto)

Hey you guys, it is super hot here.

THIS WEEK ROCKED.

So last monday I had to go pack my bags and shtuff and that was great.

Tuesday morning we hauled over to the bus station to meet the other 15 missionaries heading north. We loaded our bags and we said peace to Xalapa and then spent 6 hours driving up the east coast of veracruz looking out at the ocean. The bus driver turned on some scandolous film to the bus television system but we were like uh no half of the bus is missionaries change the channel dog-to which he responed "gringo please take your seat"- so we chipped in, bought him and the other guy a big coke and chips and they put on robo cop and hunger games for us. Good guys.

When I got out of the bus in poza rica I realized I wasn't in xalapa anymore because DANG it is hot here. So hot. SO SO SO HOT, but it is a super awesome city.

Wednesday we had zone class and my old comp elder garcia is in my zone.

Tuesday to sunday we found a bunch of new investigators and met with all of the people we have in teaching right now to see how they are progressing. We are teaching a young lady named Lucila right now who has a baptismal date for the next few weeks as well as her parents who will hopefully be baptized next month. Maria de jesus just needs to get married to her husband (a member) to be baptized so we are working with her as well to get her to baptism. We had a sister tell us her non member son wants to be baptized so we are going there tonight to teach him, I am really excited!

This week was one of the best weeks I have had so far in my mission and it was because more than ever we had the spirit with us and we worked with the members. It is so important that you all work with the missionaries, you all are our only hope!

This week in my personal study I was reading my notes from last conference and there were a few things I really loved.

"The secret of discovery isn't in finding new landscapes but in seeing with new eyes" -Jose A. Teixiera

Elder Pearson taught six prinsiples of enduring to the end and started by saying "enduring to the end is a principle of the gospel, "hanging in there" is not". He then goes on relating these to the story of lehi's dream of the tree of life and the iron rod and gives the following
1. Don't forget to pray
2. Come unto Christ and be perfected in him
3. Press forward with faith
4. The Book of Mormon is key to spiritual survival
5. Don't be distracted and decieved
6. Stay by the tree.

He goes on to say three other statements I loved, first dont let someithing you dont fully understand destroy what you DO understand. Second, being politically correct may be spiritually lost. Thirdly, If you lose the spirit YOU ARE LOST. It was a super good talk, I would reccomend you guys go read it but in english so you understand :)

Funny story of the week happened this morning, my comp and I made this super big breakfast and were proud so we took pics. Then we realized we didnt have any syrup for our pancakes. so we run to the store around the corner and walk in buy and walk out. When we got home we realized we were both in matching flip flops, black basketball shorts, and mexico jerseys, and we are both gringos. We got some funny looks but its cool. gringos rule.

Have a fantastic week and remember, if everything is working out perfectly for you right now, just wait!

-Elder Draper