Changes and 11 Months

Hola a todos,

Que tal? Espero que tuvieron una semana bien chido y que todos estan feliz y con salud. 

This week flew by and honestly was pretty rough. We only had a few good days of work because of the conference on monday and some other stuff but we saw some miracles for sure. Tuesday night we met this taxi driver going to a baptismal interview. We called him in the week but didnt answer and then on sunday he ended up coming to sacrament meeting and he liked it a lot so that was cool. He will be super cool I hope.

Apart from that the week went by fast and we had a hard time finding new investigators. 

Sunday our zone leaders called with the transfers and I got TRANSFERED. I am a zone leader on the other side of Poza Rica about 30 minutes from my area now. I am pretty excited to be able to work with my new companion, Elder Acosta. 

Adios Zona totolapa

Tomorrow I will celebrate 11 months which is pretty cool, I cant believe how fast the time is going by. Today we went and ate pizza with the elders and sisters that are going home wednesday and had a good time. 

This week I studied the life of christ, specifically the second year of his ministry and found some pretty amazing things. I have grown to love the gospel of Luke because it is directed to the gentiles and is the only gospel that touches on the birth of the Savior. I also really loved studying the conversion of Saul to Paul. I would invite you all to go study it. Also I really liked Elder Lewis's invitation this week to serve and so I invite you all to do the same. Go out and serve someone, your family, your friends, or random strangers and tell me about what happened!

Love you guys! Have a great week!!

-Elder Draper

 

Elder Gallegos, me, sister quiñonez who goes home on wednesday and sister espino. These three are some of my best friends in the mission!!

Elder Llanes, also goes home on wednesday another good friend

 

 

Elder Gallegos, me, sister quiñonez who goes home on wednesday and sister espino. These three are some of my best friends in the mission!!

 

Elder Llanes  - also goes home on Wenesday - another good friend

 

Peter Piper Pizza

 

Rambo Draper

FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS THIS WEEK TO ALMOST SISTER MCKAYLA FADDIS. You're the cats meow.

This week was pretty cool, work wise it was just awful, but it was pretty cool! 

We are super strugling to find news and the people we are teaching right now are REALLY struggling. This week I studied about the israelites when the Lord sends flying deadly snakes because they are so wicked and they are like "hey Moses tell God to calm down and stop the flying serpents" so Moses prays and God says ok put a brazen serpent on a cross and if they look at it they will live" so Moses is like "look at the snake and you'll live" IT WAS THAT STINKIN EASY THEY JUST HAD TO LOOK AT IT, and do you think they all looked at it? NOPE. They were prideful and said "no thats stupid I am gonna go to the Israel ER and get it checked out. It is the exact same here, all these people (and us) have to do is go to church, read the scriptures, and pray daily and we will be fine, but do we do it?? NO. Why? Because we are nim rods. SO, message for all you guys is do the little things and live.

This week we got to listen to Elder D. Todd Christofferson and that rocked. He left our mission with his apostolic blessing and it was just an aweosme experience.

Yesterday we got robbed!

OH friday this sister took us to eat dinner at dominos and my comp was up making the order and like 15 minutes go by and the guy walks out and yells "RAMBO DRAPER......RAMBO DRAPER....RAMBO DRAPER!" my comps like OH, thats him and points at me. It was the coolest thing that has ever happened to me.

Rambo Draper

Love you guys, have a great week!

Elder Draper

My Zone Leader Elder Roberts

Flooding in the Streets

Elder Reid and I

True conversion to the gospel of Jesus Christ

Hey guys happy Monday and Happy birthday to my Uncle Dan!!! Hope you have a great day.

This was a good week, my comp and I are really seeing the fruits of hard work. Yesterday our favorite little investigator Nadia was baptized. We went and cleaned the font on Saturday but as I was walking down into the water my comp opened the doors to the baptismal room and was like "hey! big spider!" there was a huge spider swimming on top of the water so I turned around before Nadia walked down and was like "hey hold on just a sec" my comp handed me a paper and I slapped that sucker out of the font. 

This week I was studying in preparation for our mission conference with Elder Christofferson and I was studying on conversion. We see a ton of people who are converted to the church but aren't converted to the gospel. When trials come, they, like the seed that fell in stony ground, wither away and are burned. I invite you all to seek for a true conversion to the GOSPEL of Jesus Christ.

Pretty mellow week other than Nadias baptism! Here is some pics from sunday at her baptism.

Nadia's Baptism!!

Love you guys,

Elder Draper

 

My two favorite foods, ham sandwiches, and chicken feet in mole.

10 Months!!!

"Ordinary people who faithfully, dilligently, and consistently do simple things that are right before God will bring forth extraordinary results." -David A. Bednar

This week was pretty great, we definitely saw some major miracles. We had the goal of baptizing Maria de Jesus but we have been working for 4 months trying to get her married and have not been able to. The problem was that she is 23 and has no ID. A big requirement for a marriage here is that the person has to present their ID, so we have been taking her to and from the court house for a few months trying to get her paperwork figured out but the soonest she can get it out is september and we weren't wanting to wait. On top of that, we were probably going to have to pay about 900 pesos between my comp and I and that was not something we could really afford.

   

   Tuesday I talked with an elder in a little tiny town about 20 minutes from our area to go talk to the judge in their area about getting them married faster. He and his companion went and told the judge what the situation was and he was like "ok well if you want I can marry her on friday for free" WE WERE SO PUMPED!!!! So thurdsay we ran out there and spent the day with the judge getting paperwork figured out and friday night we came back with them and the judge married them in this giant group wedding, it was sooo cool. We were super thankful for the Lords help on that one.

   Saturday the sisters had scheduled their baptismal interview but the kid hadn't gotten back from efy yet so they were kind of freaking out. They called me around 5 and were like ELDER! We need you to help us find him, we think he maybe went to his moms house but she lives in your area! I was like ok, what is his adress? They told me the colonia and everything and I realized it was in this part of my area that was from the old elders that just got closed and has 1 bus that passes through it so I had ZERO idea how to get there so I was like ok sisters, come in taxi, we will wait for you, and then we will try to go find his house. So they get there and we wait and wait and wait for this stinkin bus and at 7:00 we were STILL waiting when this taxi pulls up and says "hey hop in!" I look in and it was the husband of Matilde, our recent convert. So we jumped in and soared up to the hill where this kid lived and FOUND HIM! We were walking down this street and the sisters were like...."lets ask here" and it was his house. Super cool miracle, and he passed the interview and was baptized yesterday. 

   Yesterday Maria was baptized and Gabby and Jair were confirmed and we were so stoked! The Lord is really blessing us, and I know it is a direct result of our dilligence.

   Crazy wise the only thing that happened this week is this drunk guy who was 600 years old (looked like moses but not important) tried to rob me so I gave him a penny I had in my pocket (why I had a penny I have no idea) He stared at it, said "God Bless" and walked off. 

   This week I also celebrated 10 months out. WOO HOO.

  Go read the Book of Mormon and be better people.

-Elder Draper

Everything you see in these pictures is our area - and this is only about 1/4 of our area