Mission Pictures

With Elder y Hermana Pino and President y Hermana Greer

Mision Completa
The Whole Mission with Elder Christensen and Elder Pieper

How many months does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop?

The world may never know. 

WHAT'S UP GUYS? How are you all? Congrats to all you kids who just graduated from high school, life gets pretty cool pretty fast. 

Ok well today is cool because I have 8 months in the mission, The time is going by crazy quick. This was a pretty slow week but it had its high points for sure.

The week started with a gnarly storm, the first hurricane of the year is kissing at the state of veracruz and here in the capital its been dumping some mad thunderstorms. We got soaked once again. 

I did divisions with the elders in my district this week and did 8 baptismal interviews.

Ward Baptisms

 We found a super cool family this week and are really excited for them but they didn't come to church on Sunday so that was a real bummer. Antonio works for the government and is working right now to send food and water north to where they had a tornado last week (1st ever tornado in mexico). 

Saturday we went to this little school and scraped crappy paint off the wall and then re-sealed it. Next Saturday we are painting.

Service Project

 Ate some crazy fruit today called a lichi. It looks like a big raspberry has a hard shell and is like a big white booger inside and it is pretty stinkin good. I ate probably 15 this morning, then got a knee to the face playing street ball with the zone so I ate 10 more and sat in the shade.

Lichi

 Saddest news to hear Elder Perry passed away this week. He was one I always learned a lot from, especially in the last few conferences. A great man with a great life.

This week I was thinking back to the good ol' days almost exactly 1 year ago when I graduated and I made a little list of "since then"s

Since I graduated high school.......

-I have gained 11 Kilos

-I have grown 1 inch

-I can now grow a beard

-I have developed a love for tacos

-I have learned a new language

-I have learned that Nacho Libre is 95% accurate

-75% of the girls I dated in high school are now married or engaged or on missions

-I have lived abroad for 8 months

  

So to all you kids who just graduated you have a lot to look forward to :)

 Exito y Animo en la semana!

Elder Draper

Helped a member cut down half of his platano tree

Elder C with his giant shrimp cocktail (sometimes he smiles!)

My favorite snack - Tuna filled avocado!

Don't be so crabby

Conferences, Rain storms, and Ping Pong

Hola amigos, familia, conocidas, fulanos, y fans,

This was a pretty crazy week! Tuesday we had district class and divisions with my zone leader elder mendoza, during divisions, the other american in my ward elder moser and I went to this little university to teach english to kids trying to get ahead in their classes. Our president set it up with a member and the topic we had to teach them? US History 1820-1840. Between mister andersons history class flash backs and my english doctrine and covenants we taught a nice little class.

We finished late tuesday night and came back to our area because wednesday we had our multi-zone conference with Elder Pino from the 70. He taught us a lot with his wife about the blessings of being a missionary, the importance of the call we carry, and how to work better with our companions.

Thursday was a rainy day and we taught another english class to the members in our ward and had a decent little turn out. Teaching people to pray in english is a funny way to spend an hour.

Friday was nuts/great because we had the first ever Mission Conference in the Mission Mexico Xalapa. The whole mission was together and Elder Christensen from the presidency of the seventy came with Elder Peiper from the area presidency. It was a question and answer session and it was pretty darn cool. We learned a TON from them. Super awesome, and we got to see the whole mission including my old comp elder Garcia and my whole group from the MTC.

The MTC Crew

Elder Garcia

Elder Moulton has lost 60 lbs and I just keep fattening up

Other than that we had a pretty normal week. Today we had a ping pong tournament as a zone and once again I had some serious mister anderson flashbacks as I represented Lehi in the world-missionary-ping-pong-championship. I came out with the silver medal.

Had a few dreams with lots of you guys speaking spanish this week and thats real freaky when I know you´re all a bunch of gringos and gringas with the spanish equivilant of my mother with Taco, burrito, and México as your vocab depth.

Have a chito week,

Elder Draper

Killing some time waiting for the church

Brother Lucas making pizza at FHE

The krusty crab pizza is the pizza for me and you!

HOLA SHENULOS Y KAPUTLAKANS

Hope you guys all had a good week, and are still showing some love to your mothers even though its not mothers day.

This was a rough week, we are struggling to find new people to teach and the people we find last a week and then hide from us in their house when we go to bring them to church, so that's bummer but it's all good. The Lord knows who is ready, we just have to find them! I was reading the story of the brother of Jared this week and it brought me a little personal revelation. 

Home Sweet Home

When the story starts, the brother of Jared is really worried because he doesnt know how to make light so he is like "hey God, I really dont know what to do, could you help me?" the answer he gets is basically, show your faith, take action and then I will help you. The brother of Jared then went and FOUND the stones, and BROUGHT them to the Lord. THEN the Lord could put light into them and help him. So thats what we gotta do, find the stones, and let got put light into em.

Tuesday I had a leadership conference with President Greer, it was only the 12 district and zone leaders in Xalapa, and we had a nice meeting with Pres. and Sister Greer, and the Assistants. I learned a lot and the biggest way we can have success here is work with the members so be good members in your wards and help the missionaries.

This week I wanted to share a scripture I was reading in Alma 17 verse 11

"And the Lord said unto them also; go forth among the Lamanites, thy bretheren, and establish my word, yet ye shall be patient in long suffering and afflictions, that ye may show forth good examples unto them in me, and I will make an instrument of thee in my hands unto the salvation of many souls."

This scripture hit me hard as I serve literally among the remnant of the Lamanites.

On a side note I got another stomach infection this week, that was steller.

Ok, I gotta go clean my suit for the first time in 8 months because we have got 3 General Authorites coming this week to the mission; Elder Pino on wednesday and Elder Peiper and Elder Christiensen from the presidency of the seventy on friday, and I don't want to look like that kid in charly brown that's really dirty.

Love ya all!

-Elder Draper

The picture doesn't do the storm justice.

Meet the Mormons

 
 

We study every chance we get.

Mother's Day

Hello family and friends! Happy mothers day to all you moms but especially my mom, it was so good to talk to you guys last night!! 

Happy Morthers Day Mom!!!

This was a pretty slow week, not much happened but we found a really cool girl! Her name is Dania and she is 19. She is a teacher and is studying at the same time. She's pretty interested and came to church on Sunday so she is doing well. She has a baptismal date for the 7th of June.

Other than that we had a pretty frustrating work week. Most of the investigators we had fell of the man. The guy we found last week who is living with a less active member hit his step daughter really hard so the sister kicked him out. We are working with the sister and the bishop to get her active again and in better living situations.

Thursday Elder Moser and I started English classes again. As we were walking there it started to rain. Hurricane season is coming on so the rain is going HAM. Anyway we ran to the church but got super drenched still. Then nobody came to class. THAT was a bummer. But its cool, I speak English already so no harm done.

Pretty decent week but we are really really working to try to find someone who can get baptized in the next few weeks and we have a few people that are possibilities but we have a promise from the Area Presidency, 1st Presidency, and the Lord that we can baptize every week if we work hard and connect our goals with heaven. 

Congrats to Mckayla Faddis on getting her mission call to RUSSIA. Stoked for ya.

Until next week,

Elder Draper

Home!

Ward Activity at the Macuiltepetl ecological park

 

Que la Fuerza te Acompane !!

Hola family and friends! 

First and foremost I want to say happy birthday to my dear grandmother and my cousin Ry Ry. I love ya guys and I hope you have a great birthday! 

Secondly, this week is mothers day so I want to publicly tell my dear mother how much I LOVE YOU. Thank you for everything you have done for me mom. You are honestly the best mother anyone could ask for and don't let anyone tell ya otherwise. Can't wait to talk Sunday! 

This was a pretty weird week I am gonna start with the bad/funny stuff. Tuesday it rained really hard and when I say really hard I mean I have never been in a bigger rainstorm in my whole life. Unfortunately we were about 20 blocks away from our house and had an appointment so we started to run. Needless to say we got a little wet.

Wednesday I got a serious stomach infection and was up all night long with double dragon. That was stellar.

Thursday I got the flu for getting wet and not sleeping for 48 hours.

Friday I called the sister in charge of like medicine and all things health oriented to see what I could take, she said a nap, I said "Booyah!" and when I woke up an hour later, well I can only describe it as Alma said " And I was born again of the spirit" I felt a ton better and we got some solid work done and found some cool new investigators.

OK for spiritual stories, Brother Leon Lopez Alavez, the first stake president in Veracruz was in our ward and died this weekend at 91 so we went to his funeral and Elder Moser and I sang a special number, it was really cool and the spirit was really strong. He was a pretty amazing guy, there were 4 members of th

e 70 that were there, the two stake presidents in Xalapa, and just a lot of people who he made a big impact on. He and his wife are the nicest people I have ever met and are the epitome of enduring to the end. I hope someday I can be like brother Leon was in this life.

That's about it for this week happy star wars day and like I said, Que la fuerza te acompañe!

Until next week, 

Elder Draper

The new Zone

After 20 blocks in the Rain

Brother L approves!!

Xalapa Sunset