He has an iPad!

Hey! We woke up at 6 to do laundry. So we've eaten already and I then we're going to the temple and then we'll come back and email some more. But guess what! We got iPads this week!!!! It's fantastic. But now I'm faced with a dilemma. So I have big scriptures and I bought small ones so I could carry them in my bag easier. But now I have an iPad and have no need for the small scriptures. So dislike the fact that I spent like 40 dollars on them I'm going to send them home with the other stuff I'm sending home. Today at some time I'm going to pack my bag and see how much stuff I need to send home. I have SO much stuff! Haha but it's ok. OH YA and I’m the new district leader! (He was actually made District Leader last week, I forgot to add that)

 

I got your package and Audrey's package yesterday and it was all so awesome! Everybody loved the caramel apples. I gave some to everybody and my teachers. Audrey's package was fantastic! She sent me a shirt, and I love it, and lots of candy with cute saying on it and some piano music! So the past few days have been like perfect. I love you all so much! I pray for you every day! 

 

I have 11 days left!!!!!!!! I'm so excited! I haven't gotten any flight plans yet; we should get those this week I assume. We should also get our katakana name tags this week! Right now my name is in English but this new one will be all in Japanese and then when I get there I also get two more with English and Japanese on it. Not sure why I'm going to get so many but hey I'm not complaining! 

 

My stomach is doing better and so is Hawkins Choro. Although yesterday I had a pink eye/ strep scare again. My eyes were red and my throat was killing me. But today my throat still hurts but my eyes are normal.  I'm hoping it's just a viral thing because I've been having a lot of drainage too. 

 

I still haven't got Tanners emails. But that's crazy he had a typhoon! I'm really excited for typhoon season. I'm unusually excited about that actually hahahaha.

 

Tell Tripp I said happy birthday and that I love him! And I bought your shirts last week sometime so I'll get them next week. I'm going to send a lot of stuff home. A LOT!

 

This week I've still been focusing a ton on the small things in life. I've learned that a blessing doesn't have to be grand in the eyes of man to be a blessing from God. You don't have to be this glorious person who stands out in the eyes of man to be an example of Christ. God works by means. He makes the means so small that if you aren't paying attention, you could miss them. Joining DC 50:24 and Alma 37:6-7, Elder Bednar  compared revelation to 3 different things. A light being flipped on. Revelation can happen like this but it is the least common. The next way is a sunrise. The light slowly grows Brighter but only after a period of time can you look into the horizon and notice change. This one is more common. The third way is compared to a foggy day. There is enough light to notice it isn't night, but the way is still hazy. You really can only see a couple feet at a time, but as you press forward taking only a couple steps at a time, you eventually reach your destination. This way happens all the time. We just need to realize that the Holy Ghost works in small ways more often than the grand glorious methods. Please pray to be able to notice the small impressions from the spirit! Your eyes will be opened to gloriously simple truths that most of the world overlooks. The gospel is so beautifully simple that a child can understand it, yet so profound that it takes an eternity to realize all that it contains. 

 

 

ドレーパー長老

Draper Choro

Piano Audition!

HEY!!! Thank you for the package!! I love it all!! So there are these things called "Narnia Holes" and they are just vents or random holes all over the campus where people unscrew them and put treasures in them hahaha so since I can’t bring all of these toys with me to Japan I’ll put a lot in some Narnia holes for future generations to find!

 

So some things that happened this week. Nelson Choro left for home yesterday. He had a meeting with the branch president and then he left within the hour! That sucked. Our district is so different without him! Also yesterday Elder Stevens left because for the past 2 weeks he has averaged 2 hours of sleep a night. He really really didn’t want to go. But I was also in the room with Hawkins Choro that week because he was sick and while Hawkins was sleeping I went over to his room and shared with him a thought I had. In Alma 37:6-7, my new ponderize scripture, it says that the lord god works by means to bring about his great and eternal purposes. He was commanded to come out here to serve a mission, but maybe God had a different plan for him but he still needed him to show his faith by coming out anyways. We don’t always understand why things happen the way they do but we can trust that if we are doing what we believe is right, he will provide his will in our lives, and his will is always the best.

 

I loved the package!!! The ties were great because I seriously forgot completely which ties I used to have!  I love them. Also the caramel was a great surprise!

 

18 days left until I leave from here!!!!!!! That is a super humbling crazy thought. The time absolutely flies! 

 

The last few days Hawkins Choro has been sick. Some abdominal pains and some other things. Last night I taught Franks Choro, who is now in my companion ship, with Hawkins Choro, some Japanese Grammar because I can learn straight from books pretty well where as they prefer teacher to student learning, so I taught them some new things I had learned! That was pretty fun. But because he was sick, Franks Choro and He went to the hospital this morning pretty early to get an ultra sound to see if they could find any obvious things wrong. There was none. But I didn't go with them because I had my piano audition at 10:40! So I stayed with Gatherum Choro, whose birthday was today, and Stacey Choro, whose birthday wasn't today. I waited for the audition in the hall and talked to this lady for about 10 minutes. She actually knew where Mountain Home was!!! Seriously the first person I've met, other than Bachman Choro from Eagle Idaho, who knew where Mtn Home is. Then I auditioned in front of the MTC Presidency's wives, and they LOVED my song!!!! They asked if I was a piano major and I said no, obviously, but they asked me a bunch of questions about how long I have been playing and what not. So that was a good feeling :) They also asked if I would be willing to be added to the accompanist list, like if people need an accompanist for a song or something of that sort, but I said I would love too but It’s hard for me to learn songs as quickly as they would need me to. She was glad I was honest because apparently they've had people in the past say yes, but then just couldn't hold up to it. Then they gave me a 'yes' paper and said that if they want me to play they will send me a letter on a Friday and it will say if I play on Tuesday or Wednesday. Also if I didn't get the letter tomorrow, they could still, and probably will, send it next Friday because I’ll be here longer. So I’m pretty excited! I’m hoping that I’ll get to play in front of an apostle! 

 

Well there isn't much else I can think of to say but I love you all so much!!

Draper Choro

 

 

He's NOT sick! It's a happy day!

Hey!!! 

I love you too!!!  

Yes I enjoyed the brownies! I actually forgot them in the classroom last night but I’ll make sure to take them home today!! I saw your pictures! I’m so glad that you saw Audrey. (We went to Logan to see her last weekend.) 

And by the way yes, I do need some things. If you could send me like all of my ties that would be great. I want to trade some, but I only brought my favorite ties so it’s really hard to trade.  I have like 25 

days left!!! I’m so ready to leave.  I love it here but I’m very ready to leave. It’s like prison here. A super happy, spiritual, nice prison! But a prison. And I’m tired of getting sick!!  

 Our senpai group ( the group above us) is leaving this Monday and then we will be the top dogs around here! We have already been here longer than anyone else this up coming Monday. And this Wednesday we get kohai finally!!! They are the new missionaries coming in. We are pretty dang excited for that. Nelson Choro has been thinking about going home because he has been sick for 32 days now. He doesn’t think he will get any better being here. So that’s really really hard for us. We are just trying to support him. So if you could pray for Elder Nelson that would be great!!  

I went to the doctor to see if I had strep... of course I didn’t. But then luckily it went away the next day.  

Yes i got Mikki's letter!! I was so glad to hear from her! I’m really glad to hear that she is doing well. (Thank you so much Mikki for writing him! It made his whole week I’m sure!)  So this week we had BYU Vocal point come and give us a kind of spiritual singing devotional and it was awesome!! One of them shared from Praise to The Man, "Sacrifice brings forth the blessings of Heaven." and right after that I had an amazing experience. I felt to pray. In my prayer I just offered up every single feeling that I had. I shared with God all of my fears that I have all of my concerns, desires, thankfulness, and immediately I felt an overwhelming sense of peace, as if Christ himself was giving me a hug. I have never ever felt something so strong from the spirit in my life. In that moment every single one of my fears had completely vanished. I know that things will work out how they need to as long as I am obedient and as long as I do the Lord's will, which I am!!  I can honestly say that so far in my life, serving the Lord on my mission has been the single hardest thing I have ever done. I leave my loved ones behind and I go do the Lord's work. But in 1 Nephi 2:20 it says " And inasmuch as ye keep my commandments, ye shall prosper, and shall be lead to a land of promise, yea even a land which I have prepared, yea a land which is choice above all other lands." I KNOW that there is a place prepared for me as I do this. And I know that we all have a place being prepared for us by the Lord himself. There isn't much greater comfort that I know of than that.  

So this week was pretty good, honestly every single day here just blurs completely together with every other day I have had so far. It’s such a weird feeling.  Oh also this week I am playing the Joseph Smith Medley in sacrament, and then at Tuesdays devotional, hopefully an apostle will be here, I am auditioning to play it for that devotional as well. In front of like 2500 missionaries!!! And then the next Sunday, I am playing if you could Hie to Kolob with my district singing to it, and Sister Price playing the violin to it. It should be pretty fun!! Every day pretty much I play about 15 minutes of the piano in companion study, so that is really nice. I also bought a small children song book with a spiral spine so I could play where ever there is a piano.  Lately I have felt the influence of music more than I ever have before!!!  It’s awesome! Singing is Japanese is really easy and really really fun haha I love it.  

Well anyway, I have 3 weeks left here, and I’m finally not sick, and I am doing well here! I love you all so much!!  

Love, 

Draper Choro 

                                      

Pink eye, ear and sinus infection

Hey mom and dad!!!  こんいちはははとちち！！ 

How are you all??  

Yes I used my card at sonic.  But it’s not like I get to go there often, just because the employees forgot about us in the middle of Provo. (He woke up with pink eye so they sent him to a Dr. outside of the MTC. He had a sinus and ear infection and pink eye! He’s a mess! Then they forgot to pick them up.)  But seriously, that was so fun to finally be in the real world. Even if it was just for a couple of hours. 

   

It is sooo weird to see people come and go within the time that we have been here! Like that sister. (we have a sister in our ward that entered the same day as Haydon) It totally doesn’t seem fair. I hosted yesterday a kid from Washington and a kid from Hungary, going to Italy, and he speaks all three languages. So he is only here for 12 days.  A different kid was talking to Hawkins Choro and I and was talking about how he was here for 12 days and it was really jam packed full of stuff. Then he proceeded to tell us how because we were here for 9 weeks, they spread out the things that we learned, like language and gospel..... We were like ARE YOU KIDDIN US??? We had to teach on our second day in a language we had never before spoke.   

By the way kohai means like those younger than you.  So the group above me are the senpai and the group above them are my daisenpai (Big leaders)  We’re  STILL the kohai because we didn’t get any when we were supposed to.  There were like 660 people who reported the same day as me.  We had a couple hundred missionaries going to Japan. There are 3 Japanese branches and mine had like 86 people in it.  A couple weeks ago the daisenpai left and there were 47 of them!!! Ya and every week we have to write a talk in Japanese, because every Sunday they just call up random people to speak!!! It’s awesome though. Lately I have been not really using any notes in lessons, so I really really get good practice at just SPEAKING Japanese. Also every Monday night we have TRC which is where we just teach members in Japanese.  Sometimes we get natives and they are super fun. They are so stereotypical nihonjin (japanese people) because they always say like öooooooooohhhhh!! aaahhh!! OH ahhaAHAH! hahaha they are awesome.  

We also just got a new teacher along with Wilson Kyodai and Johsnon Kyodai. His name is Budge Kyodai. He teaches along with Johnson Kyodai and it is really really fun because they kind of act like a companionship. They teach us everything from Japanese to teaching to gospel. They have conversations together and I can totally understand like 80% of what they say or more.  I LOVE IT! 

SOOO just so you kind of have an idea of how my mind has to think in Japanese. I will write in English but in Japanese grammar!! It will blow your mind. 

Hello my mom and dad you how are? I well go am. Yesterday I and companion investigator gospel about teach had to. Morning we temple to district with went. Everynight I family health receive so that god through pray I ask.  This difficult is. Yesterday investigator to today talked things about what kind questions have asked. Fun was. Gift of tongues real true is. I god us to love know.  

SO ya i am basically going to be a professional Yoda impersonator when I get back. Who knew that Yoda was actually just speaking Japanglish the whole time!?!?! 

Well I love you All soo much!!!  

Ai shite imasu! 愛しています！！！！ 

Draper Choro 

ﾄﾞﾚﾊﾟ長老