Week 23

Hey there haha! 母!

How is it going there?

I can't believe they finally done got hitched! I'm so excited. I got all of the pictures in church yesterday. I also saw all of the pictures and videos of "me" and other people dancing or whatever hahaha. I loved it. I just let all the pictures of me and people go on my timeline if anyone has a problem with it they can talk to me. I thought it was funny so I kept them. 

 That's hilarious that Tripp like's  ____?__.  (her name has been edited) But man we gotta watch that kid, he's gonna be a smooth talkin' heart breaker before we know it!

Monday I had splits after P-Day. I was with Elder Allred and we went hard. I would consider Elder Allred my best friend in Japan. He loves SpongeBob and we can connect the gospel to SpongeBob whenever we talk about it haha and it's fun. Whenever we are together, we just click and we just talk to SO many people and we invite everybody and we have fun and we both love Japanese and we both love Kanji and just everything! We talked and invited 13 people to either come to church or meet with us again. Every single one was a really good and meaningful conversations. The day before we had District meeting I was taking notes and I had the title of my notes as "How can I feel successful?" Elder Fischnecht leaned over and whispered that he had some good scriptures to share with me that night. He talked to me that night, we were at the Kunitachi Elder's house, and he just asked me what was going on. I simply told him that I just haven't felt successful in pretty much anything I've done so far. He showed me in John 4 where it says that the sower and the reaper rejoice together. "You don't have to wait until you harvest to find joy and success in your work." He said. I started crying a little bit. He gave me a quote and a poem that helped a lot. I can't get over how some people here are just so loving in every aspect of the word. Elder Frishnecht is one of those people. He saw and felt that I was struggling and he just shared what he has gone through and how he got out of it and how he has found happiness. I love him and I love everybody here. I want to be like Christ and the way to do that is to lose yourself in the service of others, which is the same as serving God. This morning I read Jacob 2:17-19 and Luke 11:39-41 and I learned that we shouldn't hide our sins. Don't make your outsides look all clean when you are filled with filth on the inside. We have control over what is on the outside as well as what is on the inside. The way we do that is by serving others and keeping God's commandments. As we treat others like ourselves and strive to know and love them, we will know what they need. When we know what they need we should give that unto them. Put the kingdom of God first and all else will be added unto you. If we do that then we will be blessed even more but what's more is that we will have a desire to use what we have been blessed with to the intention of blessing others. 

We had a meal with The Igari family on Saturday. Hiroshi was with us. We had curry and I taught them about experiencing a change of heart. It was really good and we had a lot of fun. Our ward mission leader, Brother Nakamura, was telling us jokes in English to see if they really worked.

This Sunday we testified in Primary. The primary here is wild! And like 1 kid knew my name!  Then we went up to Fussa which is about 6 dollars round Trip for about a 30 minute train ride and then a collective 20 minute walk with about a 10 minute wait time for trains. So we got home late. In Fussa we literally went straight to a members house, by foot, and then went to go visit with an investigator and then we dropped off the member and we went straight home and we were late. The member is awesome! His is American and he served in Russia 8 years ago. He was really really nice.

This week in my studies I have been drawn to the scripture found in Helaman 10:4-5

"4 Blessed art thou, Nephi, for those things which thou hast done; for I have beheld how thou hast with unwearyingness declared the word, which I have given unto thee, unto this people. And thou hast not feared them, and hast not sought thine own life, but hast sought my will, and to keep my commandments.

5 And now, because thou hast done this with such unwearyingness, behold, I will bless thee forever; and I will make thee mighty in word and in deed, in faith and in works; yea, even that all things shall be done unto thee according to thy word, for thou shalt not ask that which is contrary to my will."

I have always loved this scripture but it struck me this time in a different view. Before Nephi was given the promise that he would be blessed forever and before he received the promise that he would be mighty in word, it says that he with unwearyingness declared the word. He didn't fear the people, he kept the commandments, he sought God's will, and THEN he received the blessings. We are no different. We must work with everything we have faithfully before God will give us his promised blessings. 

This week was good! Thank you for the emails by the way. Also thank you for getting me gloves and everything.

This week was in the 70 range! It rocked! But today it is raining and quite cold. But I sewed all of my ripped pants, ties and I cleaned the apartment a bit and we aired out our futons. You have to do that or they get moldy. Elder Lunt's futon actually had quite a bit of mold on the bottom of his futon. We aired it out and killed that mold and ya now our apartment is pretty dang clean!

I love you all!!! By the way are they having a honeymoon? 

Love Elder Draper