Elder Draper participates in tryouts for a basketball team

Hello there my favorite mother!

District leader is like being a normal missionary but with more stress haha. I don't have to do a ton more but it is more stressful. I have to plan and run the district meetings on Fridays and I write the president about everybody in the district about how they are doing. I go to church at 8 am and we do studies for an hour and then I go to DCS which I don't know what is called in English. It is just the missionaries, the bishopric and the ward mission leader before church. We talk about how the missionaries can work with the ward and vice versa. Elder Masaki is AMAZING!!! I love him! He is super hard working and diligent and obedient and he loves the gospel and just does all he can to be the best missionary he can be. In the very beginning he set up expectations with me and how this is his last transfer and how he wants to be exactly obedient and but he still wants to have fun. He is already a great friend. He is from Oahu. Kane ohe is where he is from.  I told him I love Hawaii so much! Like one of the first things I saw him pull out was spam and those Hawaiian sandals that like everybody who has gone to Hawaii has hahaha. He is a hard worker like I said. We have already found 3 or 4 potential investigators and one new investigator! 

But this week has been such a growing experience already! I'm so pumped for this transfer! Just yesterday at church, all day really, was the first day where Japanese felt completely natural. I understood about 95% of everything I heard, it was an amazing feeling! I know God was blessing me so much. I really know He was blessing me because I even talked to this ojisan and understood everything he said! ojisan is an old man. They literally use some different words that you usually hear with the younger generation. Plus they all slur their words on a level 60 on a 1-10 scale of slur'ness. It was amazing!

We also got a random text from a guy named Henry who asked if we wanted to go play basketball. We have never met him but he was in our area book so we went ahead and took the train over to saiyamashi station and met him! He told us it was supposed to be just a friendly game for an hour and a half. But we got there and We just kind of were shooting around. Then this guy comes in and starts writing stuff on a white board and making us do drills and stuff. It turns out that we were actually on 'try outs' for this team they wanted to make for like tournaments and stuf like that hahahaha. There were about 6 Filipinos there who all spoke Tagalog, Japanese, and English, it was awesome to hear the language Tanner is speaking! So ya it really wasn't a good use of our time but we had no idea it was going to be like that. We expected it to be like we play a bit and then talk to Henry after and share a message and then leave. But they were all like "I hope you can come next week! We will start tournaments in October so we really need to build our communication skills!" And we're thinking all like "Ya we're never coming back again." Haha. But then on the way home we found a new investigator who came to church the next day! He turned out to be mentally handicap so we are trying to decide whether or not he needs baptism really. This week has been full of Filipinos, I love it! Whenever I find someone from the Philippines I just jump on the opportunity and use pictures of Tanner I have to kind of build a relationship with them! Thanks Tanner! haha. But we found another Filipino playing basketball in Koukuu koen and he called us over to see if we wanted to play. We told him we actually had plans to go play basketball in saiyama shi but we could talk for a bit. I showed him a picture of Tanner and he said to me"I have met him before, ya I know him!" I was like "NO WAY!?!?" He hadn't. He was thinking of someone else haha. But he was really nice. He is going to come to church and meet with us again! 

I love you all so much. I pray for you all by name every day. I hope all is well! Remember to lift someone up and love them today! 

Lately I have been thinking about something Dad shared with me that Grandad taught him or told him once. Dad told me that Grandad could drive down the road in Grandview and be able to tell who was a good farmer and who was a not so good farmer by if they cut corners or if they used every square foot of the field. I compare that to missionary work. If we cut the corners, we will miss out on the opportunities that are waiting for us. The lord had blessed me with a full field; I need to use every bit of it. 

I got the package! Thank you! It was a lot of food haha! I missed Nutella so much though! I have a package I want to send home soon. I actually have 2 but one has a big picture of Christ a guy made me, but I'm putting it in the long box you just sent me. But it is really spacious so I don't know what to put in it other than the picture. That one might take me longer to send home until I find things I need to send home. 

I love you so so so so much!  Remember that as members of Jesus Christ's church, we have the responsibility to share the gospel. I love you!

Elder Draper

ドレーパー長老

This is what Haydon said about this picture: "This is the Kurita family! We had dinner there yesterday. Got way lost find it too!" We think his mind is thinking in Japanese order but he's speaking English. Too funny!

He's getting a new companion from Hawaii! He's very excited!

Ya the earthquake in Fukuoka was a big one! It has had a lot of aftershocks and has done quite a bit of damage down there. I didn't feel anything though. Tokyo has so far been untouched by it. But please pray for the people there, they really need help. (they carry an emergency kit, I asked what was in it) There is just first aid stuff, and some food and water.

But yes I got my transfer call! I am staying here and my companion will be Elder Masaki from Hawaii! He will be leaving after this transfer! He sounds really hard working and really fun so I am way excited for that!  Elder Uemura is staying. So elder Kaesler was my companion, he is going to Kofu, elder Molen is going to yamate which is near Yokohama. I will also be the district leader here. Since there will only be two maybe three English speakers in my whole district, I will have to do the district meetings all in Japanese which will be hard but a great learning experience! I am really looking at this opportunity to lead as a time for me to grow and learn how to become more like Christ. I really have no idea what I'm doing so please pray for me!  In my district I have elder Uemura, elder Masaki, sister Suzuki, sister tomoni, and a brand new missionary will be coming in! But I have to plan and do district meetings every week in Japanese, and then I have to report everything to the mission president about my district and relay stuff from president Wada to my district and keep track of stats, and help everybody stay organized and be people's friends and I have to inspire them to keep focused on the work. I don't really know all that I have to do honestly. Haha but elder Masaki will be my trainer. Elder Masaki seriously sounds so nice! I have been told he is the nicest missionary in the mission. He called me last night and he told me that he wants to work really hard to finish his mission off strong and he wants to have fun with it! I am really really excited. Elder Laird called me two nights ago too! I know I didn't appreciate him as much as I should have when I had him. But I love him so much! I have been his only trainee so it's like I'm an only child! He goes home in 2 transfers! He just called to let me know how much he loves me and how much I will love elder Masaki. 

That sounds like a fun car wash! That's awesome that you raised so much! I will pray for Toni and Mike. Do you have any more plans for fund raisers? Is it pretty warm there? It's like 70 degrees here! When I FaceTime you I will be able to wear short sleeves finally! It's really windy but really warm here!

I watched David open his call! That is so exciting!!! I can't believe that they are all getting ready to go out! It seriously is blowing my mind! I am so grateful that so many of my friends are strong in the gospel. I literally can't even number them all because there are so many! I know they are all going to do great! I think Parker will go to Brazil like his dad, and mom? I'm pretty sure they both went there.

But here is a review of my week!

Well I guess from last time I talked to you!

Wednesday we went to give a blessing to an African lady in the hospital. She speaks French. Sister Jorgensen studied French for 6 years but she, like me, has forgotten almost all of it. At first they wanted me to give the blessing in French, but I really just could not recall any French. So we ended up going to the hospital and giving the blessing in Japanese. But before the blessing there was a huge confusion. So we go there and they take us into a conference room with the lady and a doctor. He was all upset that there were 3 guys instead of one like he thought. He thought I was there to be a translator from Japanese to French so I could talk to her and tell her all about her medical condition! I was like dude I can't speak French, and this isn't why we came, we just need to give her a blessing. And he was all like, well if you don't do it in French she won't understand and it will have no meaning anyways. We were all like "you aren't even Christian! Let alone a member!" It was just really confusing and frustrating. After like 2 hours we just did the blessing and it was really really good. Then we left. 

Thursday we taught Masa who is a recent convert who moved here from Nagoya. Also that day during lunch, I cleaned all the futons. Elder Uemura's is disgusting. Like covered in mold on the underside. He didn’t want to clean it, so finally I just went out on the balcony and just used an entire bottle of mold killer and soaked that thing. It worked! It looks brand new now! Then I hung all the futons on the balcony to air out and I beat them with the beater. 

On Friday I made crepes for breakfast and then I cleaned some more! I'm not a clean freak, but I seriously have found that I love to clean! When things are organized, I feel the spirit and I am happy, therefore I like to clean! Also today we went to the combini down the road called Lawson's, a very common combini here, and I got a free something from a card they gave me! I didn't see what it was but they just put it into my bag and then we went to the church to eat. I pulled it out to make sure it wasn't tea. It wasn't tea. it was sake! Haha they just gave an 18 year old alcohol and 100% didn't even check if I was old enough! Here it is 20 years old. 

On Saturday we got our transfer calls. I met a kid that night while I was passing out chirashi for eikaiwa and he said "Thanks, I don't think I need it though." In perfect English haha. He speaks Dutch and Japanese natively, his dad is Dutch and mom Japanese, and he speaks English and French for fun! HE was way good! 

Sunday we had church. It was a long day yesterday. In the morning English conversation class, we all talked about the earthquake. One of the ladies asked if I would pray for the people in Kyushu, the people who were most affected by the earthquake. I thought that was sweet because she isn't a member or anything. She isn't a Christain but she believed enough that my prayers made a difference, and so she asked me to pray for them at the end of class to close the class, and she was really happy. 

I can't wait to just mow the lawn and do yard work! I seriously miss that sort of stuff so bad! Chopping wood, lawn mowing, driving tractors, digging, whatever! It's just after being in a city for so long, I can't wait to get dirty and actually work like that! 

So I have sort of a dilemma. The bike I am using is a used bike from an older missionary. When he left he gave it to me. Now everything is breaking. I had to replace the tires when I first got it and that was about 60 bucks total and the chain and gears are all messed up which will cost me about 100 dollars or so and will take 2 weeks to fix. I really should have just bought a new bike to begin with, but it was free and I didn't check it too much. But my bike right now really isn't safe to ride because the bearings in the back tire are all shot and the back tire is bent and it  wobbles a lot. So I have 2 options that I want your opinion on. I could just keep replacing the stuff that breaks on it, or I can just get a new bike and it won't have nearly as many problems. It's just that this bike has to last 2 years, and the bike I am using now has already gone through 2 years of hard work and I don't think it could make another 2 years!

Well that was my week! I love you all so much! I am glad to hear that you are all well and happy! I am too!

Elder Draper

Rap Battle

Hello. Mother!

My week has been packed full and it has gone way fast! It sure looked fun digging that hole! ( Mark had to dig a big hole! Haydon and Tanner loved to dig when they were little) Haha going through the cow pies was mine and Tanner's favorite part of the go carts!  (Tripp went through a cow pie on the go cart and was not happy)  I'm glad they enjoyed it though. I can't believe they have never ridden it before!

So ya temple p day is on a Tuesday every time but today we have a lesson with a new investigator we found while streeting at kotesashi train station. His name is Ishii. We were walking around trying to talk to everyone when we noticed we were walking down a street where nobody was so I said we should turn back. Right then I saw a guy reading a sign and just said to him "Konnichiwa! Did you do anything fun today?" In Japanese of course. But we ended up talking with him for about 20 minutes and set up an appointment for Tuesday at 6! We also have a lesson with Brother Pepe. He is Peruvian member and I am teaching him Kanji. (Haydon must be doing well with the language, because Kanji is the symbols they use, and he’s teaching it!) But we have no time to actually have a Pday today so we are actually just doing a normal day today and then we will take 3 hours out of tomorrow and have our pday. But I should email everything I need to today. I just probably can't chat at all. 

Man everybody is going to Disneyland since I left! Haha just kidding its fine, everyday is like Disneyland here! Kind of. Haha. 

If you could send Nutella and maybe like some other American small snacks that would be cool! But don't feel obligated to send very much at all!

Brei hasn't sent me a picture yet but I'll do my best to try to find the doll thing! To be honest I think I'm staying here, really I don't know, but I feel like I'll stay. If so I'll send it next transfer because I don't have like anytime between now and next transfer. 

I'm on the train right now heading to the temple. The Tokyo temple and the property it is on is the most expensive land the church owns in the world!  But they are closing it down for a while in like a month or something for renovations so this may be my last temple trip for a long time. Also I had my last interview with president Wada this week! He will be ending his mission before we have interviews again. I think he leaves in July. That's crazy! 

But ya Azuma doesn't seem to really have interest. He said he was going to come to general conference but he never came. But we did have Yamamoto San and Yamane San come! 

It was way fun to go back to kunitachi! It's funny because that really wasn't my area but that feels like home to me. Elder Kaesler is the oldest missionary in the mission right now. He went home once because he wrecked his bike and got hurt way bad. So he had to go home for two transfers. So from start to finish he is the longest missionary out right now here. He has one more transfer after this one before he dies (missionary lingo for going home). Elder Molen is one transfer ahead of me. He was in the MTC with me but I didn't know him there. Elder Uemura is a transfer 10 I think. But I love them all! Me and Elder Molen think we're going to be companions next transfer that would be so fun!

So here is a quick overview of my week!

Monday night we were walking around kotesashi station talking to people when we saw a crowd of guys. And some music. We got a bit closer and saw that they all looked like hip hop/ thug looking guys. We got a bit closer and it was a rap battle! It was like the coolest thing. Ever!i asked if I could take a video so I did. They had like two guys rap at eachother and the rest would just kind of stand around them in a circle. One guy over watched it and decided who won. Then they stood in a circle and took turns rapping, building off of what the previous person had said. One of the guys looked at me, I was standing in the circle, and said "are you Mormon?" He had come to our English class before! We talked to him and invited him back to it! They were all so nice! After one of the guys gave me like the realest bro hug ever hahahaha. I never thought I would be hugged by a random Japanese man! 

On Tuesday I had a bad cold so I took a nap. Then we met with Evan at that one Italian restaurant, as he always calls it. He is like this 6'9" black man who is a professional basketball player. He is playing on the saiyama Broncos. It's him Ed and Seth are the only professionals. The rest are just average Japanese people. He said their team has no money so they could only hire three professionals. They have lost 42 games and won 4 but he is still like the happiest man alive! He just can't wait to go home soon. But we ate lunch and talked about general conference and prophets. It was way fun! 

On Wednesday we had presidents interviews! It was so great! The people before us were about an hour behind schedule so we just waited up stairs with sister Wada in the mission home. She asked about the family and everything. She made us delicious brownie cookies and we just talked for about an hour and then we went down into the office for interviews. I love interviews so much. We just go and ask any questions we may have and talk about anything we may be struggling with. I asked him how I could work with the ward better and he told me to just look at page 167 of Preach my Gospel. 

On Thursday we did weekly planning.  When talking about how we can find more people to teach I remembered that thing we did forever ago where we wrote down 20 names and prayed about them. I told him about the idea and said if we would have every family write down 10 people, pray for each by name every day, and seek for and or make opportunities to invite them to activities where the missionaries are there or where the gospel can be taught and the spirit felt, we would find more investigators. We wrote out a big official letter to send to the ward council. Because we're in Japan, and everything is professionally done or it isn't accepted, we are making sure we say everything right and how they like it. It was really cool because the whole time we could feel the spirit so strong helping us find better ways to find those who are prepared to hear the gospel. Please, if you feel like it you should contact the sisters in your ward, invite them and feed them and give them referrals! The members should be finding the people for the most part and the missionaries teach. Try it work with the missionaries as much as possible! It helps more than you know. We also had a dinner with the wikuramaarachichige (ya…try to pronounce that! )family. He is from Sri Lanka and she is Japanese. They met at BYU Hawaii. She is actually a translator for general conference. She did several this time. But they are so so so nice! Their two kids speak Japanese and English fluently, well for their ages. One is 2 and the other like 7. Their names are Rayden and Allie! Weird right?! Haha they are way cute. We had delicious food and I ate the Sri Lankan way that he taught me! With my hands!

On Friday we went to the church and randomly a guy talked to us through the fence and asked us if we wanted to go look at the Sakura! Me and Elder Kaesler had kids English class shortly after the time he wanted to go so we were a bit hesitant but we ended up going. A completely random man took us in his car to this beautiful place! Thats where my profile picture was taken from. That is saiyama lake. It was the most beautiful place I've seen in Japan! I haven't realized how much I missed nature. I love it!

Saturday we found Ishii San. And conference!

Sunday was mainly conference! I love it so much! I received so many answers to my questions it was fantastic. I love that we have a living prophet on this earth!

I have to go now but I love you all! If I can email more I will later!

Love you all!

Elder draper

The Sakura are blooming

Hello there! 

The trees are very beautiful! Only the Sakura are blooming though. Most other trees still look dead haha. But yes I do have more pictures with them! I am pressing some pedals too so I'll have those when I go home. Or I may send them home with the package I want to send home this transfer, which by the way already ends in 2 weeks! Man time is flying! What stuff do you want me to send home if I send this package? I am going to have to send a big one because I have a bowl that's Ishikawa San made me and my yukata and geta I want to send home. It's just really hard to transfer with all of that so I really need to send it before I transfer again! 

Man I really want to get my Spanish and French back! I just finished the English Book of Mormon again and now I want o simultaneously read English Japanese French and Spanish. It's so weird because with Japanese it's a completely different writing system, obviously, but that makes it that when I read Spanish or French I understand it almost completely. I just have a hard time speaking it that's all. 

Yes the toilet, (I asked if it was normal that the toilet is in a separate room than the shower )is almost always separate from the shower and sink room. Our shower is normal, well for a Japanese shower. They always have a bath tub, and then next to it is the shower head. You so just stand where it looks like the floor. 笑い話(funny story) so my first transfer I spent the whole time standing in the bath tub holding the shower head to take a shower. I had no idea that you could just stand in the floor. The whole room is the shower! Like the day before Elder Laird transferred I asked him if I was using the shower right... I wasn't. 

Nope. No ovens. Those just aren't a thing here! If we want to make a cake or anything like that we would have to use the rice cooker or buy like a separate thing that makes cakes.  It's still so weird to me that Alan and Natalie (his cousin Alan and his wife were in Japan and very close to Haydon )were here in my country! They went to Disney land right? That is in the north mission. But it's not too far from me! They were probably a couple hours train ride away from me. The bullet train is called the Shinkansen and there are like at least 3 different types of them for different lines and different weather situations. But everybody loves them! They have like action figures of the Shinkansen haha. We do have one in our mission but it goes from like odawada to Kawasaki or something like that. And then it goes somewhere around shibuya I think. Anyways it's really expensive and we aren't supposed to use it as missionaries. 

So our conference will be next week. We have to wait for the translation to come in Japanese. Actually one sister in my ward is the translator for some of the talks they do! She translated the third talk in the women's conference into Japanese! She speaks fluent English because she served somewhere in America. Her husband is from Sri Lanka and speaks Chinese English Japanese and Sri Lankan. He's way nice! He teaches English class on Mondays. Actually last week and today we are going to help him and then we go get dinner with him after that around 8 pm. He is so nice. He is currently trying to get onto the Japanese national cricket team! He owns a cricket club here. 

Ya the pictures of the fire looked so fun! I love thinking about the week where we tore down the green houses. I use that story a lot actually about how God protects us, because I know God was watching out for us that week. Everyone almost died like 3 times at least! 

I'm trying to remember what we did this week. Hey while I remembered, I saw one gold Ferrari and one bright blue Ferrari this week! There are some pretty sweet cars here. But this week we tried visiting a lot of less actives but either they weren't home, moved, or wouldn't talk to us. 

So ya last Monday I got a haircut. I like it. I have had to lower my standards on how I like my hair cut because they will probably never get it just how I like it because I have no idea how to say it. (Maybe Kendra, you could find out how to translate his haircutting instructions into Japanese. ) After that we helped Asala Kyoudai, the Sri Lankan brother at his English class. I was new so we had the three students ask me questions to get to know me. They are all like 60 or older. The last lady's question was, "how many girlfriends do you have?" Hahaha we all busted up. I said, "I have one girlfriend" it was quite funny. Then I told them all about Audrey in English. They like that. 

On Tuesday nights I go on splits with Elder Molen so Elder Uemura and Elder Kaesler can visit a specific guy together. Me and Elder Molen teach Pepe Kyoudai, he is from Peru, kanji. I love kanji. But it's usually way hard for him to learn because he doesn't put any practice time throughout the week. We are trying to help him understand that if he wants to learn kanji, he has to put more effort into it that he is now. 

Wednesday was way awesome! We had a stake blitz in kunitachi! I went home! It felt so so good to be back there. It seriously felt like I was home. My home in Japan is kunitachi. I walked up to the little church and Elder Frischknecht threw open the 2nd story window and smiled at me and I yelled , "I'm home!" And then I ran upstairs and gave him and Elder Allred and Elder Lunt a big hug. Elder Ishikawa was there too because he transferred back into Musashino stake. He doesn't seem to be too fond of me. We fought when we were together but not that much, and I figured he would get over it. Oh well. But it was so nice to see everybody again! I went out with Elder Allred to dendo around Tachikawa. We were able to talk to 2 people. We shared about Jesus Christ and his birth and atonement, death, and resurrection and how we can be freed from the consequences of imperfection through him. It was so good. Man I love Elder Allred! I love this work! I love sharing it with people. When they understand it and the spirit touches them and they know there is something more, it is an incredible experience. 

On Thursday we met Yamamoto San at night. We answered his questions he had about the Book of Mormon. We had gone it to the lesson with the plan to ask him to be baptized. The lesson was so great. We ended up bearing our testimonies about how the Book of Mormon is infinitely more than a book from which we can gain knowledge. It is the most important book in the world and through reading it we can come closer to God and experience the greatness and the happiness that comes from knowing our Heavenly Father. We were promoted to have him re read a scripture and then pray about what he should do which will be get baptized! We are asking him to be baptized again next time we meet him. 

Friday we had kids English class again. It was pretty fun we all drew pictures of our families! 

On Saturday we met with Azuma San. He thinks our lessons are English class lessons. Somewhere in the past someone set up wrong expectations with him. He was meeting with missionaries and then he was all the way up to a baptismal interview but he canceled. To get him back they told him they would just teach him English. So we have been trying to fix that. This time I had a strong impression to just let him talk about English all he wanted and to answer every single question he had about English. I even taught him how many feet were in a mile and yards and what not. Elder K kind of tunes out and does something on his iPad during that time. But I just kept thinking that even though he doesn't have the most interest, we still need to treat him like he is important and we want to be there with him, just with seem different expectations to be set. So after the English I felt like I should tell him our purpose as missionaries and then tell him as missionaries we need to share the gospel. I then asked him if we could share a message right then. We taught him the plan of salvation and then told him about how important it was. Then we asked if we could focus on the gospel when we meet and then only a little bit of English. It was really good. Also this morning at 6 am we went with some people in the ward to a baseball diamond and played softball! It was so much fun!!! I never loved sports before the mission but now I just want to play them every opportunity I get! I was the first baseman and got quite a few people out. And my hits were pretty solid too. They were going past the outfielders! ( Jared you should appreciate this! If I remember correctly before the 2 of you left on missions you were playing catch in the back yard, and neither of you can catch!) I thought it was way fun especially because I can't even remember the last time I have played! But baseball is huge here. We had painted lines and everything! We also had a baptism at 10 am. Kyou San is his name. He is elder Molen and elder uemura's investigator. He is awesome. When me and elder Kaelser went to fill the font it took us so long to find the thing to turn in the water haha. We literally looked all over the church looking for some hidden button. It was just around the corner from the font. 

Yesterday I was so tired! I was almost falling asleep in church! And I really make sure I never fall asleep in church. It bugs me when people do. But I was so close. After that I went home and called sister Wada and just let her know I was really tired and was probably going to take a nap for a little while. She told me to rest as long as I needed. When I woke up I felt totally fine! Except now my throat hurts really bad for some reason. 

Right now we are in kichijoji and Elder Kaesler is backing  up his iPad and some people are playing basketball downstairs in the gym. And then we are going back to the apartment later to clean! 

This week was way quick of course but it was way good! Saw miracles and Ferraris and Lamborghinis and we are loving the work as representatives of The Lord Jesus Christ!

I love you all!

Elder Draper

ドレーパー長老