Hey mom!
President
Warnick is amazing! He is absolutely completely different from president Wada
but he is very nice. I can tell he is supposed to be here. It was interesting
becaus 5 of us in the office all took one last picture with both presidents and
their wives. I'll send it to you soon. But it was pretty sad to say goodbye to
him. But he drove away and then he was gone! Just like that we got a new
mission president! President Warnick is very good at Japanese, obviously, and
is really humble. We had a little meeting as the office and we all just talked
about ourselves to get to know each other better. After that we had all the
missionaries in the Musashino stake come to Kichijoji(the stake center) to meet
him. He shared pictures of his family and we studied the scriptures together.
It was so fun! It was weird though because usually people are talking before
big meetings when all the missionaries gather but this time it was dead quiet.
But they love the missionaries so much and are so excited to be here. They will
bring something very good to the mission I can tell. But he's still getting
used to everything,there is still a lot of stuff for him to learn though! (That
should be fun for Haydon to train a new President!)
But! Anyways
HAPPY BIRTHDAY! or has the Japanese say "hoppy basuday!" Or "誕生日おめでとうございます。" I feel really bad because I really wanted to send you
something before like two weeks ago but I just didn't have any time to go buy
something. I wrote you a letter and wanted to send it but I don't have an envelope
that it will fit in and all the post offices are closed on Saturdays, which
happen to now be my pday. So you will get a letter eventually! But I'm so
grateful for everything you have done for me in raising me up to be who I am
and teaching me to choose the right. I know that God gave us mothers for a
divine purpose! I love you so much!
That being said
there will be one more birthday I will miss very soon... America's! It's weird
that it's America’s birthday but I'm in Japan... But that's ok! I know I'm supposed
to be here!
You should make
like a bunch of little flat Elder Draper cut outs and hand them out, then
people could take pictures with me wherever they go and we could see how many
places I can go before I come home! Haha (I was telling him how people
comment on flat Haydon all of the time)
So the wooden
shoes are from Takahashi San, the same lady who gave me the yukata (the kimono
like thing). They are called geita. They are way awkward to walk around in
haha. Don't wear them in the hard wood floor! The picture of Christ is a bit
creepy. Elder Molen didn't like to see it because it freaked him out haha. But
I love it! On the back bottom right its labeled 困っているイエス which means "the troubled Jesus". I'm so glad
everything got there safely! (the packages finially arrived from their
very long boat ride! Everything was safe and sound)
I'm so glad you
saw Shaun and Eric! They look way good in the picture! They both so ikenmen!
(Good looking me . It's not as weird in Japan for men to call other men
ikenmen. You can also call them pretty...) but anyways! They look so
good!
So this week we
have done so much. If you had an investigator you could take them to the
BYU Hawaii concert in shinjuku! It was in the opera city hall and it was
AMAZINGu! They did songs from all over the world. We took our friend Jonathan
and he loved it! There were hula dancers and President Wada sat right behind
me, when they first started dancing president Wada reach forward and covered my
eyes hahaha. At one point they had a pioneer like song and four cloggers came
to the front and clogged! It was the best. I remembered every week going to
Boise with you and Allie, and watching her practicing in the garage and going
to Lagoon and everything. I started to tear up! I realized how much I missed
Allie when I saw someone clog after like 11 months! I love you Allie! The
conductor served in Japan as a missionary 40 years ago and he spoke Japanese to
everybody as he talked about the songs. They had three other returned
missionaries from Japan missions each talk. It was great. The 40 year return
missionary's mission president was there!
That night Elder
Laird spent the night (his trainer when he got to Japan) at our
apartment because his companion had an interview with president Wada the next
morning at 8:30 am. That was fun to be with him again.
Just yesterday
we took the Yamashita's to a really cool restaurant by sunroad. Elder Yamashita
ordered horse sashimi, which is raw horse meat! We all tried a slice. I have a
video for you. It was pretty good!
Other than that
I've been in the office most of the time preparing for president and sister
Warnick's arrival and the new missionaries coming in in two weeks. I swear I
never want to see another iPad again! I just work with them all the time and
get calls when stuff goes wrong with them. I usually don't know the answers so
it's just frustrating haha. I take that back. I love iPads haha. But still it's
frustrating.
This week a
sister got her skirt caught in the chain of her bike and she wrecked way hard.
She broke her right arm and has a concussion. But the assistants and president
went to see her that night and didn't come back until 1:30 am!
So we went to a
place called koenji today, that's why we were late coming back. We went to find
a legendary recycle shop that sold 100¥ ties. We walked up and down this road
like 5 times and couldn't find it. We finally found it after searching for like
an hour. I was less than impressed. Then we came back. But last week I went and
took some pictures for you of me in front of the temple in inokashira
park! So I'll send those.
I love it here
so much. Everyday I'm learning and growing. Just this morning I was pondering
about feeling the spirit and how it always seems that I'm not feeling it until
after I come back from messing up and I notice how much I actually was feeling
it. An analogy came to mind while I was thinking about it. You're underwater
and you can't breathe. Then you come out of the water and you take a deep
breath. You realize how much better it is to breathe! But then you go on with
life and get used to breathing air. You may not always feel as refreshed as you
did when you took that first deep breath of air, but that doesn't make the air
any less real. You may go back underwater here and there and you are kind of
awakened to the reality of how good the air was. Even though you aren't always
conscious of the actual existence of the air it is there, you still receive
benefits of air. The same is with the spirit. When we repent and come closer to
Christ it's like that deep breath of fresh air after being underwater. Then as
we live righteous lives and we may get used to feeling the spirit. We may not
always recognize that we actually are receiving the spirit. But that doesn't
make it any less real. You may sin again sometimes and you realize you did
actually have the spirit with you. When we are righteous we may not always be
completely conscious every second of everyday of the spirit influencing our
lives, but you are still receiving the benefits of it. If we are honoring our
covenants and obeying God 's commandments and being the best we can be, then we
can have the confidence that the spirit is guiding every good thought that we
have. They lord should not have to make it some grand display every time he
wants to communicate with us. He should not have to shake us to lead us in the
right direction. If we are living righteously then the lord trusts us to follow
the good thoughts that we have.
I know that
every good thing comes from Christ and if we follow the good things, the truly
good things then we will be led to Christ. I pray that we all can pray to be
more awakened to the reality of how blessed we are everyday.
I love you all
so so so much!
Elder Draper
ドレーパー長老
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| Office staff, President and Sister Wada, and the new Mission President! |
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