Hello there mother of mine which I love so much!
Ya I felt that earthquake. They are all too far away to
really be a problem for us yet.
Hideki came back but hasn't been able to meet
yet.
Last week we had choir after church and nobody could
play the song. So having not played the piano in quite a while was kind of
nervous, especially because i didn’t know the song before hand, but I played it
with hardly any mistakes! So I don’t play very much but I do if the opportunity
arises.
Ya we basically have had rain every day this week
except for like 2 or 3 days maybe. It's way weird though because sometimes the
rain is just a really fine mist that if you stay in it too long you get wet but
you don’t notice it really until you are soaked.
We finally got apples??? Sweet! Apples are about 5
dollars a piece here so cherish those things! (I told him we finally
after years have apples on the trees) I feel like my eating is going
downhill. I just don't know what to cook! Rice is killing me! (he has a convection oven I think, he describes it as a microwave
that can cook like an oven. I don’t have any experience with them, but if any
of you do please send me some recipes so I can get them to him. Rice and fish
is starting to get to him.)
This week Elder Yamashita from the 70 came. He took all
of the office staff up stairs in the Warnick's home and had a meeting with us.
Then the next day we had a big conference where he gave us instruction on how
to find more people and baptize more people. Where there is no vision, the
people perish. Our purpose is to take what the lord has given us, do our best
to improve on it and learn to rely on God. If we have no vision or purpose in
mind then we cannot improve. It isn't enough to just go outside and walk around
for hours on end trying to talk to everybody you see. You have to look past
that. Street contacting is a means, not an end. Baptism is a means, not an end.
If we get people to baptism and then they fall off the face of the earth, our
job is not finished. The ultimate goal is Exaltation but the only way to do
that is to be baptized by the proper authority. I have learned that it is
easy to share the gospel. The more we learn about it and exercise faith in Christ,
the more we will want to share it. It is not easy to get Japanese people to
stop and talk to you, but it is easy to open up your heart and bear witness of
Christ once they do stop. And we found out that Elder Bednar will visit on
October 18th! I hope I’m still here but I’m
sure I will be. I will find out soon if I stay in the office longer.
Today I kind of had P-day. I had a face book training
meeting in the middle and then a couple of people had questions about
iPads and email and stuff. So after all of that I am finally going to take Pday
and wash clothes and what not.
Understanding Japanese has increased so much. I look
back to the beginning of my mission and I realize that I really couldn't say
anything! I couldn't understand anything! I still don't know everything and
there are plenty of times and specifically old men who i can understand at all!
But I am so aware of the Hand of God in my life. It is hard to learn a
language. Especially one that is literally opposite of English in almost every
aspect. But language is powerful. God needs me to learn it so I can find his
Children who are lost and looking for truth. I have seen it in my life and in
the lives of hundreds of other missionaries. The power of God is real and God
blesses us because He loves us. I know He exists. I know that He is our Father
in Heaven who loves us more than we could fathom. So he has again reached out
to us and shown us the way back to him.
I love you all so very much!
Look around you see what you can do. There are always
broken hearts that we could heal by a kind word. Remember that in the mind of
the world when you gain something and give it away, it is gone. To God when you
gain something and give it away for the sake of others, you get more.
Elder Draper
ドレーパー長老
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