Throwing garbage away in Japan is more complicated than the Gospel.

Hello mom!!! 

  

Sounds like a fun week! I too did some physical labor! It was a very much needed physical labor. We got to clean the gutters around the church! I even used a shovel and my hands got a little dirty! That hasn't happened in a long time hahaha.  

  

We also went to Kofu yesterday! We left at 7:30am and didn't get back home until 10:00pm. The drive to Kofu is amazing! The forests are so so thick! Much more thick than our desert mountains haha. You could see Fuji San in the distance. It was only the silhouette though because it was kind of smokey today. We met the new landlord and he gave us the key and Elder Hattanda had to sign some more paperwork. Then We me the elders in Kofu and went to get lunch at a place called Bonchi. It was about 8$ and had 4. cups of rice in it, two cutlets of breaded pork (tonkatsu) and cabbage and a banana right in the middle of it all. I didn't eat the banana. But it was so good! I absolutely did not finish it though. My average amount of rice is a bit less than one cup. And one cup is a lot!  After lunch we went to the sisters apartment and looked at the damage. It's been used for 15 years or something like that by the sister's in Kofu. It was disgusting. I think they even had the same futons the whole time. Eeewwwww. So the sister's left and then we grabbed the kofu elders and we just gutted the whole apartment and moved everything down the elevator in to the genkan(lobby). Elder Hattanda made two trips of just hauling trash to the dump. My hands got very sticky from something. I still don't know what it was. Then we went to their new apartment and threw everything in there. We moved their washer and fridge and desks and futons and everything! There's not a single thing left over in that old nasty apartment. While the sisters were gone we organized everything( well kind of.) there is still garbage all over the place haha but I made it look Japanese style. So we finally finished moving everything after like 10 trips or so back and forth between the two apartments. We left at 8:00 ish and got home at 10pm. It was a long fun day! (We asked why don’t they just throw stuff away!)  In Japan you can just scoop things up and throw it away so easily. I mean you can but it all costs a lot of money and there are so many rules on how to throw things away. It's literally more complicated than the gospel 

We had the Elder Bednar conference this week! I was sitting probably 20 feet from the stand. It was so awesome! He came to our church in Sunday night to give a Japan nationwide devotional. That was amazing. Then on the 18th we met at Nakano church, the mission HQ for the birth mission. He told us right from the start that he wasn't going to call people up and nail them with questions. He said "I'll tell you what we're not going to do. I'm not gonna call on a random elder or sister and have him state the 37th section of the doctrine and covenants. I could call on anybody and they would probably be able to recite to me D&C 4 but as soon as you add 300 other missionaries, the entire area president, two sets of mission presidents and a member of the quorum of the twelve apostles, you can hardly remember your first name! When you play the 'guess what's in my head' game the spirit goes away. When you ask somebody a question asking them to respond with a specific answer that is called manipulation. We are agents and we have moral agency, that is, we can make choices by our own will. Once we play the 'guess what's in my head' game then we are turning them into an object, to be acted upon, instead of an agent, and the spirit withdraws." So the entire three hours he asked a couple of questions about the talks he asked us to read a couple of weeks ago and we responded how we felt. Then he would ask some follow up questions and the people would raise their hands and told how they felt. It was the most amazing meeting I've ever been in. It wasn't about what was talked about, it was the spirit in which it was held. I learned tons of stuff that no one else in that meeting learned. Every week at church can be like that if we prepare and go to be taught from the Holy Ghost. He taught us that there has never been a boring church service.  If you think church is boring there is something wrong with you, not with the people giving the talks. Spiritual progression comes from the spirit which comes from our personal preparation and dedication to receive that spiritual revelation. He is an Apostle of The Lord Jesus Christ. I know he is. Yet he was a normal person! He was cracking jokes and we had a wonderful spiritual time! Him and sister Bednar were so cute! He told us that you can name anywhere on the earth and an Apostle has been there in the past two years. They travel the world to find ones. To help single people. They don't go to preach to a group of saints in Africa, although they do do that. They go to find and help the one.  

  

This week when we were headed to Nakano I grabbed a Book of Mormon and a restoration pamphlet. We prayed. And then two minutes later at a stop light I started talking to a guy. As we walked through Sunroad I was able to share our message of the restoration and give him the Book of Mormon and pamphlet I just grabbed! It was amazing! He didn't accept the invitation to learn more with us yet but he will one day! 

  

Well that's my week! I love you all! 

  

ドレーパー長老

Week 58!

Hello there Mother!!! 

  

The powder medicine is literally the worst medicine I think you could ever take. Why not just solidify it and make it into a pill? 私も分からない。 

  

It hasn't rained yet this week I don't recall. But boy it sure is getting cold quick over here! Summer is for sure gone now. Sweater season is upon us! I'm not sure yet though if we are allowed to just wear sweaters or if we have to be wearing a suit if we wear one. That's how it was with President Wada but President Warnick still hasn't decided.  

  

I don't remember like really ever knowing about the mission we lived in. Like what cities were in our mission (I'm talking about the Boise mission) or which missionaries were where. Here everybody the mission boundaries and which missionaries are where. It’s insane! The church in Japan is growing of course but there is no smaller world than the church in Japan. If you are Mormon and live in Japan, you know practically every other Mormon that lives in Japan. It's like how in Friends everybody assumed that Ross knew all divorced people because he was divorced too. But it’s true here! It's funny because Elder Hattanda's name is extremely rare. Like literally nobody has heard of it. People always without fail look at his name twice and gasp and then he says he is from Hokkaido and they say "OOOOH!" and they know his family. His family lives in Hokkaido, Ebetsu and he has family in Osaka and his sister served in Tokyo North Mission and now he is in the South mission. So his whole family has basically covered all of Japan haha. He is the only boy and has 6 sisters!  

  

(They went to Kofu last week which is a 3 hour drive one way ) The kofu sisters apartment is trash so Elder Hattanda found a new one and then us three drove up there and met with the landlord to make sure we wanted it. And we had to take pictures of any damage that was done by previous owners so when we move out again they can’t blame anything on us. It was good! We got there a bit early so we dendoed around the eki. We met an old man who showed us how he could do three fingered pushups! Then the elders made us dinner and then we left. We got home at 9:15 pm. We will go back next Thursday to actually move them. 

  

This week I have been trying to reduce the time it takes to do things in the office by experimenting with excel. The Assistants take about 30-45 minutes every Sunday night to update the mission stats. So I proposed a plan to make it faster to Elder Loftus, the Excel genius. Neither of us knew how to do it but he eventually found a formula and then yesterday I formatted the table with the formulas and now it’s basically all automatic and can be done in about 2 minutes! So that was fun. I've learned a ton! 

  

Elder Battaglia gave me a haircut a couple nights ago. He did really good! I don't trust myself to give haircuts yet.  

  

This week I have been studying the story of Alma and King Lamoni and then Aaron and King Lamoni's Father. I want to become like Ammon and Aaron. They taught with such power and simplicity. My goal this week is to teach families. They taught the father, so to speak, and then he, already having a large influence on many others, was able to share the gospel with them. I want to teach the dads and have them teach their families. Parents have a huge influence on their children. You guys have definitely had a large influence on me! Thank you for all you have done for me! 

  

Remember that there are opportunities to help others all along our way. Pause to help somebody else this week!  

  

I love you!!! 

  

Elder Draper

Sketchy Japanese Doctor Experience!

Hello!

So I went to the doctor this week! It was literally everything that you might imagine in a movie. A horror movie! I went there expecting the doctor to speak English because that's what I was told. It was already kind of dirty I could notice. The lady asked me to go wait in the back. I go back and I'm just waiting there for the doctor to call me back. After he called my name I went back and saw this doctor with a white coat on, a black headband with a silver disk thing in his head. I took my seat in the old chair. To my left was a long table literally covered in all sorts of knives and spoons and mirrors and hoses. He lowered the rickety old chair and flipped down his disk. He looked in my throats and then he shoved a vacuum up my nose. He didn't really speak English that well so he just spoke Japanese with me. He sent me over to a table where a lady proceeded to hand me what I can only describe as looking like a bong. I put it in my nose and it leaked some gas into my nose for like five minutes. Then they sent me to a pharmacist. I filled out the paper work in Japanese that asked of my medical history. So then I hand it to the guy at the desk and he gives me like a month’s  worth of medicine to take in 7 days without even checking my paper to see if I was allergic! Luckily I'm not allergic so I wasn't worried but how did he know that!? One of the medicines was a powder medicine. I have no idea why they don't just out it in a pill. I looked up the kanji in the dictionary and the best translation I could come up with was "drug cocktail salt acid". I was assured that it was an antibiotic though, so I took it anyways haha. It's the worst thing I've ever had. 

The 24 new missionaries came! That was chaotic of course! I have basically eliminated all the stuff I have been doing that I really don't need to do so this time was fairly smooth. 

It was way sad to have Elder Rose leave the office! He came in the same day I did! He went home to Arizona. Well technically he is still in Japan. His parents came here to pick him up. I am officially the oldest one in the office! Kind of weird. 

We had general conference! I loved it! I feel like it was the most helpful to me general conference in my life! I just felt like all of the talks were for me. Recently the fact that I cannot do missionary work on my own has been emphasized greatly! The more I think about how I can convince a person to believe in what I hold so sacred the more I realize that I can't do it! But that isn't why I am here. I am here to teach the gospel, yes, but the actual change and conversion that takes place in any one person comes as a blessing from God based on that person's exercise of faith. My job is invite them to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel. 

This week I evaluated my life and really identified the areas where the lord has blessed me. We would be wise to take a minute or two and simply remember what the lord has done for us. Remember the people who have helped you become who you are. I realized that the people who had the biggest impacts on my life are the people who did what they did because of the love of God in their hearts. You and Dad and all you guys loving me and teaching me to be good, Audrey for just loving me and being so kind to me and being my best friend, Brad Fesperman for bringing over random cakes and pies, grampy for always bringing me "medicine" (fudge cicles) when I was sick, grandma Draper for teaching me of our ancestors when I knocked down a jar of flour in the cupboard. These are obviously only a couple of examples but I just have so much to be grateful for. I love you all!

So ya Elder Bendar will be here soon! He will do a youth conference in Sapporo on the 16th and then he will come to kichijoji on the 17 for a devotional and then we will all go to Nakano in the north mission for a big missionary conference. I can't wait! 

We changed p day this week just because we had general conference on Saturday and had no time to take p day. 

Man only 10 months left! That's like not very much time at all! I swear I just barely got to Japan last week! There are still times all the time where I real,y wonder if I know what I am . But that's good I think. President warnick has taught me that it's good to not always feel like we have everything completely under control. If we did then there would be no progression, no need for faith! The lord puts us in positions where we need to reach out to him
for us to move on.

Well I think that's about it for this week! 

Oh ya there was also some undercover cops that came to the office and kept asking if we knew this guy, he would show us a picture, and we would say no. He said "he joined your church 8 years ago." Then he would show the picture again. We would say we don't know him. Then he flashes his cop badge at us. Then he asked us again. Haha he did it like three times! He stayed for like an hour and then left. We looked him up later to see if he was fake or not. Even president Warnick was like "ya I don't know if that guy was real or not. " but I found a website and the number written there and the number he gave us matched and then Elder Uemura called. He was real! It was just very strange!

I love you!

Elder Draper

ドレーパー長老

The apartment flood!

Hello mother! 

I want to see pictures of hallway Asia! I bet it looks pretty cool! I can't believe that it is already homecoming! Crazy! (referring to Homecoming hallway decorating)

That's way cool that the boy's pumpkin selling is going so good! They probably have way more money than me!

I'm not sure when our primary program is. I have been to two though in the last year and I love them in Japanese! They kids are so stinking cute! 

We all watch conference in Japanese a week later. We have to wait for the translation which takes about a week. It's so exciting! I can't wait to hear what our leaders and prophet has to say to us! 

Hahaha that is a good analogy! I'll translate it into Japanese and start using it hahahahaha. (referring to Tripp’s quote of the week “that’s as hard as putting a pine cone back on a pine tree!”)

There are 24 missionaries coming in this week! One elder who has been home twice already for broken bones is coming back for his third time! 

So it's official! I will stay in the office for one more transfer! I'll probably get a new companion to train how to be tech staff halfway through this transfer. My companions are still Elder Uemura and Elder Hattanda and that is such a blessing! They will be great friends forever! I have learned so much about missionary work and how to more Christ like and lots of Japanese from them. But since I know I will transfer next transfer I need to buy a storage device to back up my pictures. It would be a waste to be with a computer for 4.5 transfers and never back up my pictures! 

So this week I have been sick almost the whole time. My throat really hurt on Tuesday. I thought I had strep but didn't want go to the doctor because I know they would say it wasn't strep. Then it turned into an intense head cold. Then I got a fever and body aches but my throat didn't hurt, then my throat hurt again and everything else went away. So I've been in the apartment sleeping mainly for like 3 days now. It's cool though because I get to wear a face mask because I'm in Japan! It's pink! 

Let's see. I did get sick but some crazy things still happened!

So every night I go into the kitchen where it is quiet and pray. I was kneeling right next to the laundry room and it's dark so of course I can't see anything. My leg started tingling and it got really cold really fast. It scared me because I had no idea what it was. I jumped back and shook my leg thinking that maybe it fell asleep. I felt my leg and it was wet! Then I slapped the carpet and  it made a huge splash! So I stood up and turned on the light and there was a good amount of  water pouring out of the laundry room. I ran into the bedroom and yelled that the washer was broken. So we all turned on the light and came back and there was water everywhere! When missionaries go home they tend to leave all their left over clothes and towels and stuff, that we sure don't want or need, in our apartment because thats where they all take showers before they go home. But finally all those towels came in handy! We had about twenty extra towels in the cupboard. So we took all the towels out and spread them all over the floor. Me and Elder Battaglia went outside and rung out the wet towels and then threw them back inside to be used again. Within about ten minutes it was basically under control. So everybody went to bed again. I continued to pray and then sister Warnick walked past the window and then opened the office door. So I just peeked my head in and apparently she heard a lot of noise and thought there was something wrong. Which there was but it was all good! Haha. It was exciting! The next day we got irons and ironed the carpet, and then we got the custodian at the church to bring over his hard wood floor waxer. He did it in the carpet haha! It kind of worked. Then we got a space heater and left it there for a while! It's dry now :)

Right now the AP's have an investigator who wants to get baptized so bad. He is 16 years old. Last night he stopped by the office before he went home to ask if he could be baptized to his mom. We practiced asking with him and talked about just a lot of things. Then we all went outside and said a big prayer for him. His mom eventually said no actually. But that's ok he will be allowed to some day! 

There is another investigator of the sisters who was way prepared. But then she decided that she wanted to marry Elder Rose, and then flipped out when Elder Rose told her that he wasn't going to take her back to America and marry her. She returned all of the books the sisters gave her and we haven't seen her since! It was quite crazy haha. Hopefully she straightens up someday! 

Well that's pretty much my week. Sick, broken washers, crazy people and lots of blessings!

I love you all so much!

Elder Draper 

ドレーパー長老