He's headed to Kamiooka to be a Zone Leader!

Hey mom! 

  

We have had a bit more success this week! Still no investigators though. But we met a lot of really cool people like a guy from Turkey who lived in Italy for 7 years designing cars for Fiat and Chrysler and now he is doing the same thing in Yokohama. Thank you for the prayers! I believe they are helping a lot.  

  

Oh no are the boys ok now? (they’ve been super sick) 

  

Nice! I really wish I would have taken more advantage of dads knowledge of cars. I guess I haven't really had a need to fix a car yet in Japan but maybe I would have if I had learned! That's ok though. I'm only 19. I still have time to learn. (referring to Scott and Mark working on Scotts car.) 

  

Nice mom! Missionary work is so fun! That's so awesome that you get to go out with them and teach! Trust me, they really really appreciate it. It makes undei no sa (a world of difference) when the members get involved in missionary work.  

  

That sounds so fun! I can't wait to go see temple square around Christmas time with all of you! I can't believe I haven't ever seen it. You find a couple houses in Japan decorated for Christmas. We tried talking to a lot of people decorating but they said that "they don't do Christmas." Haha.  

  

The apartment is good! The heaters work now. The washer works now. The lights came finally! It’s funny though because its a pretty old Japanese apartment though so there is only one closet but there is nowhere to hang up anything. Just a small little room with one shelf. It's great though. We don't have any curtains so we just have to be careful especially now because the outside of our apartment is under construction so there are always construction workers right outside our window. I made eye contact with a guy this morning. It was a bit awkward haha.  

  

Yes I will call you at 11:pm (I hope he means a.m.) my time on December 24th. That is you 7 pm December 23rd.  

  

So guess what!......... I am getting transferred! Didn't see that one coming did you? Neither did I. Four weeks in an area is pretty short! In the past 4 weeks I will have moved 3 times! Once moving to the old apartment, then moving to the new apartment, and now on Thursday I will move to my next new apartment! I will go to Kamiooka as a zone leader and my companion will be an elder from Osaka. His name is Elder Yoshikawa. He was my zone leader the whole time I was in Kichijoji so I already know him pretty well! It's sad because Elder Jones is so awesome and we only had 4 weeks together but I'm excited to work with Elder Yoshikawa! 

  

We also had a meal with a Bolivian family in the ward yesterday. I have no idea what they made us but it was good! I just don't question what I eat anymore haha. At one table we had two people speaking to each other but one was using Spanish and the Elder was using Portuguese. The other end of the table was using English and Japanese haha. It was fun!  

  

I actually get to go to the temple tomorrow! I'm excited. I go about every 2 months. I go every transfer which happens to be about 2 months time. Dad that sounds like an interesting calling! You will get to go to those community worship services right? That's so cool! (Mark has been called to the High Council and his responsibility is to meet with all of the church leaders from Mtn. Home, he is in Public Relations for our church.)  Do you guys every come across the Ruffings? How is Sabrina and Phil doing? Wakefields? I miss everybody you know. It’s funny. I never realized how much of a family a ward really is until I had to leave it and move to a whole bunch of different wards. We are all just a big family. A lot of those guys are reasons that I am who I am I believe.   This week I have been really frustrated with forgetting things. I always thought that my forgetfulness wouldn't be a problem on my mission but I feel like it has gotten worse! As I was praying to figure out what to do about the problem I felt that it wasn't a problem about memory, it was a procrastination problem. I decided that I was going to try as hard as I could to do everything I thought to do in the very moment that I thought to do them. Through doing that I actually felt the spirit working through me a lot more. I realized that those little thoughts of " I should do..." was the spirit directing me. The more I put it off and said "I will do that after I do..." the less I remembered and felt guided by the spirit. This week I have barely forgot anything.  

  

From here we are going to finish up emailing and then take a couple hours to go see landmark tower in Yokohama, the ocean, and just see the big city again!  

  

I am also doing a baptismal interview tonight! It will be my first one so I'm a bit nervous but I'm really humbled to have the blessing of being the one to do it.  

  

I love you all so much! 

ドレーパー長老

#LIGHTtheWORLD

Hello there! 

  

This week was very long. It feels like P Day was only yesterday but It also feels like I did so much because every time I try to remember what I did this week I just recall walking and walking and walking.  

  

So we got our new apartment! It's cool. It's much much bigger than our previous one. It does have a few problems though. It didn't have any lights when we first got here. The air con ( heater) didn't work and we had no hot water, there were flecks of black something in our water and there is a single closet but nowhere to hang anything. Also our washer didn't work. It's like way cold right now here so we got a space heater probably the size of our toaster and camped out around it at night. In the morning we got permission to go find a bath house to shower in, but they were all closed. So we came back and I heated up some water on the stove and brought it into the shower with me. Except I ran out of water when I still needed it so I called for one of the elders to refill my pot of water and heat it up. We avoided drinking water for about 3 days but it seems to be fine now. We still don't have lights but we did get our washer working and one of the air cons to finally work! 

  

So I got sick this Week! I woke up and my neck and head and sinuses really hurt. My stomach wasn't doing very well either. So I slept most of the day and that seemed to fight it off pretty well.  

  

Yep we all moved. The apartment is nice. Just a bit of a fixer-upper. The people aren't really mean here, they just ignore us. I am playing some hymns for our eikaiwa choir we will be doing at the Christmas party on the 10th. Other than that I have just been taking some time on P day to play a little bit of the music Audrey gave me a while back!  

  

This week we did a lot of walking again. I know that God is just preparing us to find somebody who is really being prepared to receive us and the gospel. We thought we found this old lady who was really nice. We returned to share the new Christmas video and asked if the sister's could stop by but she rejected us this time. That was kind of sad. But we are still looking! Thank you for praying for us! We are trying hard to do all that Heavenly Father wants us to do.  

  

We had to go back to Kichijoji for the face book training for Elder Jones. It was nice to see Elder and Sister Loftus again! It's only been about 2 weeks or so but it was a warm reunion. Elder Loftus gave me a big hug. I didn't see President Warnick but I got to see Elder Battaglia and everybody.  

  

Elder Hattanda's birthday was on the 30th!! I missed it. So I called him on the 2nd of December and talked to him just for a little bit after daily planning. He is in a district of 4 people in Odawara. He is happy as ever!  

  

I hope you have heard about the #LIGHTtheWORLD thing going on by the church! All of the info is on lds.org but they also have the videos on the gospel library app. If you haven't seen the videos or heard about it, please go check it out! There is a video everyday in December leading up to Christmas eve about how we can be more like Christ. I love Christmas and I Love that we live in a world where we can be redeemed from our past mistakes and start over. I love you all so so much and I hope you all have a fantastic Christmas! It will be the last one that I'm not present at! 

  

I love you! 

  

Elder Draper 

  

ドレーパー長老

It snowed!

Hello!  Well we have absolutely no investigators right now. There was nobody in our area book when we came here. Which means we get to start from scratch! We go places and we just walk all day long trying to talk to, teach, and invite anybody that will hear us. We went to a place called Senta Minami train station. We grew down a district kubarikai (which is when you hand out Eikaiwa chirashi (which is English class flyers)) and then this guy started talking to us! Sweet! Well kind of sweet. He kept telling us just random things that hand absolutely no point. Thinks like Steve Jobs was Buddhist, or God tries to force religion on people and Buddha doesn't, or the only reason people in Japan still like Americans after the war is because of Buddhism and that Christian church over there (he points just across the park) isn't really a church it's just used for weddings, or like how Americans don't like Trump, and how the puritans were the first ones to America etc. he spoke at us for an hour and about 20 minutes and barely let us say anything. It was so frustrating. If people would just listen to us they would see that we would probably agree that Japanese people like Americans because they are Buddhist! Buddhism is a very peaceful religion and we would whole heartedly agree with that statement! We aren't running round telling everybody that their religion is wrong, we are simply saying that even though every religion has a lot of good in them, they lack that authority of God, which God either gives or takes away due to worthiness. Even within our church there are people who aren't worthy to have the authority and power of God.  It's no different for the rest of the world as it is within the church. Then we talked to another guy while walking to the really gorgeous creek grove area. He kept going on about how he believes there is a purpose in life but he hasn't found it yet. He told us he thinks all churches have good in them, but they don't have it all. He wondered about why there were so many churches. The same thing. If people would just understand that we believe that other churches have good too, I think it would be easier. We aren't going around telling people to abandon culture and throw away all that is good in your life, we are simply trying to show them, or rather guide them to learn about the things we know are valuable and precious, and then they, by their own will and judgment, can decide if they will accept it or not. I love missionary work because I get to be a witness of Christ. But it's kind of a frustrating feeling when the people you talk to have all the right questions, but their hearts are too hardened to hear the answers.  So ya the earthquake. I didn't feel it because I slept right through it but Elders De Andrade and Elder Hall both felt it. They said it got pretty rough for about 10 seconds in total. No damage or anything to anything at all, at least not in Yokohama. But there was a small tsunami up where the last one hit in Sendai. There was a risk of evacuation but I think everybody stayed there. Also I heard something about the nuclear reactor from the last big earthquake started melting down and they just froze it to save it. For some reason with this last earthquake it stopped trying to keep it frozen and started melting again. I think they got it under control though. There's talk of a big earthquake that's overdue to happen in Tokyo. So I'll just have to wait and see! 

  

That's cool you got to see Shaun! Where do you just randomly see him? Or did he call you and tell you he was in town? That would be sweet if he got positioned in Yokosuka or Zama base over here! 

  

I saw on the train the other day "横浜市で十二月の前に雪が降れば54年ぶりです。”  Which means "If it snows in Yokohama before December, it will be the first time it has done so in 54 years!" And then it did snow that next day! The flakes were huge all day long and it was very cold. But it didn't stick. The trains ran a little late but that was about it.  

  

Ya Kohoku is a bit more run down than Kichijoji. But that's because Kichijoji is the #1 most wanted to be lived in Tokyo. Well I left my bike at the honbu in kichijoji because I knew that Elder Mori and Elder Bateman would be coming up here on Tuesday to help us move anyways so I just left it there. It should be here tomorrow! Ya we get to move tomorrow! We have already packed some of our things. Not that we have really anything haha. We had to sacrifice our dinner table to store other things in. The other two missionaries in our apartment are Elder Hall and Elder De Andrade. Hall is from Utah and De Andrade is born in Brazil but raised in Utah. They are both incredibly fun to work with and just funny people in general.  Yes I am over the Kanagawa and the Kohoku District. I am guessing I'll still be Elder Jones' companion next transfer too but I honestly have no clue. I don't need any earplugs. I should be good till I come home probably. I have basically everything in America when it comes to food except: Begals, sour cream. I can't remember actually. I don't remember what is in America.  

  

So! Anyways I had a good week! We had thanksgiving dinner from America on Sunday night. Thank you mom so much for that! It was so good! I cooked it, very poorly and wrongly let me tell you, but somehow it ended up working out great and it felt like a real thanksgiving! We ate it on the ground though because we used our table for another thing. (See 1 paragraph up) 

  

I love working with Elder Jones. He is so funny and is such a good example to me. We have been working hard to visit members and house using the new Christmas videos around our neighborhood. The people are pretty cold and hard here. More than I have seen in other areas. Please pray that their hearts can be softened and we can find those who will accept the gospel! 

  

I love you! 

 ドレーパー長老