Exchanges!

Dear Family and Friends,

        This week was an exciting week. As mentioned last week, we slipped back down to Crete on Monday which was fantastic to see Eric, Sister Coulter, and Dustin.

            Tuesday Elder Paddock and I did lots of walking and it was great. I feel that I am in pretty good walking shape, because I still had plenty of energy at the end of the night. I learned that I need to be better about talking to people about the gospel. It is part of me that got sick after my last companion, but I am excited to try knocking. It won't always work and it isn't the most effective but it allows us to get our name out there and give the world the truth of who we are.

              Wednesday we had a great zone training about how to first more effectively introduce The Book of Mormon in seven minutes and the other training was about stress and making sure you are having a good time in the mission, staying physically and emotionally healthy. President Weston told Elder Loveland, one of our zone leaders, before he left when Elder Loveland mentioned that he was stressed, "Elder Stress is Pride" which was funny since he said that in President Weston's voice but I had to reevaluate my thought process for a moment and realize I should relax a little. We had three awesome lessons. First we saw Jasmine and her husband, which speaks Karen and that was good we were able to teach him using his NT which is in Karen and English. So we would have him read verses in Karen. So that was great, we are having to become inventive. We saw two other investigators and we had good quick lessons with them and that was awesome! So we got a lot done that day.

        Well so we went to confirm our appointment with our neighbor, Sandi, and guess what SHE DROPPED US!!!! She said she was to busy and she was uncomfortable with The Book of Mormon, so that is that for now. So hopefully it works out in the future. I am still going to go by and see her and her dog, Bella!
            So Thursday we had exchanges with the Zone leaders and that was good. I was with Elder Wright in Lincoln and we did lots of walking. It was great, we also found them a couple of potential investigators while walking, just as we were getting back to the car to drive home for dinner he decided to pass out one more card and the guy invited us in right away. He started asking questions and we had to go after answering a few questions, so we set up a return appointment.
           Friday we did service for the nuns laying some more bricks and then they fed us, or at least gave us food to go since they had to go to a meeting as well. So we went home and did studies and worked on weekly planning and cleaning up the area book.
             Saturday we had Foodnet, which was good. We helped out with quite a few things, we helped get stuff. They wanted us to drive the van, can't do that. They wanted us to ride with one of the ladies, can't do that either! So it was great but we still have plenty of stuff to do. One of the ladies wants us to help her husband with some stuff after he gets his knees replaced. So that will be good, and maybe we can start teaching them as well! :) We then bumped into one of our investigators walking and that was walking. They invited us to go to their house and visit with them and we did some knocking and taught a very brief version of the Restoration.
           Sunday we got a dinner appointment and that rocked, and then we got back to Crete and did some knocking. So that was good. We got someone who was busy to call us back, so we are going to go and teach them. They are from Thailand I think so that will be fun, I don't speak Thai but maybe I can get the gift of tongues for that.

 I love this gospel and I know The Book of Mormon is true!

Love Elder L. J. Draper