Pictures!!

Bethren Family

Lincoln Elders (Thanks to Facebook)

Manuel with Me

Mary and Me

Barbara and Dylan Coulter

Zone Conference

Dear Family and Friends and Fuzzy Creatures,

        This week was an exciting week we had lots of fun with being crazy missionaries and doing our job, which also includes sitting in meetings.

        Monday I don't have much to say for that day as usual, other than we played basketball and I made some pretty sweet/crazy shots. I shot over some pretty tall Elders draining it, so they were shocked and so was I. (Good can come from passing the ball to me. )

          We also had a sweet lesson with this man who has been meeting with the Elders and we talked with him. I asked him basically, "Do you know what blessings come from obeying the commandments of God?" He was like, "No........ "(for some reason culturally Hispanics especially Mexicans with a Catholic background Fear God and his Judgement and don't really believe to strongly in blessings. At least for some of the people we are teaching right now) and so we helped him start to understand that God wants to bless him. So we are going to see him today and just teach him about how God wants to bless us.

           Tuesday we got up early to get ready to go to Zone conference out in Grand Island, and we had a sweet meeting with Elder Martino. He addressed us on several things he felt inspired to cover. One of the big ones being FAITH in Jesus Christ and CHARITY. So it was really good to learn more about those. We got to see lots of missionaries and I got to see the only other missionary from Olympus there, Sister Reynolds (she is friends with Logan Mathie and the same age as cousin Em).

            Wednesday we had some sweet visits with some members and that was good. One lady who has avoided us whenever we have gone to see her husband came out to join us for the prayer before we left. So it was awesome, so miracles happen everyday. We also went and did service at the People City Mission and had some great adventures. One man was attacked and got his throat slit (sort of we aren't quite sure) and so we had eleven police cars and an ambulance. So it was crazy luckily it happened outside where very few people were, but he is okay. So that was our adventure.

          Thursday we got up and went to meet up with our zone leaders to do an exchange, so that was fun. The highlight would have to be teaching a guy in Burger King. We got a call from missionaries in Grand Island saying, "Do you remember so and so? Ya well he has moved to Lincoln and he wants you to meet him there, in well now!" So that was super exciting.

            Friday we did lots of weekly planning and such. We only got to see one person, so the week was slow.

             Saturday we went and saw a few members of the ward council trying to compile a list of names of people they would like us to see, and then after that we just had horrible luck all day trying to see people even those with whom we had appointments, but at least our Dinner Appointment went through Papa Murphy's pizza!

              Sunday the longest day of the week just sitting at  church from 11/10 till four it makes ADOS Elders like myself go crazy, even if we are missionaries. It was good though we had a good day with trying to see people, we had a member come with us and he was our GPS after our appointment to get us to his house (he knew Lincoln very well).

         Well that is my week,

--

Sincerely,
Elder Logan Joseph Draper

Brother Pearnson's Church mouse

Crazy Week, I got Transfered Hello Lincoln

Dear Family and Friends,

       I am grateful to be writing you from Lincoln, and I am glad that you all can still write me with relative ease. As I said this has been a crazy week, we had some good success and I have no particular order as I left my old planner in my apartment so sadly you get this info from memory.

        We had a Book of Mormon class, like a bible study class, and we are just going through and we got through all the pages of the Introduction so today they can start on the actual book.

We visited with Mary an investigator and she accepted the commitment to be baptized and offered one of the sincerest most heartfelt spiritually powerful prayers I have ever heard an investigator say. She has a pure and honest heart and she has committed to be baptized on December 5, so we are very excited for her.

         In another fantastic lesson Miguel Alarcon, a boy we have been teaching, committed to come to church and be baptized and his mom was the best she said, "So you're telling me you won't complain about getting up and getting ready for church?" BOOM she laid it down and he said yes!

       Overall the week went well. Thursday morning we were up with much anticipation as to what was going to happen during district meeting the Zone leaders gave us the news: Elder McBride was going to Fremont with Elder Kummerman and I was going up to Lincoln to replace Elder McBride. We don't know for sure but I may just finish my mission here. So Thursday we visited people but I did lots of packing and it was all good to get my stuff organized and to dejunk a little bit.

      Oh and I had an exciting find at the thrift store in Crete. I found an old briefcase so I got to use that for some stuff I wanted to haul around for meetings. The pioneer ward thought it was funny to see me again and to have me here full time. I was pretty excited to be still in the same ward. I obviously still have something to learn from them or I have someone I can help.

         So that has been my week I hope you are all doing well and that you keep reading your scriptures, praying daily and keep church as the center of your lives.

--

Sincerely,
Elder Logan Joseph Draper

Spanish Conference and more!

Dear family and Friends,

       This week has been a good time for us in NOM (Nebraska Omaha Mission).

        Monday we had a good lesson with a less active woman we shared with her the Articles of Faith and tried to set a solid foundation with her of what we as members of the church believe.

         Tuesday was an exciting day we had Spanish Conference in Omaha. We did studies then went up their in the afternoon had lunch then had the conference from 2 to about 5 so that was a long meeting then we still had to drive back to Crete so that was good they had kindly given us sack dinners to take with us. we were driving with Columbus Spanish since were going to be doing an exchange in Crete the next day when we got a call that said oh by the way we are having zone training Thursday and they canceled district meetings on Wednesdays! So Columbus Spanish spent Tuesday, Wednesday and most of Thursday out of their area so that was sad for them.

           Tuesday night after we got back we went and visited with Brother Wardle and had a good lesson with him we are starting a Book of Mormon Study kind of like a bible study so that will be fun. Then we went and tried a Hispanic family and they weren't available but we did get and appointment and also we knocked into a man from Foodnet so we had a door step lesson he is a very "solid Christian" and he has a decent understanding of the scriptures. It was fun we  had a nice conversation but he doesn't believe in revelations or the gifts of the spirit etc... so that is awkward but we had a good time and we then came home. 

           Wednesday we did service at the Bakery and then we studied and then did some knocking hoping to find a college kid or too, that didn't go over so well but we did find some Hispanics as potentials then we played basketball with Dylan and we retaught him the Restoration. He beat us by quite a bit we had a late dinner due to our basketball and the other Elder's appointment I cooked some really good Pork chops and it was super nice chipotle sauce is awesome. we then switched companions again and I had a lesson with a seventh day Adventist which was interesting they were asking some good but weird questions like can Joseph Smith forgive sin? I responded with a question "Could Moses forgive sin?" well no then I said Joseph Smith is just another prophet like unto Moses and well no he can't forgive sin. after that lesson which went pretty well we were walking home when this man called out to us and I turned and looked and it was a man we knew from helping out at new beginnings and we talked and his name is Dave and he is/was RLDS and we were able to visit with him for a minute or two and we gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon and he said I can't call myself truly RLds because it has just changed to much to the world. so New Potential with a lot of Potential!

              Thursday we had Zone Training which our time in Lincoln was from 9:30 am to 15:30 so do the math Six hours in the meeting it was a long day. The whole training was about better planning and better preparation to do things and changing our habits so we are doing everything in planning by the manual PMG so that is a good change none of it was new but it was a in depth refresher on how to do it better.

           Friday was the weekly planning wow do we have things to do we are getting better at planning and making lesson plans and ya we had no lessons

             Saturday we had foodnet which was good we met this guy named Aaron who knows a lot about the bible but he is kind of crazy however it was super fun talking to him and maybe we will get to teach him who knows.

             Sunday we spent all day in Lincoln pretty much however were able to get a sweet refereal for a college student at Doane who became interested in us after taking a comparative religions course so it was an awesome lesson.

--

Sincerely,
Elder Logan Joseph Draper

Anti-Mormon Video and Pharisees

Dear Family and Friends,

       This has been a good week. We have had some good visits and some not so good visits. All and all it has been a rather run of the mill week. So, in no particular order, we had a fantastic lesson with this "Catholic" family and she (the mom) shared what she studies in her sect of Catholicism. Basically she is an apostate Catholic, but still Catholic. I don't get i,t but Elder Infante was then able to pull that around into a good lesson on The Plan of Salvation and we committed her to read the plan of salvation pamphlet, and she will. Her husband on the other hand, I don't think so he was dozing during the lesson and he can't be blamed working twelve days straight then only getting two days off.

       We visited with Leonard and he wasn't interested. He said, "I'm never going to be a Mormon, but you boys can come and visit." We decided after the lesson, which our member team up bore powerful testimony during, that we weren't going to go back.

        Our next investigator, Mary, let us in and we had an amazing lesson with her. She was the complete opposite attitude. She had a concern about being baptized again since she had already been baptized and that was resolved, as Elder Infante bore testimony of the Apostasy and Restoration of the priesthood authority.

      When people are hungering and thirsting after righteousness their concerns are resolved by the true doctrine and understanding, and when others are not their concerns are superficial to mask their lack of desire to do and they harden their hearts against the true doctrine.

       We had an investigator look up info via Google about the church and one of the things he found was an old video produced by Anti-Mormons about the church that had been reposted to youtube.com. So we were able to talk with him and tell him that video contains truths but the issue is that the truths it has are wrapped in lies, as to render it entirely false. He believed us and we will eventually cover the topics found in the video and discuss the truths with him without having to battle the video.

      The message I have learned this week is to not try to argue the gospel and to find those who will truly receive the word of God, not those who are only listening out of politeness. We need to be humble and teachable and diligent seekers and scrutinizers of all, both for and against what we believe, and most importantly humble children of God who ask for wisdom and understanding from God.

--

Sincerely,
Elder Logan Joseph Draper