06 November 20--Here's your sign

OK,

Well, another week has past here in Madagascar. It's amazing to me how fast time goes by, because I feel like I just got here, and yet, somehow I can speak the language. Congratulations Ben! Amazing. Thanks for the letters Richard Diblee, Sophie and, as always, Mom. I'm always at a loss as to what to say when I write these things. I'm still working on it.

This week I was reminded of my former " accident prone" nature as I was walking home one night. In my defense, it was dark, and the Malagasy people are all short, and so their concrete road signs sometimes reflect their height. Anyway, I was walking and looking down ( because you will twist your ankle and/or fall in a ditch if you don't sometimes) and I noticed to my right that there was a concrete pole rising out of the ground. What I didn't realize was that this particular concrete pole was in fact, a triangle yield sign, about 4 feet too close to the ground. The next thing I knew, I was knocked flat, with a severe throbbing pain on the top of my head. I had run head on into the corner of the sign, and was literally laid out on the ground. My companion thought I had run into the pole, and was laughing hysterically. And while I was in severe pain, and on the ground, I couldn't help but laughing at myself too. Between the laughs, I shouted my frustrations in English and Malagasy of " YOU'RE ALL REALLY SHORT!!" at the next group of Malagasys ( who walked under the same concrete yield sign, without ducking, with no problem.) They laughed too. It was pretty funny. I walked away with a large bump and a small, ( emphasis on small Mom:) gash on the head, my pride more or less intact.

I believe I mentioned before about how I'm trying to cultivate patience, mostly with myself. I might also add, "humility" to that list of "virtues yet to be attained". Just when you think that you have "sufficiently humbled" yourself, you find yourself on the ground in lots of embarrassing pain, wondering why you ever thought you were doing "pretty good". I don't know if I'm describing this well, but I've realized how many things I need to work on. I'm happy to say that I have improved in many things, however, I'm finding more and more that I can never allow myself to settle for anything, because that's when the Lord shows you just exactly where you lack ( and sometimes it hurts.)

I don't have too much time to write this week, so I'll just say that I love you all. I pray for you and I love to hear from you. I'm excited for Thanksgiving, because the whole mission is coming to the mission office for the "Island Conference" and we will get to have an actual American thanksgiving Meal. Life is good. Well gotta go. Tune in next week for a possible eventful letter from -

Elder Draper

06 Nov 13--Birthday

WOW!

Thanks for the letters everyone! ( Mom, Dad, Jesse, Lizzie, Sascha, Mabel, Sophie, Sage, and Carrie.) That was a nice birthday present. Yesterday was great. We started off with Trix and Cocoa puffs in the morning, went to church, came back and ate a roast with mashed potatoes. After that we went back to church, and had a baptism. It was great. I was a little nervous because while I can speak the language, some of the names these people have are like tongue-twisters. Her name is RAZAFIMAHARO NIVO Navalona Yasminah ( I got really lucky with that name, because that is one of the easiest I've seen). My companion's first baptism happened two weeks into the country, and he didn't even know the kid, and didn't even see his name until he got into the water. And that name was RAHARILALAO MAHEFALAINA Joelisoa Mamy Hantenaina. Anyway, It was great, I pronounced everything correctly and she went all the way under and came all the way back up without trouble. We've been teaching Yasminah for the past 3 months and it's wonderful to see her progress, and finally be baptized. I've also got pictures from before and after the baptism. After the baptism, we went about the rest of the day's work as usual. When we got home, we invited two other elders (Elder Fowler,and Elder Jenson from my MTC group) over for German Chocolate cake, and coconut ice cream. They sang "Happy Birthday" to me while I played guitar, then I blew out two large candle sticks (citrus scented, mmm) each representing a decade. The cake was good, period. It was a good birthday. I'm 20. Time flies. Amazing.

I've taken most of my time waiting for this computer to work, and then waiting to read your E-mails, ( which, again, were wonderful, thanks) however, my time's almost up. Thanks for the Card Grandparents Draper. I'm excited, because I bought my guitar for the equivalent of 25 dollars, so the 20 dollars will be put to good use:)

This last week was another crazy week here in Madagascar. I'm anticipating an even crazier one this week, I'll see what I can do to contribute. We met an American guy who has lived here for 7 years and doesn't speak Malagasy or French. He buys the cool rocks you see at malls in America here, and sells them to malls in America for a much larger price. Interesting guy. He walked in the restaurant and saw all of us ( we had just had a district meeting, so there was about 18 of us) and exclaimed " It's the MORMONS!" , and " whoa!, it's a whole convention of Mormons! You guys are everywhere!" Nobody else knew what to say to him, because none of us are used to speaking English to other people. But I started talking to him. He said he had been studying religion since he was 20 and that "we were his favorite" (probably said to please the crowd.) But he did seem to know a lot about us, and he had the basics right. He sat down, with his young Malagasy "interpreter" ( she was ok at English) laughed and said, "no coffee for you guys!" Then I said " well, even if we did drink coffee, it's 95 degrees outside with 100% humidity, you do the math." He laughed again and he talked about how everyone here notices the white guys with ties and a black badge and how he always had to explain who we are. He said he respected what we were doing ( and told us how weird the Jehovah's Witness's were, and that ' you guys really need to get rid of them' ) He wasn't my favorite person, but I relate this experience because it made me realize how much we stand out. If missionaries are noticed walking down the street in America, they're an absolute novelty to people in Madagascar.

Lots of other things happened this week as well. But I'm out of time. I'm so grateful for all of you. I'm so grateful to be in a place where people are receptive to the Gospel. I'm grateful that I was able to baptize someone on my mission and that it probably won't be the last. Thanks again for the letters. I love you all . Veloma!
Elder Draper

06 November 6--Birthday Present

It always amazes me how fast the weeks go by, and yet, last week seems so long ago. I got the package you sent, and it's wonderful. Thank you.

My companion is crazy, but so am I, so we get along great. It's funny to walk down the street and be the center of so much attention every day (even if it is only to shout " vazaha!" at us). Sometimes I wonder if I'm going to suffer a withdrawal when I get home because nobody's looking at me,( or shouting "vazaha!" at me). My patience is constantly being cultivated on many different levels, but mostly with myself. I also think it's funny, that while I am on the opposite side of the world, speaking a language that I had never even heard of a year ago, that I can recognize several random people walking down street, stop them, and say " How ya doin' , Clark! How's your daughter?" or " How's the job search going?" (If people were staring at us before, they get really curious when we start speaking Malagasy to a random person on the street that we apparently know.) It's even funnier when we're walking down the street and somebody we don't know shouts, " Elder Jappear! ( my name as pronounced by Malagasys)" then they walk up to us, and ask when guitar lessons are.

Both me and my companion admittedly do NOT like tracting. However, when all of our set-appointments fell through one day last week, we were forced to. We saw in the distance behind a maze of close-knit houses, a large Peptobizmo-pink house, and decided to knock on it's doors. After every door in the house rejected us, we decided to make a game of it: whoever gets the most rejections wins. Bonus points for the particularly obnoxious rejections, and subtract points for every appointment scheduled. The point would go to whoever initially contacted the person, regardless of who did the most talking. I beat Elder Rock (or Elder " Vato") 15 rejections, to 1. I won because I got 2 obnoxious rejections, and he had to subtract a few points. This made tracting a lot more fun though, and we knocked on a lot more doors that way. We also kind of had a race with some Protestant Malagasy Missionaries during the tracting. We made sure that we'd get to the house before them, because if we got rejected, it would be a guaranteed rejection for them and they wouldn't even try. It was fun.

This week should be good. I will baptize somebody for the first time on my mission this next Sunday, which is coincidently, my birthday. My companion says we will celebrate with the package of food he got last week, with cereal in the morning and German chocolate cake in the evening. Life is good.

Well this computer is about to crash, so I've gotta go, but it's been nice talking to ya, I hope I get to hear from you next week.

Veloma!
Elder Draper