07 January 30--Progress

Hello, hi and how are ya?,

This week was a long one. It's all down in the journal, so I'll have to tell all about it after the mission. But to give you an illustration, on Saturday, our first 7 set appointments didn't go through (but we did have a nice last appointment at least). But that's kind of how this whole week has been. We also got to see Jaqguy get baptized this week, which was nice ( if you remember last week's E-mail, Jaqguy is one of my first guitar students in this country). I got stuck with, er.. was privileged to give a talk on the Holy Ghost after the baptism. It actually went ok, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous out of my mind. All of the notes and scriptures I had written were useless to me because when I got up to the pulpit, I was so nervous I couldn't read English anymore. So I just talked about the Holy Ghost and read some scriptures as they came to me. After the talk, all of the Malagasys told me how much they liked the talk. This was good because Malagasys have a way of telling you just how terrible at something they think you are. Like when I first got in the country, and bore my testimony in Malagasy for the first time, afterwards I had two different ladies give me a piece of paper showing me all the mistakes I had made to "Help" me get better, and the rest of the branch said stuff like, " tena tsy mahay tenin' i Gasy ianao!" (you're really not good at Malagasy at all are you!). It was pretty funny. Anyway, after my talk at the baptism, the positive comments were hopefully true. I also got to bless the sacrament in Malagasy for the first time yesterday, which I actually enjoyed. If you had showed me the words " Andriamanitra, Rainay Mandrakizay O" (Oh God, the Eternal Father) before my mission, I would have asked you " what kind of crazy language is that?", and now, it is the most familiar to me besides English and doesn't sound weird to me at all, funny how that works.

I'm having a lot of fun with my companion. I think Micaela and Phil would really get along with this guy, he kind of reminds me of all of their good friends. And he lives in Maryland. I've been really lucky to get along with all of my companions, and none of them are anything alike. So that's been a nice thing for me on my mission.

One of the reasons this mission is so cool is because it's so small, in that there is only 50 missionaries, so we all get to know each other pretty well. I'm excited to hang out with some of these guys after the mission. It will be like a little subculture of white Malagasy speakers, and nobody will have even a clue of what we're talking about.

In other news, we have found an Indian restaurant comparable to Bombay House. Yeah, I'm happy about that. And as long as we're talking about food, my companion and I made an incredible roast yesterday, it was so good, it helped us feel a lot better about the slow week we'd just experienced. We also finally got our guitars this week, and they are really nice. Unfortunately, for how long we've been waiting for these guitars, unless they turned out to be like a Les Paul, I was setting myself up for an anticlimax. The experience of actually picking up the guitars was a little trying on my patience. When I got there, some lady said that we should give them a tip for how nice the guitars were, when we were thinking that, considering they should have been done in a week, and we had waited 2 and a half months for them, we should have gotten a discount ( we payed top dollar, and these guys weren't exactly poverty stricken anyway), so I kind of had to hold my tongue when she mentioned the tip (because there was also the implication that because we're white, of course we have the money). Also, I had to spend the next hour playing all of the guitars and pointing out all of the flaws that needed to be fixed ( there was alot) before we took them home. But we have the guitars now, and they are nice, so everything's good now.

There is hope for the upcoming week. We're hoping that we'll get more of our appointments to go through this week, and we just barely got an investigator that looks like a "golden" one. We'll see. But for now, I'm out of time, so until next week, Veloma!
Elder Draper

07 January 22--Guitar Lessons

Amazing. It's always nice to hear from you guys. It sounds like you guys are keeping yourselves busy, which is great. I got the package! Thank you! My companion and I are enjoying it thoroughly. I still haven't gotten the guitar *sigh*. However, it is very close to being done, and the color is good too.

As far as the work here is concerned, things are going good. From the many "contact lessons" my companion and I have taught, we are starting to see the "first fruits" as it were. Statistically, the number of lessons being taught in a week is getting higher. We had 5 new investigators this last week alone, many of whom are due to the help of the members, which is exactly what we're trying to do. We're hoping that we can just keep this up.

In other news, an investigator that I started teaching in my last area is getting baptized this weekend. His name is Jacguy, he is about 23 years old and one of those really nice and calm guys that everybody likes. I first met him walking down the street with his friends and carrying a guitar. So of course, I stopped them and asked them if I could play his guitar. He said yes, and I played and then they asked if I taught guitar lessons, then I thought about it, and said, yes. And they became my first guitar students in Madagascar. They came every single week. The funny thing was, we never brought up religion, and they really weren't interested in learning religious music either. But Jacguy was always there, and he starting going to English class too, and then he started realizing that he had a lot of friends that were members of the Church. Then one day, while me and Elder Stone (my last companion) were waiting for a member to show up to help us with a lesson, Jacguy came up to us. The conversation kind of went like this, me: " Oh hey, Jacguy, how's it goin?," Jacguy:" It's going good" me" How's the guitar treating you these days?" Jacguy: " OH it's great, I'm really making progress, and it's a lot of fun, but I have a question" me: " oh yeah? that's great, what's your question?" Jacguy:" Well, basically, I really like learning the guitar, and English, but what I really want to know is; what do I need to do to learn more about the scriptures?" (Understand, we had never brought up religion, and that was the last question I expected from him.) I had to ask him to repeat the question just to be sure. And it was true, he wanted to learn the missionary lessons. Anyway, long story short, we started teaching him that week, he started coming to church (of his own accord) and to ward activities and then I had to leave the area. But the lessons went great, and he asked very good and sincere questions and accepted the answers we gave enthusiastically. He was everything a missionary ever wanted, and now he's getting baptized. He only started learning 2 months ago. And now he wants me to give the talk on the Fanahy Masina (Holy Ghost) at his baptism. Anyway, that was a nice experience for me to see ( and I'll be honest, it's a nice example for me to show those few missionaries that "questioned my motives" about teaching guitar lessons. "Elder Draper, do you really think that teaching guitar lessons is an 'appropriate' missionary activity?" my answer: YES!)

In more other news, My companion, 2 other missionaries and I, went and helped paint a school way outside the city. The school was named Richard G. Scott. and the "principal"( or near equivalent) is a member. It was near my first area here in the mission, near Talatamaty, in the beautiful countryside of Madagascar. I was amazed how nostalgic I could get for any place other than home. My first area was full of trees, rice paddies, hills and green. This area has no trees, rice paddies, hills or green. After the 4 of us painted the school with milk..er uh.. paint, the principle fed us rice, and ... well... more rice. It was fun. This place is really beautiful, I'm excited to come back here and see the countryside, because I'm really missing it right now.

Anyway, I'm out of time. I love you all, I pray for you always. And I'm really excited to see you and talk to you after all this. Until next week's letter Veloma!
Elder Draper

07 January 15--Raindrops

It is actually really hot here. Except when it rains. And it's been doing that for the last two weeks. When we try to sleep at night, with the combination of all the tin roofs nearby, ( we've got a tin roof too I guess, but there's stuff between us and it, which muffles the sound mostly) and the RAIN, it's sounds as though there is a relentless applause going on. Sometimes I like to pretend that there's millions of people cheering for me to go to sleep, they just don't know that the cheering is not helping, but I give them points for trying anyway. The rain is also fun at appointments when the investigators have tin roofs, then it's like being in a crowded football stadium; us: " THE HOLY GHOST SPEAKS TO US WITH A STILL SMALL VOICE!!!!" investigator: " WHAT?!!!" us: " THE HOLY GHOST SPEAKS T- ........NEVERMIND!! WE'LL TALK ABOUT IT LATER!!!!" investigator: " WHAT?!!!"....... yeah it gets pretty fun sometimes. I can see how the rain can really bother some missionaries. But the way I see it, if you simply decide to enjoy it, you will be saved a lot of misery and woe. For instance, it is my natural inclination to NOT like being cold and wet, however, it can be fun to make game about how many times in a day you get hit in the face by all of the short people carrying umbrellas, or sing songs walking down the street like, " Good day, sunshine" or " Jesus wants me for a suuuunnn BEAM!" (jump) (- in a puddle), or as we were coming home and trying to open the metal gate to our house, and struggling, we pretended we were in one those movies about a submarine where the people are trying to open the door before all the water gets in and they drown, "THIS IS U571, THE HATCH IS SEALED AND THE WATER'S COMIN' IN!!" yeah, it's fun.

Anyway, life's good. We've been having fun. It was Elder Edgley's birthday yesterday, he turned 20. I turned 20 almost 2 months exactly before him and came on the mission 2 months before him, so he's basically in the same point in his life ( chronologically speaking) as I was 2 months ago. interesting. We went and had a Barbecue with some other elders to celebrate, I think he had a good time. I still haven't gotten my guitar. I've been waiting for about a month and a half, the guy who makes them says it's because of the rain. But he says they'll ( I've become "the missionary to go to" if you want to buy a guitar, so consequently there is more than 1 guitar being made) be done on Wednesday. I guess we'll see. But there's the story about the guitar, (minus the middle part about him finishing my guitar 3 weeks ago, and it was great, except for the COLOR, which was hideous, and my refusing to take it and ordering another one, which is another reason the guitar has taken so long, Tsy maintsy vita tsara! " it must be done well":)

I still haven't received the package. I don't know why. We just received word today from church headquarters about people sending money to missionaries in Madagascar via the pouch, which is illegal, so now all of the letters we get are being opened. So the word is, Don't send money. I don't think that you guys have any problem with that, but that's what we were told to tell you, just in case.

I'm out of time again. But it is always great to hear from you. I love you all. I pray for you always. Until next week. Veloma!

Elder Draper.

07 January 7--Balance

OK,

This week was good. I'm hoping to finally get my guitar today (there's a long and tedious story about that, so I'll spare you the details). It's great to hear from you. I'm really struggling today for what I want to write. Nothing terribly exciting happened this week. Most of our investigators are out of town for the holidays, even though all of them neglected to tell us that before we had already set up appointments. So our work suffered statistically this week. I'm not too worried about numbers though, because I know we kept ourselves busy this week. It's a difficult balance that we have to keep as missionaries, in terms of the how we keep track of the work we're doing. Some missionaries only look at the statistics ( IE, how many appointments, how many investigators attended sacrament meeting, how many contacts how many...... etc.... ( we call in our statistics every week)) and I don't think that's the right way to do it. However, some missionaries, don't look at the statistics at all, and I don't think that's good either. I think that it's important to keep the right balance. The missionaries that are only concerned with the numbers ( # of appointments, # of baptisms etc...) neglect some other important aspects of missionary work that cannot be measured in numbers. They are also more often victims of what could be termed " a bad week", in that all of their scheduled appointments, no matter how much they had prepared that week, for some reason or another, fall through. (They also become way more uptight and bureaucratic than I have patience for). However, the opposite is also something to avoid. Those missionaries that don't worry at all about the numbers run the risk of selling themselves short, in terms of the work they could be doing. It is harder to set meaningful and reasonable goals when you disregard the actual number of appointments or what-have-you that your putting out right now. It's like throwing a dart in the dark - you might hit the target. But more likely you'll break something( or end up hitting your companion). Happily, my present companion sits somewhere in the middle, as do I. But I've been both places, and I'm still trying to BE in the right balance. It's definitely a work in progress because I'd say my temperament leans toward the latter.

Anyway, this week was full of tracting and visiting members and doing what we've come to call "the contact lesson". This lesson was developed by my companion and I because it is the mission goal to get more baptisms this year than last ( obviously). And it has already been determined that the most effective finding tool is not tracting, but using the members for contacts. Also, having a friend at church is the first of three things that all new members need for retention, according to President Hinckley. So basically my companion and I decided that if we simply remember to bother every single one of our appointments about bringing a friend to church and asking for a contact, eventually they will submit, if only to get us to stop bothering them. This logic was taken from the "Parable of the unjust judge" in the New Testament, so hopefully it will work. I think it will, it just needs time is all. So that's what we did this week. We are also going to start a fireside for all the new members and investigators one Sunday of every month. We're hoping that the missionaries will only have to be in charge for the first couple of times and then the member missionaries will catch on. There will be a lesson at the beginning, but the focus will be on the games and snacks at the end , with the idea that the food and games will be what they'll remember and therefore come back for.

Well it looks like I'm out of time so, I'll just say I love you and I'll write you next week. Veloma!

Elder Draper

07 January 2--tratra ny toana vaovoa! which, being interpreted is, Happy New Year!

Alright, where do I begin?,

This week was great. In case you were wondering, I didn't write you yesterday because every time we have a major Holiday on Monday ( which has happened a few times this(last) year) we switch our P-day to Tuesday.

Anyway, yesterday was great, we went to the office and had a really good breakfast for all the missionaries, courtesy of the senior couples here in Madagascar. The senior couples are, Elder and Sister Armour, who lived in California and knew Jack Stringham while he served a mission there speaking Cambodian ( they said he was their favorite missionary and still keep in contact with him,) Elder and Sister Wilson, who arrived here from England about 2 months after I got here. Yesterday, as all the missionaries were watching a film for New Years, Sister Wilson came in before, and announced that since we sang "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" to the orphans earlier that week, and some of us asked " what is a figgy pudding anyway?" she had actually made some figgy pudding for us to try, and asked if anyone wanted to try some, to which I replied " we won't go until we get some!" ( happily most people got it :). So we ate figgy pudding and watched a movie for new years ( I don't know if anyone wants figgy pudding ever again.) Sister Gaya (president's wife), who is an excellent French cook, also contributed greatly to the wonderful New Year's breakfast.

This last week was really fun. There is a lot more drunk people in this new area ( as I may have mentioned before) and drunk people always make a point to talk to the white guys (usually in French or English, neither of which are they usually able to speak). Often, we are invited to sit down and drink with them. We always refuse, however some of our best members were former alcoholics contacted while they were drunk because it's really easy to get an address from drunk people. And if you can read their handwriting, they give you the actual address and really tell you were they live ( Sober people often give us a false address to get rid of us, I don't know why they don't just say " I'm not interested" there would be a lot less walking.) Anyway, this week we were invited to join some people drinking, even though they knew exactly who we are, so they bought us a large bottle of Coke and asked us to explain some questions they had about English. We said we had to go, but they gave us the coke anyway, ( I never drank coke before the mission, but I recommend it after eating "questionable" meals ( even though sometimes, there's no question, i.e. cow stomach) because it kills most things in your stomach.) They gave us the Coke and insisted that we answer a question about English that was really troubling them. So we asked what the question was. He said " what mean this? ' Fuzzywuzzy was a bear. Fuzzywuzzy had no hair, Fuzzywuzzy wasn't very fuzzy, was he?' I do not understand this! Who is this Fuzzywuzzy? What is Fuzzy? Why didn't he have her? and who was she anyway?" The person asking the question was so serious about this that my companion and I couldn't help but laughing hysterically. My companion kept laughing as I feebly tried to explain. I don't think he got it. But hey, we got a free Coke.

I seem to recall that all the kids in our family have at some point been caught sleep-talking, all of them except, correct me if I'm wrong, me. I might have sleep-talked before, but either nobody told me about it, or nobody's ever heard me. Anyway, I was always kind of proud of this distinction, because usually people say the most ridiculous things when they sleep-talk, and are later made fun of for it. Well, I am now with my 5th companion on the mission, and all of them say that they have heard me sleep-talk more than a couple of times. The funny thing is, none of them have heard me sleep-talk in English. Apparently, when I sleep-talk, it's always in Malagasy. So there, you have it, the only reason I didn't sleep-talk before was because I couldn't speak Malagasy back then. And now everything makes sense again:)

Well, it's always lovely to hear from you. No, I still haven't received your package, but I'm not worried. I'm sure it will turn up some time. Oh yeah, my companion and I won the "mission's mandatory p-day pizza contest" last week. This was great because I was visibly opposed to the words " mandatory" and "p-day" being in the same sentence, but then we won, and both received snickers bars. They were good, ( and the name of the candy was appropriate;). I just thought I'd throw that in there before I closed, which I must do shortly. Ok then, happy new year again. I love you all, and I hope you are all doing well. Veloma! (pronounced veh-loom, in case you were wondering)

Elder Draper.

06 December 26--Kirisimasy

Hello again,

It was great to talk to all of you yesterday. It sounds like you guys had a really good Christmas. I had a good Christmas too, it was different, but good. I think the highlight was being able to talk to all of you.

We started out our Christmas by visiting an orphanage. Earlier in the week we bought some toys and candy to give them. We sang them some songs, I played the guitar, and then we gave them the toys and candy. They were really happy. After that, we went out to lunch. A lot of the missionaries wanted to go to this "Mexican" restaurant that we had discovered earlier in the month, but it ended up being closed. So, as we were walking back, we walked past this sign that said " sakafo Iranien" (which, being interpreted, is Persian Food! ;). I was excited and insisted that we go in. When I walked in and saw the guy behind the counter, I spoke the only Persian I know ( courtesy of dad) and he gave me the weirdest look and responded in Persian, and then asked in English; " you speak Farsi?" I told him that dad could. This was funny because, I'm sure the last place he expected to hear Persian was from an American white guy, in a restaurant in Madagascar. And then we started speaking Malagasy to the workers, and I think they were even more weirded out. I asked for pomegranate chicken, but they did not have it. But I did get something good, and I had basamati rice, which was nice. It was good, but the service was terrible. Some of the missionaries loved it, and inevitably, some of them well... did not. Oh well, I hope they can forgive me eventually.

Anyway, after lunch we went to an Old-folks home and sang them songs too. We talked with them for a little bit, they were really happy to talk to us. Then we gave them to fruit, sang some more songs, and said good bye. After that my companion and I went to an investigators house, and the fed us. We had goose and rice, and more rice. I also had ranopango which is basically burnt-rice-water. It's good, it tastes like "Postum", sort of, and it's been thoroughly boiled, so it won't kill me, I like it. Then after that, we went to a party at one of the missionary houses, where I got to talk to you guys. So basically, that was my Christmas. Today we have a "mandatory" white Elephant gift exchange, and pizza contest for P-day. I get to pick up my 60 dollar custom-made guitar today as well. That will be cool.

Well, I'm out of time, because I've got a really busy schedule today so, I love you all and I will write you next week. Veloma!
Elder Draper

06 December 17--Mr. SmithHat

Well hello again,

Thank you Richard Dibblee for the nice letter.

This week was eventful. I moved from Ankadindramamy to 67. My new companion is great. His name is Elder Edgley. He is 6' 4" and probably about 270 pounds. He is from Maryland and he reminds me alot of Josh Knell. We've been having a lot of fun quoting from some of our favorite comedians walking down the street i.e. Brian Regan, Bill Cosby, Steven Write, and Mitch Headburg ( he's the "Ducks eat for free at Subway" guy, hilarious) and some others. It's been fun.

67 is cool, it's the most city-like area I've worked in since I've been here. It is very flat, which is nice for the legs, but not so good for the scenery, but it's one of those, ya win some, ya lose some situations, but that's cool and my legs are happy. There's a lot more drunk people and other people engaged in less-than-wholesome activities here than in my last areas. But the Ward here is absolutely great ( yes, they have an actual ward, not a branch). I bore my testimony in church yesterday and made the mistake of saying " I'm really happy to serve with you in this "branch", and was immediately, and loudly corrected by everyone on the first row and the entire bishopric behind me, " WE'RE A WARD, NOT A BRANCH!" oops:) ( I'm just so used to saying branch is all.) Anyway, yeah, they're really great, and they sing really loud, which I love. I've already received my Malagasy name from the Bishop, "Rakotosatroka" I'm trying to think how to describe the meaning. "Rakoto" is one of the most common names in Madagascar, and they always mix it with something to describe the person. So , Rakoto, + satroka (hat) is my nickname ( in this ward at least.) Last night, they had a Christmas concert ( It still doesn't feel like Christmas, maybe it's 90 degree weather or the humidity, I don't know), and it was great. I really liked when the primary kids sang the songs I taught them in English " Dashing froo vah snow..." and " we wish you a meddy krissmas, and a happy new yeeaa!" I was really proud of them.

I'm still not completely familiar with this area, but I'm excited to get to know the people here. This week was so hectic, that I wasn't able to fulfill my goal of writing down the E-mail before I got here, so once again, I'm just rambling and I know I've forgotten to mention several things that I wanted to. But I think I do it this week. I'm more and more convinced that that is the way to do it because it's nice to write to you, but I get in a train of thought while writing and often forget what else I wanted to say, so I am going to write things as they happen this week. Well, I love you all, and I've gotta go so Merry Christmas! and Veloma!

Elder Draper

06 December 11--Third Rock from the Sun

Today (p-day) all of the missionaries played soccer. I've never seen a field in this country with grass. This was no exception, but it did have deep, muddy puddles all over it. Let me just say this; If someone wasn't covered in mud by the end of the game it's only because they weren't really playing. It was fun. My team lost of course, but I think we had more personality than the other missionary teams, i.e.: "Off sides? What does that mean?" or " This team's tricky, they're using "rules" against us, what's that all about?" Anyway, yeah, it was fun, but now I'm aching and tired and I have no idea what to write about........

Every two months, we have transfers, and that means that I am going to a new area on Thursday called Soixante-Sept (67) which is apparently the dirtiest part of town. But I'm excited because I hear the area is going well, and the branch is great (I've been there once, and I know they sing good and loud, which is not what I have found to be typical of members here.) This transfer with Elder Rock has gone great. Last week, we had 3 baptisms and confirmations, and were starting to get some great investigators as well.

We do have one crazy investigator that I'm not sure what we should do with. His name is Kelly. One of our biggest problems here is trying to get people to come to church. But the first time we met Kelly was at church, and we thought he was a member. Then we found out he wasn't and that he wanted to learn and that he was in our area. He's a really nice guy, but he was trying to do kung fu moves in the entrance of the church and may have scared some of our other investigators away.

Anyway, we set up an appointment, and he was there ( which usually doesn't happen.) We had a good discussion, and by the end we couldn't decide whether he was certifiably insane or just crazy happy, because he answered all the questions better than most people. His house, however, was a long way away, and we decided that the only way we would keep teaching was if he kept coming to church. He’s come to church every week. Now, I don’t know quite how to describe how many times we have tried to get some of our favorite investigators to come to church, and they have never, not once, come. The last thing we would think of doing would be to tell someone to STOP coming to church, but yesterday, and some other events leading up to it, confirmed our fears. Kelly, in all seriousness, told us that he is from another planet. He also said that he could speak every language fluently (however he refused to speak English) , and then started speaking gibberish—“speaking in tongues.” Then he stared and the sun for a really long time saying that on his planet he could stare at the sun all day and be just fine. We’re still trying to figure out what we should do about him.

I mention this to illustrate some of the different problems we encounter in this mission. Because this is a 3rd world country, you are more likely to meet a certifiably insane person just walking down the street here than you would in another country, because most people would get professional help in other places.

This is sometimes a problem for missionary work because, in this area alone, I know of a few inactive members that we have consistently gone to every week that need professional help. And it’s difficult to determine how to help them. Sometimes it’s difficult because it is apparent that they don’t want us there, or they tell us how they are destitute, and beg us for money.

We really do want to help, but we can't give money, in part because it's against the rules, and in part because even if we did give money, we would run out quick and what then? They more than likely wouldn't be helped. It's sad because they reject exactly what we can give them; they don't believe us when we say the gospel will help them more than money ever could.

I know it's difficult for these people. Poverty is real and terrible. I heard a statistic from a member from America that works for the Embassy here. He said if this country had a 5% increase economically every year for the next 20 years ( which is apparently completely unheard of) they would catch up to some of the poorest countries in Africa. I don't know how true that statistic is, but I've seen the living conditions for some of these people, and I don't need statistics to see that poverty is a big problem here.

Well, it's great to hear from you, My goal this week is to take Dad's suggestion about writing the E-mail during the week and that way my thoughts will be more clear and articulate ( maybe:) and if not that, at least they'll be longer.

OK. Well, I love you all, Merry Christmas by the way ( I got to teach all the primary kids "Jingle Bells" and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" in English yesterday at church, it was fun, and a bit of a challenge because they can't for the life of them pronounce " TH" or the English "R" so I ended up singing with them " ..... jingle all vu way" ) OK Veloma! for reals this time.

Elder Draper

06 December 3--Manahoana

(Original email title: Manahoana! "mana- 'one' (making the 1 sound like "own" as in; " I own a 25$ guitar") just in case you were wondering how to pronounce that.)

Well hi there,

Wow, it's nice to hear about everything. I didn't get an E-mail last week, so I was able to read both of them this week and I don't know where to begin. You guys are certainly keeping yourselves busy. It's been a fairly uneventful week comparatively speaking. And at this point, I don't know what to even consider "eventful" anymore, because I'm used to all of the things I used to consider "odd". It's not strange to me anymore that as I walk down the street, everybody's staring. Before, I used to wonder what they were staring at, and sometimes I would look to see if there was something on my shirt, or on my face, " did I miss a spot shaving?" " Is my zipper down?" . Now, If I see a white person, I'm almost temped to shout " Jereo! eo misy Vazaha!" ( look! there's a white guy) It's funny how things work. I can truthfully say that the word " vazaha!" does not bother me anymore, which is nice. It's amazing to me how completely racial barriers are destroyed when you really get to know somebody.

I'm in a nice Internet cafe right now listening to Christmas music in French, it's really hot outside and somebody's staring at me as I'm writing this- somehow I am not reminded of Christmas, but I don't think Christmas will ever be like this again after the mission, so I'm enjoying whatever version of Christmas I can get.

Yesterday were elections and we weren't allowed to leave the house except for church in the morning. Last time there was elections, the guy who lost kind of went crazy and blew up some bridges and caused some riots ( I guess demanding a "recount" just wasn't dramatic enough) and they pulled the missionaries out of the country. So this time, they've had the American Government looking over things just in case. But I don't think anything like that will happen again because everybody likes the president now, and he doesn't seem the dictator type. And if he loses, everybody got a free T-shirt from him (me too) so he'll still have lots of people wearing his shirts and that should make him feel better. Anyway, during our confinement to the house, we had Teriyaki Chicken and rice, which was really good, and I rediscovered that I really like to read. My companion decided that he would go insane if we ever had to stay inside for a week. I still don't know who won the elections, but we were given the OK to leave the house this morning and everything seems to be going fine.

Well once again I'm out of time because I 've spent most of it waiting for the computer to work, but it's been really nice to hear from you. I'm amazed at all of the things going on in your lives, the marriages, the mission calls, the babies etc.... I'm sad to miss all of it, but I'm truly grateful to be here. I'm realizing more and more that it doesn't matter where you are on your mission that it can be the best thing for you. It is certainly not the easiest thing I've ever done, in fact it's quite the opposite but I sometimes I can feel what it's doing to me, what it's doing for the people here, and that's what makes me want to do more. I think....I think I think too much, and for some reason I can't articulate any of it right now. Oh well, I should probably be going anyway. Well, it's been nice writing to you, I love you all, and I pray for you everyday. Veloma!

Elder Draper

06 November 26--Still Small Rain

Well,

Our first appointment this week was good. It was with a fairly recent investigator named Padoue ( we contacted him while trying to see who could get more rejections). Padoue is skeptical of religion in general, and it's obvious he's been to lots of other churches before, and has received missionaries from lots of different churches before. So consequently, he likes to argue. Sometime during our first discussion, I stopped the lesson and basically told him that if he wanted to argue with us, he wasn't going to get anywhere, and that we had better things to do with our time. He listened much better after that, however every so often, he would start up again and dispute a passage of scripture that I'm pretty sure he hadn't even read before we presented it to him. Any way, somehow through it all, we've managed to get him to read the Book of Mormon, and during our last appointment, he had some legitimate questions. We answered them and proceeded to testify about the Book of Mormom and that if he read it , he could know for himself whether it was true or not and had him read Moroni 10:3 - 5. He was silent for a moment , and then said, " you can say that and it's great, but...." and just then the rain came. Now, I've been in this country awhile, and I've seen some rain storms, but this was ridiculous. This rain storm came instantly, with no warning and it came hard, and we were in a house with a tin roof. The rain hit the tin roof hard, and it was like being in the middle of a crowded stadium, I couldn't even hear my companion who was right next to me yelling in English. So, all Padoue could do was sit and read and wait for the rain to stop (and it didn't stop, in fact, it got worse). In the end, he stood up and told us to come back later because he wanted to learn more, but I think the rain helped. He was about to argue again, and was silenced by the rain. We got up and were about to go, this surprised him that we were about to go out into the storm, we told him we had another appointment to go to, and I think this surprised him even more. I think we left him with the impression that we're here for a reason and that we believe in what we're doing. We'll see if that comes to anything.

I don't have much time, this computer has been crashing the whole time. Thanksgiving was nice. after Thanksgiving was not so nice ( I've been pretty sick for the past 3 days because of it ;) but I'm doin' good now. Efa Salama Aho!

Well, nice to hear from you. Until next time Veloma!

Elder Draper