Last time I went to church....

Had some interesting escapades this week. Funny stuff first? Okay. 

Oh, by the way, pictures of the tiger are attached. 

So we had all kinds of stuff happen this week. We were all over the place. Went to Springfield three times this week. Sheesh. 

Anyway, on Friday we went to ElDorado springs and our first appointment was with a less active lady that we've been working with for a while. While visiting with her when we first got there, she told us about how she and her son are going to Florida next weekend - a 30 hour car trip.  Then we had a really good lesson, the spirit was there, inspired and all that, and we were trying to get her to commit to coming to church. So I gave her the challenge, "Sister ____ will you come to church this week?"

Pointing outside to their car she responded, "That car out there can't go anywhere. The radiator is broken...." and talked about some other things that were wrong with it.

"What if we get you a ride?" I proposed. This is where things get scary. Almost in slow motion this poor sister's face started to strain, her brow furrowed, out came the waving arms of frustration and doom as she stood and stared us down, yelling at the top of her voice, 

WARNING: EDITED EXPLICIT LANGUAGE AHEAD 

"LAST TIME I WENT TO CHURCH I $&@! MYSELF! I HAD TO LEAN OVER TO MY FRIEND AND TELL HER 'WE NEED TO GO BECAUSE I JUST $&@! MYSELF AND THEN I HAD TO SIT IN MY $&@! THE WHOLE WAY HOME!"

EDITED EXPLICIT LANGUAGE ENDS HERE

Apparently she has some G.I. tract problem that prevents her from sitting through church. We didn't ask her how that works with driving thirty hours to Florida though. We just kind of apologized, tried to close the lesson in the best way possible and left. The good news is she doesn't hate us and Elder Allred and I have a new inside joke!

So that was good fun. 

Adventure 2:

On Sunday, Elder Allred and I had about 20 minutes downtime before dinner and saw a brand spanking new pretty Subaru BRZ parked in the grocery store parking lot, so of course we went and parked next to it to look at it- I mean, to review what we were going to share at our appointment. We parked, pulled through to the empty stall opposite us and admired...our plans for the appointment. When we pulled forward to leave, I did a quick glance to make sure nobody was coming up or down the parking lot lane and pulled forward. Looking left at the beautiful plans we had made for the lesson and not the car, I suddenly hit something! There was some guy in a truck that was flying through the parking lot, cutting through the lanes who passed right in front of me at a 45 degree angle and I tagged the back of his truck. Ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, I want you all to know that this is the first accident I have been in that was notlegally my fault. Pretty sweet, huh? Anyway, the guy was cool and now I have more paperwork to do so that's cool. 

Okay enough with the adventures. 

Our wonderful Fundamentalist friends have interviews coming up! Woo!! That's about eight people if Alma's kids want to be baptized, which they did last time I checked. But they don't need a special interview anyway. So that's super awesome sauce. We'll keep you posted on that. We are very excited. We all thought this would take six months or something, but it didn't! Sweet Virginia Barbecue Sauce! 

Also we have another lady with a baptismal date for June 21!

So yeah, The Lord is awesome and blesses us with awesome stuff even though we don't deserve it. It's been quite the eventful week. 

I hope that all of you are doing swell as usual. I miss you and love you and am praying for you and all that stuff. Keep being awesome. 

Love, 

Elder Christopher Drake

May 12th

Okay so first things first:

Elder Allred forgot to grab the little USB thingy so no pictures this week :( I know you were all looking forward to seeing that horrible tiger but it seems that we'll all have to wait another week. It's kind of what they're doing to us with iPads. "End of 2013!...Early Spring!...Okay, maybe June!..."

It was awesome getting to see the fam for Mother's day. I miss you guys. It's always hard to say goodbye. I don't know how missionaries manage to stay within the time limit.

This week was good but a little slower than ususual, so that's kind of a bummer. We do have a couple new people to teach though, and that's awesome. One of them, Lacy, has come to church twice!

We had a Zone Outing today over in Springfield, which was a lot of fun. We had a barbecue, hung out in a park, and some people played sports and all that jazz. I opted to play cards with some missionaries because I'm not all sporty like that. Doesn't help with the whole chubby thing. 

It rained today. Actually it's raining right now. A lot. We got some good thunder and lightning and all that stuff. The weather out here is cool. But like everybody else says, "If it weren't for the bugs and the humidity..."

Speaking of bugs, the "Elder Drake Tick Count" is up to 2. Thanks to the twenty tick fiasco of 2013 I no longer have to get the Vaseline or a match and spend 20 minutes trying to get it to back out, I just pull them out WITH MY BARE HANDS. I'm so hardcore now. 

Oh Happy Mother's day to all of the wonderful women who have been a mother to me. A huge shout out to my real mother, because she's the best ma in the world and I know all y'alls are jealous. 

This week was kind of uneventful. Well, all except an awesome zone conference we had. I want to share one thing from it, actually. President Shumway pretty much spoke the whole time. He talked about how we need to work on pride, and a bunch of other stuff that we need to work on. At the end of the conference he told us about his experience in a Mission President's training he had recently. Elder Bednar was there, and he told us about this experience he had. The other authority that was there opened the floor for questions, and President Shumway told us about his question.

He told us,  "A while ago, I got a message on my phone from Tiwi (our driving monitoring system) that reported one of my missionaries was driving over 100 miles per hour. I called the missionary and asked him, 'How fast are you going?'  

"'Too fast.'  he replied. The worst part about all of this was that there were five other missionaries in the car. My question was, 'How should I have handled that situation differently if I could have?'

"Elder Bednar responded, 'You go back and tell that missionary, and tell all of your missionaries, that if they can't learn to make the right choices when they're in that sort of environment, surrounded by other missionaries, then they are not going to be able to make it in the real world when they get home because it is going to get a lot worse.'"

My paraphrasing probably doesn't do it justice, but it was powerful. Apostolic warning that we need to be clinging to the Iron Rod of which Lehi spoke. We can't get away with nonchalantly placing a hand on the way back to God, but we have to cling on with everything we have, otherwise we'll never make it. 

Cling to the rod people! 

Love you bunches. I promise I'll get you those pictures next week! 

Love,  

Elder Christopher Drake

Free Tigers and False Doctrine

Let us see how this week went. 

In order from Most awesome to not as awesome:

1) Margaret's baptism

2) Free Tiger

3) Awesome lessons with investigators 

4) Elder Allred being....assaulted by an investigator's wiener dog

5) Haircuts 

6) Eating "healthy" and exercising and stuff

Margaret is awesome. She was baptized. And then she made us cobbler on Sunday. She's sweet though, I'll send along a picture or two because I'm repenting and stuff. 

On Saturday, after the baptism, we drove down the main street and this tiger that has been sitting in front of someone's house forever has a sign on it saying "FREE RING DOORBELL" so of course we rang the doorbell. Turns out this tiger is made of concrete. Too late, we already committed so here we go. Now we have a huge concrete tiger in the back of our truck and everyone gives us weird looks. We're going to let an investigator family adopt him they just don't know about it yet. 

Our Fundie friends have been doing great, as always, just waiting, as always. We're working on getting one family in particular - Melvin and Nikita Williams and their kids. We love them. They're so much fun and just awesome and need to be baptized already, but it's hard for them. That's a big decision and they could get a lot of flack for it. Lucky for them the Church is true. We're hoping the tiger will help them along a little.

Speaking of Melvin and Nikita they got a wiener dog, which is weird, because farm people don't usually have inside dogs. His name is Jack and he's sweet. He got a little inappropriate with Elder Allred though. I tried to warm him, but apparently Elder Allred has never had to deal with such forward dogs and so didn't really get what was happening at first. It was a good laugh. Oh Jack! 

We got haircuts and I look fly. Working on that pompadour. 

Well I hope that you all are doing super duper awesome and stuff. Things are just plugging right along here. 

Oh! I almost forgot! Geeze, and it's even in my subject line, how embarrassing. Okay, so we went to High Priests quorum on Sunday because of reasons. Holy moly. We walk in late and immediately we can feel that somethings not quite right. We just figure it's old man awkwardness, but the brother who's giving the lesson is going off on craaaazy stuff like plural marriage and stuff. He even gave us a handout that told us to "refer to the revelations given to John Taylor that were not canonized in 18--" something or other. Everyone was just confused and finally, a brother said, "You're preaching false doctrine. There is a strange spirit in this room and you should stop." and then the rest of the lesson became kind of a struggle between the teacher and the high priests trying to convince him that he shouldn't be teaching from anything but the scriptures and the approved manuals for class. So that was fun. Moral of the story: If you're old and crazy don't teach your old and crazy ideas at church. 

 

Love you all, hope you're awesome as always, and hope you're enjoying the warmth as much as I am. If it's not warm where you are, I'm sorry and hope it warms up for you. 

Loves,. 

Elder Christopher Drake

April 28th

I just got off the phone with Margaret, one of our investigators. She called to tell us how she had decided last night to read out of the Book of Mormon by the light of her phone. Her book fell open to 3 Nephi and she began to read about the Savior's ministry; especially his instructions on baptism.

Being able to see how the Lord blesses those who desire to follow Him is one of the coolest things about being a missionary. 

This week has been up and down. We've been busy, but slow at the same time. One of those weird weeks where everything seems to indicate that you've been busy and productive but it feels like you've been sitting on your couch watching reruns of Law and Order:SVU eating Cheetos. 

I do have a fun story though. The weather has been crummy. Warm but wet. We were out on the Ranch and had a spare hour with nothing to do and a truck so we went exploring. Then we got stuck in some mud. Luckily we were right by some dude's property and he pulled us out. But only after we spent about an hour trying to save our pride and get ourselves out. Lesson: Don't be prideful and pay attention to where you're driving because it might just be 8 inches of mud and passenger tires on a small truck just don't do. 

How's everybody's dream chasing going? It's weird, because nobody's offered to buy me a race car yet, and it's really starting to irritate me. Progress is so slow! I spent some time thinking about how I wanted to proceed, or rather, how I should proceed. I started with making an effort to more closely follow the rules, then I took some time Sunday morning to pray and ask what I needed to do next. 

No angels yet, but I felt slightly impressed to extend the arm of forgiveness towards a few people. Or at least start the process. Boy, that's hard to do sometimes. Especially since I think I'm always right. 

I read some great talks this morning about forgiving others. There were a couple that I remembered, mostly because of the amazing stories of horrible things that happened to people who still managed to forgive those who had so injured them. Forgiveness is one of those things that I tend to think affects me more in the scope of small things. I've never had anybody do anything horrible or life shattering to me, but I think we've all had a bunch of little offenses thrown our way. Elder Holland said, "There are little clichés that we learn early in our lives. Most of them I hate; some of them I really hate. I think number one on my list is 'Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me.' I hate that. I’ll take sticks and stones any day" 

I've never been beaten with sticks or stones, so I can't really say for sure, but I've seen the damage done by a few words and I think I agree with Elder Holland. 

To me, there's not much worse than knowing that somebody doesn't like you, especially if it's for something you know you've done wrong. And for some reason, the inverse is also true. There's not much worse than trying to forgive someone you don't like for something that they've done to you. 

I find myself often saying things like "Oh, I love the guy, I think he's great, but..." Why the but? Stop talking about buts. Nobody likes a but. Let's drop the buts and start focusing on the good things. 

Have a hard time with that? Me too. Especially with the gossiping part. I think girls and guys gossip differently, but we all do it and we should all stop. I think that's the first step for me, is to stop talking smack about people. 

Quote time? Yeppers. 

President Uchtdorf said, 

"Forgiving ourselves and others is not easy. In fact, for most of us it requires a major change in our attitude and way of thinking—even a change of heart. But there is good news. This “mighty change” of heart is exactly what the gospel of Jesus Christ is designed to bring into our lives.

How is it done? Through the love of God.

When our hearts are filled with the love of God, something good and pure happens to us. We “keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous. For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world.”

The more we allow the love of God to govern our minds and emotions—the more we allow our love for our Heavenly Father to swell within our hearts—the easier it is to love others with the pure love of Christ. As we open our hearts to the glowing dawn of the love of God, the darkness and cold of animosity and envy will eventually fade."

Can't argue with that. 

The Addiction Recovery Program should be renamed. Well maybe not. Instead, I think we should overcome our pride and realize that we're all addicted in one way or another. It's all about overcoming the natural man and I love it. Step 8 is about seeking forgiveness.

There is nothing more gangrenous and corrosive than a festering grudge in hearts of men, and there is nothing more cleansing and uplifting than the spirit of forgiveness. 

I love to be forgiven, don't you? I also love when people apologize to me and I have a chance to clean the slate officially. I think we've all offended somebody or been offended by somebody. 

My first step to dream chasing is to let my poor little heart heal up and forgive people. Step 8 will be a big help, methinks. 

President Eyring said, 

"The pavilion that seems to be hiding you from God may be fear of man rather than this desire to serve others. The Savior’s only motivation was to help people. Many of you, as I have, have felt fear in approaching someone you have offended or who has hurt you. And yet I have seen the Lord melt hearts time after time, including my own. And so I challenge you to go for the Lord to someone, despite any fear you may have, to extend love and forgiveness. I promise you that as you do, you will feel the love of the Savior for that person and His love for you, and it will not seem to come from a great distance. For you, that challenge may be in a family, it may be in a community, or it may be across a nation.

"But if you go for the Lord to bless others, He will see and reward it. If you do this often enough and long enough, you will feel a change in your very nature through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Not only will you feel closer to Him, but you will also feel more and more that you are becoming like Him. Then, when you do see Him, as we all will, it will be for you as it was for Moroni when he said: “And now I bid unto all, farewell. I soon go to rest in the paradise of God, until my spirit and body shall again reunite, and I am brought forth triumphant through the air, to meet you before the pleasing bar of the great Jehovah, the Eternal Judge of both quick and dead. Amen.”

Amen to that!

So that's my dream chasing update. Go chase 'em! 

Love yous!

Elder Christopher Drake

PS Pictures. 

This first one is my District. That's Elder VanHouten, me, Elder Sarceno, and Elder Allred. We went asplorin' last Monday. We did not get stuck. 

Second one is Elder Allred and I. 'Nuf said. 

Here's our lovely stuck truck. We got really dirty. Well I got really dirty. Elder Allred found some basketball shorts to protect his shirt, muck boots, and snow gloves. He got off okay.

Elder Christopher Drake