Sorry!

Sorry I didn't post Drake's, or I should say Elder Ranquist's, letter last week. Nutcracker has now started and is keeping me extra busy. I'll try to do better though!

2 Dec 2008

Dear Family,

I think I´ll start by responding to Mom and Dad´s letters, then I have something to ask, and then some great news. I´m glad you are feeling better Dad and I´m glad you all enjoyed thanksgiving. I completely forgot about Thanksgiving during our lunch that day and didn´t really think about it too much throughout the day. To be honest, Thanksgiving was never a big holiday for me. I don´t know. But, I´m glad that you could enjoy it with the Lemmons. I recently received a letter from Sarah redeclaring that her family is moving. I´m glad that Bro. Lemmon could find a better job, but I´ll miss him as the music director.

We don´t hear much about US politics here other than that Obama will be the next president. So no, there have been no problems on the stance of the Church. We teach often that a man and a woman need to be married in order to conform with the teachings of Christ. We don´t have any problems with our stance on gay marriage. It hasn´t come up. And there is a baptismal question about if they have assisted in abortions, which we often have to answer questions why that question is there, but we haven´t had many problems with those “hot” issues of the US.

No, we don´t get to see the First Presidency fireside. Maybe if we find an investigator to take to the stake center, but I don´t think so. And about where we live, we are actually moving apartments Friday, but close to where we are now. So, we´ll still have to take the bus to our area. We have to plan about 30 min. of travel to and from our area every day. We pay a lot in bus fares. It is about a 30 min. walk to the beginning of our area, but our area is quite large so we take buses most of the time to get there and walk around the rest of the day.

This week it has rained quite a bit. My first experience of working in the rain. The past two months, it always rained during the night or during our studies and then let up as we went out to work. Friday we got caught in a downpour and were drenched. We eventually found a member´s house in which we took shelter for a little while. We didn´t have our umbrellas with us because the morning seemed nice. We don´t have news sources to warn us of the day´s weather. To be honest, I found it kind of fun. It annoyed my companion, but I liked it.

It continued to rain Sunday, but the primary program still went well. There were more members in attendance than the last time it rained because of the program. It was nice to hear and play the children songs I recognized. I liked it. And yes I play some of the music I brought on occasion, whether it be for preludes for zone conference or just to play while waiting for district meetings to begin. But, I don´t play too much. It is very possible that Jessica and Jonathan will improve to be a lot better than me after two years. (I plan on it!)

Sunday night we went to a less active family and talked about family goals. (lol, I read "goats" there) The mother left the family, so they have some problems because of that, but they want to come back to the church and be active. The two sons are preparing for missions now and we talked about what they need to do. It made me think about some of my goals and my plans. First of all, I´m not quite the missionary I want to be. I still have a ton of difficulties just opening my mouth to speak much less having good sensible sentences come out. But, I want to make December the best and hardest working month of my mission yet. Also, I realized how much many missionaries sacrifice in order to be on a mission. It made me wonder what more I can do to serve the Lord.

So, Dad, I think it would be appropriate if I paid what I can for my mission. There is still money in my bank account that could be used to pay for another portion of my mission. I know I can´t pay for all of it, but I´d like to pay for what I can. I was going to save that for when I returned so that I didn´t have to rely on you. But relying on you now to pay for the mission is the same thing. So, I might need a bit of help after my mission to get my life started, but I think that would be better than letting the funds I have now sit. I wasn´t able to describe that well, but I think you´ll understand my logic. And I know the Lord will bless me with what I need for the sacrifices I make now.

On the same theme, did UofL ever send the rest of the money I earned during the summer? I understood that I would $250 each week and I worked for 5 weeks. If you have questions about that, you can email Dr. Williger. You can either find his email address in my gmail account or on the UofL website.

Now for the great news. I have another baptism planned this transfer! We made a list of all of the members in certain areas and we are trying to pass by as many as possible to get to know them and to help the inactives and teach nonmembers of the incomplete families. One member of a family that makes up half of the active ward complained that we always pass by one member of the family and never them (one reason is because the mother is the Relief Society President and the father works with the young men and also because we are invited to eat there every Sunday), so we decided to pass by. We started talking and found out that their 9-yr. old son, Benjamin, wasn´t baptized.

So, it is kind of a freebee (I don´t know how to write that), but we have a baptism planned for two weeks from now (12 Dec). Once a child is 9, they fall under the jurisdiction of the mission. He wasn´t baptized at 8 because he has a surgery on his ears and the doctor said he couldn´t enter water and would have to wait a year. He has to receive the lessons and prepare for the interview, so we are working on how to present the information simply so that he can remember. He has some learning difficulties, so we will work with pictures, videos, and activities as much as we can. We will go to their house about every other day to make the preparations.

And just a tidbit about me. I am now using gel in my hair to keep a part and also I´m trying to stop crack my knuckles, especially my neck because it really bugs my companion. (that'll be the day) I learned a lot more about him this week and maybe I´ll have time to describe him a bit more next week.

Sepan que les amo a ustedes, mis padres y hermanos. Quiero que sean felices. Sé que este Evangelio es verdadero y que puede darnos la habilidad de enfrentarnos contra cualquier problema de vida. Jesucristo es nuestro Salvador y nuestra roca. Cuidense.

Con Amor,

Elder Drake Ranquist