Drake went golfing, weird

20 Jan 2009

Dear Family,

This was another fairly good week. The baptism went really well. We had a good showing of about 20 members with us who were all supportive of Hernan and his parents. His uncle, the recent convert, did the baptism (after the third try), and it was a really good experience. My companion had to give the talk on baptism and the Holy Ghost because the Aunt and Cousin backed out. And I played from the prelude book that I received last Christmas I believe for the interlude. Many of the sisters that came brought cake and pan dulce (a dryer cake with fruit inside which is alright). It was great to have this little reception to have the members develope friendships with each other and the parents of Hernan. One Brother was talking with the Dad about where they worked and found out that they work really close to one another. Another Hermano (Brother) overheard and said “Oh! I work really close to there too!” I hope that this will help the parents take the step to get married so that the Mom can get baptised (and more importantly to obey the law of God and receive the blessings). And we´d love to talk with the Dad one day. We really need more Priesthood holders in this ward, in South America in general.

We had one discussion this week that I never thought we would have with an investigator. We had to console the non-member mother of a missionary about a Dear John letter he received. He took it really hard (especially since he is older for a missionary, 26) and lost a lot of weight really quickly. He received permission to call home to talk with his mom. She told him what should be told, “their are other fish in the sea.” But she took it pretty hard too, so we had to talk about it a little. I just find it really funny that we had to talk about that with an investigator. My companion likes to tell other missionaries who have girlfriends that the chances that you are to marry your girlfriend is 2% according to the statistics of the church. I don´t think that he told that to her, but he did to E`Born and E`Zollinger. To all my friends, if you get engaged during these two years, I´d like to get a marriage announcement. E´Spendlove received one a few weeks ago and I´d like to know. The importance of the family does augment while on the mission.

Today for P-day, we went to play golf. It was fun, but really, really expensive. I don´t think it was worth it for how expensive it was. We were told by a member that lives right in front of it (and I think his grandfather works there) that it is $20 pesos. We went and they charged us $45 each one. Then we found out that this didn´t include the clubs. We had to pay $110 to rent a bag of clubs. That is carisimo! So we spent $75 for 2-3 hrs. of golf. We´re not doing that again.

We had another investigator come to church! I think I told you last week that E´Born and I went back to contact Natividad, the investigator who did really well in October for a week but then rejected us. She has a baptismal date for 14th of February, but we are going to be extremely careful with her. She seems interested and to like everything, but we´re not sure if her motives are right. She said she really liked the church and she doesn´t know why she stopped coming, but what it seems like she really wants is someone to teach her to read. She has had bad sight her entire life, so her dad took her out of school when she was young causing her not to learn. She still has really bad sight (I don´t think recognized us at first) but thinks she could learn to recognized the symbols and words if she had someone teach her. We´ll see what we can do through the Relief Society, but we told her we couldn´t promise anything. She has also been taking lessons from Jehovah´s Witnesses, but is going to tell them not to come by. It sounded like she said that they told her no that they couldn´t help her learn to read. So, we will continue teaching her and be very aware to see if she is really converting to the church or just trying to use us. I hope that she will become a faithful member even if I don´t think I´ll be in this area to see her through the entire process.

I hope that everything will go well with you all for another week. Oh, I just remembered. I was reading the conference talks, and the second one is by one of the couselors in the Relief Society about member missionary work. The 12 or so suggestions she makes is exactly what we as missionaries need. We are expected to do 5-10 lessons with members present, which means that we really need the members open to go on visits with us or open up the home to teach an investigator within. I´m glad to hear that Dad has gone with the missionaries a few times. That is wonderful. We need any member we can get to be available to share their testimonies with others.

Also, could someone (namely Jessica) look for the address of Elder Bryan Rees. He sent me another letter, but is now in Poland. If I sent a letter to the address I have (the MTC) it would probably take about 6 months – year to get there (it took forever for me to receive the registration to vote). It would be much quicker to just send it straight to him. So, could you get ahold of that for me. He´s a friend on my facebook account and his address should be there. Thanks.

It is time to write my letter to the president. We do that at after these letters now. I love you all and hope that you´ll always have the Spirit to guide you to the true hapiness and life that our Hevenly Father wants you to have.

Love,
Elder Drake Ranquist