A week in the life of a missionary

13 Enero 2009

Querida familia,

Ahora siento bien. I believe I had a pretty good week even if everything didn´t work out as planned. The baptism was rescheduled, which we were a bit disappointed about, but it happens at times. The family Pereira (namely aunt, uncle, and cousins) of Hernan weren´t able to make it to the baptism that day, so they cancelled the baptism without our knowledge. We walked up the church to fill the baptismal font and read a post-it that said “Elderes, El bautismo se posponó. El Obispo.” The Pereira family were in another city (when I say city, I mean other municipality of the province Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires Central is the capital city. I live in the municipality of Merlo.) when a surprise birthday party came up to which they couldn´t get out of. Sandro Pereira was going to do the baptism, Roxana has the talk on baptism, and Lucas the talk on the Spirit. So, they decided to postpone the baptism until this Friday. So we wait more.

Before I continue, I want to say thank you to all those that wrote and sent packages recently. We receive the letters that were sent every Monday in our District Mettings. Yesterday, I hit jackpot because of all of you. I received 3 letters, 2 DearElders, and a package. Grandma and Grandpa, thank you very much for the ties, socks, and treats. I really like it all, and so do the other Elders in our pensión. Something really cool and interesting happened with the cookies. Because of heat or humidity, the cookies gathered the minty taste of the mints in the package. It tasted really good. Elder Spendlove and Elder Zollinger are also begging me for the two ties you sent. You´ve always given me my favorite ties. And I think I´ll need the new socks soon as well. Thank you everyone. It is always great to receive from the old familiar world.

Since Elder Spendlove is District leader, he has to do divisions twice a week now. He almost always goes to the area of the other elders to help train the how they can work better in their own area, leaving me behind to guide the work in Villa Amelia. At times it is really stressful for me because I am still inexperienced. I like having more of the control to do the work, to participate more, but at the same time, I don´t always know what to do in many situations. One problem is although I can understand 70-80% of what people say, there is still a lot of room for error. And I´m still slow to speech, so it is hard for me to keep control of the lesson and guide their beliefs to the true doctrines.

Although divisions can be hard, they can be a lot of fun too. Especially yesterday. Elder Spendlove did divisions with Rivadavia, the Elders in our pensión. So, I had Elder Born as my companion again! Only for a day, but it was great to work with him again. We´ve grown so much. We had a great day of work and a great day to be together as friends. He can teach and connect with the people really well. He is going to do really well in the mission. We enjoyed remembering all of the experiences of the MTC we had together, which seems forever ago. We also worked hard, found new people to teach, and helped Hernan and Carlos come closer to the waters of baptism and the fruit of eternal life. It is interesting to think that we are going to spend at least a fourth of our mission living together. I think I will be transferred at the end of this month and I will really miss him. It is still possible that we´ll be zone leaders or something together, which would be really cool (although I have no aspirations to be a leader). But yes, yesterday was a great day with him in the work of the Lord.

No, Carlos didn´t go to church Sunday. We went by in the morning, but he had a list of excuses why he couldn´t go. Clothes weren´t ready, he had his mom coming to visit at 10:30, and other things. But I believe that he still has potential. He will have to wait until the 6th of February to be baptized, after the time I think I´ll be here, so I won´t see it. But nonetheless, I hope he becomes a strong convert to righteousness.

Many times I think this work is more to prepare me for my life than it is for me to change the life of others. Before my mission, I was so confident with everything, now I see my weaknesses as black spots on a silk sheet. I am learning how to be a servant of the Lord and son of God for the eternities. I will work my best to help others find greater happiness, but I will also work my best to make the changes I need to prepare myself for the future responsibilities I know I will have in the future. I know God has that power to make me strong in my weakness. I know He can do it for me and for every other person that humbles himself before Him. I´m so grateful for that redeeming grace after all that we can do.

With Love,
Elder Drake Ranquist