Birthday gifts

21 Apr 2009

Dear Family,

Ah, I used nearly all my time reading and formating your letters in order to print them! I´ll try to get said what I need to.

I´m glad to hear that things are starting to calm down. And the report about religion was really interesting. I can see the same trend happening here too. The majority of the people say they are Catholics, but don´t go to church. There are more and more saying that they aren´t apart of a religion and there are many atheists as well. But I´m glad to hear that the church is maintain its percentage and is growing all over the world.

To answer the question of what I might want in my birthday question, I´m going to make a Dumbledore request. I probably haven´t searched around enough, but I´d like some more black socks. Many of my good ones have lost a lot of their color. It is kind of weird, on the outside some are nearly white now, but on the inside, are still pretty black. So, I have been wearing them insideout. The socks I have found are of the smaller, finer type and I prefer the thicker cotton, especially since we´re headed into winter (and I prefer the thicker type as well because the mosquitos have a harder time biting me through them). The other two things I´d like is a pack of mechanical pencils. I´m following the example of my companion and am using mechanical pencil to make all the plans in my planner. They are more expensive here, don´t come in packs, and don´t come with erasers. And my other request is a bit of chocolate. There isn´t much good chocolate here. I´d love some Snickers. Yeah, those are my requests. Oh, and ties are always nice.

This week, I´ll admit has been really stressful. The family of Ana María weren´t baptized this past week because we are having some problems with the ward mission leader and the Bishop. Every baptism this ward has had, the missionaries have had problems over the same theme. We have spent a lot of time calling our mission leaders, consulting with them what to do, studying the rules to answer the questions that we have. I believe that the problem will be fixed this week. But I wish to praise my companion for how he has acted through all of this. He has acted with love, trying to avoid contention, but also knowing what is right. Some of the missionaries that hit this same difficulty didn´t act with such distinction.

But I know this is the work of the Lord and that He gives inspiration to all of His leaders. I know that the Spirit will be with us all as we seek it and are worthy. Sorry this letter is so short. Have a great week.

With love,
Elder Drake Ranquist