Dear Family,
My mission will never be the same. We had our transfer meeting yesterday and my companion, E´Gonzalez is now in Lujan. I hope that my best moments in my mission haven´t already passed. He truely is a great friend. I don´t say that because of all the success we had together, but because we truely grew to become good friends. He has a manner of loving the people and helping them that I haven´t seen in another. He also finds everything intersting, but especially the sciences. He was a walking Discovery Channel, having always watched it before the mission and was always really interesting. I hope to be able to maintain contact with him throughout my life. He wants to go to BYU, but I´m not sure if his English is good enough yet. But I´d love to be roommates with him afterwards.
Yeah, I´m a mix of emotions right now because not only has E´Gonzalez left, I am now Senior Companion. My new companion is E´Rivas. He is also from Santiago, Chile. E´Gonzalez didn´t have a Chilean accent, E´Rivas does and speaks a ton faster. I have a bit harder time understanding him. I can understand him and will grow used to how he speaks, but it is a little more difficult. Before the mission, he was in the Chilean army, so he has a bit of that discipline and possibly that flair to fight. We arrived in Argentina at the same time. I think that the only reason I´m Senior companion is that I had an extra month and a half in the MTC, which really doesn´t mean anything in terms of mission experience. We´ll see how things work out. He does have an interest in science at least. He was asking me about Black Holes.
The family of Ana María were baptized this week, but it wasn´t the happiest of occassions. I felt really bad for the fight that occured. The Bishop was set in his way that he was the one who decides who does the baptisms and that if there are worthy priests available, that they should do the majority of the baptisms. The family wanted us to do most of the baptisms and the Bishop didn´t agree with that. All of our mission leaders, including President Benton, agreed with us, that we should do the baptisms so that they have a memorable, spiritual experience. We tried to fix the situation before the family caught wind of it, but one morning, the Bishop went to Seminary to tell Gabriela, the oldest daughter, that the missionaries shouldn´t baptize and that the Priests were going to do the baptisms. This didn´t go over well at all, especially with Ana María, because she said why did he go to my daughter instead of to me two weeks ago. Why now? We did our best to help them maintain a good image of the Bishop. Because really he is a great bishop. We just don´t agree about a few points concerning missionary work.
We tried to fix the problem before the baptism. We called the stake president and he told us we were right, that we should baptize, and that he would talk with the Bishop. So, we followed his counsel. But nothing happened. At the baptism, my district leader, zone leaders, and the assistents to the president came to help. President Benton himself didn´t come because he had a conference. Eight missionaries. There was a lot of arguing and after an hour, the family themselves decided to allow to of the priests to baptize two of them. So, E´Gonzalez baptized Ana María, a priest Gabriela (18 yr-old daughter who wanted another priest who didn´t come to baptize her), another priest baptized Federico (16 yr-old son who wanted E´Gonzalez baptize him), I baptized Florencia (13), and Elder Lloyd (our district leader from Castillo 2 who lives with us and knows the family) baptized Victor (9 yrs old who wanted E´González baptize him).
I felt especially bad for the investigators that we had there. Who had to wait an hour for it to begin and surely heard a bit of the arguing. But I´m glad the family felt and decided that more important than who does the baptism is that they be baptized. To try to solve this problem, we will have a reunion with the Bishop in a few weeks with President Benton. I hope that all will be resolved and that we won´t have any more problems. I would love someone who had a calling like you dad to help us resolve this problem.
With Love to all of you,
Elder Drake Ranquist
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