Mom's questions answered

28 Jul 2009

Dear Family,

Ok, I´ll start off by answering some of Mom´s questions. Yes Mom, I´d love it if you sent me photos (I can´t say the word pictures any more because the word in Spanish is fotos). Especially if you sent a photo of the family now. But, don´t send me too much. I only have 50 GB of space in my mailbox and if it exceeds that, it will reject your letter. Last week, I was near the verge of exceeding my limit, but I deleted a good amount of stuff and have 15 GB of free space. I would try to limit the amount you send to 5GB or so at a time. The photos you send I can store on my camera and print out later.

How far away am I from the mission home? That´s a hard question to answer because I don´t even know where the mission home is. I know it is somewhere in the capital of Buenos Aires, but that´s not part of the West mission. But, I think it would take me 2-3 hours to get there by bus and train. You could probably use Google Earth see where it is. The address of the capilla (church building) is something like 2900 San Carlos, Moreno, Buenos Aires, Argentina. We live a bit far from it, but that should give an idea of where I work. The mission offices are in Ramos Mejía.

Why do I say I think Elder Cumrine will make things interesting in the pench? He tends to talk a lot and says a lot of weird things. At times it seems he lacks a little bit of maturity. But, he is a good elder anyways. But I think I understand why the President has had him “kill” two Elders and is now “killing” Elder Thomas. Don´t worry mom, I´m using mission terminology there. When we arrive, we are “born.” When we leave, we “die.” Our last companion is the missionary that kills us. So, I am saying that even though that he has a lot of time and experience in the mission field, President Benton has chosen to stick him with a lot of missionaries that have even more experience to keep him as Junior Companion.

And yes Mom, I´m warm enough. This large coat you bought for me is warm and endures the elements. Nearly every North American elder has this exact same coat. I also always use on of the sweaters as well, along with some kind of undergarment for the legs. I also often use gloves and am very grateful for the sports ear muffs that you allowed me to have before I left. They are extremely warm and keeps the bitter wind off of my ears. Wednesday, Elder Callejas and I had a lot of fun working together even though it was cold, wet, and windy.

Dad, you really chose to work on the A-300? I thought you hated that plane. That one is much bigger than your DC-8, isn´t it? But a little bit smaller than the 747 and the A-380. But, I can understand why´d you´d choose it if it gives you day time flying.

This week has been a fairly good week for me. There is a good number of investigators here, but not too many of them are progressing. We have one really good potential named Nora. She is newly married to David, a member who is reactivating in this ward. I love teaching people in that situation, where they are just starting off, breaking the traditions of the parents, and looking for what will be best for their new found family. On friday, Nora had a lot of questions and nearly broke down crying because she felt conflicted, wanting to know if truely this is the church she should join and the path she should follow. She asked things such as “Where does it say in the Bible that one must pray to the Father in the name of Christ?” or “Where does it talk about the Book of Mormon in the Bible?” Usually when we get such questions, they just want to fight with us, but she really wanted to know. We didn´t have good responses at the moment, but we were able to study and give good strong answers. She loved it on Sunday and feels a lot more comfortable. Yesterday, she began asking us about the requirements of baptism. We weren´t able to confirm a baptismal date yesterday, but I think we will tomorrow.

This ward has a ton of inactive members because of a problem with a past bishop, but I think that the people will be willing to return now. We saw a good number of people come Sunday who didn´t come within the past month. To help animate and unify the ward, we have decided to begin doing Family Home Evening´s for the ward on friday nights and to teach piano and music on Saturday. We´ll see if doing that weekly will help.

Thank you for your letters and all the help and support you give me. I wish and pray for the best for you all. Until next week.

With love,
Elder Drake Ranquist