Una Decada Nueva

4 Jan 2010

Dear Family,

Congragulations Jonathan! Receiving your Eagle is a huge accomplishment, for the which you will be grateful for the rest of your life. There are very few people that acheive their Eagle and even less that don´t do it right before their 18th birthday. You did it in great time. And will always be able to say that you were the last Eagle in Louisville in the first decade of the third millenium. I´d like to borrow from the words of Grandpa Ranquist, “Attaboy!” (I don´t know how to spell it, but I should probably learn one day because I really like that expression).

This week went fairly well, especially since we were able to have the baptism of Diana Leiva. She is 10 and came with her mom to church 3 weeks ago. Her mom was working on Sundays, so they hadn´t come to church in 3 years, but her mom realized that working wasn´t providing for her family as she would like, so she decided to obey the Sabbath day again. Diana wanted to be baptized since we met her, but she didn´t even have a good knowledge of who Jesus Christ is. So, we started from the beginning and taught everything she needed to prepare her.

She asked me to baptize her and it was an honor (although I really wish we could have had a member do it), although it came with a price. There is no gas in the church and the bishop hasn´t received the card to make the payment necessary to replace the empty tank. So, I got to have the frigid baptism experience. It seems we always have trouble with the water here. But, Diana was too excited to let it bother her. And it was a hot day, so I didn´t come out shivering. It was actually an interesting experience, because while I was in the water and not moving, my legs felt really warm due to the blood my body sent down into them to protect my legs. I took pictures, but I took them without my card and haven´t transfered the photos from the camera to the memory card yet. So, I´ll have to send them another week.

This is the start of a new transfer for us. I continue with E´Cuberos in Jardines. I think we´ll have a pretty good transfer. We´re both more animado (excited…?) to work hard and to focus. Some of the past transfer we didn´t work our best, but we improved a good deal last week. The changes of this transfer were actually made to prepare for the next transfer. 17 missionaries are going home (about half of the zone leaders are pastores) and I think we´re receiving about 20 missionaries to replace them. So, next transfer we´ll see a ton of changes. And what makes the suspense worse is I have no idea if is E´Cuberos or me that is leaving next transfer. I really don´t want to train or be zone leader (I don´t think I´m zone leader quality either), but “I´ll be want you want me to be, O Lord.”

New Year´s went really well. We received permission to stay out until 10 to be able to have a dinner with a family and we received an invitation to go eat with the Ferreyra family. It was nice because the father has an interest in Astronomy and UFO´s. I´m not big into the latter, but it made for fun conversation. We ate tacos for the third time in the transfer and the fourth time in the mission. Exmissionaries like to serve us tacos. At 12, we woke up to the sound of fireworks and watched a bit.

So, Mom asked if I have any New Year´s Resolutions. On the first, I wrote down in my journal a list of things I´d like to do in the year. It was kind of weird because I had to split the year into two parts, during and after the mission. For now, I´ll focus on working so that at the end of the mission, I feel like I did my best. I can´t always say that I feel I´ve done my best, but I want to feel that way as I leave the mission. I want to write in my journal weekly and stop chewing my fingernails and cracking my knuckles (I had it for about a month and then a new stress wave came and I lost all of my fingernails). I also have the goal of finishing the Book of Mormon and the New Testament. Then I set some goals for when I get home, but I think I´ll worry about those later on.

I love you all and I hope that this next week becomes a good start to the new decade. I´m sorry that things are being tough on you Dad, but I remember you telling me, “The Lord wants a tested and tried servant.” He could be preparing you now to have the compassion and understanding necessary to fulfill His purposes. He knows what He is doing. I know He loves us and does the best for us, even when it is hard. This is His work.

With love,
Elder Drake Ranquist