Estoy en San Justo

Dear Family,

I welcome you to the ward of San Justo! I am now in the zone of Oeste as a district leader. We are fairly close to the mission offices, which will be a complete change for me. This means that we are closer to the capital and the area isn´t as poor. It will be a complete change for me and I´ll have to get used to it. But, as always, I know that the Lord will support me in this change.

I am now with Elder Jimenez, another Chilean! I feel that this is a sign that I might be living in Chile one day to work in the observatories there. He is also from Maipú, close to where E´Rivas lives. They never knew one another, but they know of the same friends. He wants to study medical engineering and I believe that he will be a great companion. He is in his third transfer and guess who trained him. E´Chamberlain, one of my roommates in the MTC. He, along with E´Bunn, were recently called to be zone leaders. In order to avoid saying that we´re old in the mission I´ll say, Wow, we are gaining a lot of experience!

This is a recently made ward. It was a branch before, but about two weeks ago, they changed the limits to make it a ward. And a new bishop was called. Does that ring a bell? I hope I´ll be able to have the same kind of relationship with the new bishop that I had with my past two bishops. I´ll miss Obispo Fleytas. This past week he jokingly asked us if we could be his counselors and when he announced that I was leaving the ward on Sunday, he just about cried. Will I ever become so attached to a missionary after my mission?

On Sunday we had the baptism of Lucas Guzmán. He is the neighbor of some members who had been helping us, the Mendoza family. Sister Mendoza is a returned missionary and also directs the music in the ward. We found Lucas´s stepfather in the streets one day and did a contact with him. We asked if we could pass one day and he told us that he wouldn´t be there, but that his wife would accept us. We went and invited them to church. She has a new born baby, so she couldn´t come to church the first two times, but she wanted Lucas to go and be baptized because she sees in the Mendoza family that it is a good environment. Lucas was also really excited. It wasn´t the best planned baptism because we didn´t have any more minutes on our cell phone and he was scared of the water a bit because of a problem with his ears in the past, but it went well anyways. We were all very happy. In Moreno 3, Ari, the catholic priest, was also baptized and we got to eat lunch with him because he lives in one of the member´s house in Jardines. One day, he´ll have to start going to that ward. The USB isn´t working now, so I´ll send pictures next week. And now that I don´t have worries about the memory in my account, you are all free to send as many pictures as you want too.

I hope everything keeps going well at home. I love you and pray for the best. I hope I can become the son and brother that God wants me to be, but I realize that it will probably take me my entire life to do so. I love this work, even though it is difficult and requires me to stretch myself beyond what I believe are my limits. But, nothing is impossible. I know that the Lord Jesus Christ is our Savior and the Redeemer of the world. All that come unto Him will find rest of their labors as faith, hope, and charity enter their lives. He will always strengthen us in the manner that we need.
Love,
Elder Drake Ranquist