Dear Family,
It has been really difficult to find a cyber (a place to write on the computer) because today is a holiday here. Actually, the holiday is tomorrow, 25 de Mayo, the independence day of Argentina in 1809. So, tomorrow will be the bicentenial of Argentina. There will be a lot of celebrations in the capital. Here in San Justo, I don´t think that we´ll see too much. So, they decided to make monday a holiday also this year so that we have a four day weekend. So, nothing is open. But, at last, after an hour and a half or more of searching, we found one open in our area. And now we also see another reason. Canada and Argentina are playing right now in the soccer world cup right now.
This week was a fairly good week. We had the stake conference of Oeste this sunday and it went well. We were hoping a lot more investigators would go with us, but we were happy that at least Elsa, who has a baptismal date for the 5th of June made it with Celeste. I was glad that I had brought a notebook and my scripture marking crayons because they kept Candela, the active and always smiling child of Celeste quietly busy.
In the photos I sent, it shows us helping Elsa´s family enter all of the soda into the house to store. They are a soda distributor, so they receive it each tuesday or wednesday and then have to send it around the town throughout the week. So, we got a good workout doing that for an hour and a half. I liked it and so did my companion. Maybe we´ll do it again sometime. And I think it is helping us gain the confidence of the rest of their family too.
My companion is doing better this week. He felt he missed home a little less and sees how one can get into the work. But, he still kind of thinks, as I did at the beginning of the mission, that anyone who says they love missionary work and doesn´t to go home is lying. It takes a lot of patience helping learn Spanish. Did it take that much patience from you for me to learn English? But, he is improving little by little. He understands more of the people. And will learn it quickly. He also had his first experience working in the rain yesterday. We didn´t get absolutely soaked like has happened in the past, but we got wet. We enjoyed ourselves and he was surprised that he enjoyed it. So, things will go well.
I´m glad that you could undestand what Celeste wrote. I don´t really find spanish here too complicated because their vocabulary isn´t all too large. She was happy to find you and to write you. I hope that you´ll be able to understand everything when you come here. You´ll have to get used to listening to people speak in vos. It took me so long at the beginning of my mission to understand what "¿De dónde sos vos?" meant. And I love how we say the -y- or -ll- as a -sh-. Sho me shamo instead of yo me llamo. But I am sincerely greatful that the Lord has helped me learn the language well and that I´m completely fluent. I still have an accent and I´ll always have one (I don´t have the gift some missionaries have here to learn the accent so well that the people ask if they´re Argentine), but I´m fluent. And the double rr´s are so fun to say now. I can´t make it last a long time, but I can make it sound well.
And Dad, I´m glad that you´re making a Venture program for the older scouts. After I got my Eagle, I felt kind of left out as well among the scouts because there wasn´t anything to work towards. We had the palms, but they weren´t really important. They were thinking about doing a Venture program, but they never got it arranged. And the young men, as I´ve seen here, have a really hard time getting over the shock of entering elder´s quorum (but I think it is even worse for the young women when they enter relief society). But I can see how it would be difficult to set up too because I´m not sure if there are enough young men to do a ward venture program. I hope it goes well.
I feel like I´m starting to get tired again, but this time I´m just going to keep fighting and not give into the fatigue. I know the Lord supports us in our trials and difficulties. I know the Lord makes us happy, even in the rain. This really is a gospel of joy. We are a happy people. And I know that by giving our all to others, we receive joy in others, and ourselves. I know the Lord loves us and protects our family. We really do have a wonderful family.
With love,
Elder Drake Ranquist
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