Elder Drake Ranquist (+some Ranquist family tidbits!)

He's Home!

2010-08-09T10:24:00.001-07:00

pictures to be added soon...

Termino con un Bautismo!

2010-08-01T13:50:00.000-07:00

26 Jul 2010

Dear Family,

It is quite difficult to write now and the reason is obvious. So, I´ll just start talking about my week.

We had a miracle! Yesterday María Elena Román was baptized! As I explained last week, she wanted to get baptized for so long. She wanted her son to be baptized when he was 8 but his father wouldn´t give permission. He is now 32. Her parents were sealed in the temple with her brothers, but she was left out. She wants to be apart of that eternal family so much. I still remember our first visit, when I went with Elder Riggins. I knew of the problem, but through prayer, I received from the Lord that I could promise her that if she got baptized, her family would change. She changed during that lesson and decided she would get baptized, but when, she wasn´t sure. Only the spirit of the Lord could have made such a change within her.

She decided last week. Because of the difficulty with her husband, we had to receive permission from many people. First off, we prayed as a group and I felt strongly that we should give according to her desires. The scriptures of 3 Nephi of Christ having compassion on the Nephites ran through my mind. So, I decided in that moment to push for her baptism. At first, the bishop was against it (just as I was at first), but his counselor had an interview with her. Thursday afternoon, while having lunch at the offices during a training meeting, I received one of the calls that missionaries love. The Bishop said, "Elder, I just want to inform you that you´ll have a baptism this Sunday. My counselor says that you felt right, we shouldn´t withhold a baptism from her." In that moment, I got up and talked with the President because he was there. He gave his permission after receiving approval from the Bishop. But that wasn´t it, we had the interview with the zone leaders and then needed another interview with one of the counselors of the Mission President. But the counselor didn´t know where the church in San Justo was. So, we had to go with María Elena to Ramos Mejía. It was all quite hectic.

The baptism was quite lovely. She has a lot of family members who are church members here in Buenos Aires. A ton came to support her. It was great to see so much support for her faith and for her valiance. I don´t think I´ve ever seen such an example as her. And she gave me the honor of baptizing her. During the week, she was talking about her brother-in-law and I asked, "He´s going to baptize you, right?" She answered, "No, you Elder!" I was thinking "No! I want a member to do it!" But I responded that it would be an honor. And it was a really great honor to participate in such a way. So, Mom and Dad, you will have the opportunity to see the confirmation of her next Sunday in Sacrament Meeting.

So, about next week. I will show up at the airport at about 8 o´clock Sunday morning to accompany you to the church in San Justo. We will be in the car with you. I hope I´ll be able to guide you well, but I´m not afraid of asking for directions any more if we get lost. That night we (as in Elder Berglund and I) were thinking we might stay with you in the hotel. We might have to decide that on Sunday, but that might be the best. And Dad, there are a mixture of electical outlets, but I think I have all of the tranformers and adaptors, but if not, we can always go buy one here for about 5 pesos. They use the two round ones, or the plug that looks like a back slash with a front slash (this keyboard doesn´t let me use them both). Monday morning, we will have transfer meeting. It will last all morning. And there you will meet President Benton. You will hear his talk about the next transfer, I´ll probably play the piano, the transfers, and the testimonies of us who are leaving. We might be invited to the mission home afterwards or another day to get to know President and Sister Benton. The rest, I haven´t planned and I´m sorry, I won´t have much time to plan it out.

So, to end, I have absolutely loved my mission. I have been overviewing my mission quite a lot and I am so grateful for the tender mercies the Lord has given me throughout. He truely loves us. And this is truely his work. I realized that probably the only regret I have is not doing all the contacts, but I feel I worked hard, was obedient, and was a worthy servant throughout my mission. I feel I´ve fulfilled my purpose here. I have loved my companions and have never caused problems with them. I tried my best not to impede the hand of the Lord to God´s children. I have learned a ton and I know that He has a lot more to teach me. He is the Lord. This is the Church. And through the saving ordinances and endurance and obedience to the end, we truely can be with our families forever. I await that day to be with you all in the Celestial Kingdom.

With my love until I see you,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Preparaciones demasiado trunky

2010-07-25T07:49:00.000-07:00

19 Jul 2010

Dear Family,

You´re right that now I am facing really mixed feelings. Every day the weight fall stronger onto my concious the fact that I´m going to have to leave the mission behind. Part of me is excited to experience the new adventures of going back to school and life as a return missionary. But for the most part, I want to keep serving the Lord as I am. I have seen so many of the tender mercies of the Lord that it pains me that I will have to accustom myself that they be fewer and farther between. I want to keep seeing the triumphs of the families here and help them in their trials. I love trying to do good things constantly. I´ll sincerely miss it. But I can´t wait to see you.

One of the strange things that has happened in my mission is the way that I´ve grown. I feel I´m a lot better person and I´m much better prepared to face life. But I don´t feel like I reached my potential as a missionary. Actually, I feel farther away from my potential than when I started because my vision has changed. But yet, I still face the same weaknesses. I realize that is what will make me stronger in my life, having to constantly fight those weaknesses and not having them magically taken away by the Lord. Another way I´ve grown is physically. When I got here, everyone thought I was 16-17 years old. Now they think that I´m 23-25 years old. So much stress tones the face a little more (but it might also be due to the way I act and the improvement in my language abilities). I feel that my personal progress will be a lot slower after the mission and I´ve always liked being on the fast track in learning.

In preparation to go home, I´m going to have to start being truely "trunky" and start packing my bags because next P-day will be our zone activity. I´m going to have to decide what to take home and what to throw out and what to give away. A lot of my clothes aren´t really worth keeping (the shirts are going yellow, holes in all of the shoes including the tennis shoes, my black suit coat got ruined with the rain a while back, socks, etc.). I´m planning on bringing the iHome back, but E´Cuberos asked if I could leave him the iPod full of the tabernacle choir. I´m thinking about leaving it with him with the commitment that he give it to another missionary when he goes (so that it can stay among the missionaries). What do you think about that? And is there anything specific that you know you sent me with that you want me to keep and bring home? And when you come out, it would be nice if you brought an extra empty suitcase to be able to use.

So about the day you come here. I had interviews with the mission President this past week (which was especially trunky as he talked about dating techniques to be able to find my future wife and that I need to do something at least twice a week to find her) and he asked me if I were planning to pick you up. I had thought that the mission offices were going, but maybe I´ll come to the airport. That is yet to be determined. Depends if we have to look for many investigators or not too. But I think that I´ll be coming to help you find the church and get around. I´m not sure if it would be better to rent a car at the airport that day or not because we could take a Remis to church and they´d know their way and we´d get there in 30 min. If we rent a car, I´m not sure exactly how to get to our ward (but I have a map that I could possibly figure out). By doing that, we will be able to visit some converts in Moreno that are only home on Sunday using the rental car. That day, I´m not sure if I´ll go to the hotel with you to sleep or if I´ll stay with my companion. I think it is our decision.

Also, for the other days, I was basically planning on using most of the time to visit all of the converts. I think that would take up all of our time and we might not even have enough time to do that. My last week I´ll go to see the capital and I´m not sure how much touring we will have time to do, but we can try if there is something in particular that you want to see. Tell me about your ideas. But I want to use most of the time trying to strengthen the converts. And one night the mission president suggested that we need to go out into the country to see the stars at night. I hadn´t thought about it but I need to see the southern sky. And if there is anything else that you want, let me know. I´ll try to be the best and fastest translator that I can be, but I can´t promise to provide the best services.

This week we are faced with a difficult decision. María Elena, the sister of a member who came from Paraguay, has been wanting to be baptized for years, but her husband is completely against the idea and always threatens her with a divorce if she gets baptized. Throughout the years, she has suffered many things due to him (causing her to attempt suicide twice in the past). Her greatest desire is to be able to be baptized so that she can be sealed to her parents (who were faithful members that were sealed) and her sister. On sunday, she called her husband saying that she was willing to face the possible consecuences to be able to be baptized. I´ve never seen anyone have so much faith, courage, and desire. So, we will have to make the decision with the Bishop and the Mission President if we allow her to be baptized or not. But I sincerely feel, through prayer, that this decision will unify her family more, even if not at first.

I love this work, I love the Lord, I love the people, I love life, I love you all, and I know it to all be true.

With love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Empujando La Piedra

2010-07-18T08:15:00.001-07:00

12 Jul 2010

Dear Family,

¿Puedo hablar en español con ustedes? No, I´m not that inept at speaking English now, but this week we did find a lady from California who wanted us to speak in English with her and it was really difficult for me. It was just as difficult for her because she´s been here for 20 years. It was weird talking with her in that I´ve come to love many parts of the Argentine culture that when so much of the Californian gestures and culture came from her, it made me a little uncomfortable.

I´m glad that you got through this past week well. This past week had a few highlights in our week too. 9 de Julio (July 9th) was the independence day of Argentina and there was a fairly good activity that the ward hosted. There were some games, an explanation of the independence, and a demonstration of a folkloric dance by the youth. Then there were empanadas and choripan (a sausage sandwich that is really good, but full of fats and grease). But the highlight was when a professional folklore singer came (I think he was from one of the neighboring wards). He made me want to learn to sing like that. And an interesting thing was that I was able to understand the words to the Mexican song "Cealita Linda" (I don´t remember it well right now, so I don´t know the name exactly).

The other highlight was a step of courage that we made. After the visit of Elder Aidukaitis, President Benton started doing contacts in the buses when with the zone leaders. I decided that I wanted to try one with Elder Berglund. The first few times that we decided to do it, when we got on the bus and saw so many people, we chickened out. But, on Tuesday, after zone conference, we got on and I started saying loudly to everyone, "Brothers and Sisters, if we could have your attention please. We want to sing a hymn from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While we sing, imagine your own children singing this song to you." And then we sang the first verse of "I´m a Child of God." And then we talked with every person individually. It took a lot of guts, but we were able to do it. It helped me feel that I had fulfilled part of my patriarchal blessing where it says, "I bless you that you will overcome your fears and inhibitions to declare loudly that the gospel has been restored, that there are living modern prophets, and that the priesthood is on the earth once more."

Thank you Dad for getting ahold of those "collection items" for Hmo. Guzman. I´m sure that he´ll be quite happy, even if it isn´t in pristine condition. But, this week he also asked another thing. He wants a biography of Davy Crockett in Spanish. He loves to learn about whatever.

And I hope you recover well Mom. I await your coming, but I don´t want you to do anything that would perjudicate (is that the English translation of perjudicar? Maybe jeopardize is the right translation) your health. So just keep getting better and I´ll pray for you.

This sunday was ward conference (the first since they were a branch). I loved it and one of the stories that the Bishop told really helped me. "There was a man that was praying and his room filled with light and Jesus Christ appeared to him, saying `I have a great work for you to do. There is a rock outside that you need to push with all your heart, might, and strength.´ So, the next day the man went out and started pushing this rock as hard as he could all day long. He finished the day tired and weak and retired the next day. He went out and pushed with all his might the next day. And thus he did for a full year. Then he started thinking, `I´m not getting anywhere with this.´ That night Satan took advantage and came and said, `You´re a failure. You haven´t even so much as pushed that rock one millimeter. It isn´t worth the effort. You should just give up.´ Even more discouraged the man decided that he would go to Christ, explain how he had failed and that he wouldn´t do it any more. The next day Christ appeared and consoled him, `My brother, I never once asked you to move the rock. Look at your strong back, your toned muscles, your tanned skin. You have been faithful to me in pushing the rock and done as I´ve asked. I will now move the rock.´" I´ve kind of felt that we have´nt gotten anywhere with the investigators for the past month. That help me realize that even though the rock isn´t moving, I should keep pushing. And I know it is worth it.

Love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Dios tiene un sentido de humor

2010-07-11T09:24:00.001-07:00

5 Jul 2010

Dear Family,

Mom, don´t worry if you think that your letter was a bit silly because this past week, we felt that God taught us again that He too has a sense of humor. It happened yesterday on the 4th of July. We were so happy that we had a surprise investigator at church. We had gone in search of all of the people that said they´d come with us and none of them answered or were there. We got back slightly discouraged. But, as we were in Gospel Principles, the second counselor called us out and an investigator had arrived. We had had hope in him a while back, but we could never find him and he always said he´d come to church, but never did. So, we had basically given up on him and hadn´t taught him in a while. So we were happy to see him. The funny thing about him arriving on the 4th of July is that his name is Americo.

Saturday was a difficult day for Argentina because it was the day they got eliminated from the World Cup. They had so much hope that they might win, but they were beat by Germany 4-0. That morning we had received permission to go see the game if we did so in the house of an investigator and we ate lunch with them. We wanted to see it, but we decided to stay in the pench to get several things done and to go to lunch with the member we had planned. In a way, I´m glad that I didn´t see them lose that way. We were afraid we were going to have some problems during the day because everyone was mad at Germany and we look and talk like Germans, but we didn´t have too many. Only a few people yelling at us from across the street. We were careful anyways.

Another reason why it was important that we decided to go to lunch with Hermana Zelarayan was for a little small miracle that we had at the end. The mission had a program a while back to be able to receive referrals where we write down 100 names that the person knows and then they pray and select one or two to take action to visit with us and invite. Well, Elder Aidukaitis (he´s still in all of our minds) showed us a better way. We make a list of all of the names of the people we can (not worrying about where they live for the moment) and then all of those become referrals. 100 referrals in 30 min. We leave the sheet in our area book and future missionaries can over time ask for the addresses and go visit them or send them to other areas.

So, we decided to make the big list with Hma. Zelarayan and her son Adrian Aguilera. We started talking about their family members and they talked about some that lived far away in Mar de Plata. We took down their names anyways. And as we continued with the list, the door bell rang. The very family of whom we were talking about walked in! Adrian hadn´t seen her cousin in 14 years! They had no clue that Hma. Zelarayan and Adrian were members (they were baptized within the past 3 years). So, we taught about the restoration and her sister-in-law really liked it. It truely was a miracle and we hope that we can get the address soon so that the missionaries can go by out there. And we decided to that we´ll finish the list with them another day.

Oh, and a member here, Hmo. Guzman wants us to ask you something. He collects coins and money from different places. And he wants two things. First of all, a new 5 dollar bill. Any old (well new) crisp five dollar bill. And the other thing he wants is a silver dollar. I´m not sure if they make those. I know they have the silver half-dollar, but he already has that. He want a silver (not gold) coin with the value of one dollar. He says that there is probably a silver commemoration dollar. If there is one from 1976, he´d absolutely love that. So, I don´t know if you can find it for him or not (maybe on ebay or something). He said he is willing to pay the amount it costs for it. So, that is his request.

We have been spending a lot more time recently with Hmo. Guzman, which is a good thing and a bad thing. He is the 2nd counselor in the Elders Quorum he is really excited about that. He is a convert from 3 years back and he works in the government and used to be in the Air Force officer. So he loves organizations and things like that. He loves reporting about the visits that he does and he was received the assignment of working with the missionary work of the quorum. We are trying to take advantage of this exhuberance the best we can to contact all of his friends and to do visits with him. And we were able to find a good family to teach through one such visit yesterday. But, one of my problems is that he talks a lot about things that really interest me. He knows a lot about missiles, space, Air Force, history, and a little bit about everything. I really haven´t known anyone like that her in Argentina. Everytime we try to leave the house he says, "I have something I want to show you." I admit that I´ve probably wasted too much of my time with him. I´d really enjoy my time with him after my mission when I can use it a little more leisurely.

I know that this work is true and I am going to push myself to the limits these last few weeks. I know that we can see miracles as we move forward into the unknown with faith.

With Love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Los Partidos de Futbol

2010-07-04T12:17:00.001-07:00

Dear Family,

Thank you for the nice letters that you sent me for my birthday. I enjoyed them as I ate breakfast. I also saved the Gardetto´s to open up that day too. So, thank you for all of your thoughts and well wishes.

This week was full of its ups and downs. One of the things that gives us hope is that on Monday, we found a lady named Eugenia. She is the daughter of an inactive member and the neice of another with whom the ward is working. She is a bucket full of problems, but the gospel is helping her a lot. She was separated from her husband about 8 months ago and has had a ton of governmental problems with regards to her children. Right now, her two kids live one day in the house of the Dad and the next day with their Mom. With all the problems, Eugenia lost 20 kilos (50 lbs. I think) within 2 months and had a 14 day stretch without sleeping.

So, basically, when we got there she really needed someone to just listen to her. I´ve learned that I can calmly and patiently listen to someone´s problems, but that isn´t always what we want as missionaries because we are always running against the clock. The next time we went, we had a member to accompany us and she prayed at the end of the lesson and she said that she felt like something entered into her. She felt peace and aliviated (I couldn´t remember how to say "Ella sintió una paz y un alivio" in english).

In the next visit, we decided we wanted to do something fun for her and her children. She said that she hadn´t smiled in about 2 years, so we decided "We´re going to make them all laugh and smile" (while teaching an important lesson of course). So, we did what we call in the mission "Señor Huevo" (Mr. Egg). Where we have a hard egg that we want to put in a bottle. So he needs faith in Jesus Christ (so he gets on top), repentence (he falls and cracks and we take off the shell), baptism (we put the egg in water), and the Holy Ghost or baptism by fire. To do "baptism by fire" we do the physics trick or putting alcohol in the bottle, a match, there is a flame that reduces the pressure within the bottle, we put the egg on top, and the bottle sucks it in. It was really fun and they really enjoyed it. She smiled and laughed.

But, there was a problem with the dad the next day because he didn´t react well when his excited children told him that we "baptized eggs with fire." He already thought incorrect things about "the Mormons" and now probably thinks that we are doing some kind of witchcraft. But, Eugenia is getting better and we are going to keep helping her. We´ll see what this next week brings for her.

This past month, the entire nation has been into the World Cup. It is crazy here. The Soccer World Cup, which happens every four years, is 5 times bigger here than the Super Bowl. When the game starts, you her a bunch of fire works. And everything is deserted. There aren´t any open businesses because everyone is inside watching. And trying to preach during a game is worse than trying to preach during the siesta. Not even the strongest members would listen to us (ok, I´m not sure if they would or not, but it is very probable that they wouldn´t). Every time there is a goal for Argentina, there are more fireworks and everyone runs outside to blast horns and make noises with pots and pans. And when Argentina wins, a lot more fireworks and noise. A lot of people get in their cars and drive around honking their horns. It is really quite exciting and I´d like to participate in watching with them (which is something coming from me to say that I want to watch a soccer game). But, we go back to our pench for more study time. Last tuesday we had our district meeting in the afternoon instead of the morning. When we tried to get back to San Justo, the game had just ended and a bunch of high school students had flooded a major road blocking traffic. Argentina has won the past 4 games and I think they´ve now made it to the final four. The next game is Saturday. So, we´ll see if Argentina comes out champions.

My birthday went well because we did divisions with the young men to go visit some investigators. And in the evening there was a ward activity that our ward mission leader put together. It wasn´t nearly as successful as the last activity and I´m afraid it scared off one of our investigators that was present, but it was alright. At the end, when the members found out that it was my birthday, they put a candle on the cake brought for refreshments and sang "Que lo cumple feliz" and "Happy Birthday."

And Yesterday, Alejandro, the Dad of a recent convert finally came to church. He has become more and more interested in the gospel as we have taught him the past month. He only stayed for priesthood meeting because he had to go do something at 11 (I think he had to go watch Germany play England in soccer), but he wouldn´t tell us what. And he said he wanted come next week with more time.

I know the Lord blesses us daily and that we have hundreds if not and infinite amount of things to be grateful for. I know that he will keep blessing our family through our trials and tribulations. (I´ll admit that some of the problems you have gone through has helped me teach others with more power about how to face difficulties in life). I love you and keep praying for you.

Love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Feliz Dia del Padre!

2010-06-27T04:58:00.001-07:00

21 Jun 2010

Dear Family,

Happy Father´s Day Dad!!! I love you, Mom, and the rest of the family so much. Mom said that she felt bad that she couldn´t "pamper" you on your day, but I have learned that spending such a day serving her can make it a much more happy and memorable day. Thank you for the example you give us, your children, and the care you give to our Mom. I hope your day went well and that happiness and joy can keep entering into our family.

Mom, I hope that you can keep getting better. This past year has really taught our family that this body is fragile and that life is passing. But gives us even more appreciation for the sacrifice of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He died and was resurrected for us so that we might one day rise again. How much greater joy will you have for passing these trials faithfully, submissively, and happily! I will keep you and the entire family in my prayers.

And thank you very much for my birthday package. I am very grateful. I have to inform you that the Prego Sauce broke open inside, causing problems with it all, but I got it well. I normally wait until my birthday to open it, but it got to me already open. So, I started enjoying the trail mix immediately, but I have not yet opened the cards. I also took out the blue tie and started using it, but I left the brown one in the ziploc bag. A week later, I looked at it again and there was mold all over it. Apparently some of the sauce got inside that too. So, I´m really glad I took out the blue one when I did! And thank you for the snickers too. And my companion is very grateful too (and I also enjoy the packages he receives).

I felt quite strange today. We had transfer meeting and I am now officially a "pastor." Elder Gilmore and Elder Sabey return home today. So, I´ll see them again in BYU afterwards. And so do a lot of other missionaries with whom I´ve worked. There are also a lot of changes in the mission, like always, but I stay with Elder Berglund in San Justo. There was a surprise with the Elders in my district. Elder Mather and Elder Barrios (two of the best newer missionaries I´ve seen. During divisions with them, I truely felt that they were teaching me.) were both transfered. I didn´t think that would happen. And Elder Fuentealba and Elder Hobson are training. So, I´ll use the end of my mission to help them train their new companions so that these new missionaries can grow with the new visions for the mission. Another interesting thing is that Elder Chamberlain, who was in my MTC district, is the new Assistant to the President. He only has the next 8 weeks (he´s extended 2 weeks) to be the Assistant (one transfer). That was very interesting. Probably to let the next Elder that the President has in mind to have another transfer as zone leader and have the necessary experience (I think Elder Brooks who started in Castillo 2 when I was with Elder Rivas). Yeah, the mission has become my life and I love it. I´m also enjoying a lot more than I used to being District Leader. It is a lot of work and effort and at the end I will have fulfilled that assignment for a third of my mission, but it really has taught me to serve and love the other Elders. Every time I see Elders that were in my past districts, as with my past companions, I feel a love for them and a desire to be with them again. I´m glad I could have helped each one of them. And I´m happy to keep doing it.

Yesterday was a day that was kind of hard for me. Being Father´s day, a lot of people went on visits. So, we didn´t have any investigators in Sacrament meeting. When Elder Aidukaitis came, he said "Rule Number 1: A missionary does not assist sacrament meeting without and investigator. Rule Number 2: A missionary doesn´t fault sacrament meeting." So, we broke rule number 1 (not rule number 2). We could have worked harder during the week to have one. We did leave during the first two hours to invite everyone we could to enter the church to learn about it, but no one entered. But, instead of let me get it down, it means that I´ll work even harder so that it doesn´t happen to us again. To make this the best transfer I will have. To prepare this mission to baptize every week.

I love the Lord and I love you all. This is the work of the Lord and when we forget ourselves, God gives us strength even when we are tired and stressed. He gives us the relief of happiness and joy. He will be with our family so that our faithful service, which we will do all of our life, will prepare us for life eternal. I know He is there for us always.

Love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

La Entrevista Trunky

2010-06-20T11:07:00.001-07:00

14 Jun 2010

Dear Family,

I´m glad that the week went well for you guys and congragulations in finding a job Jonathan! It isn´t nearly as easy as I thought it was. When I first went looking for a job, I had the idea that I could just walk in the place where I wanted to work and that I would be hired there. It doesn´t quite work that way. And it was a good thing that you said a prayer. There have been several times on my mission that we taught our investigator to pray to find a job and they would find one (but the sad part is that many times we didn´t teach them about the sabbath day soon enough and found a job where they work every sunday and can´t go to church).

Yesterday, we had our interviews with the President. This was one of the more "trunky" interviews because from now I have to start thinking about several things for after the mission. I have to set a bunch of goals. I´ve been avoiding thinking too much about the future, but I think that now is the moment when I need to give a bit more attention to that business. But, I´m not going to let it interfere with my work.

I have to think and set goals about 4 things in particular. What am I going to do, specifically, over this next year so that I can just start life shooting off? What are my goals and dreams for my life? What are some attributes I want my future wife to have? And how am I going to maintain this same level of spirituality? They are very important questions that will take some thought. I already have a lot of the answers (and on many of them I can just quote my patriarcal blessing). I want to put into practice a lot of thins that we do here on the mission. I´ll probably be made fun o for that, but I think the idea of excercising, studying, planning daily and weekly, adequate sleep, and other things could really help me in my life. So, I´ll have to think how to apply those things in daily life. And probably the thing I most dread about going home is getting back into the dating pool. I´m excited to get back to studying and learning and working and serving in the church, but I don´t really want to go courting. Hopefully that desire will return when I get back home. For the moment I think it is alright that I don´t have that desire. But I´ll do what the Lord desires me to do, even in that regard.

The president also said that I should be studying spanish well enough to be able to take a test when I get back to school and take the class Spanish 321. He says I can get a lot of college credits doing that (up to 16), but I´m not really worried about the credits (I already have all of the elective credits I need). But maybe it would be good to change one of my classes to study more spanish. I have a good a grasp of the language, but I want to be able to have the ability to give scientific forums and workshops in spanish in the future. I don´t know if there are some upper-level classes to help me with that or not. So, maybe I´ll drop one of my 3-4 credit classes (maybe the Science and Civilizations class and I can do that later on) to take that Spanish class as the President says. I think I´ll worry abotu that when I get back home too.

This next week we have transfers, so I had my companion (because there wasn´t time in my interview to ask) ask if he thinks we´ll be together or not next transfer. I wanted to know if I´d have more time to help out my companion or if I needed to get him to know the area really well to prepare for a new companion. Usually the President will tell us what will probably happen. After the interview he pulled me in with my companion to ask if my thoughts were and I told him what my thoughts were. He told me that he wasn´t sure, which kind of surprised me because he usually has in mind what will happen. But I feel that I will stay here. My companion still needs me a lot. He´s great, but I´m not sure he´s quite ready for the shock of having a new companion and having to teach him the area. It is very common for the missionaries coming to this area to get very discouraged at the beginning, especially when you come here to be an "uncle." So, I feel that for this last transfer, the Lord needs me here with my companion. I´ve always had thoughts and dreams of finishing my mission as a zone leader or opening an area and training at the same time or doing something like that, but I think the most important thing for me is to "take care of this little plot of land" (as the poem you sent me a while back said Dad).

Another reason why I think I need to be here is because of something that happened yesterday. I don´t know if I wrote about José Cosentino a few months ago. He was a member that had several mental problems and we started teaching his wife. But we felt that she lost control of him when we would go because he would start talking about how they need to be more spiritual and we decided not to go back for a while. This morning we found his wife in the supermarket and she said that José had commited suicide yesterday. I know it wasn´t coincidence that we found her today, for the first time in 2 months. She had received a lot of help from the Bishop yesterday and we were there to help console her. There isn´t much we can do for the moment, but I feel that I will stay here to do some good for that family. I just hope that her son takes this well. Her son has a few mental problems as well and I don´t know what this shock will do to him. I am so glad that we have the knowledge of the gospel for such moments.

This week was a bit tough in that I felt that my energy level was falling again, but I am determined to give my all in this work until the end of my mission, until the end of my life, and afterwards. As President Eyering states, we shouldn´t ever feel that we deserve a rest from gospel service. When our body begs for a rest, we should remember the example of the Savior and we will find strength. And we will have perfect bodies one day that won´t impede us from giving our all contantly. I love him for that and I feel joy in his service--for what I have done, for what I do, and for what I yet have to do. I love you all and hope the best.

With love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Bautismo de Elsa Cruz

2010-06-13T08:39:00.000-07:00

7 Jun 2010

Dear Family,

This was quite a week. I´ll start with the most important. This saturday we were able to participate in the baptism of Elsa Cruz, the mom of Celeste Soria (who was baptized a little more than a month ago). Elsa was really happy to do so. Her decision really began when she came to the baptism of Celeste (getting people to baptisms is the best way to prepare them). We had also helped her family with moving all of the soda inside as an act of service and I believe that helped to soften her heart too. So, she accepted to start listening to us afterwards. The second lesson with her is especially memorable. I think I explained it to you before, but maybe I`ll do it again. She has a 14 year old daughter named Romina who, when she was a kid, had a sickness that caused her to go deaf and mute (she can hear really loud sounds and make noises, but not well enough to listen and talk). 2 years ago Elsa signed up for a government program to get her hearing aids, but a while ago they said that her papers had expired and that she wouldn´t receive them. She got upset saying, "It isn`t my fault that they went out of date, they were sitting there in your office for the past two years. You have the blame." While we were teaching her about the Book of Mormon, she received a phone call with a miracle on the other end. They told her to bring Romina in to have some tests to receive the hearing aids. We had the opportunity in that moment to explain that this occurance was due to the prayers that she has made and that God always listens to our prayers. She kept fulfilling all of her commitments (even if she didn´t understand much of what she read) to the point that she read the entire book of Gospel Principles before she was baptized. She stopped going to the casino, stopped drinking tea, and stopped working on sunday (after church) easily once she learned the commantments. But, she kept saying that she wasn´t sure if God could forgive her for some of her sins. After a joyful interview with President Benton, she was found worthy and learned for herself that God can forgive the sinner who repents.

The baptismal service was excelent. There was a good turnout (the members here are very supportive) and all was prepared well. Celeste gave an excellent talk about baptism for her mom (we helped Celeste learn how to find a good scripture to use). Celeste was really happy because she has the desire that her entire family can receive the gospel and she said in her talk, "I never imagined that it would happen so fast!" I was asked to do the baptism and it was an honor. Elsa, even though she didn´t want to, consented to give her testimony and explain why she decided to get baptized. It turned out really well. Faithful service really does bring joy.

This week, Elder Aidukaitis also came. And Wow. He sure did help us raise the bar and raise our faith. First off, he let us know that we should be baptizing on a weekly basis and in a work of miracles and with faith that it is completely possible. And I do really feel that it is possible to work with faith to be able to baptize every week. He is an expert missionary who gave us a ton of great insights of tactics we could use to improve things or basically bringing to our attention things written in Preach My Gospel that we could do better to receive miraculous results. I know that God fulfills his promises and that the field is white already to harvest. This mission has improved a lot. During my time here, we have basically doubled the baptisms. Elder Aidukaitis let us know that "El Señor está feliz con su trabajo, pero no está sastifecho. El quiere más." (The Lord is happy with your work, but he is not sastified (a spanish word that also means full as from eating). He wants more.) This mission is going to continue seeing great miracles.

With that energy and faith from that conference, I started looking for who would be able to be baptized this next saturday. Hma. Farías came to church with her sister from Paraguay, named María Elena. She already knows everything and has a testimony, but hasn´t ever gotten baptized due to opposition from her family. I felt that it is her time to be baptized and that, through prayer and fasting, that her family would be softened. She has harbored the fear that if she gets baptized, her family will reject and exile her. But, through a powerful lesson guided by the spirit (and a bit of help from Elder Riggins, my zone leader who was with me during divisions), she could increase her faith and trust in the Lord to do His part. Her sister, Hma. Farías (a really good, strong, active and faithful member) gave a really good testimony about how "sometimes you just have to be a bit more Kamakaze." María Elena desires now to get baptized soon, but she wants to do it in Paraguay so that her family doesn´t feel that she escaped to Buenos Aires to be baptized. I agree with her. And I feel that her baptism will be the key to open the locked hearts of her family. I can´t do too much more for her now, but I await to hear the good news when she heads home.

The work continues forth, but during the week I read some of the articles in the new Liahona. I absolutely loved the talk by Elder Bednar that he gave in a devotional at BYU a year ago (in may of 2009) about the dangers of technology and how it can make us lose sight of "things how they really are." I hope to really improve on not wasting time chatting online and doing other such things on the computer so that I can focus on real relationships with people. I know that will bring me great happiness throughout my life, especially in my later years when I see that the friends I have made are real friends and not just there for entertainment.

I know this work is true and that God leads our leaders. If we follow, we will see great miracles in our lives and greater joy, peace, and happiness.

Love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

La Felicidad

2010-06-06T10:16:00.001-07:00

31 May 2010

Dear Family,

I feel kind of strange in that yesterday, I fulfilled 22 months on my mission. No, I´m not counting down. Actually, I wouldn´t care if I were asked to stay for another 2 year mission, but I know that the Lord has other plans for me in the future and things will just keep getting better. The strange thing is thinking that I only lack now the time that I spent in the MTC. That my companion Elder Berglund now has more time on the mission than I lack. But as I tell everyone, "I´m still young in the mission." I have hopes that these last two months will be my best two months.

Although the work isn´t progressing as fast as I might like it, I´ve learned to be patient and to give every moment to the Lord. I used to look for moments to rest and complain that I don´t have enough time to do anything, but I´ve now learned to give every moment I can and even when tired, those moments will be fruitful and provide happiness. We´re here to be happy and I am. I like being able to tell the people that living the gospel will make them happy. Ask them "Do you think we´re happy?" And they tell us that "Yeah, you do look happy." We don´t have to fake it. As long as we´re doing the best we can, we have the secret to happiness. And helping others be happy makes one more happy. Even if they have to struggle for a moment. And then we can be happy together, which is better than being happy alone.

I try to help Elder Berglund speak as much as he can during the lessons, but it still means that I have to do most of the talking. I´ve learned that I can pretty much give a 30 minute talk, by myself, about any gospel topic. And I have problems cutting back on what I want to say at times. Yesterday, we taught a recent convert and the active family that lives with her about geneology. This family really hadn´t done anything on their family history, so we taught them about it. Due to all of the stories that you have taught me Mom over the years, I could help them have a desire to do it and learn about their ancestors. I could talk about doctors, musicians, astrophysicists, and religious rebels who have made me who I am. And nearly any other topic I feel I can now give a talk full of scriptures, personal experiences, information, and testimony to complete it. My only problem is I need to learn how to make better questions. I´m inquisitive, but that doesn´t help me form questions that help others learn for themselves. I still need to work on that.

We are really excited for the baptism of Elsa Cruz, Celeste´s mom, this Saturday. She´s excited too. We always tell people to read and she read all of Gospel Principles. I´m not sure how much of the book she retained, but at least she read it. She really surprised me when she said she read the entire thing in 2-3 weeks. Now she needs to do the same with The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ. (I learned that we really should say "Another Testament of Jesus Christ" every time we talk about the Book of Mormon, especially with non-members. But I understand if it is really long. That´s why most of the time we just say that we are from The Church of Jesus Christ. Also because a lot of times when they say "of Latter-day Saints" they get us mixed up by saying "of the seventh day" instead "of the last days" or in spanish "del séptimo día" en vez de "de los últimos días"). So, we are hoping that her entire family will be able to come and enjoy it.

I´d love to read that new book of Tony that you wrote about. But my problem will be that when I get back there will be so many books that I´ll want to read. I´ll want to read our entire bookshelf all at once. I want to read all of the gospel books written by the prophets and apostles (Miracle of Forgiveness, Articles of Faith, The Great Apostasy, The first several thousand years series, Doctrine of Salvation, Teachings of the Prophets, etc.), books about astrophysics (The universe in a nutshell by Steven Hawking, 5 ages of the universe, and other books on grandpa´s bookshelf), review past textbooks and new ones, and all other good books and literature. I guess I´ll have to pace myself somehow. I´m glad that during these 2 years, I could just focus on the scriptures and the doctrine I truely need for myself and for others. I still read really slow, but that is my decision. You asked about the speed reading course I took. It is possible that it has helped me in the moments that I want to speed read, but one has to take the concious decision to want to read faster. And I never took that decision. I went through the motions of the class (and I´m not really sure if the class did all that great of job of teaching), but without the desire to apply it to what I read. I like to think alot while I read, to analyze. I find reading a good moment to learn and not just pour information into my mind. That is why I read so slow. And by making the connections with what I already know to what I am reading, I learn a lot more and can remember it alot better. But there may come a time when I won´t have time to do so and speed reading will be necessary. It came in handy a bit on friday when I had to print something out and I didn´t have time to read it, so I sped read it and could take out all of the things I needed in 30 seconds. So, there is my feedback. And I look forward to being able to spend hours again reading (and playing the piano).

Tomorrow, we´re going to have the privledge to listen to Elder Aidukaitis of the Seventy. He wasn´t sure if he was going to be able to come, but he decided he can. So on quick notice, we are preparing everything. It should be a great experience. I love to listen to our leaders. They are truely men of faith and have the spirit of revelation, just as the Nephite leaders were chosen.

I know this work is true and it will roll forth until the earth is wrapped up as a scroll. I know everything we are taught to do brings us happiness, even geneological work. I know that as we do our best, we won´t have regrets and we avoid self-blame. And I know that the Lord makes up for all of our faults.

With love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

25 de Mayo

2010-05-30T11:14:00.000-07:00

24 May 2010

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

He's a Trainer!

2010-05-23T10:31:00.001-07:00

17 May 2010

Dear Family,

I am glad to tell you that my "refuerzo" ("reinforcement" as we say in the mission, to avoid the use of son and dad, which are sacred callings) got here to Argentina well and is doing a very good job. His name is Elder Berglund and I sent some pictures, but I´m not sure it worked. I´ll have to try again another day I think. He is from Springville, UT and has a desire to work hard here on the mission. He misses home quite a bit, but with time and patience those feelings will change into a desire to serve and help them. He is quite a bit shorter than me, and as with all of my companions, much stronger. He liked wrestling, swimming, baseball, cars, daredevil stuff, and anything physical. He also liked math in school. We get along fairly well and he´s already working hard. He has a lot of difficulty with the language--a lot more than I did when I got here. In the MTC, he and his companion never taught in spanish, so I am helping him learn evertything that he didn´t in the MTC. It will come with time. He´s already improved in the past week. I try to speak as much spanish with him as I can to acustom his ear, but still has problems understanding a lot of the basic verbs (and all of the other complicated vocabulary that I´ve aquired). So, I often speak in spanish to see what he can understand, translate it to english what he didn´t understand, and then say it again in spanish to help him learn. It´s a slow process, but helps. The change in diet seems to be a bigger shock to him than it was for me too. I´ve always embraced exotic tastes, so coming here I didn´t have any problems. I loved the food. But he´s doing great. He´s already approaching people to do contacts so that we can do 140 each week. I have to finish each contact, but he starts half of them. I´m trying to teach him to be diligent with that so that it becomes a habit "like brushing your teeth" as the President told me in an interview.

I realize that he is probably my last companion that I´ll have. The mission goes by really fast and causes one to have a continual change on one´s perspective of life. Realizing that my time here is coming to a close, I feel that I´ve reflected how those that are getting to end of life feel. By training now, and not earlier, gives me the great desire to prepare the next generation of missionaries of the great Buenos Aires West mission. I feel it to be my duty and my joy to make them the best missionaries I can so that they can grow off of my example and experiences, so that they can one day be much better than me. In part, that helps me understand that great purpose of life. We have been sent, called, and we for ourselves have decided to come here to help others acheive their potential. I´m beginning to understand what it means to be a good leader. It is not just get along with those that are under your supervision, to make sure they don´t do anything bad, nor to push them to do more; it is to give yourself for them so that they can reach the plateaus that one couldn´t reach. Just as with Moses, we go ahead and show the example to guide them to the door that we could never go through, but they can. I´m starting to understand and feel that great lesson, "It is better to help another than to help oneself." "This is my work and my glory, to bring about the immortality and eternal life of man." I have so much ahead of me in my own personal progress, but I think I´m turning a key that was locked before.

Mom, you asked about how revelation has played a part in my mission. I´ve learned a lot about how revelation works here. It is a lot different than I thought before. I´ve learned that it really is simple and is a part of every day life. We receive inspiration constantly every day, we just don´t always attribute it to the Spirit. To me, revelation is anything that persuades to do good. It enters the mind and the heart. In more common language: it´s any good idea we have. It´s any idea that pushes us to do the right thing. What is the right thing? Whatever helps another. And you know anything that is taught in the gospel will help another. Our duty is to choose between many good ideas. That is part of the purpose of life, to choose the best between many good ideas. And we have our entire life to learn how to do it well. I have started to use a "revelation journal." I´ve learned that I forget everything. So, at night when I´m praying and I have a "good idea" I write it down to do the next day or when I can. It helps me. Usually with good ideas we feel good about it, which is the spirit saying that it is good. But when we shouldn´t do something that we are deciding to do, we get an uncomfortable feeling. It often happens when I´m planning and I feel we aren´t going to be able to do it in time. And when we do it, it goes wrong usually. Like dad said, he had an uncomfortable feeling. It is simple, but yet so true. It isn´t magical. Just simple feelings. Good and bad ideas. So, I hope that helps Mom.

I love you all and am so grateful for how you have pushed yourselves to make me the best I can be.

With love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Fotos!

2010-05-16T09:25:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,

I just talked with you, so I´ll use most of my time to send photos from San Justo. (Most of these are from Elder Jimenez´s camera that I copied because I don´t take all too many pictures).

It actually turned out perfect that I called twice for a few reasons. To complete the 840 contacts (our focus on the transfer), we had to finish our 20 for the day (20 contacts per day for 42 days = 840) and sundays are always harder. So, while we were walking back and forth from the chapel to the apartment to fix the problem, we were able to finish all of the contacts. And the other reason is that we went to a house right after talking with you and we got there at the perfect time. We got there when some relatives were there and we started to teach them. They didn´t want to accept what we taught too much thinking that we didn´t understand their problems and that we have it easy. But the member bore very good testimony of how the gospel changed her life, or at least gave her another perspective, and we could feel a very strong spirit afterwards. We didn´t want to leave the house for the spirit that was felt.

So, I´m not really too nervous about tomorrow because I know that the Lord will help me be a good trainer. I have improved a lot on my mission, so I feel like the Lord has prepared me for this moment: to prepare the next generation of missionaries here in Buenos Aires Oeste. I don´t think I would have been able to handle it before, but I think I might be able to now. I´ll find out. But, I commit myself to work as unwearingly as I can for the next three months.

I hope you like the photos.

Love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Mother's Day!

2010-05-09T10:47:00.000-07:00

3 Mayo 2010

Dear Family,

First off, I believe that I´ll make the phone call at about 4:00 PM according to the time here, if that is alright. That is not exact. My plans are to finish everything at church, eat lunch, and then study with my companion. After all of that is done I´ll call, so it will come between 3 and 5. But, if 7 is better for you, send me an email that has the subject title "Call at 7" before Thursday. I can´t read any letters on Thursday, but we have to enter our account to do the Progress Form, so I´ll see it. I can´t wait to speak with you all either.

We still aren´t seeing too many fruits in our work, but we don´t feel too bad because we are giving it our best. We´re getting fairly tired, but I think I´m finally learning how to overcome my "I don´t wanna do nothin´" mood. So, I feel at peace. We were also happy that we were able to help reactivate a member this past week. Her name is Marta, is an ex-missionary, smokes, and hasn´t gone to church in years. We went to visit another member and she was there. We taught lesson 3, about faith, repentance, baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and endure to the end. She said that while we were teaching, my voice reminded her of Joseph Smith in an old film strip. She felt the spirit and decided that she was going to go back to church. And we helped her get there. I hope that gave her the needed push to help her get started and going. We could use her help because she has a connection with some investigators that have true potential.

Marta´s friend is also an inactive member, but not because she doesn´t want to go, but because she works in a bakery every Sunday morning. Recently, her niece came from Fermosa, Argentina. We taught her and she has good potential, but worked a Sunday (she still doesn´t have a regular work). She had to make an emergency run home and brought her daughter with her. We have hope that Catalina and her daughter will be able to progress and that Marta could help bring them to church.

This is that last week that I´ll be with Elder Jimenez. At first it was difficult with him, but I´ll miss him now. We have grown a lot together. We have learned to face our trials in unity and work to achieve our goals. I think these past 3 months in my mission have been the biggest growing moments in my mission. With his help, I have changed for the better. I hope that his mission will go really well. It is really possible that I will spend my last three months of my mission training a new missionary. I have not yet done so. I hope that what I have learned, he can learn much quicker than me.

I´m now going to send photos. We had our zone activity today and we ate meat for lunch. Here is an example of a typical Argentine grill (except the Shish-Kabob of Elder Mather who really knows how to cook). And my companion is cutting our meat. And then a few photos of me that my companion took before we started planning, just for Mom.

I know that this work will always roll forward, with or without us. But as we thrust in our sickle with our might, we may participate in the joy of this great work. It is necesary for our own salvation. So, I´ll talk with you Sunday!

Love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

La Metas Del Estudio Personal

2010-05-02T08:56:00.001-07:00

26 Apr 2010

Dear Family,

This was a good, standard week. There weren´t many problems yet there wasn´t much progress. After baptisms, we are often without many investigators to teach. We have begun to teach Celeste´s mom and she likes it, but the problem with most of our investigators right now is that they work on Sunday or they´re never home when they said they would be. But, we will move forth with constant patience, looking where the Lord sends us. I´ve felt that we should probably start knocking more doors (clapping more houses) to find new people. We don´t do that much here in our mission. We find new investigators through talking with people in the street and in their front lawn. But here in San Justo, there isn´t as much space for a front lawn and the people in the streets walk quickly and always say they are busy. We still find about 8 new investigators each week, but the mission standard is 15. I´ve always thought that knocking doors would be less effective, but I think we might try the experiment.

And yes Dad, we give the retention lessons, even though the ward should be in charge of that. I´ve never seen a ward do too much in the missionary work. This is the first time that I´ve had a ward missionary, but I wouldn´t say that he is the strongest member (a 32 yr. old kid living with his mom and always having teenage accidents). The retention lessons are a review of the missionary lessons and another that talks about priesthood, temples, family history, and missionary work. But, it is a lot and usually we don´t get through it all. But we try our best.

Mom, you asked me about a package for my birthday. I actually thought that my last package would be it. I really don´t think I need anything else. And instead of a gift for now, it would be better to wait until August to see what I really need. I can´t think of anything. And about the phone call, I really don´t know what time we would call. I don´t even know what day is mother´s day next month. They´ll tell me next transfer. And it depends on my next companion. But if I had to guess, I would say either 4 or at 7.

In our mission we have a pamphlet with a whole bunch of goals for personal study. They aren´t easy, but are possible to do during one´s mission. And if you complete it, you receive a pin that says "Brillo del Maestro." I´ve been working on that little by little during my entire mission, hoping to complete it. I see now that it is possible, but I have to focus a little bit more on that. It has goals such as make outlines for the lessons personally and with your companion (It took me forever to do my outlines because I wanted to study each lesson really well to know everything I would want in a lesson, with scriptures, questions, and experiences. It really helped me a lot). Memorize 2 scriptures for each principle in the lessons. And something that you have to show the president, like write a 3 page compendium about obedience or read a 60 page magazine about the temples and explain your personal vision about the temples.

The parts I´m working on now are read The Book of Mormon and write 2 pages about each book. I´ll finish Moroni 10 tomorrow. I´ve loved reading it and know that it is a true book. While reading, I´ve been looking for references to with the strength or power of the Lord or anything similar. I have learned quite a bit about the experiences of the prophets being completely faithful, loyal, and constant to the Lord and received such power of speech or to be delivered from their enemies. I know the promise of Elder Bednar is being fulfilled in that I can know better how to receive the strength of the Lord and not rely on my own strength. I am seeing that more and more this month as I´ve been more constant and diligent.

Another goal is under the title "The Challenging and Testifying Missionary." The part that I´ve been the most worried about is I have to do all my contacts for three entire transfers. I had never done that in a transfer. We always fell behind and got discouraged. But, for the first time, we are right on track! For four weeks straight we have done all of our contacts. So, it is still possible!

I still need to read the New Testament and write two pages for every book therein, pass a test in which you have to fill in missing words to exact quotes from Preach My Gospel, the outlines and scripture memorization for lesson 3, one more transfer in which we have at least 20 lessons every week (I´ve had two in my mission, the others always had at least one week with 18 or less). I was worried about that too this week because we just about didn´t make it. So, I am putting forth the effort to complete all of that.

I just about forgot, this past week we had interviews with the president. I too was found worthy for a new temple reccomend. He said a lot of good things that helped me. He really does have a lot more confindence in me than I have in myself. He also explained that these next three months, I need to learn and set goals to be the best leader I can because basically the minute I get off the plane I will be called as a leader in work and in the church. I have a lot of great leadership attributes, he said. But now is the time I need to grow in my leadership skills. I´ve always been scared of leading, but I´m starting to get a little more comfortable, but I still need all of the help the Lord can give me to help His children and His missionaries.

So, that was a different letter, but a big part of missionary life as well. I love you all and I love that you know what I know and will always follow this gospel. Their is strength in doing so.

With love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Canta al Bautismo

2010-04-29T14:37:00.001-07:00

Dear Family,

This has been a really good, yet hectic week, with a lot of adventures. I´ll start off with the highlights.

This past saturday, we had the opportunity to have the baptism of José Attino and Celeste Soria. It was one of the best baptisms I´ve seen in my mission because of all of the help from the ward, our planning, and the spirit. Elder Chamberlain (from the MTC) was in this area before me and he came for the baptism. He baptized José and Celeste was baptized by our ward mission leader. The mission president also came, to make it even more special. We sang "Count Your Many Blessings" and as has happened every time the Assistants or the President has come to one of our baptisms, he asked us to sing it in the upcoming transfer meeting in three weeks. I like to sing for zone conferences and the transfer meeting (which is the "devotional" you speak of attending when you come to visit). At the end, they gave their testimonies and it was really special. I felt joy.

This week, the weather too has been hectic. I know I´m used to weather that constantly changes, but this week was to the extreme, and it affected my health. It started off fairly warm and then got really cold and rainy. That sudden change caused me to lose my voice. It is difficult to be a missionary and not have a voice to speak. So, my companion had to do nearly everything. I would stick out my hand to stop people and he would have to do the contact. He would have to teach mostly everything, but in the quiet situations, I was able to whisper my part. My companion felt a little lonely because we couldn´t converse and I didn´t want to strain anything because I wanted my voice to be able to sing in the baptism. So, I spent a lot of the day whisteling to encourage my companion. It was an interesting experience, but I´m so glad I have a good full, loud voice again.

We also had zone conference and divisions and other things during the week, but we feel really good about the effort that we put forth. Although at times I felt tired and without the desire to do anything, I´m learning to push myself even when tired to acheive my goals. That has been one of my goals for my mission, to learn to work well even when tired. I feel like I´ve grown a lot recently and that I´m beginning to be more constant. I still have a long ways to go, but I´m working on it. The zone leaders and mission president and my companions have helped me a lot. And I know I can count on their true help along with the direct help from the Lord.

Yeah, that was a really trunky letter you sent me Dad, but that is alright. I still can´t imagine the end of my mission yet. The time is short and yet there is so much I need to do. But I hope your coming will be a really happy experience for you two. I´m sure it will be for me too.

I know this work is true and important and that even though we are so imperfect and so inept, the Lord has the greatest plans for his chosen children and will allow us to find them when we prove worthy of His spirit. I love Him for that.

With love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

(I don't know what this is...)

Las preparaciones de dos bautismos

2010-04-18T20:22:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,

Before I forget again. Thank you very much for the package. The new socks are really comfortable (I started to wear holes into the old ones) and the Post-Its really useful (even though I recently found some Post-Its here in a Wal-Mart). I´m also very thankful for all the food that was sent. I eat a lot compared to my companions. I don´t have time to write in my journal at night because first of all I make so many phone calls and second I use every extra moment to eat something. I really do have a really fast metabolism. The Gardettos were eaten within a week and I ate the nuts within a month. We didn´t eat all of the Oreos, but they were really good. And I still have some of the Valentine Chocolates to eat or give to investigators and members. And we are thoroughly enjoying the Prego Sauce. I just really wish I knew how to cook other quick things on the oven top or in an oven in which I have no clue how to regulate the temperature (they don´t cook many things in the oven here). Thank you again.

We had another good week, even though it was slightly hectic because we decided to do two divisions, one right after the other. But we were happy with the developments in the week. José Attino and Celeste Soria will be baptized on Saturday! Celeste always liked the church ever since she saw the baptism of her neices (who aren´t nearly as active as they we would like them to be). She wanted to get baptized, but was living "juntada" (unmarried). But in my mission I have begun to see more and more that light attracts light and repels darkness. They seperated and she can get baptized now. And we are hoping that her husband will come around and want to come back and be willing to get married (she has promised not to let him back until they do so). She is still sad by the seperation and we feel for her, but she is also relieved that she can be baptized now.

We´ve been working with José for a long while now. He has gone to church 7 times and every time we tried to set a baptismal date he would say, "We´ll see" and kind of shy away explaining that there were things in his family that he had to fix first, but never told us exactly what his plans were (We think he had a problem with the law of chastity that caused a lot of problems in the family). While on divisions with the zone leaders (the current assistant to the president) he tried to set a baptismal date for that transfer and couldn´t, so he decided to put one for the month of April, the 17th. During the past month, José has kept saying "Vamos a ver" until the past few days. Two days ago when I called him on the phone and asked him about it he said "Yeah I believe so," which to us meant progress, but still no. But my companion called the next day (Saturday) and he said "We´re going to work next week for that." Which is a much firmer yes. And he decided we could announce his baptism in church yesterday at church.

With them both, there is still work to do this week, but the time and active patience (even though it has been really hard on us) is paying off. My companion and I are also going to practice a violin-piano arrangement for the baptism. He received permission to borrow a violin from a Brother in the ward and to play this once.

We also had another investigator come to church, named Beatriz, but left after Relief Society, the first class. It seems what happened was that while in Relief Society a sister gave her a slip of paper to look up a scripture to read. It so happened that she received a scripture from Doctrine and Covenants. She looked in the Bible and in the Book of Mormon and couldn´t find it anywhere, which made her nervous and caused her stomach to hurt and so she left. We were in the other class, so we didn´t realize what was happening. And the sister that we had selected to sit with her and stay with her either didn´t know what was happening or didn´t know how to help. We tried calling her but it is either off or doesn´t answer and there was noone home yesterday afternoon. I hope she doesn´t try to avoid us now because she was really good.

I know this is the work of God and that the Holy Ghost bears testimony of it to those with a humble heart. I know that in this difficult world, that is just getting worse, the Gospel will provide barracades and walls against the evil influences so that we can have peace in this world and the next.

With love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

P.S. Your trip sounded really fun.

Feliz Cumple Mama!

2010-04-11T12:00:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,

¡Que lo cumple feliz!
¡Que lo cumple feliz!
¡Que lo cumple Mamá!
¡Que lo cumple feliz!

Happy birthday Mom and a happy Easter to all. You´re on vacation so I can´t have someone call, but I can send a picture of my companion and I. His brother Javiero also has his birthday today. I hope you like your birthday card that "we" did (he´s a little bit better on the artistic side, so he did most of it, but I helped color in balloons). I also absolutely loved general conference yesterday and Saturday too. Yesterday, there were a lot of talks about the healing power of the atonement and the resurrection and also about raising children. I hope that while you were listening Mom and Dad, you were thinking of the excellent job you did at being our parents. When Elder Anderson was asking the questions such as "¿Do your children know...?" I affirm that you can say "Yes," at least for this child (but I´m pretty sure your other two can as well). I love you so much for that knowledge and love you have always given me. And Mom, you don´t have to think about getting old either. When I show pictures of my family, the people here say, "Sus padres son muy jóvenes," "Su mamá es muy bonita," and they have asked, "¿Es ella tu hermana?" (translation: "Your parents are very young," "Your mom is very pretty," and "Is she your sister?"). I´ll have to agree with the three statements. Thank you Mom for everything.

I absolutely loved conference (yes I did just repeat myself). I have been looking forward to it for the past several weeks (actually the past 6 months). The main question I took to conference this year was "How can I be more constant?" The talk by President Uchtdorf was the answer to those prayers. Being constant has to do with the Christlike attribute of Patience. We have to be patient with ourselves and others. And patience isn´t just passive waiting, it is active diligence. It is pushing through the difficult moments without success and backsets so that in the end we have the success we seek. And he condemned "center of the universe syndrom," which I´ve heard from you two and myself several times. The solution? Selfless service. I am being better at being more constant and feel better because of it.

I also love their description of the Duty to God pamphlet for the youth. By their description, I know it is inspired of God and wished that I could have used this new version (but then I received the answer by one of the general authoritiesth at I can and should do it, but with my son). I can see that its focus is going to improve missionary work a lot because it focuses on several skills that a lot of missionaries lack (and I can´t exclude myself). In it you have to learn your duty (study), plan according to needs and circumstances, be diligent about bringing plans about, and bear testimony on the experience. Nearly all the general authorities have stated that good planning is the skill that nearly all missionaries lack. And it is true. We are taught about it and we try, but very rarely do things happen as we think or we don´t put into action our plans. I resolved to be a better goal setter and make real, written plans to bring them about. So, I hope you enjoy the growing and missionary preparing experience of the new Duty to God program Jonathan. I know it will strengthen you a lot.

Here in San Justo things have been progressing. We were happy to have investigators in each one of the 4 normal sessions of conference. They all loved it and strengthened their testimony. And we feel blessed by the Lord because each time, we got to the conference sessions only minutes or seconds before it started (because we used each break to return to our area and to accompany the investigators). We didn´t miss any of it (like we missed half of Elder Hollands talk on the Book of Mormon last year). José continues to go to church and loved the conference. Hernán left Celeste and we are trying to help Celeste through this difficult time, but also commit her to not let Hernán back to live with her until they decide and effectuate a marriage. We know that if Hernán just simply walks back into the life of Celeste, they will just continue having problems. But if he has to overcome the obstacle of getting married, he will improve to be a better father and husband and that is what we want for Celeste, so that she can be happier in life.

I know this work is true and the prophet and apostles are truely inspired. I know we heard the will and the word of the Lord the past two days and I hope to continue to live it constantly in my life. I know the miracles and the spirit, if not in the lives of others, in my own life will pass.

Love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

P.S. Happy Birthday Mom! again...

Las Clases del Otono

2010-03-28T10:17:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,

I don´t have too much time because we had our zone activity and I had permission to work through my class schedule for the fall. I got on and found out that I cannot register until the 31st, so it gives me time to look through what I need, plan it out and receive advice from you all. I haven´t yet taken a look at what hour each class takes place, I´ll worry about that next week or when I register. One question..., never mind, I looked it up. I need 14 credit hours to keep my scholarship. I was thinking about taking between 15-16 as is suggested in my major. In my major plan, I will take:
Phys 220 - Principles of Physics 3 (3 hours)
Phys 227 - Solar System Astronomy (3 hours)
Phys 230 - Physics Lab 1 (1 hour)
Phys 240 - Design, Fabrication, and Sci Apparatus (2 hours)

Then to round things out a bit, I have decided I want to take:
Rel A 211 - The New Testament (2 hrs)
Phil 210 - Science & Civilization 1 (History with an emphasis on science) (3 hrs)
Exsc 146 - Beginners Racquetball (To have some fun) (.5 hrs)

And then I would like to take some kind of music class. I haven´t yet decided exactly what I want. I am debating between a singing class (Music 111R, 2hrs), a choir (1 hr), an organ class (Music 115, 2hrs), or a piano class (Music 160R, 1hr).

So, those are my thoughts. And I would also like to work, but I don´t know how to check about that, what I´ll be doing, my hours, or anything of the sort. I think I´ll have to think about that later. And I´m not sure if I´ll be allowed to sign up on wednesday the 31st or thursday the 1st while my companion does the progress form or if I´ll have to wait until Monday the 5th, which will be the nearest P-day. I´ll probably ask the president next monday. And Dad, if you want, have time, and it isn´t a problem, it could be nice if you took a look at the class hours and arrange them so that they can fit or let me know if some of them are impossible to fit around one another. If you did that and let me know next monday, Jessica and I might be able to sign up for the same New Testament class (and if she wants to do honors, I can do that with her too). I don´t know if she is planning on that or not.

So, now that that is out of the way (that was weird to do and it didn´t help that I saw that the commander of the Apollo 13 mission is going to BYU for the next forum) , my week went fairly well. We continue to see progress with José. He has gone to church 4 times now and has plans to keep going, but hasn´t quite accepted a baptismal date. The transfer ends next week, so we were hoping that he would decide for this Saturday, but I´m not sure if that is going to happen now.

We were happy to see Gospel Principles completely full this past sunday with recent converts, José, and 3 investigators that need to get married. That is one of the problems I´ve faced my whole mission and I have yet to see one of my investigators get married. The problem always is that one wants to and wants to get baptized while the other wants nothing to do with it, but expects to keep living unmarried with them.

So that is an update on what is going on. I know that this is the true church and that this is where we should be. I know that the Lord will help you in your callings as we seek His help. I hope that all goes well this next week.

With Love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Me Arrepenti

2010-03-21T09:55:00.001-07:00

Dear Family,

This has been a really good week, a week of change. First off, I have to say that Jonathan looks a lot older in the photos without braces. I can´t believe the growth he has had and won´t believe the growth that he´ll have in the coming months and year. I won´t recognize him. Is his voice changing too?

I started off this past week fairly depressed and hard on myself. But, on Thursday night, something my companion said got stuck in my mind. “God didn´t send us here to fail.” We were failing because I had chosen to fail. And I knew that all along. But I learned many things about who I am during those moments. I decided that I would do at least my ten contacts the next day, something I hadn´t done for a while.

The next day, my companion and I, together, decided to do something that our president had given us a while back called “Purificándonos” ( Purifying ourselves). It consists of a fast and at the end of the fast you write down habits you need to give up and things that prevent you from having the Spirit. Then you commit yourself that for 40 days you´ll avoid those things. And we decided that we would focus on doing our contacts throughout the day.

And we did them! For the first time in a while. One of my problems is that I want to perfect and I want to be perfect now. I´m not patient with myself and I can´t expect perfection because that is a difficult and long process. On the mission we have a ton of responsibilities and one of the things I have long known about myself is that I cannot multitask. I can´t think about more than one thing at a time. So, when there are lots of things calling my attention at the same time, I get overwhelmed. So, to in the style that conforms most to myself, I decided to put a focus for the day and focus on that one thing while we went about doing the other things throughout the day. And it helped a lot. We acheived our goal and we did well in all of the other things that we were doing.

Friday was a day of Kairos and a day full of other miracles. The biggest of them all (apart from our own repentence) was that Lily, a recent convert had some big news. She had a hard life and made a ton of bad choices in her life. One of the consequences was that she recieved HIV. But, Friday morning, when she went to the doctor to retrieve some studies, everything came out “negative.” Not a trace was found. She finds it as a direct result of being “born again” and cleansing of baptism. Also, this same day, the police came to her house with the papers showing that the man who raped her could not enter withing ten blocks of her. She was estatic when we found her, especially because it meant that she could leave her house again to go visit her children.

Another good result is that Elder Jimenez and I are a lot more unified. The other times when we tried to improve, the other wouldn´t help really. When he tried to change I´d bring him down and when I tried to change, I felt alone. But this time we made the decision to change together and everything became easier. I didn´t have to tell him everytime to do a contact with someone who is coming and he didn´t have to wait all day for me to do one. Our relation reminds me a lot about the relation with my second companion, but I´m glad that we could get over our differences together and learn to love the other better. We now experience a lot more of the Spirit and therefore we are much happier.

We are being blessed immediately for our diligence. A contact we did Friday led us to teach Veronica on Saturday, who came to church with us yesterday. The only problem is that she´ll be in the capital all week and won´t come back until next Sunday morning and doesn´t have a cell phone, so we won´t have contact. Also, she has been living with a man unmarried for the past 6 months. They are still without child, so we´ll se what happens now.

José also came on his own and early to church. We are seeing that his interest is changing into belief. He will make a great member of the church once he feels the need to be baptized, which we´ll help him out in this coming week.

And we had another interesting experience. Here in San Justo, there is a crazy member. He talks about hordes of demons and how we have to gather all of the elders together to fight them and that Beethoven descended to teach him guitar. But, his wife is a member of the Red Cross and completely sane and is not a member, but has a lot of interest. She came two weeks in a row and I didn´t know she wasn´t a member. We taught her yesterday and she has a lot of potential. I don´t have time to explain everything, but I will next week.

I know this is the work of God and that Christ is our Savior. He is always giving us a second chance and will help us when we seek Him.

Love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

El ejemplo de un hermano

2010-03-14T07:50:00.001-07:00

8 Mar 2010

Dear Family,

Wow, that vacation that you are going to take sounds so fun. I find it quite interesting that we as a family aren´t typical when we go on vacation. We have to go on adventures to see new things, to have new experiences, and to learn. We get bored on a beach. So, I hope you have a great time during spring break. I´m glad you decided against going to Pennsylvania again because I would like to go there one day, Dad, to see your proselyting areas, even though I know that they have to have changed a ton since then. I´m wondering if I´ll be able to recognize everything in my first few areas when we go visit at the end of my mission.

It will be interesting to know what will be the changes in our stake as well. Such changes can be really exciting. Here in San Justo, they recently became a ward, and by changing the boundaries, they received some really strong families. So, the whole ward is excited to start doing to work, start the home and visiting teaching again, and missionary work. I hope such changes will provide renewed energy to our ward and all will roll forth. If our ward gets changed around again, it will be weird for me. I was only with the new ward boundaries for a few months before I left for school, so I won´t be used to anything.

The work here is progressing slowly, but it is progressing. We have some hope in some people who came yesterday. For the priesthood session (at 9) a man named Guillermo came, but he had to leave afterwards to pick up his children and take them to another church. It was a class instructing the elder´s quorum about home teaching. It was really well done and the Elder´s quorum president tried to help Guillermo as much as possible, but I still wonder what he thought. We´ll find out when we go back wednesday to his house.

We also had Raúl come in halfway through sacrament meeting. He is from Bolivia and his family is there. He works here and every Sunday morning he goes to put money in the bank to send home. That is why he got to church so late. But he really liked it and when we taught him in the church after Sacrament meeting, he accepted a baptismal date for the 20th, which is actually is birthday. But we messed up in our calculations and that would mean he would come only one more time to church before his baptism, so we are going to have to change it for the 27th. But, we´ll see what we have to do because he isn´t married to his wife in Bolivia. So, we will talk with our zone leaders about what he has to do to be baptized.

Right now we are feeling a little better, but the first part of the week we were really down. We weren´t working well and didn´t really have the desire to work well. It is true, depression is one of the strongest tools that Satan uses to obstruct the Lord´s work. Sometimes I feel that here on the mission, I´m facing for the first time in my life feelings of mediocrity. I´ve always felt beforehand that I was one of the best at doing things and here I´m not. I still have a really marked "German" accent (at least they don´t think it is North American) which is often difficult to understand. And I can´t get myself to do all of the contacts I should do every day and every week. I´ve been struggling with that my entire mission. But I know that this is to check my pride and to teach me what I desired at the beginning of my mission -- to teach me to work diligently even when I´m tired. I still haven´t gotten it down. I´m glad that, unlike the way the mission was before President Benton got here, the mission leaders are loving and patient with me.

During my mission, I´ve thought several times that Jonathan, you are going to be an amazing missionary compared to me. First of all, you don´t seek the laud and honor of the world as I tend to do. I don´t do so directly, but I´ve noticed that I often do it subtily. Second, you are much more unselfish than me. You are so loving and kind to everyone. You just make people feel good about themselves. Third, you already know how to work hard and diligently even when the going gets rough. And fourth, you have always been known in our family as a man of great faith. With those attributes of Christ, you will make for a missionary that will see miracles in every footstep. I have a lot to learn from you brother.

I know that this work is true and faithful. I know that blessings come as we rely on the Lord in all that we do. I know He loves us and will always help us in our times of need and let us pass through what we need to strengthen us. I love Him for that.

With love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Terremoto

2010-03-07T09:41:00.001-08:00

Dear Family,

My companion tells me that everyone is alright in his family in Chile. He lives in Santiago, so it wasn´t hit quite as hard, but his family said that everything inside the house fell over. But, the house itself is well constructed and that there weren´t any problems. That is the good thing about Chile, they have years worth of experience working with earthquakes because it happens so often there. But the past few days, everyone has been asking my companion, “How is your family?” He didn´t know anything until now when he checked his email. All of the Chileans in the mission received permission to call home for 5 minutes, but my companion decided not to (or rather, when he decided he might, he accidently left the number in the pench. His family changed their home phone number in the past few months). We didn´t feel anything although I heard that some of the tallest buildings in the capital had damaged windows or swayed or something.

But, with the recent earthquakes, we have had opportunities to teach people the plan of salvation ... and more science (there was one person who thought that global warming and the hole in the ozone caused the earthquakes). I like to tell people that death is just the door to a new adventure. We´ll all pass it whether we go alone or in large groups. It helps people think again whether such catastrophes are so terrible or not. I am grateful for the knowledge of the Gospel that we have to see everything in life with a new light.

On a different topic, I find it kind of funny that Mom noticed that I haven´t been wearing my glasses. I don´t say that it surprises me. No, I haven´t lost my glasses. But they are a bit scratched up, and with as much as it has been raining recently, they can be a bother at times. So, I decided not to wear them. As a missionary, it really doesn´t make much difference at all. I can see well enough. When people are far away I might not recognize them or it might make it harder to read the street name or number, but basically nothing changes with or without glasses. They are essencial in school to read the board, but I don´t have to do that much here. Also, most people say that I look better without glasses, so I´m wondering if I´ll heed that counsel and go with contacts after the mission. I don´t know and don´t really care much now.

I can´t quite say that this past week was the best week in my mission. I got a little discouraged and tired, lost the desire to push myself to talk with those that I don´t know, and didn´t work as hard as I should. That happens every once in a while in the mission and at times takes a while to recuperate. But, I am glad that I can say that I´ve tried to be as obedient as I could, but I can´t say that I was diligent. And without such diligence, giving all of your soul, heart, might, mind, and strength, success in the mission doesn´t exist.

It has been really difficult to do things that are so against my nature, but I know that it is helping me to polish all of my weak spots. I´ve always been good at getting along with people, but here I have to push them to improve. That work is much harder. But, I know I´m not alone in that work. As long as I am obedient and diligent, the Lord promises His spirit.

At least we have a few sparks of hope here. A couple that Elder Jimenez and Elder Chamberlain taught had gone on vacation and returned this week. They are named José and María (the most Catholic names you can find). María doesn´t have too much interest, but José, while he was on vacation, found an old Book of Mormon from 1970 in a library and he bought it. When we saw him, he was talking a lot about baptism, but didn´t feel quite ready to decide yet. He came with us to church on Sunday and we´ll go back to see him on Wednesday. We´ll see what happens.

I know that this work will always march forth and that no matter what happens, the Lord will protect and provide for His people, those that are righteous. God will make us the best that we are through the loving means of a perfect Father. And all shall be as He says.

With love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Drake's Mission Pictures

2010-02-28T10:28:00.000-08:00

So a lot of these are really old and I don't know who all of them are of, but here are some pictures from Drake's mission! Hopefully from now on I'll be able to put up his pictures.

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Escritura y San Justo

2010-02-28T09:59:00.000-08:00

Dear Family,

To start off, I´ll answer the questions about the plaque. I actually thought that you did that a long time ago and that it has been hanging up during my mission. I don´t have my scriptures with me at the moment but I´ll try to remember the scripture reference. I think it is D&C 6:10-11, but I´m not sure about the verses. It says, “Tienes un don y bendito eres a causa de tu don. Recuerdas que viene de arriba...” Um, in english it says something about having a gift, that it comes from above, and you´ll use that gift to learn mysteries to the convincing of many of the errors of their ways. It was written to Oliver Cowdery. Those verses impacted me very strongly when I read them for the first time a few days after I received my testimony of Christ when I was 17. And Mom, I assure you that for me, the time has flown by much more rapidly than I could have ever imagined.

I´m glad that you are enjoying the winter Olympics so much. I love the winter Olympics, but I guess that I´ll have to wait 4 more years. I haven´t heard anything at all about the Olympics here.

This past week has been an ubrupt change from what I´m used to. Being closer to the city center, everyone here is a bit more established, making it a lot harder to proselyte. It is very different trying to preach to people who have lived in the same house 40 years, has a steady work in the which they are never home with time, and are never sitting in their front porch, than to do so with people that are still building their house, having moved there within a few years coming from another country, are always home because they can´t find a steady work, and are younger and more open to new ideas. But, I´ll say that the ward is a lot stronger.

Recently, the boundaries were changed to make the San Justo branch into the San Justo Ward. The bishop is really good, but I don´t think we´ll have quite the same relation as we did with the bishop of Jardines. This Sunday, Santiago Romero, a returned missionary that recently got married was called as the new ward mission leader. The old one was always working and didn´t always go to church. So, I have good hopes.

This past week, we mainly focused in several “eternal investigators” in trying to help them get to church, but even though we went to go look for them, they didn´t come. We are also teaching the 21 yr. old daughter of a member and she came for sacrament meeting. So, she helped renew our hopes. This week, we´ll try to expand the teaching pool. This week it also poured and poured. On Friday, the streets turned into rivers up to our shins. But we had fun plowing through them anyways.

It has been a lot harder to get to know the members here because we receive a vianda (carry-out?) every day from the members because their husbands always work during the day, which is good, but more difficult for us. I guess I´ll be learning how the mission is in the majority of the world here in San Justo. I´ve always heard that it is harder here in the zone of Oeste, but I also know that outcome isn´t caused by circumstance. We can have a lot of success here with the help of the Lord and adapting to the circumstances.

I know that these things are true and will go forth among the whole world. I know that God protects us and will always guide us. He is at the head of this work and will always be.

With Love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

I figured out how to get pictures back up!!! I got a new laptop in the summer and had never been able to do it. I would save his pictures, but then I couldn't find the file. Here you go! I'll try to upload some of the older pictures too...

Nieves, who got sick and stopped smoking. I hope to hear good news about her in the future.

Me teaching a little bit.

The piano class that I was teaching. Several of them are recent converts, family, and friends. Next to me is Jonathan Dominguez, our ward mission leader.

Estoy en San Justo

2010-02-21T10:39:00.000-08:00

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

Una Semana Mas antes del cambio

2010-02-14T10:45:00.001-08:00

Dear Family,

This past week went fairly well. I can´t remember what happened exactly at the moment, but I´m sure that it went well. My companions always make fun of my terrible memory. I don´t know why, but my memory works differently than everyone else. I can´t remember faces or names, but I can remember where they are located. After teaching someone two times and if I find them in another location outside of their home or the church, I won´t recognize them. I´ll know that I´ve seen them before, but where, or when, or who they are, I have no clue whatsoever. I have to sit there and piece together the clues while my companion greets them to see what he says. For that reason, I´m so glad that I have a companion with me at all times. But I always say that there is something good about my poor memory, I can relive the same adventure twice and not be bored of it.

I´m glad that the surgery went well Dad and am sorry that you won´t be able to go fly for a while. That is probably a big bummer. And I´m glad the rest of the family is well. Friday, my companion put me for a scare. At three in the morning he turned the lights on. The first thing that went through my mind, “The alarm wasn´t set right? Did I sleep in past 6:30? Am I being disobedient?” But then he asked me for a blessing. He had been up for an hour throwing up and having diarrhea, at the same time. So, I gave him the blessing and gave him some crema de bismuto (I forget how to say that in English, the pink liquid). And we went back to bed. Then in the morning he spent most of the time in the bathroom. We woke up Hma. Lydia Aquino, our member neighbor, to go buy some medicine. The strangest thing was that he was throwing up a black/dark brown color. I had never seen that before. But, then we realized what the problem was. It smelled of chocolate. A lot of times, the Elders here, on Thursday night do what is called “Oreo night.” He ate a package of Oreos (11 I think) with milk and that ruined his stomach. Maybe he had a problem with something he ate a lunch too, I don´t know. It seems like the majority of the time, the day after we eat with the member we eat with on Thursdays, one of us gets sick. After 24 hours of cleaning out his digestive system, he was better. But we lost the majority of the working day. He says that he might not touch Oreos again in his life. I´ve always told the other Elders that it is unwise to eat a full package of Oreos at once, but they often think I´m a “health freak” for saying it. I find my body fairly fragile, so I try to take care of it the best I can with what I eat.

You asked about when I´ll be transferred? It will be next Monday. So, I have this last week here in Jardines. It has been really short and I feel like I haven´t done nearly anything here, but I have seen great growth here. My greatest joy I believe has come from the experience of the Salazar family. The Bishop when I got here asked that we bring men into the church. We weren´t able to do that so much. But the Lord had other plans in mind. We helped bring back several men. Also, the entire Paulino family came this past week. The father has come back and accepted an assignment with the young men. I think he still has some word of wisdom problems, so he can´t have a calling, but his help could be used.

I´ll miss this ward, but especially the bishop. It was like we were in this together—he being called as a new bishop and us getting here in a white wash. He would always help encourage us and was very open to our ideas. Actually, I felt that he confided in us as counsellors at times because he only had one who has his own difficulties. And now Bishop Fleytas recently fathered a new son. It has been good to be apart of these joyous occasions.

I believe that this next Sunday, we have decided to have the baptism of Lucas. He is a 9 yr. old kid who lives next door to some members that are helping us a lot. I believe he has a bit of ADHD and his mom wants him to go to church and be baptized to help him mature better. He really likes going to church. The week after I leave, I hope I´ll here of the baptism of Manuel Pastrana and Hernán. Manuel is the husband of a member and he recently stopped drinking, so he is more receptive of the Spirit and is going to church now. Hernán is a 17 year old kid that has some of the adolescent problems but we see that he really wants to make good changes in his life. He wants to have a true repentance and be baptized. The only problem is that his Mom is against it and Hernán doesn´t allow us to go to his house to meet her. So, we sent him with a video to show her that explains a bit about what we do and believe. I hope that will soften her heart.

Oh, and about the package, I think I might want a bit more Prego sauce. I think of all the things I´ve been without in my mission, I miss that most. The European style sauces here are good, but not the same. I usually add a little bit of chilli pepper to give it a little more zest.

Thank you for all of your prayers and help that you are giving me. I know that this work is not a work of man, but the work of God. He had His plan and it is perfect. We just need to accept Him, be humble, have faith in Christ and His atonement, repent, be baptized, receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, and endure to the end. It really is that easy, but we are tried with every problem God can give us so that we can learn to apply it perfectly.

With love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Lecciones y Estres

2010-02-07T12:08:00.000-08:00

Dear Family,

To reply to some of the basic stuff, I have no clue where you would find my BYU ID. I´m sure you´d find it on my BYU ID card, but at this moment I don´t remember where that is. Maybe I have it in my wallet, but I doubt it. Maybe it is in the mission safe. Maybe it is at home. No sé. If you are able to log into my BYU account, you´d probably be able to find it in there too. Sorry if I´m of no help there.

And I don´t know if you are thinking of sending another package any time soon, but if you are, it would be nice if you would put in it some more Post-Its, more socks, and a Pez dispenser (one of the members here collects Pez dispensers from the Yankee missionaries). But it isn´t an emergency at all any of those things. I´m still alright, just a heads up.

And also, they´ve changed our mail accounts. It now goes through gmail. My new email is drake.ranquist@myldsmail.net. It has a huge memory, so we won´t have to worry as much about the space it takes to receive and send photos.

Jonathan, I can´t really imagine what you are going through right now. I really haven´t been faced with death much in my life. We´ve gone through the passing away of our grandparents, our aunt, and one of our neighbors, but I haven´t had to face it as you are now. But this I do know: Death is just the door to a new adventure. It is sad the way your friend chose to pass to the other side, but he and his family can continue on with faith and hope. There may be a better opportunity to share your testimony that you know what happens after death. That our spirit lives on waiting the day of our resurrection. That everyone, no matter what they said or did, just by the fact that they chose to come to this earth, will be blessed with a perfect body to live on forever. Life will go on in joy. And everyone will receive a just “prize” for our actions, inheriting a kingdom of glory. In each of these glories, there will be joy to be had. We push ourselves to be worthy to enter into that great and glorious Celestial kingdom, but even those who do not make it will participate in joy and rest from the labors of this life. Continue with your prayers of faith and continue being my happy, smiley brother. I have always admired your persistence in times of difficulty and the light that illuminates all around you. I still have a lot to learn from you.

And I´ll continue praying for you Mom and Dad. And I know they´ll be answered by what is best for you both. Thank you for your support and example.

This past week, here in Jardines, has also been full of ups and downs. I don´t think I´ve ever taught so much in my entire mission. The Lord blessed us with many people to find and help. I feel good that I can say that we worked hard. But along with all of that work came a lot of stress. We were constantly thinking about how we can help all the people we are teaching and how we can achieve our goals. If the Lord has in mind that I´ll be a zone leader next transfer, I think He is training me now how to achieve the numbers necessary to set a good example.

We were really glad that we could participate in the confirmation of Yanina. The Bishop surprised me by asking me to do the confirmation. I felt like it was an honor. And I could feel that the Spirit was there. I just wish that Rita and Julio had come to witness this step of their daughter. They told us all week that they would come, but while they were getting ready, some cousins came from Peru, without prior notice. That happens way too much here in Argentina. We have been praying a lot that they might gain their own testimonies.

We had a lot of new investigators in sacrament meeting again. But it is weird. We can help many people come for the first time, but we have difficulties helping them come a second time. They want to, but there is always a larger test they have to overcome the second time to get to church. I´m not sure if I´ll see the baptism of very many people before I leave Jardines in two weeks, but I´m hoping that I have planted and helped many seeds grow so that they can bring forth fruit in the coming months. I hope I´ll be able to be constant these next two weeks and these next six months and work with all my might (I passed the 18 month mark on Saturday and I´m hoping that I´ll be able to work harder and use the experience I have gained to make these last six months the best in my mission).

I know that this is the kingdom of God here on Earth that we are helping to build. I know that God is at the head and will help us be and achieve what He has in mind. His will will be done, usually in small and simple means. I love the fact that I can participate and dread the day when I have to give up my nametag and lose the authority to be His representative.

With love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Salud y Bautismo

2010-01-31T10:18:00.001-08:00

25 Jan 2010

Dear Family,

Thank you for the support that you give me as I continue on this mission. This week, as I´ve told you, I have gone on this diet to do a physical study. I´ve been very surprised with the results. This week I have felt better than I have felt in a long time. It is possible that I don´t have a parasite after all and that it has just been a reaction of my body against eating a diet full of fats and oils. This past week I have been eating mainly rice, boiled or grilled meat, crackers, and fruit. And by eating so, I´ve had a lot more energy. I´m thinking about asking the members to continue serving me like that. I did the other studies this morning and I´ll have the results next week. But, I now have a greater testimony of the Word of Wisdom, in that eating grains, fruits, and vegetables, with little meat really does help the body.

This week, it felt like we were hardly in our area, but we had a lot of success anyways. On Wednesday, we were surprised with interviews with the President. I wanted to ask him in the interview who is going to leave Jardines out of E´Cuberos and me and he beat me to it. He started out by telling me that I have done some really good things in Jardines the past two months and that he think he´ll send me somewhere else next transfer. He scared me by saying, “I´ll think I´ll make you a…I won´t go into that yet.” He´s done that kind of cliffhanger statements before with me, so I think it is something he normally does. I´m afraid the next words are “zone leader.” I don´t think I´m quite up to that yet. Recently, the zone leaders have been averaging 40-50 lessons per week and it is assumed that they do all of their contacts. I´ve never been able to push myself enough to have such success. I feel bad that I still haven´t even come close to doing all of the contacts I should in a transfer. But, as I´ve always said, “I´ll go where you want me to go, Oh Lord, I´ll be what you want me to be.” Then on Thursday we had a great zone conference and divisions on Friday.

But, most important was that on Sunday, we were able to witness the baptism of Yanina Escobar. It went really well. She is the best friend of Soledad Leyva and they supported one another a lot as Soledad became active again and Yanina started the conversion process. Yanina often prayed asking to know if the church is true and always felt a peace that helped her sleep, but didn´t recognize it as a response of God. But, after it happened time after time, and a little explanation from us, she realized that God was answering her prayers. She loved coming to church and going to our piano lessons. I have found that even though they don´t really learn much in our piano lessons, it helps the converts make friends with other youth in the ward.

This baptism was a baptism for the youth. Jonathan, our ward mission leader who has sent in his papers to go on a mission, directed the service. Daniel, who is also preparing to go on a mission, gave the first talk. Soledad, her friend, gave the second. And we sang “Count your many blessings,” the hymn Yanina was learning to play on the piano. Diana and another friend gave the prayers. And my companion did the baptism.

The baptism was especially good for her parents to see. Julio has a baptismal date for the 7th of February, but her mom has been on the edge. I feel that the Mom felt more of the spirit during the baptism and saw the joy on Yanina´s face. At the end, and for the first time in my mission, we asked Yanina to give her testimony. She did so, thanking everyone for their help. And said, “And I know this is the true church.” It was simple, but pure. Rita, her mom, said that when we go on Tuesday, she will have a lot of questions for us.

I wish we could have had the baptism of her with her parents together, but we felt it was necessary to do it now to help the progress of her parents.

We also had a new investigator in church—a 91 yr. old woman named Aurora. We found her about two weeks ago and I didn´t think much of her. We went back a second time and she wanted a healing blessing. We gave the blessing and returned another day. She felt better and was excited to come with us to church. A member with a car came with us to pick her up. When we got there, we found out that her son is a friend of a member, so his wife sat with Aurora the entire time. I´m not sure how much she understood, but she felt really good and said that she might want to come back next week and the week after that. She accepted yesterday a baptismal date for the 13th.

I know this work is true. I know this is the true church. I know that the Spirit leads and guides us when we look for him. And God, as our father, will always love us.

With love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Las victorias y los desafios

2010-01-24T19:48:00.000-08:00

18 Jan 2010

Dear Family,

I received two letters this week noting that I have been sugarcoating my letters a bit. Yes, it is true, I like to share about the good experiences a lot better than the bad ones. And I don´t have much time to write each week, so I make sure to get the good experiences down first. So if I have time towrite some of those other feelings, I will in this letter, but I will talk about the good stuff first.

One of the most impressing stories that I have heard on the mission is happening in Moreno 3, another ward in our district. A few weeks ago, the bishop saw a man and said, “You want to talk with me.” He replied, “Yes, I do.” This man is named Arey. Since he was 14, he has been a Catholic monk. He has travelled all over the world working on projects for the Catholic ministry. One day, he met a missionary in the airport who was finishing his mission. This missionary gave him his spanish triple, with all of the markings he had for his entire mission. Over the past 5 months (I think), Arey has read it completely 5 times, has read every single reference to the Bible, and memorized many key parts. He knows that it is true and was inspired by God. He now knows that his baptism is worthless to him and that he must be baptized in The Church of Jesus Christ. He actually lives in a Fransiscan Monestary here in Jardines and his only clothes are his monk robes. He is now in the process of renouncing the Catholic church and will have many trials as he enters the world in which we live. But, with faith in the Lord, he will be guided and supported. I find that story absolutely amazing.

Here in Jardines, things are going well. There are difficulties constantly, but we are seeing progress. Things go really well for the Salazar family. The father is loving going to church again and is helping the rest of his entire family go as well. The mom, who was a little bit more hard hearted, felt the spirit more and decided that she would start praying again. They are bringing two of their children with their “future” spouses (with whom they already have children). They are great and have real desires to be married. I´m hoping that I´ll be able to participate in the marriage of my investigators at least once in my mission. And Daniel is being strengthened as well.

This Sunday, Nieves came with her granddaughter to church and really liked it. And she is putting forth the effort to stop smoking. Her daughter, Cynthia, was really interested at first and had received an answer to prayers, but we see that she has a doubt about something. We just need to learn what it is. Gonzalo also received permission from his parents to come to church again. We´re teaching his grandma and she likes us and I think she is having a small influence on the parents now.

While talking with Olinda, Gonzalo´s grandma, I´ve had verified again the truth of this gospel and the safety it brings us. She tells us about all of her life stories, everything that has been stored up for years and years that she won´t tell to her children, and what she has learned from those experiences. Sometimes I think, “It took her her entire life to learn the things that we already know.”

So, now for some of the difficulties. First off, this week I´m on a special diet. The past few months I have been having digestion problems and I have felt weaker than usual. Some people say that I look skinnier, but I haven´t really seen any drop in weight. So, I have been afraid that I contracted a parasite and that I have had this extra companion with me for these last few months. So, the mission doctor said I should go to the clinic to do a study. I went this past week and to do this study, I can´t eat anything with fats, anything fried, oil, butter, and potatoes. Basically, I can eat rice or noodles plain and boiled meats. So, I´ll have a better appreciation for food with taste next week. This study, at first I thought the mission would pay for, but then Hma. Benton said that they wouldn´t. So, I had to take money out of the account again. I´m sorry if I´m doing that more, but it seems that everything here is a little more expensive now and we use half of the money we receive on bus passes here in Jardines. I´m hoping I´ll be able to get all of those problems resolved.

Yes, I have trials, especially feelings of being inept and that a lot of the things I do or plan seem to fall through, which can be stressful, but I know that the Lord strengthens the weak back. I know that He is with us and will guide us. He is guiding us.

Love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

P.S. Yes, it is alright if you sign me up for an apartment in Campus Plaza.

El espirito

2010-01-18T00:17:00.000-08:00

11 Jan 2010

Dear Family,

I´m sorry Dad that you are passing through so many difficulties with your mortal body right now. Sometimes when I feel tired or sick, it makes me even more anxious for when we receive our resurrected bodies and we´ll never be sick, have pain, or be tired again. That is the biggest trial I think I´ll have in my life, that of not having as much energy as I´d like. It´s always been something I´ve fought and I´m learning more about that disability here on the mission. But I rejoice that I´ll only fight it during this life.

This week was a good, full week. I´ll start by recounting our experience with the Salazar Family. We were doing contacts one day after a lesson and I saw a man in front of his house and felt strongly within me “I Want to talk with Him!” But, my companion beat me too it. He told us that they were the inactive parents of Daniel, a 21 yr. old kid that is preparing to go on a mission. He asked us if we wanted to come in and usually I would probably set an appointment for another day to talk with an inactive family, but I had this strong impression, so we went in.

The spirit was really strong in that lesson as we showed him the movie “The Restoration.” I was asking God what he wanted us to say after the movie ended and I felt, just give your testimony with all your soul. And we did just that. He said afterwards that our testimonies might be just what he needed to return. At the end, we found out that they are actually excommunicated and haven´t gone back to church in 4 years. But, they have had desires to return to support their son.

With my experience trying to overcome my own difficulties, I´ve learned that it usually takes more than just one testimony or one visit to make big and lasting changes, so we decided to go back on Friday. On Friday, we asked if the new bishop could come with us to visit them. That touched them a lot that the bishop would come with us to get to know them. With another spiritual lesson, they were able to take the step and return to church on Sunday. The entire family came and we felt really good about what we had done. One of the other sons told me after talking with the bishop, “You were right when you said that repentance is sweet.” I was so grateful that we were able to be instruments in the Lord´s hands in helping this family. And I think we´ll continue seeing the fruits of that effort because they said that when they left the church, a lot of families followed them. If they return, they can help many inactive families return and we could possibly baptized the children that now are older than 8.

This past Sunday, President Benton decided to come and visit Jardines. He had a special class with those preparing for the mission and it was good. It was also really nice that they took us back to our apartment after the meeting.

I know that this church is true. It is nice that when people ask us questions, looking for our errors, they feel the power of our simple truths. I love being able to help others feel this spirit. And I know that the Lord will always back us up when we are worthy of it.

With love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

P.S. Yes, I´ve seen siblings come with their parents to pick up the returning missionaries. That is the decision of you guys. And I think I´ll receive the papers and notices about preparing to return home in about two and a half months.

Una Decada Nueva

2010-01-10T09:53:00.001-08:00

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

Se termina la navidad

2010-01-03T09:03:00.001-08:00

28 Dec 2009

Dear Family,

I don´t have too much time left because the computer restarted twice and the other computer froze on me while reading your letters. So, I´ll see if I have better luck with this computer. Luckily, I hadn´t started writing. But I think I´ll use the majority of the time left trying to send photos.

We did a service activity, painting a house, on Wednesday. So here are some photos of what we did. We mainly painted the front and it turned out really well. Our mission president told us to find some people to serve to make this Christmas more memorable. And so we did a lot of service. But what probably gave me more joy was when I was in the bus, I would use the bus ticket and make paper cranes and give them to people. One time, there was a little girl sitting close by and I gave the crane to her and said “Merry Christmas.” It felt good to see her face glow as I got off the bus.

And, thank you for your package. We loved it. While eating some of the candy, my companion said “Why is American candy so addictive?” The candy here just isn´t the same. So, thank you very much. Eating some of the candy and nuts made me feel at home a little bit.

This Sunday, there was a baptism in the ward. It was of an 8 yr. old girl, so it didn´t count for us, even though we basically took care of everything. The bishop even asked Elder Cuberos to do the baptism. It was good. And we are now preparing for the baptism of Diana Leiva. She is the 10 yr. old daughter of a member that used to work on Sunday, stopped, and is now coming to church again.

I know that this is all true and that we need to just keep on trucking. I hope that new years goes well for you all.

With love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Recordando el nacimiento de Cristo

2009-12-27T18:52:00.001-08:00

22 Dec 2009

Dear Family,

First of all, I want to ask forgiveness for not writing yesterday. We had our P-day Christmas activity as a mission, got back kind of late, and when we went to the cyber to write you, the page wouldn´t open. I think the server had crashed because all of the missionaries were trying to sign on at the same time. But, we´re taking time now to write.

This Christmas, I believe I´ll be calling around 5 o´clock, Argentine time. I think there is a two hour difference, so it would be about 3 there. But I don´t remember very well. We didn´t change the hour for day light savings time this year. These are my plans for Christmas. First thing, I´ll open the package you sent me (I received it last week). Then, we´ll head out to Trujui to have our Zone Activity in the morning (because all of Argentina is asleep Christmas morning because they celebrate at midnight). We´ll eat tacos and completos (hot dogs with avocado and tomatoes). Afterwards, we are going to go do service for our bishop, cutting a bunch of tall grass (at least we´ll have weed wackers this time instead of do it all with machete). After this service, we´ll go to the church to call. So, I´m not sure if there is a specific hour when we´ll be able to call. If we finish after 5, I´ll probably let my companion call first, meaning that I´ll call closer to 7. And it will be 40 min. as in past occassions. I´m looking forward to hearing your voices too.

In talking with President Benton, he wants to let you know Dad that he understands what you are going through. He had a similar back operation and that it took a good while to heal. He says, just as I know you´ve heard a few dozen times, that it just takes patience. It will all turn out for the best in the end and is more for your spiritual progression than for physical or economical progression. He also wants to know if you know Jim Heck. He is/was head of human resources of UPS and was a counselor in the Bishopric with President Benton in Park City, Utah. To the president´s knowledge, he is inactive now, but would like to know if you know anything about him.

With the holiday season, I´m also trying to get my shoes repaired to be able to last until the end of my mission. I´ve already taken the shoes that had the hole worn through the sole to be repaired. I think I´m also going to have to buy new insoles for them too. And I have a hole in the side of the shoes that I bought for christmas last year. I´ll have to take them in. So, I believe I´ll have to take out some more money from the bank to make such reparations.

Sorry Mom if I haven´t taken pictures of Jardines yet. It really isn´t the lush gardens you might have thought. It is very similar to many of my past areas with half of the streets asphalted and the other half with dirt roads. They make the asphalted roads just so that the buses can pass. And I´m really not sure when I will get around to taking photos of the area either.

Yesterday´s P-day Navideño was really great. We started off listening to the testimonies of the missionaries that are going home today (2 weeks early so that they can be with their families for Christmas), like E´Lloyd, E´Willie, and E´Cumrine. I´ll miss them. And Jessica, I think that E´Willie will be at BYU next semester studying civil engineering. He´s an RM I approve of. I´ll always remember the kindness he gave me on my first divisions at the beginning of my mission. I also approve of E¨Lloyd if you every run across him. So, anyways, then we listened to the First Presidency Devotional. It was great to hear. Then we had a fun competition of asking for references and we had skits. I´m grateful to have a loud voice, because it was really hard to hear the other people. We had some really good laughs.

I know that the Christmas time is to remember our Savior. I know that he is the Christ, the living Son of God. I am constantly testifying of him because it is the knowledge that I value most. I´ll never forget when I came to know for myself. I know this work is the work that God has sent us, imperfect and inexperienced youth, to do. And I know that true joy come in and only through His Son and the commandments that he gave to us. I know that, even if at times I feel like a rebellious soul. But we will move forward always.

Love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

La confianza del Obispo

2009-12-20T10:51:00.000-08:00

14 Dec 2009

Dear Family,

Wow, I can´t believe I´ve been here in Jardines 3 weeks already. But, I like this ward. Our main objective when we got here was to gain the confidence of the Bishop. I think we´ve already acheived that goal. He´s a great Bishop and is enjoyable to be around. I really liked it yesterday when we were in ward counsel and he was talking about how having all of the organizations work together to further missionary work, the ward would be strengthened. He said that it was necessary that they work to do so because we the missionaries leave. He said, “We never want the missionaries to leave, but especially not these Elders. I don´t know, but there is something special about these Elders.” That made me feel really good, especially when it shows that we are accomplishing the objective President Benton gave us.

This transfer, we have been praying and fasting to be able to find a family to bring to church. Especially a father that would make a good leader in the home and in the church. We think we found him this past week. On wednesday, while we were walking, (wow, a lot of w´s), we passed by a house and my companion said that he felt we needed to talk with them. So, we went and taught a good lesson. When we went back on friday, we didn´t have time to stay and teach, because we had a Family Home Evening activity for the ward, so we invited him to come. We weren´t expecting him to come to much, but he did! Not many members came, so we turned the activity into a lesson for him about the plan of salvation. At the end, I asked, “What are you willing to do to enter the Celestial Kingdom to be with God and your family forever?” With that question, he told us about how he wanted to give up drinking because it was ruining his family. So, we talked with him about it and I asked “So, when you´re with your friends and they invite you to drink, what are you going to say?” He said, “No.” “But you drank with us last week, what happened?” And he replied, “No, I don´t drink anymore.” It was good to see that resolution. We invited him to come to church, but he said that he had a small work to do on Sunday morning.

But, Sunday came and Julio Cézar Escobar came too! He was able to arrange it so that he could come to church for the last half an hour of the primary presentation of sacrament meeting. We found out that he is married and that yesterday, when his friends invited him to drink, he said, “No!” We don´t know his wife yet, and haven´t been able to teach his daughter yet, but we feel really good about Julio.

A few kids are also coming to church, but they don´t yet have permission from their parents to be baptized. We´re doing what we can and we have hope.

Oh, and when would be a good time to call on Christmas?

And thank you for your letters and thoughts. I will keep searching for the view of the Lord to understand this life and the universe. I hope that your back/hip will be returned to normal soon. And also give my congragulations to Jayme. I remember my time with her in primary a bit still. I love you all and I hope you enjoy the Christmas season.

With love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

La semana y metas

2009-12-18T19:01:00.000-08:00

7 Dec 2007

Dear Family,

This has been another fairly good week. Nothing really eventful happened, I think. We went to church for the first time with the rest of the ward. It is a really good ward. I just wish that they had a larger Elder´s Quorum. The group of High Priests is fairly large, which is good, but in the Elder´s Quorum, there was the President, the ward mission leader, and a recent convert, and us. I´m glad that the bishop and several of the members already have confidence in us as missionaries. We did divisions with the Elder´s Quorum president, Brother Severino, and he said that he really wants to do them as often as he can with us. It is also nice that a lot of the priesthood holders have their own work, so they can accompany us in almost any moment. So, the work is moving on well enough here.

Right now, our best investigator is a kid named Joel. He is 15 and actually lives in La Reja, part of Moreno 2. But, comes often over here to the house of his friend, Bryan, who is 18 and is preparing for his mission. The bishop said we should teach and baptize him here, so we will work on it. The only difficulty is communication with his family, but he says that his Mom will have no problem giving him permission. After praying to ask if these things are true, he said that he felt that he already knew that all of this was true. He enjoyed church on Sunday and accepted a baptismal date for December 26th. He´s a great kid and reminds me a lot of Joshua Augason or JD Noelck in his appearence and personality.

This sunday, there were three investigators that came that just need to get married, a huge problem here in Argentina because it is just so difficult, especially for the foreigners. To get married, you have to have all of the correct documents, go to the government office in Moreno at about 4 AM to hopefully get a number to be able to wait the rest of the day to try to get a day that you can get married maybe. And that´s if everything goes well. Many times, they say you are missing a specific document or that there aren´t any open dates. And it is 100 times harder if either you are from a different country, you are a widow or a widower, or you have to get divorced first. At least, we have the good example of Brother Severino here who was patient and active in the church 4 years before he could get married and baptized. So, if you wonder why we often baptize more kids than we do parents, that is one of the big reasons.

But, we have hope anyways. Especially with Julio Flores, who is living with Silvana, a member who is reactivating. He feels good about getting married and getting baptized because the first time he went to church, he felt a peace and saw that a lot of the marriage problems that they were having where smoothed out. So, he has interest. But Silvana is absolutely sure that he is getting baptized. That´s not a question for her. She talks often about the baptism of Julio. I hope that his own testimony will grow strong instead of just go along with the flow of what Silvana says to make her happy.

Oh, and mom wrote that she was surprised that there were missions doing 20 lessons a week. The following is our standard, or what we are working to acheive, but often is difficult. And I´ll also put what I think we usually do per week.

Baptisms – 3 per transfer (3 per transfer)
Investigators with baptismal date – 5 (2-3)
Investigatros in sacrament meeting – 5 (3)
Lessons with member present – 10 (5)
Other lessons – 25 (17)
References Contacted – 10 (1)
New Investigators – 15 (15)
Lessons with recent converts and inactive members – 8 (5)
Contacts – 140 (110)

So, we have about 20-25 lessons per week with investigators. So, we teach a good bit. But the average is going up. There are Elders that are teaching 40-50 lessons per week here. The work is moving forth with greater rapidity.

I know these things are true and that is why I´m here.

With love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Jardines tiene buenos miembros

2009-12-06T10:16:00.000-08:00

30 Nov 2009

Dear Family,

I did have a lot of worries going into Jardines, but after a week of being there, I think I will have a good time there. This past week went to visit a lot of the members that we know of and they are all really good. The members in Jardines are much better than most of the members I have known on the mission. There are many ex-missionaries in this ward and they are very willing to help out. We met the new bishop on tuesday and when we went in to talk with him, he said that he felt that we were the missionaries that needed to be there.

You don´t have to worry that we are receiving anything to eat. We have lunch with a member every day and they all have been great. The owner of our pench (the Yankee version of the word “pensión” or apartment) is a member that lives next door. Our stove doesn´t work, so she has brought food over to us in the night several times. She is really nice.

One of our difficulties about this week was that it was Stake Conference in the center of Moreno. So, when we went, we still didn´t know who was from Jardines and people from Moreno 2 wanted to talk with me the entire time. We weren´t able to stay, but it was a joy to see Patricia preparing for her baptized, which occurred about an hour after the conference. It felt good to know that I left the area with something for Elder Runolfson and his mini-misionary (a 19 yr. old kid that hasn´t received his calling yet that came from a different Stake to work for a transfer). It was good to see them all again, but hard to say bye.

The conference with Elder Bednar was amazing. There was a stronger spirit there than I think I have ever felt before in a church meeting. He is a master at teaching by the Spirit and helping learn by faith. That was the theme of the meeting (I can´t say talk because it really wasn´t a talk). He taught by example more than anything. His goal was to teach us how to listen, observe, and discern to allow the Spirit to tell us what we need to say. He taught so and demonstrated it masterfully. It´s hard to describe.

What probably touched me the most were his teachings about putting off the natural man. One elder asked “What can we do to put off the natural man to be able to give 100% of ourselves to the work?” He taught about how the atonement of Christ not only cleans us but helps to perfect and strengthen us. The moments that we think we have missionary work down are the most dangerous moments of our mission. Only by relying on the Lord can we receive of his power. He gave a challenge to this missionary to get a new Book of Mormon and mark all of the parts where it says “by the power of the Lord” or something like that, and that he would more fully understand how to receive of the power of the Lord and would teach better his investigators to rely on the strength of the Lord. I´ve decided to take that challenge because I need so much more of the Lord´s help. I still have no clue what I´m doing.

He left us with the apostolic blessing of a greater measure of faith. He pleaded that we be true to that faith. And I hope to be. And I hope to be able to follow his example of teaching. I hope that my investigators can feel that strong spirit that he brought.

Oh, and you asked about my companion? Elder Cuberos is from Berranquilla, Colombia, the same city where Shakyra the singer is from (I don´t know how to spell her name). He has 6 months on the mission. (I realized that today I complete 2/3 of my mission. Faa. (The Argentine expression for Wow). I keept telling myself and everyone that I´m still young on the mission. I´m still young.)

I know that this is the Lord´s work and that He is with us when we do what we can to obey and follow Him. He is the worker of all miracles. By none other are the miracles of salvation manifest.

With love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Bautismo y Asignacion Especial

2009-11-29T08:37:00.001-08:00

23 Nov 2009

Dear Family,

Sorry, but once again I am found with little time. I will print off you letters to read later and try to write as much as I can now.

The baptism of Nora went really well. We were able to overcome all of the difficulties that popped up on Saturday. They didn´t come to the piano class, so we felt that we should head out to see them, even though they live really far. When we got there, they were standing there wondering whether or not to come because of some problems. We helped them decide to come. When we got back, the font was only half full. We had left it running, but the motor to fill the tank where the water for the font comes from was unplugged. So, we drained the entire tank and there wasn´t any more water. We plugged in the motor, waited a bit more, and filled the rest of the font quickly with cold water. It wasn´t too bad. It was a good, happy baptism. Patricia and her Mom also came and loved it. So, Patricia will be baptized this week or the next.

So, why don´t I have time? I probably won´t have any time to think straight for the next month. I received a special and difficult assignment (but at least I´m not district leader any more). I am now in the area of Jardines. About two or three weeks ago, the Elders were taken out of that area. It was tragic. One of the Elders that got here with me (not from the MTC in Provo, but a latin starting here) had a problem with a girl (I don´t know how serious yet) and was sent home. His companion wasn´t sent home only because he was new. So, I and Elder Cuberos are sent there, after a White Wash, to save the area. At least I do know the bishop that was relieved this past Sunday (Bishop Barreto, the uncle of Hernán). But I don´t know the new bishop yet. We don´t have good maps to carry with us and the Area book is incomplete.

So, this transfer will teach me about true miracles and about how to rely on the arm of the Lord and not on my own strength. It will be difficult and will take a lot of organization, but I know it will be possible. My main goal is to gain the confidence of the members, to help them trust the missionaries again, and to do all the Lord asks of me.

I´m excited for my new companion, Elder Cuberos. This is his second area and only has 6 months on the mission, but he already proved himself to be a great missionary in his last area. He has the desire to work hard and be obedient. He knows English really well already (and he didn´t know anything before the mission) and it will be a joy to be with him. I see that our personalities match well already.

So, please pray that the Lord and His Spirit will be with us this transfer. Nothing but that will get us out of this mess. I love you all and wish the very best. And have a good Thanksgiving. I will keep in mind of all the reasons I´m thankful, but especially for having such a wonderful earthly and heavenly family.

With love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

El Pozo y La liberacion

2009-11-22T15:40:00.000-08:00

6 Nov 2009

Dear family,

It´s good to hear that the production is going well, even though there are a few kinks. I hope you have good attendence and that the spirit can have a powerful impact. I´d love to be there if I could to see it. Actually, I would love to be there to act in it. I kind of want to act in one of those special musical productions. The year I did it, it was fun, but still not of the same professional quality. I think I would put more effort into memorizing my part too. Here in the mission, many of the Elders say that I´ll sing in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir (which makes me feel good, even though I doubt the possibility). It surprises me that most of the Elders know me for my voice more than for my piano abilities. I think I will want to take a few voice classes at BYU to learn how to sing solo parts a little better to be able to do such productions. I can sing parts well, but I don´t know how to craft my voice at all.

I feel kind of bad that I can´t claim that I worked the best the past several weeks. I´ve been getting way too lazy, especially with the doing the contacts I should. And I´m not just overreacting either. At times I have “animo” (it is the perfect spanish word to say that one has energy and vigor to work hard), but then it leaves after a few hours. A few times, I just gave up and it takes a long time and a lot of help once you´ve given yourself into that dank hole. It makes me feel even worse that I´ve been leading the rest of the district in the wrong direction too.

I started off today feeling that way too, but the zone activity really helped. I got there and just started pounding away on the piano. I absolutely love David Goldstein´s arrangements of the hymns. That might be one thing I might want for Christmas. I have Sacred Piano Preludes Volume one (so I´m sure that there is a volume two, and they are excellent to invite the spirit at a zone conference or at a baptism or anywhere) and “A Musical Companion,” the book I bought right before the mission. I love that book just to start pounding away with large chords and fast left hand movements to let off steam and be inspired. They are there in my skill range to be able to sight read or to practice up quickly to do as a solo.

While at zone conference, I was glad that Elder Rogers, one of the zone leaders, came to play ping pong with me and talk. He is a really special Elder with the ability to lift anyone up. He knows how to help make anyone feel good, make them feel worth something. And he works harder than nearly any other Elder too. He is a great example and helped me lift me a bit more out of that hole I had dug for myself. And it is always fun to play ping pong (it is a common sport in all of the churches here. I really think that our wards should adopt the same system for those that don´t want to play basketball as much). We also played a bit of Mafia, the common scout game. I enjoyed it today.

What has kept me up a bit is that we have hopes of having one or two baptisms this Saturday. First of all, we have Nora Mendez. We haven´t been able to teach her too much yet because we keep finding other people to teach in her house. So, she´s heard about the restoration and baptism a bunch of times. But, doesn´t know all of the commandments yet. So, I was thinking about setting the baptismal interview on friday. But, luckily, the thought came into my mind that I should have her read question 4 of the baptismal interview questions and she told us that she has a problem with it. That means that she will need to have an interview with the Mission President. He is booked this week because Elder Bednar is coming for meeting after meeting and to speak to all of us on Thursday. So, the President won´t have much time and if we had learned about it later on in the week, I don´t think it would have been possible. It isn´t certain with her, but I think it will be very possible.

Our other possibility is Patricia, the friend of the Mendez family. She had the parents permission for her to listen to us, but not to be baptized. It didn´t seem like the Mom was going to be very supportive. But, on Saturday, we found her in the house of the Mendez family. My companion said before we got there, “She´s in the firing hole. A house of pure love and testimony.” So, we started talking with her about what she thinks about Patricia coming to church. She was a little reluctant. So, we showed The Restoration, the 20 min. movie, and then started to explain that this will help Patricia a lot in her life, but she needs the support of her family, especially her mom to endure to the end. Nora then talked about how at first, she wasn´t going to let her kids go to church, that she felt the Mormons were trying to rob her kids and take them away, and all sorts of things. But, over time, she saw that we teach only good things, she wants them to go to church every Saturday and Sunday (yes, I continue teaching piano on Saturday, but it has been difficult because so many kids have started coming, wanting to learn, it is really hard to give them each a turn within the hour), and that she has made the decision to be baptized. We emphasized the fact that she needs to pray to know the answer. The next day when we went, we talked with the Mom and she said she prayed a lot the night before and she felt that this would be good for Patricia and the she would have her full support to follow this path. That was a great miracle and we´ll see if she´ll be able to be baptized with Nora on Saturday too.

I love you all and I have energy to help the stone cut without hands roll forth,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Cosas y La Rocio

2009-11-15T23:35:00.000-08:00

9 Nov 2009

Dear Family,

Thank you for your letters and especially thank you for the package. I got it about two weeks ago, I think. I love it. I´ve finished up the trail mix and I´m nearly done with the Gardetto´s, but I´m munching away on the other stuff. And thank you for the pictures.

And what do I want for Christmas? That´s a good question that I don´t really have an answer to. It seems like after so much time in Argentina, I have stopped craving things from the US. I don´t really care that much. As for clothes, I believe my pants and my shirt will last the rest of my mission (and I found my white baptismal pants about a month ago. They were with a member who had taken them home to wash). My main worry is my shoes. In one of the pairs that I bought at home I´ve worn through the sole and when I walk around in it, it lets in a lot of dust and dirt to the ball of my foot. But, I´m going to take it to a place to get it resoled. The ones I bought last christmas are holding up, but I´ll have to get them resoled before the end of my mission too. And I´m starting to use the shoes I kept for conferences and interviews to go working in. So, I might want to go out looking for some more new, high quality shoes. They´ve served me quite well. A lot of other missionaries have the leather come apart before the sole wears out. I might also want another package of good socks because with the soles like they are, the socks are wearing through much faster. But don´t worry, my feet feel fine because I have nice thick, strong calluses there on my feet to protect me. But as for other stuff, I don´t really know what to ask for. Oh, yeah, the charger for my electric razor stopped working this past week. I don´t like to shave by hand as much. You also asked about replacement blades and I think that would be good too if I can charge up my razor. And...I like letters and good ties. But the good ties tend to get given away quickly. And in the letters, I´m kind of curious about what has happened in the past year in scientific and space news. I have no clue what kind of discoveries have been made.

About housing? I´ve been kind of worried about that my whole mission because I don´t know at all. I had thought that I´d like to get to school on a bike or by moped, but I´m not sure if I want to rough it in the cold. The single apartments sound good but that could be a shock after living with a companion 24-7. I also was thinking about asking Elder Gilmore and Elder Sabey if they wanted to try to room together. I´ll ask them on the 22nd when we have our transfer meeting.

And I don´t think it would be the best idea to get the new computer now. I wish I would have time to get good suggestions from the Astronomy professors to know what to get. It is possible, but not certain, that any computer I get, I would wipe in order to put Ubuntu or another Linux operating system, which is much more compatible with scientific study and programming than Windows. But I´m not sure if I´d go to the trouble of doing that.

How´s the weather been here? It always reminds me of Louisville—very sporatic. This past few months it has been changing constantly. It has been a bummer that it´s rained many sundays, making attendence much lower and cuts our hopes for investigators. Other days it is really hot. Other days really nice. Other day cold. A bit of everything. But I´ve been pretty good at guessing what will happen and at what time in the day it will rain. I´ve learned to judge the weather.

This past week, all of our success and be rooted to Rocío Mendez, the recent convert. She is an excellent missionary, inviting and teaching everyone. She can get to the kids much easier than we can. For the first time, her Mom, Nora, came to church. We´ve been teaching her a little, but in order to be baptized she has to either marry or seperate with Victor, who is really lazy. But, this past week, if I have the story right, Victor hit one of the younger daughters and Nora said that he had to leave, called the Police, and he has a restraining order now. That is really sad, especially since they have two children together, but Nora will now be able to be baptized on the 22nd. It makes me glad that she´ll be able to have salvation and eternal life with her family, but it is sad that the family is without a family figure in the home.

Then, we are teaching Patricia, the neighbor of the Mendez family. She too came to church yesterday. And so did their two step sisters, Estefanía and Yenny (the y and ll sound like a sh sound in Castellano). They are 8 year old twins and are quite inteligent. But we are uncertain if these kids will get parental permission to be baptized. Then, we recieved Mariana as a referal. She is the best friend of Rocío. And we taught the whole family and they are really good. I love how all the children have dreams for a better future. One wants to be a lawyer, another and architect, and I believe they are graduating early from high school. The mom especially felt the spirit in the lesson.

So, that is what is happening in Moreno 2. I hope to be able to tell you great things the next week.

With love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

La Misionera

2009-11-08T12:15:00.000-08:00

2 Nov 2009

Dear family,

I´m sorry that last week I wasn´t able to send a good letter. I hope that all goes well with this letter, but it might take a while to write because the s and the e keys don´t work very well.

To answer the question about the experience of my companion, this is what happened. After personal study, we began our companionship study with a hymn and a prayer. After I prayed, Elder Runolfson stayed on his knees. He was crying. So, I let him stay there for a bit longer. He said, “Elder Ranquist. I just want to thank you for your testimony. I´ve been looking for that change of heart that is spoken of in Mosiah.” He felt the love of Christ. During that companionship study, I pulled out “The small plates of Drake Ranquist” (my spiritual journal) and read to him the process of gaining my testimony. It was probably my best companionship study that I have had. We then fasted that day to help retain that testimony.

This past week was a really hot and then a really rainy week. On friday, I had divisions with the zone leaders and they showed me how they are doing 40 lessons per week and finding so many new investigators. It was a really good day. But with the heavy rain on Sunday, none of our investigators wanted or could come. The was an attendence of 25 members at church. Sometimes we missionaries think that the Lord show his faithful by sending rain. And it gave me joy to see Gastón, Rocío, and Romina come from far away through all of the mud. That touched a lot of the members in attendence. It also gave me joy to hear the testimony of Lourdes. Those four are so humble and pure of heart.

Talking about them, Rocío has become quite the missionary. Two weeks ago, they went to a Kiosco on sunday morning and there was a 12 year old girl there named Patricia with her 9 year old brother Richard. Rocío invited them to go with them. They asked, “Where?” “To church.” “Ok, I´ll ask my Mom.” And they came, even before knowing Rocío´s name. So, we are now teaching that family. There was another time that we went to their house and found that their step-sisters were there and taught them. They also have handed out a few copies of the first pamphlet and inviting everyone. Rocío can´t wait until she can go on a mission in 5 years.

I hope that the rest of your week goes well. I would love to see and be apart of the play. I´ll be praying for you all.

Love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Disculpen que esta cortala carta

2009-11-01T19:26:00.000-08:00

26 Oct 2009

Dear family,

Sorry, I can´t write much because I´ve already used up my hour and I lost my entire message. But this is an outline of what my letter was about.

I sent the photos of the baptism of Rocío, Gastón, and Romina. And a photo of the miracle that ¡Tengo uñas! ¡I have fingernails! I stopped eating my fingernails and cracking my knuckles as much.

We aren´t having too much success with the kids that came to church because their mothers are avoiding us and don´t give their permission for them to be baptized.

But Rocío, Gastón, and Romina found Patricia to bring to church last week and we taught her whole family.

My companion, E´Runolfson, received a greater testimony.

And my love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Que le cumple feliz!

2009-10-25T16:07:00.000-07:00

19 Oct 2009

Dear Family,

Happy Birthday Jonathan! I can´t relieve that tomorrow you´ll be 16 already. While I was preparing Rocío, Gastón, and Romina for their baptisms, Rocío said that she was born in 1993. That made me think, “My brother already is nearly as old as she is!?!” I feel like I´ve missed out a lot in your life the past two years. I feel like I remember you as a 14 yr old. But, you´ll already start to drive and to date. From what I´ve heard, you are much more excited to do those two things than I was when I turned 16. You are already a fairly responsible young man, so I doubt you´ll have problems living up to the new responsibilities that you´ll be taking upon yourself. I wish you luck and I hope you enjoy your teenage years while you have them. I´m realizing now that I´m no longer a kid anymore. I´ll miss those days as I have to face the world. I love you and have a lot of respect for who you´ve become. Continue forth on good paths, avoid temptation, and you´ll become the grand man that God is planning for you to become.

Dad, to let you know, I took out 200 pesos out of the bank. This area is a bit more expensive than the last areas and we don´t receive as much help from the members for our food, so I have to buy much more. On tuesday, we passed by the family with whom we have lunch on wednesdays and she said that she was doing a little job and we needed to call the next day to see if she got paid in order to cook for us. They are the most faithful family in the ward, so I knew they were having serious financial difficulties. If they had, they would give, even if it wasn´t enough left over for themselves. So, we decided to have her teach us how to make a good sauce, we bought lunch for ourselves and the family and learned to cook it together. It was a good experience, but our budget is a bit short. (But don´t worry mom, we´re eating well).

This past week has been a fairly good week. E´Runolfson is a good elder and knows how to teach well. I´m very grateful to have him as a companion. I think we´ll work well together. Right now, I feel like our only success is coming out of children. I counted on Sunday and there were 75 members there, 40 of which are under the age of 18. This is a very young ward with a large group of youth, who are helping with the missionary program. On Sunday we had two neighbors of one member come, two neighbors of Alvaro, and two neighbors of Rocío, Gastón, and Romina. It´s great that all the kids want to come, but we want to help the whole family. We want to help the parents come. But the majority of the time, they aren´t married and don´t have much interest at all in religion. It worries me a bit because the bishop says that this ward is notorious for baptizing kids without their parents and without much of their support, the kids slowly go inactive. But, I can´t deny a kid, who at least has the permission of his parents, his salvation on account of his parents who are dull to the Spirit because of sin. So, we will continue to teach them and do our best to include their parents in the conversion process.

I know that this work is true and that there are thousands who are ready to hear and accept the message that Christ wishes to give us. I know that faithful prayer, scripture study, and church attendence gives us that ability to overcome the problems that are in this torrential world and find the peace and tranquility that so many look for. I know that it is only through and in our Lord Jesus Christ that such blessings come from. And that through our obedience to Him, we will be able to reunite with our loving and merciful Father. I know this to be true and I share it with my love to you.

-Elder Drake Ranquist

HAPPY 16th JONATHAN!!!!

2009-10-18T16:37:00.000-07:00

So for all of those who don't know, Jonathan (yes, the baby of the Ranquist family!) Turns 16 on tuesday!!!! He says he's mainly excited for the cars, but I know that driving girls in cars must be in the back of his mind somewhere ;)

16 Great Things About Jonathan:

16. Amazing Indoor Tent Builder: I'm not sure if we ever took pictures, but Jonathan and I could make some pretty rockin tents with sticks and sheets that spanned our whole basement. good times

15. A dancer!!!: Shhhh!!!! No one's allowed to know just how graceful he is and how good of a dancer he could be if only he tried...

14. Fun to cook with: especially when I'm making cookies, while on the phone and the computer...food fight!

13. Good Rhymer: he can spend hours coming up with words to rhyme with the ones at the end of my sentence. I don't quite remember who won that one

12. History Buff!!!: History Channel is one of his favorite tv stations. He knows everything!

11. Has and keeps goals: He has always wanted to be a pilot. I know he will achieve this goal someday!

10. Trusting: He kind of has to be, to get in the car with me driving at 5:45 in the morning...

9. Good listener: I talk to much, whoops.

8. Smart: This kid knows so many random facts, it's awesome!

7. Smile: of course I couldn't pass this one up! He was called "smiley-boy" by Grandpa Ranquist, but lately his family isn't the only one to notice his georgous smile :D

6. An exampe: I don't recall him complaining. His lazy older sister would be sitting on her bed and ask him to run all the way down to the basement to get her paper that printed out, and he would!

5. Cheerful: He always laughs, even when being beaten up!

4. Loving: He has soo much love - for the family, life, the dog, everything

3. Athletic: He's going on a 50 mile bike ride this week! Crazy!

2. Close to the Lord: whenever someone in our house has lost something, we go to Jonathan. As soon as he says a prayer, it is found. The Lord listens to him

1. A GREAT BROTHER!!! when asked what he wants for his bday, he says things like "I don't really want anything really. I guess just me knowin that you know I miss you."

I Miss you too!!! Have a Great Birthday!!!!!

bautismos y cambios

2009-10-18T16:35:00.000-07:00

12 Oct 2009

Dear Family,

Today, I find myself next to Elder Runolfson here in Moreno 2. Elder Callejas went to one of my favorite areas, Rafael Castillo 1. He will be able to help and protect the converts in that great ward. Elder Runolfson is from Northern California and has been on his mission for 17 months. I continue being district leader, so that makes me senior companion still (even though I´d love to return to the responsibilities of being Junior Companion). I´ve known him since the beginning of my mission because he was in my district my second and third transfer, which allowed us to do a few divisions together. I think we´ll have a good time together and I hope that we´ll be able to work as hard as I did with E´Callejas. I don´t feel we have very many good investigators (none came to church on sunday) right now, so it is possible that we´re in for a rocky road, but through pray, faith, and work, the Lord will provide. I have a firm testimony of that.

This past week, we had the great opportunity to be apart of the baptisms of Rocío, Romina, and Gastón Mendez. Elder Callejas baptized Rocío and Romina, while I baptized Gastón. I really wish that Alvaro and Gabriel could have done them, but they aren´t yet Priests. They helped us out a lot in supporting Gastón.

It gives me great joy to know that Nic was able to enter the waters of baptism and make covenants with our Lord. I really wish that I could have been there. And I hope to always be there to help him on this difficult road that gives so much peace and joy. I will pray his parents will accept his decision. I suggest to Nic that he too prays and possibly fasts to know that words that the Lord would have him use and the to do so with the faith courage that Limoni had while travelling with Ammon when they encountered his father. A good read would be Alma 20 and Alma 22 about how at first the father of Lamoni rejected his decision to be baptized, but then accepts. That his father becomes and instrument in allowing the entire kingdom receive the gospel. With this faith, prayer, study, and courage, God will help touch their hearts.

We have a new form of doing the transfers, so we are doing this really late and I don´t have time to write any more. May the Lord be with you all and his peace and comfort cover you. Here on the mission, I try to keep in mind, “Never give up, never surrender!”

Love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Me encanto la conferencia

2009-10-11T17:49:00.000-07:00

5 Oct 2009

Dear Family,

We got back from our zone activity fairly late, so I don´t really have much time at all to write. I´m sorry. But as you all did, I absolutely loved the conference. It seems to get better every time. And it seems to go by faster every time. I felt the Spirit quite strongly through the duration of the conference.

I absolutely loved all of the talks about the importante of love. It is an atribute that I am trying so hard to improve. It has always been my weak spot. I can be diligent and do good things for good reasons, but I have a hard time doing such things out of love. I want to feel it more. I do love God and his children, but I want to feel it deeper down in my heart. I believe I am more sensible now, things touch my heart, but not quite as I think it should. I think it will be a trait I will be working on throughout my life. And I hope that when people see me, as President Uchtdorf stated, they will say “This is a man who loves God and loves his neighbor, why? And how can I have the happiness I see in him?” I know that I am called to be a constant example to help all that meet me to have more interest in the restored gospel. But, I feel I have a long way yet.

Now, I ask you to pray that I always have the energy that I need. The past two days, we went running around trying to invite and bring all of our investigators to General Conference. It wore me out a bit. But somehow God will pull energy out of nowhere to help me continue with His work.

Next week I´ll have a fairly big change. I´ll lose my companion E´Callejas and receive a new companion. We´ll also see this week if we acheived our goal of 200 baptisms. We have 130 for the transfer and 99 planned for this weekend (the last week of a transfer always sees the most baptisms). We hope to help with the baptism of Rocío, Gastón, and Romina Mendez.

I will continue praying for you all because I do love you Mom, Dad, Jessica, and Jonathan.

With that love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

La ultima visita al templo

2009-09-27T20:15:00.001-07:00

22 Sep 2009

Dear Family,

Thank you very much for your letters. I am very grateful that I receive them on a weekly basis. E´Callejas often complains that his family isn´t very constant and he never knows if he will have an e-mail in his inbox or not. So, I´m very grateful for your consistancy and thorougness (I can´t spell in english anymore. Spanish makes much more sense.).

This saturday, we had the baptism of Hernán. His uncle, the bishop of Jardines and who helped us so much convince his mom that this would be a good experience for him, came to do the baptism. He is an excellent man. I wish I had photos, but I forgot to bring my adaptor to transfer it to the computer. It went really well and he was really happy. I was also able to play one of the Goldstein arrangements of “The Army of Helaman” on the piano during the baptismal service. He participates in my piano classes, so I told him if he practices, he´ll be able to play that song for one of his converts when he goes on his mission in a decade. I find baptismal services to be one of the best reunions that we have in the church.

Today was bitter sweet because it was the last trip to the temple that I´ll have in almost a year. I will have to wait, like so many others in the world, to be able to experience such peace again. The president told us to go with a question or a doubt that we have to be answered. That we should go and think about our mission and what we want with the rest of our missions. I couldn´t think of a question I wanted answered, so I decided to go with the spirit of gratitude-to think about all of the miracles I have seen thus far in my mission and give thanks for them. The greatest desire I have for the rest of my mission is to continue with the joy that I have received at the hands of our Savior on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. I know that I have been the witness of a lot of success and miracles thus far in my mission, and as you reminded me in your letter Dad, I constantly remind myself that (just as Ammon did while rejoicing in the success of his mission) every person that accepts us, every person that comes to church, and every baptism is not the result of my own efforts, for I am nothing. They are the result of the miraculous power of God and His Spirit.

Dad, you also wrote about another part that I need to improve. I really need to find time to write more in my journal. I´m glad you are keeping the letters that I send (they´re on the blog) because this is a little of the time that I have to write in my journal. At the beginning of my mission, I was really good at writing every day, but as I take on more and more responsibilities, I lose more and more time. I´m trying to make sure that I write at least every time that someone is baptized to recount their story of conversion. But it is really difficult when we get back between 9-9:30, plan for 30 min., make phone calls to verify our appointments, call to have daily contact with the investigators with a baptismal date, talk with Moreno 1 and General Rodriguez about their days, and try to eat my three fruits (which often I don´t even have time for that now), it is hard to squeeze in time to write in my journal. Time has never been my ally. Every day I wish that I could have three timelines to do everything I want and should do. But, I´ll put more effort to find time to write in my journal for you all and my posterity. I know it will be useful.

I think I´m glad as well Mom that you decided to change your mind about the couches. I was trying to image leather couches in the family room and they just don´t fit in my mind. I know, it is probably that I hate such changes, but I think you made a good decision going for something a little closer to our preferred style. But, I think when I get back it will be just as bad as when Dad got home from his mission to live in a different house. I won´t recognize anything.

Oh, before I forget, which card did you want me to use again? The debit or the credit card? And if it is the credit card, can you send the pin number? I don´t remember it at all.

I hope that your recovery goes well and that you won´t have to be too patient Dad. I love you all and love hearing from you.

Love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Bautismos Actuales y futuros

2009-09-20T19:50:00.000-07:00

14 Sep 2009

Dear Family,

This past week hasn´t been as spectacular as the past few weeks, but it was a fairly good week anyways. The highlight of the week was the two baptisms of Valentina Rodriguez and Lourdes Chaparro. It went really well without too many problems. I´m sending the pictures, so I hope you like them.

As I told you last week, Valentina came out of nowhere, we interviewed her, and she was ready within those three hours. We passed by once during the week and everything went well. She is a very special girl who really wants to follow the commandments of God. Her step-father (who also happens to have the last name Rodriguez), our ward mission leader, baptized her.

We didn´t feel like we had to do too much for Lourdes either. She read the pamphlet about the restoration and 3 Ne 11 the first night we talked with her. Since that day she couldn´t wait to be baptized. She was a huge help and support for Ramona. The only difficulty was that she worked in the capital all week long and only came home for the weekends. But, she is smart enough to handle a lot of information at once to get through all of the lessons to prepare her. We called her two to three times a week to answer questions, but couldn´t do too much more. She asked me to baptize her and it was a pleasure.

Now, we are preparing for the baptism of Hernán this Saturday. We were doing our contacts one day and interrupted the conversation of two women. Patricia came and asked if someone had given us her address to pass by. We told her no and asked if she is a member, which she is. She had moved there 5 months ago, but never decided to go to church, even though it was fairly close and recognizable. We also found her 9 yr-old son and decided to prepare him for baptism. At first they kept saying, “Not too soon.” But, with the help of her brother, the bishop of the Jardines ward (who has a voice that really reminds me of Dr. Ray), she realized that this would be the best for Hernán. I think she wanted him to be a perfect child before being baptized, which is impossible, especially because I think he has a kind of ADHD. He´s come the last four sundays and will be baptized on Saturday by his uncle.

We´re also planning the baptism of Gastón, Rocío, and Romina. We found Rocío and her mom one day doing our contacts and they told us where they lived and we set an appointment. They live really, really far away in our area and we were lucky to find their house without good directions. Gastón (14) and Romina (12) came to church last week. Rocío (16) came with them this week. We passed by twice this past week and they are very accepting and Gastón, Rocío, and Romina accepted a baptismal date for the 3rd of October. We have general conference that day, so I don´t know when we´ll really do it. Their mom and stepfather, who are not married, were going to come to church on Sunday, but backed out for fear of leaving the house alone and being robbed while they were away. We´ll see what we can do for them next week. This family is really humble (their house is an old Evangelical church that the pastor gave to them) and has passed through a ton of trials, but are extremely innocent. Their eyes look pure. So we have hope for them.

This past week was a really good week for this district. For the first time in my mission, the entire zone (both districts) completed their 140 contacts for the week. I´ve never heard of a zone doing that. With a little bit of encouraging and energy, we were all able to do it together. I know that such diligence will bring greater miracles to our zone. It also makes my job as district leader a bit easier.

I hope that your surgeory goes well Dad. I´ll be praying.

With love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Milagritos que nos sostienen

2009-09-13T10:34:00.000-07:00

7 Sep 2009

Dear Family,

I´m glad to hear that nearly everything is going well. I´ll continue praying for Dad and his back. I´ll start off by answering the questions the Mom and Dad sent because I didn´t have enough time to do so last week. First of all, no, I never received the package from grandma for my birthday. I have no clue what happened to it. But, Grandma, thank you very much. I´m sure I would have loved it. And thank you for the one you sent for Christmas. And the HLJ rings made a good gift for the younger converts in Castillo. I gave them to the twins, Karen and Florencia, and also to Vania and Veronica. I don´t remember to who else. I know they wore them for the first few days, but I don´t know if they took them off when they realized they turn the finger green. (I don´t know if the ones you sent do so, but I know the CTR rings do and I think one of the children here in Moreno said the HLJ rings do too).

This past week, I was thinking about asking if you were going to send another package soon. The main thing that I want is a package of mechanical pencils. The ones that I buy here break (for internal reasons, not because I maltreat them) within a week. I´m still using one that I brought from the US that still works, but I don´t count on it lasting the rest of my mission. I prefer to use pencil when I plan instead of pen for obvious reasons. The other thing I wanted to ask for was more Post-It notes. Those have been excellent to mark chapters in the book of mormon that I want the person to read or to leave behind a note or to have something to write on. They also fit really well inside of my scripture bag. So it would be nice if you sent a few more pads of normal sized Post-it notes.

With regards to food. I don´t really care that much. I´m used to the food here now. But, what could be nice would be some more snickers and nuts. The nuts in a trail mix or whatever because those are a good, healthy, fast snack that puts something in the stomach. Other than that, I don´t need anything else.

And I think I´m still good on clothes. I did lose one of my grey pants. How I am not sure. It was probably left behind during a transfer or got mixed in the clothes of another missionary. But, I´m fine using only 3 pairs of pants. They are still all in good condition. All of my shirts are still good. Well, one of the long sleeve shirts has bad rust stains on it because I accidently left a few nails in the shirt pocket, but I always wear a sweater to cover it up anyways. My only problem is that I think I´m going to need to take out a bit more money from the bank to buy white pants when we go to the temple. In the baptism of Nora, E´Callejas and I both lent our baptismal pants to David to see which one would fit better. After the baptism, the pants of E´Callejas came back wet, but mine never showed up. And they haven´t shown up yet either. So, I think I´ll have to go buy new ones on the 22nd and use E´Cumrine´s on Saturday.

Ok, now to talk about my week. It was really quite a good week, full of its own little experiences and miracles. The first is that we worked hard and with all of our force and God blessed us for our efforts. The main miracle came to pass yesterday. After church, we had a meeting with our ward missionary leader (it is a bit difficult to work with him because many times he doesn´t do what we ask him to do, but I think he is improving) and he surprised us by telling us that he wants us baptize his step-daughter next sunday. I had no idea that he has a 9 year old step daughter that lives with him and who went to church the past two sundays. We told him, “Great, we´ll go talk with her right now!”
We began talking with Valentina, and found that she is completely ready to be baptized. Her family had taught her well. She wasn´t able to go to church and be baptized before because her real father often comes to take her home for the weekend, but she says that she has been praying that he doesn´t come because he insults her and she wants to go to church. It is really sad, but what is even sadder is that it isn´t uncommon. The zone leaders came for the baptismal interview of Lourdes (the niece of Ramona who is really excited for her baptism) and we had them interview Valentina too. So, within 3 hours of getting to know her, she had her interview and will be baptized with Lourdes on Saturday. It was really nice to have that little gift from our Heavenly Father.
This sunday we had a bunch of people in church who aren´t members. Several of them need to get married first, but it sounds like they are actually going to start working on the papers this week. There were also two children of a family that we found this week that are really humble and inocent. We were walking and doing our contacts and we found a woman and her daughter selling movies. We set an appointment with them and felt that they could be really good investigators. On saturday, we went to their house, even though they live really, really far away. They live in the middle of a large campo (field...I can´t remember the best word) in a small house given to them by a pastor of another church a few years ago. There are a lot of children in this family and we showed the the video “The Restoration.” They really liked it and the Mom told us that she had prayed to know which is the true church a few weeks ago and that she had a dream that she didn´t quite understand, but showed her that she shouldn´t go to an Evangelical church. We felt a really good spirit with them and we have a lot of hope. She couldn´t come yesterday, but two of her children did and really liked it. We´ll be going back on Wednesday to see how they are doing.

Thank you for all your help and prayers. I´m loving it here right now, especially with E´Callejas and the effort that he puts forth. He´s a true example for me, just like E´González was. They really help me to gain the potential that I have. Until next week.

With love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Exito Sobre Fiasco

2009-09-06T18:12:00.000-07:00

1 Sep 2009

Dear family,

I hope I have time to explain this hectic yet rewarding week. I´ll start off with the change that I´ve had. Yesterday, we had our Transfer Meeting and I have now been assigned as District Leader. Dad, I believe I remember you telling me that you were once a Travelling Elder, going around the mission training all of the District Leaders. Do you have any suggestions? Since the beginning of my mission, I knew that I would be called to be such a Leader and I was quite scared. But, over this past transfer (month and a half) I was able to feel more comfortable with the idea. I really hope this will help me develope the love and service for others that I so desire to improve. In this district, there is E´Callejas, E´Cumrine, E´Vita (came in to replace E´Thomas and is from Peru), E´Gonzalez (from Paraguay. We lived in the same pench in Castillo and we are already good friends), and E´Since (also from Peru). I´ll try to take a photo one day and I hope to be able to have the inspiration to know how to inpire them and give them “animo” (a combination of energy and a positive attitude).

Oh, another change that I need to inform you. Our Preparation day has been changed to Monday, so I´ll be writing you every Monday from now on, with the exception the week of the 21st, I´ll write Tuesday the 22nd. This is due to a very sad news. The temple is closing for renovations that will take 1-2 years. The 22nd, I´ll go to the temple the last time during my mission. This makes me especially sad because I won´t be able to see the sealing of Lionel and Viviana Lizondo. Without such visits, we can have our P-days on Monday.

This Sunday we had the baptism of De los Ángeles Ramona Gutierrez and Alvaro Lopez. It was one of the most difficult baptisms that I´ve seen, but we were able to overcome every difficulty that came in our way. Ramona was completely ready and had her interview last sunday. Went to go work in the capital for the week, but returned early, telling us that the lady she was taking care of wouldn´t let her read The Book of Mormon at all. She began having doubts about being baptized because of problems with her family. Her husband was saying that after she is baptized, she will be completely different. I believe he thinks that she will begin “living” in the church, which isn´t the case. She had the fear of missing even one sunday every once in a while to go with her husband to Luján to visit. But, we were able to help her see that missing one sunday is very small compared to not being baptized with regards to disobedience to God. On Saturday, her brother came and was a bit drunk. While we were there, he started saying that we need to give her more time, a month or two, because she is confused and needs time to think. We explained that she was ready and that she shouldn´t wait. It was a bit difficult, but we were able to help Ramona feel better while her drunk brother was present. Eventually he left and Lurdes, her niece, came and she said “You´re having doubts? I´m not going to let anything get in the way of my baptism. I can´t wait.” She really helped. (By the way, Lurdes will be baptized the 12th).

Alvaro was a bit of a surprise. He is 14 years old and has been receiving the missionaries since January. He wasn´t progressing, so we stopped going by his house as often. His Mom realized what was happening and that we were helping Alvaro a lot be better. She told us that we can´t stop passing by, even if he doesn´t get baptized. With more of her support, Alvaro came to church last Sunday. In class, they started talking about the duties of the priesthood and told him that he could be a Teacher, but has to be baptized first. This got him so excited that he came to us to ask us when he could be baptized. We told him on the 12th.

We had an interview the President Benton this past Monday and he was asking if there were any more possibilities. We had the goal to have 200 baptisms in one transfer and was asking if it were possible to have a few more to acheive it. We told him about Alvaro and said it would be alright to do it this Sunday if we prayed about it and verified that he had a true change. When we went to Alvaro on Monday, he showed us that he really had changed and was excited. So we decided to do it Sunday.

But, things got more difficult. Saturday night, at 10:20 PM, we received a message saying that the water pump in the church had broken and that we wouldn´t have water to fill the baptismal font. We went crazy. We had E´Thomas and E´Cumrine fill the baptismal font in Moreno 1 and somehow we would bring everyone there to do the baptism. We brought a ton of coins to church the next day just in case. During the first class, we talked with the bishop and he called for Hma. Diaz who has some friends who have busses. During the first hour she went on her bicycle to go find them and after church we were able to take everyone to Moreno 1 to have a successful baptism. It was really stressful, but we were able to do it with the help of the ward. It was miraculous.

And by the way, we didn´t quite reach 200, but we had 192. Breaking records everywhere. It was an amazing transfer.

I send my love and prayers.

Elder Drake Ranquist

Bautismo de Nora

2009-08-30T21:05:00.001-07:00

25 Aug 2009

Dear Family,

I am pleased to anounce that Nora Goldenstein was baptized this Sunday. But, I´m sorry that I´m not yet able to send a photo. We went to the zoo for a zone activity and I didn´t bring the adaptor to transfer the memory card to the computer. Her story is begins when she married David Goldenstein, a partially active member of Moreno 1. They went on their honeymoon and then moved into a house here in Moreno 2. The two of them decided to visit church about two months ago and met Elder Wall and Elder Callejas, but they weren´t sure if Nora was a member or not. When they were walking around one day, Nora and David were riding around on a motorcycle (David is a policeman that rides around on motorcylces all day), stopped and asked when the missionaries were going to come by. So, that is how it all started.

They began coming to church nearly every week and Nora began growing in interest. She is a school teacher, so she read every homework assignment we gave her (the pamphlets and chapters in the Book of Mormon). As I have before told, her major difficulty (and it is still a major difficulty) is praying before others.

Her baptism went fairly well, but it was really stressful. Here in Moreno 2, the water heater is located too far away from the baptismal font. There is hot water in the kitchen, but as the water moves through the frigid underground pipes to the baptismal font, it comes out a bit cold. We spent a fair amount of time Saturday trying to figure out a way to fix it. In the end, Hermana Días told us that she could bring a 50L pot to heat water in and throw in with the rest of the water. So, we spent all of the church meeting heating up the water in the pot twice. In the end, we were able to get the water to be a bearable temperature.

The baptismal service occured right after sacrament meeting. We had to change all of our plans because every person we assigned to give a talk or a welcoming didn´t attend. David baptized Nora and it was a very special event to witness. What warmed my heart even more was when we sang “Haz tú lo justo” (“Do What is Right”) for her and she began to cry. She indicated that that is one of her favorite hymns, of the few she knows.

Before church, I was feeling a bit down because nearly all of our plans and appointments on friday and saturday fell through and when I called on Sunday morning for a few people to come, they said they didn´t want us to come accompany us because they didn´t want to go to the first classes. Saying that usually means that they aren´t going to come. But, many people got to church on their own.

Ramona and Lurdes came. Lurdes during the week sent us a message (she works in the capital from monday to saturday, so we can´t teach her during the week) asking why she couldn´t be baptized sooner. We let her know that it is a requirement in the mission to attend church 3 times to show that they will continue. Church wasn´t quite all she was expecting. She felt a bit like I felt the first time I went to the temple, a little uncomfortable and a little doubtful. One of the problems is that this ward isn´t the most open and warm to newcomers. After church, she was with her aunt Ramona, who will be baptized this Saturday, and wondering whether or not to stay for the baptism. She was praying and found a pieces of paper on the floor. It said “Jesucristo me ama” (“Jesus Christ loves me”). She decided that she would stay. She absolutely loved the baptism and decided that is what she wants and believes that it is all true. After the baptism, she asked me if I would be the one to baptize her, which made me feel honored.

This Sunday, Alvaro, also came. He is a fourteen year old kid that was about to be baptized 2-3 months ago, but his non-member parents talked him out of it, saying that being baptized isn´t a game and that they would be more strict with him afterwards. During my time here in Moreno, he wasn´t coming to church on Sunday (but would come Saturday to play soccer with the other youth). We stopped passing by as often and his Mom realized how good this Gospel is for him and told us not to stop passing by because we were helping him. To our surprise, he came to church again this Sunday. And to our greater surprise, he asked us when he could be baptized. In priesthood class, they were talking about the responsibilities of the priesthood and about the Duty to God award. Alvaro realized that he can´t really do anything in the church without first being baptized and became really excited. We had interviews with President Benton yesterday and he gave his permission to baptize him this Saturday (on part so that we can reach the goal of 200 baptisms in this transfer, the which ends this Sunday). We feel that he has had a true change of heart and is ready again to be baptized. His Mom is also now showing interest. The only problem is that Alvaro´s father doesn´t want her to go too much.

And we had one more person come to church on their own. While doing our contacts, we found a woman talking with another. We “interrupted” and she asked if someone had given us her direction. She wanted to know how we found her. We found out that she is the inactive sister of the Bishop in Jardines, another ward in the stake of Moreno. She moved here 5 months ago and what is even better, she has a 9 year old son. So, we have begun to teach Hernan. She is the one I called Sunday morning. But, she arrived for Sacrament meeting and then stayed for the baptism and liked it. We are planning on the 12th of September for him as well, but Patricia, his Mom thinks that is too soon.

Well, it is my time to go. I hope that all goes well with you all. I love your letters. And I hope that you enjoy the start of School Jessica and Jonathan. And before I go, I can´t forget. Happy Birthday Dad! Thanks for being such a good example in my life.

With love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

I'm in Utah!

2009-08-23T20:59:00.001-07:00

Yup, I'm finally in Utah! I can't believe school is here after all of that waiting! I'm so excited!

anyway...

18 Aug 2009

Dear Family,

This was yet another great week in the service of the Lord. We continued to work hard, even when we were tired (I´m extremely grateful for my companion who can take a little bit of control when my mind ceases to work) and saw a ton of fruits. I don´t understand how it was possible, but person after person would accept us. We gave so many “charlas cortas” (short discussions about the restoration). I told you last week how we started of finding 10 people on monday, which is our weekly goal. Throughout the week, we found 17 more people to teach. We now have people to teach in nearly every part of the area in which we work.

I told you that we taught a family last week in the which the father, Cristian, listened to the missionaries before. We taught them again on Saturday and they accepted to come to church with us on Sunday. Sunday morning, we could feel that a strong storm was building up. While walking to their house, there was strong wind, it began to sprinkle a bit, and we heard thunder and say a little lightning. We were praying the entire time that the Lord wait to lash out his fury until the family could get safely inside and not be scared to leave their house. When we arrived, they were nearly ready. We walked with them to church and the moment in which they entered, it began to pour. During the first class, it was nearly impossible to listen to what was being said because the rain hitting the roof made so much noise. And even harder when it began to hail. But, all who got to church on time were dry. We were very thankful.

We had another miracle Sunday that carried into yesterday (and we hope will carry on forever). We went to teach Ramona, who will be baptized on the 29th and makes me really happy everytime I see her because of how excited she is. She shares her testimony with us nearly everytime we go to teach her. When we arrived, we asked if she wanted to invite her neice to listen to us, who was in the house at the time. She said yes, but didn´t come out until we finished our lesson about the plan of salvation. We taught her neice, Lurdes, the first lesson as normal, but when she said that she would read and pray, I felt that she really meant it. She works in the capital the entire week and is only home on the weekends, so I decided to teach about The Book of Mormon as well. I forgot that yesterday was a holiday here, but my companion didn´t. He set the return appointment for the next day.

When we went, we saw that she truely is one of the elect of the Lord. She had read the folleto and 3 Ne 11. She also prayed last night and received a strong spiritual witness. With the help of Valeria (a member of the same age, 22 years), we learned that when she prayed, she felt like she was going to cry, yet was happy. The spirit was really strong during this lesson as Ramona as well spoke of how this gospel is helping her. With such an experience, we knew she deserved a baptismal date for as soon as possible, namely the 12th of September. If only missionary work could always be like that.

Before my mission, I thought that was how missionary work would be. Teach and the person would receive an answer immediately and they would come and join the church. But now I realize that such experiences are really rare. Usually, missionary work takes a lot of work, effort, faith, and love.

Thank you for all of love and prayers. I loved your talk Mom. It was really well written. And I pray and hope for the best for you all.

Love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Semana de Milagros (week of miracles!!!)

2009-08-16T13:50:00.000-07:00

Well, to update you a little on the Ranquist's lives...
First, I'm now 18! My birthday was the 13th. Truthfully, I don't feel any different. I had to work (at Sonic) on my birthday, but it was fun, because a lot of people came and visited me. I guess I'm officially an adult now! sorta...

Jonathan started his sophomore year of high school also on the 13th. I haven't gotten much out of him yet, but he seems to be enjoying himself so far. Not too big of a homework load yet.

My dad turns....coughcough51coughcough....this week. So happy birthday to him! He already bought his present - a blueray dvd. He's also excited about a new tv we got for the family room. I don't know what type it is, to me it's a big, thin, nice, expensive looking tv. He's excited.

Now the exciting part of my life. College! I leave for BYU on saturday. I can't wait! I've met all of my roommates on facebook and they all seem really nice and fun (because facebook tells all, of course. haha) Next time I update I'll be in Utah!

All right now here to Drake's letter. It's a good one this week!

11 Aug 2009

Dear Family,

Happy Birthday Jessica! I agree with Mom and Dad, it is really difficult imagining you being 18 and about to leave for college. I really hope you like BYU (I don´t really have any doubts about it). Write me about your classes, friends, and experiences. In a year, I´ll be there in BYU along with you. And don´t fall for the first return missionary that crosses your path. Just enjoy yourself for a time.

It seems like I´m mission out on everything there in Louisville with regards to a wacky climate. I missed out on the power outages, the blizzards, the good weather, and the floods. What will come to pass this following year that I´ll miss out on? The weather here has been pretty good. Sorry dad, I have no idea what the temperature is here during the day. Probably in the 50´s, maybe.

This week was an extremely good week here in Moreno. I think I told you that this past week was the crunch week of the transfer to help acheive 200 converts in this transfer. E´Callejas and I put in all of our effort to try to contact every person we saw. There was an apostolic promise that if each of us contacts 10 people a day, we will double the baptisms. Or in other words, 20 as a companionship and 140 per week. This is really difficult to acheive. But, this week we tried inviting everyone. As a result, we found 18 new investigators (a new record for me) and found people to come to church.

Last tuesday, as we were walking in the dark, we heard someone close their gate and lock it. We had passed by, but my companion decided to turn around and contact the man who was there. He told us no, that his Señora was a little sick and that we should come back another day (which everyone says). We insisted a little, saying that our message was short and that we could share it with him there on the patio. Surprisingly, he let us in and what surprised me even more was that he invited his wife to come out to listen to us. We learned that she had already listened to the missionaries before, has a Book of Mormon, but never went to church. At the end of the lesson, we offered a healing blessing (“bendición de salud.” Is it healing blessing or health blessing or what do we say in english? I was talking with our zone leader today and he said that one of the hardest things he had to do was give a blessing in english because he´s never done it before. I´ve never given a blessing in english either. And I can understand how it could be difficult.). She had sharp stomach pains and the doctors will only see critical cases right now. We went back thursday, but when we clapped, no one came out of the house.

Saturday, we passed by again and la Señora, named Ramona, let us in. She said that she felt completely better after the blessing. She was there waiting on thursday, but must not have heard us. My companion especially had been praying that she could be healed so that she could better accept the gospel. During the lesson, she accepted to come with us to church the next day. When we passed by she was ready and excited. We had called some of the members, saying that we were expecting her to come, and gave them the assignments to accompany her in the classes and make her feel comfortable. They did an excellent job and she absolutely loved it. When we passed by yesterday, she accepted a baptismal date for the 29th, the last Saturday of this transfer. She feels that this is her place. When she went to visit family after the church meetings, some of her family members told her that she was like she was before. Happy and caring. She had changed a bit during the months of difficulty with her stomach pains. It truely was a miracle to find and teach her. We will do all that we can to help her prepare for her baptism. We will also try to help her husband (who we learned used to play volleyball with one of the members).

Saturday was another day of miracles. My companion thinks he ate something bad (a combination of eggs and yogurt) that caused him to feel really sick in the stomach. I was starting to really get worried about how he felt. After my piano class, he accepted to receive a blessing. I felt the spirit as I declared that according to his faith he would be healed to work hard that day. Afterwards, he did not have one complaint about how his stomach felt. A we really did work hard.

To better help us have the necessary number of investigators in sacrament meeting to acheive our baptismal goal for the transfer, we decided to fast saturday after lunch. During this time of fasting, we had person after person accept us. We also found a mom, Rosa, and two daughters, who had heard the missionaries before and went to church a few times, but it has been years. We said we could pass by Sunday morning to accompany them to church. They accepted. When we passed by, we woke them up with our clapping, waited for them to get ready, and they too came. It is really rare for someone that is found on Saturday comes to church with us the next day. We have yet to go by to find out how it went and to see if it is possible to baptize them this transfer too.

And to add to the miracles we had an amazing day yesterday. We got back from Luján at 3:00. We were going to our appointments and they all fell through. We were doing our contacts for the day and after 20 contacts, we didn´t have one lesson. But things changed when we decided to go above and beyond. On contact 21 we found a married couple. Later we found another young couple that needs to be married. We had our lesson with Ramona. We had a lesson with a family with whom we had contacted a week ago. And we found another family in the which one of the older daughter and younger sons listened to us. 10 new investigators in total. That is our goal for the entire week! We couldn´t believe it. We were so grateful for the blessings God gave us yesterday. We know that such success wasn´t our own work.

I´d like to continue, but I have to go. I hope you have a good week.

With love,
E´Ranquist

He's Halfway There!

2009-08-09T12:17:00.000-07:00

4 Aug 2009

Dear Family,

Yep, I´ve hit a milestone in the mission now. I´ve been away from home for than a year and will be returning in a year. The 30th of July was made even more special because we had a Gira Misional (A Mission Gyro or Jamboree or no sé?) when Elder Zivic, the Area President, came to talk with us. We had the Gira instead of our zone conference. Elder Zivic is Argentine and was a mission president in Spain. I loved what he had to say. What probably impacted me the most was when he spoke about the difference between being proactive and reactive. That we as missionaries need to be proactive—in front of the problems instead of behind. This is something that I will try to improve this year. I am reactive. I don´t make bad reactions. Most of my companions say that I´m extremely patient and calm. But, I´m not a “beast” or a “machine” to work through everything (those are words that E´Rivas always used. Everytime we had a bit of success, like set a baptismal date he would say afterwards “¡Somos bestias!” or “¡Somos máquinas!”). So, I have the goal that in the next year, I´ll become more proactive. To be able to make decisions well and follow through with them.

This past year has been the hardest, yet most rewarding year of my life. I´ve noted many changes in myself. I think the main one has to do with what I spoke of in the above paragraph. I´ve become more confident in interacting with other people. I´ve always been able to get along with people well. I rarely have problems with others (which is the reason the President has and will put me with companions that have sharp personalities, such as E´Nieres and E´Rivas). But, during this year I´ve gained a better ability of working with others. I´ve become more bold. I´ve gained simple abilities such as talk with people who are strangers and making phone calls. I´m also glad to say that I´m fluent in Spanish. I feel just as comfortable listening to and speaking in Spanish as I do in English. There have been many times when people speak to me in the two languages and I don´t realize at all that they switched. Last week, I did a contact with a man. Afterwards, my companion said, “He was speaking in English.” I didn´t realize it at all. I was speaking to him in Spanish the entire time. Me siento incomado hablando en inglés la mayoría del tiempo.

This week went fairly well. We lost a lot of working time because many people asked us for service. We were going to paint a wall in the house of a member family, but they basically have a bakery inside. We spent two hours trying to scrape away all of the dough and oil that had plastered itself to the wall over the years. We didn´t even get close to start painting. We also helped tranport dirt so that a member with his wife Nora (who is planning to be baptized the 23rd of this month) can extend his house. We also helped with homework of some investigators and I´ve also begun to give piano classes on Saturday when half the world is sleeping (the siesta).

Thank you for the photo. There hasn´t been too many changes over the past year. Jessica and Jonathan look slightly older, but Jonathan has yet to hit his growth spurt and change a lot. Mom looks more like a Relief Society President in her hair and dress style.

And Mom, I agree with you completely. I don´t understand how we have had such a good family. I see broken families everywhere here. A family with all of its basic units is extremely rare now. I often wonder why and how I was blessed so much. Did we prove ourselves well in the Pre-Existance or did we show we needed more help? But, the main answer is that we have all strived to be obedient to the commandments of God, especially with regards to the law of Chastity. Breaking that law ensures sadness and affliction. There is no way to avoid the consequences. I am so grateful for the love we have for one another and our desire to follow the ways of the Lord. I often wonder what trials I will have to pass through in my life. I don´t feel like I´ve had to pass through many if any big trials. But, I know they will come. I just hope that I´ll be able to have a family as good as the one I grew up in. One in which there is love and union. I will pray and work for that righteous desire.

I know that this work is true and brings consolance. That sometimes we pass through difficulties to help us improve and learn. Yesterday, we had an appointment with an inactive family and they told us that that day passed away a family member, without warning. We were able to teach the plan of salvation and they want to return to church. They commited to pray and to read the scriptures. Two of them are 18 yr. old boy who I hope to help prepare to go on missions. I know that we were put in the path of this family in just the right moment. I know I´ll have many more such experiences this year.

With love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Mom's questions answered

2009-08-02T15:31:00.000-07:00

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

Moreno 2

2009-07-26T16:05:00.000-07:00

21 Jul 2009

Dear Family,

I now welcome you to the area of Moreno 2. I´m looking forward to a good time working here, but I´ll definitely miss Castillo 1. I became really close to many of the members and especially to the converts. There was a lot of crying on the part of many of the converts the past few days. But, they are in the Lord´s hands. They will be protected and guided. Most of them have a good relation with the members, so they will have a support. But I´ll miss everyone of the families I saw enter the gospel. I will try to maintain contact with them through letters, but there are so many that I doubt I´ll be able to keep it up much.

My new companion is Elder Callejas. Another Chilean! I can´t believe that I´ve had three companions from Chile in a row. Sometimes I think that there is a future purpose for having correspondences with Chile. A ton of the best telescopes in the world are in the Cordilleras (Andes Mountains) in Chile. Having the ability to speak Spanish and having contacts there might help me with my future work. But, that is only a supposition. It also could mean that I need to learn spanish better and I need a latin companion to help me out. I don´t know much about E´Callejas yet, but I´ll let you know as time goes on. But what I do know is that he studies Civil Engineering in college for a year, but isn´t sure what he wants to do in his life yet. He is thinking about being a PE teacher because he loves sports so much. He is a lot more tranquil than E´Rivas. But, I have yet to see how we´ll get along.

I am in another pench of four missionaries. We live in Moreno 1, so we´ll have to walk and use busses a lot. E´Tomas is our district leader. He seems quite a bit like me—really relaxed, but good. E´Cumrine is his companion. He was the companion of E´Lloyd in the MTC. I think he´s going to make our time here interesting.

I give congragulations to Jonathan for completing his Eagle Scout project. That´s a real accomplishment. He should be receiving his Eagle shortly now. Work to the end and get it as quickly as possible Jonathan. The diligence you put in now will serve you well in the future. And Jessica, good luck signing up for classes. It was a pain for me too. But, one of the reasons I´m really glad that I have a ton of credits is because I can sign up a lot earlier than any one else.

I don´t really have too much more to say, but I´ll work on sending photos. I have a ton now. More than I can possibly send. Before now I sent home nearly every photo I took. This week, I have about double what I had as I said my farewells.

I hope that everything goes well with you all this next week. I hope that I´ll be able to work hard and bring more unto repentance and the reception of blessings.

With love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

ok Drake had pictures, but the laptop isn't letting me connect to the desktop where we have downloaded the pictures...so i'll try to put them up later.

Oompa Loompa ball

2009-07-19T20:38:00.000-07:00

14 July 2009

Dear Family,

I don´t have too much to write this week either, so I will try to send some photos.

It is really weird to think that I´m nearing the halfway mark of my mission. I entered the MTC on July 30th and that is approaching rapidly. Nearly all of the Elders say that the second half of the mission passes more rapidly than the first half. I think it will come and go. Parts have been really quick, others have been really slow. Right now I´m in a slow part (having 9 of our 10 appointments fall through on Saturday, three of which we passed by with a member). But, next week it will all pick up.

Why will things pick up next week? It is nearly certain that I´ll be in another area next week. My time here in Castillo is coming to a close. It will be sad to go, but I do need a change. This area is fairly small to begin with and as the months go by, it feels smaller and smaller. It is hard to work diligently when you already recognize all of the people who have rejected you several times. I have no clue to what part of Buenos Aires I will go. It would be really funny if I went to Altos de Merlo, where Elder Gilmore was. I´d be following in his footsteps.

Yesterday went really well because we did “super-divisions” where every Elder in the entire zone did divisions with another Elder in the zone. I went to Lafarrere 2, one of the old areas of Elder Spendlove, with Elder Ariola. We didn´t have lunch supplied by a member, but he can cook really well. It felt good to be working in another area, calling different people to repentance and to come unto Christ. I felt a little more bold and energetic. It felt good. It is easier to do that with people that you don´t know because after calling the same people to change 3 or 4 times and you don´t see any progress, you begin to lose faith that doing it another time will help. Elder Rivas had a great time because he was with his old companion Elder Volkert (who is also going home next week).

Today we had our zone activity. Depending on what we did yesterday during divisions, we gained points. Elder Singleton, one of our Zone Leaders, is going home next week, so he decided to auction off all the stuff he won´t take home. With the points that I earned with Elder Ariola, I gained a cap and a bunch of other junk. Then we played oompa-loompa ball, where we play basketball, using the rules of ultimate Frisbee, but with a football. Meaning, we throw the football to one another, but can´t run with the ball. The aim of the game is to make the football into the basketball goal. It was really fun and wore me out. It is always fun completely surprising others by showing them that yes, I the nerd, can play sports.

I´m glad that you all enjoyed your trips and had a time to relax. I hope that I will find you all well next week when I tell you about my change and my predictions about what the next 4-6 months of my mission will be like. And I hope that you liked the photos (yes, I say photos now instead of pictures because of the Spanish word fotographía, or foto for short). I know I will witness great miracles anywhere I go to serve the Lord.

With love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Musician

2009-07-13T10:11:00.001-07:00

7 Jul 2009

Dear Family,

Sorry, but you´ll have to wait another week before I´ll send photos home. This computer doesn´t have a good USB port. They switched me to two other computers and either the keybord wasn´t working or acted as if CTRL was pressed down the whole time, so I decided to stick with this computer. So, I´ll send them next week.

This week we had the baptism of María Amparo Coyoche Benitez! As you know, we found her about a month and a half ago. We went to wish happy birthday to someone in the family and found out that it was her 9th birthday. We did all we could to try to reactive as many of her family as we could so that she could be baptized. Ciris Cáseres, a 20 yr. old, who was baptized in November (so he is a Priest preparing for the Melchizedec Priesthood), baptized her. It all went really well, even though the attendance was low.

Why was the attendance low? Because of the great fear of “Gripe A” or the Swine Flu. There are many cases here in Buenos Aires, but I haven´t yet heard of any cases here in Castillo—at least among members. But, it has seemed for the past few weeks that in every house that we go to, at least one member has had a fever. It is amazing that of the four missionaries in my apartment, only I got sick about a month ago and then recovered rapidly. All the kids are out of school. They were getting ready for Winter break and with the outbreak of the flu, the state decided to cancel school one week before and after the break, so everyone is out for a full month. In this stake, all activities and meetings are cancelled except for Sunday classes. In other stakes, such as Castelar (5-10 min. drive from here, one train station) even those are cancelled. I don´t know what I´d do as a missionary if none of my investigators could go to church for a month. “In a month will be your first opportunity to come and participate in the true church of Jesus Christ!” I can´t see myself being able to say that instead of saying “This Sunday…”

I´m a bit sad that our best investigators moved back to Peru yesterday—David and Berta. We found them only about two weeks ago. We contacted Berta in the street and she said that she would like us to come to help work out some problems with her and her husband (we never again heard or saw that there was a problem). We went and she was sick, but accepted us and listned to us anyways. Her husband was really interested. We went back another day and she was better, but her 1 yr old daughter was sick. They fulfilled all of their commitments (which is rare) and we visited them with a member from Peru. They worked in the same community (at different times, so they didn´t know one another) and talked about a man who lived in a house he had built in a tree which they had named Tarzan. They told us they were planning on moving back, but weren´t sure when exactly. And what really surprised us was that they said that they were already used to us coming twice a week to visit. That was only our third lesson! What surprised us even more was that we found them in the street on Saturday and David asked me, “You didn´t leave us something for us to read to prepare for the next lesson last time. What did you want us to read?” I replied, “You can start reading from the beginning.” He responded, “Oh, ok. I´m already in chapter 25.” They came to church on Sunday and loved it. I hope they´ll be able to unite themselves with the church in Peru easily. We´ll send their address to that mission. I´ll send pictures next week.

This week my companion has really begun to focus on learning English. He asked his girlfriend what she thought of him going into military school, which means they wouldn´t be able to get married for four years. He received a reply that she would support him completely with going into the military on the condition that they go to the US (her brother is in the US Air Force). He doesn´t know for sure if he will do that, but he feels compelled to learn English. So, I´m speaking with him in slow English as much as possible. It is difficult. It is much easier to communicate in Spanish, but he is progressing. It is like I am training a new missionary that can´t speak the language.

I wish good luck with the Eagle Scout project with Jonathan. I had an overwhelming amount of people come to mine to do a small job. I hope that he´ll have the same response. In this mission, I´m becoming known as a musician as well. More as a singer than as a pianist. I´ve sung bass in the past two transfer meetings and in some zone conferences. It is ice that I have the ability to read a part without the need of accompaniment. I think the French Horn taught me to have that ear. I just wish I could have a better tone with my voice and learn how to sing higher without it sounding strained.

I wish the best for you all. I know that you will have God´s guidance.

With love,

Elder Drake Ranquist

Birthday Thanks

2009-07-05T07:28:00.000-07:00

30 Jun 2009

Dear Family,

First of all, I need to thank you for the package. I absolutely loved it. It reminded me a lot of Christmas (for one, it is cold here now). Thank you for the letters, the socks, and the ton of ties. I was expecting one or two. I was surprised. Also, thank you very much for the Snickers. There is nothing as delicious as Snickers bars here. The big snack here are Alfajores, which are…hard to describe, round brownies with Dulce de Leche (creamy caramel) inside. They are good, but nothing like the candy bars we have. The snickers as well reminded me of Christmas because we often eat them Christmas morning. Thank you for the Mission Journal. I´m nearing the end of my first one.

And thank you especially for the music. That was an absolute surprise to me. I was getting really tired of listening to the same 6-7 CD´s that I have on my iPod. The rest of the Elders in my apartment don´t have music, so we´ve been listening to mine the entire 6 months. I have been tempted to break the rules and listen to some of the other “good” classical music I have, but which isn´t from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir nor hymns. So, I was extremely happy to have more legal music to listen to. I didn´t even know that the Mormon Tabernacle Choir had 300 songs on CD´s. Where did you find it all? Already, we are picking out some of our favourite songs. My companion loves “American Salute (Johnny Boy)” or as I know it “The ants go marching one by one.” So do I because it is the exact arrangement that I played in the YPAS band. It is a difficult piece and the Orchestra of Temple Square blows us out of the water. Elder Lloyd absolutely loves the song “The battle of Jericho.” I´ve never heard that piece, but it is excellent. He sang such pieces in his high school choir. I also think he likes it because it says “The battle of Joshua” a lot and that is his name.

I passed a really good birthday. I´ve decided I want to have my birthday in a different country ever ten years. (I think I already told you that). I had a good lunch with Sara Dumos and afterwards we went to the house of Roxana to celebrate with Karen and Florencia. I definitely received demasiado (too much) cake that day. Veronica gave me an Argentina hat (they know how much I miss wearing caps) and by shear happenchance, Sara and Viviana gave me a matching white sweat shirt and sweat pants which I can wear under my missionary clothes to keep me warm. (Don´t worry mom, I have been kept warm with the sweat pants, sweaters, coats, ear muffs, and gloves that I have. And it hasn´t ever gone below freezing, so it doesn´t bother me too much).

How do I feel about being 20? Well, my definition of old has been incremented. I used to think 30 was old. Now I think that is really young because I´m still a kid. I don´t think old comes until 60-70, if anyone can be defined as old because in our time on Earth, we will always be lacking in experience and knowledge compared with our Heavenly Father. But I´m realizing more and more that I am now taking upon me the full responsibilities to fulfil the goals that the Lord has established for me. I will never again have the comforts and lack of worries as I did during my teenage years. It will be 10 times, if not 100 times more difficult, but that is what will push my eternal growth.

Here in Castillo we´ve hit a few roadblocks. We will have a baptism this Saturday and we are planning others for the next week, but there seems to be big problems with each one of our other investigators. One smokes, one is not married and leaving for Peru in two weeks, one is gay, one had a baby recently and can´t go out in the cold with him, one doesn´t have permission from his parents to be baptized… But I have faith and hope that each one can overcome these dramatic differences and be united in the true faith of Christ.

Oh, a few questions. I´ve always wondered, Mom and Dad, what were the reasons exactly that you couldn´t have children and if you know the reason, why did I suddenly appear after 9 years. I´ve had the question a long time, but never got around to asking it. Also, what is the history of our ancestors first entering the gospel, especially that of Alexander Ranquist, or was it Lars Ranquist?

I wish I could write more, but the time is gone. Have a good week all of you.

With love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

He Two Decades Old!!!

2009-06-28T17:15:00.000-07:00

I can't believe my brother's actually 20. By that time, my mom was married!!! Crazy. He's too young for that, haha.

23 Jun 2009

Dear Family,

This has been a great week here in Castillo. We have been able to amp up our work efforts a bit more and have seen even more of God´s miracles. First and foremost, we had the baptism of Marcos Lobos and Victoria Acosta. I will start working now on sending the photos. It was a pleasure working with them. Marcos Lobos was already active, he just needed permission from his parents and “listo” he was able to enter into the waters of baptism. His Uncle, Hmo. Sanchez, baptized him. Victoria at first didn´t want to get baptized, but after working with her a few weeks, she finally accepted (we found her the day after E´Rivas arrived here in Castillo). The Patriarch, Hmo. Hilario Guzmán, baptized her. I´ll admit that I do like to be the one who does the baptism, but I will always work to try to help another in the ward to do it.

We had to have the two baptisms separate, so that the parents of Marcos could come, which really cut on our working time (especially because we had zone conference as well), but this week went really well. We were able to do all of our contacts and we were blessed to find more investigators. And we have two more miraculous investigators. They have nearly the exact same story as Lionel and Viviana. Alberto and his son Maxi walked into the church Saturday afternoon as we were giving the classes of English and Piano, just as Viviana and Lionel. E´Lloyd and E´Brooks taught them and found out that they live in our area (I hope we can help them find such miracles too). Maxi was invited by a girl (that he likes a bit, but she doesn´t quite like him in the same way. She says that she doesn´t know what brought her to invite him. She is a member in Castillo 2.) to come to church and that sparked interest in his father as well, who had been with the missionaries 20 years ago, read the Book of Mormon, and knows that it is true, but never got baptized. So, the two came to church on Sunday and loved it. We went by their house that day and he asked, “What do I have to do and when can I be baptized?” He and his son accepted a baptismal date for July 11th. At the beginning of each transfer, we have to set a baptismal goal and pray about it. The past two transfers I wanted to put one number, but I felt a different number. We reached those goals exactly. This transfer, I felt the goal of 4 baptisms this transfer. We´ve had two baptisms and not many prospects to fulfil the goal. I´ve been wondering “Who will the other two be?” I think we´ve found them. But, I´m not going to let my guard down. We will work the hardest we can to prepare them well for the covenant they have decided to make. I know that there is another force working his hardest as well.

I still can´t believe that I´m almost 20. Oh, I´ve realized that I want to have my birthday every 10 years in a different country. A different continent if possible. I was born in Germany (Europe). 10th birthday in China (Asia). And now my 20th in Argentina (South America). And yes I received the package, but I haven´t yet opened it. But, I´ve run out of time again. I hope you all have a good week. The next time I come to you, I will no longer be the teenage Drake.

Love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Oh and I need to make a correction from the family update. My dad has NOT had surgery, it's just a possibility that he really doesn't want to think about. I think I heard them talking about it and assumed that he was. I'll keep you updated...maybe, haha.

Happy Father's Day!

2009-06-21T09:21:00.000-07:00

6 Jun 2009

Dear Family,

I´m never quite sure what day certain holidays fall on, but I think that it probably has already past. So, I will say, Happy Father´s Day Dad! I hope that you had a good Father´s day and that the Lord continues to reward you for the decisions of your life and good actions of loving fatherhood you have expressed to me and my brother and sister.

Sunday, we had Stake Conference, which was a broadcast from Salt Lake to all of Argentina. I absolutely loved the first talk by one of the Seventy. I wish I could get a copy of it. He talked about the difference between “ser” and “hacer.” Or in English, “being” and “doing.” He focused this talk to the parents in how they should raise their children. That they should always focus on helping their children reach their potential. When they are acting badly (portándose mal, I don´t remember the exact word…ah, the word is misbehaving), remember that these are temporary actions and not who they are. One should never say to a kid that “They always…” or “They never…” or that they are “stupid,” or any such thing because the child takes this as their identity and can never overcome it. There were many other great parts that helped teach me about how I can be the father I want to become. I am so grateful Mom and Dad that you followed this counsel of church leaders.

Recently, E´Rivas and I have been talking a lot about our potential and what we wish to do. About how we are very glad that the church helps inspire us to achieve our great potential. I´m glad that you always helped me feel that I could do anything that I put my mind to. My companion says that his Mom would say “Wake up” when he had dreams of achieving high goals. But he is glad that through the Gospel, he knows that he can achieve anything and is willing to work and fight for it. This is what a lot of the youth all over the world lack—dreams. Without them, no one has the motivation to work with their might. That is one of the greatest tools of Satan, making us feel that we aren´t capable of reaching our potential. There isn´t much else that has such a disastrous effect on the heart of men. We all face it, but in the end we will see who was able to overcome it.

This week wasn´t the easiest week because, just as you stated in your letter Dad, we are having a hard time finding new investigators to teach and prepare to make covenants with God. Without investigators, we can´t teach very much. We can´t do much of anything. But I can´t complain, this week we have two baptisms. Marcos tomorrow and Victoria Saturday. They have been great to teach and have received a lot of support from their families.

We had planned to also baptize María Coyoche this week, but she didn´t make it to Stake Conference. We´re trying to decide what to do with her because she is ready to be baptized. She understands the covenant and wants to do it. The problem is that her family is inactive and she can´t make it to church alone. Her Mom, Dad, and all her older siblings are working on Sundays. Coralia, the oldest sister, was the one bringing her to church and was working, but she recently started up again. I don´t want to baptize her if she can´t renew her covenant every week. We´ll work to try to reactivate the family.

I´m glad to hear that you are enjoying your summer, that Scout camp went well, and that your back is getting better Dad. I also had a lot of fun when I did Tower and COPE at Scout camp. I agree with Jonathan, it is quite a hike. I hope you also get your Eagle Scout done soon.

With love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

He stays in Castillo

2009-06-14T07:43:00.000-07:00

9 Jun 2009

Dear Family,

I welcome you once again from the ward of Rafael Castillo 1. I thought there might be a change, but all will be the same for the next month and a half. I´m getting a little more used to my responsibilities as Senior Companion and everything, but I still have a ton to learn and improve. E´Rivas will continue helping me out. And so will E´Lloyd. He is my District leader and came to Castillo (and Dad, please pronounce it something like “Cawsteeshow”) with me. So, we will be together in our apartment the full 6 months (him being patient with me as I talk about our triumphs and trials every night).

The recent converts were really glad to hear this news. I´m not sure I quite understand how converts can get so attached to 19-21 year old kids. Many of them have told us that, especially the days right before their baptisms, we show up in their dreams at night (I´ve actually been really surprised in how common that the answer to their prayers come through the form of powerful dreams). But I´m glad that through the testimonies that I´ve heard from them, they are more attached to the Gospel and really have seen the changes in their own lives.

Little by little I´m coming to understand the scripture in Doctrine and Covenants (I think it is 16: 19-20) but I´m not sure of the section number, that says something like “how great shall be your joy with them that you helped bring unto repentance.” I have been extremely blessed to be able to see these families change their lives and be witnesses of the blessings of God. Viviana gave her testimony in the Fast and Testimony meeting this week and she explained how she followed the spirit. In my own life, we have generally always lived all the commandments and I know blessings have come from them. But that is not as grand as a testimony that comes from the soul that lived without law and makes the changes to live with the law. Seeing these changes in their lives gives me the joy that the Lord has when we repent and come unto him. I have the desire to fulfil my calling to use my gifts to bring many to the truth and to convince them of the errors of their ways as it says in DyC 6:10-11 my entire life through. I hope that as you all are fulfilling your responsibilities as a part of the tribe of Ephraim, you too will experience such joy.

This has from the right, E´Rivas (my companion), E´Sureda (the companion of E´Spendlove last transfer), me, E´Spendlove (behind E´Lloyd), E´Lloyd, and E´Brooks. Thank you Dad for letting me steal the ear warmers. They´ve come in handy.

Lionel, Elder Rivas, me, Viviana, and Sara in front. All in white ready for the baptism

The family of Lionel and Viviana. The father of Lionel is an inactive member who taught his son in his youth. The Dad´s Book of Mormon that Lionel had was a crucial element in his conversion. When Lionel had a spark of wanting to know a little more about religion, he found it through that Book of Mormon. The brother now has more interest and we have yet hear news if he is receiving the missionaries.

Part of the family of Sara. Veronica and Carlos are there with her. Vania is bedridden because of her pregnancy. Carlos is an excellent man and with time, I´m sure that he´ll accept the gospel.

We got to a zone activity a little earlier than the zone leaders. So, we had to wait in the cold. There is a lot of construction outside their chapel, so we waited in the large sewer tubes that were right outside the gate. In this photos there is E´Spendlove (my old companion who has just now finished his mission), E´Brooks (the newbie), and E´Lloyd (my district leader).

Ranquist family update!

2009-06-07T16:11:00.001-07:00

Ok, so I guess I should have said "plus some Ranquist family tidbits" in the title of the blog, because now every time something happens in my life my Mom gets on me for not putting it up here! (you see, she doesn't want much about her to go on the site, just mainly Jonathan and I). So here's a small post in accordance with the "Ranquist family tidbits."

I'll start with Mom, since she's the one who's been bugging me to update: Stephanie's doing well. She's gotten the Relief Society President thing down a little better, though she still is constantly busy! She had an old friend visit her last week and got a much needed break.

Dad: Dad has actually been having some problems. He has a herniated disc with a tear in it in his back. He's going through some surgeries now and will be out of flying for 3 months. It happened at a great time though, because UPS just parked his airplane and won't be able to train him on a new one until the end of the summer. So instead of having to take a sick leave, he is able to stay home and rest for 3 months while still being paid!

Me: I graduated duPont Manual High School!!! (yes, the d is not supposed to be capitalized)
My graduation was last friday, the 5th. I can't believe it's actually over. To tell the truth, it doesn't feel too weird yet though. It hasn't really clicked. I am going to start at BYU Provo in the fall and can't wait! I have already talked to some of my roommates (I'm staying in Heritage Halls in an apartment-like place with 5 other girls).

Jonathan: Is no longer a Freshie! He finished his first year of high school and is elated to move on (I think). He's excited for the summer break...and playing the computer.

Mom also wanted me to put up a picture from Prom.

Drake's turning 20 this month!

2009-06-07T16:06:00.000-07:00

2 Jun 2009

Dear family,

Ahh, I can´t believe that it is already my birth month. I´m not quite sure I want to cross the threshold of 20 years. I guess that is how we all feel every time we cross into a new decade of life. It is hard to leave behind what is past and go into a new stage. It is possible that I will see even more change next week. We are nearing the end of another transfer (every 6 weeks), meaning I could find myself anywhere with anyone next week. I think I´ll still be here in Castillo, which would be great because than I would share my birthday with Karen and Florencia, the twins that were baptized about 3 months ago, who also were born the 26 of June. But, I´ll find out next Monday (where I will sing with E´Gonzalez again).

This week, there were some more changes as well. Sara, Viviana, and Lionel were baptized! I would send pictures, but I can´t get this USB jack to work. But the baptism went well. There wasn´t the highest attendance due to the rain and change of schedule, but the baptism proceeded well anyways. I baptized Sara (who claims to be my mom here in Argentina as is she washes and cooks for us) and Viviana (with whom I didn´t prepare myself an I nearly baptized myself as well trying to get her out of the water. I explained afterwards that I was following the example of Alma found in Mosiah 18 when he baptized himself with Helam). My companion baptized Lionel. We tried to put one of the priests in a level of confidence with them, but the priest himself said that he didn´t want to baptize them because he didn´t work hard enough with them. We´re still having problems on that theme, but we´re trying our best. The brother of Lionel was at the baptism and he became very interested. He lives elsewhere, so I hope all works out well with him as well.

As I was reading your message mom about how you didn´t want to go on a long hike because of the heat, I had a hard time imagining it because it is starting to get cold here. I´m starting to always were thermals under my pants and wear along with my long white shirt a sweater, and the double jacket that I have. I used to say that winter was my favorite season, but that was when I ran from heated building to heated building, I didn´t have to work outside not especially not take a shower in an unheated bathroom (at least we don´t lack warm water). But the changes in temperature caused me to get sick this week. I started to feel week Wednesday and crashed when we went to do a service project painting a house. I just sat in a chair talking with the investigator and her friend while my companion painted. I felt bad, but he understood well enough. I spent that night and the next morning in bed with a fever, but I was able to get up to do our weekly planning. I was feeling better, so we went out to work that night. But when I got back, I had a fever again. But, probably due to the prayers of the Elders in my pench, I recovered to go out and work well Friday. We had devisions and I went and worked well with E´Brooks, a newbie (we don´t really use the term Greenie, probably because it doesn´t quite work in Spanish). I´m glad I´ve grown out of that “infant” stage where I had to rely completely on my companion because I couldn´t understand anything of what was happening in the world around me.

This next transfer, we are planning a lot of baptisms for chicos (youth). One of the girls that went to the young single adults convention, a 3 day trip to Mendoza I think, has decided to get baptized. Her name is Victoria and is from Paraguay. She is living here with her Aunt and her family for schooling I believe. Originally the family lived in Castillo 2, but moved here to Castillo 1 and went a little inactive. The Elder´s Quorum President told us that we should go to their house one day to invite them. When we did, we found Victoria. She has already gone to church numerous times to Castillo 2 and also goes regularly to Institute. She didn´t accept a baptismal date at first, but two weeks ago when my companion asked “When are you getting baptized?” She said, “When Elder Ranquist said I was getting baptized, June 6th.” “Ok, June 6th it is.” But, she didn´t come to church this week, so we´ll have to wait another week. She already asked the Patriarch to baptize her, which I think would be wonderful.

Also, in the house of our ward mission leader lives his nephew. Or basically lives there. He is there 5-6 days a week and goes home to his family every once in a while. Marcos, 14 years old, is already active, but his parents didn´t allow him to be baptized. But now they say it is alright. So, we are planning for him as well.

The day that I went on a devision with E´Brooks, we had noted that one of the kids of an inactive family had a birthday. So, we went by to say happy birthday and we learned that it was their unbaptized daughter who just turned 9, putting her under us the missionaries. One of her sisters is already trying to come back and the rest of the family want to as well. So, as we help to reactivate the family, we´ll be preparing for the baptism of María Coyoche.

Sorry I could send photos. I hope that all continues to go well at home. Good luck with the rest of your finals Jonathan. And enjoy your summers while I learn to cope with the cold of winter again. Always remember that I know that this church is true, that we have a living prophet, and that the grand blessings of heaven come through obedience to His divine laws. Until next week, from wherever I am.

Love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

El Barrio Crece

2009-06-07T16:02:00.000-07:00

26 May 2009

Dear Family,

Happy independence day! Dad, yesterday basically was Memorial day here in Argentina because on May 25, 1810, Argentina received its independence. At the church, they had locro, which is a kind of corn chowder that the people ate in olden times when in poverty. I don´t know very much about the events of when Argentina received its independence, but it was a good holiday. I´ll make sure to let my companion know that it was Memorial day as well.

Jessica, I thought that you had already done your Senior photos. The photo that I received in the mail must only be the one for school, the one that will be in the yearbook. Everyone here says that you look really beautiful. Make sure to send me a physical or electronic copy of your other Senior Pictures. And the photo of Jonathan that I have is great too. Veronica says that he looks like Nic Carter, one of the Backstreet Boys. (But I have luck that the people at first think that your picture is one of me, which means that one day it is possible I will be as good looking as you). Oh, and good luck with your finals. All of your work and studying will pay off. And Jessica, there is no way any of my friends would have been able to convince me to skip a day of school, even at the end of Senior Year. I like school too much.

To answer your question Dad about the reasons not to take a member with us it is because of our standard of excellence. The goals we try to achieve, which says that we should do 10 lessons with members and 20 other lessons every week. If we work hard and efficiently, it is possible to do. He wants to keep an equilibrium between these lessons and he does have good points that lessons with members always take longer, to allow the investigator to get to know the member and also to allow the member to speak. In this area, it isn´t too difficult to complete the 10 lessons with members. But to try to get 30 lessons in total it is much more difficult. But we try to decide what would be the best thing to teach and how to teach it for every lesson. Things are improving.

I can´t remember if I told you last week or not. I received a letter from Elder Reese, who is in Poland. I feel really sorry for him. His mission is really tough. I wrote him about our standard of excellence and he said he showed it to his companion. They laughed, and then cried. The best they can do in one week is one lesson per day (2 with member and 5 others each week). We could do that in one day if every thing worked out just right. They spend a lot of the day tracting, or going up to intercoms of large apartment complexes and calling on the inhabitants to see if they wish to listen. In our mission, tracting doesn´t really exist. At times we clap a house, but nearly all of our contacts are made on the street or talking to people who are on their front porch, drinking mate, behind their fence. We do that while walking from house to house of different appointments or if we don´t have an appointment, of looking for investigators that we have already taught once or twice but weren´t there for the return appointment (Argentine culture doesn´t understand the word appointment very well). Missionary work is still difficult because we want to do the best that we can, but I´m glad that we actually get to see constant fruits and miracles in our work.

Speaking of fruits, we have a baptism this Saturday and another one planned for the following Saturday! Sara, the mother of Veronica and Vania, is getting baptized. I am very grateful that we found that family to teach because they serve us so much, physically and spiritually. Veronica continues with her zeal in the Gospel. She already gave a talk in sacrament meeting and has now been asked to give one of the Family Home Evenings that our ward holds every Wednesday night. Since her baptism, she has already read the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, The Pearl of Great Price, Principles of the Gospel, Teachings of Wilford Woodruff, and nearly all of Teachings of Joseph Smith (and I think as few other things which I can´t remember). She goes through them like Jessica and novels. We had a bunch more books in our apartment that we gave her, Teachings of about five other prophets, Jesus the Christ, Book of Mormon Institute Manual, and a bunch of other stuff. That should keep her for a week. Vania has a hard time doing much of anything right now because she is pregnant! She is really sick and has a hard time eating. They were really worried for her as well because a year ago, she had all the symptoms of being pregnant, even placenta, but there was no child inside. But they have confirmed that this time she will have a child. We´re all happy for her, even if she feels really miserable right now. Sara is excited for her baptism and she is making her own white gown. And I´m really hoping that Carlos will one day accept the Gospel. He is a great husband and father, but doesn´t seem to want to commit quite yet. But, Sara let me know that he did say once that he would like to get married in the temple. That is my goal for that family. Have them all sealed to one another. I would love to see Carlos be baptized soon so that they can go to the temple in a year and I can be present.

Lionel and Viviana continue making progress and are excited for this Saturday as well. Last night I called Viviana in order to set a time for the Baptismal interview and she said she was in bed reading the Book of Mormon. They are doing really well. It is great to see this ward grow. The chapel was packed this Sunday. Nearly every single recent convert came and there are several inactive families who are starting to come again. One day, the bishop said that there are possible plans to make the stake of Rafael Castillo, to split Catán and another nearby stake to form it. My dream is to be the zone leader who opens the zone of Castillo and continue to watch it grow.

We are also teaching a girl named Victoria. She originally was in Castillo 2, but moved into Castillo 1. She goes to Institute and to church often, but never decided that she wanted to be baptized. She finally accepted a baptismal date for June 6. Afterwards, she even went to the patriarch (who lives in our ward) to ask him to baptize her. He is an amazing man and it would be excellent to see him do the ordinance for her.

I hope that all continues to go well and that you can feel this spirit of missionary work in your lives.

Love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

El Templo Hoy!

2009-05-24T08:29:00.001-07:00

19 May 2009

Dear Family,

I love hearing about the mission progress in our ward. I don´t really remember there ever being very many converts in our ward throughout my life. Maybe I was too young to know that there was someone new or that they fell away too quickly for me to get to know them. So, I´m really glad that it is growing and that the spirit of missionary work is entering the ward again. And as you said, missionary work runs 100 times better when the members participate in the finding and teaching. The people more readily accept the gospel and have the support system to remain active. Although my companion doesn´t agree at times, I like to try to have a member in every lesson after the first. It works miracles.

Jessica, I don´t really recognize you in this photo. I recognize Aaron and the house behind a little easier. I´m glad you had a good time and hope that you savor your final moments in high school. I can´t say that college is too much different (compared to Manual), but it is a change. And Jonathan, good luck with your finals. I know that you´ll do great.

This week went fairly well. Viviana and Lionel along with Veronica continue to amaze me. We had the lesson about the Word of Wisdom and it went really well. We found out that Lionel doesn´t drink, but he does smoke just a little. Never in the house, but a little at work. But the day before, he smoked half a cigarette and felt that he should stop, so he threw it away. All of the alcohol that they have in the house is just for display. We will see if they get rid of it all sometime or not. During the lesson, Lionel was about to offer coffee to Veronica (who accompanied us) and his wife said “But we don´t drink coffee now!” “Oh yeah, oops.” They also brought their two daughters to church on Sunday. They each have a daughter from their previous marriage (so neither one shares the same parents) and only come on the weekends. One is 10 (I think) and the other 7. We went to teach them a little to prepare them to come to church the next day. I felt like I was in a lesson with a member present with the help of Viviana, especially when she said “There are beliefs and things in this religion that you will have to put behind you from your old religion” (because the daughters are being raised in a Catholic school). They are getting ready for May 30th along with Sara.

Dad, I don´t think that our ward has an employment specialist. Here in Latin America, the Relief Society outnumber the Elders Quorum 3:1 or more. Every worthy male is called into a leadership position to fill the necessary callings. The left overs have to go work in the Stake. The bishop has only been in the church 6 years. My companion was the ward Secretary for 2 years before the mission, after being in the church only 2 years. I´m just glad that this ward is full of young men who might be able to fill out the leadership positions in the future, if they commit themselves and go on a mission. Leaving on a mission isn´t as set in this culture as it is in ours. We´re trying to help reactive a few of the young single adults so that they can serve missions.

Today we went to the temple. I´m really glad that we have one in this mission. I felt like the actors in the session were speaking a lot slower this time because I could understand nearly everything (and also because E´Rivas speaks a little faster). So, yes Mom, Sr. Fallon can send me a letter written only in Spanish. I´m pretty sure I´ll understand everything. My main problem will be knowing the words that she uses in her version of Spanish. There are a lot of differences in Castellano (like Ananá is pineapple instead of piña, which means a punch in the face). It was also a good time to be revitalized and receive vital instruction in how to become a better leader. This is the first time in my entire life where I´ve ever had to make a decision that directly affected someone else. In group projects I´ve always given my ideas and allowed the other person make the decision. I never made the decision myself. And I would do as they wanted. I like following, I don´t like leading. So, I´m getting a crash course in leading now. I do some things well, and I make a ton of mistakes. But I´ll learn little by little, just as I´m learning the language. All I need is time and experience. I also have my interview with President Benton tomorrow, so I´ll receive even more instruction and training.

I´m glad you could meet E´Harmon. He was a great elder in the MTC. I don´t remember that much about him, but he always has a good feeling about him. And I also agree with you mom, most of the time when I see a member with their eyes full of the light of Christ, I feel like I recognize them.

Oh, I was trying to remember what more I wanted to write. Here it is. I received another letter from E´Reese, who is in Poland right now. I feel really sorry for him. It sounds like his mission is really rough. This one is a ton easier. I sent him our standard of excellence (the goals that we try to reach, and is possible, but really difficult). He showed it to his companion, they “laughed and the cried.” We try to do 30 lessons (I´m doing more like 12-20 now) and 8 lessons with recent converts and inactives. They have 7 lessons per week with 1 other. One per day, and that is when they have a great week. I can´t imagine being rejected so. I´ll have to write him a letter to help him always be animated because I know that the field is white already to be harvest in all places.

Love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Los Milagros

2009-05-17T15:19:00.000-07:00

12 May 2009

Dear Family,

I have a bit more time to write now, but as you all, not too much more to say. It was good to speak with you on Sunday, even if the 40 min. seemed to fly by in 5. The reason Mom that I didn´t call until 8:15 was because I got to the church, where the phone was, and found that the door was locked and the bishop wasn´t there. He arrived a little bit later than we expected, but it all worked out fine. And you´re right, my English isn´t too terrible, but I have another year yet to forget it. But when I do speak, I feel that I have a really heavy accent (not that I speak much differently than I did before, I just realize now when speaking with Latins the accent I´ve always had, saying things like “why´dja …” instead of “Why did you”).

And to answer the question I said I´d have to think about, I wish I had learn to chat with people better. I lack the ability to just talk about topics of their interest. I also still need to gain the ability to ask questions. I can talk just fine about science and music and school, but outside my own nerdy realm, I have difficulties. So, that is what I wish I had known before my mission. But it was alright anyways. I know enough, as spoken of in the conference in November. I have a testimony which the Spirit accompanies.

Yesterday, we went to the house of Viviana and Líonel, the couple that showed up out of nothing on Saturday. We went in and their apartment, although much smaller and cramped, reminded me of the apartment of some of the Dental students of our ward, especially of the Larsen´s (who I home taught). They was of dress and grooming and speaking makes me think that they are Mormons already.

Well, we went by and Viviana had written up a nice list of questions that she had, many of which were really good. She wanted to know how many commandments there were, who were the apostles in Christ´s time, who was Jehovah(in the Spanish Bible, every time it says the LORD in our scriptures, it says Jehovah), and the best question was “What is the function of the Holy Ghost?” While speaking about that we learned that she did pray to know and that she felt those feelings of coming close to crying. They are wonderful! There are very few people who will read everything and especially pray to ask God if our message is true after the first lesson. Líonel said he didn´t pray because he already knows it is true.

We continued answering questions about the temple and about tithing (which we taught and he wants to pay even before he is a member). We were saying a lot “And after you are batized, you will…” and after about the 3rd or 4th time of saying that, they on their own asked, “And when can we be baptized?” We said the 30th and they replied, “ok, we will be baptized the 30th then.” They have really been prepared by the Lord.

But, no baptism is that easy. We already know what will be their trial of faith. In their apartment they have a lot of alcohol as decoration, they kept offering us tea or coffee, and he works in a bar at night. We are planning on talking about the Word of Wisdom on Wednesday. But I know that with the help of the Lord, they will be able to make the necessary changes to live according to His gospel. I´m not too worried.

So, we have plans now for four people to be baptized on May 30. I hope that all will be able to progress to be ready for that date. Sara is progressing well. The only thing is that she is giving us a few problems about the same subject with which we´ve had problems with the Bishop before. She wants me to baptize her (E´Gonzalez if he could make it, but he´s too far away). She understands that the Bishop will make the decision. We´ll be passing by with different members throughout these next weeks (as well as with the Bihop) and I hope we´ll be able to avoid the same situation that we had before.

Oh, your announcement about Sister Whitfil reminded me of another set of good news. Vania will have a child! The news is recent, so I probably won´t see the child (unless my hope that Carlos will follow his wife as well, get baptized, and that the whole family will be sealed in a year), but I´m sure that everything will go well. Also with that family, Ludmila, the 3-yr old daughter of Romina, has been sick with bronchitis, so they asked us for a priesthood blessing (the second time in my life where I did the sealing). This morning went we went by to drop off our clothes to be washed (it is amazing how much they serve us), Ludmila was up and running about. She still had some of the coughs, but is doing a lot better. I hope your back gets better as well Dad.

And attatched is a photo of me and my companion as you wished.

I love you all,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Mother's Day!

2009-05-10T17:26:00.000-07:00

So my Mom is all smiles right now because she just got off the phone with Drake. She was a little nervous that there would be some silences, so she wrote down questions that she wanted to ask before hand. It went really well! I was a little dissappointed as it turned out that he didn't have as much of a problem with English as he had claimed. I only caught a few understandable mistakes, like he didn't know how to say "set up an appointment" in English and he could pronounce Wilford Woodruff's name. Drake was allowed 40 minutes, which went by way too quickly in everyone's opinion. We gave him updates on our lives, heard some stories from him, and had a good time!

On to the letter...

5 May 2009

Dear Family,

I guess I don´t need to tell everything that I have to say now because I get to speak with you Sunday. I thought that mother´s day was later on in this month for some reason, so I didn´t bring it up last week. But I think it will be fine to try to call at 8 my time (7 EST). I can´t be certain as to the exact time that I´ll be calling, but right around there should be fine. My companion, E´Rivas, will probably call home at 7 and when he is done, I´ll call. Remember, I´m only supposed to be on the phone for 40 min. And don´t laugh too much at my failure to speak english. I really am forgetting many things. And saying the R´s in english feels so uncomfortable!

Oh, mom, I completely forgot last time to answer your question about the interviews with President Benton. All of the missionaries absolutely love the interviews because of the love that he expresses for us. I never really feel that he gives too much direction to me. Usually says that I´m doing just great and that I should keep it up. I usually bring him a list of questions that I have throughout the transfer.

Thank you Dad for the letter. I will keep those things in mind. I know that there were a few things which we didn´t handle the best, which we could have done better ourselves. And I know that I will receive a lot more experience in how to handle such situations in the future, whether it be in the church or in work.

Oh, last week I heard something great about an occurance in Villa Amelia. I always ask during transfer meetings what happened and how things are and one of the seeds I helped plant sprouted! Remember when I wrote about Carlos? He was the guy who showed us a leaf of marijuana, but we decided to teach him anyways. Well, E´Spendlove told me that he completely changed his life and was baptized last month. I always felt good about him and knew that he had the potential. The main problem we had was helping him go to church. He never went while I was there. It was also really hard to find him, because he wasn´t home very often when we went. I hope that he´ll remain active and become a strong leader.

This week has been a bit difficult. The major problem we have is that we don´t have very many investigators at this time and as Preach My Gospel says, “Nothing happens in missionary work until you find someone to teach.” (The quote isn´t exact). I´ve been unsure of where to go and what to do to find more investigators. But, we are having a bit of success with what we call “fruta baja” or the fruit that is low on a tree and is easy to pick. These are the family members and friends of members, especially recent converts. Right now we are teaching Sara and Carlos, the parents of Veronica and Vania. Sara especially really likes it, but has some fears of commitment. We also were able to teach Cristian, the spouse of Vania. The main difficulty with him will be his irregular work schedule and helping him go to church.

Ok, I attatched a few more photos. The first is of a pair of socks. As you can see, the outside is pretty grey, but inside out they´re still pretty black. So, I wear them inside out now. The next is of E´Gonzalez and I with our tobagans. He always wears one in the morning and he received more in his package from home, one of which he gave to me. I look like I´m jewish with that tobagan. And the last one is of the zone of Catán.
I hope you get over your flu Mom and that all goes well with the family. Talk to you Sunday!

With love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

More Changes

2009-05-03T09:54:00.000-07:00

28 Apr 2009

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

Birthday gifts

2009-04-26T09:05:00.000-07:00

21 Apr 2009

Dear Family,

Ah, I used nearly all my time reading and formating your letters in order to print them! I´ll try to get said what I need to.

I´m glad to hear that things are starting to calm down. And the report about religion was really interesting. I can see the same trend happening here too. The majority of the people say they are Catholics, but don´t go to church. There are more and more saying that they aren´t apart of a religion and there are many atheists as well. But I´m glad to hear that the church is maintain its percentage and is growing all over the world.

To answer the question of what I might want in my birthday question, I´m going to make a Dumbledore request. I probably haven´t searched around enough, but I´d like some more black socks. Many of my good ones have lost a lot of their color. It is kind of weird, on the outside some are nearly white now, but on the inside, are still pretty black. So, I have been wearing them insideout. The socks I have found are of the smaller, finer type and I prefer the thicker cotton, especially since we´re headed into winter (and I prefer the thicker type as well because the mosquitos have a harder time biting me through them). The other two things I´d like is a pack of mechanical pencils. I´m following the example of my companion and am using mechanical pencil to make all the plans in my planner. They are more expensive here, don´t come in packs, and don´t come with erasers. And my other request is a bit of chocolate. There isn´t much good chocolate here. I´d love some Snickers. Yeah, those are my requests. Oh, and ties are always nice.

This week, I´ll admit has been really stressful. The family of Ana María weren´t baptized this past week because we are having some problems with the ward mission leader and the Bishop. Every baptism this ward has had, the missionaries have had problems over the same theme. We have spent a lot of time calling our mission leaders, consulting with them what to do, studying the rules to answer the questions that we have. I believe that the problem will be fixed this week. But I wish to praise my companion for how he has acted through all of this. He has acted with love, trying to avoid contention, but also knowing what is right. Some of the missionaries that hit this same difficulty didn´t act with such distinction.

But I know this is the work of the Lord and that He gives inspiration to all of His leaders. I know that the Spirit will be with us all as we seek it and are worthy. Sorry this letter is so short. Have a great week.

With love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

He's getting old

2009-04-19T08:45:00.000-07:00

14 Apr 2009

Dear Family,

I´m glad to hear that everything is going well, even if things are more lonely. I never realized that the problems with Jasmine were so bad. Does Jessica hate you now Dad? (the answer is no, of course not!) I think she is a little bit older now and a bit more understanding this time. But I can´t imagine not having Duchess and Jasmine in the house. Things really are going to be completely different when I get back.
Right now we are on the search of more good investigators. We have several potential good investigators, but we have yet to see. Ana María and her family will be baptized either this Saturday or the following. There is a youth activity in the evening that Gabriela and Federico wish to attend, so we´d have to do it at 11 in the morning. Ana María has been ready for a long while. She is more peaceful with her life. We can see a change. But we´re not completely sure if all of her children are quite ready. So, it is still in the air whether we do it this week or the following.
This week, I felt a lot of the joy of missionary work as we were able to teach a lot with the Spirit and also feel and see the changes that people have made for the Gospel. One day, when we passed by, Veronica came out and talked with us about some of the problems she and her family are having. They´ve had the same problems since we first passed by and although it hurts a little to hear of the trials, I rejoiced in the way that she was facing the challenge. Her reaction is completely different than our first visit when she complained and blamed others. This time she looked at it with a more eternal perspective, understanding that it is a part of life, and with the testimony to say, “but I know that I´m never alone.” The Gospel has changed my life and love see it improve the lives of others little by little.
One of the lessons that we had this week really showed the instantaneous change a person can have after they listen openly to a part of the message of the restoration. We were walking along a street that we are on often when my companion contacted a girl in the gate of her house. We started teaching a charla corta (a short version, 5-15 min., of lesson 1 to give a brief understanding and to set a return appointment) when her mom came home. We have contacted that house a few times before and she started saying “We´re pentacostal, ...” and starting to reject us. We rehashed a little about what we were teaching about the life of Christ when she said, “we believe the same thing, what is different about your church?” We taught how Christ formed only one church and about the restoration and prayer. She opened herself up and was really interested. We were able to enter the house, sing “I am a child of God” (E´Gonzalez is one of the few latinos that can sing harmony), and prayed on our knees. Although we have yet to see whether she and her family will decide to take the steps to know that this is the true church, it was nice to see how a heart can soften. This isn´t a rare occassion. The problem is that often they forget what they feel afterwards and don´t put forth the effort to know and to ask.
It is great to hear about the missionary work that is going on in our ward. I still feel kind of bad that I didn´t go to the baptism that we had just a bit before I left. I should´ve gone. I hope to be able to participate in a lot of baptisms throughout my entire life. I don´t ever really remember our ward having much missionary success. It may be that I was too young to notice. I don´t know. But I really do agree with E´Perry, that the missionaries today, with Preach My Gospel, are the best teachers that the church has ever seen in this dispensation (or at least since just after the very beginning of the church). Continue helping missionaries find people, so that they can spend the majority of their time teaching. This work is rolling forth.

Oh, this week, Sara (mother of Veronica, Vania, and Romina) went to visit her family in Chile. While she was there met up with the family of my companion. She had a great time. My companion asked his parents to send all sorts of stuff back, which he received today. It is nearly impossible to send packages between Chile and Argentina. I don´t understand exactly why, but this is one of the first packages my companion has received. It was cool to see and try some of the Chilean candies. They eat lots of marshmellow, which they don´t have here.

This morning I realized that I´m as old if not just a little older than Mom when she got married. You really were young! I´m glad that I have a little more time yet to prepare and learn to be better.

I hope all will be well with you all and that the Lord continues pouring out His blessings upon you. I know He will. Until next week.

Con cariño,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Mom's Birthday + Conference!

2009-04-12T07:45:00.001-07:00

Last week was my mom's birthday! After what had happened that week I'm sure she wasn't all that excited, but she did recieve a great birhtday present! We all thought Drake would forget, as he tends to do. To our surprise however, not only did he not forget, but he managed to give her a great present! He bought an international phone card and gave it to one of his converts. She then proceeded to call mom to wish her a happy birthday and tell her (my mom) how much she loved Elder Ranquist. Mom was smiling the rest of the day! There was a bit of a language barrier, but enough Spanglish went by that they were able to understand eachother. Happy Birthay Mom!

7 Apr 2009

Dear Family,

Happy Birthday Mom! I´m glad you liked my birthday present. I bought a calling card the P-day beforehand and gave it to the Dumos family to call. I really wish I could take credit of such a brilliant idea, but it was my companions. His mother had a birthday last month and he did the same thing. I wasn´t sure about doing it at first because I didn´t want to give you a language strain, but I decided that you would love it anyways. So, happy birthday and know that I love you.

I´m glad that although this past week has been really difficult, you could make it through and that everything went well. Two weeks ago when I was told about the approaching death of Grandpa, I prayed sincerely that God would send his angels, living and dead, through the power of the ministering of angels that under the Aaronic priesthood, to console and strengthen you all. I hope that you felt their presence.

Oh, and Mom, could you send your talk over again, but under a different file format. These computers don´t have .docx access. Or in other words, I use an older version of Word and it can´t open the newer versions. When you save it, you need to select where it says “Save as type” (or that is the nearest translation, I don´t remember what it says exactly) and select one that says *.doc. Dad can help you I believe. Thank you.

We had a surprise baptism this Saturday! Last Sunday, the mother of Noelia showed up (who was baptized by us last month and moved back to Tucuman) at church. We went and talked with her and realized she was more than prepared to enter the convenant of baptism. She reads the Book of Mormon and the Bible every night, prays, fasts when she needs a spiritual boost, and doesn´t even listen to the radio or watch TV on Sundays. Her only problem is that the church is 2 hours away from her house by a bus that leaves at 6AM or 9AM. That bus is also really expensive. So, she can´t get to church all too often, but promised to try to do so as often as possible with Noelia.

She leaves this Thursday, so we decided to hold her baptism in between the sessions of conference this Saturday. It was hectic but went really well. Her huge family came and were really supportive. Her son, Ricardo Días, baptized her and her brother, Gerónimo Días (who is the second counselor in the bishopbric), confirmed her right after. We had special permission from President Benton and Bishop Candia to do so. I can´t wait for the church to make it out to her town in the country as a branch, when she´ll be able to help the enlargement of the church. She will be a pioneer.

I just absolutely loved conference. I had to listen to the Saturday sessions in Spanish because they didn´t have the English line set up. I could understand nearly everything, but it loses a lot of power and emotion when you only hear the voice of the translator. They don´t have the same power of voice as the apostles and the prophet. And some translators and worse than others. I´m so glad that I can listen to it in English for the majority of my life.

Two themes really hit me during the conference. They talked a lot about service. The other phrase that I heard over and over was that fear and faith can´t coexist. I have the fear of future church service, namely leardership. I´ve always had that fear. But I know that I will be a church leader. The way I want to lead my life, there is no avoiding it. So, I´m going to try to change my attitude and instead of having fear of that day, prepare for it with faith. And I think that day might start in just a few weeks. I´ve been on my mission 8 months now and my companion and others that I´ve talked with think that I will be Senior Companion next transfer. My companion even thinks that I´ll have a good chance of training as well. I don´t feel ready for that responsibility. I´ve never had responsibility over anyone. I´ve only ever been responsible for myself. But, I will learn and the Lord will shape my back to fit the burden.

And as a missionary, I absolutely loved the talk by Elder Perry. He´s right, we do spend most of our time trying to find people to teach. But Elder Spendlove during a talk once said “I don´t want to be out in the streets, in the hot sun. I want to be in your comfortable homes teaching your friends.” I´m glad that Elder Perry helped show that it is the member´s responsibility to “warn their neighbors.” I also absolutely loved that talk by Elder Holland about the Atonement of Christ. It was extremely powerful. I´ve been studying a little more about the Atonement and I can´t express the gratitude I have for what he did. I want all to enjoy of its power.

.
By the way, the last photos are from a party the President hosted for our zone because of our hard work last transfer. We played a lot of ping pong and volleyball and had a lot of fun
I hope you will all be found well and that the Spirit of the Lord will fill you with the truths of the Gospel to repentence and righteousness.

Con cariño,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Jonathan's got an admirer!

2009-04-05T13:53:00.000-07:00

31 Mar 2009

Dear family,

I got your setter just fine Dad and I´m sorry that it has been so hectic this week. I send my best wishes and prayers to all for the loss. But, I wrote everything I wanted to say last week in my letter, so I will continue on with a normal letter.

First of all, we had a great baptismal service for Veronica and Vania Dumos. I think I´ve already written a ton about them the past month, so I don´t need to explain how we found them and everything, but teaching them has been a blast. Their Mom, Sara, told us the first time we went, here are your next two “Mormonas” (after going to the baptism of Roxana, Karen, and Florencia) and she was right! I had the opportunity of baptizing Gabriela Veronica Dumos Silva.During the baptismal service, we four missionaries sang, as we always do a musical number, “Haz tú lo justo” (“Do what is right” I think it is called in english) because one day while we were teaching they said that they remembered that hymn from singing it in church and when they slipped and said a bad word or something they sing the part “Do what is write (haha, as said, his english is slipping!) let the consequences follow” (but the spanish version has a bit of a different meaning, but I don´t remember the lyrics at the moment). They smiled at that. They will make excellent members if they continue with the same zeal that they have now.

We´ve found that baptismal services are one of the best ways of sparking interest in the Gospel—one of the best ways for someone new to experience the fruits of the Spirit. We are trying to teach the mother of Veronica and Vania and I think she is becoming more and more interested, especially because of what she has seen in her daughters. We also think that their dad and the husband of Vania are interested. Men are harder to teach because of work and they´re a bit more hard hearted in general, but these obstacles can be overcome.

Now to say Thank You! I received my package yesterday and I love it, especially the photos. They are perfect to show a bit of who I am and make a bit of a better connection with the investigators. I don´t think that I´ve ever really seen the picture of my own baptism. And Jessica, you look beautiful in your Senior Photo. Jonathan, I have to warn you that you might have to work a bit harder now on learning Spanish. I showed the photos to Roxana and her twin Daughters and Florencia took a photo of your photo to put on her cell phone. I gave them your email address (it is aceflyer13@gmail.com, no?) saying they could write him. So, you might get a few emails in Spanish from them. If you need help translating them, you can use the internet, your Mom and sister, or send it to me. If you want to reply, you can try in spanish or do it in English and I can help translate it when they get it. They need to learn English anyways for their classes.

Continuing on with giving thanks for the package. Today, my companion bought some oragami paper in order to do some of the characatures (I don´t know how to spell that and spell check in Word here doesn´t work) in the book you sent. I think we might have some fun with that today. The Gardetto´s opened up a bit, but I think they are alright. The only problem with all of the snacks is that we are fasting together as a zone, so they served as a temptation last night. But tonight I will be able to deleitarme (feast) with the other Elders of Castillo.
Oh, I think I should resend my address. You send my package well, but I got a letter from your cousin, Dad, saying that she´s tried to send two packages and has had problems. One of which was returned with the address she wrote completely erased. Jessica, you might have to correct my address on facebook. If people want to send packages or letters (without using DearElder or pouch) they have to send it to (and please correct this if it is wrong because I don´t have my address on me right now):

La Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Últimos Días
Elder Drake Alexander Ranquist
Misión Argentina Buenos Aire Oeste
C.C. 72
1702 Ciudadela
Buenos Aires, Argentina

I hope there haven´t been any other problems because of that as I´m afraid there has been.

Thank you Jessica and Jonathan for the letters. I can see that you are working on your Spanish Jonathan. You wrote all of the numbers well. Un día, va a poder hablarme en Castallano sin problema. Estudia. I wish I could help you on the basketball team, but I´m afraid that I´ve passed the limit. But just give your all and have fun. And Jessica, good luck with all of the arrangements for BYU. I´m glad that Jessica, Zephne, and Sarah are helping you out. They´ll be great guides. Follow the Spirit, it will indicate what to do.

I hope that you can find joy out of this week, even though it may be hard emotionally. Be ye of good cheer.

Con cariño,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Grandpa Augason (1931-2009)

2009-04-05T13:45:00.000-07:00

My Grandpa Augason- Gordon Clark Augason- died last week on Saturday March 28. Here is his obituary
AUGASON, I GORDAN CLARK, 78, I died Saturday, March! 28,2009 .. ]
The world lost who some knew as "The father of infrared astrophysics."
Dr. Gordon C. Augason is survived by his wife, Wendy Lu ., (Jackson) Augason; his daughter, Stephanie Ranquist (Alex); and son, Mark Augason; along with six grandchildren.
He will be missed but now is searching the stars after a battle with Alzheimer's. He was an active High Priest in the church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints. He was an avid mountaineer and sailing enthusiast. He had an adventuristic spirit. His list of achievements and published writings for NASA are too many to list.
His burial was in Utah in Saturday April 4th.

Drake, when he heard of Grandpa's condition, wrote this letter
24 Mar 2009

Dear Family,

I was sitting here staring at the screen, thinking about what I could write when the power went out. So, I´ve moved to another computer to begin writing. But this computer doesn´t have Internet right now, so hopefully I´ll be able to send this setter somehow. Ok, now it works.

Right now I´m not exactly sure what to think or say about Grandpa Augason. Death is still so foreign to me. I know it exists and that all with pass through it. I know that I already have a few relatives who have passed through this veil. But I´ve never really had to face it head on. Although I never really had the opportunity to become really close to Grandpa Augason, we did spend a lot of time with him. So it is a little more present.

Let him know for me that I am continuing the legacy that he tred. That the ideals of his life I have taken upon myself. Ever since I was young I knew that my grandfather was a scientist and studied the stars. And ever since that tender age I have wanted to do and learn the same. Although I never was able to really experience Grandpa as the scientist, just the knowledge of who he was and what he did has helped to teach me who I want to become. I share with him the love of science, the love of the Gospel, and the love of family. I desire to pursue the progression towards the fulfilment of his dreams.

Yes, at this time we do mourn. I remember reading somewhere recently that if we don´t mourn, we didn´t love. That if we don´t feel the pain of the loss, we didn´t value what we had. But we will also rejoice, for we know the promises of the Lord. There´s a passage that is really supportive at the end of Alma 28. I don´t have my scriptures with me at this moment (and if I did, they´d be in Spanish), but it basically says that the relatives of the Lamanites who threw down their lives because they wouldn´t take up arms against their bretheren mourned, yet rejoiced. That they mourned because of death and destruction, but the rejoiced in Christ who gives us life.

The past few weeks I have had to help console people who have lost their loved ones. If there is one doctrine that consoles more than any other is the knowledge that all of us will one day be resurrected. That we will take up our bodies once more, whole and perfect, never to be taken away from us again, whether we lived a good or bad life. I know with a certainty that I indeed will meet Grandpa Augason, and know him with his whole mind. I will get to know him if I didn´t already know him as a good friend before this life. And I know you know this too. Yes, I will keep you and grandpa in my prayers as he passes through the portal of a new and wondrous adventure.

To give an update in what is going on in Castillo, we have the baptism of Veronica and Vania Dumos this Saturday. They are extremely excited. They have entirely swallowed everything they can about the Gospel. They want to help us missionaries in any way that they can. Elder Lloyd began teaching music/piano classes and E´González and I are going to start teaching English. Noone went to the music class this past week. When Veronica and Vania found out, they made some really nice small posters to put on the bulliten board in the church to announce that classes as well as cards to pass out. All hand made. And while we were visiting Ana María, who lives just two houses down, they came by passing out invitations to their baptism. I really hope that they´ll always able to maintain this zeal.
We are still preparing Ana María and her family too. They have a baptismal date for the 18th of April. She, Gabriela, Federico, Florencia, and Victor will be baptized that day along with investigators of Castillo 2. We are planning a “Sábado Blanco” (White Saturday) where we hope 10 or more will enter the waters of baptism for just our two wards. It should be a beautiful experience.
I continue working hard for I know this is what the Lord wishes of me. I love you and hope that the spirit will console your hearts.

Love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

We will all miss my Grandpa, but we know that he is ecstatic to be learning the secrets of the universe that he always studied.

Miracles!

2009-03-22T16:44:00.000-07:00

17 Mar 2009

Querida familia,

Another transfer is gone. I´m now beginning my fifth transfer here in Argentina. A transfer occurs every 6 weeks. As I thought, E´Gonzalez and I are still together here in Castillo I. I wouldn´t have it any other way. We work really well together in a ward that is just amazing.
We had our transfer meeting yesterday and our mission is seeing miracles. We really are working our way towards doubling the baptisms. Every transfer since I´ve been here, we´ve had more than 100 converts. This transfer, we saw 179! I´m in the zone of Catán and we really are seeing miracles here. This is the “heart” of the Buenos Aires West mission and has always baptized the most. The most I believe it has every baptized in a transfer is 28. This transfer we had mountainous the goal of 44. During the transfer, we fasted as a zone to help us acheive this goal, and we did, with 48. The Lord is working miracles as we work hard and are humble before him. We hope this number will keep growing.
Also in the transfer meeting, we saw another acheivement of this area of Rafael Castillo 1. Every area receives an efficiency rating based on the key indicators as found in Preach my Gospel (I so want to say los datos de Predicad mi Evangelio). E´Gonzalez and I received the highest rating for this transfer. Now, I say it is an acheivement for the area because, yes we work hard, but we have a ton of help from the members. This ward is absolutely amazing with how willing they are to accompany us to lessons with our investigators. We also have a ward mission leader with his wife who are hosting family home evenings for the recent converts and will go out to do the lessons that should be done after baptism. And there are a lot of people in this area who have been prepared by the Lord to receive this message of great joy. We´re going to make this next transfer even more successful than the last.
Two of our best investigators right now are Veronica and Vania, sisters of Romina, a member, and friends of Roxana. Veronica is a school teacher and she is just eating up all of the Gospel knowledge there is to be found. Last monday, we showed her the guide for studying the scriptures (the Spanish version of the Bible Dictionary and Index) and I believe she was studying baptism. She amazed us when we were talking about the theme and she said, quite naturally, “and in Alma 5 it says this...” We just starting laughing because it sounded like she´s been a member for 20 years! She also pointed out the reason we don´t baptize babies, practically quoting a part of Moroni 8. They absolutely love going to church, especially to Gospel Principles. They have a baptismal date for the 28th of this month and are getting ready for it quite well.
Ana María continues strongly in the church. She and her daughter Florencia could get baptized this Saturday, but we would rather the entire family get baptized together. Gabriela, her 18 yr. old daughter, came to church and really liked it and accepted a baptismal date with the rest of her family for the 11th of April. We might have to work a little harder with Federico, the 16 yr. old son, who hasn´t come to church yet because he works on sunday at times. But he is really interested still. And Ana María wants me to come back in four years to baptize her 3 yr. old son Pablo.
Oh, I wanted to write about this a long time ago, but kept either forgetting or running out of time. I had my first opportunity to give my first unwritten blessing with the confirmation of Juan, the youngest of the sons of Ciris Cásares. I was a bit nervous, but certain I would have the guidance of the Spirit to say what the Lord would have me say. I have faith in that what a worthy priesthood holder says during a blessing will come to pass. That it is bound in heaven as on earth. And I did feel the Spirit strongly. I had a really hard time playing the sacrament hymn afterwards because my eyes were all watered up. I know I´ll have many more opportunities to be the mouthpeice of the Lord in blessings.
I wish the best for all of you and hope that you´ll seek the Lord to guide you in all that you do.

Love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

He can't spell anymore! The Spanish is really taking over, hehe

2009-03-15T18:37:00.000-07:00

10 Mar 2009

Querido familia,

¡Buenas tardes de Rafael Castillo! Esta semana ha sido otra buena semana. Espero que todo esté bien con ustedes.

We didn´t have a baptism this week, but we have some more great investigators that are working their ways towards that ordinance. But, first I´ll answer Dad´s question that came through Mom. What am I eating now? Or what is my standard diet. Well, every morning I start off with a bowl of cereal and milk (I drink the milk in the bowl). It is always either copos de maíz (plain corn flakes) or aritos de miel (honey rings). I also like to eat a banana in the morning when I can. The problem is that bananas go bad really quickly. They don´t last the week from P-day to P-day. Lunch of corse, coarse, course (I can´t remember how to spell that, I think it is my last try), is the main meal of the day. I have expanded my stomach and can eat more in one sitting than I could before the mission in order to get all the energy I need for the day. Argentines tend to eat a lot of fried food and pasta. On a regular basis we eat what is called Milenesa, which is really quite good. It is a kind of thin chicken pattie coated in a flavored flour, usually fried. This is either eaten plain or in a sandwich. Often accompanying this is potatoes with mayonaisse, tomatoes flavored with salt and oil, or a salad (lettuce with oil). My companion and I are glad when we get served healthy food. It doesn´t happen all too often. We also get served hot dogs, hamburgers, pizza, and empenadas regularly. My favorite and probably the easiest and healthiest is pasta. I also make sure to eat my three fruits a day. Usually a banana, an orange, and an apple. And I substitute with something else every once in a while, this week was peaches. I absolutely love fruits of any kind.

For the rest of the day, we just kind of snack. We receive cookies and other bits every once in a while from investigators and members. And in the night, there is never enough time to cook anything, so we just eat fruits and other snacks that we have. Yeah, my diet is all thrown out.

Continuing with the food, yes I have had an asado, or “BBQ.” One family in our ward seems to eat this nearly every weekend. But usually it is reserved for the holidays. It is good and nice to get out of the rhythm of what we eat, but it isn´t everything that people said it would be. But I don´t think we´ve ever been served some of the choice cuts, like are served in resteraunts. This meat is boughten from a regular carnicería (butcher shop I think), that can be found in nearly every other block.

Ok, now that I´ve spent a lot of time talking about food, time to talk about the investigators. Right now we have several investigators living close to the chruch, all within a block of each other. I think I´ve told you about Ana María. Well, this week we were able to talk with her two older children, Gabriela (18) and Federico (16, who really reminds me of J.D. Noelck). They remember when their mom investigated the church 10 years ago. And they want to participate too. Ana María really likes the church, but has a bit of a hard time progressing spiritually because of all the rancor she holds against her mom, on whoms property they have no choice but to live on. She doesn´t think that it is possible that she could have possibly chosen in the pre-existance to come to Earth and face all the trials we go through. I hope she´ll find the peace and rest she so needs. And I know it will come through the Gospel.

I absolutely love it when I see investigators take ahold of the opportunities of the Gospel and run with it. When for us as missionaries, we just guide in the process instead of nudge in every step. This has happened with two of our investigators, Veronica and Vania Dumos. They are sisters of Romina, a member who is reactivating, who asked us when we were going to pass by a few weeks ago. We have helped her and found that her sisters really have interest, especially since they are good friends with Roxanna and they have seen the change in her and her daughters. They came to church for the first time Sunday and absolutely loved it. They said they were a bit apprehensive when so many people welcomed them so freely. They´ve never really seen people acting so good so naturally. What we really loved hearing was that they are trying to apply what they learned in church. In relief society, they talked about speaking good with other people and controlling language. So, now they are helping one another cut bad words out of their language and speak good of one another. Also, Vania was so happy to tell us that she figured out why the Liahona is called what it is. We gave a Book of Mormon with dibujitos, um... pictures?, to their younger autistic sister and she was reading through it and found the part about the Liahona. They are reading, pondering, and praying and progressing. It is so joyful to see.

Gah, I´m almost out of time again. Well, I want to update you on my language abilities. I starting to feel I´m getting the hang of Spanish! I can understand my companion nearly always and other people most of the time. I can also speak with more fluidity. I still have a long ways to go, but I think I´m finally overcoming a major hurdle. I don´t really have to translate all of the words. The words fit with the meaning and feeling in my head. I don´t have to spend the time and effort to translate. I´m finding that when I do try to speak in english, I have a really hard time because I try to push myself to speak in spanish as often as possible. My voice sounds weird when I speak in English too. Yeah, I´m going to be one of those returned missionaries who needs a translator when he gets home.

Time to get heading onwards.

Con cariño y amor,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Tons of Pictures!

2009-03-08T17:15:00.000-07:00

3 Mar 2008

Querido Familia,

Disculpe si otra vez no tengo tiempo para leer las cartas primeramente y entonces responder. Pero, ¡Tengo fotos! (basically Drake will write later. He doesn't have time to respond because he has pictures!)

I think I´ll list the photos by their file number.

77. From right to left, Noelia, Ricardo Diaz (her brother who baptized her), Karen (whom I baptized), me, E´Gonzalez, Alexis (an eight year old kid from Castillo II, son of converts), Florencia (who was baptized by E´Gonzalez), E´Gonzalez (the other one, often known as E´Gonzalez Hijo because he has less time than me in the mission), and E´Lloyd.

78. Las Mellisas (the fraternal twins) with their Mom Roxanna, who was baptized last week (sorry, I´m not able to send photos of that baptism right now, they were taken without the chip in the camera; I forgot to put it back in. So, I need to bring my camera with the link to be able to send them), and us. It was truely a hassle to help give enough courage to Karen and Florencia to get baptized. I was so relieved when they showed up for the bautismal interview Friday because we weren´t sure if they would come.

79. This is the huge family of Noelia. She and her Mom live in Tucuman, a different province in Argentina, in a rural area far away from any chapel. So, she was never able to get baptized. But she was already living as an LDS before, including reading the Book of Mormon and fasting when she needed more spiritual strength. Nearly all of her uncles and aunts are members living here, with their families. She had a lot of support.

86. This is a picture of me with a golden sword made out of a tie and wood. It is really cool. E´Gonzalez and I got it for this past week during our district meeting from the Zone Leaders for working so well with the members. We comply with the 10 weekly lessons with a member present, because of the work that E´Gonzalez puts into calling everyone and the willingness of all of the members here in Castillo I. In this picuture you can see the cheap 5 peso watch that I bought in Villa Amelia, a part of the pensión (that´s the side of E´Lloyd and E´Gonzalez hijo), how I´m a bit tanner than I´ve ever been in my life, and sorry Mom, my goofy smile as well.

89. Our small district/pench dwellers (pench is an anglicized version of the word pensión) at the temple today. This also shows E´Gonzalez hijo with a moustache. (He cut his lip shaving this morning and had to put on a band-aid).

83-85. These are all photos of an approaching storm that we took from the roof of our pench. I love the sky here. It is so flat, we have such a huge horizon; you can see out forever from a high place. This storm was pretty bad, with a bit of hail and all. It kind of came out of nowhere too. My companion has been a bit sick recently, so we stayed in the pench to rest a bit when we saw this storm approaching rapidly. He said that they were “las tinieblas de afuera” which literally means misty darkness of outside, but also refers to Outer Darkness. Luckily, we weren´t outside working when it hit.

...And now to write a bit about this past week.

First of all, the baptism went really well. There was a ton of people! We did a joint baptism with Castillo II, so with them, la Familia Díaz, and everyone else, it felt like an active ward...being about 50-80 people. To make it even more grand, President Benton decided to show up. The only problem was there wasn´t as many refreshments as usual.

Right now, we are without baptismal dates, but we have several good progressing investigators who could very well get baptized next transfer. First and foremost is Ana María. She has been attending every activity and meeting she possibly can (spending all day at the church Saturday) and is constantly asking good questions. Daniel, the husband of Roxana, came to the baptism and then came to church and could turn into a good investigator again. Walter, the conyuge of the couple that was having problems last week, really is showing his desire to have a better family life and Silvia said that they are going to go to the lawyer today in order to get the papers necessary to get married. We also found an interesting investigator a few weeks ago, but yesterday was the first time we could find “him” with time to teach. Miguel is a cross-dresser that we taught the first lesson with the spirit present and challenged him to change. He said that he would love to change and have a family, but he´s been like this his entire life (and he looks and sounds like a woman now). If he can change, it will probably be one of the biggest changes I´ve seen on the mission, but I know it is possible through the Gospel. Friday we taught an investigator, who hasn´t read in the Book of Mormon yet, but we decided to read parts with her and she said “I don´t know, but I felt something strange while we were reading.” We immediately explained the feelings of the Holy Ghost again. We have a few others I´d like to talk about, but I´m out of time.

I love you all and I wish that the Spirit of change can constantly mold you into who you are to be.

Love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Washington D.C. and Figs!

2009-03-08T17:07:00.000-07:00

Sorry I didn't post last week, I was in Washington D.C.! I went with a group of school friends to an environmental convention called Powershift. It was really neat, 12,000 students (mainly college) met at the Washington D.C. convention center to listen to speeches by proffesional environmentalists and congressmen, to discuss environmental issues, and suggest ways to improve the environment in their hometowns.
Anyway, now to Drake...

24 Feb 2009

Querida Familia,

This week has been a bit bitter-sweet. That´s how it seems like a lot of life is. We are happy for one reason and sad for another. But before I get too much into the past week, there are a few questions to ask.
First of all, I received a letter from Adam Leonhardt a little over a month ago (he wrote it back in November), but haven´t had a chance to respond to it until today. I wrote the letter, and when I looked for the return address, it wasn´t there. So, in order to send the letter, I need the address, so could you send that to me?
Next, I was talking with one of the members of our ward and she has Danish heritage. Her maiden name is Abligaard. Mom, do we have any relation? I have no clue.
Oh, I think next week, I´ll probably take out about 200 pesos from the bank. First of all, I´ve been having to buy some new socks. These socks aren´t worn out yet, but after 4 months of being washed by hand, they´ve lost all their color. They are either more white or red than black. To maintain my appearance, I´ve had to buy some new ones. Also, I bought a little adapter so that I could put my camera chip into the USB port of a computer. I borrowed the adapter from my companions in Villa Amelia, but my companions here in Castillo don´t have one, so I decided to buy it myself. I´m also planning on buying more sun protector and vitamins. Their about 40 pesos each, which is quite expensive. I decided that Mom would rather me not go without those things (even though most missionaries do). I still have some money left over from what you gave me before I came and I feel that I manage the money I receive pretty well, but I just like to be sure.
Just another sidenote. Last week, I tried a fig for the first time. I´ve always read about them in the Bible, but I´ve never really known what it is. To be honest, I imagined little tumbleweeds growing on the trees. But I knew they could be eaten as well, so I didn´t know what to think. Now I´ve learned that they are a fruit and are very sweet. I believe that in most of the representations of the tree of life, from Lehi´s dream, the fruit is a fig. There are various types, but these were growing on a tree of a member´s house and are purple. You don´t eat it straight, you open it up and eat the insides, which look really interesting. It is like a whole bunch of red, juicy, strings from the outside pointing inward. I´m definitely eating them again if I have the chance. And now I have a better understanding of the Bible and some of its stories.
Now for the news of the week. We had another baptism! I had the honor of baptizing Asunción de Dolores Medina and my companion baptized Roxana Gutierrez. They were so happy. Lola (the name Dolores goes by) is an elderly lady and I think she has great-grandchildren (the generations here in Argentina are a little shorter due to many of the problems with the law of chastity). She is extremely faithful. After teaching her the law of tithing, the next time we came by, she had two pesos in the envelope and was asking us how she pays her tithing exactly.
Roxana was extremely happy as well. She overcame her addiction of cigarettes and really feels the change and happiness of the Gospel. We´re having some problems with her two daughters Florencia and Karen (remember to pronounce it in Spanish). They are 13 and laugh at everything. They keep switching back and forth whether they want to get baptized or not. They´ve been going to church regularly and are ready. But they keep switching between “Yes, we´ll get baptized” and “No, we want to wait more.” It is a little tiring as we keep trying to animate them. But during the baptismal service of Roxana and Lola I couldn´t stop smiling. I felt really happy for them.
Now for the sad part. Maxi, one of the best investigators I´ve seen, wasn´t able to get baptized. Just as is promised in the scriptures, as soon as someone finds the truth, Satan works all the much harder to prevent them from receiving its blessings. A few times an Evangelical woman passed by trying to convince him of the “evils” of Mormonism. When he said that he was getting baptized and that he had already sent out the invitations, she said “You are making a contract with the devil and trying to bring others down with you.” But he stood strong against these attacks. But then, thursday night, the night just before his baptismal interview one of his female friends popped out of nowhere and decided to live with him. He hasn´t seen her for more than two years and was living with another man, but was thrown out of that house. So, she decided to live with Maxi. So, he wasn´t able to get baptized and now feels really disheartened. He feels ashamed and doesn´t want to come to church. He doesn´t want to get baptized now because he´s afraid he´ll just make another mistake. And also, he doesn´t know how to nicely get rid of this lady. I wasn´t there for his interview, I was on divisions, but my companion recounted that he said the devil sent her. This is really sad, but it came with other consequences. Maxi was the support of his neighbor Osorio who was in the process of quitting drinking wine. But with the problem and the desanimo (I can´t remember this word in english, disheartening...depression...gah, I know it but, oh discourgement is the word!) of Maxi, he feels that there are too many restrictions, doesn´t want to continue fighting his addiction and is back to drinking a ton of wine. So, we have our work cut out for us to help them more, to not give up, and pray sincerely for the Lord´s help in this situation.
Another event occurred that was really sad. If there is one thing that pains me more than anything else is when the parents of children say they are thinking of seperating. Yes, this is one of the options to comply with the law of chastity, but so much better it is to get married and save the family. We as missionaries learn that the family really is the most important part of life, the secret of happiness. And when we hear of the destruction of it, it pains us. We went to one family where the mother and children are baptized (when the mother was living seperated from the father, but now are back together again). In order for the father to get baptized, he needs to get married and commit to not drinking again. They are in the process of getting married, but they need to talk with a lawyer first about a paper and he isn´t available until March. But when we went this Sunday, the Silvia was really frustrated and was seriously wanting to seperate from Walter. We stayed and listened for about an hour, hour and a half. After helping them calm down a little and teaching of the importance of the family, the need of having family goals (like we have goals as companionships), and the role of the father in the family, they both changed a little, felt more love the one for the other, and put in their hearts that they wanted to change for the benefit of the family. In the end, Walter gave the prayer on our knees and afterwards, we missionaries always have the habit of hugging after the prayers (we always greet other missionaries with a hug, not a handshake). So, that is what they did. It was beautiful to see. I hope that they´ll be able to maintain what they felt that night in order to work for a happy family.
Ok, I´m out of time again. But I want to express my love and my gratitude for having such a wonderful family. Thank you for everything you´ve done to help us be happy.

Love,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Picturas!

2009-02-22T06:24:00.000-08:00

Dear Family,

We had a great baptism this Saturday! Here are a few photos.

The first isn´t of the baptism, it is of a family from my last area. This is familia Vera. The father is a Police Officer and Works a lot. He also gave me a really cool tie clip that I think is from his dress uniform. The mother is a return missionary who complained to us that we never pass by. When we did, we found out that their son wasn´t baptized. So we baptized him. And we worked with this family a lot over the few months I was there with E´Spendlove. I was usually pretty quiet, but they said that I was very spiritual.

This is the family of Ciris, Luís, and Juan. The mother and the other son (Ciris also, who didn´t come to the baptism and we don´t quite understand why) are already members. The baptism went extremely well.

I believe this one is of the three who were baptized, along with my companion E´Gonzalez and E´Gilmore. He received permission from the president to come to this baptism because he worked so much with them. I didn´t really have much to do with it.

This is a poster that my companion made for an investigador named Roxanna. She stopped smoking recently and he made it to remind her that she is committed to not smoking again. This poster is really, really nice and is hanging next to the TV in the main room of the house. All her visiters comment about it and I think one of her friends is now trying to stop smoking because of her great example. Roxanna will be baptized this Saturday, along with Maxi and Lola.
I have a few more pictures I want to sent, I´ll get to work on them now.

-E´Ranquist

Ok, I´m back.

You know the pizza I was telling you about that we ate every Sunday? Well, here they are. They´re pretty good, but I do miss Papa John´s Supreme pizza. A lot of times these pizzas included either green olives (to which I´ve accustomed myself and can eat without problems. I´m not sure if I can touch black olives yet) or anchovies (which really aren´t bad. They aren´t my preffered, but it was nice to have a little variety in the pizza).

Here is the maker of all of the pizza, Hma. Valle. She is also the mother or grandmother of about half the ward. I wish I could´ve gotten a photo of all of them together, but suprisingly, there weren´t very many there that last day, so I didn´t get one. Some of her daugters include Hma. Vera (we baptized her son), Hma. deBernardi (the Relief Society President who loved to have hilarious word fights with my companions), and Hma. Aza (who would absolutely stuff us every time we had lunch with her. A returned missionary as well).

This is a photo of a family we helped reactivate. One of the sons, Matías, wasn´t there (the one that is a little bit more rebelious), but here is the father, Hmo. Urquirza, Lucas the son, and I can´t remember the daughter´s name. The father was usually a little frustrated with his sons, but they were a great family. It is a bit sad that their mom left them. I really hope that Lucas and Matías will be ready and able to serve missions in a few years.

And last of all, this is a Picture of part of the Pereira family. They are the ones that we made the floor for and are working hard to get ready to be sealed in the temple. I believe I´ve sent pictures home of the rest of the family in the baptism of Hernán.

Ok, there´s all the pictures. I don´t have much time to write now, but I´ll put a bit. We are doing really, really well in this area. It is amazing how prepared a lot of these people are. Right now, we have a baptism planned for every Saturday of this transfer (6 weeks). This week is Roxanna, Maxi, and Lola. The following week, the twin girls of Roxanna. The week after Osorio, the neighbor of Maxi, who needs to quite drinking wine (he´s following a plan I made to help him!), and the week after is a couple that came to the baptism Saturday without us knowing it that the family with whom we ate lunch on Sunday notified us. I´ll talk more about them next week I believe.

I´m really loving it here. Part of me didn´t want to take P-day and just go out and work. I´m glad all is going well with you.

Sincerely,
Elder Drake Ranquist

Replacing Elder Gilmore!

2009-02-08T16:52:00.000-08:00

3 Feb 2009

Dear Family,

I´m not sure if I´ll have time to read the letters that you sent because I went through that big change that I warned you about and I want to make sure I can write all that I want. And I got two copies of the letter you sent last week Dad, but the letter for this week is a bit of a mess. It is like it took the begginning, put it at the end, cut out a bit of the middle. No sé que pasó. I don´t know what happened. Ok, I fixed it. There are problems with the internet site, no más.

I am now in my second area on my mission. I have left my birthplace, Villa Amelia, and am now in Rafael Castillo 1, which might sound vaguely familiar to you. I am the replacement of Sean Gilmore. He has been here for six months. He left for another zone, I don´t remember which, but I find it amazing that I followed him here. So, if you have been keeping up with his blog, you know a lot more than me about this area and my companion Elder Gonzalez of Chile. I guess if there are people reading both his and mine, I will continue the story of this area.

First to talk about Villa Amelia. There really isn´t that much to say actually. We had some problems with Natividad. She is accusing one of the church leaders of doing something he shouldn´t and we aren´t sure who to believe. At first we thought she had a misunderstanding, but after talking around a little Sunday, her story lines up a little better. Now we´re not sure what happened. I´m kind of glad that I don´t have to deal with all the problems that have happened and are going on in the ward of Villa Amelia. I understand better why they had to make such an odd boundary change in order to pull in a bishop from another ward. I hope that all goes well.

Since E´Spendlove and I knew that one of us were going, we made several visits to the people we wanted to say goodbye to Sunday and yesterday. I took pictures with several of the families, so I will try to send them next week. Although, many of the pictures are missing people because noone wanted to be home for me to say goodbye to. It was like a curse. Griselda is in the hospital. Hmo. Salvador wasn´t home. Most of the Pereira family were at the pool. And the store where Carolina Sosa works was closed. We did a lesson with an elderly couple that have a lot of interest in the church. E´Peterson and I found them during divisions and she knew the church in Santa Fe, Argentina. She is a widow living together with another elderly man, who also has a lot of interest. There is the obstacle that they need to get married, and if they do, she loses her pension from the government. So it will be a sacrifice, but if there is one thing that I´ve learned in my life here on Earth is that if we sacrifice for the Lord, He blesses us abundantly. So, I hope all goes well with them with E´Spendlove and his new companion. I forget his name, but he is from Chile and entered at the same time as I did.

I will try to explain what little I know about Castillo 1. First, it is in the stake of Catán, but in the part that is really close to Castelar, the stake I came from. Catán is known as the “heart” of the mission, because it is in the center, I believe. If I take the train that is here in Castillo, the next stop is Merlo Gomez, which is one of the limits of Villa Amelia. The next station is really close to the chapel of Villa Amelia. So, I´m not too far away. In comparison with Villa Amelia, this area is really small. It is about a third of the size. We only have to use colectivos, being translated buses, for district meetings and zone conferences. So, I don´t have to spend $150 or more pesos in travel every month. That will be a blessing. Another blessing is that there is a laundromat here! I don´t have to spend all of my free time hand washing my laundery! We live in a pensión that is really close to the train station, less than a block. There are four of us, which is good because I think my companions will always need someone else to talk with during the nights because of how little I talk. It isn´t the greatest, but it is better than my first pensión. Luckily, we have Air Conditioning for the central room where we all sleep. Of the other elders, one is from Paraguay and the other from Utah. The other north american just came back from campo and so is new to the area as well.

From what I hear, the missionary work is going really well in this area. My companion and E´Gilmore gave a brief message during the Transfer Meeting about how they used oragami to interest some of the kids and help get their parents to start investigating. They had 9 investigators in sacrament meeting. 9! That is amazing. I feel blessed if there is one! So, we are going to be working really hard to help all those coming to church receive a lasting conversion.

E´Gonzalez seems like an excellent Elder to me. I think that we´ll get along well and that we´ll do great work together. Today, while making purchases and walking around, he has been doing contacts with people, which most elders don´t do on P-days. I need to really improve on making contacts. Every missionary should do 10 every day and it is really hard for me. But I think I´ll overcome that barrier. I don´t know too much about my companion yet, but he is really nice. It sounds like he really got along with E´Gilmore (who predicted that I would come here by the way). But, I´m almost the complete opposite of E´Gilmore, so we´ll see. I doubt we´ll have problems, I just hope that we can form a friendship, which I didn´t have with my past too companions.

I will let you know more as I live through and learn more. I printed out your letters and will read them when I get back to the pensión. I hope all is going well and that the your work with Aaron is going well too. I´m grateful for this opportunity to grow more and serve my Lord. I hope that His Spirit will always be with you to guide and comfort.

Love,
Elder Drake Ranquist