Bautismo de Elsa Cruz

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 She got upset saying, "It isn`t my fault that they went out of date, they were sitting there in your office for the past two years.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

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

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!

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!

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