Graduation Letter

4/29/13

Wow that's amazing! (the title of this letter was graduation letter, so I'm assuming this is about Drake, Emily, and I graduating this week). This week has been slow with missionary work. It seemed like we were biking everywhere, but not getting any results. All of our new investigators are really flaky and not committed so it’s a kind of sad time. We had to drop one investigator yesterday and another one had to go the ER because he thinks he had a stroke.

But I'm excited for this next week. We have a lot of service opportunities so that would be something different. I'm glad you’re having a great time.

I'm just wondering for health reasons, but how would eating only rice for lunch and dinner and oats for breakfast have on your body? We've gone through 40 pounds of rice in 11 weeks (and just got another 20 pounds of it last week). We’re thinking of cheap ways to get vitamins and protein so we have a few cans of corned beef and we just got some crackers so we have what Tongans call kahpa pulu. And another thing, my knees have been aching and hurting this week, mostly because we went up into the hills, but I was wondering if there are any like massages or work outs I could do to help my knees.

Anyway, I'm starting to really get to love missionary work! I realized I would love some things about it, like biking all day and most importantly dinners with members :) but not other things like tracting and street contacting. So I'm trying to fix that outlook and love EVERYTHING about missionary work. One of my goals last week was to be happy and cheerful so I think that’s starting to take root into my brain and always be smiling and not look dead. It's great how blessed we are to have such a great family. I've realized as I've had lessons with Less Actives and non members how they are missing the "light in their eyes" and just something missing. When I first got here we taught a less active lady and 2 Sundays ago she gave a talk in sacrament meeting and has goals to go back to the temple and she's been coming to church almost every week now. It’s so exciting.

Love you and hope you are having a great time!

Love,

Elder Ranquist

Call Home

One of Jonathan's friends is struggling, so the mission gave him permission to call him. To do this, he had to call my parents first to get the phone number. They said that he was very missionary-like on the phone and didn't really say anything except asking for the number, which they were happy about! It was a teaser for my mom for the Mother's day phone call!


Hello

It was nice hearing your voice. Sorry i couldn't spend a little bit longer to talk to you but i had special permission from the Mission President to do that and I didn't want to make it a like a telephone home. He says he usually doesn't let missionaries do this type of thing but he was impressed that i was mature enough to handle it and he trusted me. That really made me happy. It makes me happy knowing that he can trust me even though we have only gotten to know each other in such short of time. 

Anyway the Baptism for Antonion has been delayed because of family matters. He's really ready to be baptized and amazingly smart for a 9 year old. I'm also glad he still wants to be baptized but we just don't know how long it will take for the family situation to be resolved. It was really sad he wasn't there at church sunday and his dad was crying a little. 

I'm so sorry about the picture situation.  I haven't found a slot for the memory card and it's a really old camera. I'm just tempted to get a new one so i can send you some pictures. I don't know any other way. (Also i just got a haircut at a members house and i really like it and I've received a lot of comments on it so i guess ill have to show you somehow and no i did not part my hair...)

I'm sending home a box full of stuff. In there is my ipod and tax paper. Also I bought brown shoes out here for my suit that I got but the brown shoes don't follow the missionary white hand book clothing guidelines, so I'm sending them home for after the mission because I like them and they're still good shoes. And a member gave us a lot of casset tapes which i dont need so im sending those home as well. If there's enough room on the ipod could you put in the song from the ending credits of the Lord of the Rings the Two Towers? I think it is that one. That song is so beautiful. I heard it from another elder when we were on exchanges. Thanks a bunch!

I'm really trying to focus on my posture a lot lately. I think it's helping out. That's something to look forward to. 

Nothing really exciting happened this week, sorry. I'm sure there's something interesting but everything that you would consider weird is getting normal to me here in Berkeley, hehe. But i love it. It's so amazing. 

So excited for Kevin! I know he'll have a great mission. I'm looking forward to talking to him some time. That would be fun exchanging mission stories. 

Hope you are doing well and I love hearing from you every week!

Love,

Elder Ranquist

4/15/13

Hello, this week has actually been a pretty non-exciting week. I had interviews with the mission president Friday so that was fun. We had it really short but, I love him, he’s great. 

Yesterday, we went to a “Why I Believe” fireside which is where some recent converts get up and say their testimonies. Elder Doney signed us up for a musical number so I played “How Great Thou Art” while he sang. It was fun.

I don't need the pictures right now [Jonathan asked for some Walter Rane artwork in his last letter and mom asked if he could wait until she and dad could go to the distribution center in Utah when they are there for the graduations]; it was just an idea. Thanks for thinking about it though.

I was looking at this computer the other week and there is no slot for the camera card to go in. We went to a public library today, but since it’s Berkeley, all of the computers were occupied. I guess I will have to get a cord, but I was planning on taking a picture with Antonio (and smiling) :).

We have a new investigator, he used to live in Lexington, Kentucky so that's neat. What’s cool is our ward mission leader is taking us out to go bowling in an hour, so that's going to be fun :).

Sorry this email is so short this week. It’s been pretty dull. I'm sure next Monday I'll have loads to say. Oh and we had a referral named Gale who has had about 6 back surgeries and next week she'll be going into another major one so some of the members asked if next Monday we could stop by and give her a priesthood blessing. Just was thinking about dad and hoping he's all right. Love you all. Hope you are doing great.

  Love,

    Elder Ranquist

P.S.
Just got back from going to the bowling alley with our ward mission leader. It was fun! I got a 76 the first game (because i was spinning it the entire time and wasn't working out for me) and then the second game i bowled normally and got a 130, the top score of both games :D It's nice to go out and do something recreational once in awhile, really refreshing. Usually on mondays. We don't have a lot of time to do recreational stuff because we're on bikes, but we made time for it this week. Alright hope to hear from you next week. love you

Love

  Elder Ranquist.