I'm really glad to hear that you think the pain is going to get
better.
Sometimes I just wish I could skip my teenage years. I just
think of it, as a missionary point of view, as a personal apostasy, where I
didn't progress in anything or have a direction, or path I was heading on. But,
because our Heavenly Father loves us he sends prophets, patriarchs (my dad) to
restore the church (or my faith) on the earth (or in my life). I know that you
love me and have been there for me even when I did not accept your help. I
always have seen in my life the example that you mentioned, where you would get
the airplane flying and then for me to take over. I have seen that in my
mission as well. I have been trained and given the resources to do things. I
hope you know that you did not fall short at all. If you did, you would not see
me on my mission. I would still be eating M&M's wondering when My Mission
would be. You have been an outstanding example to me of sacrifice, dedication,
and diligence. I have no clue the pain or things that you have gone through,
but just hearing of them makes me realize the difficulties you've been through.
The time you spend in the temple covering for someone else is an indicator of
that sacrifice. I like what Joseph Smith said, “teach them correct principals
and let them govern themselves”. I know that's what you did. I was taught true
principals and I have to make the decision to follow those principles. I hope
my children don't have the mentality that I put you through during my teenage
years or else that would be something to not look forward to. I'm glad that you
were so diligent with me. I hope you can forgive the things that I've had to
put you through even though you have enough on your plate already. I hope I can
make up for it when I get home :)
I know this gospel honestly does bless families and want to
model my family after the one I am in, especially you, because I'm going to
have to be a father one day so I might as well learn from the best and get the
training and resources I need to be able to do it.
I know we have a Father in Heaven that loves us all and wants us
to be with him again and I know as we govern ourselves with true principals we
can have successful families and lives and see our children grow to have a
successful life as well.
To my Favorite Dad that I Love,
Elder Ranquist
Mom's Letter:
Wow,
that sounds scary! I'm glad dad's doing all right.
The
person who accepted a baptism date is Teaetta, a black lady in her late 30's or
so. Just had a baby a few weeks ago. We’ve been meeting with her for a while
even before I came into this area. Sadly, she didn't come to church though. Her
baptism date is July 13th so we’re excited. She’s come to church 1 time before
but has children to take care of and a husband that sits out side the apartment
smoking all day and doing nothing so that it’s difficult, but they’re married
so that is a tremendous blessing.
We
also just committed another person to baptism. He's Calvin around his late 50's
or so but he drinks alcohol a lot. He cut down from 5 beers a day to only 1 so
that’s amazing. He also came to priesthood meeting at church this Sunday so we’re
excited for him. His baptism date is July 27th. He has a concern, because he’s
Catholic right now, that him changing from Catholicism to being Mormon will be
a sin and he doesn't want to sin by changing churches. But he read for an hour
last Friday and called us unexpectedly saying he’s been blessed and won 50
dollars from the lottery. So he thinks that he was blessed for reading and
really is starting to love us. So that is really fun.
Our
work in this area is starting to pick up so I'm really excited; with 2 baptism
dates, more investigators, (we've found 9 investigators just this month) and
have a goal to find 2 more by tonight so we'll have 11 new investigators and it’s
the 10th day of the month. Transfer calls are this week so that's exciting.
This transfer has gone by so fast (at least for me, I don’t know about you).
I'm most likely going to just stay here and kill my companion since he's
leaving next transfer.
A
new senior missionary couple just came by and said hello. They’re in the same
apartment building as the other senior couple so that’s fun. They are Elder and
Sister Felt. He was in the army and raced cars so that was cool. I'm having so
much fun seeing the work progress here. I hope missionary work is going well in
Kentucky as well :)
Love,
Elder
Ranquist
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