2nd Week

Dad's Email:

Wow thats amazing. I hope you are doing well! I just answered everything on Mom's email, but Elder Doney has been out for over a year and a half. He leaves in August I believe. I went out with the Spanish missionaries this week and it was amazing how open spanish speakers are to talk about religion and christ. Although I couldn't understand what they were saying I was just wishing that everyone was like that. Well I better give my companion some time to email his family since were only using 1 computer and he's waiting on me and I took awhile to write on moms email. I loved that scripture, thanks a lot!

    Love,

    Elder ranquist

Mom's Email:

I've been having such a great time here in Berkeley! I'm so sorry I forgot my camera at the apartment maybe I can upload some pictures next week. While we were out with the mission president he told us we can write letters during the week whenever we want as long as were not supposed to be doing anything else at that time so ill try to have a pen and paper wherever i go in case I have some time to write you a letter. The food out here is so amazing i haven't had a bad meal yet. The members in Berkeley 1st ward are awesome. since i've been out i've only gone 1 or 2 days without having dinner with a family and this week is all full of dinners as well and that's amazing! most of the reason is Elder Doney's last companion was Tongan and ate alot so he got all of the members to sign up for dinners so I have a lot of money saved up on my card because i barely have to buy any food. There's this one place here called CREAM. which means cookies revolve everything around me and it is delicious. You put 2 of whatever kinds of cookie you want which are warm and stick a big scoop of whatever ice cream flavor you want in the middle. Anyway, I love that im in a bike area its keeping me in shape so well (and its a smaller area).  the one bad thing is on P-days you have to borrow a car to do your shoping and laundry and stuff which takes up a lot of time. Thankfully some nice Sister missionaries let us use their car. Im in a District were there is all Sister missionaries except Elder Doney and I so its interesting. I kinda miss all of my friends from the MTC they were great. i was able to see them last thursday for a new missionary training practice which was cool.  My trainer has been pushing me really hard to learn the area and get to know how to do things on my own, but sometimes i think he pushes a little to hard because thats how his trainer taught him. They give all of the new missionaries a 12 week program now which you spend an hour on studying each day and teaches you different lessons you will need to know in order to pretty much be a better missionary. I'm worried that I will have to be a trainer here in a few months because there are so many new missionaries coming out.

     When my mission president first picked us up he said something along the lines of when the lord said go out and preach the gospel to the world all you have to do is come to San Francisco and im begining to see some truth in that. There are so many different languages and cultures out here its very different from Kentucky. We have fagien philipien leocean Chinese, Spanish, Cambodian, Tongan, Japanese and i cant remember them all. We have elders and sisters from all around the world its crazy. I've heard if there aren't enough elders in a language then sometimes the English elders have to learn a new language in the middle of their mission and serve there. I think that's scary if i would have to do that but i would love to learn Chinese and my mission is the perfect time to do that. I did meet with the bishops wife's family members the first day i got here, we went to a Chinese buffet and we talked for a few minutes. they seem really nice but i wont be able to see them.

     I've had some great experiences out here. Yesterday my companion and i went to the local BART station which is a mass transit train kindof thing i think you get the idea. But we would stand right next to the wow whats that called.. the moving stair case thing i dont know.. but we would stand on the top of that and as someone got on we would get on with them and have 30 seconds of were they were trapped and we could talk to them. My trainer showed me 3 examples and left them with pass along cards. So when it was my turn we were at the top ot the staircase and I couldnt build up the currage to make a contact and Elder Doney started to talk to me about having faith and stuff like that. and after he had done that for about 5 minutes a random man walked up to me and started talking to me about how he's seen us before and likes us but doesn't believe in our principles he "always walks by faith". So i had to just do an imaginary face palm and know that its not just a coincidence that a random man comes up to me randomly and starts to talk to me about doing things by faith right after Elder Doney just got done talking to me about that same thing. So i eventually did start doing it and most of them turned me down i still think i grew a little.

    One thing i don't like about Elder Doney is that he pushes me too far some times. Like yesturday i had to lead a lesson all by myself and i wasnt prepared all the wa and he didnt help me out during the lesson so it went admittedly pretty bad. And afterward the member that we brought along shared a brief story about how he would fail bad at the beginning of his mission too. When we went out with the mission president i led the first lesson but that was with a less active member so she knew what i was talking about and it went great but i just cant lead a lesson with an investigator yet. Sometimes i think my companion sets me up to fail so that i can learn from those failures but oh well ill learn stuff better as i go on. 

   My ward out here is great but one thing that isn't that great is none of them really do any missionary work. So thats been a struggle. My companion keeps on saying lately its been only 2 people searching through the mud pile for golden nuggets when if we had the ward with us there would be 250 people searching for gold nuggets in a mud pit. And i think that's kind of true. 

   Ive been having a great time out here Sadly the Hershey's kisses are gone :( i loved those haha. Also there is some songs call a tribute to missionaries or national tribute to missionaries or Nashville tribute to missionaries or something i don't know but it has great songs on them and i was wondering if i could get some of those. maybe there is some already on my iPod im not sure. I hope you guys are having a great time a lot of the people we talk to know about the temple because its close by us and on a hill and easy to see so i hope you guys are keeping up the good work in the temple. When does Jessica find out if the baby's a boy or girl? have they thought of any names? I think itll be a boy im not sure though lol just guessing. Well have a great time I love you!

  Love,

      Elder Ranquist

One more story before I leave. Elder Doney's last companion elder lehalui had a dream that he met a man named Ruben and baptised him. He went all around and found someone named Ruben Noriega. his wife is a member but he is strong in the Catholic faith. Elder Lehalui knows that its him and was really sad that he left and didn't get to teach a lesson to him. This week Ruben gets home from a baseball championchip since he is a couch for berkeley baseball i think and so We are going to stop by sometime either monday, tuesday, or wednesday because he leaves for another championchip thursday. Elder Doney and Sister Noriega believes i have been sent here so i can baptize Ruben because i went to 4 years of catholic high school and i can relate to Ruben and know his concerns. Sadly i dont remember a lot of what my teachers said when they were teaching about catholisizm but ill try to remember. I'm not sure if i have been sent here but maybe. the hardest part is getting him to church for 3 sundays because he always has baseball games on the weekend that thats going to be a challenge but the lord provides away. maybe hes finally going to get some home games so he can stay home for 3 sundays.

  one thing that is helpful in preparing to go on the mission is get pens with a fine point. Like the zebra pens. I came out with what jessica gave me which i liked and used but we have pocket sized planners and its SO hard to write legibly with such a thick pen so i got the zebra 402 from office depot and just keep on getting refills all the time. so thats a tip for kevin. And wow I do remember Eric Anderson thats awesome this is an exciting time for sure! love you by Tell Jessica, Tyler, Emily, and Drake I love them.