Best Mother's Day

My mom claims she had the best Mother's Day this year. All of her kids are in good places and are happy! Drake is in Colorado with his wife, Emily. He is about to start graduate school.
Jessica is in Provo with her husband, Tyler. She is having a baby in October!
Jonathan is serving a mission in California and smiled the entire time he skyped with Mom and Dad.

Here was his letter this week:

(Mom: I asked Jonathan a lot of questions in my last letter about having meals with members, what his new companion is like, what the senior missionaries do in his area where he Skyped, and he actually answered some of them this time!)

At Berkeley I started to not get fed well; we rarely had any dinners. But, at least for this week we've had a lot of dinners. It's fun eating all sorts of different foods. I've probably come across 1 or 2 dinners that I haven't been fond of but the rest have been amazing. I think the Lord has blessed me with some taste buds that aren't working, at least for 2 years. Because some things I know I wouldn't like before my mission but now I do eat. For instance, we had lunch at an investigator’s house Friday after doing service for them and they fed us hot dogs and I hate hot dogs, but I ate two of them (with ketchup on them as well :). And I've started to put dressing on my salad haha. In fact, our district is getting together in a few hours and we’re going to make Oti, which is a Tongan fruit drink, since one of the sisters in our district is Tongan.

      My new companion is good. I like him a lot. He came out the same time Elder Doney did (my trainer) so I'm probably going to kill him next transfer when he leaves. He's more of a city person. Went to a year of BYU before he came out. Did weight lifting before he came out so I do not want to start a fight with him :) Our senior couple is assigned to the Family History center. I'll see if the pants you sent out are the suit pants, if not I'll email Elder Curran and see if he could help me find it.

We haven't gone to the temple yet. We usually do it every 2 or three transfers so we’re planned to go up on the 30th.

 

I'm so proud of you for doing missionary work! That's amazing. I'm glad you’re having such a great experience both in church and the temple. I can see the lord is truly blessing you for your work and faith.

I really appreciated being able to talk with you and the family yesterday. It uplifted my spirits since missionary work hasn't been going the best. But I want you to know that I truly loved talking with you and glad you’re doing well. I know that through these experiences we’re going through we can receive blessings that the Lord has in store for us and I can tell he is pouring out blessings to our family and especially towards you. I thank you for your support in my mission which has truly helped me and uplifted me. I want to know if there is anything I can do for you or anything I can help you with?

  Love,

      Elder Ranquist