Letter 6/29/2015 4th of July Happy Birthday Dad!

This last week was pretty fun but super hot. The humidity continues to get worst. Elder Ross' glasses fog up every time he gets out to tract. It is kind of funny, but we are just sweating all the time. All for a worthy cause though, trying to help others come closer to Jesus Christ.

On Monday we got to watch Andrew Campbell open his Mission call. I was selfish and chose Idaho as my guess but he actually got called to Mesa, AZ. Elder Ross was so excited! He will also be very hot with the 115 degree weather they have there. He is excited though and we were very excited for him. It reminded me of my own opening, very spiritual experience. :)

Dee... well what do I say about her. She doesn't want to budge, we have given her all that she needs to find out the truth and decide for herself but she is comfortable where she is at. She believes in the Book of Mormon and the things we say because she trusts us. We continue to try and help her recognize the Holy Ghost and it did get a little emotional. She said that she has never wanted to know something so bad. Hopefully in the future it goes better. We meet with her tomorrow.

 Thursday we got Elder-napped by these old people in the ward. They are siblings named Jerry Ainsworth and Bibbit Pierce. They are super nice to all the missionaries and try to help us out. Jerry has written a couple books and served under Thomas S Monson on his mission in Canada. They took us out to eat and then took us to Wal-mart and got us some groceries. It was so nice of them. They made sure we had everything we needed. It was perfect timing too because we were just running out of food and needed some more and didn't know how we were going to make it. Now we are set for a couple of weeks. They are so amazing!

Friday we went on an exchange with Coushatta and I brought Elder Hunt back here to Stonewall and we had a great time. At first, I really didn't want to tract and I was sick of the hot weather. But I pushed myself to drive somewhere to tract. I began to offer a prayer right before we started and I instantly felt better. The spirit overcame me and helped me to know what I was doing, was right. I gained strength, got out the door and began to knock. We met a few people, nothing too promising. Until we came to Erika. Erika is a college student at Southern and she let us right in. Elder Hunt and I had such a spiritual lesson and I know she could feel the Holy Ghost as well. She committed to read and pray about the Book of Mormon and she also committed to pray about baptism. She wants to be baptized, just wants to pray for a date to work towards. We ended on a great note and had such a great experience there. She even wanted to give us a hug after because she felt so good. Look at the blessings that come from enduring, He knows exactly how we feel and we would of never met her if we didn't go tract that day! :) Hopefully it goes well in the future.

Saturday was another service day, we helped with the flood relief. Tons of homes were damaged from the flooding of the red river. We "mudded-out" a couple of houses down in Bossier. It was dirty but it was worth it. It was crazy what these families were living in and how much they had gone through. We gave them hope and helped out the best we could. We cleaned out all the ruined stuff, cleaned it down and sprayed for mold. We had to rip out insulation, carpet, flooring and do tons of other stuff. It definitely was a dirty job. 

Happy Birthday Dad, and Happy 4th of July! I hope y'all have a grand time this weekend and have fun lighting off fireworks. We might go to a firework show here, not sure yet, but it will be fun!! Thanks for all the love and support. Another week has come and gone. We also get a new President this week. President Olson will be our new President and we will meet him this weekend. So, that should be fun! Stonewall ward is great, I am doing good and I continue to try and better myself. We have been discussing a lot about the sacrament. Continue to prepare yourself for it, partake of it and remember the blessing it is. We are truly blessed to have it each week and make that renewal with Him. Anyways, have a great week y'all. Stay safe, have fun and keep on smiling! :) Love y'all!

Love,

Elder Mason Rankin :)

Pictures 6/29/2015

Elder Hunt and I on Exchanges.

Humid out here

Foggy glasses so Humid!

Andrew Campbell Mission Call to Mesa, AZ!

Letter 6/22/2015 9 months....but who's counting?

This week was a pretty normal one. It had it's ups and downs. We tracted, we met people, we got rejected and we tried to have some fun while doing it! We didn't have tons and tons of success, but we have been doing really well with our investigator named Dee. She is reading, she continues to meet with us and pray about what is true. She almost dropped us earlier this week but we were able to resolve her concerns, and help her know why she needs to be baptized by someone holding the proper authority of God. Some of the lessons get really emotional and spiritual, she almost cried the other day when we were teaching her. She knows what she needs to do, just needs to talk to her Mom about it. She has committed to church this next week and we plan on continuing to meet with her this week. She is really awesome, she desires to know more and hopefully we can continue to "help her receive."

We had one other experience that I want to talk about. A few times I have run into people that don't like the Mormons. They just want to argue and are very rude. I wasn't having a super great day the other day and I wasn't going to have any of it. We were walking out of the post office and a man stopped us. He said things like "we don't believe in the same Jesus", "y'all are part of a cult", "we are only saved by faith" and "there is no way you can be an Elder." The spirit worked readily through me and I was so bold with this man. I don't know if I have ever been like this with anyone on my mission. I corrected what he said, every scripture he said, I explained what it really meant and even had other scriptures to back up what I was saying to him. It honestly felt great, the spirit continued to testify to me that what I was saying is true and he was allowing me to say exactly what this man needed to hear. Although his hard heart wouldn't let it in, we left on a good note, I felt better. Elder Ross and I were really happy with how it went. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is Restored to the Earth in it's fullness and I won't allow anyone to walk on my testimony.

This weekend the Bishop's son got baptized, so we had to go and attend that. It was a wonderful baptism. Reminded me of my own and my siblings and others I have been blessed to witness. So happy to see so many young kids make good steps toward coming closer to their Heavenly Father. Saturday night we got invited over to the Campbell's to celebrate Sis Campbell's birthday! They are such a great family and I love spending time with them. Elder Ross and I got this really awesome "childish" card.. she loved it! :)

Yesterday was Father's day as we all know. We had lunch at the Elliot's and dinner at the Glass', we are blessed to have such awesome families. I really reflected on my own father and Our Heavenly Father as I sat in church yesterday. Being away from my Dad makes me sad, but makes me even more grateful for all that he has done for me. He takes care of me, he loves me, he set an example for me and he does so much for me! I wouldn't be the person I am today, I wouldn't be on my mission if it wasn't for my loving Dad :) I also know that we each have a Father in Heaven that loves each of us and knows us each personally. I am excited for the day I can give him a hug and thank him for all that he has done for me. God isn't just some spirit that is above us all, he has a body just like us. I hope each of us thanked our Father's, including our Father in Heaven for all that they do for each of us. What a blessing they are in our lives. Happy Father's Day Dad!

Thanks for all the love and support! Almost to 9 months, kind of crazy to think. Stonewall is great, we continue to work hard and pray that we will find all those that are being prepared. May we all help in this great work. Have a great week, keep on smiling :)

Love,

Elder Mason Rankin :)

Pictures 6/22/2015- Mason I told you to stop playing with snakes!

Found a snake looking for a turtle.

Fun Group!

Yay!

Letter 6/16/2015

It is time to begin my 3rd transfer here in Stonewall. I absolutely love this place. I thought I would be sick of it, I thought I would be done here, but honestly I am really enjoying it here. The ward here is great, even though it is hard to find people to teach we continue to find joy in the "little successes" that we have together. I love being with Elder Ross, he will be a best friend for life!

This last week we started it off with an exchange to Coushatta. I stayed with Elder Hunt and Elder Ross took Elder Chase to Stonewall. Elder Hunt is a great missionary and we had some good experience together. Everyone in Coushatta was actually really nice and they all wanted to talk with us. It was great! My favorite experience was when we found Alex and his family. After finding no success contacting less-actives, I suggested that we should tract a little bit. The first house we came to had a young man outside named Alex. He is 17 years old and invited us to sit down with him and his grandfather. We talked about Jesus Christ and his Gospel and introduced the Book of Mormon to them. They liked it, accepted it and even were interested in learning more. Then the Grandma peeked out the door and yelled, "y'all staying for some biscuits!" I yelled back, "We love biscuits!" So not only did we have an awesome lesson, but we even got a good ole' southern meal. It was probably the best biscuits and gravy I have ever had. It was so shocking to me to think this family invited us right in and fed us like that, not even knowing who we were. Would we do the same? Just a question to ask ourselves!

We had lots of service opportunities as always. I think it is helping me lose some weight too, so that is a plus. Because of the Red River flooding, volunteers were filling sand bags and giving them to people to try and help with all the flooding. They asked us to help fill people's trucks full of sandbags when they pulled up. We worked for 4 hours and got really burnt by the sun! Luckily it turned tan the next day and we even got a free meal out of helping! It actually wasn't that bad. The one that killed me was digging a trench for this guy in our ward. We only finished a quarter of it, and we worked for 5 hours. What stunk was that we had to make it level all the way across so it took forever. I was tired for sure, Elder Ross and I were done after that service job.

Elder Ross and I had a wonderful week last week with Will and the baptism. This week was a little bit slower and a lot of finding. We continued to try potential's and tract as much as possible. We really have had a hard time finding people that really want to listen to our message. Everyone "already has a church" or "I am saved." We did find one person though. Her name is Dee. Elder Ross and Chase met her at Sonic on exchanges. She remembered Elder Ross and me from somewhere. She said "I remember you, but you had a different guy with you. A tall blonde with a big smile that waved at me!" Sounds like me:) We had a wonderful lesson with her last Friday and she really understood the Restoration. We have a return appointment for this Wednesday, we pray it goes well and we might actually get to teach her whole family! She is 18 years old, lives with her parents, has an older brother and younger sister.

We also had a change up in the Stonewall Ward. We got a new Bishop! Bishop Simpson is our new Bishop! He is a really great guy and will help the ward out a lot. Plus it helps that he likes us :)

Well another transfer has come and gone. Sis Dalebout is going home. We were sad to see her go. We will have a new member of our district now. Her name is Sis Richards! Elder Ross and I are excited for another transfer together. I know that we will continue to find success as we work hard and continue to be obedient. Find joy in all that you do. That is one thing that I have noticed in a lot of missionaries. They can never find the joy. I can't imagine spending everyday out here not having any fun or smiling. It would drive me insane! I promise you can find some sort of joy in whatever you do, it all starts with your perspective and vision. Continue to find the joy and keep on smiling. Life is better that way! Have a great week y'all, I appreciate the love and support. :) 

Love,

Elder Mason Rankin :)

Pictures 6/16/2015

Last P-day together

Elder Hunt and I on exchanges.

Last Sunday together

last day of the Stonewall squad

Last Day with Scaife

For Service we dug a trench.

We were tired!

Baptism... Happy Birthday Mom!

Happy Birthday Mom!!! I hope you have a wonderful birthday!! You are amazing and such a great Mom!!!!!! I love you mom, you are the most amazing Mom ever!! :)

This last week was a full one. Lots of stress, excitement and many other emotions. We started out the week by doing 4 hours of tracting one day. We were really trying to find some more people to teach. The sun was high and the humidity was so terrible. We were sweating like crazy and Elder Ross was ready to turn back but we kept on going. We met lots of people. Some potentials, some rude people and some really crazy people.... This one lady was telling me that all you had to do was accept Christ as your Savior and you were saved. So I asked her about all those people that die without hearing about Christ. Where do they go?? She exclaimed "Well of course they go to hell!"... That doesn't sound like God. I got so mad, but I held back, bore my testimony and we were on our way. 

That same day we had a killer lesson with this lady named Monet. She is like 25, working 2 jobs and really wants to know more about God and wants to come closer to him. We had a great discussion with her and helped her know what she should do. She accepted to read a chapter of the B.o.M. and pray about it. She told us how happy she was that we met her, she told us we were going places and couldn't believe we were 18. She had to give us big hugs before we left, she felt the spirit and she felt good about us. Hopefully we can continue to help her with her spiritual progression!

We had Zone Conference this last Friday and it was great! It was President and Sis McDonough's last Zone Conference before they left. So it got emotional at the end. We learned a lot about missionary vision, helping people progress and having a fresh start with the new President. I am sad to see them go, they are such great people. I bet the next one will be good though. Every Zone Conference we have car inspections and Elder Bentley(senior missionary) chooses the cleanest cars and give the missionaries awards. Well he got away with the multiple awards and decided to come with one award for the best car and whoever won the award got 200 extra miles for that month! I really wanted to win, so Elder Ross and I cleaned our car the best that we could! Well all those times of cleaning the car with Mom must have helped because we won!!! It was so awesome, Elder Ross and I were so happy to see all our hard work pay off... We didn't even want the 200 miles, just the award :) The whole Zone Conference was great, just a start to a blessed weekend!

Saturday was the big day. We gave Will the tie that we bought him. We each signed the back and put the date of his baptism so he could always remember it and remember us! He was really nervous but also excited. To be honest, I was a little nervous that I was going to mess up or something but it went off great!! We had a talk by Sis Hill and Dalebout about baptism and a talk by Sis Jeffries on the Holy Ghost. As I entered the font, the spirit overcame me and made me feel like it was going to all be okay and all my hard work had paid off. All the phone calls, scheduling and meetings for the baptism had finally paid off. The water was shallow so I had to dunk him pretty low, but we did it right the first time. William gave me a big hug!! What a wonderful, spiritual experience. I will remember it forever. William said that he felt perfect and wonderful. After the baptism, we went to Dairy Queen and got some ice cream to celebrate. We had a great turn out at the baptism, he was so happy to see the whole room full. :) I can't thank God enough for William and how great everything went!!

Sunday we confirmed William and everything with that went really well. His father even came for all 3 hours! There may be some potential there in the future? I don't know for sure. Well the baptism happened, we helped another soul come closer to his Heavenly Father and we are eternally grateful for Him. William loves us, I can't wait to see him continue to progress in the church. I know he can!! Thanks for all the love and support y'all. I hope you enjoy the pictures! It was a great week! The search is on to find another person ready for this step! I know we can! Have a wonderful week, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is TRUE! Till next time :)

Love,

Elder Mason Rankin :)

Pictures - 6/8/2015

Stuffed Lion

Last Zone Conference with President and Sister McDonough.

Found a big dog!

Baptism Day

Will is so awesome.

Went to Dairy Queen afterwards

New Ties!

Letter 6/1/2015

Where do I even begin? Sit down before you begin reading, just a warning :)

I'll start with earlier this week. I went on exchanges with Elder Nelson (zone leader) and we had a blast. I went up to Bossier City with him and Elder Ross stayed with Elder Scaife. We did a lot of tracting and the people were actually really nice. We handed out a few copies of the Book of Mormon, taught a few lessons and just had a great time. I like Elder Nelson, he is a good friend of mine.

The exchanges gave me a little bit more of a determination to go out and find some people to teach. Elder Ross and I spent most of Wednesday and Thursday finding, but at the end of the day we didn't have too much luck. No one was home, no one wanted to listen and it was very rainy. After lots of prayers, we finally found some success the next day!

Friday was a normal day. Studies, lunch and getting ready for work. The Sander's wanted us to come over and teach Will and also meet one of their neighbors before they moved. They are headed to Indiana on June 7th. So we come over early in the afternoon, and have a great lesson with Will. We teach him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. William has been coming to church for the last 2 months, so he knows a lot about the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith and what we believe. We had an amazing lesson, Elder Ross and I taught simply, testified and really invited the spirit. We invited him to baptism... he accepted! Sis Ray (Sander's grandchild) began to cry and William did too and they hugged. An amazing moment, that is for sure! We then discussed a baptism date, he wanted to be baptized before the Sander's left. So we call the Zone leader's, they rush over to interview him and see if he is even ready for next weekend. We reviewed the questions with him and got him ready, he knew everything so well. The interview happened and he passed! This was only our 2nd lesson with him and it was crazy to think all of this was happening so fast!!! Elder Ross was so excited he kept running around and calling people, I had to tell him to calm down :) Inside I am jumping for joy!! Will wants me to baptize him and Elder Ross to confirm him. The plan right now, is to have it on June 6th at 7 pm!!!! We are both very excited and so surprised!! Never thought a miracle like this would just fall into our hands. Will is prepared and and elect individual :) Miracles really do happen!!!!

The next day we met with Clay Walker again. We hadn't gotten in contact with him in awhile, so I was happy to finally see him again. He said sorry about not getting in contact, he was moving and getting his job and health all situated. We had a great lesson with him though and set him with a new baptism date of June 20th. He has some thing he needs to overcome but I know that through the Savior's Atonement and His Gospel, anyone can get through anything! :) I'll let you know how that continues to go!

After teaching Clay, we met Will at baptismal service that was happening up in Bossier. His father even joined us and watched as the Osburn family entered the waters of baptism. Will really enjoyed the service and was excited for his own baptism! After the service, we had a great lesson with him about the Plan of Salvation. He already knew generally what it was, but we went in depth and answered any question he has about it. He is nervous, but continues to tell me he is excited!

Sunday was funny and great! The ward feels so much like a family! Like a family that knows a little too much about each other :) haha! We announced Will's baptism and everyone was excited! He is doing really well and we have another lesson planned for tonight. Our ward has a lot of interesting people, they are just good southern people. They like their crawfish, it's not coming over for dinner, it's "supper" and they announce people being pregnant in ward announcements.... What a love I have for this ward! Always a good laugh and a good time :)

Well y'all, our first baptism is on our way and we are so excited!!! I am just so excited to see someone make this step towards salvation. Thank you so much for all y'all's prayers and love. I couldn't do it without them. Continue to pray everything goes well with the baptism. I am nervous, excited and stressed all in one! But it will be so great! :) Keep on smiling and I hope y'all enjoy this summer, I know I will be sweating a lot in this wonderful humidity! Have a great week, y'all are the best! :)

Love,

Elder May May Rankin :)