E-mail 11/28/2011

Hello wonderawesome family!!

I feel so fat! I have eaten so much! I'm huge!

This week has been awesome! The members love us so much that they feed us a lot. You know what they say The quickest way to a mans heart is through his stomach. If you like someone you give them food. Before I tell you in this e-mail how many Thanksgiving meals we had, tell me how many you think we had.

Our branch President told us the other day he was sitting on his back porch when he saw a deer about two hundred yards away. He had his gun so he aimed at it, compensated for travel and wind, and fired. A second later he hears a thud and the buck goes down. He his it right in the organs and it went strait down. He was so amazed by that shot. It was and eight point buck(points meaning how many poky things are on the horns, the more there are the bigger it is) about two hundred and twenty yards away. I love our branch President.

We had three thanksgiving meals. yea, I told you I was a pig. One was Wednesday night the others were the next day. It was really good food. At the Wednesday night one there was a Chinese women who was visiting and everything fascinated her. She had never seen a turkey before. She also had never seen mashed potatoes. Her excitement made me more excited to eat. Someone told us that we would be the same way about Chinese food. At restaurants it is American food prepared in Chinese ways. In China it's Chinese food prepared in Chinese ways. Our next meal was with an investigator family. They are a great family. They took a picture of us sitting on their recliner with a plate full of food. I will have to see if they will send you the picture. Then we went to a members home and they had tons of food. They had cooked three turkeys. They also had four boys. Then we had pie at another members home. It was a really great day. We had a good time.

We chopped wood for our landlord the other day. Elder Brezenski was a machine going at it. We didn't even remove a finger or toe, or head. ;)

Also, that family that I mentioned several weeks ago, one of their sons came to church on Sunday. He really enjoyed it. The Sunday school class was getting rowdy and talk about other things. In the middle of all of that he said "I thought we were supposed to be talking about Jesus here." I thought it was very cool that he would say that. He knew why he was there. He is a very smart kid.

I love you all! May the Spirit be with you!

Elder Durrant

 

"The cure for stupidity is pain. when it hurts bad enough you'll quit, if you live." Pres Hinsdale

E-mail 11/21/2011

Hello Wonderful family!!

Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day! I have a wonderful feeling, everything's going Gods way!!

This week has been awesome! We have been doing lots of good. I love being a missionary!

We are still teaching Joann. She is starting to read the book of Mormon. If people will read the book of Mormon they can't help but be converted. If an investigator stops coming to church, or is not progressing, it is usually because they have stopped reading the book of Mormon. The same goes for those who are members, if they stop reading then they are more likely to fall away, or be offended, or whatever. They are starving themselves spiritually. I've thought about it, if you have to feed yourself three or so times a day to stay alive, does the same go for your spirit. Are we eating healthy? Are we working out? oh, happy thanksgiving!

We had dinner at a members home and just as we finished a bat started flying around. It was so awesome! I had never seen a wild bat like that before. It scared the mom and all the kids ducked under the table.

Oh oh! cool story! God works in mysterious ways. He uses do-nuts. So, While I was on exchanges we were driving around. We prayed to see if we should drive to a far away place, we didn't. After a little while we stopped at a gas station. We both got out and started filling. They were selling do-nuts two for a dollar. My companion said ok guess how much the gas will cost and the loser buys do-nuts. I guessed ten dollars lower than he did. He got it right on the dot, not even a cent off. Well he used the restroom, he wouldn't have bought donuts, I wouldn't have if I were in my own area, but I did. While we were standing in line a kid in front of us looked at us and asked "are you agents?" When it was our turn the guy at the register asked us who we really were. We told him. Him and his buddy talked with us for a while and wanted us to come by later and talk with them. The donuts were good, too. ;) It's crazy what happens when are going about. I love it!

I love you all!! May the Spirit be with you!

Elder Durrant

E-mail 11/14/2011

Hello Awesometubulous family!

I love being a missionary! This has been an awesome week! I have done a few things that I have never done before.

I'll start with this one first, for the second one the squeamish better close their ears, The senior couple that is serving here, Elder and Sister Stith, taught me how to knit. Yea, how cool is that! I am knitting a rag right now. obviously it looks spectacular. Don't worry, I'm not getting all girly now. Just because I'm knitting and baking and cooking doesn't mean you can't talk to me, it just means when I get home you'll be able to taste my fabulous food. One of my companions gave me an odometer for my bike. so far I've put fifty miles on it. I love biking!.

Ok, now this is the part where you plug your ears. One of our investigators shot a deer, and I touched it. I touched a dead deer! I thought it was going to bite me or something. Well, they started skinning it. I've never seen an animal skinned in real life. They let me help. I used the knife and skinned part of it off. I tried to convince them to make me a hat out of it, I'm not to sure they will. Ok, I'm done, you can unplug your ears. I also burned a tie. So the conclusion is that Elder Durrant is still not allow to touch a knife or fire, oh snap.

We had our Zone Conference this week. I love Zone Conference! We were educated on health and safety. We were educated to be a sun, not a moon. We were educated on how to set goals. lots of good stuff. You probably want to know what the sun and moon has to do with anything. Good outstanding missionaries are suns. Missionaries who are less diligent are moons. When you put a sun and moon together the light from the sun bounces off the moon and makes it look like a sun, so when you put too moons together, it's really dark. It was a really good conference. We have a very obedient mission.

I taught at District meeting. It was really good. I think so. I am in an awesome district! I have an awesome companion! I love being a missionary!

We are doing much good. We are striving to help people make covenants with God. We are striving to be good missionaries, to build trust with people and truly manifest that we are servants of God. May the Spirit be with you!

Love Elder Durrant

E-mail 11/07/2011

Hello stupendiously awesometastic family!!

In light of my lack of information in regards to everything about my new bike, here is it's most wanted listing. Big and skinny, green skin, blue eyes, runs really fast with a slight limp, carries someone on it's back where ever it goes.

Ok, ok, here is what it looks like. It is green and blue, mountain bike style with no suspension, don't remember what that's called. How about I just send a picture, there we go that's a good idea, yea I'll do that.

This week has been awesome! We had Stake Conference. It is warm. and we are loving it!

At Stake Conference they reorganized the stake presidency. Elder Lynn Robbins and Elder David Cook came and did that. I went to my first(I believe it's my first, unless my memory fails me) adult session of Stake Conference. It was really awesome. The Chicago Temple President was there, the Mission President, and the Stake President. How cool! The three prong mission of the church is to perfect the saints, to redeem the dead, and to proclaim the gospel. Each leader of those efforts was sitting on the stand.

We are teaching someone who's name is Fish. He likes to talk. We brought a member with us and he helped him to understand our message and you could tell he felt the Spirit. How we found him was remarkable as well. We were walking from one appointment to the next, and he was working on the roof of a house. He had come down and was doing something when we walked by. We opened our mouths and started to talk with him. He said we could come by his house later and teach him. He told us that normally he works on the roof all day and if something needs to be done on the ground he sends one of his workers, but that time he came down. Because of that small and simple means we were able to talk with him and come back and teach him.

We were at a members home helping to lay boards for linoleum, when the sister whose floor we were working on came over with a friend and said "who wants to teach him more about the Mormon Church." I looked at my companion and the thought I had was which one of us was going to get up and shout "I will." It is always nice when people come to you to be taught.

Here is my mormon.org profile:

http://mormon.org/me/6VR8/Durrant/

You are an awesome family! Love you! *Hugs and kisses and all that mushy stuff.

May the Spirit be with you!

Elder Durrant