E-mail 04/30/2012

Hello Stupendous family!!
What a week this has been! It rained, it poured, and Elder Durrant snored.
So the other day as we sat down to plan we saw that we had an empty day. I was ready to fill it full of things around the city. Elder Walker wanted to go out to a tiny town that we covered in the corner of our area. I didn't really want to go there. I was dragging my feet. Finally I agreed so we put down people to see on the way and at the end of the day we would tract in this little town. Many of the people on the way were home so we talked with them and that took more time from tracting. When it came time to go there I noted how we would only have half an hour to tract and that it was a long way to go for such little time. My companion persisted. We got there and picked a road that had houses on it. We got out of the car and two houses were before us. Elder Walker asked "Which house do you feel inspired to knock on first?" Muttering, I said it doesn't matter and walked up to the house on the right. We knocked on the door and a lady came out. We ended up teaching her about How God loves her and about modern prophets. We set a return appointment to come back and teach her more. She said she was very excited to talk with us again. After we said a prayer with her on her doorstep we went back to the car. Closing the door I turned to my companion and said "I've repented. You are right." It was truly a miracle that we talked with her. The Lord wanted us to share the gospel with her.
Now that summer is coming and most of the holidays are over, people that we were having a hard time meeting with before are starting to meet with us. It is all good.
Have you ever thought how exciting it is to see missionaries? When I see other missionaries I get really excited. Our Elder's quorum president's son who is two love missionaries. He talks about them all day. He has his dad sing him missionary songs. When he saw us Sunday, he started jumping up and down and ran over super excited.
I love you all! May the Spirit be with you!
Elder Durrant

E-mail 04/23/2012

Hello. how are you? I'm good, how are you? I'm doing AWESOME!

What a week. We have been busy, working hard, biking far, and teaching stars.

We have an investigator who was going through a divorce, but now that it's over he said he's going to start coming to church. We are really excited about that. In the very first lesson we had with him we commited him to be baptized a month from then and he accepted. Unfortuneatly the divorce happened, but once he starts coming to church he will shortly thereafter be baptized. It will be awesome.

We had another investigator who is sincere about investigating, but has a hard time making it to church. He wants to come, he just doesn't. We are striving to help him the best we can. He is a really great brother.

Brother Tom read from the Book of Mormon. He understood what he read and had questions for us. I love questions! One question he asked cuaght us off guard becuase we've never been asked it before. The question is "were there baptisms done in the old testiment?" essentially before Christ. By looking only at the old testiment, without modern revelation, it is difficult to answer becuase the old testiment is very vague on that subject. It never out right says "he was baptized." or Whatever prase you like using the word baptism. However there are referances to it. But for me the best thing that shows baptisms occured in the old testiment is not actually in the old testiment, but the new testiment. John the Baptist was baptizing for some time before Jesus Christ started His ministry. As well the peoples general acceptance of it shows that it was a commen practice at the time. If it were not commonly accepted it probably would have the same effect as when the church did away with circumcision, or started preaching to all people not just the Jews. It was a good question.

We had a good week. This ward is awesome! I love being a missionary!

May the Spirit be with you!

Elder Durrant

Pictures 04/30/2012 (Plymouth, IN)

E-mail 04/16/2012

Hello awesome Family!! I love the word awesome by the way.

This week has been amazing! We set a baptism date with Emily. She is getting baptized the twenty eighth of April. Sooner than we expected. We thought it would be in May. The ward has jumped onto it like a load of bricks on a wagon, or something like that. Emily is super excited to get baptized. Both Elder Walker and I get to stay another six weeks so we will be able to see the baptism. So exciting!

We have become increasingly busy. Things are picking up a lot. Almost all of our evenings are full of appointments. The members are very supportive by going with us to the lessons. I love this ward. Our Elder's quorum President is so awesome. He speaks Russian. If we need something, anything, he will help us.

With Bro Tom we watched the Restoration video. He enjoyed it. He really loves hearing sincere testimony. That is how the Spirit touches him the most, I think. During the lesson I told him I had a profile on Mormon.org so he looked it up right than. He thought it was funny how I only had my last name. "like Madana." He and the member we brought said it was good how I had a strong family that loved each other and were willing to hang out with each other. Some families dislike, hate, or loath each other. They won't speak to each other let alone help them. I do have a good family.

Lots of good things happened and are happening. Many miricles. It is awesome!

A few quotes I like before I go. "The differance between a doctor and a lawyer is that one makes you feel better."

"Scriptures should clutter your house."

"Come again when you can't stay so long."

"A happy wife makes for a happy life."

My favorite of the bunch. "Singing one verse of a hymn is like kissing with one lip."

One more, "clip clop clip clop bang, what is it?"

May the Spirit be with you! I love you!

Elder Durrant

Pictures from Plymouth, IN 04/16/12

Suspenders rule!

Elder Rees and Elder Pachner

Yeah! Ramen!

It tasted...good...

Pretty clouds.

My companion was abducted.

Light saber!

Arrrrr!

I built this. It took a p-day and a few breaks.

0rawr!!

Bro and Sis Jackson

Yea! Bow tie!

Carson, Jorge's son.

Jorge, one of our investigators.

My companion loves cats.

Bruce. One of our investigators.

Elder Banner and me

Elder Banner and me

Bite for you!

Elder Pachner and me

E-mail 04/09/2012

Hello gloriously awesome family!!

This week has been so awesome! The Easter bunny hit us hard core. Don't worry I'll take more pictures. ;)

The beginning of the week was funny because after our meal appointment they took us to our next appointment without our asking. We planned to bike out there. It was about three miles from home. Our appointment canceled so we walked home. But it was good because we were able to talk with a few people.

We had interviews this week. They were in our apartments. They inspected them. A few days prior we were talking with our Elder's quorum president and The high priest group leader about the interview. They had a lamp from "a Christmas story" I think, and they tried to convince us to put it in our apartments and see what president and sister Collins would say. We didn't do it and interviews went great.

We taught Emily this last week. We had given her the things that she needs to do in order to be baptized. When we came over she had the chairs all set up, her books ready, and her check list of things to do all ready and filled out, as well as a written report of what she learned as she read. She was super diligent and did everything asked of her. She has a strong desire to be baptized and when she prays she prays. We are working out a day for her to be baptized. It will either be the end of April or the beginning of May. When we meet Wednesday we will finalize a date. We are super excited for her.

We helped Bro Tom clear some trees out of his garden and then we took on the task of cutting down part of a tree. It had vines running all through the branches so we had to go through and cut most of them before we cut off this huge limb. The base of this fine was two inches in diameter. With the vines cut, we sawed through the limb. It fell but the little twisty vines running the through the upper most branches held so we had to carefully put weight on it and snap them lose. Once it was on the ground we quickly cut up the branch and had it all cleaned up. It was a lot of fun. Plus the lesson we had a previous day was really good. One of the home teachers and one of the visiting teachers came with us and the bore sweet testimony which touched his heart. It was really good.

Easter was really awesome. We had dinner with the Andersons. They fed us well. They had an Easter egg hunt. When he announced it he said "we have an egg hunt for Ethen, Jenny, and the Elders." It was fun looking for eggs. I felt like a little kid again, or still. ;) We had a great Easter. We were also able to watch the video the church has made for Easter which is on Mormon.org/Easter. It goes briefly through the life of the savior, it is really good. It was cool too, because I was reading in the new testament and I read the account in Matthew on the part where he is crucified then rises three days later as the Resurrected Christ.

Thank you for your love and support. May the Spirit be with you!

Elder Durrant

Pictures from Plymouth, IN 04/09/12

E-mail 04/02/2012

Hello Wonderful family of mine!

This last weekend was so amazing! Conference is like Christmas, only better.

Our Saturday was awesome! At ten, 2 eight year olds were baptized. Max the eight year old that we taught the lessons to was baptized by his dad. We were able to help confirm him. It was so awesome! It is really great when you get to see the results of your work. After the baptism we walked around the block waiting for Conference to start. We saw a moving van and we thought "there's an opportunity to serve." We walked up and asked the three sisters if they needed help. They accepted. They had two couches and a arm chair they needed moved. As we were moving the items they said "God answers prayers." It was really cool to be an answer to someones prayer.

We then watched Conference. It was so good. After which we had a picnic with the other missionaries in our district. Today was just really good. We did a lot of good things. And heard a lot of good things.

Emily, the nine year old, is picking a date to be baptized right now. We are really excited for her. She and her mom are going to work really hard to accomplish what they need to so that she can get baptized. She really wants to be baptized. When she said the closing prayer after our lesson she prayed that she would be able to be baptized.

We are working with another lady who is coming back to church. Recently she has caught the Spirit of Elijah. She has big time. After we first talked about it with her, she attended a family history class. After that and a few other events she has become super excited to find her family and do work for them which they cannot now do. She has a lot of family to find, but instead of feeling overwhelmed, she feels energized. She wants to find every single person in her family and do the work for them.

I liked Elder Scott's talk and Elder Wilson's talk. They were both very good. Priesthood was amazing! They didn't really talk a lot about missionary work, but they really hit on priesthood duty. It was really good. I loved it!

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

Elder Durrant