E-mail 11/05/2012

Hello wonderful family!!

What an awesome week! We have been busy and working hard.

I went on an exchange to Spanish land this last week. It was fun. I learned that it doesn't pay to be cocky. I was saying how much Spanish I knew, so he had me participate in the lesson we had. I read Moroni ten five. Then I bore my testimony of the Book of Mormon. It was way scary. The Elder I was with thought I had done that before, but I hadn't really. It was awesome though. Working with the Spanish is different than English. I had fun.

We are finding a lot of good people and helping the people we are working with to progress towards baptism. The person that moved here from Plainfield isn't ready to be baptized this weekend, but they are going to be baptized on the twenty fourth which is really cool.

We had taught a guy last Sunday who said he would go to church. We called him Saturday night and the phone didn't work. Sunday morning he called and wanted a ride to church. We had wrote the number down wrong. We made a few phone calls and he came to church. He loved it. The person who gave him a ride will make a great fellowshipper for him.

We are working hard and loving it here. This is the best ward in the best mission. That's the truth.

I love you! May the Spirit be with you!

Elder Durrant

P.S. Bring on the bikes!

E-mail 10/29/2012

Hello Awesome family!

What an awesome week! I love riding my bike! I am so glad I will get to ride it my final tenure here. Even though it has gone from cold to warm to cold, it has been a good week.

We had a family move from a neighboring area who one of them will be baptized soon. Another investigator, whom we have met with twice now, is awesome. Her name is Alice. When we invited her to be baptized on the seventeenth of November she went to her calendar and wrote it down and asked "what do I need to do to prepare for that?" That doesn't happen often. Usually they come up with an excuse, but she was all gung-ho.

Our other investigators are doing well. We are working to help them progress where ever they are. If people would just keep the commitments we extend they would be so the much more happy and would enjoy their life more. It is nice when people keep the invitation and they see the blessings in their life and there is that ah ha moment.

The ward had a trunk or treat, but it was cold so they had it in the cultural hall. There were a lot of people there. It was great. We walked around and greeted people. For some strange reason people kept giving us candy. Some people were throwing candy at us. We had a sugar high. :)

I was able to speak in church this last Sunday. It was funny because I had offered to give one if they wanted me to. A few days later I got a call and the people who had been asked couldn't, so he remembered that I had offered so he asked me. I spoke on weathering the storms of life. This is the best ward! The members here are great. They are very supportive of the missionary program and do what they can to help.

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

Elder Durrant

Pictures 10/22/2012

In the car

Stacking golf balls

Start your engines!

Cars

Car, more like a rocket

Dragster racer

Driving, with style

Check out this Bronco!

In front of the museum

Elder Durrant

Elder Durrant

Entrance to the track

The Gilespies

At the dinner table

This is what I've trained Elder Briggs to do.

Yea, I owned him

Now it's on!

E-mail10/22/2012

Hello Awesome family!!

What a great week! The sun is shining (in my soul,) the music ringing (from my lips,) and I'm loving every moment of it!

This past week we worked hard. We are finding lots of new people that the Lord is placing in our path. One such person has a friend from Utah and wants to find a church she can call home. This is great since we call each other brother and sister and a ward family. Her name is Alice. She is in her fifties. We taught her the Restoration and it made complete sense to her. She is excited to read from the Book of Mormon and has already read up to the tree of life vision. We have high hopes for her.

I have found that as we go about some people will be ill or sick and when we say to them "would you like a blessing?" They usually decline for the simple fact they don't understand what it is. We have started explaining to people first, that it is performed by the priesthood. We hold the priesthood. We will place pure olive oil on their head. Place our hands on their head. Say a prayer and that's all. Then we ask them if they would like one. Most of the time they say yes. I think that is with all of us. If we don't know what something is and some person comes and asks to do that thing to us our first reaction is "no way." When we understand the what and the why it becomes so much easier to follow, or allow.

We tracted several times this last week and it was so much fun! We got some of the funniest excuses for not hearing the Restored Gospel yet. Here are a few as follows:"I'm getting ready to cook(repeated about six times.)" "I already have a church." "My husband doesn't want to change." Excuses are a funny thing. Everyone is rich with them. The ones poverty stricken from it are the ones truly blessed. I believe there is a difference between excuses and reasons. Namely that if that particular reason wasn't there you would do the thing. With the excuse you do not want to do the thing, thus trying to get out of it. "The road to hell is paved with Excuses and Exceptions." Of course there are good exceptions. Overcoming excuses with people is fun.

The members here are taking good care of us. They are having us over to have dinner with them. They are teaching with us. This is the best ward.

We still haven't heard from higher up if Bro Robert can get baptized. Hopefully soon. Bro Jim is starting to pray daily. I should break out the "Eternal Gator Juice" and drink that right before we go see him this week. 

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

Elder Durrant 

E-mail 10/15/2012

Hello Super fantastic family!
What an awesome week! I love it here! I love serving the Lord! I love you!
You should have seen the surprised look on my face when the mailman knocked on the door and handed Elder Briggs package, who then handed it to me. I thought "What am I doing getting a package?" I opened it and knew as soon as I saw the contents that you had sent me a little bit of conference breakfast. There was a lot of peary stuff in there. I don't know if I had ever seen so much "pear." I know I had never heard of pear juice before, which, by the way, has a strong after taste. I shared the cobbler with Elder Briggs. He approves. Thank you!
We have been teaching a lot. We are starting to teach four children. The parents are not interested in the church, but they want their kids to learn about it and start going to the different activities. We are all for it. We taught them the Restoration using cups, knives, spoons, and forks. They enjoyed it. We had fun doing it too. only a little bit though. ;)
We had a lesson with Donna. We brought Brenda (who called Mom earlier.) During the lesson she grabbed her hand and held it, she looked into her eyes and bore powerful testimony. It was powerful. The Spirit was very evidently there.
   We went to the Indy track this last Monday. I included some pictures here, but I am going to send most of them in a separate E-mail. Hope you enjoy, because I did.
We had a really great week! The members here are taking care of us. I am loving it here! May the Spirit be with you!
Elder Durrant

Edna and Elder Durrant

Edna and Elder Brigg

Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Hall of Fame

Cool cars

How fast do you think it can go?

Let's go for a ride

Elder Anderton and Elder Durrant

Elder Lyman and Elder Durrant

Elder from zone and Elder Durrant

Elder Harris and Elder Durrant

Box from home

Elder Durrant, are you going to share?

Can you see me?

Can you still see me?

Boy, that was good!

Don't forget to be careful.

E-mail 10/08/2012

Hello Stupendous family!

This has been a crazy week. We have been busy with a lot of meetings, teachings, and missionary work in general.

Conference was amazing! What a blessing it is to have a living prophet on the earth today that receives revelation for us to help make our lives better. What a wonderful announcement about missionaries! I think it is awesome! I am excited for it, even though it doesn't really apply for me. I think it's a good change. However, the sister missionary announcement was a little troubling. It is going to be harder now finding a wife, because all of the women are going to want to serve missions. ;) It will be good, don't worry I fully support the change.

Have I said how much I love the summer? Well it's winter, (actually it's fall,) and it's freezing! I am glad that I still have some of my warm cloths and lots of hand warmers. I like hand warmers. We have a lot of them. It's crazy how missionary work changes with the seasons. In the summer people are outside, you can meet with people on there porch, they are happier. In the winter you go to peoples houses to find them, you now meet inside buildings, such as the church, and the other percentage of people are happy (note that this percentage is very small.)

We met with Donna twice this past week. She is a funny lady. She is in her seventies. Spunky is a good word that describes her. She loves our visits. She keeps telling us how she looks forward to going to our church the forth Sunday. She is a funny lady.

We had a lot of meetings we had to go to. We ended up going to transfer meeting because an Elder in our district finished his mission and went home, so his companion needed to be with someone, so he was with us. I love meetings, but you go to over ten hours of meetings in a week the first thing you want to do is go teach or tract or just do something, anything. We did have a good meeting Friday where the Zone Leaders trained the whole zone. That was a great meeting. We discussed prayer. Prayer is very special.

Being a missionary is awesome! I love you all! May the Spirit be with you!

Elder Durrant

E-mail 10/01/2012

Hello Good looking family!

This week has been super busy. But I was gone for our busiest day. I was in Green Castle. In Indy 3rd we had appointments from the beginning of the day until the end of the evening. It has been really non stop, so it was nice to go to Green Castle. It is a small town, so not a lot goes on, but we spent some time on Depuaw campus talking with the students there. It was a lot of fun. I enjoyed it.

We met with a lady, whose name is Ruby. In our second lesson with her we invited her to be baptized on November seventeenth. She said "That's my birthday." We were like "no way! that is awesome! So, are you doing anything on your birthday?" "No." She said "I never do anything on my birthday." "Well how about you get baptized on your birthday." She accepted. How cool is that to get baptized on your birthday?!

I am so excited for General Conference! It is going to be so awesome hearing the words of living Prophets and Apostles. We are planning on having several people watch conference.

We biked a really far way away a few days ago. It took us about an hour to get there. We wanted to go from one neighborhood to another, but the only way was to go a mile or so all the way around. We didn't want to do that so we took a short cut. If you recall I have not had a lot of success with short cuts. This was no exception. Even though it was only a few yards, it was a wilderness. There were a few trees, a small stream, and a lot of tall weeds and shrubbery. It took us twenty minutes to get through it, so it didn't save us any time. We also thought we were standing in poison ivy, because neither one of us had seen it before and weren't sure what it looked like, but we didn't get a rash, so it wasn't the dreaded plant. Maybe I'll eventually learn the art of short cut taking.

I LOVE being a missionary! You are all awesome! Thank you for being you! I love you! May the Spirit be with you!

Elder Durrant