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 

E-mail 03/26/2012

Hello gloriously shining happy family!!

What a week it has been! It has been so crazy.

The beginning of the week we went on exchanges with the zone leaders. I stayed in my area. We didn't have the car this week, so we biked everywhere. This zone leader, who is awesome, hadn't ridden a bike in six months. I ran him through the ringer. We biked about ten miles, going up hills, down hills, on flats. He loved it though. We had a good exchange.

We had a tornado, too :) It picked me and my companion up and launched us twenty feet from where we were standing. It was so awesome! Too bad I am just kidding, because that would have been cool. No, we only saw the funnel cloud. It never touched down. When it started hailing we took cover under a church, not ours, but is worked. It was really cool. Then it was gone and we taught a recent convert.

We had something really cool happen. Friday we passed out a card to a guy as we were hurrying along. That evening he called us and we met the next day. We were running way behind in all of our appointments that day, but he waited for us. We set an appointment for the next day. He is really open and receptive. We have to give him to the YSA (Young single adult) missionaries though. Which is alright. It's there stewardship. We can't receive revelation for those out of our stewardship, so we would be just kicking against the pricks. It was really cool how that all played out.

One of the areas nearby had a baptism and we invited one of our investigators to see it. He walked three miles to come see it. Now that's dedication.

Sunday evening our whole district, four companionships, went and chalked the campus. Meaning we took chalk and drew pictures or funny phrases and next to it we wrote mormon.org. It was so much fun. We had some really creative ones. We did the plan of salvation, "modest is hottest," A big tree with family search, "even I can check out mormon.org from my chair(next to a handicap parking.) They were really funny. We had a good time.

You are all fantastically awesome! May the Spirit be with you!

Elder Durrant

E-mail 03/19/2012

Hello Wonderful superb family!!

This week has been great! It has been really warm. The trees are blooming, flowers are growing. It is really pretty.

We had a good lesson with Bro Tom. He had read Enos and our lesson was on the Atonement so it fit great. We helped him, another day, with some yard work. He really appreciated it. When we stopped by yesterday to follow up with him, he told us that he had read that morning four chapters out of Mosiah. We were really excited for him. He has moved forward so much as opposed to previous years. Before he let us over for his wife, so she could have visitors. Now he is finding for himself that God is there. He is doing great.

We did a lot of finding this last week and found a lot of cool people. When we work hard the Lord will bless us.

We gave talks in church yesterday. Elder Walker spoke on the Prophet Joseph Smith. I spoke on the Book of Mormon. They were both good talks. I shared several points which the book of Mormon is and presented the challenge of "duplication." A collage professor at BYU came up with thirty points or characteristics of the Book of Mormon and stated that "What one man can create another can duplicate. The challenge the Book of Mormon makes is that of duplication. If written by Joseph Smith then anyone can write about ancient Tibet and claim it as factual history. Have over five hundred pages and over three hundred thousand words. Describe all aspects of life. Change the style of writing many times. Have over eighty thousand competent salesmen so sold that your book is the word of God that they give up two years of their life to spread it to the world. There are many more. Have a friend mortgage his farm so that it can be printed. Please have your book completed in sixty days. There is only one answer. It is an inspired book prepared by the hand of God. It is the Word of God.

You are all amazing! Thank you for your awesomeness! May the Spirit be with you!

Elder Durrant

E-mail 03/12/2012

Hello Good wonderful family!!

This week has been super eventful. A new companion, being ill the first day, and many miracles.

So Monday we got transfer calls and we found that Elder Mayfield is leaving. We had a sweet lesson with Bro Tom. We read the book of Mormon with him and he was intrigued by the symbology, i.e. iron rod, tree of life, etc.

Tuesday we went around and worked. At the end of the day we biked out to Max's to say bye. They live a ways away. On the way I wasn't watching where I was going(brace yourselves because you're not going to believe this) I ran into a sign. It was a construction sign that had fallen and was covering half the side walk. I knew it was there but I forgot and it was dark out and I was looking down. Next thing I knew I was in the hospital with a few broken bones. Just kidding! The only thing hurt was my pride. My front tire blew. We stood there wondering what to do, when a Pentecostal preacher pulled up and gave us a ride, he had seen the whole thing. He was a really nice guy. He took us to Max's house. His parents gave us a ride home. We told them what just happened and they gave me a brand new bike that was sitting in there shed. It is a nice bike. The Bat-mo-bike has now been retired. This bike is officially my fourth bike.

Wednesday, we had transfer meeting. My new companion is Elder Walker. He is from Upalco, Utah. That is near Vernal. He is my second Utah companion. He has just been trained by my MTC companion. I am his second companion. Elder Walker is really funny. We are having a good time.

Also I found that my district was completely overhauled. Instead of having six Elders in the district, I now have four Elders and four sisters. The other Elders are the Zone leaders. I have never been over either one, so this is a new experience for me. It is really awesome. I have an amazing district.

Thursday we stayed inside all day.

Friday we saw Bro Frank with our Elder's quorum president. It was an awesome lesson. At the end Pres Snow invited him to church. It was a really good day.

Saturday we had something really cool happen. He were late stopping by an investigator, but they couldn't meet so we set another time to stop by. We walked off the porch and saw one of our potentials(potential investigator) walking down the road. We talked with him. He wanted to walk and talk. Our bikes were sitting just behind us and our plans were taking us elsewhere. But Someone came to mind that we could stop by over where he lived, so we walked with him. He was really stressed and needed to talk. He will be back in town the first of April, we will start teaching him then. The person I thought of stopping by was home. He told us that he was thinking about going to bed, but he had the thought to stay up, then we come to the door. It was really cool how all of that worked out so beautifully. I love being a missionary.

Sunday was amazing. Church was awesome! Max, the eight year old that we taught is getting baptized on March thirty first, right before conference. I am so excited for him!

This has been a really awesome week. I love being a missionary! Thank you for being awesome!! May the Spirit be with you!

Elder Durrant

E-mail 03/05/2012

Hello Wonderful family!!

It snowed today, but it is all melting away. People tell me that happens down here. It will snow and the next day it melts. Overall it has been very warm.

We got transfer calls this morning.

We finished teaching Max the lessons. He is now ready to be baptized. He is very excited for it. He is all the more excited for his dad to baptize him. The last two lessons we taught him were the word of wisdom and the law of chastity. For the Word of wisdom I used an example I learned from primary. We had a picture of a boy and for the good things Max colored him in. Then for the bad things Max scribbled on him. He looked a lot better when he was colored in. After the lesson we were getting ready to leave but they pulled out there Nerf guns and we had a few rounds sent our way. They gave us a fully auto twenty round gun to fight back with. The battlefield was riddled with bullets. :)

We taught a less active lady this week. In the lesson my companion read to her the scripture Isa 6:5. What was cool was she read in 2 Nep the same account right before we came over. Another similar story; we taught a Spanish speaking lady and we brought someone who spoke Spanish. He gave the account of the restoration in Spanish. When he finished I said "I don't know what he said exactly but I felt the Spirit as he said it, so I know it's true." After the lesson my companion told me he was going to say something similar but I spoke first. Both of these show that God prepares people and you know it is the Spirit when you both receive the impression to do something. I love being a missionary!

Elder Mayfield is leaving Clear Creek and is going to train a new missionary. I am staying here and getting a new companion. I love Clear Creek it is a great place!

Being a missionary is the best thing ever! I love you all! May the Spirit be with you!!

Elder Durrant