E-mail 05/21/2012

Hello oober awesome family!

This week has been really awesome. It feels like I have been out of my area a lot, but we have been able to get a lot of good things done.

We taught Kylie and her mom the plan of salvation this last week. The dad grabbed his computer and sat in the next room over. He was "working" on his lap top, but he was listening to everything we were saying and teaching. It seems like he wants to hear what we have to say without being directly focused on. We asked Kylie why she wanted to be baptized. She said because she knows a lot of people at church and because her mom is a member. This initial desire of hers will help us help her gain a conversion through the Holy Ghost.

Brother Tom has been busy with work, he is a teacher, thus this is a busy time for him, so we have not been able to meet with him. Hopefully this next week.

Mission conference was amazing. The whole mission was there, all in the same building. It was quite the sight. Elder Parker, of the sixth quorum of the seventy spoke to us. He is from down south and has a baptist background. If the way he spoke is how all the baptist churches are. Then I can see why people like going to them. He had a deep southern accent and he said many good things.

President and Sister Collins spoke to us as well. They said we are the best missionaries in the world. They love us and we love them.

Elder Anderson was amazing. I felt like the people of Gideon in Alma chapter seven. He spoke to us about the Atonement. Not many things are better than a Special Witness of Jesus Christ teaching about the Atonement. He told us we are teachers of the unseen. First Corinthians four eight. We teach not temporal things, but those that cannot be seen by the mortal eye. The Spirit, charity, hope, etc, etc. It was very good.

This week has been pretty much awesome! I love you all!

May the Spirit be with you!

Elder Durrant

Pictures 05/14/2012 (Plymouth, IN)

Happy!

A Buddhist temple

That's me!

A sign, it gives information

Being a district leader

E-mail 05/14/2012

Hello wonderful family!

This week has been awesome. It was nice to talk with you by the way.

The lesson we had with Bro Tom was really awesome. The hurtle we are preparing to jump once he is ready to be baptized is how to get him to church. His wife has MS so she is confined to bed and he doesn't want to leave her alone. The buses don't really run on Sunday so we are trying to figure out how to get him to church. Then the other day we thought, what if we take church to him? We could skype it to him. We are discussing it with the ward council to see if it's possible and appropriate. He is a really good guy.

We helped one of our investigators, Frank, paint his house. He told us we did a good job. I said my mom would be pleased. Painting is fun. I didn't get any on my cloths eighter. weird. But I did get it on my hands so that's better.

A member in our ward let us into Sam's club so that we could shop. She then got a call; her husband was in a roll over accident. She left to go get him. He only received two broken ribs and several bruises. He was very fortunate. They have a son on a mission.

This week has been awesome. I love you all. May the Spirit be with you!

Elder Durrant

Pictures 05/07/2012 (Plymouth, IN)

You can call this what you will.

Ramen creation #4

Uncle Bob, our landlord.

The Jacksons

Bow tie rock
(don't worry, it didn't leave the apartment.)

Jorge (our investigator)
Elder Durrant, Elder Walker

He loves cats

Elder Pachner, Bruce (our investigator)
Elder Durrant

Elder Durrant and Elder Pachner

Elder Durrant and Elder Pachner

E-mail 05/07/2012

Hello supertubuloso family!

This week we taught a Kylie, who is sixteen. We watched the Restoration with them and the whole family watched. I had never seen the dad before, so that was good he was there. They also fed us while we were there. They were all in the back of the room and we were in the front, so it seemed like they were not watching, as we had seen the dad on his computer, and the mom working on desert. After it was over they all said with one accord that it was a great video. They had been sucked into it and really enjoyed it. They really liked the member we brought with us. They told him that he should come back next time and that he should bring his wife with. That's just what we wanted. I love it how that works out.

Something funny that happened was while we were riding our bikes; Elder Walker's bike had a serious breakage, in the which his gear shifter ended up in his spokes. Needless to say we were pretty well stranded. It was raining, too. Fortunately Wal-Mart was nearby so we took shelter there. We called on a member with a truck to give us a ride. I don't remember if I told you, but two weeks ago we had a very similar situation, almost exact. We had called on this same member. Now the response he gave when we called him will make sense. He answered the phone and said "who's bike broke this time?" It was really funny. He gave us a ride and took us to Wendy's to eat.

Do you know how much fun it is to ride a bike in the rain? When it is warm out and then it rains; and you neglected to bring a rain coat, however your scriptures you took care to keep them safe, it is extremely fun to bike and get soaking wet. What is better is it will rain super hard for about ten minutes, then the sun will come out for about an hour and dry you off, then it will rain again following the same pattern. I think it is fun.

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

Elder Durrant

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