E-mail 01/31/2011

Hello Wonderful family!

This week has been so awesome! for the past couple weeks we have twenty sit-down lessons, which is the missionary goal. We have been doing so much teaching we hardly have time to do anything else. There was one thing that surprised me when I got out here, but makes sense, which is hard to get. Break. We are aloud two hours worth of break, to eat and such. if we have a dinner appointment we get one hour of break. The people out here feed us so much! They are so nice. They receive blessings for doing it, too.

In Eagle creek, the other area, we try to go over there a couple days out of the week, but White River is so busy we have a hard time doing that, we taught a lesson to a college girl and we had members there and they did awesome! She didn't have a chance, Elder Ashton went head on, Elder Clawson went up, and I went down, and the members finished her off. It was an awesome lesson.

It is funny some of the terms used out here like CTC, RPP, P my G, POS. There are a lot more, some of them are really funny.

Last night right after prayer, the Elders shouted bear hug, and they jumped on me and started tickling me, I don't know who of you told them, but I was not amused. :)

We also get to attend two churches, that's six hours of church+meetings, a long, wonderful day :)

I love this area! oh, in this district there are two trio's, Elders and Sisters. It's really funny, and both trio's are working two area's.

I love you!

May the Spirit be with you!

Elder Durrant

E-mail 01/24/2011

Hello wonderful family!!

It is great out here! and I mean it! And all I'm going to say is it's a good thing this church is true!

The other night a member made fried chicken and I ate it with a knife and fork :) And I now have a new favorite pie. It was apple, but now it's peach, it is so good!

I have a new companion.

Remember how I said we went to Lucas Oil Stadium? The Colt's football arena. It is a cool building, it can hold 70,000 people and this season the whole place has been sold out, every game. The roof will retract, and one of the walls. We went onto the field and I jumped and touched the bottom of the end-zone goal. It is about as high as a basketball rim. It is a very fancy building, and big.

We are so busy, we are covering two area's now because Elder Ashton's companion had to go home for medical reasons, so he is with us now and we always have something to do. We have a lot of fun. Last night Pres. Collins and his wife spoke at a youth fireside, along with Elder Ashton. He said some things which I would like to share. He said if you do these two things the chances of serving a mission will increase dramatically. The first is stay away from evil on the internet. and second don't waste time on video games. I'm serious that is what he said. He said try picking up a good book instead. He said some game time is ok, but to spend eight or nine hours per day on it, isn't very good. I thought that was funny he said that, especially since I said something like that in my talk. I also spoke in sacrament meeting, but we won't talk about that. Let's just say my companion wasn't very happy with me.

OK, OK, I'll tell you, I spoke on enduring to the end, and I forgot my notes at home. I was able to say stuff for eight or so minutes, than I ran out of things to say, so he had to speak for 25-30 minutes. I was surprised I was able to speak for that long. So that was cool.

I won't tell you how warm it is here, but let's just say your weather is balmy compared to here.

I love you all!

May the spirit be with you!

Elder Durrant

At the Colts Stadium, Standing on the field. In the end zone.

Man, this place is big.

Yes, I touched it.  If you don’t believe me, too bad.

Go for the goal!
I so caught that!

Touch down!

My companion and I

The bar.  Cool though.

Shaken, not stirred

I mean NO Visiters

Check out this TV!

E-mail 01/18/2011

Hello Wonderful family!!

This week has been so awesome!!

We have had the opportunity to give many blessings. It is surprising how many people don't know what the are and how they work. It is very intimidating going by the spirit, because you don't want to say something or promise something that is contrary to the will of the Lord. But like what Elder Bednar says "quit worrying about it" So that's that.

This week I have seen how much the Lord provides for us. It snowed so much the other day that the cars were grounded so we hiked around all morning. Then someone called and needed us to give a pre-mature baby a blessing at the hospital. So we took the bus downtown, the first bus though, we didn't have cash so we missed it and had to go get some cash, the next bus we got on. People on buses are so talkative, they will talk about anything. There was a lady who worked at a restaurant that was going close to where we were going. and we didn't know quite how to get there so we were going to walk the rest of the way, but she let us follow her and five minutes later we got onto another bus that took us right where we needed to be, plus she had some food that she had grabbed, which she didn't even want, and we were getting hungry so that was awesome. The baby we gave a blessing to weighed a little over a pound and only two of my fingers fit on her head.

A lot happened this week, this was really awesome, so I shared it, but we are going to Lucas Oil stadium so I have to hurry, sorry.

I love you all!!!!

May the spirit be with you!!!

Elder Durrant

E-mail 01/10/2011

Hello superfantastic family!!

This week has been so awesome! We had five investigators at church, two have baptismal dates and two more will have one soon.

We found out who was being transferred today. My district leader is leaving. Elder Clawson is staying and he will be the new district leader. I found out where I will be for the next six weeks, I will be......STAYING HERE!!!! I love this area and I am so glad I get to stay a little longer and help people here progress, YEAH!!

I had an experience the other night that reminded me of one of Dad's. We were out walking around, it was almost time to go inside, when a couple guys called us over, they had so many questions, and (this part is what reminded me) I started talking with one and Elder Clawson started talking with the other. I thought it was really cool. We couldn't stay for long so we came back at another time. That other time only one of the guys were there and he had two of his friends with him. They had anti-Mormon literature, so it was hard to teach the lesson because we were trying to resolve their concerns, I didn't realize it, but Elder Clawson said that it was a bible-bash. Hopefully when we meet again they will still be willing to hear what we have to say. It was cool though, because a few years ago, other missionaries helped him move into his house and he said "don't preach to me" so they didn't, they just helped. that really impressed him, so that is why he called us over, plus he had seen missionaries on their bikes rain or shine, So I thought that was really cool, we are reaping seeds sown by other missionaries.

There is a little boy whose older sister we are teaching. He reminds me so much of John. His name is Avery, and he likes, does, and talks, a lot like John. He loves video games.

I am starting to really get into being a missionary, not just having the title. It is really cool to have the spirit guide the lesson and the way you talk to people and asking inspired questions. I love being a missionary!!

I love you all [this much]

and more!

May the spirit be with you!

Elder Durrant

E-mail 01/03/2011

Hello superawesome family!!

Life here is great! On new years I was outside in a short sleeved shirt :) It was fifty degrees for two days! Then it went back down.

I am learning a lot, from my companion, the scriptures, my leaders, the world, and people.

We had a companionship exchange the other day, and we thought Elder Clawson would be going over to the District leaders area. When we got to the place where we met to exchange, we found out that I was moving and the District leader, Elder Prothero, was going to our area, so I left with Elder Ashton, with only what I had with me, scriptures. I had the whole day planned, and was sweating bullets, because it was like the big test. It was all good though. I had some great experiences.

OK, you know what's really weird; they have on the gas stations price signs, a place for the price of coffee, and cigarettes, and the coffee comes in 16oz. Who drinks that much coffee! Crazy O.

OK, another experience, we were teaching a Mom and her two kids, we committed them to baptism and they accepted to be baptized on the 12 of Feb. we went by the next day, the very next day, and they got kicked out that night. They fell off the radar, we didn’t know where they went to. Two days later she called us asking for beds, we asked if she still wanted to be baptized, she said yes, so we will continue to teach her. It is so crazy what happens before someone is baptized.

I rode a bike for the first time on Thursday, the anniversary of my crash, and no I didn't crash again, of course I just went up and down the road. It felt so good! We are going to be biking next week, I am so excited!!! :D On that note my wrist feels great, it is fully healed, and now I can do push-ups again!

Thanks for supporting me!!

I love you!!!!

Elder Durrant

E-mail 12/27/2010

Hello, wonderfully happy family!!

You are all awesome!! It was nice to talk to you the other night. I feel like I have been gone only a few days and a few years, weird.

On Christmas eve we went downtown and caroled for about an hour. It was cool Pres. and Sis. Collins showed up, we were not expecting them. There were a good number of people who stopped to listen to the 24+ missionaries singing.

Christmas was awesome! In the morning we went to the church and had a snowball fight with some other missionaries, then we watched the Joseph Smith movie. I ate so much candy, blah! Then we had two different meal appointments. At the first we had deep fried turkey, Hawaiian stuffing, and a lot of other stuff. There I read the E-mail. The next appointment, we had turkey, potatoes, broccoli, etc, and for dessert was apple pie with ice-cream. After eating we had a Nerf fight with their nine and seven year old boys, in their front room. It was awesome!

Tracting is fun, when it's not too cold. We are still working on equal teaching, and me opening my mouth.

Right now I am at the downtown library and it is so fancy, and humongous!

I love all of you! Merry Christmas!!! Happy new year, don't stay up too late!

Elder Durrant 

My companion and I having a
Nerf fight with Nathan and Dominic. 
It was Awesome!

 

E-mail 12/20/2010

Hello wonderful family!!

I am safely in Indiana! The plane ride was amazing! It was like riding a really long roller coaster. you go really fast, then you go up, then you go down, and stop really fast. It was fun!! I zoomed right through security, and I handed two people pass along cards.

My new companion, Elder Clawson is awesome! He is from Colorado, and is about six inches taller than me. He is teaching me good stuff, and helping me to "pop my bubble" and talk with people. We went tracting and it was so much fun! We even got a door slammed in our faces! how cool is that?! It wasn't as cold as I thought it would be, from all the horror stories I had heard, it wasn't all that bad, but I'm not saying it isn't cold.

Pres. Collins is so cool! We went and ate together, My companion and the assistants, also. It was a good meal.

I was surprised at the size of the ward here, There are about eighty members that actively go to church, and the boundaries are like twenty or more square miles. This is one of the smaller wards, but I still can't get over it. I'm used to a lot of people in a small area, but hopefully with the members help, and the Lord, the numbers will increase.

My first member meal was with a family, who two of there children, just got baptized. We ate spaghetti. The Dad reminded me of My family, sarcastic, funny, humorous.

I love it here!! I love tracting, and I am starting to grow a love for the people!

Thanks, I love you all!!!!!

P.S. I will try to write those who wrote me as soon as I can.

Love you!

Elder Durrant