E-mail 03/09/2015

Wow, it´s been a busy week. I can´t believe how fast the time goes by, with all the stuff that we have to do.  The meeting with pres. was really good, then there was the zone meeting; it went really well too.  I also had a surprise this week, when we were picking up all the supplies for the missionaries and their letters and packages, and come to find out I found a letter in the stack with my name on it, a Christmas card from Shari! Really fast shipping, I mean it made it nine months before Christmas!

But the work is coming along nicely, we had five investigators go to church this week and two of them have a baptismal date.  Then we got another reference from a member that we will go visit as soon as we have time in the morning.  We are working with other people and have two others that say they will go to church this week.  Luckily we set it up so that we wouldn´t have to do anything this last week of the transfer, so now we are done with all the meetings and intercambios.  I did have to take a pill called vermox, it gets rid of the amibas and lombrices en el estomago (amoebas and worms in the stomach) but that´s a story for another day.

Today we went bowling and I got two strikes in a row, then we went to a place that had a bunch of statues of comic heroes.  I sent some pics.

Unfortunately I don´t think I will have time to write next week,  I will be busy with other things. but I´ll just have to make up for it next time. Maybe one day you´ll forgive me. :)

Les amo

Elder Durrant

E-mail 03/02/2015

Wow the weeks just disappear like nothing!  Well first we had intercambios with the assistants, I stay with Elder Torgensen and Elder Condie went over to Jesus Maria.  Then they told us that we would be watching Conozca los Mormones (Meet the Mormons) as a mission, it was awesome and funny at the beginning.  It also came out in the theaters here on Friday, so hopefully it´ll help the work here.   We also had the zone conference with President, and the assistants came so we almost didn´t have to do anything.  Also, my comp got sick, but he got better!  Right now we are teaching a young adult (I think I mentioned him before) but he is way awesome, he studies and understands everything.  Sometimes he asks some weird questions, but that´s okay, we answer them all.   We have been getting a lot of references from the members, and we have had a member with us almost every day this last week, so things are moving along.  There are a lot of people that I hope will get baptized in the future.

Today we went to cerro de muerte, (hill of death) we climbed up his foot, it was funny.  It was fun, we went with some members. I´ll send some pics.

Les amo

Elder Durrant

Take care of your life, use the bridge

Picture of the zone

E-mail 02/23/2015

WOW KFC......it´s been a while since I´ve eaten that, but I´ve gotten sick of chicken.

Well, sometimes I have asked myself, why it is that I´m going home two weeks early (it has to do with the transfers, that´s the end of the transfer) and they don´t let us extend in this mission. I think that I probably would have extended had I had the option, but now I know why.  Isn´t it amazing how the Lord prepares things long before we even think about it. Samuel I know that this is the time that the Lord want´s you to go, I have learned that during my mission.  The Lord prepares things in his own time and I will be looking forward to seeing you for two weeks.

Well as for life here, let´s just say it´s hooot!  Everyone tells us that it should be cold right now, but it feels like the middle of summer, so we are getting roasted, and just when we finally fixed the boiler too.  Well I still have two more full weeks to look forward to.  This week just flew by, to be honest, I don´t feel like I´m going home, even though everyone keeps reminding me.  My companion doesn´t think that it´s bad to say how much time you have, so it makes it hard to keep it a secret, but I try to.

Me and my companion have stared a competition with exercising so that we will push ourselves, but after doing 7 sets of 10 pushups and today I did 9 sets of 8 curls using two five gallon jugs with a bar, well after that I hurt.

Les amo

Elder Durrant

E-mail 02/16/2015

Well there´s not that much that has happened this week.  We are working to find new people so that we can keep the area progressing.  We have new ward missionaries, so this week we´ll put them to work helping us keep up with everyone.  We have a family that is close to getting baptized, the only problem is that we can only visit them once a week.  We usually teach part of the lesson and visit more often, but in this case we are teaching the full lessons, it takes some getting use to, but we will see how it goes.  We were going to teach them about the restoration first, but seeing as their questions were more about the plan of salvation so we tough that and answered all their questions.

Well this next three weeks are going to be busy. First this next week we have two intercambios with the district leaders, because we won´t have time later.  Then we have zone conference and a intercambio with the assistants the following week, and the last week we have all those meetings again, planing for the zone, consejo de líderes (council leaders) and zone meeting, so we will see how much we can get done this next few weeks.

well Valentine's Day was kinda boring, everyone was gone, but in the morning a family brought us some atole (atole is a hot Mexican drink) and sugar cookies, they were good.

We also found a short cut though a desert, for some reason or other they haven´t built houses there but all around it. So we just cut though the desert to get to the other side, it´s awesome, I love short cuts like that.

Les amo

Elder Durrant

We found this road sign out in the middle of no were.
Where I took the pic, there is a road and on the other side
there are houses and everything.

E-mail 02/09/2015

Wow what a week!  We have been sooooo busy, I have no Idea how we managed to get it all done.  We did not have a single day that wasn't full.

Monday we were in the bus station until 2:30 and then we were running the rest of the day to get everything done.

Tuesday we had to prepare the zone plan and some other papers, then we ate with an hermana with 23 children (they're all grown up) she lives really far, and to save money, we walked back instead of taking a taxi, but it was farther than I thought, so we ended up walking for about 30-45min.

Wednesday we had a meeting at 7am and it ended about 4:30-5 but we didn´t get back to the house till 6ish.

Thursday we had weekly planning and some other matters that became urgent, and our meeting with the ward mission leader.

Friday we had the zone meeting and the interview for Jose for his baptism.

Saturday we had the baptism.

Sunday, church with divisions with the young single adults in the stake to find the young single adults inactive

while fitting lessons in where we could, but amongst it all we saw a few miracles. Thursday after the meeting with the ward mission leader, we were waiting for the bus, but it was taking forever and we would have gotten to a lesson late, but a member that works as a taxi gave us a ride and we got there on time.  Then after we taught the lesson, he shared with us something important that he needed to share with us.  Later on I thought about the experience and realized that the Lord wanted us to get there on time, because if we arrived late we would have rushed to try and get to the house on time and he would not have shared that experience with us if he knew we had to rush.  Then the other time was right before the baptism, we had just arrived with an investigator, and found out that his parents were fighting in the house and they had been in there since the morning.  At the same time we found out that no one was filling the font, so we had to go right away so we could have the baptism.   We decided to take a quick moment to teach him outside about trials in the life and pray.  At the end we had a prayer, which he asked that they would stop fighting, and in a moment his Dad came out and left on his motorcycle.  Today we are going to go see them, to see how they are doing.  We did manage to get the font filled up on time as well.

Les Amo

Elder Durrant

 

consejo de líderes      (Council Leaders)

E-mail 02/02/2015

Wow it´s been another long transfer day.  Me and Elder Condie didn´t have transfers, but Elder Gutierrez got transferred to another area in our district.  We got another hermana that was in Matehuala come to our zone, so that meant we got to wait in the bus station until 2:30, see as we got there at 7:30, it was a long time sitting around.  Then we have been rushing to get everything else done, and this week is the first of the month so we get to be in meetings and planning all week long.  Sunday we also got to take a hermana to the offices because she finished and is going home, but I got to see some people from my first ward, so that was fun.  The ward mission leader is still there.  We should be having a baptism this week, but that brings along with it a whole set of things to do.  Hopefully we can get it all done, with all the meetings and everything to plan for the baptism, and we just got informed that his family will be coming to listen to us, because he has been listening in the house of some members.  We also have a few other people that are getting close to baptism, we also had a family go to church that are friends of some members. 

Les amo

Elder Durrant

E-mail 01/26/15

Well this week had it´s ups and downs, but luckily there were more ups than downs. The work is progressing.  We have someone with a baptismal date for the seventh of February, then we have more that are getting close, luckily we have a lot of support from the members.  We are getting more and more references, but at the same time it gets tough to be in a trio, look after the zone, make our area the model, and at the same time focus on the needs of the people. I´m also trying to follow the advice of Shari and take every moment I can to relax, but they are few and brief especially with transfers coming up next week, we will see how things go. I hope Elder Condie stays one more transfer, but he has been here a long time, so we will see what happens.  We hope to have a good week, we found a lot of new people to teach and still searching for more, and we hope to have more people go to church, which is the great challenge. Along with that, we have another intercambio, but at least this time we get to go to the district meeting that we belong to.  Yesterday was the cumpleaños (birthday) of one of the assistants, so they invited us over for pizza, then cake and ice cream, and then we went and played billiards with a member, it was a lot of fun.

Les amo

Elder Durrant