E-mail 07-29-2013

Familia

Well this week has been really good. First thing is Tuesday is our District meeting and I taught the lesson, they said I did good but I´m not sure if they just don´t want to tell me.  And then we had interviews with the president this week.  First time I´ve talked to the new president, and while we were waiting I talked with the presidents wife.  Found out that they leaved in Arizona and own a company there.  She doesn´t speak English, but the president speaks only a little.  So that can give you an idea of how my Spanish is coming.  I can answer the phone, but sometimes I just hand it over to my companion.  I´m teaching more and more in the lessons.  We had one of our past investigators come to church and we didn´t even talk her into it, she just came on her own.  We were pleasantly surprised. ;)   And we also got a new investigating family.  The problem is they're from Brazil, so they will speak Portuguese some times.  But they are amazing, during the first lesson she answered all the questions spot on.  Like she was talking from the pamphlet, but she didn´t have it and she said this is what I believe.  The only problem is their Sundays for the next three weeks are full. :(  Oh and this week since our house is the hotel as the other missionaries call it, we have had a few Elders and one of them is staying with us until the changes and then he goes home.  I love to just listen to the way he teaches, he teaches in such a way it keeps the investigators interested.   And from what I´ve heard, there are eleven missionaries coming this next week so some of them will be in our house. so next week will be interesting.  Oh and to add to the list, this is my last week of training. so we will see who stays and who goes this week.

The word for this week (or phrase) is "llegar a ser".   I love this one and I will explain why.  It means "to become" Spanish has a few words for become, like estar and ser but they imply an immediate change, like emotion, but "llegar a ser" implies an effort on the persons part, like a career.  The literal meaning of the words are "to arrive to be" So when we want to say "become like God" we say "llegar a ser como Dios"

And a little information about Mexico, the people here are happy, but they never smile in pictures.  It´s like when we see a camera we smile, well as soon as they see a camera, they stop smiling.  It´s just what they do, I haven´t figured out why.  I have made a few guesses, but I have seen a few where they couldn't help but smile, like wedding pics or when you poke them in the side.

Love Elder Durrant

E-mail 07-22-2013

Familia,

Sorry this might be a short one. I don`t have a lot of time left. But this week has it`s ups and downs. But we got two new investigators this week.  It`s kinda a funny story how.  So my companion had to go to a meeting, but we had an appointment with an investigator, so Elder Condie went with me. We did the lesson in a members business and she invited two people to come and listen.  But the unfortunate thing is we where teaching the law of chastity, so you can imagine how I was feeling. Another thing that just added to the pressure, one was a 20 and a guy, another was a girl and 20 too, the other was a 39 year old man.  He didn`t participate, just sat off to the side and listened. But the member helped a lot, by translating anything that didn`t make sense to them.  The best part is she still wanted to know more after the lesson, my companion even asked her some questions to see if she understood it, and she did.  I talk to the other guy after the lesson and he said he had six kids and so I told him the importance of families in our message and how the law of chastity was to help families. So I managed to get his information, but we haven`t been able to visit him yet.  Just because we can only do it at certain times, so yea that was my first full lesson or at least without my companion being there. I don`t know if he thought it would be funny to have me try to teach the law of chastity, but it sure took a miracle to get me through it.

Spanish word = Alma sounds the same but it means soul so in Spanish we have to specify when we are talking about the book of Alma.

Love You All Elder Durrant

E-mail 07-15-2013

Familia 
Wow this has been a week! I`m not even sure where it went, it feels like yesterday I was just emailing.  Well Samuel if your wondering what I did on your birthday, well a lot of sitting around. We have our district meetings on Tuesday mornings and that lasts from 10 to 2, then we go to a members house for food then we went to the hermana`s house to be with them while someone came and fixed their water, because my companion is the DL.  It was suppose to be for only an hour or two, but we wound-up going straight home afterwards and he still didn`t finish.  Then the next day we did a lot of walking because the bus routes have been temperately changed, because a carnival came to town.  Actually I think it might be an annual thing, but it`ll be here throughout this whole next week, so it`ll be interesting.  Then the next day we went early in the morning to the Hermana`s house again, and we studied while the guy worked. Once again it was supposed to be only till noon but we didn`t leave the house till 5:30 then the next day we actually got a fair amount of work in. We were looking for old investigators, because, with our area split in thirds we lost some of our investigators, so we have to find some more now.  I also was able to do my first successful contact.  We were asking for directions to this one house from a lady carrying two five gallon buckets full of garbage to the dumpster.  Something about Mexico, is each house doesn`t have garbage cans, it just has dumpsters placed in areas.  So while my companion asked for directions and also contacted her.  I took the buckets to the garbage can. Someone driving by stopped to thank me for my service, he spoke enough English that we could talk.  He said that he has read about the Mormons and the missionaries, so I asked him if he wanted to know more.  At first he said no, but when I asked if he knew anyone we could talk to he gave us his address. Then the next day I went on splits with one of the sec. my companion went with the other in their area, so they could get to know it better, so I had to lead in our area, that was tough.  It was with other elder that Elder Osorio trained, but he speaks English, so that wasn`t so bad.  But at one point we made a wrong turn and had to walk cut though the housing areas to get to our destination.  Then Sunday while the district leaders and the zone leaders meet, they had me and Elder Condie who is one transfer behind me, go and contact ten people. It was rough, but some how we managed to get four people out of it.

love you all Elder Durrant

E-mail 07-08-2013

Familia
Well this week has kind of been slow, so I will explain some stuff that has happened in the previous weeks, so there might be some repeat. So my new house, me and my companion get all to ourselves and the assistants and the secretaries live in another house.  What our house is for, so when new missionaries are coming or old missionaries are leaving they stay with the assistants. but if their are more then eight they come and stay with us, so our house is the overflow.  Our area has been split three ways the assistants get one area and the secretaries get the other.  But the funny thing is the secretaries live with the assistants in their area and we live in the secretaries area.  Unfortunately we got the farthest area away.  To give you an idea, we have to take two buses just to get to our area.  The first bus gets us close to the chapel which is 2 1/2 miles and then the second takes us to our area, which is another 5 1/2 miles, then we walk a lot.  There are some areas that have bikes, but there´s only four of them (the secretaries guessed that my new area would be one with a bike.) So we try to start heading home about 8, and we might get home by 9, because the buses should come every 20 minutes, but they don´t always, in fact they never do.  Once we waited an hour for the bus.

Love
Elder Durrant

E-mail 07-01-2013

Familia

Well I haven`t had time to finish the story, I'm building up so much anticipation that when you finally get it, you will be like. What! that`s it?

But as for these week, well it bugged me and I`ll tell you why.

First it started when I found dos cucarachas (two cockroaches) in the downstairs bathroom.  I just closed the door, because I really didn`t want to climb into a tight space and try to kill them.  But Tuesday morning I was picking out a tie to wear, I picked one up and for some reason it felt a little heavier, but I went a head to put it on, and while I did that a cucaracha fell to the floor, then scurried off into the closet.  So I had to pull out all the stuff in the closet. then it ran under my bed, under my luggage. I was finally able to get it with my shoe and I thought it was dead, so I went and got the dust pan and broom, but when I came back it was gone.  It went under my luggage again, but it was easier to get this time, because it was injured, those things are fast!  Then I swept it up and though it outside for the birds.  So it took me about 20 minutes to kill the thing, then I killed the other one in the bathroom. Then a couple days later we were moving our gas to the new house, so we could have hot showers again. :)

Well we did that, someone warned me about black widow in the bottom of the gas tank.  The gas tank was heavy, when we bought it, one guy cared it in, he made it look light.  But it took two of us to carry it.  After that, I checked the bathroom again for cucarachas, and there was a black widow in there. It hide under the tank, so we tried to flush it out with water, but the next day it was still there.  I hit it with water before it could hide, I even got a picture of it before we finished it.  Then I taped the window so no more bugs could get in. I had a feeling to check inside the tank, and sure enough there was another cucaracha.  I`m not sure I`m ready to use that bathroom yet.  To top it off I got 20 mosquito bites in one night, I itched so bad I woke up in the middle of the night. So the next  day I bought this thing that plugs into the wall, it keeps them away, and it worked, yes!

Well the new president came this week and I got to meet him Sunday, because he came to church. My area got split three ways, I don`t have any more time, so I will explain more later.

Love
Elder Durrant