E-mail 04/28/2014

This week on the mission, zone conference, contacts, raid and more.

Well this week has been busy with meetings all week again.  This week we only got one full day to work with all the other days meetings like from last week (except for the one with the bishop.) We had a zone conference on Friday, that started at 9 and ended at 2, it was way awesome even though it was super long.  We watched the talk by Elder Oaks and the dedication of the MTC in Mexico.  It`s interesting to see the way things are changing in the work and how fast it`s changing.  We are getting a bunch of hermanas (sisters) in my district, there are two companionship of hermanas and two of Elders. 

As a goal for the zone we have been doing contacts on the streets (because we can`t knock on doors.)  The goal is 35 every week.  To be totally honest I don`t like to do contacts, I prefer to wait for a good opportunity, and it just so happens I found one this week.  I was waiting in line to check my card, and there was a young mother waiting in line just in front of me with her toddler running about (just like John at this age.)  So I started to talk to him to keep him distracted, he even asked me at one point "what do you do?" so I answered him with a smile on my face;)  Then the mother started to ask me some questions and so I talked shortly about prophets and she asked me if we visit homes we said yes and then she asked "can you visit me on Monday?" me and my comp looked at each other and then said yes, then she gave us her address, so we will be visiting her today.  If only all contacts were so easy, but then we wouldn`t learn anything. I still do a bunch of contacts but they usually don`t turn out so good.

Well the other thing that I did this week, is I bought a can of raid, to kill all the cucarachas (cockroaches) in my house, the stuff really works, I love it.  It kills them fast and it doesn`t leave a stain on the floor.  My comp thinks I`m a bit crazy, and everyone always tries to tell me that I shouldn`t kill them because they are creations of God, but that hasn`t convinced me yet.  Luckily they are small still but they are getting bigger, but luckily I will have my can of raid next to me.  It was so worth the forty pesos.

I haven`t really talked much about my comp. he is Elder Quispe (keys-pay) he is from Peru, and he comes up to my shoulders, so about Shari`s height, pobre Élder porque camino muy rapido (poor Elder because I walk very fast) well he keeps up at my normal pace but when we have to get somewhere fast he has to run.

Well I hope you guys liked my news line at the beginning and have a fantastic week.

Les amo

Elder Durrant

E-mail 04/21/2014

WOW! what a week!

It has been so busy this week, in a new area during holy week and a ton of meetings. Well first we started with the district meeting on Tuesday, there are a lot more in this district then my last one. Then we had a meeting with the zone leaders on Wednesday, and they arrived an hour late. Later that day we had a meeting with the bishop to see how the work was coming along, and that took two hours.  Then he assigned me to give a talk, so I got to give another talk on Easter, like last year.  Then on Thursday we had a weekly planning meeting and a missionary that came home from his mission.  The funny thing is that he came home from Costa Rica, where the sisters in the MTC went from my district, so I asked if he knew them.  Apparently in Costa Rica, they don`t eat spicy food so when he got home he was having a hard time eating the food.  Then we had our meeting with the ward mission leader which took another two hours (ya me canse de reuniones [and I get tired of meetings]) but the Lider misional (LM) [missionary leader] is great, he does visits and tries to get the members involved in the work.  When Friday finally came I was so exited to have a day complete of just work, and to top it all off it rained (YES!)  It gets so hot here and life is just boring when it´s sunny all the time.  It actually iced a bit at the beginning, and they even stung a little. 
The work is moving along here, there are four missionaries in this ward, the Hermanas [Sisters] have the part of the ward with all the members, so that means we just have to work a little harder.  We have two investigators right now, one ready to be baptized, so we get to look for new people.  The ward has given us 6 references and hopefully we can get some more. 

Well I have seen a few new things here in SLP like street drains, and the most advanced garbage pickup I have ever seen. I will send a pic.  Oh ¡Feliz Cumpleaños! [Happy Birthday!] (to Elizabeth)  One of the tradition here is on your birthday when they bring in the cake you have to bite it, and then as you are biting it they push your head into it. I have a few pics of a few birthdays here.

Les quiero [I love them]

Elder Durrant

E-mail 04/14/2014

Well transfers came and well I´m not in Fresnillo anymore, I got moved to San Luis Potasi, it´s so weird to be in a big city again, it has a different feel to it.  There are three zones in the city and mine is in the centro, (center) so we have all the big stores and places to go. Elder Madsen got transferred too, to one of the other zones, so we came here on the same bus.  I´ve heard a lot of good about San Luis, so now I get to find out if they are all true.  It was weird to leave Zacatacas, because I have not left Zacatacas in nine months, so this is an interesting change of pace.
I was kind of sad to go, we just managed to invite someone to baptism.

Well let´s see here what else.  Um, Sunday we had a surprise. we saw pres. right after church, so we went and said hi to him, then he invited us to the meeting with him.  It was for the bishops in the stake and he talked about members and missionaries, then he passed out M&Ms. 

What else, I fell and cut the palm of my right hand, so then I couldn't shake anyone's hand for a week and I had to explain it to everyone, but it´s healing up.  Don´t worry I took pics.

Les quiero

Elder Durrant

Info on San Luis Potasi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Luis_Potos%C3%AD,_San_Luis_Potos%C3%AD

E-mail 04/07/2014

Wow what a week.  Well we didn`t actually burn the shirt, but we`ll get to it, but we have stayed busy.  We have had something every day this week, we had an intercambio in Valparaiso, with meetings on Wednesday and Friday and a planning one on Thursday, then just to finish it off with GC so life has been busy.  It`s so weird to think that it has been a year but it has been good.  We had a couple interesting experiences that day, we saw a man trying to get on the second level of his house by backing up a truck to it, but even with another man helping, he fell flat on the ground, it looked like it hurt, but he was okay. We then offered to help him so we went and lifted him up there. I don`t know if it was his wife but she was laughing her head off. I thought about contacting them, but decided it was a bad time. Then we walked down the street and a dog charged at us; it was so funny because my comp. left running and I went to pull off my bag to smite it with the word of God if it got close but it backed off.  I looked to see what happened to my comp. and he was about a block down the street. 

We had the Zone meeting this week and it was really good, but then at the end we got to the material, my comp got some packages from Christmas, he was saying that it was an early Christmas, but I told him that it was really a late Christmas :D
Then I was surprised with a hand written letter, thanks Shari!

Then along came conference and I saw it this time in English but this one felt different. Most of the time I take more notice of the talks from the Apostles, they were great but I also really liked a lot of the talks from the Seventies. But it was amazing in general. I even got to tell the other elders that my brother was there working.

We´ll see how many more GC Elder Packer will be at.

Oh plus we had daylight savings this week, Saturday we watched the sessions at the same time, but the Sunday sessions were at 11 and 3 so for a week we had the same time as you guys. Well I want to hear which talks you all like. 

Les amo

Elder Durrant