E-mail 09/29/2014

Wow, well first thing, I was right, I got transferred! but my companion got transferred too.  This is the third time in a row that I have left an area and my companion left also.  I am in Aguascalientes again, en boulevares.  It`s kinda weird to be back here, all the taxis are red!  I`m here with another American companion, his name is Elder Arnold, he is from Rexburg Idaho (I never get a companion from Utah:( he`s my third from Idaho, and I had another one from Nevada)  From what I saw on the map I could walk my new area in about 20 min, I did not know that there was an area so small in the mission.  My companion  just finished his training so his Spanish is still a little rough.  Right now we have only 4 families to teach, but hopefully we can change that this week. 

Right before I left, a recent convert gave me a watch that`s huge, I`ll try to send a pic.  It`s always rough leaving an area, especially when you`ve been there a long time, but it`s also nice to get a fresh start.  Plus, I`m no longer the district leader. It`s been good to serve others and I have learned a ton, but I guess the Lord finally decided that I've learned my lesson, and that I could have a break.  I`m so excited to be able to focus on my area and have a little bit of time to make something to eat at nights.  I don`t think I`ve eaten dinner in a couple of months.  Speaking of food, someone gave us tortas with meat from a cow head, which includes everything. 

¡Les Amo!

Elder Durrant

E-mail 09/22/2014

¡Tuvimos una fiesta esta semana! (we had a party this week)

Tuesday was the Independence Day here in Mexico and the ward had a party and so we brought some investigators.  There was a lot of food and we took the opportunity to give them a tour of the chapel.  There was even a flag ceremony and they sang and had the pledge of allegiance.  Everyone was making jokes about serving two masters, but I just did the salute, I didn`t even understand what they said.  I asked someone afterwards but he didn`t know either.  The next day I had to do an interview for the hermanas (sisters) in the other ward.  On Friday we brought an investigator to the baptism, and come to find out someone invited a friend of his, so we taught them both in the chapel. On Sunday we got a new Ward Mission Leader, he was a bishop of another ward before, so hopefully we can get some movement going on in this ward.  Sadly this next week is transfers so I might be writing to you from another area next week :(

The area is starting to progress a lot, we hope to have a minimum of 30 lessons this week.

Les amo

Elder Durrant

E-mail 09/15/2014

Well it didn´t rain.... well a little Sunday.  We got a lot of work done this week.  We had a bunch of new lessons this week and they're still coming, we just need to work on getting them to church.  We have a baptism planned for 11 Oct, which is two weeks after the transfers :( and I have six months in this area, well my companion is happy.  It's good to be running to appointments and not thinking, "well lets go contact because we don´t have anyone else to visit," so hopefully we can keep it going.   Everyone wants to give us food to the point where even I am full.  We also found out that we don´t have a ward mission leader, he moved to Tamalipaus, so now we are waiting to see who will be the new one.  Either way we hope to get the members more involved.

Oh and we cleaned our water tank that´s on our roof today, sorry I forgot to take pics, but it was green on the bottom and the water in the toilet was turning green, so we decided it was time to clean it. 

Sorry there are letters missing in some of the words the keyboard isn´t working right, and it´s taking more time to write too. (Mom fixed the missing letters)

Les amo

Elder Durrant  

E-mail 09/08/2014

Wow what a week, yea I know I say that every week, but this week we have officially entered the rainy season.  It hit hard on Wednesday and just about all the rest of the week.  It was sunny on Sunday, but it´s getting ready for another go around.  Well there really aren´t any gutters here, some times you´ll see a drain, but for the most part the roads are designed so the water runs down to the river.   Seeing as about half my area has dirt roads, it gets interesting, but I say it makes it fun. Because it´s always sunny here, it get´s so hot, and it makes for good contacting.  Some people saw us in the street while it was down pouring so they waved us over to get under cover for a few minutes.  When it stops there's some parts of the road where there are big puddles, so people try to get the water to move down the road, because after a few days it starts to smell bad.  I don´t know why, I think it would dry up with all this heat, but it doesn´t, at least not very fast.  All this rain does take a toll on my shoes, but we shall see how long they last. Well we didn´t get many lessons this week, I would have thought that more people would be in their houses with all this rain, but obviously people don't think the way I do.   We did manage to contact 103 people this week, that´s the most contacts that I have ever done in my mission in one week.  We are starting to find more and more people to teach.  It was so funny because as we were walking down the street, there was a group of guys and one yelled "hey cachito y dos metros" basically he said hey shorty and two meters.  For the most part kids like to try and practice their English with me or ask about words.  Sorry this week´s letter isn´t that long but in general I´m doing good and hope the same for you all.

Les amo

Elder Durrant

E-mail 09/01/2014

Wow what a week!  First thing, we finally got gas installed in the house, so we can have hot water.  I´m so happy I can have hot showers in the mornings again. I also bought a mirror so I don´t have to use the microwave to comb my hair, but it´s been very useful.  With the increase of missionaries, it means more houses and more material, which means it´s harder to get stuff for the house, but we manege.  We already have every thing that we really need, it's just the odds and ends.  We also found out that the lines of our area are a little different then I thought, so come to find out there was a part of our area that we haven´t been working in.  We had intercambios with the zone leaders, so in the morning we went up there to try and find less actives and contact people up there.  We didn´t have any luck getting in any houses, but we got a nice sun burn.  It´s actually the first time I´ve gotten a sunburn from just walking around, but sometimes I get it when we do some sports on Mondays.

Well me and my comp have had more success among the less active, but with a class yesterday on how to work with the missionaries we hope to get more member involvement.  We will be having a noche de hogar (family home evening) with some members and an investigator today, so we'll see how the work progresses this week.

les amo

elder Durrant