E-mail 10/20/2014

WOW! what a week.  It was kind of funny because last Monday, I had an old guy yell in my face, and no it´s not something that happens a lot.  Well what happened is that we went to go visit someone that lives in his house, so when we got there he started showing us his books, it was very interesting, but we were there with a purpose, so we tried starting up the lesson, but he would cut us off and start talking.  Later on, the son of who we went to go visit, went to ask a question, but the old guy snapped at him, so his mom got upset and started yelling and he started yelling back, then in a moment he turned his anger to us and started yelling at me about an inch from my head, but I stayed calm.  He was a 70 year old man, so I wasn´t too worried, but we decided to leave.  It was funny to be honest, because he got all worked up over nothing.

Oh and we are also in a trio now, our district leader´s companion went home for sickness and there aren´t any other trios in the mission so he will be with us for the next three weeks, or until they find him a companion so now we are working in two areas.  It´s a lot of work to be thinking about both areas, hopefully we can survive.  He goes with members whenever he can, but with us both preparing investigators for baptism, we are stretched out a little.

I also haven´t mentioned that our ward is in bad conduction, by December we should be combining with another ward, they are just trying to hold out until another ward gets divided so that the stake doesn´t turn it back into a district.  I was hoping that we would have enough time to get the ward back up, but there just aren´t enough priesthood holders, but we are doing are best to help things move along.

¡Les amo!

Elder Durrant

E-mail 10/13/2014

Well this week we found a fairly high speed internet, so I decided to send pics instead of writing, so this will be a short one.
We are finding more and more people to visit.  We are looking up less active members and if they don´t live there, then we contact them.  We didn´t get anyone to go to church, our ward is at 9 and every one is asleep at that time, so it will be tough but not as tough as my last area.  We had to take a bus just to get to church and seeing as there wasn´t very many people with cars, it made it tough.  But the distance to the chapel from our house is about the same as at home, so it will be easier for the distance, and at the end of the year we will have the 11, but we will see if I´m still in this area by then.
Oh and we went bowling today, well I didn´t do so great, but seeing as I haven´t played in a while it´s understandable.
Les amo
Elder Durrant

 

 

 

 

 

 

E-mail 10/06/2014

Wow what a week, well there aren`t very many people here to teach so we have been contacting and looking up less active members and trying to get as many people to go to conference as possible. There`s a family of 4 that we are teaching that went, so we are happy :)  We hope to be able to find more people this week. The ward here is struggling a lot, the members are willing to help, just that there aren`t very many priesthood holders, we hope to help things improve.  Conference was awesome, I loved the talks and it was awesome to have the different languages.  I think it will attract more people of different languages.  To be honest I don`t like listening to translators, I like hearing their voices, so when the first Spanish speaker came on, we went and listened in Spanish.  He actually spoke in the MTC when I was there and he speaks just fine in English.  The sad thing is my companion was sick on Saturday and then he got me sick the next day, so it was all I could do to listen to the last session, but I`m feeling a lot better now.  I went and bought some chicken noodle soup, it`s been awhile since I`ve had some.  Then an Elder shared some of his licorice with us, it`s been forever since I`ve had some of that too.

Well I`ve got to go, but I hope you all had a good GC

Les Amo

Elder Durrant

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