E-mail 01/25/2016

Hello Family! This has been a busy week.

Monday, we got a call from a member who wanted us to come over. So that night (and it was exceedingly cold) we went to see him, and had a good lesson. Afterwards we walked over to the bus stop, but it didn't come for almost an hour, so we decided to go see a part member family that lived about a mile away, so we started the long trek west in the cold darkness. Well by the time we were 3/4 the way there, we decided to hide in McDonald's so our frozen eyes could unfreeze, that took a little bit. Well when we got to the family, they were going to bed so we couldn't see them, so we caught a bus and slowly made our way home.

Tuesday, it was still exceedingly cold outside, but Elder Morrow had work he needed to do online, so we went to the church and had our studies there. Afterwards, we went around as delivery boys, because a lot of people ordered bibles, but low and behold, none of them were home, so we are still working on that. Then that evening we helped the Roy's clean an older Ladies carpets.

Wednesday, there was a worldwide missionary training, so we went to the church that we have district meeting at, and it was also our first real snow fall. When we got there the zone leaders and some other missionaries were cleaning the side walks off the church and the mission office next door. When we got there I don't know who started it but snow balls started being thrown, and it quickly turned into an all out snowball fight, and since it was powdered snow it was hard to make snow balls, but I showed them some tricks I learned from Dad that were really great (snicker). Right in the middle of it, President and Sister Brough show up, told us not to have too much fun then walked inside. Well soon afterwards we went inside as well, had a short district meeting, then had the training and my mind was exceedingly blown, it was pretty cool. Afterwards we all went and had a district lunch, started an exchange with the zone leaders, and I was able to go with my old trainer, Elder Chandler, that was a lot of fun.

Thursday, we had our Tuesday service today for some reason, but it was still fun, even with the high chance of us sliding on the slippery snow and "hurting" ourselves. Then we ended our exchange at lunch with some other missionaries.

Friday was interesting, we were all told to stay inside, or stay close to the apartment, because a huge snow storm was expected, so the other Elders spent the night and we spent the day playing the game we've been working on. Frankly we're underwhelmed with the storm. But I did get a video of the other three run around the outside of the house barefoot, ya I wasn't that bored.

Saturday, we had a lesson with the Adams family that went really well, they had a ton of questions, that we answered. As we were leaving we realized that we were there for 3 hours, oops, but it was a really good lesson.

Sunday was great, the Adams came to church and loved it. We were fed and we were finally able to do our weekly planning, that we had been pushing off.

Overall it was a good week.

Love you all!

Elder Durrant

Great Kentucky Louisville Mission

It was really cold.

This was pretty cool to see.

E-mail 01/11&18/2016

Good freezing morning!

Monday 1/4, Not a whole lot happened, but that night we did see some less actives, who we are trying to get them to come back to church every week.

Tuesday 1/5, That morning we did our weekly service, then we got dropped off at a members house so we could get our hair cut, but they forgot, so we made our way home, had lunch, got a shower then went out to work. That night we had dinner at the Relief Society Presidents house then went over a list of less actives we've been going by.

Wednesday 1/6, the only thing that really happened was we taught a young man that has been taught for years, and is dragging his feet about it too.

Thursday 1/7, We weren't able to get a whole lot done.

Friday 1/8, That was a good day, we saw the Adams Family, and when we got there they told us it was there anniversary and had told everyone not to call them, but they really wanted us to come over and we had an awesome lesson, that was really cool. Later in the day we saw some less actives and had dinner with the Roy's.

Saturday 1/9, was another cold slow day, we were able to see some people, but not a lot happened.

Sunday 1/10, We had branch conference, that was really cool, and we had a meeting with the stake mission leader. Then afterwards we had a pot luck.

Monday 1/11, We spent most of the day with a family, playing games with them.

Tuesday 1/12, So this was probably the best day because, one: Zone Conference, which was awesome! I learned so much. And two: that night we took two members with us to see the Adams, and he has a date for the 30th. Well, after the four of them got to know each other, the Adams whispered to each other, then looked at us and told us that they want him to be baptized before Elder Morrow goes home as their driving force to progress. This is exciting, but we hadn't taught them the word of wisdom yet, so we didn't know how we were going to do that. But then the two members we brought looked at us excitedly and asked us what was left, so we told them and they said we could do it now, even though we had been there for an hour already. So we taught them the word of wisdom, they accepted it, were a little unsure if they could live it, so we gave both a priesthood blessing. After that they gave us their bad stuff, and the members took us home. Right after we were saying a prayer of thanks and before we could leave the car, the Adams called us and felt really bad because they didn't give us everything and felt so guilty they threw it out themselves! It was pretty awesome!

Wednesday 1/13, we helped with the Bishops food truck, and then saw several less actives that day.

Thursday 1/14, We were on exchange, and I was here.  We weren't able to teach anyone, but we did get a lot accomplished, with tracking people down and getting return appointments.

Friday 1/15, We did our weekly planning and saw even more less actives.

Saturday 1/16, We did more help for the people we do service for on Tuesdays, well afterwards one of them (Who is a retired baptist seminary professor) took us to Golden Corral. We saw more people and the Adams that night.

Sunday 1/17, we had an extremely multi-stake conference, over a hundred stakes in 14 states, it was really good. And the best part, the Adams came! Afterwards we taught the second to last temple prep class.

Love you all!

Elder Durrant

Great Kentucky Louisville Mission

E-mail 01/04/2016

Crows!!!!

So this week was another interesting week.

Tuesday, was a good day. We got back in contact with several of our investigators, like the Adams, and the Carpenters. We also saw some less actives, so all in all, Tuesday was a good day.

Wednesday, didn't go as well. Elder Morrow had his conference call, and we were going to go to the church, but at the last minute the Zone Leaders changed it, so they did it over the phone. After that we were supposed to be going on an exchange with the Shawnee Elders, but they missed their bus, so we did some work close by and then went back to wait for them. We finally got sick of it and went to go do some work, but we only got a mile down the road when they were going to be passing soon, so we waited at the bus stop, got on the one they were on, and took it back to our apartment. So the exchange was supposed to have started at 11:30ish, it started at 4, but we were able to get some work done .

Thursday we had district, then afterwards the four of us went to Subway for lunch, we worked for a few more hours, then we got home at 6 and stayed inside, away from all the partiers. Then at midnight, HAPPY NEW YEAR! Well at midnight we found out that Kentucky gets crazy. People started shooting into the air, well none of us got hit, so that's a good thing.

Friday, we spent most of the day helping some members work on their house. And then went home really tired.

Saturday was Elder Matelau's Birthday so we went to a buffet for lunch, and the place turned out not to be open on Saturdays. We just got some food and watched five fire trucks outside a hotel, but nothing big ended up happening, so they packed up and left. Later we helped a new family move in and there was a lot of stuff, but we got it done.

Sunday was pretty cool. We had our first branch council with the new branch President, it went very smoothly and we got what we needed to done. Testimony meeting was very powerful, there was even an investigator go up and say that she knew this was true. That evening we had a temple prep class and we couldn't get a hold of Bro. Roy, so we took someone else, which turned out to be great, because he's a temple worker so the lesson worked out wonderfully.

Well I guess I should explain about the crows, they're EVERYWHERE!!!

Love you all!

Elder Durrant

Great Kentucky Louisville Mission