E-mail 04/27/2015

Hi everyone.
   This week has been amazing; we've been working with several investigators and it's cool feeling and seeing how the Spirit helps people.  We have also gotten to do interesting things, like for instance, we cast an evil spirit out of a house, never thought I would be doing something like that! I did get a nice bike, I just don't know what I'm going to call it. (any suggestions?) 
    I'm getting to know the ward better, so me and my companion are over the inside part of Elizabethtown and the zone leaders with the car are over the outside and another small town. My companion and I are in this heated debate that I'm winning; it's whether a grid system for a city is better or not, and like I said I'm winning.
    I've been hearing a few last names that I know, like there's an Elder Durfee, an Elder Thorson, and a Sister Bennett. It's been hard getting up and staying awake during studies, but I was told a trick that works.  So I tried it, if you chew gum it keeps you awake, and it really works.  Oh and if anyone tells you Kentuckians eat lots of fried  food, tell them that it's a lie!  They eat lots of Mexican food, among other thing.  And Dad I know you told me to just listen to my trainer and not argue, but he and the 2 zone leaders are trying to get me to eat "White Castle" and that's one thing I can't do.  (Thanks Matthew for the heads up.) 
    Saturday night we had a thunderstorm and Elder Candler was saying I've seen nothing in Utah, so I told him he's raising my expectations up pretty high, and the storm wasn't that big.  Everyone telling me that they get big here, so I'll just have to wait and see.  Oh and that guy we talked with after Elder Candler fell off his bike, we talked with him and his girlfriend Sunday, and they want to know more, so it's pretty awesome.  
    This Friday we are heading up to Zone conference in Louisville, so that should be fun.  I got a new bike because no one was getting rid of theirs and it's a nice bike too.  It's cool, so that lady I mentioned last week, it was the Tarbets that she knows, so if you could ask them if they know a Sis Parker, that would be awesome, because she gave me, and the other Elders, but mainly me, brownies just because I know the Tarbets. Oh and I met someone with the last name Casteel.  Alike names all over the place.  I think that's all for now.

Love you all

Elder Durrant

me and my bike

that was our cookie!  

bug down here get way too big, this guy was 

about 4/5 of an inch

Big

this guy was about 3 inches long

E-mail 04/20/2015

Hello everyone,

Wow has these pass 2 week been busy!  Well, I'm just going to skip most of the MTC.  So on Monday the 13th we got up at 3 in the morning and packed the last of our stuff in our bags, I almost forgot my watch and one of my name tags.  There were 8 of us leaving, me, my companion, two Sisters from my district, and four other Elders from a different district.  We put all of our stuff in a truck , and then got on the bus.  I helped one of the sisters with one of her bags, it was the smallest one but that thing was heavy, I later found out it was her shoe bag.  Then the bus took us to the FrontRunner station, and on the way I felt like I was in a different world, but it had only been 12 days.  We road the FrontRunner to Salt Lake City and got on the Trax (we did get to see the lights on the Church Office Building come on) and we went to the airport, which again, that bag was heavy.  We went through security pretty fast, and by now it's about 6-6:30.  I tried to call home with the phone card that I got from the MTC book store, but the phones there are awful.  I did finally call home, that was fun, I missed breakfast because of that, but I'm not complaining.  I finally got on the plane at about 8 am, I was in the middle.  Looking out the windows was not a good idea, so I just looked forward and told myself that I was just in a bus.  As long as I didn't look out for too long I was ok and I also got some pictures of the outside of the plane, on that flight we went to Georgia.  From Georgia, we then got on a smaller plane where we met up with 2 sisters and an elder from the Mexico MTC and we went to Kentucky.  When we got off that flight and met Pres. Brough, his wife, the 3 A.P.s, and an elder that is from Mexico and that his dad drove all the way up here to get him.  After we got are bags, most of us got in "Gus the bus" except 2 of the elders who road with Pres. Brough.  We went to his house (so there's the mission home which is his house, and then there's the mission office which is by a church, 2 or so miles from his house) and had dinner there.  That's when I got in trouble, so I ended up sitting next to Pres. Brough, and when I asked for seconds I thought he didn't hear me, so after a minute I asked again, and he turned to me and said "In this house we have to have seconds before thirds, so go get your seconds then later you can have thirds." So I went over and got my food.  After dinner he had us call home to let you know we got there safely and he said not to go 20 min, just let you know we were safe.  We mentioned that we called before we got on the plane, and it was brought up that I was on the phone for awhile, and he looks at me and told me to stick out my hand, so I did, and he lightly taps the top of my hand, so the first day I'm in the mission I get in trouble twice :)  The next day we went over to the church and we met our trainers, my trainer is Elder Chandler and he is a fun guy.  After some more instructing, we had lunch and went to are areas, I am now in Elizabethtown (e-town) Kentucky.  The past couple of days have been busy! My first meal here was literately a greeny meal.  Then we had a second dinner at someones else's house and I'm thinking that people here like Mexican food.  We've moved a lady's stuff, and met some interesting people.  On Thursday we had a small miracle, so this is what happened, we where going to go see this guy, but before we got too far my comp. stopped us and said we could go to someone else's place who is more likely to be there, so we prayed about it and we both felt like we should go visit this other lady, and before we left Elder Chandler said that if we have perfect faith we would see a miracle tonight.  Well long story short she wasn't home, and a couple of other people we talked with weren't interested, and it started raining so we got under cover by a shopping area.  We decided to go over to the other end where there are more people, and on the way over there I'm about 20-25 feet behind when Elder Chandler turned and his bike just falls out from underneath him and both of them slide a good 5-10 feet in the parking lot. I quickly get over there and he gets up laughing  and he hardly has a scratch on him.  Then as we're picking his stuff up this guy walks over to see if he's ok, then we get talking and now we have his contact info.  After he left we look at each other and there was our miracle! So cool!  Then on Friday we had zone a meeting, and afterwards we went on exchange with the Zone leaders.  I got to ride in the car more (they live about a block away from us) and while we were on exchanges, Elder Chandler lost the key's to our apartment, thankfully the Zone leaders had the spare. So that is most of the highlights here.  I did meet someone at church who knows, I think, it was the Tarbets, but I will have to double check.

Love you all

Elder Durrant


Thank you the cookie's, and the sweetish fish, and all the other stuff in it.

Me and my MTC companion

Look who I found (Sister McCarthy)
(He has some 1^st cousins on the Durfee side
with the name of McCarthy)

My distract

My first Zone

Look who else I found

(His 1^st cousins once removed on the 

Durrant side, they went into the 

MTC on the same day. She is going to the 

Salt lake East Mission. It goes up into Park City 

but the majority of it is actually in Wyoming.)

Matthew, David I have seen the light

Wow!

Cool!

Left to right, Sister Brough, Elder Chandler,
Elder Durrant, Pres. Brough

Sis Brough, Elder Chandler,
Elder Durrant, and the "real' Pres. Brough

What is that?

greeny food

E-mail 04/07/2015

  BANG!!! I bet someone jumped :)          
(This is in reference to reading David's letters.)
  So this week has been crazy, when Matthew and David said that the MTC would blow your mind, I didn't think it would be like this, but by Friday I was trying not to fall asleep during class, I've been working so hard.

The Elders and Sisters in my district are:

Elder James (My companion.)

Elder Mann

Elder Eppig (it sounds like epic but it's a G instead of a C)

Sister Johnson

Sister Reed

Sister Westen

Sister Forbss

My branch Presidency is:

Pres. Hunsaker

Bro. Smith

Bro. Hill

My companion and I are teaching three investigators (we've been told that some of these people are members but we don't know who.) And it's going good, the second guy took pity on us and he helped us out a bit by asking us leading questions, and the third one is a lot like Dad in personality.  The first one, is one of our teachers pretending to be someone he knew on his mission. I will leave on April 13, so I don't know if I will be able to e-mail next week.  I have to report to the front desk at 3:00 A.M. and my flight is about 8:05.

Well that's all I can think of right now.

Love ya'll lots

Elder Durrant.