E-mail 11/28/2016

After everything I've had to eat these last 5 days, I think I've gained 5 pounds, but it will probably be gone by Wednesday.

Thursday, started off interesting, Elder Long had missed placed some important papers so we spent most of the morning looking for them. He tore the bedroom apart while I looked everywhere else. Well, after we moved everything we could think of, he finally just gave up and laid on the floor, looked to his right, and they were sitting right there, right were we were walking, so that made him happy. Later we went to a members home to have Thanksgiving Dinner, it was great. So around here there are about three family groups that are members of the church, one group is completely inactive, and the other two groups are all across the board when it comes to activity in the church. Anyway so the member we went to is the Relief Society President and she was hosting a lot of family, around 50 I think. We got to talk with a lot of inactive members and nonmembers we had never met before, though most of them have talked with missionaries before, and from what I can tell, we made a good impression. One of the nonmember husbands, as a joke because of the huge grin on his face, sat close to us with his cup of coffee and told us that there was some fresh coffee over there, so I said thank you for telling us, then he asked if we wanted any, and I declined, we all got a good chuckle out of it. Well Elder Long started to get a migraine so we had to leave and as I was saying goodbye to the guy who joked about the coffee, he said, “leaving so soon?” So I told him that Elder Long was getting a headache, but with a concerned look he asked, “Was it the coffee thing?” Chuckling I told him it wasn't that at all, we knew it was all in good humor.

After Elder Long felt better, we spent the rest of the day at another members home.

Friday, we had district meeting and Elder and Sister Reed normally take us but their family had come in for Thanksgiving so they weren't able to take us. We had set up with someone else to take us, but that morning we weren't able to get a hold of him so we looked at the miles we had left and figured we had enough to get there and back with a little left over. A little late, but we made it up there, then afterwards we started an exchange with the zone leaders. I went to Newburgh which was great, I got to see some members that I knew, and most of them recognized me, though they couldn't remember my name without looking at the name tag. We had dinner with a family from Peru and even though it was Thanksgiving leftovers, it was still great.

Saturday, the member that was supposed to take us to district meeting the day before had brought the other two to Newburgh, and he felt really bad for forgetting so he took us out to lunch at Jimmy Johns.

Sunday, there weren't that many people at church when it started, but by the time the opening prayer and song were over the chapel was almost full. In Sunday school, we had over 20 people in class, it was great. We even had one family come that for as long as I've been here only the wife has come, but it was her, her husband, their son that lives with them and two of their kids from Utah were there along with a daughter in-law and their two kids. From what the branch president told us later, the husband is planning on coming to full activity in the church.

All of this made for a really good week.

Love y'all!

Elder Durrant

Great Kentucky Louisville Mission

Front row: Sister Mcknight, Hermana Spencer, Sister 

(Sorry, I can't remember her name), Sister Barker, 

Hermana Corona, Sister Bogardus, Hermana Milligan, Member.
Back row: Elder Sorensen, Elder Permann, Elder Patten (ZL), 

Elder Long Elder Riphenburg (ZL), Elder Durrant

 

E-mail 11/21/2016

"Weather Announcement: You enjoyed that warm weather? Well, it's gone now. Time to pull out your sweaters, coats, wool socks, and everything else. Unless you're one of "those" people who like the cold, well, good for you, I'm going to stay warm.

Tuesday, we had dinner with an active family who's four boys make up half the primary. Well needless to say, they were hyper, and as always I felt right at home.

Wednesday, us and the Reeds went to the Sunday School President's home because him and his wife, and all of us are in charge of the Branch Christmas Party, and it will be interesting with the ideas that were thrown around.

Thursday, I cant remember what happened that day.

Friday, was a very interesting day. First, never let your companion talk you into procrastinating washing the car when you're supposed to, because you wake up the morning of a meeting with a dirty car. So we drove to Evansville for Zone Conference, and I accidentally missed our turn and ended up driving down a 10 mile gravel road, so our already dirty car got a lot more durty. So we tried to go by a car wash before we went to the church, well every car wash we tried was closed so we just went to the church with a really dirty car. Yeah that's never happening again. Zone Conference was awesome. President Brough first shared this year's Christmas initiative, and we got the pass along cards to go with it started this Friday. Then He talked about the "Doctrine of Expectation", that was very informative. After that, the Stake President talked to us about "A partnership with the Lord" and shared scriptures from Exodus and Moses. For lunch, they fed us rice and meatballs, it was interesting. Back to the meeting. President then gave us another training on making sure someone is truly converted, and how the baptismal interview questions are based off of D&C 20:37. Last, the zone leaders gave a training on how to introduce the Book of Mormon. After the meeting, we started an exchange and headed back to Tell City. On the way there a member texted us asking if we had dinner plans, of course we said no, so he told us that he would pick us up. He took us to a buffet for the sole purpose that I could try frog legs, another check off of my bucket list, they're pretty good, like fishy chicken.

Saturday, I was excited because I would finally be able to ride my bike for the first time I've been in Tell City, but I couldn't find my helmet. After not touching it for months, it just disappeared. So we just walked around, and I even put a sweater on because it was chilly. Then we ended the exchange, a member brought us some groceries, and we saw a few more people.

Sunday, we had the primary program, and it was so sweet seeing the 7 or 8 children doing their parts. After church Elder Reed, Elder Long and I went to a sisters home to give her a blessing. We then had our studies and lunch, and I wasn't feeling too good, so I laid my head on my desk and just rested. Elder Long was convinced that I was asleep, so he tried to scare me with an alarm clock and video me jumping, but what he doesn't know is that I could hear him walking around, and that alarm clocks don't make me jump. So as he was laughing at me for "falling asleep" on my desk, I was inwardly laughing at him because the joke was on him.

Love y'all

Elder Durrant

Great Kentucky Louisville Mission

Wanted to wish everyone a 

Happy Thanksgiving from Tell City Indiana!

E-mail 11/14/2016

"News announcement! After the heated election, as of November 9th, the residents of Tell City Indiana are moving on with there life's, satisfied that it's finally over."

Well, speaking of Tuesday, we had interviews with President, but before he gave the training for district meeting and when he stood up, he told us that he hadn't prepared anything, just that he was praying really hard that the Lord would guide him, and so every district got a different training. For us he talked about how we need to make sure people are living the commitments we gave them BEFORE we move on to the next lesson, and he shared a quote from one of the area seventy, "The surest way to prevent an investigator from progressing is to teach a follow-up lesson when they haven't kept one or more commitment." The Reeds provided an amazing lunch for everyone, then we started an exchange and Elder Permann, our DL, came to Tell City with me. We spent most of the day walking around talking with people, and we both decided that we have spent too long just driving around because we were really tired by the end of the day.

Wednesday, we ended the exchange and we had our BML's son drive us to the rendezvous and picked up Elder Long, and he took us out to lunch afterwards. Then that evening we went to one of the family's that live twenty minutes away, and it was awesome. Beforehand we had messaged them over Facebook asking if we could come by and they said sure, we'll even feed you. So that was sweet! It's fun being over there because they have some younger kids, so naturally they are a little rowdy when we come over. When the parents apologized, I told them that this was my natural environment. Now I don't know how well my companion was handling it, I just know he was encouraging them to target me.

Thursday, I don't fully remember what happened Thursday.

Friday, we texted our BML to see if we were going to be cutting this week, and he told us, no cutting, we are fixing our water pump (their water comes from a well under their property). They had had no water for a week, so we helped them get their water back on.

Saturday, I don't remember what happened Saturday.

Sunday, we had a member from the stake high council come and speak, he lives in the Newburgh Ward so I had been to his house a couple of times. Well after church a member had invited us to his home, and when we got there we shared a video about the Plan of Salvation and shared some points about it, then asked him for his thoughts and two hours and twenty minutes later we walked out the door. He is a talker, and he doesn't really have people to talk to, so when he gets a chance he doesn't let it slip by. He did share his conversion story with us and talked about how years ago the missionaries knocked on his door and shared a Book of Mormon with him. Then thirty years later he picked it up and read it in three days, two months later he was baptized. So he told us, with conviction, when ever we give someone a Book of Mormon and they don't get rid of it, we are saving their souls, it my take thirty years, but it will be worth it.

Well that was my week.

Love y'all!

Elder Durrant

Great Kentucky Louisville Mission

E-mail 11/07/2016

Good morning/afternoon/evening/why are you still up? I thought I'd cover whatever time you are reading this? :)

Tuesday, we had received a referral the previous week, but we couldn't find the address on any map, so we tried the area that we thought it might be, but still couldn't find it, oh well. That evening, we decided to visit some less actives that live in the far reaches of our area, and got there shortly after they had gotten home and they welcomed us in. The mom had started working on making dinner, so we just sat there listening to the kids tell us stories, and we ended up help them with some of their homework, it was a lot of fun.

Nothing much happened Wednesday or Thursday.

Friday, we had Zone Meeting, and the last thing that was talked about was the mission culture, and the three things people want us to focus on is Be accountable to God, Be Christlike, Being Spirit Driven. Afterwards, we went to our BML's house to help him cut down more trees. We didn't use any fire this time, but we did have an adventure. The person with the chainsaw (it wasn't me) was cutting the two largest trees in our path, and he got the first one down easily enough. Then when he was cutting the second one, he didn't notice that the tree was leaning the opposite way that he had cut it and the saw got stuck with less then a quarter of an inch of wood connecting the base to the rest of the tree. We tried to push it to get the saw out, we tried cutting with other tools, but nothing was working well/safe enough, so after about 45min of this we finally just tied a rope to the tree and their car and pulled it over just fine. After all of that, we were all tied and it was getting dark, so we went in, they fed us, then we had coordination.

Saturday, we tried to find a less active in the farthest part of our area, but weren't able to find it (I found it later on the map), but the drive was fun.

Sunday, Church was good, people bore powerful testimony on the plan of salvation, temple work, and missionary work, then in Sunday School we talked about the gathering of Israel.

That's it for me this week.

Love y'all!

Elder Durrant

Great Kentucky Louisville Mission

This is a screen shot of the video my old comp. sent me of Seth.

Best part of Halloween is November 1st! Super cheap candy!