Washington DC!! - 8-26-13

Hey so my new address is 2904 Greencastle St. Arlingotn, VA... not sure on the zipcode. You can find the address to the mission home if that's easier, or else keep using DearElder I believe.

Anyway, story time!

Not a lot of people jump off there plane in the mission field, give the president a hug and then march off to the Lincoln Memorial. I got to, and that was a cool experience. I met the AP's and stayed the night at the mission home which was a great experience after taking some pictures in front of the Washington Monument and all the other cool things at the capital mall.

So get this, during my interview with the mission president (you were right Brian [Allen] he's awesome, and he knows you and your brother) he asks me if I'd be willing to play a prank on my first companion. He tells me that I get to be in a trio with zone leaders. Which is really uncommon I guess. Anyway they told the ZL I was with that he was being released to train me, but after the trainees were assigned they announced him as one of the ZL's which really confused him for a few seconds until they also added he would be in a trio in order to train me. I guess it's mission humor or something... Anyway, my trio isn't a very common one. I don't know if it's because they want me to get some extra good training or if it's because I came in with 42 missionaries which was the largest group ever to arrive at the mission in one day.

I am serving in Arlington Virginia, which is across the Potomac River from DC and the Washington Monument (which is covered in scaffolding for repairs after an earthquake) and all that good stuff. The area is amazing, there are sooooo many nationalities here and time after time our contacting leads us into people who can't speak english. One of our investigators is a super nice lady named Yodit who speaks Amharic and has a hard time understanding our lessons. We should have a translator for her soon though. that's how diverse the wards around here are. I still haven't managed to find any danes though! I did however, run into a RM at stake conference who had gotten back from DENMARK not two days earlier. His danish was awesome and he talked with me for a while so I got to have a pretty good practice conversation. 

I'm actually living with a member because my companions are zone leaders, so I have a house and a car because I get all the perks of being a zone leader with out any of the responsibility, so it's interesting. My companions Elder Allred and Elder Riggs are really great, they pretty much have the scriptures memorized which is really helping me to get some of the basic missionary scriptures and answers to normal questions down.

The people we're teaching are amazing. We're teaching a Vietnamese man named Brother Mai who, after being put in a Vietnamese army prison for refusing to cooperate with orders, somehow escaped and made it to America (not sure how, his english isn't amazing) we think it may have been by hiding on a cargo ship... anyway he had a lot of success in America until he had a stroke in 2006 and was put in a wheelchair and the left side of his body became paralyzed. His wife then left him for another man and he lives alone in a one room apartment. He's set to be baptized Sept. 7 and has been to church four times! He's still trying to receive an answer from prayer before he makes his final commitment to be baptized and we're hoping that his prayers are sincere and that he isn't simply following this path in an effort to regain his ability to walk which we think he is secretly expecting after baptism. Anyway he's a great guy and has made a loooot of progress since Elder Allred started teaching him and even in the one week I've been here.

I also tried my first contacting with a guy who was tinkering under his hood late at night. After we asked him about his car and some stuff I told him that we were missionaries and asked him what he thought about religion. Walter (that was his name) told us he's catholic but he likes reading about other religions so I told him we'd come back with a Book of Mormon and got his address. I'll keep you posted on that.

Everything here is great, missionary life is a lot more entertaining and fun that I thought it would be. I'm doing awesome but I can't wait to get my visa to go see the Danes!

Keep writing me, I wanna hear from you all :)

-Vi Ses! Elder Durrant

Last email from MTC - 8-20-13

All the missionaries left this week to go to Denmark or else their reassignments. Me and Elder Huffaker are the only ones left. We joke that we're in MTC survivor and now that we finally made it to the final day one of us is going to get voted off.

It'll be me. 

Huffaker hurt his leg running and has to stay for physical therapy (which is a joke, more on that later) and I ship off to DC (!) tomorrow morning at2am (boo). 

I thought that this week was going to be insanely boring but it has been one of the most exciting weeks I've had at the MTC. First of all, the temple re-opened and I got to go for my second time. That was neat. Then, immediately after getting back we walk over to the Marriott center...

and Richard G. Scott was the speaker!

It was incredible. He talked a lot about prayer and how to receive answers for the prayers we give if we pray in the right way. I felt the spirit stronger than I ever have and he gave all the foreign language missionaries an Apostolic blessing to receive the gift of tongues according to our individual faith. I don't know if I'm imagining things, but I feel like my Danish improved more this extra week than any one of the other weeks. The new Danish missionaries thought we were fluent (hahahahahahhahaha.... no) and for the entire first day we only spoke Danish in front of them. It was entertaining. 

Few days later I said goodbye to five other friends as they headed off to Chicago. Sad and awesome at the same time.

Then me and AEldster Huffaker and Carmack where doing laundry when we bump into a janitor who is from Denmark, she grew up in the USA since she was around 5 but she still speaks fluent Danish! It was sooo cool to get to use our Danish with a real person who was actually only a few years older than me. It was incredible, but I'm not done yet. 

Not ten minutes ago I left ANOTHER native Dane after a great conversation. He just got to the MTC and will be serving in Sweden. He spoke good English, but we tried to speak to him in Danish. It was a bit harder because he had actually been living there for his whole life and his accent was a lot more.... Danishy. He was super confused but he should be rooming on my floor since he skal tage til Sverige for his mission. All the Swedes are on my floor. 

So cool.

Also Mason left the other night. I got a picture with him, it was cool to spend so much of my time at the MTC with him.

And Elder Carter showed up! I only saw him for like three seconds but apparently he got made the zone leader over his English branch after like three days. That's intense.

Now me and Huffaker are the only two "old danes" that are here. But since he hurt his leg I got to go to his physical therapy place which is actually in the same building where Brian works. I didn't see him there but it was really great to finally get out of the MTC for a few hours and talk to real people. It's cool how easy it is to talk to people around here as a missionary. They just come up to you and start talking and asking for a spiritual thought or tell us stories or something. 

It's been a great week, but despite that I am klar to leave the good ole' MTC behind me forever and go help people in Washington and Denmark. Saying goodbye to my teachers was hard. I included a pic of me and Bror Pullan. That man changed my life.

Vi Ses! 

-AEldste Durrant

PS. I still wanna hear from all of you!

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Reassigned to . . . 8-15-13

So our district got our reassignments just barely! Our district leader told us all that 6 of us got assigned to Chicago West mission, one to Washington DC South, and one to Idaho Twin Falls.

Guess what one I was.

THAT'S RIGHT WASHINGTON DC BABY!!!!!

My cousin is there right now, but he's in the North mission... disappointing. But it's still so cool to get to serve in DC! I can't wait to get there, it should be a great experience. I know it will be hard to keep my language where it is for six weeks without any of my Danish companions in the same state as me, but I know whatever happens will work out fine. I leave on Wednesday morning at 2:30 AM so I'll be the last Danish missionary at the MTC by a day and will have a day to myself where the only people left in my zone are our new Danish group and Dallin's Dutch missionaries. 

This is so great!

DC has a lot of diversity, so I could be privileged to run into a Dane. Also it will be a killer line to tell people I teach that I was sent to DC specifically by an apostle out of all the other missionaries in my group just to find them. I know that there is a reason I'm leaving the rest of my district to go to DC, and I plan on finding out what it is. 

:) 

Stuck in the MTC - 8-13-13

Yup. Still here. So is Conner, his visa got denied too, so I guess my life could be worse. It was hard to say goodbye to 8 people I'd become friends with who I expected to fly to Denmark with. Now I won't get to eat Panda at the airport with AElder Madsen or eat Danish pastries yet. But that's ok. I get to see the new Danish missionaries tomorrow and harass them by refusing to speak english to them. Period.

 

So Bonnie gets here soon... can't remember if it's tomorrow but if it is then I get to see him! Ralston is here now too, it's weird seeing so many people coming and going. There's not a whole lot to tell you guys. I've memorized 300 flash cards these last few days and will probably make another 300 by Wednesday... I'm preparing to get transferred state side because AElder Ockey from my district had his parents call the LDS offices and they told him that he shouldn't expect his visa until September 10. That means mine will probably come around the same time and I can expect to get a mini USA mission while I wait for it:) It'll be fun to get used to the work in English before I get thrown into a different language.

 

The temple is open today, so that'll be a fun change.

 

I promise my life isn't as boring as it must seem. I just think i've covered everything that would be entertaining to somebody who's not at the MTC. Long story short... write me :P DearElder still works, and I wanna hear about what's going on with YOU

 

I added some pictures of my district, and a few random ones. Hope Trevin is still alive in Africa.

 

Vi Ses.

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Pictures 8-6-13

Visas, farewells, and a newcomer - Aug. 6, 2013

Since getting this email I talked to Cathy (my cousin) at the MTC.  Ridge's visa still hasn't come through.  If it doesn't come tomorrow, he'll have to stay in the MTC for another week or so.  If it comes the next week, he will go straight to Denmark.  If it doesn't, he'll be reassigned somewhere for a full transfer cycle.  So keep your fingers crossed for it to come soon!!

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Hey all!

 

Crazy week so far... We got our travel plans. My flight path will start in SLC at 11:30 on Monday and take me to Chicago, then ENGLAND, and finally into Copenhagen. It's pretty great.

 

One little catch.

 

Our Danish group has 14 missionaries, 1 sister and 13 elders. We have only had 8 visas confirmed by the mission home and are running out of time to get the rest of them approved. I was towards the end of the pack as far as consolate dates so there is a chance I get delayed or reassigned. So that was a roller coaster of a day. But I had read in Mormon chapter 9 that morning how if you pray in faith nothing waivering then anything will be given you. So I tried it. I don't know if I've gotten an answer yet, but to be honest I was talking to elder Ockey, one of my room mates, and we both agreed that it was probably a good thing that we were two of the people who were most likely to get a delay or transfer because we are much more comfortable with the language, and feel like others would be hurt a lot more than we would because of a delay. To be honest I would be perfectly fine with staying one more week here and meeting the new Dane missionaries and finishing getting ready for Denmark. A whole six week transfer on the other hand would be a bit rough for me. But whatever happens will be interesting, so we'll just have to wait til Friday to find out!

 

I said goodbye to Trevin a few nights ago. That was interesting. The first goodbye I had to say at the MTC... Me Conner and him all left our classes after planning and just took pictures in the hall and talked for a while. I know he's going to kill it in Africa. I'm jealous he's on his way out already, and I know Conner is too! It's funny to use Conner's old "I remember when I still had that many days before my mission" joke on him because I (hopefully) get to leave here before him. Russian must be pretty tough because the last few days I've seen him he refused to speak English to me which made for some interesting conversations... I love that I've gotten to spend my MTC stay with these two, it's been awesome.

 

Oh, we also got a new Danish missionary the other day. His mom is Danish so he can already understand Danish and speak it better than any of us... that was kind of sad. But it's cool to see him around because he goes with the English missionaries. Should be interesting to see how he can help some of us if we get to spend time with him or else end up as companions in the field.

 

Also, LINDSAY! Where are you going on your misson? You told me you should have gotten your call by now, I wanna know where :)

 

As far as funny Danish words this week I learned that the word for butterfly is Sommerfugl. You probably don't get it. It's funny cause the word for summer is Sommer and the word for bird is fugl. So in Denmark butterfly's are literally called "Summer Birds" I think that's itneresting haha. Also the word for dream is fabel and the word for garden is hav. With Danish grammar the word Fablehaven translates directly to the garden of dreams. That was also cool.

 

Not a lot of other new stuff to report today, except that we were making jokes about peer pressuring Elder Hooper to put milk on his cereal (who doesn't put milk on cereal???) My comp Elder Read always keeps things entertaining, he accidentally touched a sister in a crowd after one of the devotionals and it horrified him. He said he'd violated a rule and kept twitching his hand after. Our roomates didn't let him live it down haha. He's one of the hardest workers in our district though and he's really taught me a lot.

 

*Danish Lesson Time*

 

How to say your name - Jeg hedder ______

 

Jeg sounds like the word eye with a y in front of it. Hedder makes a soft "d" noise. If you don't know what that is just put your tongue in between your teeth when you pronounce the d sound. Also keep the r kind of soft.

 

Anyway, this is Elder Durrant signing off! Remember to pray for District 37's visas! Gud vaere med dig til vi ses i gen!

 

Pictures from 7-30-13

Hey-Oh!

Everyone! How's it going? This email account has been acting up lately, so I hope you all are getting these letters haha!

Well as of now I am officially the next group to leave our zone. I'll be leaving with my Danish buds and also the Icelandic companionship who will probably fly with us to Denmark. Can't wait. I skyped with real live Danes yesterday, and it was intense. The connection was kind of bad and so it was even harder to understand them but at the end of our spiritual thought I asked to two girls we were skyping (I think they were friends, around 25) if they could understand us and they said that our Danish was really good and that they were impressed. Somebody must have paid them haha.

Oh! So Dallin is here now, I think that happened this week... might have been last. Also Mason is our new zone leader so that's great as well. It's pretty much a Provo High reunion, I'll include some pictures of us all. It's awesome having Dallin and Mason in for sacrament. Since I've been declared the all powerful sacrament coordinator I set it up so that I prepared the sacrament, Mason blessed it, and Dallin passed it to our zone. You could say Provo High runs branch 37.

Another important thing to note is that hipsters still exist on missions. One showed up with the dutchies and Cole, I take it back. You are not a hipster. You don't even come close to this kid.

If any of you get called to a "hard mission" like Europe, or just need a pick me up for someone that is struggling have them read Alma 32:27, I found it this week during personal study and it really struck a chord with me. I truly believe that scripture will enable me to provide the Danish people I meet with at least a little bit of motivation to look into the church. It talks about how all you need is a desire to have faith, and if you have that then the Lord can help you do the rest.

Speaking of mission calls I hear Lindsay got hers but I don't know where!!! Let me know! I want to hear that you'll be joinging me in Denmark!

Anyway, I wanna hear about you all! DearElder is still great I get to read it the day you send it and I can write back faster than once a week! Thanks for all of you who write me, it makes my day to get letters from you all:)

- Vi Ses!