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
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