Prayer of a Child

Don't have a lot of time. I've got to read everything you guys sent me and head out early because I'm going to a different zone for a departing dart war in my old chapel for my.....

 

LAST DAY IN THE UNITED STATES

 

Well, at least for a few years :) I got my visa!! Leaving tomorrow night and heading to good old Europe! It was actually a funny story. So we visited a family named the Francis family. This was on the 25th which was the exact day they told me to expect my visa so I'd been silently freaking out every time the phone rang thinking it might be President Riggs with some big news. A kid named Ethan Francis who is 3 years old said the prayer for us at dinner and asked to bless the missionaries that they can get help and right there during his prayer the phone vibrated in my pocket. I silenced it and saw it was President Riggs! Longest moments of my life waiting for the prayer to end so I could go outside and call him back! Well Ethan's prayer brought my visa and just as President put it, this is bad news and good news. I'm leaving a lot of friends behind here, but I am beyond excited to go and not understand anything for a few weeks! I have 33 hours left here so I'm soaking it up while I can.

 

This week has gone by in a blur. I went on two sets of exchanges, one with the Zone Leaders and one with the Elders that work in the Office. It's been great because after all the exchanges and moves and stuff I've had I have now worked alongside Zone Leaders, a District Leader the AP's and even done Office Work (Which was mostly moving a ton of furniture funnily enough). Life has not been boring during my mini mission haha! I wanna keep hearing from you all! It's a good problem to have to hurry during email time!

 

As far as people go, we found Janis finally. It was actually a really neat  experience. I haven't been feeling too great lately, kind of had a stuffed nose and a sore throat. It escalated while I was out tracting to the point where I lost my voice completely and it hurt everytime I talked with my new super raspy two thousand year old smoker voice. I had to revert to whispering to Elder Ni and just letting him to the talking. It was a little frustrating because as we walked up to Janis's house this lady starting yelling at us "Mormon ***holes" and all sorts of other fun insults. Anyway as we started talking to Janis it was hard for me to stay silent because she has had a lot of lot of lot of trials recently, and is obviously not taking it well as she started smoking in front of us and used the F-Bomb directed towards our bishop for offering her Psychiatric help. She is under the impression that her siblings are paying the landlord to hack her computer to help them in a court case against her and having other people follow her... I had to stay silent through all of this while Elder Ni did a great job of defending what we know. It got to the point though where Janis started yelling at us and getting mad with us and so after staying silent and listening the whole time I finally felt that I knew what to say. I pulled out the scriptures to one I felt she would like about "justice to those who seek your destruction" and how that promise only applied to those who were pure in heart (Jacob 3:1). I managed to find a sort of whisper that didn't hurt to bad, but it made me eliminate any words I didn't absolutely need to say. I explained that we may not understand her temporal needs and were sorry if we had offended her in anyway, but that we were there for her spiritual needs. I told her about a talk Elder Bednar gave to the MTC missionaries about the Character of Christ and how no matter what trials and afflictions hurt him he was always concerned about how to better those around him instead of bettering himself.

 

It's hard to explain, I just felt like I had learned a lesson by being forced to listen rather than talk too much. I've seen my words affect people before, but never change someone the way that those words changed Janis. So I've come to believe that it wasn't necessarily my words that did it. After having to listen rather than speak and by saying only that which was needed I could speak with the spirit more than I have before. She went from angry and smoking, to slowly putting the cigarette down, to apologetic and nice just like she used to be with us.

 

Anywho, I've gotta go. Remember to listen rather than speak sometimes and to follow the 11th commandment to write missionaries! Love you all!   

The pictures are of my district and Joy Call who is a lovely lady who adores missionaries and has each one that passes through take a picture with her and Harry. That was cool. Also she kept one of my ties, she's making a quilt with missionaries ties.... That's gonna take a while.

 

Vi Ses!

 

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Typical week of mass shootings, drug searches and free dinners :)

So there was a mass shooting in DC this week. That was scary.

 

Also we crashed a drug search. That was fun.

 

Threatened with jail time while tracting? Normal.

 

Free dinner, now THAT's exciting news!

 

I'll explain. So me and Elder Ni were just chilling in Subway enjoying sandwiches we got off a gift card when I saw the TV in the corner displaying "MASS SHOOTING IN DC". Considering I could walk there on a P-Day and several of our missionaries were actually in DC at the time we freaked out. I feel sad for the people it happened to, but I don't have a lot of info so I'm not sure exactly what happened.

 

Also, we pulled into a little street of town houses only to find two police cars parked down the street. We got out to walk to a lady we've been helping out (the one that called me angelic before but then took it back because she said I was to "diligent" to be angelic) and I said "Hey, wouldn't it be funny if the cops were outside Janis's house?"... they were. The landlord called the cops to search her room for drugs and to evict her. He couldn't take her smoking at 3am and waking up his family with the smoke and she wouldn't stop. The police wouldn't let us in and wouldn't take the time to listen to two people that know her better than anyone else on the scene. They left empty handed like we knew they would. Janis wasn't even there at the time. Poor woman. She had her house searched by cops, is involved in a court case fighting her siblings over her parents money, is scheduled for major heart surgery, got evicted from her house, and found out her mom died all in the same week. SO! If you think your life is hard, think again. To make it worse we can't find her now. I'll keep you posted.

 

Also we were out tracting in the same place we found Patti (OH! I haven't told you about her! Hold on!) and some guy told us if we kept tracting the police the "patrol the complex" would throw us in jail and fine us. We kept tracting. Still alive, no worries. Few doors down we found a guy who was baptized a while ago and wants to take us out to dinner to talk about the church because he hasn't been in a while. Reward for perseverance? I think yes!

 

Ok, coolest story ever! Last week we tracting for at least four thousand hours straight and nothing happened. Closest we came to success was this guy named Kay that used to be a catholic priest but switched to Buddhism and talked with us for half an hour about how if Jesus ran for president half the Christian world wouldn't vote for him. In other words, last week wasn't very successful. Well last Monday we were tracting some more and Elder Ni being the inspired missionary he is said "I think I wanna try this prayer approach I learned a while ago". I thought it was weird but he went for it. Basically he was going to offer to leave a prayer on the house of the next person that opened. Well the very first house we knocked on turned out to be Patti Saylor. She accepted Elder Ni's invitation, and after we had said the prayer we looked up and her eye's were tearing up! We offered to teach her and she accepted! BOOM! We taught the restoration and about the spirit. She said she felt the spirit while we were teaching and when we invited her to be baptized she said it is something she would be open to! Awesome! She even tried to hug me after the lesson but being a missionary I was (so awkwardly) like.... uhhhh I'm not really supposed to hug you. If I wasn't a missionary I totally would but I'll just go for a handshake! We've taught her the second lesson now and she called baptism a "favorable thought" and wants to bring her son who is a 30 year old former quadriplegic to church as well.

 

Great week. We also found some guy who told us he knows how to fix the economy and explained it to us in depth. And me and Elder Ni made some awesome food, and we taught primary sharing time. Pictures of the food are included!

 

Oh! Ok, one more thing. Sorry this has been a crazy week! I might get my visa soon! It should come any day. Definitely within three weeks according to Denmark but that was the guess for another elder who went to the consulate after me. So I could be shipping out anytime because they are expecting the visas of me and a few other people soon. It's actually scaring me to think about going to Denmark. I know it'll be so much fun and I really can't wait but it's kind of like going cliff jumping. I have that nervous feeling of leaving something solid that I know I am comfortable with like the DC mission (tell John congrats for his call to the almost as good DC North mission!) and leaping into the adventure ahead. I hope my Danish is where it should be because I will certainly need it. Anyway, I can't wait. I always liked cliff jumping anyway ;)

 

Tak for reading min silly emails and tak for writing me! Det betyder a lot to hear from you people! Really though.

 

Vi ses! 

 

Pictures - The weird scribbles are Amharic, they speak it in Ethiopia. That picture is of the second Amharic Book of Mormon I've placed on my mission. I don't know how anyone can read that stuff! and the other one is the great home made meal of Chicken Flavored Rice, Mashed Potatoes, and Spaghetti that me and Elder Ni crafted the other day. It was marvelous.

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Baseball with drunks, Walker, and a stake conference talk! 9-16-13

Hello everyone! The Washington North and South missions were given special permission this week to attend the Nationals vs. Phillies baseball game this week! It was frikin awesome! And what are the odds that the two missions in attendance were the two that me and my cousin were assigned to while we wait for visas! We found each other during the 7th inning stretch and got to talk for a little bit, it was incredible! After the game there were like a trillion drunk people all with a slight understanding that those kids in the white shirts were "Mormons" and they were a lot of them at the game. One guy came up to us and was like "hey! all you Mormons, you're like celebrities right? Well uh... I wanna a umm.. picture with y'all! Gather round!" and after he trapped like eight of us with him he got a picture and made us all do "tough guy" poses. I cracked up and was just laughing during the picture. I mean there were eight LDS missionaries posed around this drunk guy all trying to imitate his "tough guy" face while his friends took a picture... it was pretty entertaining. We got several greetings like "Oh **** it's the Mormons! I promise I'll come to church tomorrow!" and stuff like that. Either way I got a hat and a first baseball game certificate from the Nationals so I thought it was great to do something that wasn't tracting for a little bit. We didn't get back home till one in the morning though so I've been destroyed the last few days sleep wise...

 

We also had stake conference this sunday which was my second stake conference in the last three weeks thanks to my transfer. I've actually been in the same amount of areas and attended the same amount of stake conferences and almost had as many companions as my current companion who has been out for almost a year! My path has been crazy so far haha... Anyway, part way through stake conference the president gets up and says "we will now be hearing from Elder Ni from the Springfield ward on his relationship with Jesus Christ" my companion looks around, realizes they're talking about him, and then goes up to the stage completely unprepared and gives a talk that is being translated into two languages and being broadcasted across the stake in front of hundreds of hundreds of people. He killed it! It was an incredible talk. He has the incredible ability to talk with the spirit when he talks about something he cares about which in this case was how the church had helped strengthen his family. It was awesome. I'm glad they didn't call on my because I have no idea what I would have said. So now I've thought of a few stories and scriptures I'll share if I ever have to give an emergency talk haha!

 

Everyone went to the MTC this week! Cole Miles and Jake all at the same time! What the...

 

I've also heard a little bit more about my visa. From my underground sources it sounds like the majority of our visas are going to arrive after the transfer date in Denmark which means there is a chance they may keep us in the states for five to six more weeks so that they can have us arrive right on a transfer date which I think is dumb. I'd rather just get there to work on my Danish even if it is in a trio or something. I can tell my language is starting to slip, and I need to work on it with others that can speak the language. I guess it will all work out but it's just a little frustrating right now.

 

We've been kind of struggling as far as finding people to teach. We couldn't find any new investigators this week, and the ones we've been teaching haven't been great about keeping their appointments. Teressa is super hard to get a hold of and Steve is so busy that we were just happy he could come to the adult session of stake conference the night before. He is so weird about the way he is investigating though because he does all the parts most people consider hard like reading and attending long church meetings but he keeps telling us he has no idea if any of it is true or if he is willing to join or be baptized or anything of the sort... odd.

 

Keep me updated on what's going on back at home, and really if any of you have music that is "conducive to the spirit" then send it to me over email would ya? I have an MP3 but not a lot of music so far... thanks!

 

PS, Walker wanted to make sure the picture below makes it to his Mom! and I found a street called Royal Ridge so I just had to pose by it haha, it's kind of hard to read though!

 

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Chastity with a sex offender and a Ghost Pepper

Well with a title like that how can you not read my email? Haha life's been pretty interesting here in the DC mission! First off, to answer everyone's questions I don't know anything about my visa other than the fact that they told me to expect it around the 25th of this month. I still have a few good weeks left here and to be honest it's going to be another life changing thing when it comes and I've had a lot of those lately so a few weeks of the same thing is alright by me. Like my president asked me to I've been trying to just bury myself in the work here. My new area is weird, we have like to people we're teaching but everyone we tract into is way nicer than in my last area. They just are not interested. Also the members aren't kicking in as much as we'd like.

 

Shout out to Elle! Going to Louisiana Spanish speaking, that's so awesome! That'll be a very interesting place to go! Good luck!

 

So yeah, I taught the Law of Chastity to a sex offender yesterday. He's actually a really nice guy and working on changing. I really would not include that part in my letter but none of you have any idea who I'm talking about, and I just thought it was kind of ironic. My companion told me that we were gonna go teach a guy who was a less active but that we weren't allowed to invite him to church, after learning why he wasn't legally allowed to be in the building I asked what lesson we were teaching... yep. Chastity. It was great.

 

Also, has anyone ever heard of the Ghost Pepper? You can't buy them anywhere in the US, I don't know if it's illegal or what but the family that had us over for dinner got a hold of the seeds somehow and grew them in their back yard. It is the 7th hottest pepper in the entire world, around 10,000 times the strength of a Jalepeno. I tried one about the size of my pinky finger's nail and it destroyed me. My tongue was pretty much numb and after eating steak, potatos, and a lot of liquids it was still growing stronger. So that was interesting... It took about 30 minutes for it to go away. I felt like I could melt glass with my breath haha.

 

Oh, and I have new investigators now! There is a really interesting guy named Steve that the missionaries have been working on for a long time. He is 59 and works in the pentagon. He's all the way to Helaman in the Book of Mormon and has been to church something like 7 times. Still won't commit to baptism. He says he wants to finish the book and then see from there. In my personal opinion he is doing it because he enjoys spending time with the neighbors whose house we use to teach him and all the other parts of investigating. He looks at everything super logically and since his divorce I feel like he really wants things to keep him busy so he is on like a thousand committees and is an avid adult scouter. We're working on trying to get him to feel that there is something out there you can't describe but that you feel through prayer and similar things. I don't know if he'll get baptized but we're certainly doing everything we can to get him there! I think it would help him so much personally.

 

There's another girl named Teressa who is 17 and we put her on date for baptism the other day! That was my first time doing it, and it was great. She's on date for baptism on Elder Ni's birthday actually haha but I most likely won't be here in October so I hope everything goes well with that. I only met her once for like 20 minutes at her house. We're trying to get a members house we can teach her at because her house has at least 70,000 dogs and somewhere in the vicinity of eleven hundred screaming babies. Also her dad is always watching movies and not participating which is also distracting. Try teaching someone about the Word of Wisdom while Adam Sandler is wrestling a half naked man on the TV in the background... The biggest problem with Teressa though is that she can't come to church because of her job. If we can find a way around that though she is really enjoying our visits and is really likely to be baptized next month!

 

Umm lets see, what else. For those of you asking me what to send me I really just would like pictures or else song lyrics, I miss music haha :) We actually are super lucky and have a keyboard in our apartment so I get to play a few minutes of piano each night which is awesome. Elder Ni is like a prodigy though. He's had ten years of piano and it's like a second language for him. (well.. third?) He can hear any note and tell you what it is, for example he told me our bathroom fan is an A flat. I just hum the songs I want to hear and he can crank them out on the piano just from listening to me haha it's crazy!

 

Keep sending me questions and news about college and family and sports and all sorts of stuff, I miss you all so much!

 

Gud vaere med dig til vi ses igen! (God be with you till we meet again)

 

Elder Durrant

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Second week in DC - Second transfer

Another new address! Maybe I'll have to start every email with one of these?

8511 Bauer Dr. #24 

Springfield Va, 22152 

 

So yeah I'm at the mission office and my suitcase (everything I own fits in one suitcase! Weird) is in the car. I meet my new companion in about half an hour. His original companion came out with me but I guess he's headed back home for one reason or another. Either way I've heard a lot of good things about him already, his name is Elder Ni. I'll be switching zones, so right after I met everyone in THIS zone their throwing me over to the Anandale zone and then probably shipping me from there in another few weeks to head over to Europe! I'm gonna miss my tripanionship, and all my investigators, and everything. But I'm excited to get a whole new zone to experience. I guess I'm just supposed to go all over the place. I have to give up living in a member house but I get an apartment now and it'll just be me and Elder Ni! I think I'll actually enjoy it because I've wanted to have that living on your own experience for a while. Lessons and tracting will also be a lot different with just one other person with me. 

     Yeah, tracting, have I told you about tracting? Well I love it to death, a horrible violent and bloody death. Just kidding, it's not that bad. The majority of people just awkwardly deny us but there's always that one or two people who go out of their way to be ridiculously rude for no reason. I honestly feel like it's harder to do this in English than it would be for me to do it in Danish. Anyway, it's good practice and now I feel comfortable walking up to anyone almost anywhere and just introducing myself. 

Just met my companion, he walked into the mission office while I was typing, he seems really great and I think this will be a good way to finish the transfer. I was the Zone Leaders companion and now I'm the District leaders companion haha... maybe they're really worried about me. 

Also, I went to the DC temple today and it is incredible! Seriously one of the coolest temples I've ever seen including all the pictures of all the other ones I've ever looked at. We went mini golfing after.... interesting way to spend a P-Day haha. Anywho, my new address is above, so let me know how your lives are! No word on my visa so another few weeks in DC. I'm gonna miss my investigators here, even if the ones we had on date dropped off for one reason or another. I'll still have a car in my new area though, I guess I've been pretty spoiled because so far I lived in a members house which was really nice and we've had like seriously 6 or 7 dinner appointments which is rare and so I haven't had to make my own food nearly at all. (Sorry to disappoint you mom :) 

It's great hearing from all of you that sent me an email! Keep it up I love hearing about life back home! Let me know if any of you want something from DC or else wanna ask a question! I'm excited for Cole and Miles and Jake to get into the MTC next week! 

Also tomorrow is my 2 month mark. Whoa. 

See you guys later! I'm out of time, sorry if I forgot something!

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