Ich bin älteren Durrant

​Yes the title is in German. I'll explain. I got transferred!! I am now in a city on the other side of the country called Sønderborg. It's been my dream area for a while now actually. Basically it's right on the border of Denmark and Germany, and when baptisms happen here we go down to Flensburg in Germany for them! It's also known for being arguably the most scenic part of Denmark. (I've served in some of the most scenic places in the whole country... can't believe how Lucky I am!) I've already managed to be a set apart missionary in England where my Dad served (airport) and know I have a shot to hit the one my Mom served in with Germany!

 

Leaving Holbæk was way sad though, I had to say goodbye to awesome people like the Stokholm Family!

 

They're awesome, their son has kind of left the church but it was great to make friends with him. He's super nice and loves music. He's actually in a metal band and sings for it... pretty intense. Sister Stokholm gave me a really nice juleaften plate as a present. They're really nice souveneirs and I was actually kinda shocked she'd give one away. Their youngest daughter Mathilde is the most adorable six year old little Danish girl ever, she's the one that gave me flowers a while ago haha! Sad to say goodbye to them and all the other great members and people in the area. I definitely think I connected with the most people here in the Roskilde Ward out of all of my areas so far!

 

One of those is Mike! He's the one that took us to a Castle so we could talk about the church. He's incredible, I'm gonna miss that guy. He's 22 and we had a super awesome lesson with him (at the Castle again :D) and he really opened up. He told me that he needed to explain something, but he wasn't really sure how. Basically he said that during our lessons he'd gotten a specific feeling two times... Once when I'd said a prayer at the end of a lesson, and once while the member we brought to a lesson was explaining something. It was a feeling that he'd never had before in his life other than when he's talked with us and both times it felt like he shivered inside of himself, and all his hair stood on end. It was as if there was someone behind him looking at him even though there wasn't and he said he got a comfortable feeling that was kind of scary but that this feeling made him feel good about the things that were being said, not because they made sense or because he agreed or even because it was something for him but because he felt it was true. I told him that was the spirit and that I'd felt it before too. I asked him what he was going to do now that he had recieved that feeling. He said he'd keep trying to learn more about the church and the Book of Mormon. I pulled out the baptisimal interview questions and showed them to him and he had no problems with them, and he agreed to make baptism his goal even though he wasn't ready to choose a date right then. Easily one of the best experiences of my mission so far! He's making leaps and bounds of progress and I was way sad to say bye to him... but we exchanged information and hope to meet again sometime. Hopefully it will be at his baptism =) I gave him a brand new leather bounded triple that I'd bought from the office with some of my MSF and saved for someone that I knew would use it. I know he'll use it.

 

Then I left for the German border :)

 

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No worries the magazine in the zipper is a souvenir and therefore stays in the trunk!

 

But this is just the first shot I grabbed on the ride over here. This type of stuff is ALL around me here in this area. I love it!  

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We're living in an apartment with two other elders! I've wanted a four man apartment my whole mission and now I finally have one. Also there is a piano in our apartment. Literally all of my dreams are coming true. The branch down here is reputed to be one of the nicest and best in the mission, and they just got upgraded to four missionaries so Elder Willardson (my new comp) and Elder Read (My old MTC comp) split the area they had last transfer. Oh yeah, I still have a car! Haha there are like four car areas in the mission, and two of them are for the zone leaders. I've been priviliged to serve in the other two straight in a row :) Yay for cars!

 

The area down here in the South is also known for their language... Denmark is a really small country, like it could fit in Utah four times...ish. But somehow their language is all screwy from one part of the land to the other. Down here they speak ''Sønderjysk'' which Means they swallow and mumble all their Word and have weird slang like ''Mojn'' which Means both hello and goodbye and like six other things that I can't remember... I can't even begin to describe how nice of a place it is over here. Every roundabout has sculptures and is decorated all nice with flowers and the ocean going through the town is just like glass and the bridge goes up high a Little bit to give just an incredible view. Trust me when I say Pictures will be coming =)

 

I really think this area will be the high light of my mission. I know what to do, I've got the language down, and I have three elders in the apartment who are willing to do the Work. None of them are super talkative, but they keep the rules and will Work hard and that's all that really matters. I already do enough talking for four elders put together. I plan on reading the entire Bible this transfer! That's gonna be an interesting challenge. I read the Whole Book of Mormon last transfer and high lighted every scripture I read that had to do with Helaman5:12 because that's something I've tried to focus on lately. Really interesting to read through that copy of the Book of Mormon now with all those spots high lighted! We also want to find tons of tons of new people to meet with so we made a goal to fill all 95 slots in our planners provided for information for potential investigators... that's a TON! So far we have three :) But it's only been one day!

 

Elder Willardson is from Kingston and went to Piute High.... There were like 27 kids in his graduating class. Ok no that's a lie... There were exactly 27 kids in his graduating class. And I thought Provo was kind of a small school! It's also good to be back with Mr. Jantzen Read. Lived with him in the MTC and now it's a big reunion down by the German border. Fun stuff!

 

I have soooooooooooooooooooooo much more to tell you but with only this much time I only really have time to Express my excitement for transfers. When President called me he said ''Elder Durrant, you're going to be transferred... you're moving to Germany!'' I knew exactly what he meant. He meant the area that I'd prayed to move to for a while know.

 

He meant Sønderborg! 

Ældste Durrant                        

Borups Alle 128 1.tv                  

2000 Frederiksberg

Denmark​

If there was a mountain in Denmark I would climb it

Ok, I know I do this all the time but just look where I am serving!

This was on the way home a few days ago. Take away the low quality part of my camera on the top corner and this could be a postcard! 

Anyway​, this week was pretty great! We had a really neat experience while on splits. (I feel like all the best stories happen on splits... we've only done them two or three times this transfer but you hear a ton about them...) We did a lot of service for an awesome lady named Donna. They have a cow farm and she taught us all the names for the weird animals and their children animals and all the machinary and whatnot. Well she used to be a member, but her names got taken off the records do to a bunch of stuff like fourteen years ago. We had a really good talk and reminded her about the reasons she was a part of the church and the feelings she has had. After reminding her about the feelings she had in the past about the church she told us she would love to be rebaptized, but the man she's lived with for thirty years won't marry her. They have kids together and she feels like she can't choose between living with her family and baptism. But now the desire is there and we can start the work process. Pray for her! It's going to be a bumpy ride. 

Also we've made ground with my best bud Mike! Really fun to get to be by his side while he's learning about all these things and trying them himself for the first time! 

This week is one where for the first time I think I had the thought that I would be scared to go home. Not just cause I'm in love with the country or just get a huge kick out of listening to EFY music on a loop, but just because I love being set apart. Set apart from real life! I'm starting to have to work on a college application and I hate it. Now I'm going to have to remember a bagillion passwords and worry about essays and go over grades again and use my real world brain for a bit and it's lame. I love just having this last breath of myself. I don't know if that makes sense. But here all I have to do ever is walk around beautiful places and help people by helping myself. Literally the only thing I'm concerned about is improving who I am and helping others... and then finding good ties on P-Day. I'm never going to get to do that ever again. Being an adult in the real world sounds miserable (sorry parents). Job?? Bleh. Finances?? Bleh. Realizing your childhood is forever over?? Bleeeeeehhhh. Homework?? Blech. I'm just thankful I have ten months left of enjoyment. So even if it's way hard sometimes and I feel a little lonely or sad I realize that this time is freaking awesome so I better change my attitude. Yeah sure seeing my family and everything will be great and I would love nothing more than to sit down with some friends and listen to Ed Sheerans new album. But that means a lot of other stuff will start as well. 

Also I won't be able to make weird faces with my MTC group at mission conferences anymore! I love these guys!

But hey. Everything happens for a reason. Just the knowledge I've gained from my mission so far and all the changes that I've seen inside myself make it easier for me to know that even though the rest of my life will be lame it will still be good cause I'll get tons of new experiences at different phases of my life and after all there is eternity so I guess I'll have all the time I need. 

Just a change of perspective from 10 months being an unsermountable (spelling?) climb to being a big chunk of time to savour. We're getting transfer calls either tomorrow or the day after and I have no idea what will happen. I kind of want to change but I don't want to leave the investigators I love here.... We'll just see what happens. 

Umm funny stories... we found a crazy Spanish guy that demands we tell him stories about super random parts of the Bible. We called him yesterday and he yelled at us in Spanish after we introduced ourselves and then he hung up. OH! Also. Mom I am under oath to delived a message to you from a lady named Else (Ell Suh). I knocked on her door and she was starting to say no and wanted to close the door but I just started asking her about her opinions and ideas and started a conversation. Turns out she's very curious about Mormons but just thought we were typical religious workers and that we were mindless. However after talking she made me promise that I would tell you Mom that you brought me up right and that I was nice, charming, and easy to talk to and that she is very impressed that I don't drink or swear and haven't ruined my life and she is impressed by your parenting...ness. Something along those lines. She might come to church soon! Fingers crossed =) 

Also while talking to a couple of girls on the street two of them distracted us while the others tried to measure Elder Burtons butt... but I won't go into detail on that one. 

We had a member of the seventy come talk to our mission about the possibility of us getting iPads soon. I had mixed feelings about what he said but I know there was a lot in there that I can use in the work so those are the parts I'm gonna focus on. I just felt like our mission presidents training he gave there had a lot more personal meaning to us as a mission and that it meant a lot more. Anywho, it was incredible and we get another one here next month when Elder Bednar comes! Super stoked for that!

May Robin Williams rest in peace. 

Ældste Durrant                        

Borups Alle 128 1.tv                  

2000 Frederiksberg

Denmark​

Spankings and Miracles

So this is what Elder Burton's slogan was during weekly planning. 

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We actually fell quite short of our mark this week as far as numbers go. But then again we taught three lessons which is a lot more than other areas in the misison. We actually had a stellar week in general. Ten teaching appointments set up for next week! 

It would be easy to think of my mission as a struggle because of the lack of numbers. But I'm on my mission to declare to these people the message of truth. It's not about the number of people that accept it as much as it is the amount of people who have the opportunity to hear it. Of course the fun part is when somebody gets to change they're life around but hey, I'm learning a TON and am where I'm supposed to be =) 

We had Banana Splits again. I love visiting Tåstrup with my good friend Elder Christensen. He's basically the best person ever other than the fact that he's gonna go to BYU after the mission. 

I also got spanked by a drunk guy because I was being obedient. Long story. So basically we have to drive less than 2200 kilometers each month in our car. Well we were getting really close to our limit... too close. I chanced a drive out to Viby for a lesson with a potential investigator which went great but when we got to the church in Roskilde to eat lunch we realized that we would end up about 9 kilometers short on the drive back. I called the office to see if we could just get it excused but they said it would involve the office in Salt Lake and yaddah yaddah tons of paper work and what not and so I said forget it we'll just stick to our limit. Well a little part of me just wanted to drive the distance anyway and report the extra kilometers on next months report. I thought about it a bit more and decided that although it really wouldn't hurt anybody and that nobody would ever even know... it was dishonest. If you had taken the Elder Durrant from any other time in my life I would have just said that it was stupid and that we were still following the spirit of the law and then I would have driven home and never thought about it again. 

Well that's not what we did. We drove part way back, and found a parking spot in the woods about 10 or 11 kilometers outside of Holbæk and walked back.... a long ways back. I thought while we were walking that I wasn't following the rule to show off to anybody that I was obedient and that I also wasn't following the rule because I was scared of breaking it. That should be how it is, and we should be able to expect blessings because of it right? Well we saw nothing on the way home other than a lot of fields. Took almost two hours. 

The blessing for holding the principal of obedience didn't show itself on the walk home. But I still didn't feel mad about our choice. It was the right one.

The next day for some weird reason I wanted to walk out to the car instead of bike there. We got the new set of kilometers, and we had a bike rack. But we walked instead. On the way there we remembered we had to buy a seed for an object lesson we were going to do later that day. Well in the grocery store we found in an area of town we never really walk through a worker asked us if we were mormons. We said yes and he told us that he'd met with some before and was actually texting some missionaries that lived in Holbæk. I was confused but he pulled out his iPhone and showed me a message from ''Ældste Burton og Ældste Durrant''... What the! This guy was Casper! A really awesome young guy that Elder Enniss had been working with that had been impossible to get a hold of! I'd been texting him for the last three months and never met him or gotten very many replies! We never would have found him if we hadn't been walking back to our car that day!

Well we set up a lesson with him this week, and because we were going to be on splits I decided to go show Elder Burton where he lived. On the way there we got stopped by a drunk guy. He told us this crazy story and kept referring to us as 'Jesus People'. In the middle of the conversation a girl our age we'd talked to on the street before and given a pamphlet to walked by and waved and I was torn in half by everything that was happening. I wanted to go see if she'd read the book but the drunk guy was telling me all about some monk in Guatamala that had apparently led him on and then not answered his calls... The girl turned the corner and was gone. Sad :( I turned back to the drunk guy and told him about the Book of Mormon but he'd just remembered he was on his way to ''That Island'' and pointed somewhere off shore and started to walk away. As he went by he spanked me............. and then smiled at me. *Shiver* 

Well we found him again with his friend about ten minutes later still looking for the boat to take them to ''the island''. We talked to them for like 20 minutes and found out there names. My new drunk friend Lasse told me he was rich (all drunk people think they are rich) and I gave him a Book of Mormon. At first the other guy Henrik wasn't too keen on it all. But I bore testimony of the Book and all of a sudden Henriks eyes changed and we wanted to see the Book. Lasse got this huge grin on his face and held it out of reach and started taunting the other guy. Too funny. We got them both books and actually found Lasse's house yesterday. He actually is rich... it's a mansion! We were lucky I found the right street because all Lasse said was the ''Angel Road'' and pointed completely the wrong direction. He remembered us and is willing to meet in the future. He was a wife and a little girl! Just another testimony that we're lead out here. We never would have found this family or the other guy Casper if we had driven home. Also we wouldn't have seen the girl on the street again. Maybe that helped her? I don't know.

Anyway. There's a novel for ya. And here's a good quote from everybody's favorite living prophet Thomas S. Monson. Normally I don't like when they make the quotes all artsy fartsy but this one was too good of a quote to pass up. The past shouldn't control us, and the future shouldn't cause us to worry. All we really have is the present. LIVE IT! 

Ældste Durrant                        

Borups Alle 128 1.tv                  

2000 Frederiksberg

Denmark​

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Singing in the Rain

Hey everyone! Yet another week in Denmark. It rained incredibly hard this morning... like more than I've seen in Denmark so far which is impressive considering I've been here during the two biggest hurricanes in Denmarks history. So of course for exercise me and Elder Burton grabbed some shorts and went running in our sandals out onto the fjord. I had kind of an interesting realization moment standing on the docks of Holbæk.

It was early in the morning, raining, cold, wet, the whole sky was gray with clouds... I hadn't seen my family, or listened to the music I like, gone to a single movie, seen any of my friends, had a good nights sleep uninterrupted by an alarm, or even been in my home country for more than a year... And I was happy. I don't know, it was just kind of interesting to realize that as long as I had the knowledge that I have now and my attitude the rest of everything couldn't really have power over me to get me down. If you asked me a while ago how I'd feel about being in the rain in probably the most Godless country in the world early in the morning on a mission I probably would have told you that it would be miserable. But I really enjoyed it :)  

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Speaking of being happy what makes people more happy than parrots? 

Not much. The couple we ate dinner with this week had a pet parrot that was tons of fun. ​Then they fed us lamb t-bone steak. That was exciting. After the dinner was over the wife asked us to give her a priesthood blessing. She's from Portugal and is working for some large bank business or something and has just gotten a very interesting job offer from some other something... I don't remember exactly. Anyway point being she wanted council and asked us for a blessing. Now let me tell you exactly what happens when somebody mentions a priesthood blessing. My heart skips a beat, and then every single thought or action I've ever had or done that was bad runs through my mind at a million miles an hour. Well this time I told myself that that's just stupid because I'm living the way I should and those thoughts were garbage. She asked me specifically to give the blessing and so I did. Right after I said amen she told me that in the blessing I'd actually answered a specific prayer she's had for years that had nothing to do with the job problem she's experienced or anything she'd mentioned to me... She didn't tell me exactly what prayer that was or what answer I gave to her but she seemed super grateful for whatever it was that I said. Great experience :) 

The work has been going alright here. A lot of people on vacation and others being lame and not talking with us but the work goes forward! It's incredible that with the success rate we have while street contacting that we can still manage to be fairly busy throughout the week. I can only imagine the craziness of putting the petal to the metal in an area where people actually enjoy talking about God. That would be lovely :) Maybe this rain will hold up and Denmark will realize they have to repent or be flooded? I can only hope! Haha just kidding. 

Love you all. Stay sharp! I'm out of time :) 

Ældste Durrant                        

Borups Alle 128 1.tv                  

2000 Frederiksberg

Denmark