May 30th

HEYYYYY

How are you all!? This week has been bomb! As always it is dang hot here in the DR but I’m kinda adjusting haha! This week was hard but I just gotta keep goin!! It's hot but I love it!!!
 This week we received a reference from Chile! Apparently there is a man in Chile who is meeting with the missionaries and he wanted us to visit his wife! Well we received this reference from salt lake and the address was totally wrong so we just decided to go door to door looking for her! Well it took us like 4 hours to find her but we finally did! It turned out that she had no idea her husband had sent us haha but that was ok! She was very open to our message and everything! She even ended up coming to church on Sunday too! So we ended up having a total of about 10 investigators at church and they were all Haitians haha. When we have our lessons with them, they don’t speak very good Spanish so we take a member with us to help us out! It is sometimes difficult but it’s really amazing  because no matter the language, the spirit testifies!!

 I can’t remember if I already said this but here in the DR, the power goes out ALL THE TIME and its really dumb haha so we have batteries on the outside of the house that hold a charge so we can run a fan at night and stuff, but if they run out, its sooooo hot! Also here in the DR there are TONS of fruit stands and everything and so on Wednesday afternoon, we stopped at one and the lady made us a fruit cocktail type thing and covered it in honey! WOW it was soooo dang good haha so i thing we are gonna go get another one soon! I found some parents here in the DR! Their last name is Marmolejos and they are both generals in the army! So that means they are super rich! This last week they fed us twice and they are just sooo nice and love to help us out!

Haha so here’s one for you guys back home, well one day while we were walking, a truck full of cows drove by, and just the smell of cow crap made me really trunky hahahaha. Reminds me of the good old days on the farm!

 It is definitely not easy here in the DR but it is so worth it to be able to share the truest message there is, with these wonderful people. Please feel free to send me letters and packages and especially some emails! I love you all!

 

I miss you guys so much!!!

ELDER DURRANT

colton.durrant@myldsmail.net
 

Yooooo

This week has been freakin bomb!! My comp and I have been working our butts off and the lord has been blessing us for it!! Its dang hot and muggy here 24-7 but it’s awesome! I am pretty sure I’ve lost 15 pounds so far! We get up at 6 and go lift and workout every morning so it’s great! Here is a picture of the gym we workout at. As you can see, no college has anything on this sucker!! It’s like 50 cents per week for both of us to use! We thought about doing service and cleaning it up, but we would be here for 10 years!!  My diet consists of lots of pasta and chicken, carrots and bananas.

The people are crazy here and especially with their driving!! There are about 50,000 motorcycles and they fly up and down the streets without looking!! We walk a ton up and down between little cities!! The work is picking up here in San Isidro! This week has been great we are working our butts off and this guy like showed up at church yesterday and said he’s been to Utah and all the temples and his whole family is members so he’s ready right now to be baptized.  Right now we have 8 people ready to be baptized but we will see how that goes!!

As we are out tracking, many people just stare at the two huge white blonde kids but the members are amazing and so loving and understanding.  Yesterday was kinda interesting, a bunch of lessons fell through so we went contacting! Well it didn´t go so well, long-story short we ran into this crazy lady from another church and she started testifying against our church and it was awesome haha so we bore testimony, Elder Koerper told her off and we left hahaha.

Anyways this week was great! Only here in the DR do you see a bus meant for 15 people, stuffed with 50! Oh and there is this dude here who we call the Lamanite, haha, he is this homeless dude who sits on the streets and eats garbage and then just pukes it up! It’s super awesome haha.

Anyways things are so good here in the DR. I love this gospel and doing the lords work!! See ya next week!!

ELDER DURRANT

 

The Fielddddd

HOLAAAA

Hi everyone!! I am officially in the field! I have a freakin awesome comp from Las Cruces, New Mexico!! and his name is Elder Koerper, as you can see in the pictures below he is taller than me and a Gringo and Blonde haha. Elder Koerper is 20 and he played baseball one year at New Mexico State!  We stand out sooo much but its freaking great! Wednesday was transfer day so we had a bunch of training and then got our comps and went to the field! I am currently serving in San Isidro! It is just 45 miles outside of the capitol and it is awesome!! Right now we don´t have a lot of investigators so this week we have been contacting and working with members and references a ton! The people are so hard to understand here but it’s so great haha and I struggle to talk but its good and Elder Koerper pushes me and I’m so grateful for that. I sweat 24-7 cuz it’s so hot and humid. It’s just a good thing we have fans in our houses or I’d probably die haha. Elder Koerper loves to work out and lift weights so every morning except Sunday we wake up and 6 and go lift weights at a little gym thing! It’s awesome!! This Sunday was crazy cuz there was a presidential election here in the DR. So we didn’t leave our house except for 1 hour of Church at 9 am. And it so turned out that we were supposed to give a talk!! ohhh man I was like greattt haha but I did it! I shared a scripture and my testimony! I can feel my tongue being loosened each day! All the members are great and we visited a ton this week and of course, when there’s a new guy they all give a juice!! So we got tons of different juices and some were good and some weren’t so much haha. Love you all so much thank you all for your prayers. I feel them every day! I know the Lord has sent me here for a reason and I feel his love for me. See you next week!!

Ps You can now send me packages!!

 

Elder Durrant's first apartment!

Letter from the Mission President

Dear Brother and Sister Durrant,

 

We are pleased to welcome your son to the Santo Domingo East Mission.  Attached are the pictures we took on that special occasion.   We love receiving, interviewing and training our new missionaries on transfer day.

 

We look forward to a deep and abiding association with your son.  He will have many opportunities to teach, serve, lead and train as he obediently and diligently acts in the privileged capacity of a missionary in the Lord’s church.

 

We are grateful for the support you give to him.  It is very important to his peace and emotional well being.

 

In our mission we strive for unity in developing the attributes of our Savior so that we may humbly represent Him and have His spirit.  We look forward with an eye of faith as we follow President Nelson’s counsel to begin with the end in mind* for each missionary as well as for those they teach and serve.

 

Warmest regards,

 

President and Sister Ahmad S. Corbitt

 *Church News June 24, 2014 Begin Missionary Work with the End in Mind.

 

Elder Durrant and Elder Koerper and President and Sister Corbitt

Cinco De Mayo (Semana 6)

Hola!!!

This week has been so amazing! It all started out last Friday when we went on splits with the Elders out in the field! We met up with two companionships at a church about 4 miles from the MTC! It turned out that we were in the West Mission! Well since there were 5 of us Elders from the CCM that meant 2 of us had to go with one Elder from the field. So it was me and Elder Doyle, from Richmond, VA. who went with Elder Madsen from Eagle, ID. (Ironically, Elder Madsen knows the Yorgeson family who used to live there but now live in Hyde Park!) Wow it was so much fun! We started out by visiting a long-time investigator! She had about 5 little kids running around so we just gave a short message and read with her from the Book of Mormon. After that Elder Madsen gave Elder Doyle and I the chance to share our testimonies! What an amazing experience that was! Next we just began contacting and Elder Madsen showed us the ropes and let us take over. The whole rest of the day, all I could think about is how excited I am to get into the field! One sister we visited even made us a Watermelon juice and wowwww that think was amazing!! Towards about 7 oclock it started to rain dang hard! The streets began to fill up and luckily we made it back to the church fairly quickly, but we were soaked!

 

On Sunday we had an amazing testimony meeting and the theme was the Book Of Mormon and the spirit was so strong. The rest of the week here has been amazing! So excited to get into the field next Tuesday! I am pretty sure once I am in the field, my pday's will be Monday so feel free to write me!

 

I know this is Christ's church. He established it when he was on the earth, and through the Prophet Joseph Smith, the fullness was restored to the earth. The Lord knows each one of us and he wants the very best for us. I know it. I love all of you!

Love, 

Elder Durrant

The snails are HUGE!

Big snail!

Moroni

Elder Durrant and one of his MTC Companion