The one with the Easter flea!

his monday we had our zone activity at the park on the beach! it was really cool, we got to bbq and go out on this peer. we aren't allowed to get too close to the water, but it was still really cool! we made so good food and just played catch / battled off the seagulls that wanted our delicious hot dogs! we took some good photos!

The rest of the week we were really busy with zone meetings and roleplays, trying to get the zone to make things happen with the investigators they have. it's hard to call down miracles from heaven when you've spent the whole first 3&1/2 weeks of the month farting around. but it's going to be a learning month for everyone, including us. we have some sneaky plans in the works though. we're going to counsel with the AP's about how... ethical they are, but they should be good to get the zone going!

This week I did 2 exchanges with 2 elders this week, both times I went to their areas, I went with the junior comps and the DLs went with Elder Davis. Davis really likes to do it that way, I don't think he likes being out of our area, he's very hands on and doesn't trust others as much as I'd like. but we'll just have to work that out.

The members here are fantastic! the church was packed, with everyone! it was great to see so many people there! and they weren't just Easter people! many of them are very active families! Corpus is weird in that with the military bases so close and the boarder patrol so big in the this city, a lot of the families come for a few years then leave. so the grow here is fast, but people move on just as fast as they move in! They are building houses like madmen though. they must be expecting a lot of growth, but I don't see it.

Easter is great time, and it seems like everyone is thinking about the savior! I wasn't very impressed with the video this year, I liked last year's better. but what can you do?!

... oh the flea! I saw a flea on me the other day! so ever since then I've had this super irrational fear I'm infested! I'm one more sighting away from shaving my arms and legs and buying a flea collar! haha! pray for me!

-Love Elder Duerst!

The one with the Zone exchange and zone conference!

This week was very busy! it's weird to think that last monday was only one week ago! it feels like at least 2! I remember when I first started my mission, in the MTC, all the days/weeks felt like this, but they haven't felt like that in a long Long time!

This Monday through wednesday we had a whole zone exchange! it was really great and there was a lot of faith and we were even on standard for finding new people to teach after wednesday! on wednesday we did a cool little zone get together where we had some trainings and then we ended with a cool little testimony sort of thing where everyone that saw a miracle or just a cool experience shared it with the zone! it was awesome to see all the cool things that happened! but as soon as people got back to their own area finding dropped again! it's so frustrating! trying to do something so complex as lifting another's faith is super hard when they don't want to! but whatever, we'll keep on working on it!

on thursday we had a great zone conference! we combined with Sinton Zone. there were about 36 missionaries there. for our training, Elder Davis and I printed out a call letter for everyone, and personalized them with their name on them! it was all about re-finding that excitement all missionaries had at the point when they got their call letter! (I'd already done a similar training Brownsville, but we put a different spin on it this time!)

The meat of the training was all about having that charity we should have for our investigators and members! our APs gave us the commitment to make a "show 'em the love" plan! so we're going to start doing extra things to show people we love them whenever we get a chance! it's going to awesome!

Our president talked about the importance of being perfectly obedient to all the mission rules! we've been doing a lot better at all the rules that many times get over-looked. especially bike days! for some reason it's easy to be lazy when you have a truck to get you from point A to point B! we where trying to do a back day on wednesday but Davis's peddle broke! so I had to take off my belt and drag him 2 miles home! just like kip and napoleon! (from napoleon dynamite!) on the way back to the house he confessed he'd prayed for an opportunity to have a great attitude today! I look back and said "well why am I the one pulling you?! haha!" it really was one of the funnier stories of the week! I wasn't nearly as bugged as I would have been before the mission when things like that go bad! haha!

Love you all lots! have a great week!

-Elder Duerst!

First week in Corpus, and my insane companion!

My first week here in Corpus Christi has been really crazy! it is definitely a culture shock for sure! There are white people in the stores and in houses! it's so weird! but it seems like the only ones we've found to teach are Mexicans! haha! some things never change!

Our ward is absolutely massive, I could finish my mission here and not be able to know even all the active members! Corpus is really close to a navy base and a big college, this combined with some other things, means that people don't seem to settle down here very often. The ward is big and strong, but it's constantly changing!

This week I did an exchange this week with Elder Boydstun, he's been in my district when I was a DL and even when I was training! it's weird how with almost 200 missionaries, the same few always seem to keep popping up!

This weekend we has an awesome stake conference, it was all about faith in Jesus Christ, even through hard times, the stake president shared a very tender story about how he lost his special needs son at a young age, and the 70 that came (elder frost) spoke about how his son, who has down syndrome. he talked about how he doesn't know why his son is still alive at 34 and our stake president son died. It was really well spoken, another counselor of the stake president gave a great talk on the same theme, but he related the story of the anti-nephi-lehites being killed! it was great!

We just had a meeting with our district leaders about some problems that have been happening in the zone, it seems like the same problems are happening everywhere in the mission! it's crazy how people seem to follow each other even when they're hundreds of miles away! its been just a lack of focus and motivation to do... well much of anything productive! Not being able to find people to teach is crazy to me!

I had a really cool experience with that this week! it was thursday night and we were about to go home, but we decide to stop at an apartment complex. my companion don't me "you won't find"... "challenge accepted" I thought! so I said a specific prayer! telling the Lord the situation and our plan to accomplish what we needed to do! I told him we only had time to knock three doors, and we were going to use that time to knock three apartments with the lights one! the first apartment was Letter A, the next was F,... then it hit me! we need to knock H next! (I was thinking of Americas Funniest Home Videos! AFHV) and so we knocked H... and a family of three was there! and all had baptismal dates in less that 15 minutes! prayer mixed with faith is awesome! (I learned that in Gen 24!)

-Well I have to get going! I love you all lots!

Elder Duerst!

The one with transfers to Corpus Christi and Dungeons & Dragons

This was a pretty good week! we had some cool experiences, and some lame investigators get dropped. but that's not worth dwelling on. they'll just have to be worked on by the world a bit longer. The Salinas family went to baptisms for the dead on Saturday, Gracie and Eylin got to go in, but her husband came too! he didn't go in, but I hope he felt the spirit as he was there.

 

The week was a good week, nothing overly memorable happened, I was able to bear my testimony. there was one man who gave a 35 minute travel log! It was insane! but there were a lot of Awesome testimonies after him, I can only imagine what an investigator would think when people just talk about their vacation for 3/4 of the time for testimonies! haha!

 

Transfers came in about an hour ago. only 2 elders and 2 sisters are moving out in the zone! I kinda thought I was going to be moved, I did find out that I'm going to serve in Corpus Christi, so I hope no one sent me any letters or packages to my Brownsville address! I did get grandma's letter today! just in the nick of time! it's going to be weird being in a zone where the demographics are predominately white!!! I have NEVER TAUGHT ANY WHITE PEOPLE for any prolonged period of time! and here I'm going to a place where they're all white! it's going to be one heck of a culture shock! I'm excited though! my new companion is a pretty cool guy! he was just with Elder De Piano, one of my old companion.

 

I'm excited to see that part of the mission! I'm excited to have a little bit of a smaller zone, I hope I can get to know the missionaries better with less of them! I'm going to miss Brownsville, but Corpus will be a blast!

 

p.s. I added Dungeons & Dragons to the topic line because I've been playing it with these elders in the zone! it so nerdy! Haha!

 

I love you all lots! STILL PLANNING ON COMING HOME THE 1st! don't know why that would change!

 

-Elder Duerst!

the one with the end of the month craziness!

This end of the month has been really crazy, everyone has been putting off teaching their investigators and teaching them the hard lessons. it's so frustrating. We have been trying to really get the zone going to make things happen. we haven't been doing the best at teaching about the Holy Ghost, Faith, or teaching to a need. so it's been a rough month! we only had 4 baptisms and our goal was 17! Saturday there were 3 straight up miracles that people were too scared to act on! that was frustrating to see, especially when one of the people that didn't do anything was one of our district leaders!

 

anyways! we're going to have a good council today as a zone and try to find some solutions, then tomorrow we're heading to McAllen to make another mission goal for next month, and to get some guidance from our leaders and our president. that'll be good, but enough of that.

 

we went to the castle's house and cleaned in and did all their dishes, scott castle came down stairs and even talked with us about all the problems he's been having with is PTSD, it was a great experience, I can't say we said much that would have been touched him in any real way, but we were there to do what we could and to listen, and I guess that's enough for now.

 

We're getting Gracie and Eylin ready to go to the temple this Saturday to do baptisms, They already passed their temple recommend interview and we're super excited they're still doing so well. this rest of the family is quite the little project, so we may drop them in a bit, but I really don't want to. we'll see. it may just need to be done. The lord will just work of them a little longer I guess.

 

This week's going to be full right before transfers again! it's weird to think that this transfer's gone so fast! I thought I would finish my mission here in Brownsville, but seeing how well gracie and Eylin are progressing gives me the feeling that I'm leaving, it's weird, but I feel like they are the people I needed to teach here in Brownsville and I already accomplished that mission!

 

p.s. I found I guy that looks like jesus! he's super cool! he went to church 2 times in tampa!... but he lives in the sister's area! that's ok!

 

Love you lots! -Elder Duerst!

Elder Colbridge coming down & zone exchanges!

This week we had our zone exchanges! we shuffled everyone in the whole zone around, it was a really good way to get to know new people and have a lot of fun! it seems like whenever we do activities like that we always have a lot of miracles! When I was working with an elder named Elder Lake we found this awesome guy named Santos. he was really cool! he had cancer on his throat and tongue so they cut a lot of it out, so it's hard to understand him at times, but he's super humble and came to church early yesterday just to get a church tour. 

This week on thursday we got a call that we needed the whole zone needed to be in McAllen on saturday (which is really far away, so it took a big hunk of miles) but we found out that it was more than just half the mission there like we thought, but the whole mission was there! we were all there to hear from Elder Colbridge, who wrote a really good talk called "the fourth missionary" it's a great talk that we all got when we got there. he talked about the importance of teaching repentance and baptizing converts. He really is a great speaking and you could feel the spirit very strongly as he spoke about how important the spirit is and how it truly is the greatest gift any of can have.

This week has been crazy! we've been running around interviewing people! we have a lot to do this month! it's going to take a lot of miracles to get down with everything we promised the lord we would!

yesterday I had a very cool learning experience. We went by to give a blessing to this semi-active family in our ward. the woman is in the middle of high risk pregnancy and her husband suffers from PTSD from his years in the military. so they don't come very often, but they are a great family. so after we gave blessings to the mom and one of the daughters, I felt prompted to try and get the father to come out of his upstairs bedroom, but he got very angry at the daughter who went to get him. The mom looked so embarrassed and sad. in the car my companion said that God would hold him accountable for not being a better man. but I Think I know God better than that. I know that he's going to judge us with a perfect judgement. and I don't think that he'll have such little mercy on this man who I've grown to love these last two transfers, who generally is awesome, and had just been having a "bad week" as his wife says.

That was just a cool experience I had yesterday.

-Love you lots! have a good week!

Elder Duerst

Three-day training and Valentine's Day!

This monday through Thursday we had our three day meeting in mcallen! it was awesome! I definitely learned a lot and have a lot of things to improve on. the one thing we've been doing more and more is teaching the importance of faith and repentance before we even talk about baptism. we've also been using the Book of Mormon in every lesson and door contact! it's been a huge difference!

For my Three days in McAllen I got to work with the Elders in Weslaco, so I got to see just about all my recent converts and members in between set lessons in the area. it was awesome to see the old area and all the members that I love so much! on tuesday night I got to go out and teach the gospel with Adrian! one of my recent converts! that was a very special experience for me!

on friday day an AP was working with us, it was a great learning experience, but he definitely showed a lot of areas to improve on. it felt a little like the currant bush, but my companion has a great attitude, where I get bummed he's very positive about how we can be better Leaders.

Eylin and her brother Michael came to seminary yesterday! which is awesome! especially since he's not even a member yet! he's got a lot of potential! he's awesome like the rest of the family!

The work is going a long, a lot of elders just took the week off with no leaders in town to get them moving! (not literally taking the week off, but their numbers show that they didn't do much of any real work until thursday) that was a little hard, but I think the help we got from three day and our exchange with our leader, we have a lot of direction!

today we're starting a inter-zone exchange, where everyone is shuffling around the zone! it should be a great way to have a lot of unity, fun, and faith. and we're excited to see the miracles that'll come!

-Love you all lots! Elder Duerst!