2-7-10

Dear Dad,
Well thank you for writing, home sounds like home to me lots of things going on. There always seems to be something happening with animals. It is hard to hear that Grandpa Bevell's time is short. Some of my first memories are with Grandpa. Most of my memories revolve around cow's, cow manure, chickens, blackberries, oranges, fruit trees, lawn mowers, trips to the dump, holidays, nut trees...etc. I remember going in the back yard, underneath all the pecan trees were hundreds of nuts. I saw opportunity for money making. I quickly went into the house and found all the zip lock bags and filled the entire wagon full of nuts. I then went down with some friend, probably Celeste or Ryan, and tried to sell individual bags to grandma or grandpa for 25 cents each. I was then shown how many pecans it would take to actually earn 25 cents (one gallon can full!). I found that it took a lot more work for me to actually fill an entire can. My rich quick scheme turned out to be not as productive as I would have hoped. Grandpa helped teach me the value of a quarter.
So this past week my companion and I found a new person to teach, his name is Jeremiah. He grew up choosing not to believe in God. As we spoke with him we invited him to live the life of a believer for three days. He said he would do it, prayers and scriptures daily. He said that he would be willing to put God to the test. It was very exciting and I was glad my companion was there with me. He is very smart, reminds me of Brant in some ways.
Do you know if Brant has turned in his mission papers yet or how he is doing? O and by the way my companion speaks sign language, what I mean by that is he knows sign language. He is to study it for an hour every morning, which actually means he is teaching me sign language for an hour every morning. Really cool to have my own personal teacher. I am learning lots and can do my ABC's, count to 30 and even speak some rout words, like how many brothers and sisters do you have? Or where did you go to college before you mission? Things like that. It is way fun and I am enjoying it. My companion started a sign language class that apparently we will be teaching here in Berthoud every Thursday night. It is going by way to fast and I am having a blast as a missionary. Life is good. Enjoy it while you can, I love you dad,
Elder Durfee