2-20-11

Dear Mom,
Thanks for the letter. Business first, I received word that the office wants to know which airport I will fly home too. I told them the phoenix airport can’t remember the name. If this is not right would you call the office and let them know. I really did not have time to think much about it. I was greatly disgruntled by the call and am still suffering in shock at receiving it. Hope you understand.
This last week went great. We made It all the way up to Sidney Nebraska. We are almost the most northern part of the mission. The ward we cover is about 5,000 miles square. We have one of the church ranches in part of our ward. We have members that drive an hour and a half to get to church on Sunday. There is a family who I knew in the Cash la Puder ward that moved up here to work on the ranch. It’s a small world. The area is called a traveling area because they send missionaries up her for 3 months and off for three months. There is so much to be done. Plus we drive a lot if we go to different towns.
A highlight of the week is we taught a family the plan of salvation today. At the end of the lesson he said, “Well, could you guys come back?” it was very exciting. We are also teaching a sister who has come to church for about a month already before we got here and our ward mission leader had an appointment with her our first week. We taught her the Plan of Salvation and the restoration the first week we met her. She is wonderful and has ready a huge chunk of the Book of Mormon already. She had friends invite her to come to “the Church of Christ” she came a few Sundays and then realized we were “Mormon”. Now she is meeting with us and prayed in our last lesson if she should join the church. The members have really reached out and fellowshipped her. It has made all the difference.
Elder Nonu is my new companion. He’s great. Goes home 6 weeks before me but we flew out together. He learned English on his mission. We have too much fun together. Well thanks for the letters. I have sent some pictures. I can get really cold here. It was -40 before I got here with the wind chill. It has been in the 60 – 70 this last week beautiful. We had two days were the wind blew amazingly hard. I thought we should have a very big storm at how windy it was but nope just windy. I thought trees should have blown over. It reminded me of when the wind blows constantly the trees are stronger and can withstand the big storms. But when the wind does not blow and then the storm comes the trees are blown over. I learned to not complain when the wind blows.
Mom I love you , Elder Durfee
Scripture of the week, 1 Nephi 16:28-29