Elder Durfee joyfully opening his birthday package!

4-12-10

Dear Family,
wow it is great to hear about everything that is happening back home. Is the pig doing better? Do you know what caused the pig to get sick in the first place? Hmm... good luck at the fair Alden and Katie.
It makes me happy to hear that grandpa has an appetite for good food. I laughed out laud as I read the email. Tell grandpa thank you for making me smile.
So this is what our living quarters look like. First we live with the H.'s in the basement. We have a small living room with two desks, two lazy boys and a nice couch and a table with plastic flowers in it, compliments of sister H. If you turn left 180 degrees you will enter the bedroom where we have two beds, two dressers, one lamp several boxes of missionary books and other items. We also have one walk in closed. The left side is my companion's, Elder Hatch and on the right side is mine. We have a window well right over my companions bed which makes it a little drafty but I am all the way across the room so I don't have to worry about the cold as much. If you go back into the living room, pass the staircase and turn right. You will enter a hallway with a door on the right and left. On the left is an empty office and the right is our bathroom. It is nicely situated almost right under the stairs. We have a sink, and a foot to the left, a toilet, and a foot to the left of that our shower. It is a little tight some times but it works for us missionaries. So this is our living quarters. Been my home for the last 5 months.
A little about this last week, Elder hatch and myself went out west of town. We have about ten miles east and west of town that our ward covers. Normally we would have been fine but when we left town on Tuesday we had a mighty cold wind blowing. We got out of town and started to freeze (not literally). We went and knocked some doors and talked to a few people. We had a guy come to the door with his shirt off which was very funny because the wind blew right into his house and right on the poor shirtless man. He did not listen very long. We packed our own lunch that day and camped in a ditch to avoid the wind. We enjoyed the sunlight and little wind as we at sandwiches and tortilla wraps. It was a fun day but we were very tired after. There you go, part of a day in Elder Durfee's mission.
We also had interview with the mission president. What made it great is that there was some dance thing getting set up as several of us missionaries waited in line for our turn to talk to president. We were all very hungry and we could smell fresh popcorn, you know the kind you make in a bag, and it was making us all hungry. I walked down the hallway and asked if I could have some. The people pointed us towards a big trash bag full of popcorn. They said take as much as you want. We acquired a large bowl from the kitchen and filled it to the brim. Needless to say we had a popcorn party in the hallway as we waited for president. It was lots of fun. I had a great time at interview.
Well family I am doing good. I love you and enjoy hearing from you, Love Elder Durfee

2-16-10

Family,
Hello, I am doing good. Slightly tired and not sure exactly why. It is all good though.
Tell Brant that I am excited he is getting his papers ready.
That is sad to hear that Fawn's baby calf died. I am glad fawn is OK.
Josh has him mission call!@#? no way, wow that is wonderful. I did not realize he was so old. Good for him.
So this past week we had an interesting experience. My companion, Elder Gassaway (It is pronounced “Gass away” by the way), and I was at the house reading a letter from Elder Bennet's email, when I came across a story about the two missionaries that had died. “Elder Gassaway,” I told my companion, “do you want to hear a sad story?” “Sure go ahead,” he replied. I began reading the letter from the beginning to him. At one point during the letter I read the name “Elder MCay Burrows” (spelling wrong sorry) and my companion said, “Wait a minute, is that from you cousin in Romania?” “Yes” I replied. He then had a shocked look on his face. Apparently my companion was the zone leader in the MTC and was really good friends with Elder McCay Burrows. It hit him pretty hard to hear his friend had passed away. I guess he needed to know it. It is amazing how he received the information from a letter sent to his companion about an accident that happened thousands of miles away. Wow, We feel it was not an accident that we were companions this transfer. Wow
Besides that it has been a wonderful week. Lot of people to talk to, (my companion is am amazing teacher by the way and I enjoy just hearing him talk to people) I am learning how to talk and teach people. It is awesome. I am having a blast being on a mission.
I got to ask, when is the pig fair bonanza? Let me know how it goes, o also what is the play called that the children are doing? Good luck with Tech week and break a leg!!!
Love Elder Durfee

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

2-1-10

Family!!!,
I hope you are all doing wonderful, as for me, this last week has been fairly eventful. I had an opportunity to go tracting with one of the zone leaders last week, Elder Bowden, it was here that I was able to refine my missionary skills just a little. I have seen an outpouring of more people who want to hear a message about the Book of Mormon. We received many names and or numbers of people who would like us to stop by or give them a call. I believe it has improved my mission over all. What a blessing. We met with a less-active family. They have several children and are in their late thirties. They were once a part member family and became active when the husband was baptized. Since then they have drifted away from activity and church fellowship. We went in and taught them a lesson on Heavenly Father and how the Gospel blesses families. There was a very good spirit and we invited the children to obey their earthly father and their Heavenly Father. However, We did not invite them to church (Probably should have) but we rescheduled for three weeks away. It was a good experience. I called the Frieburge family to ask if we could come over. Now there are two Frieburge families in the ward and they both live at the same address (basement and top level). I thought I had called the top level Frieburges (we have met them before) and set up an appointment to come by, but as we finished the conversation I asked her what her address was. She told me the bottom level. I just went with it. When we arrived at the appointed time we had a wonderful lesson on the Plan of Salvation. We drew it out on a piece of paper, asked questions, and had a good experience. We even invited the mom and her two sons to come to church in two weeks. They said they would be there. The dad gave us a ride home and as we sat in the car with him, we found out that he is not a member. He had met with the missionaries before but has not felt his need to be baptized. I do not know if he thinks it is true or not. He said we should come back and eat dinner with them. I thought it was great how my mistake of a phone call turned out to be a blessing from our Father in Heaven. We also had the opportunity to meet with our investigator George. We had a great lesson on the fourth article of faith. I was not actually in attendance because I was away on exchanges but I heard it went good. Not ready to be baptized yet and he said he would come to church no show there though. He will come when he is ready. We met with a semi-active family. They have very seven very rambunctious children. We invited them to start doing family home evening. The parents said they would do it (they did not look too excited) and they invited us to come and share the message in a months time. We came back this last week to find that they had FHE three times in the last month. We had a great message with coloring for the children out of some Book of Mormon coloring book a member made for us. It was a good fast lesson and I think the youngest to the oldest had a good time and felt the spirit. It was good to see a family actually acting in faith. My studies have been going good. Been feeling the spirit and learning lots. On exchanges I had invited an Elder to do all the personal activities in section four of Preach My Gospel. I told him I had never done it and he invited me to do the activity with him. So I have been enjoying doing the activities in there. It has helped bring the spirit and help me realize the potential we have as missionaries. This is the Lords work. I love you family and hope all is well!!! O and I have a new companion, Elder Gassaway yep like it sounds we will have great times to gether he speaks English but was called as a ASL missionary Sigh language see yeah.
love Elder Durfee

01-18-10

Dear Family,

I hope all is going well for you. This week was a good week for me. To help our investigator continue to progress towards baptism we had a good member present lesson on baptism. The spirit was present as we talked and conversed about the atonement of Christ. We even used a chalk board to talk about justice and mercy. George seemed to be understanding it. We asked lots of questions to help George realize that he knows this stuff. It was a good lesson. We also made by weekly contact with him.

We also set up a time to consistently meet with bishop every week. He has given us people to contact and see threw out the week. We called him and reported back to bishop the thing that we accomplished on bishops list. We put bishops list as more of a priority and Heavenly Father blessed us with an ability to meet with most of these people.

Cool Story: What was really neat is that I actually have a distant relative who lives in the Berthoud ward. My companion and I coordinated with one of the members to setting up a time and teaching a message with them. It was wonderful experience, I even whipped out the new 2010 Durfee Calendar and showed him a picture of all the Durfee Family (which arrived the night before). He was amazed at how many Durfee's there are. At the end of the evening I told brother Durfee (my Relative) of a story of my grandmother. She died of cancer and before she passed away, she told her 12 children that she wanted there to be no empty chairs in Heaven. Telling each one of her kids that she wanted them to be active and to do their part to return one day to our Father in Heaven. I told brother Durfee that I did not want to see his chair empty in heaven. Brother Durfee sat back and said, with all those other Durfee's in heaven I want to be there with them. He said that he would come to church. I told him that I would like to see him there at church. He said that he would come in the next 8 weeks. I told him I might be transferred but to come any ways. I enjoyed getting to meet brother Durfee it was an awesome experience. I feet that meeting with brother Durfee was one of the reasons I came to the Colorado on my mission.

Dear Family I love you all and hope all is going good for you.

Love, Elder Durfee

P.S. the picture is of Lloyed Durfee

1-11-10

Dear Family,
I hope you all have had a wonderful week and things are treating you right. The work went forth for my companion and I. To help prepare our investigators be ready to be baptized we had member present at all our lessons. We even had a member present in a lesson we had with a potential investigator named Dennis. We talked with him a long time ago and last Sunday we actually met with him. He is an older man, mid 50 – 60's gray hair, and a nice smile. He was very open with us as we talked of prophets and a need to have one on the earth. He is already reading the Book of Mormon and said he would come to church this Sunday. Unfortunately when we asked him when we could meet with him again, he said he would call us... not the answer we were looking for but maybe he will call us soon. We also invited him to be baptized on the first lesson. It was great and I am very glad we did. If you could tell Elder Richardson that we invited Dennis to be baptized on the first lesson because of the training Elder Richardson gave. That would be most appreciated. Dennis said that he would like to learn more before he makes the choice to be baptized or not. I worked hard to follow the spirit and pray for my companion during the lesson. I felt blessed with the way the lesson flowed and the sweet spirit that was present. To further the work in the area I also changed my perspective. I set one of my goals to be a baptizing missionary. I have been praying that Heavenly Father will prepare people to enter the waters of baptism for us in our area. I have felt the work go much faster and greater direction from heavenly father. It wares me out and I have been sleeping much better in the nights. We talked to several less-active families and asked them if they would be willing to take the willing to take the missionary lessons, two of them excepted. We have already have already had two families say they would be willing to take the lessons. It is great. I have been working on becoming better friends with the ward members. mom mailed me thank you notes for Christmas and I have tried really hard to leave a personal thank you note around the house at each dinner appointment. Only missed one or two and I have seen a greater outpouring of love from the members. It could just be that I have grown a greater love for them but I feel some how it works for both. We have been edified and grown together. It reminds me of Sister Ely's talk. How one of us can make a difference. Just give a little love, it comes back ten fold. My studies have been improving. I feel edified and uplifted after my studies. I have taken to studying multiple things each morning. It has helped me feel the spirit and to stay awake. It was a great week , thank you for all you do. Love, Elder Durfee