Mom's Happy Birthday in Tooele, UT

Hello Elder and Family,

Thanks first to my darling and wonderful family.  Ethan started off a great week with his well wishes in his Monday letter and on Wednesday my work had a celebration for me and Chris who have birthdays close together.  Janine got these amazing, and I mean AMAZING cupcakes from a bakery in PG and gave me a sweet card.  Such a great company I work with and the people so kind.  On Friday I attended, by way of Janine Miner, the American Heritage School production of, The Price of Freedom.  It was a tribute to Veterans, featuring WWII through song, actual video and a full youth Orchestra.  I brought my home teachers, the Parrish's as they delight in that kind of production.  I took Ron and Pam Lee a few years back to it.  Thanks Pam for the nice card and Purple Heart rock! 

Morgan and Camrie had a good week too as they went to So. Weber to attend a high school friends wedding reception. Before going up there they came by my office to borrow my car to get a compressor for spraying paint.  Camrie sister, Sierra was with them so it was fun to see them all.  Since Morgan works for Timp Rentals, he could rent the sprayer for Nick to prime and paint his basement for half the cost.  Saturday morning I drove out to Tooele and soon Morgan and Camrie arrived and we set to work at sanding and prepping the walls for primer.  The cool machine compresses the paint and sprays it on the wall in no time and a potential 8 hr job, took just a half hour of spray time!  it was amazing.  The primer dried and we prepped it for the paint.  After choosing a versatile taupe color, not too light, not too dark, not yellowish nor grey, but a pleasant light tan at Home Depot, Nick bought 10 gallons and it was just right to cover the basement ceiling and walls!  With Michael, Adrienne and Layla and David and Lindsays help as well the whole event went quickly.  Layla and Cambree were very happy to see each other as they've missed living next door to each other.  David brought his RC cars and it was fun to see Hayden's delight and to watch Zoe, Mikes dog chase after it.  Poor dog was chasing so intently up the street, she tore two toenails and the pads of her feet!  We all slept camping style in the several rooms of Nicks house and had a delightful breakfast.  With a call into Annalisa and Apollo we held a Family Counsel and covered upcoming events and had each family share agenda's of concern and support.  All went well and the kids made a delightful Birthday dinner for all with BBQ beef sandwiches, Michelles famous Chicken wonton Salad, home made Macaroni and Cheese by Lindsay and other delightful collections of flavors!   Dave and Lindsay made a Chocolate cake that was delich and blowing out the candles was fun!  Thanks so much everyone for your sweet gifts.  There truly is No Place Like Home when you are with your family.

All returned home safe and sound and with much love and fun for being together.  I am truly blessed to be a Mother of such fine children and I dearly love their spouses.  Please know as with all families there is need for tender mercies so please pray for the best outcome for Michael and his search for a job in Logan and others who have need of particular blessings. 

Love,  Mom

Ethan's 44th Letter / Photos Necochea, Argentina Nov.10, 2014

Hows it going!!??

  We had a great week this week! We were about to teach 30 lessons in 1 weeks! We put the goal to teach 30 lessons(not including with a member) so 30 other lessons. We had a rough start and so we got on the gas and Saturday ended with 23 lessons... during nightly planning we were planning and i said to my companion, " well we have 23 lessons...... we are going to teach 7 lesson tomorrow and 2 lessons with member!!!" he looked at me like i was very weird and then laughed and then said " Lets do it!!" haha and we did! On Sunday we had two investigators in church... that was a bummer... but then i did a hail marry with the scriptures where i just opened it and started reading and the first three verses i read was this, " Alma 21: 15-17, its was a great pump up for me! and then by the time the day ended... We had 30 lessons this week!!!

   We found a girl contacting whose name is Mailén, she is 17. As we rung her door bell she came out to the gate and opened it about and said come on in.... I looked at Elder Hansen and said... Do we know her?? and he said... nope... haha so we went in and to her porch and she said, " I know you can come in but can we talk out side?" we said yeah of course!! We started talking and we asked how she was doing and what her name was. Her name was Mailén, she is a Reference that we got from a member a week or two back and we got a bad address so we couldn't ever find her! haha it was a Miracle to be able to be led to her house and find her! She is so prepared, she has been talking with her friend for sometime about the church and always wanted us to just kind show up at her house to talk to her, but Missionaries never did!! haha Until us!! She accepted a date to be baptized Nov. 29th so please pray for her, that her prayer and questions can be answered!

    I have been reading a lot about becoming a consecrated missionary and I'm working very hard to be able to become a missionary like that. It is a talk called, The Consecrated Missionary by Tad R. Callester, I really love it, and it can be applied to all Roles that we have in the life.
I Love You All So much!!!! have a great week!!

Con Amor,

Elder Ethan C. Durocher!

Ethan's 43rd Letter / Photos Necochea, Argentina Nov. 3, 2014

Dear Family,  

 I CAN NOT BELIEVE THAT IT IS NOVEMBER!!!!! It is crazy to me how fast time is passing.... I can not keep track at all.

    We got transfers and I will be here in Necochea Centro for another Six Weeks!!! I am very thankful for the blessing to be here for more time with Elder Hansen, We work really well together and we are hoping to be able to baptize 6 people in the month of November. Silvina, Alan, Milagros, Roberto, Nora, are the names that we have and the people we think can be baptized, so please pray for them! We are working super hard, and want to do all we can to become Servants of the Truth.

  The last P-day and today its been raining A LOT, but the last P-day we watched Ephraim's Rescue. It really hit me hard in the way the Ephraim was so willing to do all that he could to be a Good Man, I feel as if that is what I am trying to do also. His story is such and example to me. He gave everything to the Lord, and did every little things that he asked to do, without complaints. My goal is to do the same and do it willingly. I really am so grateful for the stories of the pioneers, every time I watch or read of them my heart just cries for forgiveness for my errors and short comings, also it cries for Joy and gratitude for what they have done for us. I invite every on to watch this movies, its a little funny with some of the things but it has a powerful spirit that you will feel, so watch it(again).

   We happened to have moved 4 times in the last 6 weeks and now we are finally back into our house and its nice to be there.

  We did so much Service this week, more then i have ever done in my mission. We use Sand Paper by hand to sand the walls of a huge room, the size of moms big living room with the red chairs. We sanded the walls to take of the paint.... it took a couple days to do it and my fingers and finger tips were destroyed! Every time finishing we had a blue/white/gray dust all over as and everywhere, we got stop in the road walking home and a lady said, " you two know that you have some dust in your hair.... you two look like grandpas because your hair is gray" hahahhaha We were laughing so hard after walking home. Then i thought of something My Brothers always told me which is the phrase, " No crap Sherlock."

Good times in the mission. Later in the week we did a house that's called, Adobe Houses. Its was really fun, those pictures are of the house that we were helping to build. Its a house made of wood poles, dried mud, and straw!! its super cool! it was fun playing a little in the mud!
 

  HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!!!!! I HOPE YOUR HAVE A GREAT SUNDAY BIRTHDAY!!!! YOUR THE BEST MOM EVER!!!!!!

 That's about all that happened this week! I love you all!

Con Amor,

Elder Ethan C. Durocher

 Mud houses using car windshields for windows.

Ethan's 42nd Letter / Photos Necochea, Argentina October 27, 2014

Dear Family,

Well first to explain the pictures that I sent, after writing last week we went straight to a members house. We went with there 3 sons to do something called Sand Boarding!!! Its like snowboarding but on sand, down like Sand Dunes!!! It was so much fun to have a good relaxing and time to have fun kind of P-day! We were there for a couple hours playing on the Beach and walking on this old Pier thing, and sand boarding! Probably one of the best P-days i have had, and I took some videos with my camera.

  Not much happen during the week...A LOT of Rain again!... we moved once again to another place that is even farther away from our area... so we lost almost a whole day with moving houses...

  On Saturday we went to a city called 3 Arroyos(3 streams) to do Re-enforcement type thing with all of the missionaries in our zone. So we took a big van thing 2 hours to this city and worked all day there. It was SO HOT!!!! and there was a bunch of humidity, I'm not the biggest fan of the humidity... At the end of the day, with our last contact.. I started talking with a women named Soledad. She was going to hang some clothes on the clothes line, and we help here with that. We just started of getting to know her and try to find our what she needs from the gospel. We found out that she has 3 kids and is a single mom, so i shared that for my mom at times in the house it was 6 kids 5 of which are boys who were a lot a bit crazy, and she had to maintain things alone. I connected it to that the Gospel and the Church is what helped my Mom and strengthened her to be able to do the things that she had to do with us 6 kids. That experience really hit her and she wants that help, she wants to keep her kids in a better place, because she sees kids 4 to 5 years old smoking cigarettes and Marijuana (Weed) in the streets. So she said that she wants to go to church and wants to be baptized, Her and her little kids agreed to be baptized and go to church!!! It was a huge blessing!!!

  I know that the Lord is preparing the people to accept the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and hear our message. The Lord has been blessing me so much in the last weeks with spiritual experiences. I know that this is his work and it is a blessing to be a tool in the Lords hands in the Mission Work.

I love you all so much and pray for you always!

Con Amor, Elder Ethan C. Durocher!

 Ethan and Elder Porter

 Sand Boarding off the Dunes!