Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Morgans's 22nd letter in 2013 - Photos



Aloha Durocher Ohana,
So first of all, I'm sending my email out a little bit late, and here's why. We had temple trip today again, so our P-Day became Tuesday since the Temple is not open on Monday. So Yesterday Monday was a normal Proselyting Day, and Today (Tuesday) is our P-Day this week. So our session started at 8 Am, and we left around 11. Laie, and Kaneohe both had their temple trips today at the same time. So that was fun, and i was able to see a lot of Elders i knew who are currently serving in Kaneohe. So it was fun to catch up, than we took some pictures at the temple, and talked. Then we went home and changed for the hike we were going to go on.

The Hike we went on is called Laie Falls, we met at the temple, and started walking from there. There were 4 Elders and 8 Sisters that came hiking. We followed a main trail, and then took a side trail that veered off of that. I think we took the wrong trail because we hiked for like 2 1/2 hours and never came to a waterfall. In the meantime, the sky's turned against us, and mother nature let loose all of her fury on us. A huge rainstorm hit us super hard, as we were on the top of the mountain. In a few minutes we were soaked to the bone. Some of the people wanted to turn around. 3 Elders and 2 Sisters wanted to keep going and the rest wanted to turn back. Since i couldn't leave the other Elder by him self, I volunteered to turn around with all that wanted to. The whole hike ended up being 4 hours long, half of it in the heavy rain. The way back down the mountain ended up being way fun. On the way up we crossed over a small stream of water, on the way down it turned into a small river. We had to walk through the 1 foot deep water, cuz there was no way around it. It was slippery and slimy every step you took, with huge massive puddles everywhere. A small stream of water started running down our hiking trail. I gave up trying to keep my feet dry and was soon walking through the small stream and trying to splash people. In the end I think the heavy rain made our hike a lot funner! At least for me I guess.

Last Tuesday we went tracting, knocking door to door. And we ran into a man named Rick, he's an African American from Alabama. We Introduced ourselves, Shared a prayer with him, blessing him with everything he needed, then taught that the good feelings he had during the prayer was the Holy Ghost and he could have that with him all the time through Baptism. Then committed him to be Baptized on June 22, and He said YES!! Then we promised blessings, and bore our Testimonies. It was an amazing miracle that we were able to find. To meet a Random person, and after 5-10 minutes commit them to be Baptized into your church. Its a real Testimony builder to know that its not my work, that its God's work, and that he has been preparing people to be Baptized, and how important the Holy Ghost is, we are nothing without the Spirit. The Holy Ghost is so important and essential to missionaries, and we can do nothing with out it. We have continued to teach him this week. He was really sick and couldn't make it to church on Sunday, so we might have to push the Baptism back a week or 2. One of our Members who lives nearby, said he's not married to the person he is living with, so we have to work on that too. But he's an amazing guy, and its awesome to see how open his heart is, and how open he was to let us talk to him and share a message with him. Please keep him in your prayers, his name is Rick Pleasants.

Friday we contacted a referral that the Ward gave us, it was for a person named Ted Kenesi, who is a 15 year old Non-Member. He was living with his cousins, the Williams, who are a Less-Active family in the Ward. We shared a short message about Baptism, and what its for and why we do it. The Spirit was there, and was strong. At the End of the lesson, Ted said that he wanted to be Baptized into the Mormon Church. His Baptismal date is for June 29. We have another lesson with him later tonight. It was super awesome to find this guy, and have to ward involved and helping us find people to teach. Here's a cool Statistic. On average,  60% people who are referrals from Members are Baptized, while only 2% of people who missionaries find through Tracting, and knocking on doors are Baptized. So member involvement and help is so essential. Plus then the referral will have a fellowshipper in the Ward, or a friend in the ward after the missionaries leave.

This coming Saturday Elder Soifua and I have a Baptism at 8:30 AM, for Kaila Kaaahu. She's a 9 year old Girl, her family used to be less active, but now they come to church pretty consistently. I'm super excited for this Baptism to happen, it has been fun teaching Kaila, she is so so smart, and really excited to be Baptized. Please pray for all of these people i mentioned. The work is picking so much in the 2 Wards that i cover, its so awesome to see. I love serving in this area, and i know I'm supposed to be here. I'm so grateful for the chance i have to serve my mission, I'm loving it so much, there's no where else I'd rather be right now. I love you all, thanks for reading!

Love Elder Morgan James Durocher
This is a picture from our Hike up  to Laie Falls, looking down at the city of Laie, and the Giant Rainstorm that hit us super hard
Laie Falls hike
From left to right: Sister Kunishi, and Takatsu. Me. Gamba, Elder Morris, Chen, Kuok, and Henderson



Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Morgans 21st Letter in 2013 - Photos



Dear Family,
So last Monday for P-Day we went on a hike. 8 of the 10 Elders came, and 6 out of the 30 Sisters came. The Hike is called Crouching Tiger, I'm not sure why its called that, I'm thinking maybe cuz for like 10 minutes straight you have to go through the Jungle, and the trees and vines are so thick you have to crouch the whole way. But that's my guess why its called the Crouching Tiger. We hiked way up high onto the mountain, reaching lots of ridges, then following the trail to the next ridge. On parts of the hike it had ropes to help pull your self up cuz its so steep! And it had recently rained too, so it was really muddy. We were slipping all over the place, the only way you wouldn't have slipped is if you had football cleats, or ice climber spikes haha. The hike took like 3-4 hours, and it was really fun to exercise and be able to talk to everybody, and get to know people better.

This week was a great teaching week. We taught lots of Less Active Members in our ward, and we also taught lots of Recent Converts too. I really enjoyed this week a lot. We visited a Less Active Family, the Samuelsons. The wife, Amy, is Filipino, while the husband Rob is White. She has an unbaptized young boy, named Valin, who we taught, and invited him to be baptized, and he said Yes! So we'll be having the baptism in the next few weeks. We also taught another girl who is 9 years old, named Kaila, and her mom is a member who just recently got active again. We taught her about Baptism also, she is going to be Baptized on June 1, the beginning of next month. Kaila is really smart, and really cool, we had an awesome lesson with her. We showed her lots of pictures, and showed her a trick to keep her interested, and having fun during the lesson.

Saturday morning our ward had a service project. It was for a Less-Active family John Nichols. We brought the other Elders with us, and got to the Nichols home at 8 AM. There was about 12 of us total, and our service project was to paint the whole outside of his house. Some people were cleaning, and some had rollers, and some had paint brushes to get the small cracks. We finished at 12 Noon, then they fed us a lunch, and we took off. We went home, showered and changed, and then went to another party we got invited to. It was a graduation party for the Miyasaki family, cuz their daughter graduated from seminary. We ate lots of food there too, and played Botchi, the game where you throw the ball and try to get it close to the white ball. Then we visited some more people in the area, to try to teach people.

Sounds like everyone had a busy week back home, thanks for all the pictures mom! Yeah that was pretty much the highlights of what i did this week, i cant think of anything else. I love you all, thanks for reading my letter! Bye!

Love Elder Durocher

Me and a few other missionaries: Elder Iotepa, Seitz, and me. Sisters: Annen, Mcinnely, Wong, and Knudsen

Me on a Hike in Laie, next to a giant cliff
Elder Johnson and Morgan

Me, Elder Johnson and Sister McKinney


This is 8 of the Elders, and 6 of the Sisters in Laie Zone right after our Hike.