Homecoming Photos! And Some Final Thoughts From Our Missionary...

Shari here.  Ben-Daniel arrived home to Seatac International Airport on Wednesday, August 26, 2015.  We had a welcoming committee of eleven: Mom, Dad, Catriel, both sets of grandparents, Aunt Christi, Uncle Brett, and two of his longtime friends, Devin and Spencer.

He was late getting off the plane because he was helping another missionary solve a luggage problem.  He surprised us by coming in from another direction, so we had kind of confused photos and videos!

Here are some pictures (and a few little video clips) of our meeting at the airport and at the house.

Waiting at the airport!

Spencer, Catriel and Grandma Duffin

Grandpa Duffin and Grandad

And then Ben-Daniel shows up!

Phone selfie with Mom

Hugs for grandparents!

 

Mom, Ben-Daniel, and Catriel

Trying to kiss his sister

Siblings back together after two years!

A kiss for Mom!

This friendship has not changed

With Uncle Brett and Catriel

With Grandpa Duffin after lunch

After all the excitement at the airport, we went out to lunch.  














Then it was time to greet the pets!

One very excited Shih Tzu!

Later that evening, we sat out on the deck and were able to Facetime with Jon and Hillary in England.  

On the deck in the evening

All of our kids together (you can't see Jon and Hillary on the screen!  It was something like 4:30am there).

And now, a word from our man of the hour.  Some thoughts from Ben-Daniel after an honorably-served mission: 

Serving a mission was the best thing I could have done at this point in my life, for myself and for the world. I’m so grateful that I had that opportunity. 

It’s kind of weird being home now; two years is a long time. During the mission I was stuck in a state of constant amazement that I was on the mission, and now that I’m done, it’s reversed; I can’t really believe that it’s over and that I’m home, ha ha! 

The mission was fun! I made a ton of friends, did a lot of cool things, and visited neat places. My first area was in the city of Dickinson near Houston, Texas and my last was in the bairro (city secion) of Serraria, off the coast of Florianopolis, Brazil. The time in between was quite the adventure.

I learned a lot during that time. I think the most important thing I learned was the importance of taking time out of our lives to know God. 

Some of life’s deepest questions are: What is the purpose of my life? What will happen once it’s over?  Is there anything afterward?  So much of what we pass through in our day-to-day lives won’t matter to us when our time here is ending; though I can imagine that these questions may be among the foremost thoughts on our minds.

The answers to these questions come when one gains an understanding of Who and What God is. The answers to those questions bring true peace and happiness into our lives. But in order to gain that knowledge we must take time out of our lives to learn it. 

A quote from Elder Richard G. Scott summarizes what I’m trying to say here:

“Don’t yield to Satan’s lie that you don’t have time to study the scriptures. Choose to take time to study them. Feasting on the word of God each day is more important than sleep, school, work, television shows, video games, or social media. You may need to reorganize your priorities to provide time for the study of the word of God. If so, do it!”- Make the Exercise of Faith Your First Priority, October 2014 General Conference.

A missionary’s purpose is to help others find out for themselves who and what God is, through prayer and study. I’m thankful I had the opportunity to do that on my mission, serving the people in Houston and in Brazil.

Thank you for reading this missionary blog and I hope you continue to take time to know God throughout your daily life!

Ben-Daniel Duffin

And here ends the blog, folks, two years, two continents, 97 posts and 6,402 page views later.  Thank you so much for your readership, prayers, and support for Ben-Daniel!  You can find him on social media if you'd like to stay in touch with him.

One last picture of us with our returned missionary!

The Countdown Begins...

Hey Mom!

I don´t know if I will get to email next Monday so this might be the last one! But if I do get near a computer, you´ll certainly hear from me.

I´m really looking forward to coming home! Really excited to see everyone! Glad to hear Grandma and Grandpa Duffin will get to come up. That´s cool that we´ll get to see Bryan in September too; that´ll be nice to have someone to speak Portuguese with. 

I´ve been doing one last deep study of the Book of Mormon for the past few months--reading it through from cover to cover and just writing down every thought I have during our hour of personal study in the morning. I have about 20 pages of notes now. The Spirit prompted me to do this in June and I´ve been receiving a lot of new revelation as a result--seeing a lot of things in the BOM that I had never noticed before. I hope to be completely finished before I come home, so I can start again afterward.

A banana flower! I had never seen one like this in my life.

I don´t feel like I´ve been in Brazil for a year, but I do feel like I´ve been on the mission for two years! I´m ready to come home. Really looking forward to sharing stories of what´s happened while I´ve been out here. I´ve got two years worth of stories now so there´s lots to tell.  I´m really grateful to have had the opportunity to do a mission.

Did one last little shopping spree in Floripa today; I bought a lot of little Indian-style trinkets. I also (finally ) found a nativity set that I think fits the image you had in mind.  Now I just hope that none of this stuff gets damaged in the suitcases on the flight home.

Bought a pizza on my two year mark and took some pictures; I´ll send some to you now.

Can´t wait till next week! Thank you so much for emailing me every Monday, it´s helped me immensely on the mission. 

Some plants from a member's back yard

Love you so much! Until maybe next Monday; if not, then in person on Wednesday!  

Elder Duffin

Ben-Daniel as District Leader, Pizza Eater, Service Provider, and BBQ Attendee

Hey Mom,

Despite how fast everyone thinks the time went back home, the mission has definitely been two years long, ha ha! Whenever I think of the start of my mission, I´m boggled by how LONG ago that was. Gives me some comfort for the rest of life though; it won´t go by too fast, ha ha. When I compare my time in Texas to my time here, Texas seemed longer than the time I´ve spent in Brazil, even though technically I´ve been here longer. Maybe staying in Xanxerê for so long made the time seem shorter here.

I think it´s funny that I´ll never actually know what it´s like to serve in one mission for two years!  I´m very excited to come home now, though.

[I told him a story about our dog stealing tomatoes out of the garden.] Blackanne does like tomatoes. I remember she´s done it before. I like the picture of you holding up the tomato and her looking ashamed--ha ha.

It was Father´s day in Brazil yesterday; I thought of you, Dad! Wish I could send you a Brazilian pizza--they´re really good. 

Mesa and I eating pizza to celebrate his birthday.

Me and my district (I´m district leader again)

I ordered chocolate stuffed crust (yeah, you can order that here) and they stuffed the crust with freaking mayonnaise; so we didn´t eat the crust. The Brazilian affinity for mayonnaise is probably the most unexpected thing I´ve encountered here.

 

Hope your knee gets better, Dad. I had problems with my feet after I got to Brazil; lots of walking.  Hope you have a good birthday this coming Saturday, too. I´m looking forward to celebrating all the August birthdays with the family when I get back.

I am very excited to come home; two years is a long time. I´ve missed you guys terribly.

I like the pictures! All of my companions have been very impressed with your photography, Dad. I made a big collage of your pictures on my wall above my desk.

Just waiting for the weeks to pass and doing what I can here. I don´t think I´ll get to see any more baptisms before I go home, but there are people who we´re working with who I think could be ready to be baptised next month.

(I got a haircut right before coming here. I just touched my hair and it rained down hair clippings all over the keyboard!  Took me by surprise.)

Love you Mom! Can´t wait to see you again! I´ll send you some pictures now.

  



Cow udder fruit (not for eating; it´s poisonous).

Service project

We had a barbeque with one of my favorite families in the ward yesterday.

Talk to you next week! (It will be the last time via email from Brazil!!) Have a good one!

Elder Duffin

Focusing on a Strong Finish

Hey Mom!

Glad you all made it home okay. The trip sounded like it was lots of fun; can´t wait to hear about it in person!

Yep, only three weeks left. I feel like this week might drag but the next two will fly by. Can´t believe I´ve been in Brazil for a whole year. I´m very pleased to have become fluent in Portuguese; I never would´ve thought speaking in Portuguese would be an ability of mine. I´ve seen a lot more miracles during the course of my mission too--LOTS more. Can´t wait to talk about it all with you in person! 

 

Picture of my zone.  I'm in the center front.

Went to Floripa today and bought more art and souvenir trinkets to take home to you guys.  There are more unique looking things to buy here than there were in the west side of the state. One dollar is worth a little over 3 Reais now, so I´m trying to take advantage of that. Didn´t get a whole lot of time to shop for stuff though because we had to mail off a heater to someone. 

Work is going pretty well. A few days ago we visited a family we´ve been teaching and as we were leaving I felt prompted to clap on the door of one of their neighbors, who I had met before but never got the chance to teach because the man of the house was never at home.  The guy was home this time and invited us in. We´ve taught them twice now and they have more interest than the neighbors next door.

We´ve been blessed with things to do and people to see here in Serraria. I´ve been happier working here than I was in Xanxerê. Elder Mesa and I are getting along great, too.

I have been thinking about cousin Pat. [He's referring to one of my favorite cousins who passed away last month.] The Disney movie Hercules and cousin Pat have always been synonymous in my mind; apparently that was the only movie I ever wanted to watch at her house, because that´s what I remember doing every time we went there! The spirit world is a pleasant place for those who have a clean conscience, so I´m sure she´s doing just fine. 

No, I don´t think I´ll get to go to the temple again before I leave Brazil. I don´t think there´s a long enough layover in Sao Paulo (I don´t even think I´d risk leaving the airport and trying to go there even if I had a huge layover; traffic in Sao Paulo is terrible). I would love to go back there someday though, that temple was beautiful. 

 

Hey Dad,  yep, I got all the photos you sent from Paris. I like them! I´m always very impressed with Sarah and Julia´s jump rope stunts; I´m sure I´d break my neck trying to do something like that.

In two weeks it will have been exactly two years since I left on the mission; feeling pretty old now--ha haI The area I´m in is a good place to end it though.  Hope you have a great week Dad! I´m really grateful for all the help and support you´ve given me while I´ve been out here. Looking forward to seeing you again!

Love you Mom! I´m very excited to come home! Only two more emails and then I´ll be there!

I´ll talk to you next week; have a good one! 

Elder Duffin

Catch-up Post--Three Weeks in One!

July 13

Hey Mom & Dad,

Elder Shakespaere got transferred today; he left this morning. I´m a little sad about that--I was hoping he´d be my last companion. I had a lot of fun with him. 

Last picture of me and Shakespaere

But my new companion is pretty cool, too.  His name is Elder Mesa. He´s from Argentina and has a year on the mission. 

Me with Elder Mesa

I don´t know why, but there´s always a missionary in every mission that is a kind of ``grim reaper.´´ He gets paired up with departing missionaries almost every transfer on his mission. Elder Mesa is one of those. He has already ``killed off´´ three of his companions, making me his upcoming number four. [In missionary slang, they refer to missionaries going home as “dying.”  So Elder Mesa would have been paired mostly with guys on their last transfer before going home and therefore the label “grim reaper.”]

With Elder Mesa sealing off my list of companions, I´ll get to say that I never once had a Brazilian companion for my entire mission!

Glad you´re all having fun in Germany!   I like the pics. Hope you slept on the plane; that´s really the only thing to do for jet lag.

Still haven´t gotten packages, no. I´ll probably go to Floripa next week though.

Give Jon and Hillary a hug for me! Let me know what else you´ve done by next week.

Love you, Mom. Thanks for all you do.

Talk to you next week,

Elder Duffin

July 20

Hey Mom & Dad,

Looks like you guys are having a lot of fun. I like the pictures; I´m wishing I could be there with you.

Our apartment complex in Serraria

Cool Bug

I went to Floripa today and bought some neat stuff. I´m not sure if I´ll mail it home or if I´ll just bring it all back home with me in August.

I also got one of your packages!  Haven´t opened it yet.

I´m really sorry to hear about Cousin Pat.   Hope Dan and Pete and Phyllis will be okay. They´ll be in my prayers. [One of my favorite cousins passed away while we were in Europe.]

Rainbows in Serraria

Hearing about the fire near Sky Island is scary! Glad they got it put out. Guess they weren´t wrong about the fireworks this year.

Yeah, you´re right, that castle does look like the one from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Ha ha!

Neuschwanstein in Germany

I had to get used to typing on Portuguese keybords too; I´ll probably type weird when I get home.

A good view of Serraria

I went to Floripa today and bought souvenirs. Found some neat stuff.

Have fun and take lots of pictures. I´m not quite on my fourth memory card yet, but I think I have roughly five or six thousand pictures taken on my mission. I think it´s great how easily we can record history nowadays; no other time on earth has had the recording capabilities that we have.

Love you Dad!  I´m glad you´re having a good time; stay safe and give everyone hugs for me and keep taking pictures!

I´ll talk to you next week,

Elder Duffin

July 27

Hey Mom & Dad,

Sounds like last week was fun for you--looks like you did some interesting things. I like the pictures. Germany looks like a really cool place--lots of history. Though I would prefer that you not write to me about the concentration camp you visited; save that till I come home. I need to be happy for the rest of the mission.

I´m glad to hear that Julia´s group won first place at the World Jump Rope Championship! Tell her congrats for me. 

Yes, I got a package last week, the one with the peanut butter and pickled beans. I´ve been enjoying that. Never realized just how much I liked peanut butter until I came to Brazil.

Not much new going on here; just trying to get less actives and investigators to church. Elder Mesa and I are getting along great; I really lucked out on companions my whole mission. He is my 13th. We also had a conference with a member of the 70; that was cool.

Restaurant we ate at during conference

I sent you a bunch of pictures; hope you got them! 

This is from the Christmas conference white elephant gift exchange. I bought this thing not knowing it was an ash tray. President was the one who ended up getting it and he thought it was pretty funny.

Me with an Elder in our Zone

 

Have a great last few days of your trip! Give Jon and Hillary hugs for me. Wishing you all safe travels home!

Love you! Talk to you next week.

Elder Duffin