Halloween plans, neat freaks, and the lack of written mail

I went to the Houston Temple this morning. It was about a 2 hour drive over there. We tried to make the 8:00 session but we were just a few minutes too late. We went to the 9:00 session. The Houston Temple is pretty.

 

 

I can't believe it's almost Halloween again! It doesn't seem like all that long ago I was cashiering at Target, packing candy into procrastinator's grocery bags on Halloween night, lol. 

 

 

My companion says the Mission Prez makes us stay in our apartments all evening on Halloween. I'm looking forward to it because I don't have hardly any time at all to just read and study.  

 

My companion will probably try to make me use that time to clean the apartment; he's a neat-freak. It's his only bad attribute.

 

 

 

That's exciting to hear about your London trip! You'll have to send me pictures. Remember, though, we're still going to visit Jon and Hillary when I get back! 

 

 

Did I tell you I met another person named Catriel last week? Her name was spelled with a "K" instead of a "C," but it was still cool to meet another person with that name. I never thought that would happen, ever.

 

[The Real Catriel :) ]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm really sorry I haven't been able to get any written mail out. I literally have NO TIME AT ALL to even write letters. That's why it's taking so long. :P  I am trying my best to find time to work on all that though.

 

 

 

Tell Sister Brower I did get the letter from Logan; it was very funny!

 

This is a sign on a street outside the library. You can't see it in this picture, but there are more signs on that street than I've ever seen on any street before---hahaha.

 

 

 

 

I laughed at this apartment patio because the picture of the cat on the left is totally stalking the bird in the birdcage. The bird must be terrified all the time!

 

 

 

Another doodle that helped me stay awake during stake conference.

 

 

 

I miss you all! Glad to hear from you, Mom.  I look forward to hearing from all of you every week.  Let me know how your Halloween goes!

 

Love,

 

Elder Ben-Daniel Duffin

 

 

PS.  I love the pictures you sent of the Japanese garden! Very pretty. We don't have any fall colors here yet. The weather's a lot like a Washington summer; everything is still green.

Hyperactive Eight Year Olds & Busy Days

Hey Mom!

Sorry I'm writing on Tuesday; we were planning on going to the temple today so we had to move our P-day to today. Our ride to the temple got sick though, so we didn't get to go. 

Houston LDS Temple

 

I loved the pictures of Minnesota! Especially the waterfall. That's cool that Irene's house is still there.  [Shari: We sent him photos of our family history research trip.]

I taught an eight year old named Kurt this week. His dad is a member and wants to get him baptized, so we've been teaching him.

Kurt is the most hyperactive eight year old I've ever met. He has next-to-no attention span. 

We taught him on Tuesday and he was actually doing pretty good that day. We showed him a church video of Christ being baptized and then discussed it with him afterward. We asked him questions and he was giving intelligent answers, showing that he had been paying attention for longer than three minutes.

Then I asked him, "So, Kurt, why do you think Jesus wanted to be baptized?"

And Kurt, staring off into space and rubbing his stomach, said, "I ate cheese today and I don't feel so good."

Aaaaaaaand, Kurt was done paying attention.

It was all I could do not to bust up laughing right then and there. The look that his dad gave him was priceless too. 

 

It only made it funnier when his dad told us Kurt was not allergic to dairy products at all!

I'm very, very busy. I haven't had time at all to write letters to anyone. Even Pdays are busy. I'm trying to get your birthday card sent off as soon as I can.

I got your package yesterday with the pickled beans and health insurance card! Thank you! We have a fridge, so I'm trying to make them last.

There's an older couple in our stake from England and I asked them about Lakenheath. [BD's brother & sister-in-law have just been stationed at Lakenheath.]  They said it's a nice area.

[I asked him what he wanted for Christmas.]  Ha ha, you know I don't ever know what I want for Christmas!  I definitely want more pictures mailed to me---of you all and the pets. I like food too, lol. Can't really go wrong with food. 

I'll send you a few pictures now. I'll probably just mail you the SD card when it's full. It has some video's on it, which I can't send via email, for some reason.

Glad to hear from all of you! Keep me in your prayers; you're in mine! :)

I love you, Mom! thanks for all you do for me!

Elder Duffin

[He must have run out of time because I didn't get any picture files this week.  I'm putting up a picture of the Houston LDS temple, which he mentions in this post, and a few clip art items for illustration purposes. :) ]

Brazilian Birthday Song and more...

Hey Mom!

 

Glad to hear you're having fun in MN!  I look forward to more photo's. :)

 

I have not received your package yet :P I checked the mission office on the 10th but it hadn't come in. That was the same day we got to hear Elder Golden speak. He's a member of the 70; he was an awesome teacher. I really enjoyed his talk and the discussion he had with all of us missionaries.

 

I am recovered from the chicken pox. They gave me meds; I had to take 4 pills, 4 times a day. 16 pills a day, for a whole week! The pox marks were going away even before they gave me the meds, so it just helped. I finished them all yesterday. I was only quarantined for two days---Monday and Tuesday. 

 

These are some of the pills I took for Chicken pox

 

 

My companion's name is Elder Shuler. He likes to write and he's a big scifi/fantasy enthusiast, so we get along well. He's from Utah, and he's been a little over a year on his mission.

 

Right now, I'm mostly teaching less active members. We don't tract here at all; the only way we contact new people is through referrals from members, so we teach a lot of active members too. I have two investigators that I'm teaching now. One of them is a 15--16 year old kid and the other is a middle-aged man. Elder Shuler and I got a less active sister to come to church yesterday. Elder Shuler had been working with her for some time, so he was pretty excited.

 

Beautiful Texas sky

 

 

When I was quarantined in the apartment on Monday, two men came to fix our water heater (our hot water only lasted about a minute in the shower and then it would turn freezing). One of them almost immediately started talking about religion and expressed a lot of interest in the church, so we had a lesson right there in the apartment. We gave him a Spanish Book Of Mormon and referred him to the Spanish speaking missionaries.

 

So that was cool. I like having people come to me to learn about the Gospel better than me coming to them lol ;P

 

They didn't really fix our water heater, though.  We now have no hot water at all---so it's been Siberian showers for us every morning. One day our AC broke too, but I was on an exchange that day and I wasn't in the apartment, haha. AC's fixed now. Just need a better water heater :P

 

They have the coolest public library here; it's huge. It's where we come to do emails. You'd really like it.

 

Glad to hear the Seahawks are doing well! People here are all football zealots.

 

You'll be getting a birthday card from me soon! :) I happen to have colored pencils, so it's in full Technicolor lol. Hope you had a good birthday! MN sounds fun.

 

Artwork. I draw these things to keep myself awake in meetings.

 

 

Tell everyone I say hi! 

 

I'm attaching some more pictures. Did you get the ones I sent two weeks ago? I wasn't sure if it worked or not.

 

My desk

We bought alcohol pads and we were very disappointed in how small they were. "Everything's bigger in Texas" RIGHT.

ll

 

 

This is a close up of my desk. Can you spot my name?

 

 

I love you mom! :) Thanks for keeping me posted!

 

Elder Ben-Daniel Duffin

 

 

PS. And Happy Birthday! You'll have to learn the Brasilian birthday song; it's much more fun than our's.

 

It goes to the tune of the regular Happy Birthday song, but a little faster, and you clap to keep time. Then you shout the other lines after the song part while you clap.

 

It goes like this:

 

Para bens, pra voce!

Nessi data querida!

muitos felicidades,

Muitos anos de vida! (x2)

 

a big (x5)!

a hora (x5)!

 

Ra! Tim! Bum! (pronounced "Hah" "Cheem" "Boom")

 

your name (x5)

 

 

Super fun. You should try it!   lol.

 

Happy Birthday!

 

***New Address Alert***  as of 10/8/13

Elder Ben-Daniel Duffin
1111 W Main St, #1603
League City, TX  77573

Chicken Pox??!!!

I've been confined to my apartment for the next few days because I have Chicken Pox :P  I caught it from my companion's shingles in the MTC.  Apparently it's a milder case because I was vaccinated when I was little, but they've still confined me to the apartment for a few days. I get to use the clerk's office for emails today.

Other than chicken pox, I'm doing pretty well. Just kind of following my companion around, learning how to do stuff.  My companion and I get along great; no problems there. There's a twelve week program thing that he's taking me through that they put all new missionaries through. Basically it's going over things I learned in the MTC again and going over rules and things that are specific to this mission.

I've decided to never move to Texas just because of the weather. It's hot, muggy, and they have all sorts of pests and parasites. There are gangs of mosquitoes that hang around people's front porches and people get their houses invaded by cockroaches and bedbugs. We've only had problems with cockroaches and mosquitoes where we live, thankfully.

The people here are nice, though!

Everyone in Houston was outraged that their football team lost to the Seahawks a week ago. Football is a huge cultural thing here. The Seahawks are doing pretty good this year! 

The weather has cooled down now, since yesterday.  Feels like Washington in the summer now, which has killed off a lot of the mosquitoes. It's really nice.

It's funny that you mentioned family history online stuff, Mom, because a few days ago we went to the local library and helped out a bunch of oldsters with familysearch.org. I had never used it before, so I wasn't much help, but a surprising number of them knew how to use it well.

I enjoyed watching General Conference. I felt sad for Thomas S. Monson (how he was recently widowed); the stories he told about his wife were touching.

I have a fridge in the apartment, so I can make the pickled beans last :) Thank you for sending them soon! I haven't gotten any mail yet, but thanks!

I'm really sad to hear about our apple tree :(  It made great apples. [Note from Shari: our Gravenstein apple tree fell over in the last windstorm.]

That's awesome that "Jawn" Wainhouse got his mission papers in! You should give me his email, so I can write to him.

That's cool that Danielle is thinking about a mission. [Danielle is a cousin.]  We've got a lot of sister missionaries in our area who really enjoy it here.

You'll have to send me some pictures of Catriel's homecoming! :) That's exciting.

I love you Mom! Thanks for all you've been doing for me! Don't throw out your back gardening.

Love,

Elder Ben-Daniel Duffin

Getting Settled in Houston

Dear Mom, Dad & Catriel,

I've just entered the Houston South Mission.  Sorry I didn't have longer to talk to you at the airport.

 Waiting in lines at the airport to call home.

Texas is FLAT.  Not one hill anywhere.  We drove by some "mega-churches."  They're huge buildings where thousands of people go on Sundays.  Houston is a big city and it is very humid here.

The mission president and his wife are very nice.  They were at the airport waiting for us when we arrived and gave us all lunch.  I was glad they did, because the only thing I ate that day was a chocolate muffin and some water before jumping on the plane in Salt Lake. :P
 

I live in a little apartment near League City with three other Elders, including my companion, Elder Shuler.  He's a great guy; we get along fine.

My mailing address is:  602 Eldridge Rd Sugar Land TX, 77478.  That's the address of the mission office. My companion says I should have you send stuff there.

It's very humid down here, and there are more churches here than you'd ever believe. There are LOTS of mosquitoes. :P

We don't tract down here at all; we get all of our investigators by getting referrals from members. Everyone's pretty friendly down here.

These two pictures are from the home we stayed in before we moved into our apartment.

The little cat attacking my scriptures I met at a member's house here in Houston. she surprised me on the member's deck by pouncing on my ankle, and then she proceeded to fight my scriptures. Very cute.

The parakeet lives at a member's house where we were teaching.  Very friendly.

I went to a baptism this past Saturday; it was cool.  I haven't had to buy food at all since I've been here.  I liked all of the pictures you sent me! :) Glad you all had a good time with Jon and Hillary!

My daily schedule looks like this:

6:30 - get up and go for a walk

7:00 - shower and eat breakfast

8:00 - personal study time

9:00 - Companion study (we practice teaching all the lessons we're going to teach during the day)

11:00 - Study Portuguese

Noon till 6:00 - Proselyting plus meals.

7:00 till 9:00 - Proselyting.

9:00 - Planning for the next day

10:30 - bed.

At our apartment.  I found the cereal box in the apartment and thought it was funny.

That's pretty much my whole schedule---lol. I'm going to send you a few pics; I've only got 8 minutes left.  I love you! Talk to you all on Monday again! :)

love, Elder Ben-Daniel Duffin

Improvising decorations for Sister Brotherson's Birthday party in the MTC

Sister Brotherson's Birthday party in the MTC

Part of Sister Brotherson's birthday party decorations

This is Elder Archibald at our last Portuguese class

My shadow in Houston

Saying goodbye to the Pinho brothers---my Portuguese teachers

[These are the kids the Primary class BD taught in Bonney Lake.  They are holding inflatable globes with Brazil showing because that is where he'll be going when his visa comes in]