[Ben-Daniel wrote us briefly on Tuesday, the 24th. Then we had an hour-long Face-Time visit with him on Christmas Day. I'll share a little of what he said at the end of this blog post. ---Shari]
Hey mom! Sorry I didn't email you Monday; we had a mission Christmas conference that day so today is my P-day.
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| At the Mission Christmas Conference |
I'm looking forward to skyping you tomorrow! The member whose computer I'll be using will call you tonight to tell you when I'll be calling.
I didn't get an email from you yesterday, so most of the news about me is in reply to dad's email. I heard from Catriel that you all just got back from Utah on Sunday.
I'm doing well in my new area. I'm in a trio companionship now. We've been having a lot of fun. We have an investigator getting baptized on the 28th. Elder Tanner and Elder Heitonga are the names of my companions. Heitonga is from the island of Tonga, and it's his first time in America. He's hilarious. He doesn't know what anything is. He tried to eat one of the sticky hands you all sent me, because he thought it was candy! XD
I also got the packages you sent, yesterday; thanks! :) We've been having fun with the face balls and sticky hands. [Shari here---I heard from Mimi (source of "best things to send missionaries") that they like to have sticky hand fights in their apartments. I sent a bunch of goof-ball items from Oriental Trading Company.]
Love you mom! Glad you all had a good time at Eric's wedding! Talk to you tomorrow! And Merry Christmas! :)
Elder Duffin
SHARI AGAIN: Here's a brief re-cap of our Christmas Day conversation with Ben-Daniel via Face Time. We tried to get him on Skype (so that we could dial up Jon & Hillary in England on Face Time and let them talk via screens) but Skype refused to cooperate on either the desktop or laptop computers, so we ended up just using Face Time on the I-pad. We were sad not to access Jon & Hillary, but we'll try again next time we get to talk to him. Grandad and Erma were here and also Uncle Brett.
Ben-Daniel was in good spirits at the Hyatt's home in Richmond, TX. He told us that he likes the new area he's in, Richmond, and that Texas is flat and green everywhere he's been. He likes the cooler winter weather (which is similar to a Seattle summer, he says). He reports that the people are super friendly and he really likes them.
He talked about the Christmas Mission Conference, where about 300 missionaries working in the greater Houston area got together for a holiday meal, games, and gifts. He ran into someone he knew from Bonney Lake, Elder Levi Mitchell. He said Elder Mitchell was very surprised to see him! He didn't know Ben-Daniel had been temporarily assigned to Houston.
No news on the Brazilian Visa. Ben-Daniel thinks that there may have been some kind of cap put on Visas toward the end of 2013, so he's hopeful things will open up in the new year and he'll ship out early in 2014.
He showed us some little videos on his camera. One of them showed him and his roommates setting a grease candle on fire and then trying to avoid setting the apartment on fire.
He also showed us video footage of the Sticky Hand fight and the elder from Tonga tasting the Sticky Hand. We heard Ben-Daniel's worried voice from behind the camera warning him, "No! Don't eat it!" He said this elder is funny because this is the first time he's ever been outside of Tonga, so lots of things in the US are astonishing to him. Apparently one morning they were all driving in the car and Elder Heitonga got all excited and demanded they pull over. Alarmed, Ben-Daniel pulled the car over and asked him what was wrong. Elder Heitonga pointed to a squirrel and asked, "WHAT is that?" He'd never seen a squirrel before. Also, small breed dogs were amazing to him as well.
He told us about an upcoming baptism of an investigator that he's excited about. It sounds like he hit the ground running and has been enjoying the work there in Richmond so far.
He had questions for us and wanted to see the pets. Blackanne was shy and didn't like looking at the I-pad screen, so we didn't think she really knew it was Ben-Daniel. Hogan, though, recognized his voice and tried to figure out where it was coming from. The cat was outside and missed the visit entirely.
We ended the visit by regaling him with a rousing, traditional family song, "16 Tons" and he sang the Brazilian Birthday song to us (also great fun) and we ended the visit on an upbeat note.
[Last note: Ben-Daniel's birthday is Monday, December 30th. We invite everyone to send him an email wishing him a very happy 20th birthday. He checks his email every Monday. So send him a quick email now at: ben-daniel.duffin@myldsmail.net It will be fun for him to get lots of "Happy Birthday" messages that day.)
