Two Weeks in One Post!

[Shari here.  We were on vacation for a while, so I am behind on posting.  This post will cover the last two weeks.  We'll start with his letter on 2-17-14.]

Top of the morning to you!

Missionaries from Washington state.  That's Elder McCleve next to me.

Sounds like you're all having a lot of fun! Wish I could be there in England with you, too! I don't envy the cold weather though; it's nice and warm and sunny down here ;)

I like the pictures! The Harry Potter set looks cool; I'm sure you learned a lot about the production of those movies. That's over ten years of moviemaking in those movies; I remember when the first one came out around the turn of the century.  My first companion vehemently hated the movies. He had only seen a few and then refused to watch any of the others, whereas I thought they were pretty well done for the most part. Much better than the movie rendition of The Lightning Thief. XP 

Anyway, I'm sure you're learning a lot of history too! I'm jealous. 

Glad to hear Jon and Hillary are doing well. I'm looking forward to going and visiting them again after the mission. That's hilarious that you brought my jacket all the way over there. [We found a black wool jacket in the bedroom that Jon and Hillary had stayed in a few months ago.  We thought the jacket belonged to Hillary, so we mailed it to England.  Wrong.  It was an older jacket that BD wore when he was 15.  We'd just forgotten it.] It's not even a girls jacket, haha. I'm sure it's completely useless now that it's been near Bandit [Jon and Hillary's husky dog]; that jacket is TERRIBLE when it comes to picking up pet hair. I could be in one room and Jedi could be in the other, and if Jedi even looked at the jacket it would get completely covered in cat hair.

That's funny that you ran into missionaries in England. There is a sister from the ward I'm in right now who is serving in London.

I got your Valentine's package right on Valentines day! Thank you! I like the tie; I'm wearing it right now! I enjoyed the gummy sharks too; reminded me of the airport in California.

It's just started to get warm and humid down here now. I'm hoping my visa comes in before summer hits; september here was brutal, and I've heard that was nothing compared to the middle of summer. The warmer weather has opened opportunities to talk to people though and we had a lot of good contacts with people this past week as they were out and about.  We're going to see a few of them again this week and teach them.

Had a full moon and high humidity a few nights ago

 Other than that, not much has been going on here. I came down with a cold, so that's been fun  :P  Still fighting it off.

This was a Chinese hat I found in our closet

Well, I'll send you a few pictures now. Good to hear from you Mom! Glad you're all having a good time in England! :)

Love you tons,

Elder Duffin

This quote was on the kitchen wall of a member's home

[And letter #2, sent on 2-24-14]

Dear Mom,

Glad to hear you all got back home safe and sound, and that the rest of the trip was awesome! That story of the guy in the subway is hilarious! XD The subways in Europe are ...interesting places haha.

I understand about the jet lag. For the first few weeks of the mission down here I would crash really early in the evening; practically every night. I probably had a bit of jet lag too.

Jon and Hillary have an awesome opportunity to travel; I don't blame them for taking advantage of it. If I actually get to Brazil and get to really learn Portuguese, it would be fun to go to Spain/Portugal with them, where it would be useful.

You were talking about interesting names for pubs in England; it reminded me of an odd cultural thing down south here of naming women with men's names. I've met southern women named Jordan, Billie, and Steve. It's interesting, haha.

I taught a Hindu family this week. They were very nice. The father was really interested in religion, so he agreed to hear our message. He wasn't very receptive though; he talked about reincarnation for about an hour. I explained our beliefs about pre-mortality, the spirit world and the resurrection, along with eternal families. I asked them how they would feel if they could live together as a family for all eternity and he said that because their family is only a part of this one life and they'll each be reborn in some other place or time after they die, they try not to get too attached to one another. That made me sad. Such a doctrine hinders them from the deep joy and happiness they could be experiencing in their home, with the knowledge that they can be together forever as a family. 

I learned from that experience that non-Christians need to learn the Plan of Salvation before anything else. I've gotten too used to teaching people that already have some understanding of that from their Christian backgrounds.

Other than that, things have still been pretty slow. We had a less active member come to church yesterday, so that was cause for celebration. We've had pretty nice weather lately. There was a big rainstorm on Friday; we got drenched. It wasn't cold though, so it wasn't miserable.

The mission is flying by now. The weeks are going by really fast. I can't believe I've been out for over six months! Having fun though. Dad, your advice has helped me a lot! :) Thanks for supporting me both temporally and spiritually. 

Tell the Daughertys I've been getting their letters and say thank you! Tell Grandad and Erma I'm thinking about them and hope they're doing well! Tell everyone I'm sorry I don't have time to write all of them. They'll have to find out what I'm up to through you and the blog. 

Glad to hear you're all doing well and made it home okay! You're all in my prayers always! I love you Mom! Talk to you next week!

Love,

Elder Duffin

Visiting Baptist Churches & Hindu Temples

Hey Mom!
 

Glad to hear you're all surviving the snowstorm up there. It's just kind of rainy down here now; hasn't been too bad. Jake Theriault says he's in ten below weather and has to shovel himself through the snow to places, haha. It's not nearly as bad down here at all.

A neighborhood in my area

Yesterday I attended that old Baptist church I told you about a few weeks ago. It's a very tiny congregation; only ten people were there, including me, my companion, and Brother Young (the member whose assignment it is to attend on Sundays), and all of them were older folks. Their building was built in 1869; they're undergoing repairs right now. Brother Young attending their services has really warmed them up to our church. They didn't even think we were Christians before he came! They had little paddles in their pews, each bearing a picture of a black Jesus. I wanted to discreetly take a picture of one, but didn't get the opportunity. The whole hour-long experience was very interesting; they were all very friendly.

 

 

That was the big interesting thing that happened this week. Missionary work in this area has been slow going. I bike around all day and we try to talk to people on the street and visit less active members, who are almost always gone during daytime hours. We have an Indian investigator named Achu (he goes by Martin) who we're hoping to get a lesson with today;  also an investigator named Bill. We'll see if that happens.

 

I haven't gotten your package yet, but I haven't checked the mail today yet either. So maybe it'll be in today.

 

I don't think missionaries do anything for Valentines Day. It's not really the kind of holiday we can celebrate, haha. [I asked him if they were doing anything out of the ordinary on the 14th.]

Local turtle family

I'll send my camera's memory card back a few weeks after I get the package; I have over a thousand and 30 pictures on there, and I have a few I need to print out at Walmart before I send it off to you. 

Thanks for the pictures! I'm going to a Hindu Temple today, so I'll send you some pics of that next week. I'll send you some pictures now, too. 
  

I'm jealous of you going to England! You'll have fun there. Send me lots of pictures, and be safe! :) 

Sorry to hear you were all sick. There was a nasty cold down here that I caught about a month ago; I was out for about a week. Love you Mom; hope you start feeling better soon! Thanks for writing me!

 

Love, 

Elder Ben-Daniel Duffin 

 

Flat tires, Chopsticks & A Few Good Lessons

Dear Mom & Dad,

Glad to hear the Seahawks won the Superbowl---everyone in Washington must be very happy!

I miss stuff like that sometimes, but not enough to deter me. I'm doing good down here; it's been cold off and on for the past week, but we've managed. Had some good lessons with two new investigators last week too, so that's exciting---one guy is named Bill and a couple whose last name is Bells.

We did not have a snowstorm, haha. There was really cold rain, but no snow. I was able to find rides from members when it was raining, so I didn't have to bike around in that.

Today, nearly everything went wrong---ha ha. It was actually quite comical. We were about to go to the church to email at 10:00 am this morning, but when we were about to get in elder Hansen's car we realized there was a big eye-hook puncturing the car's tire. 

We live a block away from a Firestone, so we limped the car over there. They told us it would take them two hours to change the tires.

Two. Hours.

So, we got a ride from the Chinese speaking elders to go to the church while the car was worked on. But when we got to the church, we found that the internet was down!

Soooooo then we went to Chinatown and ate lunch with the rest of our district. I finally figured out how to use chopsticks!

We were there until the car was done and once it was done we tried to go back to the church after shopping, but the Chinese elders had left and we had their cell phone for some reason so we couldn't contact them.

So now we're at the library emailing. :P  [They are not able to be online very long at the library]

The city I'm in is called Sugarland. I'm near the mission office.

I've been out SIX MONTHS. SIX. That 1/4 of the mission! It's gone by so fast for me. Craziness. 

I'm still doing good down here; the weather is pretty nice today. Ready for the visa to come through though :P I'm starting to think that Visa's are the stuff of myth, lol. It'll get here when it gets here. 

I like the photos you sent Dad! Blackanne has never been very enthusiastic about posing for pictures, haha. I like the sunrise behind Mt Rainer.

Glad to hear you're all doing well! I miss you, and I love hearing from you every week!

Love,

Elder Duffin