Top of the morning to you!
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| 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
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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
Glad to hear you're all doing well and made it home okay! You're all in my prayers always!
Love,
Elder Duffin
