Spring in Houston, Missing Blackberry Pie & Thoughts on Jesus

Hey Mom!

Good to hear from you and glad all is well. :)

We've had beautiful weather down here all week. Since it's starting to warm up again, the bugs are starting to come back; at night we find literally thousands of June-bugs flocking around light bulbs. 

 

 

It's really nice out today. After emailing, Elder Jensen and I are going to help a family in the ward with hedging and then go play golf. (There are a lot of golf courses in the Houston area) So that should be fun.

I'm amazed at how fast time has flown; it's already April! I'm looking forward to face-timing with you and everyone on Mothers day! :) 

 

Our last Face-time visit on Christmas day

I got the rest of your postcards and one from Jon and Hillary! Thanks! :)  I emailed Jon and Hillary today; hope to hear back from each of them next week.

 

Sad to hear about the mudslide; I heard about it from people down here. Glad no one we knew was there :/

Uncle Brett is going to Brasil for the world cup, right? I'm not sure when I'll get my visa; I'm really hoping it'll come before summer really hits down here, though.

To answer your questions:  We got a new investigator last Monday. We helped him move with our stake President and the stake president invited him to have dinner with him and us today. The guy, (his name is Dave) has a wife who is a member and is interested in learning more. So that'll be nice.

Other than that, we haven't found anyone else. We had two teaching appointments with two of our investigators---but they were both not home when we went to their houses.

Well, you know I am missing homemade blackberry pie, lol, but that might be hard to ship :P  

 

Blackberry pie

 [Jim wrote BD about a talk our bishop gave on Sunday on missionary work and how Christ reached out to people as individuals]  Yeah, I knew Brother Bower would make a good bishop. He's an excellent teacher. I really enjoyed his mission prep class. One thing I noticed about Jesus is that he's always mentioned as being at parties or eating with people. He just hung out with people; he was someone everybody liked to be around, because he was a good friend. I think that impacted how large the number of His early followers were.

Love you Mom! Thanks for all you do for me! I think of you every day! 

Talk to you next week! 

Elder Duffin

Avoiding Alligators and Waffles

Hey Mom!

Well, the city I'm now in is called Lake Jackson but there isn't an actual lake called Jackson in it---  ha ha.  There are a few man-made lakes here, though. The popular thing for housing developers to do down here in Texas is to make artificial lakes to build houses around so they can raise the prices. Some of them are quite nice. They all usually get alligators living in them though, so you can't swim in any of them.  I've been told there's a lot of alligators in the rivers and lakes, but I haven't been to any of them yet. Hope to get some pictures of some.

Dad, your pictures of the cherry trees in bloom are beautiful! Has the weather improved much up there? It's starting to get warmer and more humid down here. I'm out in the boonies now; it's kind of like a marshland. There's a bunch of huge trees hanging with "old man's beard" and lots of wildlife. We saw huge herds of deer walking around everywhere and lots of hawks. The weather has been nice.

Mom, I've found as I've been in members' homes for dinner appointments, that you've fed me a lot more healthy than other people feed themselves. I've also found that I don't like not eating healthy; waffles and bacon for dinner was not appetizing for me. :P

 

On Saturday we had a correlation meeting with our Ward Mission Leader and with the sister missionaries in our ward. The sisters picked up mine and Elder Jensen's mail for us; they texted us saying that we both got mail from girls. 

We were perplexed at this as neither of us have girlfriends back home, so we were wondering all morning who our letters were from. When the sister missionaries finally gave us our mail, it turned out that Elder Jensen's was a letter from his mom and mine was a postcard from you! The sisters thought their joke was hilarious. :P  But I was happy to get another postcard from you!

Houston is full of immigrants; most of them are Chinese and Indian. In my last area, we would sometimes go to Chinatown on P-days; once we went shopping in a Chinese grocery market. That was interesting.

Anyhow, I'm doing good.  It was Elder Jensen's birthday yesterday and we celebrated in a member's home. I'll send you some pictures! 

This is where we celebrated Elder Jensen's birthday last night.

Dad, I've been to a lot of people's houses and heard a lot of life stories, and let me tell you, you put a lot of other people's dads to shame. Thanks for being such a great example to me of what a husband and a father should be and for bringing Zion into our home. I realize more and more every day just how blessed I am because of you and your conduct in our family. Your advice to me on the mission has always helped a lot, too!

Love you tons Dad! Thanks for writing me! You're in my prayers :)

Love you Mom! Thanks for writing me and keeping me in your prayers! You're in mine too! :)

Talk to you next week,

Elder Duffin

It's a Small World! and A New Area

Hey Mom!

Glad to hear you got the camera card. Don't delete any of the photos on it; I plan on using some for stuff when I get back home.  Glad you enjoyed the videos.

You asked about the video of Elder McCleve at the MTC; he was doing just that---acting like a chimp with a balloon, haha. My stay at the MTC was interesting. I can't believe it's been about 6 months since I was there; that's just unreal! 

I especially liked the last video of the big guy on the stage at the ward Chili cook-off in Richmond.  He was wearing the top hat; did you see that one? The card didn't have enough memory for me to film their whole skit, which was hilarious. Wish I could've gotten that---darn it.

Yes, I did get all the postcards from England---thanks! Looking forward to going there with you all after the mission. I've gotten lots of letters from people in the ward. I really don't have time to write letters out here, so please tell everyone I thank them for their care! :)

The place that I'm in now is called Lake Jackson. My companion's name is Elder Jensen. We get along great; he's cool. His aunt's brother-in-law is Jeffrey R Holland, he told me. We've got a great bunch of elders in our district too. We went on a ward camp-out on the church grounds a few days ago, so I met a lot of the members there.

At transfers I met an Elder McGuire, who turns out to be my cousin Ben McGuire's brother! 

 

Me with Elder McGuire

 

I've got a picture with him. Small world! There's also an Elder Philips in this mission who used to live right next to Uncle Paul and baby sat his younger kids. He says he's friends with Rachel.

Those flower pictures you sent are beautiful! There are these small trees that are blooming little bright purple flowers right now down here. I don't know what they are, but they're pretty. I'll see if I can get a picture of one for you next week.

The weather is warming up and getting more humid, and is occasionally interrupted by cold fronts, like today. I really hope I'm in Brasil before summer hits; I've heard horror stories of Houston heat, haha.  :P  So pray for my visa too! 

 

 

I'll send you a few pictures now! :) 

 

The two elders who went home last week.  Hansen didn't want to leave, but Bethers was actually quite happy lol

This is me with Hansen and Bethers

This is me and a less active member named Chris who Elder Schwemmer and I worked with a lot.

This is my companion Elder Schwemmer and a member who would always drive us around.

 

Love you Mom! Thanks for all you do for me! :) Talk to you next week! 

Elder Duffin

Transfers! and Elder Hansen makes an unfortunate mistake...

Hey Mom,

Sounds like you all had a good week! Glad to hear it. 

Yes, I did get the package and the pickled beans! I haven't gotten any post cards though. 

I received news this morning that both my companion and I are getting transferred this Wednesday.  I don't know where either of us will go. I'm pretty excited though, seeing as there's not much work available in this area. Sad to leave Elder Schwemmer though; he's a great companion. President Ashton is putting Sister missionaries in to replace us; that's good because I think Sisters will do better in this area than Elders.

 

 

My friend Elder Hansen went home today; his mission's over. We saw him off this morning. He was pretty bummed. In contrast, the other Elder that left with him was ecstatic. We got some funny pictures.

 

Me and Elder Hansen from a while ago

I don't know if I have any funny stories. A few weeks ago Elder Hansen filled his apartment with pepper spray, thinking it was air freshener. I don't know if I told you about that or not, ha ha!

 

 

There was one thing that happened to us this week that was pretty funny, but it's the kind of story I think only Dad would appreciate; you'd think it was gross and weird ha ha.

 

 

Anyway, I'm doing well! Excited about transfers this Wednesday. This past week went by fast.

That's exciting about Grandpa going to Vietnam. I hope he takes Paul or Andrea with him, too.

Glad to hear you're all doing well! Thank you for your support, emails, and prayers! I love you!

Talk to you next week! :)

Elder Duffin

Pictures of the Hindu Temple and bike tire fiascos

Hey Mom!

It was pretty warm and humid up until 5:00 pm yesterday. We were on our bikes then and the temperature dropped 20 degrees--very suddenly. We were hit by a big cold front. It's been sunny and  chilly today.

We had stake conference Saturday and Sunday. Some other missionaries and I sang in a choir during the Saturday session. We had a member of the Seventy come and give a neat presentation on how the Church has been using technology to aid in missionary work. He showed a video of President Spencer W. Kimball prophesying that new technologies, which they "couldn't yet fathom," would one day be used in the work. So that was cool. Sunday session was pretty boring, though. 

I talked with a Zoroastrian man from Pakistan a few days ago; that was fun. I went to a Hindu Temple a few hours ago today; I  will send you pictures. That was really cool.

So that's what was exciting this week. Other than that, it's been pretty slow, as usual. Glad to hear the FBI security clearance on me came in! [This has to do with his Visa]

I hope Dad has fun in his new calling.  Glad you're enjoying working in the nursery too! And that you and Catriel didn't catch Dad's bug.

Alright, I'll send you some pictures now. 

The inside of the temple here was the most interesting and beautiful, but photography was not allowed :(  The inside of the center dome is filled with statues of the "24 Incarnations of God," as also all the pillars holding up the ceiling. They also had large statues of other deities and their messengers (all incarnations of one god) made of porcelain, within gold canopies, to which some worshippers were bowing while I was there. We had to walk without shoes in there and it was very cold. Well worth it, though. Wish I could've taken pictures.

 

That's me standing in the gateway.

 

This is a part of the gate of the temple. I forgot to mention that each piece was hand carved in India, and then put together here in Houston.

 

 

 

The whole building is covered in these hand carved statue things. No mortar was used at all; every marble and limestone block that make up the building fit together like Legos.

 

I have never changed a bike tire before; so, I did not realize that one needs to put the hose inside the tire before inflating it. As you can see, this is far too big to fit inside a bike tire. haha

This is my district, a few weeks ago.

 

 

This painting was hanging inside the bathroom of a member's home.

Sunset in Houston

 

Love you Mom! Thanks for writing me! :)

Elder Duffin