All you ever wanted to know about a lan house

Hey Mom!

I am sitting on a tiny swivel chair with my man-purse in my lap, staring at a computer screen between two tiny cubicle walls. On the other side of the left wall, my companion is doing the same thing. The room that I´m in is rectangular & the walls are painted red and white. The computer I´m using is one of seven, lined up against one of these walls. There´s a mirror behind each monitor. On the far end of the room there´s a big cubicle housing the woman who runs the lan house.

A lan house in Brazil

A lan house is just a place with a bunch of computers which you pay to use. There are two in Xanxerê. The one I´m using right now is the worse of the two (the other one has better computers and is cheaper) but this one opens in the morning and it´s much closer to our apartment.

I´m pretty jealous of Catriel getting to go to a zoo! There´s nothing much interesting to see or do here.

[I told him a story about the primary class I teach at church.]  I had to teach a primary class while I lived in Chapecó. The kids just laughed at my accent and asked what was wrong with me.

(Dan Gordon SuperKatt comic)

The new carpet looks great in the pictures you sent, Dad. I remember how devastated I was when you re-carpeted in Hemet. [He was six years old at the time.]  A change of carpet is not as life-shattering for me now!

Yeah, sorry about the state I left my room in. I´m sure the closet will be a terror to deal with. One thing the mission has given me is an inability to tolerate a messy desk; my organizational skills have improved dramatically. So my room won't decay like that again when I come back.  I´ve also gained the ability to wake up in the morning and not be lethargic. I´ve discovered that my mold allergy was mainly to blame for that.

You won´t be true empty nesters until Catriel and I both get married; we´ll be home between college semesters!

I remember Lynn & Dave and their "Chouse." Glad to hear they´re doing well.

Apparently the mission president doesn´t bring packages with him when he does interviews, so I´ll probably get it at this next zone conference.

Don´t have much by way of stories. We had another big rainstorm yesterday. We´ve got two investigators who have set a baptismal date but neither of them showed up to church yesterday.  Still trying to help less active families. (Lots of people have problems with alcohol here.)

There´s stuff to do here and we´re seeing some progress, finally. I´ve been in Xanxerê for four whole months now and I´ll stay here till at least the beginning of March; doesn´t seem real!

Love you Mom! I miss you a lot! Thanks for writing me each week! Love hearing from you! 

Talk to you next week!

Um braço e um beijo!    (A hug and a kiss!) 

Elder Duffin

Christmas Pictures, Weather-Talk, and a Report on the Work!

Hey Mom!

I think it´s very funny to see you all become such devoted football fans! [We wrote him right after the Seahawks won their NFC championship game and were a touch excited.]  Sounded like a fun game to watch though! Wow.  I guess our house has become a football stadium for the Duffin/Steelsmith family! That´s cool; let me know how the party goes when they win the Superbowl again.

Sorry to hear you´ve got a cold, Mom. Get better soon!  And I like your Game Day manicure. You should paint little white 12´s on your blue nails 

Yes, the cookies [in the Christmas box] were edible! I´ve been trying to savor them and make them last. I only have one coconut macaroon and one jam tart left I don´t know when I should eat them. (#firstworldproblems) Ha ha!

Me at the Christmas Conference

 It´s been pretty darn hot here lately. I´m really jealous of your cooler weather. It´s really hot and sunny during the day and then every evening for the past week a ginormous storm blows in. A couple of days ago we had a very impressive lightning storm; got some cool video of it.  In fact, I just looked outside and it´s now pouring down rain. I did not bring an umbrella to the Lan house. Darn it. The weather has been very hot and then it just dumps rain in the evenings ; it´s been doing this almost all week!

Work continues down here. We have a 15 year old guy named Arnold who has been investigating the church for the past few weeks. The mission has a rule here where people under age 16 must wait three months before they can get baptized, unless their parent or guardian decides to get baptized too. Yesterday we had a lesson with his parents; it went pretty well. I´m hoping that they´ll start coming to church with Arnold, like we invited them to do. Hopefully they´ll both get baptized.

Christmas Eve Dinner!

Other than that, we really have no other investigators right now. We´ve been working with a few less active families and one of them has started coming back to church! They´ve been coming for the past four weeks. I´m happy about that. We also had a great turnout at church yesterday.

Training Elder Stahn is going well! We get along great. He´s picking up the language very fast.

First photo with Elder Stahn

This transfer has gone by waaaayyyy fast for me. I only have four more after this. Can´t believe I´ve been in Xanxerê for four months now. I think staying in one area for a long time makes time pass faster. I hope I get to serve in other areas though; I like moving around.

I managed to send you guys some more pictures today! Here are a few from the city center of Xanxerê:

 
And a few from outside the city:

The flora and fauna here remind me a lot of Oregon.

I really enjoy seeing pictures Dad sends of you guys every week; thank you.

Love you Mom & Dad! Emailing is the highlight of every week for me--I love hearing from you. Thanks for encouraging me on the mission and for everything else you do!

Talk to you next week!

Love,

Elder Duffin

A Trip to Florianopolis and lots of PICTURES

Hey Mom!

This last week we had zone conference and I got a mountain of letters and a package! (It´s the one with all the food stuff in it: Christmas cookies, cereal, pickled beans, etc.) Thank you!!! I also got my ``manly stache´´ birthday card ha ha ha. Very funny! Jon and Hill sent me a bday card that´s pretty clever; I think you´d like it. I´ll bring it back with me.

At zone conference.  Sister Haight (who was in my district at the MTC) goes home at the end of this month!

[He has recently traveled to Florianopolis--nicknamed "Floripa" by locals--with his new companion, Elder Stahn.]

I got the Hartman´s Christmas letter when I went to Floripa, but that was it. I actually didn´t check for packages--that was stupid of me! Oh well. We´ll be having interviews with the mission president on the 22nd; he´ll bring anything we´ve received at the mission office with him. 

We had some free time while we were in Floripa and did a little sight seeing. I kind of wish I was serving there; it´s very beautiful and I miss big cities. Boy, was it HOT though. I´ll see if I can´t send some you some pictures.

 

Elder Duffin in Floripa

Florianopolis

I´m (miraculously) nearly fluent in Portuguese now! The work here is pretty much the same as in the states; just in a different language. God has answered my prayer and has given us a few prepared people to teach! The main one is a 15 year old named Arnold (very Brazilian name, right? Ha ha). He´ll get baptized on the 31st!

No, I hadn´t heard anything about the terrorism in France. I thought I was out of the loop while I was in Texas, but we are REALLY out of the loop down here. We pretty much don´t hear about anything that happens outside of Brazil.

I´ll try to send some pics of Floripa to you now!

 

Florianopolis

Elder Stahn & Elder Duffin

Love you Mom! Hope you have a fantastic week!

Elder Duffin

 

 

"The word for Coconut in Portuguese is ridiculously similar to the word for Poop..."

Hey Mom!

Glad to hear New Year's was fun for you! It was kind of fun for me, too. We headed in early and watched the city nearly literally explode with fireworks.  Some of them were being lit off from the other side of our street and would blow up right above our apartment building; that was fun to see!  I stayed inside for the evening and cartooned and made silly rap videos.

 

 

We should be doing more traveling next Monday; I need to take Elder Stahn back to Florianopolis to do something with his identification, so that´ll be fun. It´ll probably also mean I won´t email on Monday again. 

I'm still jealous of your weather. Maybe not the wet part, but I miss the cold.

I remember "Those Damn Sandwiches"-- ha ha! They are really good! [He's referring to a family sandwich recipe with an unusual name.]

 

"Those Damn Sandwiches"

 

Tell Sarah that Cody looks like some sort of  country singer with that beard in the picture you sent! (I'm having flashbacks to when I decided it would be a good idea to grow facial hair. I don´t know why I thought that was a good idea! Cody pulls it off better than I did, though.)

Work has been pretty slow here for the past few months and is only just starting to pick up. We taught an older guy on Saturday. In our lesson he said, ``If I´m following the wrong religion then it´s my parents who are at fault, because they decided to raise me in it!´´ I couldn´t help but chuckle at this. He was totally trying to avoid taking any personal responsibility for his spiritual well being. I think some people just don´t want to change or add something new to their lives, especially if they´re comfortable. 

A lot of less active members were at church yesterday! That made me happy. We´re trying to help a few of the less active families back into activity.

 

I can speak Portuguese pretty well now; I'm hoping to be fluent by the time I come home! The word for coconut in Portuguese is ridiculously similar to the word for poop and I made the mistake of confusing the two in trying to compliment a member on their coconut cake at Christmas. So they thought that was a riot-- ha ha!

 

Not much else to say! I´m having fun training Elder Stahn; we like a lot of the same things and we talk a lot. I´m afraid I´ve been kind of homesick lately but I´m trying to stay focused. Summer will come faster than we think! 

Love you Mom! Thanks for writing me! 

Have a great week!

Elder Duffin