Monday, May 25, 2015

Getting Over a Virus and Outwitting Wily 16 Year Olds

Hey Mom,
I did not know it was Memorial Day today until I read your email. The month of May went so fast, it was practically non-existent to me; can´t believe it´s almost over now.
This past week was kind of rough. Monday and Tuesday I was sick, stuck in the apartment, and Wednesday I was not much better. The cold turned into a sinus infection, which I am still kind of battling. I´m nearly over it now. 
 
 
Then Elder Shakespaere unfortunately (but not surprisingly) came down with the same bug. He's recovered more quickly than I have, though.

Notwithstanding, the week went by pretty quickly.
I made cake mix cookies.


Sorry to hear about Catriel´s car! [She suffered a hit and run in a parking lot]  That sucks. Hope you find the cheapest way to fix it.

That´s nice that Jon will get to spend some time in Italy again! I´m sure that will be fun for him.

I´m having a good time with Elder Shakespaere; we get along great. 
 

Weird story from this week:  On Wednesday, we went to the house of an investigator we have and when we got there her 16-year-old daughter came out to the gate with her mom´s Book of Mormon in her hand and said, ``My mom told me she doesn´t want to talk to you guys any more and you can take this back.´´ I told her we´d like to talk to her mom one more time and asked her when we could come back and find her at home. A few days later we came to the house and found our investigator there. When we talked to her we discovered that she had no intention of discontinuing our visits and still wants to be baptized. Her daughter had totally lied to us in an effort to get her mom to stop talking to us. The daughter was there that night and looked very upset that we were there. I think her pastor told her to do it. The odd things that happen on the mission!

I´ll send you some pictures now.  Beach photos!





Love you Mom!  I miss you a lot. Talk to you next week.

Elder Duffin

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Recovering from a Cold plus really disgusting looking pictures of Chocolate Pizza

Hey Mom,
Well, I´ve come down with a pretty nasty cold.   This is only the third time I´ve gotten sick in Brazil.
So our plans to go to Floripa today have been thwarted. It was hard to even make myself leave the apartment to email. I´m hoping it´ll subside by the end of today.

My weather here is the same as yours yesterday [overcast & slightly muggy]; but I prefer it this way. I've just had back-to-back summers in Houston and subtropical Brazil. I do not hate sunshine, but as heat has an infuriating tendancy to accompany it, sunshine is not among my higher-ranking weather choices. Clouds are my best friends right now.

Much beloved clouds in Serraria
Ha ha, I liked the picture of your Sunday School class, Mom. I remember when I was teaching the story of Laban and the brass plates to my CTR 6 class, I had a picture of Laban lying in the street with Nephi approaching.  I made the mistake of asking, ``What did Nephi do when he saw Laban?´´ (thinking they already knew the story). The kids all responded ``Nephi helped him!´´ I did a facepalm in my mind and responded, ``Nope, he cut his head off!´´ I was met with some very shocked expressions! So then I had to explain why Nephi killed him.

                                 A pine cone with its seeds. People eat the seeds here!


I liked Dad's pictures of the Fun Run in Orting.  I started to get into running for morning excercises before I left Texas, but had to stop after I got to Brazil because of the problem I had with my feet. (I think improper shoes were to blame.)  I´d like to get back into it when I come home.


Catriel´s party looked really fun! They all looked very classy. I liked the thing you did with the lights on the deck.

An investigator of ours said she wants to be baptized! We´ve only taught her twice, so we´ve got more stuff to do before that happens. She has two kids; haven´t taught them yet, but I´m hoping they´ll want to be baptized, too.

Me and my zone    







Chocolate pizza is the best!
 
I´m gonna sign out. Love you Mom! I pray for you every day. Oh, I sent Grandad an email, too.

Talk to you next week.

Elder Duffin

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Mother’s Day Facetime Visit



Hello, Shari here, with a report on our lovely, long Facetime visit with Ben-Daniel on Mother’s Day.  He borrowed the bishop’s iPad and was at a church member’s house who had good, reliable wifi.  

Screen capture on Facetime


We, of course, asked him about the recent tornado that touched down a block and a half away from him in Xanxerê.  He had a little video of the tornado on his camera and showed it to us.  He said it was so sudden and fast-moving that he didn’t have time to be alarmed.  After he saw the damage where it touched down, he had a better sense of how dangerous it was.  He talked a little about the hollow bricks that are used in that region—those buildings did not hold up well against the tornado.

[He wrote: Me and the "Boi-zinho" (little bull). It almost kissed me! Ha ha.]






Before he left Xanxerê, he sent us a box of souvenirs of the area—mostly items surrounding the Chimarrão culture.  

Chimarrão

Ben-Daniel famously does not enjoy this popular, caffeinated, bright green herbal drink, but said that it is a huge deal there—much like tea in Japan or our coffee culture in Seattle.  He sent us a kilogram of it from the local factory in Xanxerê, four decorative cups, a couple metal straws used in drinking it, and detailed instructions on how to prepare it.  After reading over all the directions, we’ve decided we’re going to wait for him to get home and have him make it for us!



He showed us some video footage of another drink made locally—Caldo de Cana.  It is basically the juice from a frozen sugar cane.  

Caldo de Cana
This drink he likes (but what’s not to like about the taste of sugar?)  He says that Brazilians are fond of sweets in general and drink a lot of soda.  He is regularly amused when locals ask him if Americans drink Coca Cola. 



He talked a little about his impressions of the Brazilian people.  He says the people there seem much happier in Brazil than they did in Houston.  He wonders if it’s because they live simpler, less stressful lives.  He says they do not work as many hours a week as Americans do and they live closer together as families—for example, all in the same neighborhood.  He and his companion make most of their contacts on the street and he says people are generally quite friendly.  They do not tract or knock on doors.



He’s noticed some interesting differences in household appliances.  Ordinary Brazilians do not use the following items:

  • Vacuum cleaners (no one has carpeting—it’s mostly tile)
  • Lawn mowers (they just use weed whackers)
  • Door mats (he says people leave a rag at the door to wipe shoes)
  • Mops (rags are attached to the bottom of a squeegee)

Banana Cake

He says everyone is generally friendly toward Americans.  In Xanxerê and Chapecó most people had never met an American before and assumed he was German before speaking to him.  American TV shows play there with voice translation, so they are familiar with the more ridiculous side of our pop culture.  He says that lots of folks love watching the Brazilian soap operas.


He told us a story about being in the MTC in Sao Paulo when he first arrived.  He said he was in the cafeteria when he noticed some kind of bug on the floor.  It was green and yellow and rolled up into a ball.  He poked it with his finger and it opened up to show that it was a caterpillar.  He went to pick it up and take it outside when he had a strong feeling that he should put the caterpillar on a napkin and carry him that way.  He was able to transport it outside without touching it.  A month or so later, his first companion warned him never to touch a caterpillar—he said many in Santa Catarina are poisonous and some even cause paralysis.  He said one of the worst was green and yellow!  Close call.  Ben-Daniel was relieved he’d listened to the prompting.



He reports that he is pretty fluent in his Portuguese now, despite never having had a full-time Brazilian companion.  He says it took about three months to be able to communicate easily.  In fact, he spoke to us unthinkingly in Portuguese a few times and then had to go back and translate for us.  He says he does not dream in Portuguese, but when he remembers conversations he had in Houston, he sometimes remembers them in Portuguese instead of in English.  He reports that the English-speaking missionaries often speak to each other in “Portu-glish” –mixing up the two languages.



He really likes his new companion, Elder Shakespaere—he says he laughs easily which makes him awesome.  He’s relatively new in the field and Ben-Daniel is helping him with the language and some teaching technique.  In missionary slang, he’s Elder Shakespaere’s “mom.” (“Dad” refers to the original trainer when they first arrived.)  They are both new to the area of Serraria (which is not a town, but more like a particular section of the city).  

Elder Shakespaere, perhaps enjoying banana cake

Elder Shakespaere’s father is from Jamaica and his mother is from Utah—and they all live in Nebraska.  Ben-Daniel says they are getting along well and Elder Shakespaere is schooling him in “how to be black.”  When I asked him what that meant, Ben-Daniel shrugged and said, “It’s basically how to wear a sweater better.”  So we expect Ben-Daniel home with a new sartorial elegance.



He sends his love to everyone at home and says thank you to all who have been writing him, particularly the Daughertys.  He reported that a letter arrived from the Brower family that had been completely saturated in some kind of liquid and then dried.  This impressed him.  He’s now in an area pretty close to the mission office, so he will be there about once a week (instead of getting mail every six weeks).   

Mission office in Florianopolis
If you’d like to send him a letter, a post card, or anything else, now is a good time.  Here’s the address once more:



Elder Ben-Daniel Duffin

Missao Brasil Florianopolis

Rua Feliciano Nunes Pires #42

Centro-Florianopolis  SC

CEP: 88015-220

BRASIL


He sent us a ton of pictures on Monday.  We’ll share some more of them here. 

 Banana trees!

Bees on banana blossoms.

Zone conference activities
Some sort of Book of Mormon skit


He says they look like "camel cows" to him
More camel cows


"A brand of diapers with a hilarious name--I love how no one knows English here!"


 



Thanks for reading!

Monday, May 4, 2015

New Area, New Companion, Lots of Photos this week!

Hey Mom!
I´m doing good! This week flew by for me; I´m really rather surprised it´s Monday again, ha ha.

I can´t believe Catriel is 18 now! Time flies. Sounds like she had a good birthday and that she´ll have a fun few weeks ahead of her. I´m sad that I won´t be there for her graduation.











Elder Shakespaere and I get along well and we've got a lot of people to teach, so we´ve been very busy. I´m one of the oldest missionaries around now, ha ha. I´m the oldest in my district of four.


 This is us trying the coffee substitute church members here like to drink.  It's gross.

On an exchange with another elder below.  Brazilian Pizza is delish!



I can´t believe it´s almost Mother's Day and time to video call you guys again.  I feel like I literally just spoke with you all a month ago. I think staying in the same area for so long made time go by faster.

I´ll try to call sometime in the evening my time, so it´ll be a little before noon your time. I´m still not sure as to where we will be calling you from; Elder Shakespaere didn´t really plan that out. It will probably be viaS kype, but the bishop has an iPad so I´m going to see if we can do it at his place if he with Facetime. We´ll see. Either way, I´ll be calling you.

Love the pics, Dad! I miss Mt Rainier. Got some great scenery here too though!  My new area is really nice; we´ve got a great view of the island. I´ll send some pics.





More exotic plants exist here than the interior. The orange flower comes from a tree.





Gotta go! Love you Mom!
Talk to you this Sunday!
Elder Duffin