Funny Stories and an Upcoming Transfer (also, Men in Hats)

Dear Mom & Dad & Catriel,

Glad to hear everything's going well up there! :) The ward Christmas party down here was nice too; we had a few less active families attend, so we were excited.

I just got the Christmas packages today; thank you! :) I also got a package from Grandma and Grandpa; they sent me two bags of Grandpa's candy.

Elder Hansen thought it was hilarious when he saw that Mom had written him a postcard. 

Me and Elder Hansen

 

His companion, Elder Carter, bought a realistic cat statue from a thrift store a few days ago.

Last night, before they got home, I took it and put it in the fridge. At about 10:30pm last night Elder Hansen opened the fridge to get some water and shrieked when he saw the cat. >:D 

 

That's just a taste of the ridiculousness that goes on in this apartment---ha ha!

Christmas tree!  Me eating the popcorn cake you sent.

I think subbing for seminary is normal for missionaries. We haven't had to do it this week though, thank goodness. I think it's just to give the seminary teachers a break; but I don't see how it's much of a break, seeing as they have to be there even when we're teaching :P

This was my district this morning at ihop. From left to right is Elder Sami, Elder Moyes, Elder Shuler, Sister Johnson, Sister Jackson, and me.

I found out yesterday that I'm being transferred to another area on Wednesday. I'm kind of bummed; I like my companion, Elder Shuler, and I've had fun with Elder Hansen and Carter. I'm excited to go to a new area though.

I found out from Elder Shuler that I will be skyping you all on Christmas day. He says that "Google Hangout" works much better than Skype though, so see if you can get that on the computer. I'm looking forward to seeing you all again! :)

I saw the pictures Dad took of Catriel in Tacoma. Hey! Those are really good! They'd be good senior photos if she weren't a junior. She's going to have great Senior pictures next year.  Looking forward to seeing Dad's pics of Eric's wedding in Salt Lake.

So, I taught a 9 yr old a couple of days ago. I taught him about the Restoration. After I had told him about the apostles having the priesthood and then being killed, he got up and said, "Well, that's true; but let me tell you something. I know that back then some people fell down, and some people went up; but the real question, the real question is: do we go to heaven with clothes, or without clothes?"

He wasn't trying to be funny either; he was totally serious. It was hilarious. I lost all my composure and laughed; so did his parents.

Thanks for writing to me, you guys. I look forward to it every week! Thanks for being there for me and for giving me encouragement. :)

Sorry I haven't sent pictures in a while; I'll do that now.  

This is me and Elder Shuler at Kurt's baptism a few weeks ago.

This hat isn't mine, but I wish it was! 

I love you and I'll talk to you next week.

Elder Ben-Daniel Duffin

Rain and Holiday Lights in Houston

Dear Mom & Dad,

 

Sounds like you had a good week! It's been cold down here too, in the low 40's and high 30's. It's starting to warm up again now though. Today it's wet and drizzly. I've been making good use of the sweaters I have.

 

 

 

There are lots of Christmas lights popping up here and there in the neighborhoods round about this place. Everyone is very festive.

 

 

 

I had to teach early morning Seminary last Thursday. Bleh! I thought I was done with Seminary hours when I graduated. Oh well.

 

 

 

We just got a new investigator, named Steve. He's been fun to teach. The first time the missionaries came over, about a week ago, he wasn't interested in the message, but they told him to read a few verses of the Book of Mormon and then pray. He decided to do so after they left. He prayed about a problem he was having and immediately received a clear and startling revelation, telling him what to do. He's never felt the spirit before and is now convinced that God exists and wants him to learn more about what we're teaching. I taught him twice after that. He's going to be baptized on January 4th.

 

I'm going to try to send you a Christmas card next week :) 

 

 

 

 

I love you mom, Thanks for writing!

 

Elder Ben-Daniel Dufifin

NASA Tour, Thanksgiving, and Mystery popcorn

Dear Mom & Dad,

Sorry I didn't write on Monday.  P-day was changed to Tuesday this week.

I received your packages! The little Christmas tree and popcorn cake came first.

The popcorn thing was hilarious. I had no idea what was going through your head--- hahaha.

The cake is good! But, why is it covered in popcorn? I figured you had made the cake and were intending to give me popcorn as well, but you told Dad to pack it in the box and he just decided to put them both in the same bag---hahaha. 

[Note from Shari: My friend Lynn told me how to safely mail a cake to someone.  It has to be Angel food cake.  You frost it however you like and then put it in a turkey roasting bag.  Then you pop basic popcorn in oil on the stove.  When it's cool,  you pour it all over the cake in the bag and then tie it off.  The oil in the popcorn keeps the cake from drying out and the popcorn itself cushions the cake.]

I like the Christmas tree! It makes the apartment more festive.

I had a great Thanksgiving. We ate with the Bartons and Brother Barton's mother. Small crowd, but it was fun. The Bartons are a young couple and it was their first Thanksgiving as heads of the household---cool to be a part of.

This morning my whole district and I got a free private tour of NASA. Super cool. A member here designs space suits for NASA and was nice enough to give us a private tour for free. 

This is a massive pool they use to train astronauts.

Astronaut fitting into his suit for training

Speaking of pictures, I'm using a different card now; I don't know how many more photos the first one will hold now, so I put in a new one before we went to NASA.   I'll have to send you the pictures of me with the tree and stuff next week.

Glad you were able to meet the Browns! [Shari again: Ben-Daniel's mission leader in the ward in which he's working visited our area and offered to connect with us and take a package back to him.]  They're super nice. I thought that'd be a nice treat for you and Dad when he suggested visiting you while he was up there. 

I've wanted to see Ephraim's Rescue! The producer of that movie gave a talk at the MTC; he showed a few clips from the movie too.

Your story about the pies is hilarious! I had key-lime pie for the first time yesterday; I now love Key-Lime pie.

Anyway, I've been doing well. It got warm again down here, so it feels like summer again. I'm enjoying it!

There's a 60 year old neighbor friend of ours who is like the king of the stray cats in our apartment complex. Every time we go over to say hi there's four or five cats hanging around his front door.  It's awesome; that's going to be me when I'm his age!

Well, I'd better send you those pictures and email Catriel. Thanks for writing me! Glad to hear all is well at home. Say hi to all the relatives for me!

I love you Mom! :)

Elder Ben-Daniel Duffin

The Men in Black

Dear Mom,

You should TOTALLY send a postcard to Elder Hansen; that'd be hilarious.   Everyone gets stuff here in my apartment except my companion, Elder Shuler.  He is allergic to just about everything except Turkey and Rice, so sending him food might not work out so well. :P  He is a Dr Who fan too, so we quote it all the time.

 

Elder Shuler and I have a car. He has some sort of bone disorder, so we can't ride bikes. We just drive everywhere. It's been a blessing though because it's gotten cold down here for the past 3 days and having a nice warm car to travel in is nice.

We will be eating Thanksgiving dinner at the home of a young couple named the Bartons. They've had us over for dinner before and we like them a lot. Brother Barton is almost a carbon copy of Uncle Ron Duffin---from personality to hairstyle to the sound of his voice. It's weird, haha. Elder Shuler loves Thanksgiving because he can eat turkey and potatoes and that's what people serve.

 

I go to bed at 10:30 pm every night and wake up at 6:30 am every morning. Most nights I want to go to bed earlier than 10:30 but priorities demand otherwise. We usually get back to the apartment at 9:00 pm (never later than 9:30 pm) and then we plan out the schedule for the next day, which takes a while.

 

I failed to tell you last Monday that my ward mission leader, Brother Brown, went up to Washington on Friday and offered to visit you all while he's up there. I gave him your phone number; did you ever talk to him?

 

Sad to hear that Dad is sick! :( Has Grandad gotten over his bug?
 

We've been having Washington weather for the past 3 days. Cold and rainy. :P  It started with an enormous thunderstorm on Saturday.

Here's a quote for you: There was a guy I met a few days ago who is now an investigator. He said he wanted to go to the singles ward here after we invited him to church. So yesterday we showed up at his place with the singles ward Elders to introduce him and give him a ride. When we came out in our suits and stuff, he said,  "Y'all are, like, the 'Men in Black' for Jesus!"

Ha Ha---made my day! XD

Glad to hear everything is going well! I'll send you a few pictures now.
[Pictures did not arrive = sadness.  S.]

I love you Mom! :) Thanks for writing to me!

Elder Ben-Daniel Duffin

Confused Deer, Utahns Awed by Fog, and Teaching News

Dear Mom & Dad,

I'm doing okay; I get frustrated with myself sometimes, but all in all I'm having a good time here.

I've been really consistent in writing an entry every day in my journal. You'll be amused at some of the entries from my MTC days; you can tell when I started to fall asleep while writing them, haha.

 

Thank you for the Letter example, Mom! lol. And yes, I do know how to use apostrophes; I just type as fast as I can when I email and I don't catch some things :P  [We've been having some discussion on the proper way to address envelopes.  S.]

I'm sad to hear the Glenn's are moving :(  Glad you were able to see them off!

I got your post card of the Oregon bridge today! The Elder I was telling you about doesn't dislike you sending me postcards; he's just baffled by all the postcards I get from you---haha.

This is me and Elder Zeller. He was in my district.

Goofballs

My zone conference last week was good. The mission prez is a good teacher and speaker.

As far as teaching stories go, I mostly teach less active members throughout the week. We do have a handful of investigators though.

We have one investigator out of the six we teach, named John, who just finished reading the Book of Mormon, and on his own decided to re-read it. We had a lesson with him just yesterday morning. We teach him in our neighbor Julio's apartment. Julio is the sweetest old man you'll ever meet. He's a member of our Spanish branch and he's John's co-worker; he teaches John about the Gospel at work and got John to come over and have lessons with us in his home, every Wednesday and Sunday. John is making the most progress out of all the other investigators we're teaching.

Glad to hear the Seahawks are having a good season. Everyone here follows the "Texans," and they're not doing so well, from what I've heard. (There's a sister we teach that breathes football, so I hear all about the Texans every time we teach her). The Texans logo is painted on almost everything down here.

Two days ago, as my companion and I were out walking around seven o'clock, we saw a very confused looking deer in front of Walgreens. He obviously didn't know where he was; it was pretty amusing.

Other wildlife spotted:

I was surprised to find a real live Tribble on the side of our apartment one morning. It's a caterpillar.

It's been very foggy and humid today. My companion is from Utah, and has never seen real fog. His reaction was pretty funny; he wanted to take pictures of it.

More weather:

It rained super hard one day. The ground here is all clay, so floods ensue. This is someone's front yard.

I attended the baptism of Kurt, the hyperactive kid I've told you about, on Saturday. His dad got to baptize him.  It was heartwarming to see.  Elder Shuler and I were the witnesses.

This was the sunset of Halloween evening.

 

I'm sorry to hear your Rick Steve's tour to London didn't work out! You'll have a good time on your own though; you'll be able to speak to the foreigners.

Well, I'd better send you some pictures and write to some other people; Thanks for writing! I love hearing from you! :)

Love,

Elder Ben-Daniel Duffin 

Mostly about Mail and Food...

Hi guys,

 

The Elder in our apartment who picks up all our mail is exasperated by how many postcards I get from you, Mom, ha ha. I have them in a stack on my desk.

 

 

 

Sorry I wasn't able to email yesterday; the library was closed for Veteran's day, and the computers in the church building were all claimed by the Sister missionaries. :P Oh well.

 

 

 

Sorry I didn't put your name on the envelope with your birthday card; I'm not accustomed to writing letters. In fact, I was half worried that I didn't put the addresses in the right places on the envelope. I blame the technological advancements of this day and age for my inept letter-sending skills.

 

 

 

Glad to hear life is going well and staying interesting for you!

 

Oh, I got the Jam you sent me! Thank you! It's almost gone :(  I have one pickled bean left from the jar that Grandad sent.  I'm trying to save it.  I'm pickling store-bought pickles in the leftover brine now. lol.

 

 

 

We don't get fed by members every night, but we are by no means in danger of starving. We have a ridiculous amount of food in our apartment. I've been able to live off of about 20 bucks a week on my own. My poor companion can only eat rice and turkey. He's allergic to all other kinds of meat and can't eat any corn or corn products, which means he can't eat hardly anything you buy at a supermarket. He can eat fruit and Hershey's chocolate though.

 

 

 

I've been doing okay out here.  We've been pretty busy with teaching appointments; there's rarely a day when we don't have less than 3 or 4 lessons scheduled. Right now we only have 5 investigators and one of them is progressing very well.  Two of them are married to one another. All of them live in League City, Dickinson, and Houston. (My apartment is in League City).  We mostly work with less active members though. 

 

I like the Fall photo's you sent. It's finally starting to look like fall here; a few trees are starting to change color. It still feels like the middle of Summer back home though.

 

The only scenic thing to take pictures of here are the sunsets; I have a few sunset photos I'll be sending next week. 

 

We have a Zone conference tomorrow, so I'll be at the mission office most of the day.

 

Well, I'd better get off the computer. We are eating at a member's house today and I don't want to be late!

 

Love you mom & dad! Thanks for writing!  Keep me in your prayers!

 

love, Elder Ben-Daniel Duffin

Halloween Report & Update on Brazilian Visa

Hey Mom!

 

I got the pictures you sent me and I've gotten all of the post cards. No package yet; it seems like packages take longer. Thank you so much!

 

 

 

Sounds like you've all had some interesting weeks! Catriel says Enders Game came out. I'm super jealous!

 

I'm sending off your birthday card in the mail today and a few pictures.

 

 

 

 

My Halloween was alright. We went to our ward's trunk or treat; we were happy to see two less active families there.  We came in early and I studied some Portuguese. Elder Shuler was distracted that night with an electronic keyboard a member gave us and we all played a card game later, so we didn't clean anything. I ate a lot of Twix bars. 

 

 

 

I got an update on my Brazilian visa today; they say they're still working on it, and they'll continue to notify me about it, basically.

 

That story about Grandpa is hilarious! Props to him!  [Note: Grandpa Duffin pulled an elaborate prank on Paul that didn't come off the way he'd hoped.]  Too bad it didn't work the first time; that'll be awesome when they do it to someone else though, haha. 

 

 

 

No, I'm not too homesick; though I do miss you all! Hearing from all of you helps. I love the pictures you sent me. 

 

It doesn't seem like it's Fall here; it just cooled down a bit, and we've had some impressive rainstorms, but other than that, it's like the middle of summer up in Washington. Green and sunny.

 

I never really understood why Sandy Cheeks is from Texas, until I got here. There are SO MANY SQUIRRELS HERE! Squirreltopia is what this; they're EVERYWHERE. It's awesome.

 

 

 

That's an awesome story of yours from the post office. Reminds me of some of the people I met at Target. XP  [Note: I relayed a story of being delayed in line at the Bonney Lake Post Office by a woman who was unaccountably mystified about receiving a Thank You note in the mail.]

 

I'm sorry to hear that about Sister (Jeanette) Larsen. :(  Hope she gets better. If you can, you should get me Spencer's email; I've been wanting to email him.

 

Also, you should see if you can get me Jawn Waynehouse's  and Stephen Bernecker's email too; would you?

 

I love you Mom! Glad to hear you're all doing well! :)

 

love,

 

Elder Ben-Daniel Duffin