Hippies, Summery Weather, and a Steak Dinner

Hey Mom! Glad to hear from you.

I'm doing well in the new area. It covers part of the richest area in our mission, so I've seen a lot of mansions. Really neat, expensive places. The area is really nice. The weather has been perfect and sunny all week, which is nice because we don't have a car and we bike everywhere. 

 

[Ben-Daniel sent this with no comment attached.  Texas humor, I guess!]

 

My companion is a cool guy too. He's about a year younger than me and has been out two months longer than I have. He is not waiting for a visa. His last companion just got his and is now in Angola, Africa. That elder sent him pictures today and I'm really glad I did not get called to Africa.

I've heard lots about the Seahawks' victory from the Football zealots down here. Proud to be from Seattle! Actually, I take satisfaction out here in the mission telling people that I'm not from Utah. So many people automatically assume I must be from Utah because I'm Mormon; it's awesome to shatter that stereotype every time, haha.

 

I'm ready to go to Brazil now, though. In eight days I will have completed six months of the mission here in Texas :P  I really want to start getting fluent in Portuguese. I've been enjoying the time here in Texas though; the weather makes it awesome.

 

[He's bragging about the nice, summery weather, but he sent us this picture of fog]

Oh, I taught a Muslim guy in a Hooka cafe last week. It was one of the more interesting things that I've experienced out here on the mission. We had a good lesson with him. He's a hippie who converted to Islam to marry his girlfriend. Interesting dude. 

 

I ate a steak dinner last night at a Stake dinner (yes, you read that right, haha), so that was pretty cool. Other than that, I've mostly just been biking around. 

 

 

Yes, I did get Danielle's letter; that's very exciting! [Danielle is Ben-Daniel's cousin.  She's just been called on a mission to Mexico City.]  Nice for Grandma and Grandpa too. Tell them they should be expecting a letter from me soon; I'm gonna try to mail it off today.

 

Dad sent me a picture of Duffin's Donuts in Canada; my friend Nephi found that place a year ago and told me about it! That's cool that he got to go there; did he demand a discount? Ha ha.

 

Jim's picture from Vancouver, BC

I'm looking forward to more adventures in Europe with you when I get back! Be safe in your travels to London. Tell me all about it!

Love you Mom! Thanks for writing me! :)

 

An elder here taught me how to write in Tolkien Elvish; really cool!

These are my favorite pens. The doodle there is called Kupeshi, or polynesian tribal tattoo art.

 

Last Minute Transfer!

 Dear Mom & Dad,

Glad to hear you're all having fun and that the Seahawks are doing well!  Dad, those pictures you sent me of Seattle are awesome! I like the ferris wheel; that's really cool. 

 

 

 

I got all of the packages last Monday, after I had emailed you. Thank you! And tell everyone I say thanks too!   [ie, packages from Grandad and Jon & Hillary = received]

 

The weather down here is awesome; it's 70 and sunny. Feels like the middle of summer back home.

 

I just got emergency transferred into a different area because some other elders got their visas in and had to leave. So, last night at 7:00pm the mission prez called and told me I had to be at the church, packed and ready to go at 6:30am this morning. So I'm in a different area now. :P

 

 

My new companion's name is Elder Schwemmer. He's a nice guy. We were talking about our hobbies back home and when I told him that I'm a cartoonist, he said,

 

"I used to think art was pretty easy; but then I took an art class in high school and realized that it actually takes skill--like in sports."   That made me laugh, haha!

 

 

We're emailing at a library that only gives us an hour to do anything on the computer. I'm short on time, so I'll send you a few pics and get off the computer.

 

Love you! Glad to hear from you! :)

 

Elder Ben-Daniel Duffin

Happy New Year from Texas!

Dear Mom,

 

I'll answer all your questions.

 

I've not gotten the birthday package yet.

 

New Year's Eve was fun. We had to return to the apartment at 7:00pm, so we played Mexican Train and Quelf for a few hours. We have a great view from our apartment window, so we watched fireworks too. People set off a lot of fireworks here in Richmond.

 

My companions and I have a lot of fun together. There's no shortage of entertainment among us. Elder Heitonga saw a helium balloon for the first time last week. His reaction was hilarious. He was shocked. He pointed at it and was like, "How does it do that?!" hahaha.

 

We live next to an older lady. We think she might be racist, because one day while we were returning to our apartment she opened the door, pointed at Elder Heitonga and started babbling incoherently about how she doesn't trust him and how "our bible" doesn't say anything about teasing and that people have been following us around because we've been "teasing something and they don't like it." Very weird. The only interaction we've ever had with her is saying "hi" in the complex, so we were quite taken aback.

 

Me and Elder Heitonga

 

We have been riding bikes a lot lately. A few days ago we got three new investigators in one day, just from biking around and talking to everyone we met.

 

I've not gotten the package from Jon and Hillary yet. I did get a Christmas card from you at the mission Christmas conference; it was nice! :)

 

Glad to hear you're all doing well! Sorry to hear Catriel is sick. I came down with a nasty cold yesterday, so I've been laying low too. :P

 

Other than that, all is well here! :) I live in a nice area with nice people. Been enjoying working here.

 

I'll send you a few pictures now.

Bowling on my birthday!

 

Love you Mom! I enjoy hearing from you every week!

 

Love,

 

Elder Duffin

Ben-Daniel Turns 20!

Dear Mom & Dad,

Here are some pictures from the Christmas Zone Conference and some from Christmas day.

That's Elder Sami. We're good buds. He was my district leader back in my old area.

My apartment

We got toy guns from members on Christmas eve.

Trying on my Christmas gift!

Christmas tie and tie tack

 

Christmas felt weird because I was away from you guys---until the evening when I got to talk to you. But today, my birthday, feels exactly the same, because we never celebrated it on the actual day, haha. [Note from Shari: we always celebrate Ben-Daniel's birthday on the half-year mark in mid-June.]  We are having Washington-like weather today too. Chilly and overcast, haha.

 

To celebrate my birthday, we are going bowling tonight with an investigator of ours, who was baptized yesterday! He's 20 also, so the four of us decided to have a joint celebration of my birthday and his baptism by going bowling tonight. :) We really enjoyed teaching him; he was a golden investigator. Super enthusiastic and excited to learn. We taught him for two weeks and then he was baptized by his older brother who is also a convert. He looks as though he could be Tom Cruise's younger brother, so it isn't any coincidence that all of the young women in the ward showed up for his baptism, lol. 

 

This is the family of Joey, the investigator who got baptized yesterday. He's in the middle. His brother (left) baptized him. The others are his brother's wife and kids.

 

 

I got a lot of birthday wishes from everyone on email, but I don't have enough time to respond to them all; tell them thanks for me! 

 

We have to turn in early on New Years eve, so we'll be partying in our apartment tomorrow night. Going to buy some board games and we're going grocery shopping today :D

 

Heitonga removing the sticky hands he threw on the walls. If you look up and left, you can see the marks they leave, lol.

 

My desk

 

 

Being on the mission has really made me see just how bad for my health my sleep habits were back home. Going to bed at 10:30 and waking at 6:30 has given me a lot more energy throughout the day. Took me a while to adjust to it, though lol.

 

I'm going to try to write a letter to Grandma and Grandpa today and make a late Christmas card for you ;P

 

Chalk art

 

 

Love you mom! I enjoyed seeing and talking to you and everyone on Christmas! Thanks for writing me! :)

 

Elder Ben-Daniel Duffin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ben-Daniel's correct email address!

Shari here---I was just informed I'd written Ben-Daniel's email address incorrectly in the last post.  I've corrected it now, but for anyone needing it to wish him a Happy Birthday, the address is:

ben-daniel.duffin@myldsmail.net

Feliz Natal!

[Ben-Daniel wrote us briefly on Tuesday, the 24th.  Then we had an hour-long Face-Time visit with him on Christmas Day.  I'll share a little of what he said at the end of this blog post.  ---Shari]


Hey mom! Sorry I didn't email you Monday; we had a mission Christmas conference that day so today is my P-day.

At the Mission Christmas Conference

I'm looking forward to skyping you tomorrow! The member whose computer I'll be using will call you tonight to tell you when I'll be calling.

I didn't get an email from you yesterday, so most of the news about me is in reply to dad's email. I heard from Catriel that you all just got back from Utah on Sunday.


I'm doing well in my new area. I'm in a trio companionship now.  We've been having a lot of fun. We have an investigator getting baptized on the 28th.  Elder Tanner and Elder Heitonga are the names of my companions. Heitonga is from the island of Tonga, and it's his first time in America. He's hilarious. He doesn't know what anything is. He tried to eat one of the sticky hands you all sent me, because he thought it was candy! XD




I also got the packages you sent, yesterday; thanks! :) We've been having fun with the face balls and sticky hands.  [Shari here---I heard from Mimi (source of "best things to send missionaries") that they like to have sticky hand fights in their apartments.  I sent a bunch of goof-ball items from Oriental Trading Company.]

Love you mom! Glad you all had a good time at Eric's wedding!  Talk to you tomorrow! And Merry Christmas!   :)


Elder Duffin


SHARI AGAIN: Here's a brief re-cap of our Christmas Day conversation with Ben-Daniel via Face Time.  We tried to get him on Skype (so that we could dial up Jon & Hillary in England on Face Time and let them talk via screens) but Skype refused to cooperate on either the desktop or laptop computers, so we ended up just using Face Time on the I-pad. We were sad not to access Jon & Hillary, but we'll try again next time we get to talk to him.  Grandad and Erma were here and also Uncle Brett.

Ben-Daniel was in good spirits at the Hyatt's home in Richmond, TX.  He told us that he likes the new area he's in, Richmond, and that Texas is flat and green everywhere he's been.  He likes the cooler winter weather (which is similar to a Seattle summer, he says).  He reports that the people are super friendly and he really likes them.

He talked about the Christmas Mission Conference, where about 300 missionaries working in the greater Houston area got together for a holiday meal, games, and gifts.  He ran into someone he knew from Bonney Lake, Elder Levi Mitchell.  He said Elder Mitchell was very surprised to see him!  He didn't know Ben-Daniel had been temporarily assigned to Houston.

No news on the Brazilian Visa.  Ben-Daniel thinks that there may have been some kind of cap put on Visas toward the end of 2013, so he's hopeful things will open up in the new year and he'll ship out early in 2014.  

He showed us some little videos on his camera.  One of them showed him and his roommates setting a grease candle on fire and then trying to avoid setting the apartment on fire.  

He also showed us video footage of the Sticky Hand fight and the elder from Tonga tasting the Sticky Hand.  We heard Ben-Daniel's worried voice from behind the camera warning him, "No!  Don't eat it!"  He said this elder is funny because this is the first time he's ever been outside of Tonga, so lots of things in the US are astonishing to him.  Apparently one morning they were all driving in the car and Elder Heitonga got all excited and demanded they pull over.  Alarmed, Ben-Daniel pulled the car over and asked him what was wrong.  Elder Heitonga pointed to a squirrel and asked, "WHAT is that?"  He'd never seen a squirrel before.  Also, small breed dogs were amazing to him as well.  

He told us about an upcoming baptism of an investigator that he's excited about.  It sounds like he hit the ground running and has been enjoying the work there in Richmond so far.

He had questions for us and wanted to see the pets.  Blackanne was shy and didn't like looking at the I-pad screen, so we didn't think she really knew it was Ben-Daniel.  Hogan, though, recognized his voice and tried to figure out where it was coming from.  The cat was outside and missed the visit entirely.

We ended the visit by regaling him with a rousing, traditional family song, "16 Tons" and he sang the Brazilian Birthday song to us (also great fun) and we ended the visit on an upbeat note.

[Last note: Ben-Daniel's birthday is Monday, December 30th.  We invite everyone to send him an email wishing him a very happy 20th birthday.  He checks his email every Monday.  So send him a quick email now at: ben-daniel.duffin@myldsmail.net   It will be fun for him to get lots of "Happy Birthday" messages that day.)