Week 7: Sterling, VA -- "People aren't as mean as you'd think!"

How's it going?! How is everyone? How's school going for everyone? How's work and such? Jordan getting married. That's pretty insane! I hope Ashley is doing good. How long has everyone from our ward been out? I know Michael gets home in July, and Miller in September, but what about Sister Dalton and Back? Crazy how time flies! Seems like the left just yesterday!

This weekend was pretty dang good! We had a goal of meeting with more of the part member homes and Saturday was a good day to get to them. So Saturday morning, we baked 12 little loaves of banana bread. We went with a member who got back from his mission a couple years ago, Brother Stock, and give them some bread, shared an Easter message, and invited them to watch General Conference. It was pretty cool! We only got into a couple houses, but it was a pretty good day! The rest of the week was ok. We dropped lots of non progressing investigators and ones we couldn't get in contact with anymore... Just making room for more good ones! ;) 

Yitzhak is doing well! We had a bomb lesson with him Saturday evening! We went on a chapel tour with Bishop Thomas just to show him around. I remember a quote from I think an Apostle, that said we need to use our dedicated chapels more! Have more lessons and tours! They already have such a string Spirit, so use it! So that's what we did! We talked about the importance of the Sacrament and how we are promised the Spirit if we remember God and keep his comandments! He was way into it and loved the good feelings he had in the chapel! We're trying to get him to the priesthood session and a social thing beforehand on Saturday at the chapel, so he can meet more guys in the ward. I'm way excited for him! He's still struggling with his past and feeling God's love, so some prayers his way would be much appreciated!

Dan and Chris (Father and son, respectively) are doing good. They have strong faith, but still aren't keeping commitments. They said they'd come to church after ski season ends this week. They go skiing every weekend! The dad is like 60 or 70!! He's goes to the gym all the time and still works full time! Crazy dude, but really smart. Chris, the son, is 16 and is way smart!! He's super intellectual and very open minded! He's really promising! Their lessons always go really well!

We finally got the sectional and bed out of our apartment, which is nice. It snowed like 6 or 7 inches on Wednesday! We shoveled so much snow! My back was not happy that day, but I'm okay now. I have some pics I'll send. 

So we bought a 10 pound pork butt today... We're gonna make a butt ton (lol ) of pulled pork and it's gonna be dope!

I'm definitely doing better. Still miss home a ton, but my testimony is strengthening and I'm liking Virginia more and more everyday. Something I've learned while out here--People aren't as mean as you'd think! People here are actually really nice and super polite (something about being politically correct, I guess lol ) Anyway, I hope all is well back home and you're all keeping up with your studies! (school and spiritual) Love you all so much!!! 

-Elder Duke

Week 6: Sterling, VA -- "Sketchy dude in a Van, and bringing the cops to move some boxes."

Hey everyone!

How's it going back home? How the weather been? (cause it's been cold here!) How's March Madness going?

It's been a pretty crazy week! We had exchanges on Tuesday. I stayed in my area with our district leader, Elder Fowler. He's a way cool guy from Seattle. We talked a lot about how to improve and do missionary work more effectively. He did sales for a couple summers so he's gotten good at talking to people. I found out it's much easier to talk to people about the Gospel if they don't think you're just a robot. You gotta talk to them about other things, things they have interest in or a passion about (sports, their families, hobbies, etc...) That's way hard! Keeping a conversation going, then transitioning to the Gospel. But it makes things more interesting and gets people more interested in what you have to say.

Wednesday, our zone we had interviews with the president. That was good. I always love talking to President. He's such a caring and loving guy!

2 good stories for the week.

First one. So Elder Jacobs and I got a call Saturday evening from our Elders quorum president asking if we could help a sister in our ward, I'll call Molly, move. We didn't have any appointments, so we said yes. We get there, and it's a pretty tense situation. Molly is getting divorced from her husband and is taking he stuff from the house. Her husband can get angry and violent. So we get there, and Molly is pretty scared about going into the house to grab her stuff. She she ends up calling the sheriff's department to get some officers down in case things get heated. The sheriff's come and her husband, I'll call him Rick, comes out of the house. Rick is a freaking RIPPED dude! He's a former marine, and former cage fighter! He's only like 5'7 but he's gotta be like 200lbs+!! Anyway, huge guy that knows how to fight. So cops get there, talk to him, he is pretty chill and ends up leaving for the night to go party. So we move the stuff into a moving truck. There's a sectional, king size bed, and tons of bookshelves and boxes. We get it into the truck and take it to the storage unit. We get to the storage unit and it's a tiny room! Like 5'×5'... not nearly big enough to fit everything! So we fit al the boxes and shelves into the unit, but we still have a sectional and bed in the truck... So Elder Jacobs, being the interesting guy he is, offers our apartment as a place to fit her stuff till she moves into her new apartment on Friday. So we have a sectional, king size bed, and mattress in our like 600 square foot apartment... Ya, not sure if it was a the best idea, but whatever. It's only till Friday.

Other story. Last night after an awesome lesson with Yitzhak, we ran into another investigator of ours that lives close to Yitzhak. We talked to him for like 20 minutes and right before we say goodbye and leave, a super weird, old, white guy in an old Honda Oddessey drives up and beckons us over. So we walk over, kinda sketched out, and he gives us his number and says, "We'll be in touch," then drives off. Super weird...

Anyway, we taught Yitzhak again and the lesson was way good! We taught him the Plan of Salvation and talked a little about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He was way into it! We started with the Because of Him Mormon message and it really brought the spirit! At the end of the lesson, we invited him to be baptized. And he said he would! He's on date for May 5th. We've got like 5 lessons before then and he's gotta come to church, but I'm super optimistic about him! He really wants to follow Christ and be baptized!

We had another investigator at church yesterday. Her name is Lyndsey. She is a single mom with the cutest 4 year old. She is really busy and is going through a divorce, but we're having dinner with her next Thursday at a member's house.

The members here are awesome! The ward is great, and they feed us pretty well! ;) I'm really starting to enjoy it here! One thing I've done to help de-stress and clear my mind, it listen to conference talks before I go to bed. Ill just lay in bed, and play a conference talk. My favorite this week is The First Great Commandment by Elder Holland in October 2012. It's way good! Y'all should check it out and tell me what you think! 

I love you all and pray for you! Always make time for Christ and the little things that bring you closer to him! They make all the difference!

Love, Elder Duke

Week 5: Sterling, VA - "We told him that Heavenly Father loves us unconditionally!"

Hello all!

How's everything? That's crazy that Lauren went to prom! It's a good thing I already know Caden. He's still lucky I wasn't there though ;) I don't really have any questions... everyone basically answered all of them. That's awesome that April and Caleb had their baby!  Who else is pregnant? Too many cousins. Craziness is happening over there... And Stephanie getting her mission call! That's so cool! That means she'll get home like a month before me. 

This week has been pretty good. Pretty rough, but ya. We're teaching 4 pretty good investigators right now, One guy and his son, Dan and Chris, have been taught for a long time. We met with Dan Friday night and taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Chris was at an audition of some sort. He plays trumpet and drums, believe it or not. He believes the Book of Mormon is true, and that Joseph is a prophet, but he beileves, very firmly, that Peter, James, and John conferred the priesthood on others in the world as well... He thinks God wouldn't be exclusive in His church and only give the power of the preisthood to one group. We tried to explain it to him, but he is set in his belief. Idk what we're gonna do. 

Next is John. I haven't met him yet, but I will tomorrow. He's taking us to lunch, and were gonna teach him the Plan of Salvation and hopefully get him on date. But he still has lots of questions, so we'll see.

Next is Claire. She just graduated high school and turned 18. I kinda told you about her last week. She's met with missionaries for like 2 years. Recently she's been backing away. But like 3 days ago, she started messaging us randomly in the evenings wanting to talk. She was actually in the E.R. last night cause she had a seizure. She's doing okay now, but we're going to meet with her tomorrow evening and see if she needs anything and to just talk about what she's been going through.

Our last good investigator, and my favorite, is Ytzhak. He's a Latino guy who has a wife and 4 kids. He has an older son that is in college from an earlier girlfriend, and 3 younger daughters with his wife. We haven't met his wife or kids yet. They were out of town last week. Apparently they onky speak Spanish, so we're ton a bring the Spanish sisters with us next time. He speaks good English, so idk what happened with that. Anyway, he met some missionaries a year ago, but they didn't teach him. He was just a potential in our area book, so we called the number we had and set up an appointment for Friday. We went over and taught a way good lesson about the Restoration! He was super into it and looked like he was about to cry towards the end. It was super spiritual! He told us he felt like our message was pretty amazing, but he'd done too much in the past to be apart of it. We told him that Heavenly Father loves us unconditionally! Just like he loves his daughters more than anything, God loves us more than anything and always will! He was pretty amazed when we said that. Also, it turns out he had a Book of Mormon! He found it on top of the apartment mailbox pretty beat up, so he took it and started reading a little of it. He struggles with understanding it and the Bible, but we're gonna help him out. We told him to read the introduction and pray about it and ask to feel God's love for him. We're going back on Sunday to teach the Plan of Salvation. I'm pretty optimistic about him!

We've been instructed in zone conference to focus on less-actives/part member homes this transfer. So we've been going by our less active list, which is very long, just to talk with them and see if we can set up an appointment to come by and teach them a lesson. The goal is to reactivate them, and get referrals for their non-member friends. So far, it hasn't gone anywhere, but it's instruction from the AP's so we're doing it. They all know who we are, and probably know why we're there, and they just close the door on our faces. We try to ask if so-and-so is home, and they say "goodnight," and close the door... They also use the excuse of, "We're going to bed right now," and close the door... It's not even 9!! Also, anytime we ask for referrals, "Do you know anyone who could use some service?" or "Do you know anyone who just had a baby/death in the family?" everyone has the same response... "I don't really know anyone around here..." You just said you've been here 15 years! It's all about work, go home, sleep at 7, wake up, and work... Everyone only knows their family. They say hi to their neighbors, but never really talk to them. But that's just how it is out here... It makes the work tough, but it's fine.

Interesting story of the week. We got a referal from lds.org that an RM, named Shawn, from Idaho sent in. He met this girl in an online chat room. He started talking to her and ended up talking about religion. He told her about the church and she was pretty interested so he sent in a referral. In his info for the referral, he said "Hope is really cool, but there's some things you need to know before you meet with her." So we call him and ask about it. Apparently Hope is transgender. So we call her and set up an appointment for Wednesday. Wednesday rolls around, and we get to her house. We see the Mom getting into her car and we say hi. She says, "Oh you must be here to see my Son, David." Umm... ya... We think... Yep, so we go in, meet Hope (formerly David) and talk about the Restoration. Shawn Skyped in. It was a good lesson. Very interesting, but good. She had a lot of questions and was really into it. We're gonna go back sometime this week and talk more. We'll see where it goes.

Other things to note

Zone leaders are Elder Wright and Eaton

District Leader is Elder Fowler

A convert of about 5 years, Mike, is the best guy ever! He takes us shopping and to breakfast every Monday cause he loves missionaries!

Anyway, I'm glad everything is going good back home. Tender mercies I thought I'd point out. Almost every member we've had dinner with, has ties back to Utah. (Went to BYU, lived there, grew up there) So I have something cool to talk about when we go over. Also, there's a Duke family in the ward! We're related through Jonathan. I'm not sure how closely, but at most back to him.

Oh and other things that happened this week

A less active we had a lesson with named Stacey gave us tons of food! Like frozen pizzas, taquitoes, mashed potato packets, chicken breasts, Oreoes, etc... she's quite the character!

Elder Jacobs freaked out some middle schoolers on the bike paths  They screamed so loud! He was so embarrassed!

We also went to a Catholic church called, Our Lady of Hope. We went with the old ward mission leader while we were on splits. We just went and checked out the building. They have it open everyday till 9pm so we went to see it. It's a beautiful building, but it's got nothing on our temples! ;) I understand the cross everywhere, and I'm glad they  believe Christ was resurrected as well. I know it symbolizes his crucifixion, and that is very important as well, but obviously we don't emphasize that as much as they do in their churches.  I know that was part of the Atonement, but I'd rather remember Him as living/ That wasn't the amazing thing about the Atonement. Everyone before Him had died... The amazing thing was that He lived! Anyway, it was a cool building. We were hoping to run into the Father there. He's apparently a really cool guy!

Oh and I made the Fettuccine Alfredo which was awesome, but a little too rich. Maybe a little less cream cheese next time and substitute some of the  heavy cream for milk. I also made the chicken chili, but accidentally put 2 cans of each kind of beans into it so we added more chicken broth and blended some tomatoes to add some more tomato flavor. It turned out good. I also made more banana bread today. Elder Jacobs loves it!  We made chicken cordon bleu for dinner today. It was pretty dang good!

I also bought a new chef's knife, the pioneer women one, lol. The knives here are so dull and crappy! I might need you to send me my bench stone  I also saw the copper chef pans at Wal-Mart. They had a set of 2 pans, the short square one, and another square one for frying I guess, for like $15! I seriously almost bought it! If it was the square and round ones, like the ones we have, I would have!

We also did service twice this week. One for the Anderson's who are cleaning up their house and yard so they can sell and move to Utah. Not sure where they're headed though. Salt Lake county, I think. We also helped another lady clean up after the storm.  Sister Connery. She's awesome! Loves missionaries, but is divorced so we can't go in her house and it makes her upset... There's a lot of women like that in our ward...

It is so pooping cold here!!! The wind is killer! It's March and it's still freezing cold! It started snowing earlier! Not much, but some.

Anyway, I didn't wanna forget about these good moments this week. Any thoughts on the Catholic church? I was there and really wanted you to be there so we could talk about it. Maybe when we take a trip back here after I get home and the temple opens back up, we can go :) 

I just realized how long this was, lol. Hope everyone has a great week! Keep me posted on all the juicy stuff happening back home! ;) Love you all and thanks for all the prayers and support!!

Love, Elder Duke

Week 4: Sterling, VA - "Life is definitely better with the Gospel!"

Hey everyone!

How's everyone doing? How's Utah? How's the weather been? Gotten any more snow? Hopefully it's been better than here.

This week has been pretty crazy. I'm definitely settling in more and getting more comfortable. Missionary work is difficult with the people here, but the members are absolutely amazing! We have a family, the Taylor's, that invite over our investigators, or good potentials, and tell us, "Hey, I've got so and so here at my house! You Elders wanna come over?" What?! Heck ya we do! We have a lesson tonight that Sister Taylor set up. She was like, you guys come over for dinner, then we'll go over and meet a lady I met recently, that might be interested. So ya, members are awesome when we can do stuff with them, but just like everyone out here, they're busy busy. 

We had quite a few investigators, until this week... 4 or 5 investigators dropped us, or told us they don't see themselves getting baptized ever. We had one investigator that was awesome! She has come to church regularly for 2 years, but didn't get baptized cause her parents wanted her to wait till she was 18. So she turned 18 recently, had a baptismal date for my first Saturday, but then backed out last minute, didn't come to church for 2 weeks, and has now decided that she's a Satanist... Yep... Pretty crazy. Anyway, our other investigators are either super Catholic and don't wanna change, or are to busy to meet with us... But we've cleared our pool and are really looking for some good new investigators, so wish us luck!

It's been super windy the last couple days! Ill send some pictures I took, but the wind blew over so many trees and ripped branches off tons of them! There was a tree that fell over onto the shed at the church! The shed is fine, which is a miracle cause the tree was pretty big! I thought it was pretty coincidental considering the quotes you sent me, Dad. Lol. But ya it was foggy and rainy like middle of the week, then the weekend got super windy.

2 good stories of the week. So we went to go check on potentials on Thursday night. When we left, it was a little cloudy and windy so we just grabbed just a jacket. By like 7:30, it was pouring rain! We walked around, knocking doors for an hour and a half in the pouring rain. It was great! We ran into a guy that had just gotten home from a business trip and his wife was gone so he was locked out. We starting talking to him. He knew who we were and what we were doing and he just wanted to talk. He was Lutheran so we talked about our different beliefs. So we ended up standing in the rain for 20 minutes talking to this guy about how we gain salvation. It was interesting though because we had a lesson about it in gospel principles yesterday. We talked about the differences between salvation and exhalation. Other religions use Salvation as a term to describe being saved from sin and damnation. We go a little further with exhalation and use it to describe living with, and like God. It was cool talking about it after that night.

Other story... Elder Jacobs saw this street on the edge of our area that didn't have any information. They looked like big houses with huge yards and long driveways. So we went on the windiest night of the week! No one let us in, or wanted to talk to us, which is pretty typical. Everyone is super catholic, or super not interested... Anyway, so I got a pic, but there was a guy with a tree that uprooted in his front yard! He had another one that that hit his house, too! It was a pretty crazy night and the wind out here cuts right through you! My coat is super warm though so it's not too bad.

Yep, mission life is interesting out here! It's difficult, but I'm getting used to it. We had zone conference on Thursday, which was good, but I'm so new that everything was super overwhelming and I realized how not good I am at missionary work. There's so much to do and focus on but I'm new still so I'm not too worried about it. I'll get there.

I hope life is going well back home and you all are doing good! Also, Jordan is the only only one allowed to get married while I'm gone! I've already met Mikaila, so he's good. The other 3, you guys gotta wait! ;) JK. I love you guys and pray for you all the time!! Keep being great and keep those testimonies strong! Keeping reading and praying and God will be with you! (Also, read By Grace We are Saved by Brad Wilcox cause that talk is the bomb!) Life is definitely better with the Gospel! Never let it go!!

Love, Elder Duke

Big tree root right in the middle of the picture.