Week 20: Great Falls, VA "Why do you love reading the Book of Mormon?"

Hello wonderful people!

This week was pretty nuts! Lots happened!

The biggest thing that happened is we invited tons of people to hear Elder Mix give a talk yesterday because it was his last Sunday. Like 12 people showed up which included, 2 investigators, a whole non-member family, a part member family, and 3 less actives! Pretty awesome! The Bishop gave us a great compliment and told us to keep it up! 

Marianna, our investigator on date, is looking great for Saturday! She's been progressing really well and is super excited!

Marco came to church again this week! We're still trying to meet with him more, but he's still crazy busy with work... :(

Nevin didn't come to church... again... But we're working on it! She told us this week that she'd come July 20th! Which is funny because that's a Friday, lol! But she's doing well! Still trying to figure out how to find the peace and power from reading the Book of Mormon. What has been your guy's experience? Why do you love reading the Book of Mormon? Maybe I'll read some stories to her and it'll help get her thinking! 

So we got a call on Tuesday from a lady in Eagle Mountain!! (The holy land! ) She has a cousin that loves here in Great Falls that has been having a rough time lately and has been introduced to the church, but hasn't had much experience with it. We've tried by a couple times, but she's never been home... hopefully we'll catch her this week!

So with Elder Mix leaving in 2 days, we have been saving up for 3 months (members give us money to get dinner sometimes, and we try not to spend all of it) to go somewhere awesome to eat! So Friday we took Nick, a priest in our ward that is going on his mission soon to India, to Ruth's Chris! Pics below  It was pretty great! We definitely didn't belong at such a fancy place! 

Overall, a pretty fantastic week! I'm sad that Elder Mix is leaving, but my new companion, Elder Poulsen, will be great! I've heard lots of good thing about Him! Plus he's from Idaho! ;)

Love you all! Have a blessed week!

Love, Elder Duke

Pics!!!

1. Sister Djukoua (Ju-koy-ya) and her daugher Ashley, who are from Camaroon and are AMAZING! They fed us Camaroonian chicken and fried plantains!

2. Brother and Sister Bates! Bro Bates is our awesome ward mission leader!! They're also from Utah, so that's a plus!

3-6. Ruth's Chris!!! The guy in #3 is Nick Hugie! He's the bomb! He leaves Aug 8th for India!

7. More deer! They're everywhere!

8. Lamborghini Hurican ;)

Week 19: Great Falls, VA "Be careful with what you're doing!"

Hello hello!!!

I hope you all had a great week!!!! And I hope you told your dad that he is the bestest ever! Love you Papi!!!!!

 CONGRATULATIONS JORDAN & MIKAILA!!!!!!!!!!!

                            

You guys are the best!!!

Also, because it happens before next Monday........

HAPPY 27TH ANNIVERSARY MOM AND DAD!!!!!!!

                                       

This week was pretty good! We met with Mariana, who is getting baptized next week!!!! We have to meet with her pretty often these next 2 weeks, but her baby is due mid July, so we gotta get it done before that happens! She's progressing really well! My new comp is gonna have a baptism their first week here, lol!!

Nevin didn't come to church.... again.... idk what it's gonna take. She would be doing so much better if she came to church! And she would totally love it!! Her lessons have gone well though. She reads everything we give her and love it! One things she told us was that her daughter, who was baptized a year ago in Maryland, told her that anytime she feels depressed or upset, she reads the Book of Mormon and it brings peace and calmness. Nevin was kinda confused by that. She asked what in the Book that she read. What specific did she read to feel comfort and peace? We told her it wasn't anything specific, that's just the power of it! She was still kinda confused, but that's okay. We're working on it 

Earl is doing really well! He is getting so names and a especially his wife's to take to the temple end of this month. It's gonna be awesome!

Story for the week. We were working in a neighborhood on Saturday and we walked up to this older guy that was sitting in a wheelchair next to his side door. We started talking to him and he was super nice! He told us he is Christian and goes to a bible church. (They are all over! There is one close to our apartment and it traffic is rediculous when they finish their services! The pastors hate Mormons!) Anyway, as he's telling us this, his Son comes to pick him up and he gets out of the car to talk to us. He says he's a pastor at one of these Bible churches and asks if were Mormons. We tell him ya, and then he goes off on us! He tells us how we don't put Christ on a high enough pedistal, and how were wrong! Then he points to the Book of Mormon I'm holding and says, "And that isn't the word of God! Only the Bible is!" We just kinda stood there as he told us how wrong we were. Then she shakes our hand and says, "I respect you, but you're wrong! Be careful with what you're doing!"

I hope you all have a great week! Love you and pray for you all the time!

Love, Elder Duke

Pics

1. We just stroll around and eat everything!

2. The Richardson's. They have a daughter that just left to Russia.

3. The Rhee's. They have a son in England. The are awesome and are moving to Berlin soon. He works for the "State Department" ;)

4,5. The elders in the Zone this transfer.

Week 18: Great Falls, VA "I love you, Joshua. You are doing My work."

Hey all!

I hope you had a good week! This week was pretty good here! It's warming up and the humidity is rising, so that's fun... 

We had a really good lesson with Marco on Tuesday. He gets back from work past 9:30, so we had to get permission to be out later. So we taught him and his roommate, Adel, at like 9:45. It was really good! We taught about the Book of Mormon and prayer. Marco is really getting it! Adel doesn't speak a lot of English, but Marco helps him out! Marco really wants to be baptized, but after he takes care of some things. So hopefully sometime in July!

We didn't meet with Nevin this week and she didn't come to church... :( But we're seeing her this week, so fingers crossed she's been reading and praying still!)

So there's a less active in our ward named Gisella. She was baptized like 5 years ago, but stopped coming when she moved to our ward a year ago. She said that she wants to start coming again and she has a friend that she's been helping out and kinda taking care of named Marianna. Marianna was interested in the church, so she wanted to meet with the missionaries. Problem is, Gisella wants her to meet with Sister missionaries. So they started to kinda meet with the Sisters. Gisella is crazy busy, and Marianna is her nanny so they are really difficult to meet with. They've only been taught by the sisters twice, but in the 2nd lesson, Marianna said they should start meeting with us because they're in our ward. AND THAT SHE WANTS TO BE BAPTIZED! So she set a date with the Sisters for June 30th!

So crazy thing about Northern Virginia... Anyone who says they work for the state department, but don't tell you what area, is CIA! (Someone who works for the CIA) CIA headquarters is in our zone and is like 8 miles from our apartment, so there are tons of people who totally work for the CIA in the ward! They won't tell you (cause then they'd have to kill you ;) but they totally do! There's an older couple that's retired, that we know the husband was CIA, but we're pretty sure his wife was too!

 The sad thing about everyone working for the government, is that they only spend like 18 months or 3 years here, then they get reassigned... So we have 2 awesome families moving next month :(

The Davis's are amazing!!!!!! They have so many stories! They remind me of Grandma and Grandpa Ward!

Ya, we live in a luxury high rise... I don't even know how much it costs. It's a single bedroom. I'm guessing like $2200/month? More than the mortgage for a 2000+ sq ft house in Utah, that's for sure. I'll take more pics when we get back after ball. It's small, but pretty nice! We've got a pent house with pool tables, barbeques, and a pool. Just a little bit nicer than a shack house in Ecuador or Uruguay ;) 

On a side note... I didn't know Edi was even thinking about a mission, let alone that she had her call! Where is she going?

We were gonna play tennis again with the Spanish Elders, but it rained... we have an early dinner today with the Swinton's. Brother Swinton was the mission president after President Huntsman's dad, and the temple president for the D.C. temple. He's pretty awesome!

Brother Funn's mom said she'd send you a picture she took of me! She was very excited to take a picture of me and send it to you!

So Elder Mix blocked the Sisters car at the stake center and so they put lotion on our door handles lol

We bought tons of bananas last week, and now we have a pile of super ripe bananas on our counter! It's really easy to get members to like you when you make them food! 

So yesterday was a terrible day... It started ok, but things kinda went downhill for me. Which is weird because everything else, work wise, was going great! We had our investigator on date come to church, we had great reach out from the members to a less active family, we even had dinner with the best cook in the ward!! But personally, I was not doing well. It all kinda climaxed last night when I couldn't sleep, I was so down. I was questioning everything! My testimony, why I'm here, if I should even be here! It was ROUGH! I laid there just thinking and thinking. But then I rolled out of bed, and prayed. It was less of a prayer, and more of a plea for help between tears! It was just this combo of missing home, questioning everything I thought to be true, and remembering all the mistakes I've made as a missionary, that hit me hard!

But after I prayed last night, I just laid there on the side of my bed. Tears were still kinda flowing, but then I got a small feeling of peace and love. Then a thought came. "I love you, Joshua. You are doing my work." 

I thought on that until I finally fell asleep.

I guess my expectations were that it was gonna be teaching a lot and that it was gonna be a lot easier to find people! I didn't think it would be as hard to get along with companions. I didn't think it would be as hard to leave everyone and everything behind. But I definitely didn't expect to learn as much as I have. My testimony has grown a ton! I've learned about more things than I was expecting! I wasn't expecting to have to rely on the Lord as much as I have. Today was good though. P-days are good to relax and unwind a little. I think the hype I got from all the RM's threw me off when I got here... All the hard, in between stuff, was way harder than expected! But I'm getting there! It gets better day to day!

Love you all! Have an amazing week! Keep being awesome!

-Elder Duke

Pics:

This is what it's like here! You can't see any houses or anything! Just trees!! 

Also, here's the other pics of our apartment.