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