Week 25: Great Falls, VA "6 Months"

Heyyo!

How are you all? How is my beloved Utah? ;)

This week was another good one here in Great Falls, VA! Lots of good stuff happening! 

Sad news first... Nevin doesn't want to meet with us anymore, and Jeeun canceled our appointment for Saturday. Nevin did say she'd keep reading the Book of Mormon so we'll see if anything changes.

Marianna and her baby are doing good! We're gonna bless her baby next week, which will be really cool for her!

We had a member bring a mother and her 3 kids to church yesterday who want to meet with us at the members home! Pretty much the perfect environment to teach the gospel to someone so we're super excited! 

We have our first zone conference with President Caplin tomorrow! That's gonna really good!

We're still working on our goal of 12 more baptisms in the next 3-4 months! We were getting kinda bummed that things weren't working out very well, but then Sunday was awesome with so many new people at church!

I was watching the Thomas S. Monson film this week and it is the best thing ever! Basically what I learned this week from that and some conference talks was... 

"When on the Lord's errand and doing His work, expect a miracle!"

Love you all! Keep reading the Book of Mormon! Keep Praying! Keep trusting the Lord!

Have a great week! 

Love, 

Elder Duke

Pics!

-Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and Iwo Jima (Marine Corps) Monument

-the Larsen Family and 2 of their awesome kids Everett and Sloane

-Ledo Pizza, awesome pizza place in Vienna

-Marco!!! 

-Dinner at Outback with Sister Crystal and Sister Knight on exchanges with Elder Kemp

Week 24: Great Falls, VA "Operation 0013 - License to Baptize"

Hello hello everyone!

I hope you all had a great week! Anything crazy happen?

It was another great week here in Virginia. Lots of rain this week! So much rain!!!! It was flooding in some areas pretty bad! I'll try to send a video of it. It was pretty nuts!

Nothing too crazy happened. Marco's baptismal date got moved back a couple weeks because he's still struggling with word of wisdom stuff. Which is no biggy. He still wants to baptized really bad!

Nevin didn't come to church and she canceled our appointment... :( Next week though!

Earl is doing pretty good. He is still crazy depressed! But we had dinner with him at a his "ministering brother's" home last night, which was good! (Lol they need to come up with a better name for that)

We met with Jeeun again this week. (The referral from the lady in Eagle Mountain) We had a great lesson on the Restoration. He talked a ton about the Book of Mormon! She had some questions about it, so we talked quite a bit about it. Then we commited her to read it and pray about it. She said she would! We're meeting with her again this Saturday, so hopefully it goes well!

Marianna had her baby!!! Irina Jane! We haven't met with her since cause she had to have a c-section and she was in the hospital till last night. But her and baby are doing good! We had a good discussion with Marianna, her parents, and Gisella on Monday. Gisella is preparing to get her patriarchal blessing, so that came up. We also talked bout the blessing Marianna got from a priest in our ward last week and how great of an experience it was! Her parents were pretty intrigued by the discussion. We're gonna have dinner with them and Marianna soon. Gisella and Marianna want them to be baptized pretty bad!! 

We had exchanged this week! I went with Elder Larsen to the Spanish area again! We ran into a guy we talked to the first time a couple months ago! He was less drunk this time  It was a good time though! A really nice guy paid for our dinner that night at Cafe Rio. We asked what ward he was in and he was like, "Oh, I'm actually Methodist. But I figure you guys are on a prety tight budget." He was pretty sweet! #blessings

We also had interviews with President Caplin this week! Sister Caplin is amazing! She's hilarious and has a crazy amount of energy!! It's great! The interview went good too! President is so great!! He gave me tons of advice and told me he wanted Elder Poulsen and I to set some pretty high goals and make them! He said we'd be together for a while so we had time! So that's what we did!! We made a super high goal for this area, and for the mission! 13 Baptisms in our time together!!!!! (Hence the title ) We've got 1 already! And we've got names for all 12 of the others! Now we just gotta work our butts off! It's totally doable! President told us to "Give it everything and expect a miracle!"

Other cool experiences this week. A older couple in our ward, the Cannon's (Brother Cannon is George Q. Cannons grandson. He's google-able! Mark W. Cannon) called us yesterday and asked if we could help give Sister Cannon a blessing cause she was pretty sick. So we went over after church and it ended up being an hour long visit becuase they wanted to talk about our investigators!  It was good though. I gave her the blessing, which is funny because I gave one to Brother Cannon last week when he was sick. And then last night we visited Marco and gave him a blessing because he was super stressed and he wanted extra help to stop smoking. The priesthood is so great!! Participating in blessings and using the priesthood to bless God's children is literally the best!!!

I hope you all have a good week! I love you and pray for you all the time! Keep being the best ever!

Love, Elder Duke

Week 23: Great Falls, VA "let's go!"

Hey all!!

How is life in the wonderful land of Utah?

This week was pretty stinking fantastic!

To start, Marco is still smoking a lot, but we had an amazing lesson with him before church yesterday! We had our ward mission leader, Bro Bates, who is seriously the best, join us as well as a lady in the stake who speaks Arabic. We sat down with him and taught about prophets, particularly Joseph Smith, and how they guide us and teach us God's will. He totally understood it, so we taught the Word of Wisdom and how it came from God and how it's a commandment to keep us healthy and pure. He understood that really well too! We didn't even need our Arabic interpreter! She just gave awesome comments during the lesson in English! The Spirit was so strong!!!! No doubt that the Spirit helped him understand what we were teaching him! He said it would be hard, but that he would try so he can get baptized! He told us how he wants to start a new life with a new heart, new mind, and new perspective! It was awesome! He's on date for July 29th, but he needs to quit smoking by then. We have a program that was developed by doctors for missionaries to use, so we'll see how it goes. It's had tons of success in the mission, so we're pretty hopeful! He's worried that it's gonna be really hard so we shared 1 Corrinthians 13:17 and Ether 12:27 with him. He got a lot of courage from them! He texts us all the time to "pray 4 me pls." So pray for Marco so he can quit smoking and be baptized!!

Nevin came to church this week!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was so great! She said she really enjoyed it! Lots of members came to say hi and introduce themselves! One of the reasons I love this ward so much! 

During our lessons with her, she always asks lots of weird questions, and gospel priciples was no different, lol! Our teacher was taked off guard a little, but it was good! Hopefully she comes next week!

Earl is doing well! Still kinda depressed, but he's doing better.  We're still trying to get him to the temple this month to get his wife's work started. Hopefully it all works out!

Elder Poulsen and I were part of a pretty awesome experience yesterday! Marianna's baby hasn't come yet and she has to make a pretty big decisions regarding it. So her friend she nannies for and who introduced her to the gospel, Gisella, told her to get a blessing. So she asked if she could get one after church. We were finishing 3rd hour with the priests, and Elder Pouslen feels like he should grab a guy named Ethan who just got ordained to be an elder a couple weeks ago to help out. It was also Ethan's last Sunday in the ward cause his family is moving to San Diego. So he comes to join us and we grab a room with Gisella, Marianna, Gisella's daughter Destiny, Destiny's boyfriend who isn't a member, and the young men's President, Bro Smith. We ask Marianna who she wants to give the blessing. She said she didn't care. Then Gisella is like, "I'll pick!" Then she points at Ethan!! His eyes got so wide!!  He's never helped  with a blessing, so Elder Poulsen kinda stalls while Bro Smith gives Ethan a crash course on how to give a blessing. He was pretty nervous so he asked if we could say a prayer before. The Spirit settled like a thick fog after the prayer. Then we gave Marianna a blessing and Ethan did so good!!!! Marianna was so grateful and it helped her make her decision! Super cool!!!!! Ethan is just such a great guy and is submitting his papers when they get to San Diego!  He's gonna be a killer missionary! (Side note, his dad, Bro Hansen, a couple months ago, Gisella asked Elder Mix and I for a blessing for Marianna and her baby cause Marianna was sick. So we grabbed Bro hansen to help and he gave Marianna a blessing. Now she's had one from father and son! Pretty neat!)

Other things that happened this week...

The referral from the lady from Eagle Mountain, Jeeun, canceled for Saturday but set up another lesson for this Saturday. She said she did the reading we asked her to do, so hopefully it all goes well Saturday!

We had a good lesson with Gisella's husband, Neil, last week on the Restoration and have another tonight! It should be good!

Thursday afternoon was super slow cause no one is home so we decided to stop by a former investigator who was older. Elder Poulsen was giving me directions and when we pull up, it is the neighbor of a member. The former want home, but I felt like we should stop by the member, the Gardner's. It's summer so the kids and mom are definitely home. Turns out their dad worked early in the morning and was home when we came by. So they let us in and we talked for a couple minutes. So Sister Gardner is always working on their basement and it was kinda a mess, but they had family coming over soon and their extra bedrooms are in the basement. So we helped Sister Gardner finish a carpet project, and clean up the basement and get it ready for their family. She was so grateful! She was stressing about the mess that day and then we showed up and we got it all sorted out!

Also, 4th of July here was pretty neat, I guess... there weren't any shows going on that were close. But we figured you could see a lot of them from the roof of our apartment. So we went up to the top and there was a huge pool party going on!! Tons of people, loud music, tons of alcohol...... It was straight out of the movies! No joke! So we left pretty quickly and just watched them from our window. Still pretty good.

Anyway, that was kinda long, but it was an awesome week!

I love you and pray for you every day! Keep being the best!

Elder Poulsen has a pull-off calendar that has tons of cool quotes every day, and this week he got one that says,

"The Greatest power of the Book of Mormon is it's impact in bringing us closer to Jesus Christ!"

-LeGrand R. Curtis

Truth right there!! President Ballard once said that of all the friends we can and ought to have, the Savior is #1! So keep reading the Book of Mormon and growing your relationship with our Savior!!

Love you all, have a great week!

Love, Elder Duke

Pics!!

Me and Elder Poulsen on 4th of July. Forgot to send it last week...

We were walking along the street and a guy was just casually washing his Lamborghini. So of coirse we stopped to ask him if he wanted to learn about Jesus! He said no, so we talked about his Lambo for a sec ;)

A member of Elder Poulsen's last area took us to lunch at the mall. We got fried calamari and he mared me try it... not for me... ;)

At the mall that day.

Gucci 

A member, Bro Jones, has tons of Civil war things he's found metal detecting. He showed us this pretty sweet sword that the cannoneers used. Pretty sick!

Week 22: Great Falls, VA "It was a pretty fantastic week here in Great Falls!"

Hey all!

It was a pretty fantastic week here in Great Falls! Me and Elder Poulsen have got our work cut out for us! Lots going on, so this might be a little long... 

To start, Marianna is doing really good! She said that she can feel a difference since last Sunday. She's getting answers to questions she didn't think she'd get answers to. She if trying to read the Bible and the Book of Mormon together to understand them better!  Her friend that she is living with and nannying for is named Gisella. Gisella was baptized a couple years ago and has been less active until recently, but she talked to us about getting her patriarchal blessing and a temple recommend to get her endowments! Pretty awesome! Also, her husband is not a member and is interested in sitting on on the new member lessons with Marianna! Gisella is convinced he's getting baptized soon! She's a good influence on him! 

Marco is doing really good! WE GOT HIM ON DATE FOR JULY 29TH!!!! We've been working with him for a while and he's feeling ready! He was so excited to be baptized, he called his boss right then to get the day off! He's the best! He still needs to learn some stuff. We've got a fluent Arabic speaker (his English is still kinda limited) that is coming with us for a couple lessons to check his understanding and explain some things better. He also needs to quit smoking! He said it would be really hard, but he really wants to be baptized so he's gonna put the effort in! Prayers for him would be much appreciated!!! 

Earl is doing pretty good! He's still really depressed and is still getting over his wife dying, but the gospel and all the people he's met in the ward have given him a lot of comfort! He's been really excited to take his wife's name to the temple. Hopefully it happens soon!

So we got a referral from a lady in Eagle Mountain a couple weeks ago(I've probably already mentioned it). But we finally got in contact with the family Saturday morning. They were super nice and let us right in! Then they fed us breakfast and everything! We talked to the wife about the Plan of Salvation because she has very little Christian knowledge. She was very interested and asked us to come back next week. We want to teach their whole family, but we'd have to get the dad involved. He's a really nice guy, just not interested...

Another family on our radar. The Roane's. We met them a while ago at dinner with a member. We went by them last night so they could meet Elder Poulsen. They are so nice!! They are just too fantastic! Their family is so perfect, it has to be eternal!  They have 3 kids that are all primary age. They asked us tons of questions about being a missionary and stuff. Then they invited us over for dinner! Hopefully that'll be our chance to teach them something! They also asked us if we had enough food and gave us tons of stuff! Graham crakcers, CapriSuns (Sarah), and a whole watermelon!! It was pretty awesome! They are too nice to us! 

We've had some good success this week! It just keeps getting better and better! The Lord is definitely preparing the hearts of his people!

Love you all! Keep being the best! Keep reading the Book of Mormon! Keep praying! Have a great week! 

Love, Elder Duke

Week 21: Great Falls, VA " MARIANNA GOT BAPTIZED!!!!!"

Hey all!

It was a pretty crazy week!! Some awesome stuff has happened! 

#1 MARIANNA GOT BAPTIZED!!!!!

It was a super stressful time getting everything together, but it all turned out! The service was awesome! Her parents and sister, (non members, dad was a Methodist minister) we're there. Also, her friend Gisella, who was baptized 2 years ago and introduced Marianna to the missionaries, brought her husband who is a non member! It was awesome!! It was just a killer day! There's something so amazing about watching the Gospel change someone!

Also, got a new companion, Elder Poulsen. He's pretty great! He's from Shelly Idaho and has been out about a year. He plays violin and did track. He's super chill and works hard! We found out that we were born in the same hospital 3 days apart! His birthday is the 26th of January! Pretty neat! He's just such a good guy! We've got lots coming up so, it'll be a good transfer with him!

We got a new mission president this week! President and Sister Caplin are now here are are AWESOME! They did a mission tour on Saturday and met with all the zones. 

So crazy story!! The AP's were putting together the tour route and they kept feeling like they should do our zone at the McLean Stake Center, even though there was a baptism going on. They scheduled it there anyway. We'll right as we start, Elder Larry Y. Wilson of the 70 walks in with his wife!!! Him and his wife own a house in McLean and we're here visiting their grandson, who was the one getting baptized! Pretty nuts! So him and his wife talked to us for a little before they had to go. He talked about how there are answers to every question, so don't freak out if you or an investigator has doubts! It was such a cool experience!

Anyway, President and Sister Caplin are awesome! It's gonna be great getting to work with them!

It was such a good Sacrament meeting yesterday! We confirmed Marianna (our bishop did it) and her parents were there as well! Plus it was fast and testimony meeting and Marianna bore her testimony! Then Elder Poulsen bore his, then a lady in the ward who is really sick with cancer and is moving to Utah today bore her testimony, then Gisella, Marianna's friend bore hers! Then I ended it and just talked about how mich Christ loves us and how powerful the spirit is! It was such a great meeting, especially for her parents.

Marianna's Dad, methodist minister, super serious guy, said after the meeting to Gisella, "There's something real about this church." WHAT!?!?!? That was pretty cool to hear!!! 

I love you all!! Keep being the best ever!

Editorial by dad: 

Here is a part from Elder Duke's email to his mom this week. I thought it worth sharing.

I heard a quote one time that I really like!

"Never say anything to someone that couldn't stand as the last thing you say to them."

I just thought that was pretty cool :)

I was thinking in church yesterday about how much I love this ward and the people in it! It's just amazing! Then I thought how sad I'd be if I had to leave at the end of this transfer. If I did have to leave, how would I use the rest of my time? So that's how I'm gonna use this transfer! Use it like it's my last one! Love the people as much as I can and serve and work harder than I have before! We've got our plates pretty full, but we're just gonna put our all in and serve the Lord! It's gonna be a great transfer!

Love, Elder Duke

Pics!

Baptism Pics! The one with the most people are right to left: Bishop Delis, Me, Elder Poulsen, Gisella's Husband Niel (in the sport coat), Marianna's Dad (red tie), Gisella, Marianna, Destiny (Gisella's daughter), Marianna's Mom, Marianna's sister, Sister Kingsford, and Sister Bagley (the sisters that starting teaching Marianna)

We had Elder Mix Skype in, which was awesome! It was good to see him again! He was totally wearing basketball shorts with that white shirt and tie lol!

Our first selfie together! So precious! 

It was way hot this week, and this week is gonna be worse!