October 23, 2017 By Divine Design

Hey everyone!

At the mission home with the new
missionaries, and Daniel and Ellie,
two of president Huntsman's children

Every missionary gets to sign the "Endure to the End Flag"
towards the end of their mission.
 I signed my name inside the D of D.C. South

We had a busy first week of the transfer! We had 26 new missionaries, with only 12 that went home, so we had numerous areas open up throughout the mission.
Since we have new senior couples in the office, they always have lots of questions for us on how certain things should be done. I'm grateful that we are able to help them out. It's been a busy transition for them over the past few weeks!

President Huntsman does a special meeting a couple times a year for missionaries that are in the final few months of their mission. He calls this meeting the "Endure to the End" meeting, and we discussed things we can do to make sure we continue to work hard every day and stay focused to the very end. I really enjoyed the meeting! He started the meeting by playing a brief video clip to the group of missionaries. The video he showed was of me, opening up my mission call over two years ago! He had all of the missionaries think back to the day they opened up their mission call, and reflect on the reasons why they decided to serve a mission, and then think about all of the experiences we have had over the course of our mission. Then he had us think of specific things we can do and that we can change over our final transfers to make sure we finish strong. I really enjoyed watching that video of me opening my call! It felt like it was yesterday. But it was cool to reflect on that, and I hope I can continue to work hard each day to the end!

 This picture is in the basement of the mission home.

We've taught Pam all of the lessons and she passed her baptismal interview this last week! We will continue to teach her and read out of the Book of Mormon with her over the next couple weeks and help her continue to be ready for her baptism. It will most likely be on November 4th or 11th. She continues to tell us that we have "saved her life" and that she is so grateful for everything that has happened. We found out this week that she has a coworker that she's been working with for a few years that is a member of the church that lives in a different ward. She told her member friend that she was meeting with the missionaries and is planning on getting baptized. This news surprised her friend, but she is very happy for her and has been a good support in encouraging her! Her friend will likely speak at her baptism. President Huntsman did her baptismal interview and she's thinking of asking President Huntsman to perform her baptism, so that will be pretty cool!

We ran into Eshetu at the airport last week.
He's a recent convert in our ward that works
 there, so every time we pick up the
missionaries we try to find him.

Our investigator Dorothy is doing really well! We had a lesson where we had planned to teach her about the Word of Wisdom, and before we even began teaching the lesson she told us that since she's been meeting with us she's felt much more positivity in her life, and she's felt the need to make changes. Before us ever teaching the Word of Wisdom or ever encouraging her to try and stop smoking, she decided that she was going to work on quitting. She said that it felt like the right thing to do, even though we had never brought it up before. It was cool to see her act on those promptings, and it allowed that lesson go really well.

We were invited to a lunch/meeting this week with our Stake Presidency, the high councilmen over missionary work, and President Huntsman. They wanted to discuss the progress of the missionary work in the Mt. Vernon Stake, and brainstorm ideas on what the Stake and Ward leaders, and members, can be doing to better support the missionary work in the Stake. I've really enjoyed over the course of my mission being able to interact with different leaders in the different Stakes in our mission and have learned a lot from them. Our meeting with them was at the Army Navy Country Club in Arlington, VA, because one of members of the Stake Presidency is a member there. It was a neat experience.

In really looking forward to the next few weeks! On November 11th, we will be having a special mission-wide conference, where we will be having a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles visit our mission! He will be joined by the Presiding Bishop of the church, Bishop Gérald Caussé and a couple other General authority seventies. They were going to be here that weekend for other meetings, and decided that they would try to fill their time here and add a visit to our mission.
The following week after that we will be having two, half-mission Conferences with Elder Mervyn B. Arnold of the Seventy. This had already been on the calendar for a long time. The night before the half-mission conferences, Elder Arnold has requested to spend the evening with President Huntsman and his assistants in their proselyting area. So he will be coming with us to visit an active member family in our ward and possibly one of our investigators. That will be a pretty neat experience having a general authority, along with our mission president, both come out with us for an evening in our area!

One of my favorite talks from Conference that I re-read his week was Elder Rasbands talk, "By Divine Design." I liked this paragraph from his talk.
"Through the experience of my own life’s journey, I know that the Lord will move us on that seeming chessboard to do His work. What may appear to be a random chance is, in fact, overseen by a loving Father in Heaven, who can number the hairs of every head. Not even a sparrow falls to the ground without our Father’s notice. The Lord is in the small details of our lives, and those incidents and opportunities are to prepare us to lift our families and others as we build the kingdom of God on earth. Remember, as the Lord said to Abraham, “I know the end from the beginning; therefore my hand shall be over thee.”
There truly are no accidents when we are going about the Lord's work. It's cool to see how the Lord places different people or experiences in our lives, not by coincidence, but for a purpose. I know that what Elder Rasband said is true. I know that "the Lord is in the small details of our lives" and that he is constantly preparing us for what lies ahead in the future.

I love you all and I hope you have a great week!

Elder Jeremy Duvall
Washington DC South Mission