November 27, 2017 2 New Comps

Hey everyone!

Elder Ure and I
 with President and Sister Huntsman

First things first. Elder Ure goes home this week, so he needed a replacement. On Friday night I got two new companions! Since I’m going home 4 weeks into the transfer, President decided to bring in two new Assistants, instead of bringing one in now and then another one a few weeks later. So my two new companions are Elder Smith and Elder Gleed! They’re great. I’ll be in a trio with them for the rest of my mission. We spent the past couple days training them and teaching them on how to do everything in preparation for transfers.
It’s a weird feeling saying bye to Elder Ure. I’m grateful to have spent the last 6 months with him. Not too many missionaries get to have a companion for 4 transfers, and I’ve been able to do that twice. Today we picked up a group of new missionaries at the airport and tomorrow will be transfers, and early Wednesday morning we’ll drop off the departing missionaries at the airport.

It’s been fun being in a “quad” for a few days. It’s
really interesting proselyting with 4 of us all together, and will soon be 3 of us. It’s cool though, because we’ve been able to split up in twos and find and teach people at the same time. We’ve also had a couple lessons with the 4 of us that’ve been great.

President and Sister Huntsman

President and Sister Huntsman and their family are so awesome.
They have 8 kids and a few son-in-laws.
I think there’s one child missing in this picture.
We enjoyed spending part of Thanksgiving Day with their family!

We had a great Thanksgiving Day! President and Sister Huntsman invited us to join them and their family for an early dinner. Each year of their mission they’ve gone to Mt. Vernon for Thanksgiving, so we joined them at the restaurant there. They had all 8 of their kids here, so it was fun to be able to meet all of them and spend some time with their family. After our meal, we also took a tour of Mt. Vernon, which was my 2nd time going there. It’s a pretty neat place to be, walking where so many prominent early leaders of this nation have been in George Washington’s home. We drive by Mt Vernon every Sunday because our church building is on the Potomac River just down the road from it.

On Thanksgiving, we also went to our investigator Kwadwo’s house, where we were invited to attend for dinner. There were probably 30 Ghanaians there, none of whom were members of the church. It was super fun! We were able to meet a ton of new people and enjoy their food.

Elder Ure and I with Dorothy at her baptism!!

Dorothy Smith was baptized on Saturday! She’s been working towards this day for a long time, so it was a special day! I’ve been teaching her since my very first week in this area. I’ll be honest, when I first met her it was hard to believe that she would progress towards baptism, but as we were patient and persistent with her, we were able to help her make small changes, a little bit at a time to help her prepare for baptism. She was pretty nervous leading up to her baptism, but it went it really well! Elder Ure baptized Dorothy, and then our new bishop confirmed her on Sunday.
Pam has been such an amazing support to Dorothy, and so have the other members of the ward. Elder Ure said goodbye to both of them last night and they were both sad to see us split up, but were excited for him to go home.

Recently I studied a lot about patience. I love what Preach My Gospel teaches us about patience. “Patience is the capacity to endure delay, trouble, opposition, or suffering without becoming angry, frustrated, or anxious. It is the ability to do God’s will and accept His timing. When you are patient, you hold up under pressure and are able to face adversity calmly and hopefully. Patience is related to hope and faith--you must wait for the Lord’s promised blessings to be fulfilled.
You need patience in your everyday experiences and relationships... You must be patient with all people, yourself included, as you work to overcome faults and weaknesses.”
I’ve thought about that first sentence a lot. In order to measure how patient we are, we just have to see how long we can go without getting “angry, frustrated, or anxious.” I have learned that I am generally pretty patient with myself and with others and hope to continue to develop more patience.

Here’s our mission picture from a couple weeks ago with Elder Andersen, and a few other General Authorities. I’m so grateful to serve alongside so many wonderful missionaries! You can find me on the left hand side of the picture.

It’s going to be a busy and exciting next few weeks! I’m looking forward to it! I hope you all have a great week! Love you all!


Elder Jeremy Duvall
Washington DC South Mission