November6, 2017 Baptism & Pentagon

Hey everyone!

This week was great! It’s hard to believe that it is November!

We’ve been teaching Pam a lot over the past 8 weeks!

Here’s a couple pictures from her baptism on Saturday.

President Huntsman performed the baptismal ordinance,

which was pretty neat.

We had daily contact with Pam every day for the last two week, leading up to her baptism on Saturday! We had a few really good lessons with her leading up to the big day. In one lesson we read out of 1 Nephi 8 and 11, talking about Lehi’s vision of the tree of life. Pam has received some opposition from family members about her decision to be baptized, but we encouraged her to ignore the the people mocking her from the side and focus on the end goal and the path that she’s on. In all of our lessons, we usually have taught her in her home, bringing members and recent converts with us to teach her. We did have one lesson with her the night before her baptism in a members home that was great! She has been able to connect well with a lot of members and has told us she has never met so many genuine friendly people in her life!
I believe that President Huntsman was truly inspired to keep Elder Ure and I together one more transfer, so that we could help Pam. I know we were meant to meet her. I have no doubt that the Holy Ghost prompted her to step out on her balcony the day we met her. She saw us and “felt the need to step outside” to see where we would walk. I know we were placed in her path, and that she was placed in ours.
She tells us that we have a special place in her heart and continues to express so much gratitude to us and to the members of the ward who have helped her to make the changes that she’s made to bring the peace and joy of the gospel into her life.

So, after a long week, Pam was baptized on Saturday! She met President Huntsman a couple weeks ago, when he interviewed her for her baptism, and she asked him to perform her baptism for her. It was a pretty cool feeling having our mission President baptize our investigator! The baptismal service went great. A coworker of hers, who she has known and worked with for four years spoke at her baptism, and I spoke as well. It’s been a little less than 2 months since we first started teaching Pam, and once her coworker found out Pam was meeting with the missionaries, she has been a good support to her, encouraging her and answering her questions. There’s been so many pieces of the puzzle that just fell together at the right place at the right time to help Pam make it to where she is today. I’m excited to see her continue to learn, grow, and progress in the gospel! She has made the first step of many great decisions that I know will bless her life eternally! It’s amazing to see the gospel work in her life.

We have a less-active member of our ward who bakes and decorates cakes for a living. We thought it would be a good idea to arrange for her to make a cake for President Huntsman, who turned 50 years old today! Last night we surprised him at our mission office, along with his wife and kids, and enjoyed some delicious cake with them. He’s not huge on celebrating birthdays, but we knew we had to do something special for him! He does so much for us. It was fun for us to treat him to that. It was a fun surprise and the cake was delicious!

We took a private tour of the Pentagon today!
 I’ve driven by it tons of times over the past
two years  and have always wanted to go inside.
 Finally got to do it today!

This morning we had the opportunity to go to the Pentagon and do a private tour. A member that lives here in Alexandria works there and took us on a tour for 2 hours. He took us to a lot of different hallways and offices where the public tours don’t have access to, so that was pretty cool! It was a cool feeling walking by all of these really high up official offices and walking through the halls of the Pentagon.

He showed us where the plane hit on 9/11 and took us to the memorial outside. My favorite part of the whole tour was hearing about his experience on 9/11/01 when he was working in the Pentagon the day it got hit. He wasn’t that far from where the plane actually crashed. He shared with us his experience, sharing so many details of running and tripping through the smoke-filled hallways trying to escape the building, and then describing the scene outside. He got emotional and remembers everything like it was just yesterday. He wasn’t a member of the church back then though. He is a convert to the church, who joined just a few years ago. He actually started investigating the church after seeing “The Book of Mormon” musical, so he’s got a pretty cool conversion story.

It was a cool experience walking around inside,
but it was cool to see the
9/11 Memorial outside the Pentagon.
Each bench has a name engraved on it and
 represents a person who died either in the Pentagon,
or in the plane that crashed into it.

Elder Dunn, Ure, Jones, and I.

A commonly quoted talk by President Uchtdorf titled “Come, Join With Us” was a talk we shared with Pam prior to her baptism, when she had expressed some of her uncertainty.

“Some might ask, “But what about my doubts?”
It’s natural to have questions--the acorn of honest inquiry has often sprouted and matured into a great oak of understanding. There are few members of the Church who, at one time or another, have not wrestled with serious or sensitive questions. One of the purposes of the Church is to nurture and cultivate the seed of faith--even in the sometimes sandy soil of doubt and uncertainty. Faith is to hope for things which are not seen but which are true.
Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters--my dear friends--please, first doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith. We must never allow doubt to hold us prisoner and keep us from the divine love, peace, and gifts that come through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Here’s a cool path nearby our church building.
I love the Virginia trees in the Fall!

I love what this talk teaches us! We are all going to have questions and doubts. That’s natural. But it’s important that we do not let doubt hold us back from exercising our faith. The peace, love, and gifts that come as a result of strong faith is so great!

A kind lady that we taught yesterday.
Her name is Konadu. She met with missionaries
about 2 years ago somewhere else, and was
super happy to meet us again.

This upcoming Saturday, Elder Anderson, Bishop Caussé, and some other general authorities will be visiting our mission! We are excited for it!

I love you all! Hope you have a great week!
Elder Jeremy Duvall
Washington DC South Mission