January 9, 2017 Katie & Jackson! - Spiritual conversion

With Elder Jones, Sister Livingston, and Sister Hyer. The four of us were in the MTC together over a year ago now! We can't believe that it's been a whole year!

This has been a great week!

It has been an adjustment being out here in Warrenton compared to the city, but we're trying our best to enjoy every minute of it. We are working hard to find new investigators and clean up the records that were left behind by the previous missionaries who served here. We haven't had too many opportunities to teach this week, but we have been able to do some good service for a few different people

This past Saturday was an amazing day! Despite the freezing cold weather and a lot of snow in the morning, we were able to drive up to the temple and attend the endowment session for a recent convert, Chuck Mason. He really wanted us to attend and we got permission to get a ride up there with some of the members. There were a lot of people in the ward there to support him! It reminded me of the first time I went to the temple. I was the last one in the session to enter the celestial room, where I turned the corner and saw a lot of family and friends, smiling and all dressed in white to welcome me. Chuck was the last one to go through as well, and when he came in the room to see everyone there to support him he was overcome with joy and tears as he hugged everyone that was there. It was a neat experience. I'm glad that we were able to go up there and support him and be part of that special occasion!

At the temple after attending an endowment session with recent convert Chuck Mason, and members of the ward. The temple looks so beautiful with all the snow!

On the way back from the temple, I was able to stop in Centreville for Katie Hubbard's and her son Jackson's baptism! Elder Shelley and I found Katie the first week of May last year at the end of the night. If you go back to the letter from May 9th of last year it's the story of when we met them. There is no doubt we were guided by the spirit that evening where we were led to Jackson. I was able to teach Katie and Jackson for a couple months, and Katie slowly but surely began making changes in her life. Some of the changes were difficult and took some time, but at the end of the day everything she's done has helped her become happier! Joining the church seemed intimidating and overwhelming for her at first, but with patience and loving persistence by the missionaries that've taught her over the last 8 months or so, they were able to help her and Jackson make it to this point. Im so grateful to have been a part of their life! I know this decision has blessed her family tremendously and will bless them for the rest of eternity.Katie asked if I would bear my testimony at her baptism, so I was happy to do that or her as well! She is such a strong woman, with a lot of faith that has helped her overcome A LOT of trials she's had in her life. I know she's going to do a great job raising her three children in the gospel. I have no doubt she'll be well taken care of by the members in Centreville!

All of these elders, and a couple others, have served in the Centreville 1st Ward after I left and we were all able to come back for Katie and Jackson's baptism. What a special day it was for their family! Some of Katie's extended family who were not members of the church also came to support her. I'm so glad I was able to go!

Two incredible people making an incredible decision to follow Jesus Christ!

We did some District finding in another companionships area this week that was super successful! Within 45 minutes, 3 companionships were able to teach a total of 8 lessons to people who have never been taught before. That was a pretty cool miracle!

It has started to get pretty cold here. It's been between 10 and 30 degrees for most of the week! And we've had a little bit of snow. This morning we had breakfast at a members house that live way out in the middle of the ward about 20 miles away in a huge house on a lake. The lake was frozen over solid, so we timidly walked on top of it for a minute or two. That was my first time ever seeing a large body of water frozen over like that so it was pretty exciting!

Trying our best to stay warm as we go out to find people!

This upcoming week is going to be awesome! This Saturday we will be having a joint mission conference with the Washington DC North and South missions, with Elder Ballard and Elder Rasband of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and Elders Gong, Muers, Bennett, and Perkins of the Seventy. Later that day will be Edgardo's baptism in Alexandria! I'm super excited for him and excited to visit that ward again. It's cool that within a weeks worth of time I will have been able to go back to both of my previous areas for a baptism. Now we just need to get to work here and find the elect out here in Warrenton that are searching for the truth!

I recently read an article with some good thoughts about conversion. The author writes "Spiritual conversion, like fighting cancer, does not happen quickly or all at once. As Elder Bednar has explained: 'Conversion is an ongoing process. … Gradually and almost imperceptibly, our motives, our thoughts, our words, and our deeds become aligned with the will of God. Conversion unto the Lord requires both persistence and patience.... Consistently being true to the gospel is the essence of conversion. We should know the gospel is true and be true to the gospel.' "

I love that last part. We can know the gospel is true, through prayer and through the fruits of the spirit. Once we know it's true, we need to be true to the gospel, always striving to become more like Christ and aligning our will with the Fathers will.

This past week was my year mark of being a missionary! I know that I have become more converted to the gospel this past year, and I hope that throughout 2017 I can continue to strengthen my testimony as I strive to love and serve the people here. I love you all! Hope you all have a great week!


Elder Jeremy Duvall
Washington DC South Mission

Got to see the Koroma family, Kadija and Omar and their Mom at Katie's baptism in Centreville. Every time I'm able to go back and visit that ward it feels like I'm going home. Both of the other wards I've served in have felt like family by the time I left.

Elder and Sister Browne, an awesome senior couple in our mission! They sent us this picture recently. They've been in our mission for about 6 months, and Elder Judkins and I were the only companionship that was still together from the time they arrived until the end of the year.

January 2, 2017 I Can See the Stars

Last picture in Alexandria! Founding elders of the Lincolnia Ward.

Happy New Year everyone! I can't believe it's already 2017! I started my journal on January 1st 2016 (the day that I was set apart as a missionary) and I have written in it everyday since then, so starting now for the entire next year, I can look back in my journal and see exactly what I did a year ago from each day. I'm excited to be able to do that! I hope and I can keep up the consistency this year.


The title of this email is "I can see the stars," because I got transferred this week to Warrenton, VA. It's on the far opposite side of my mission from where Alexandria is and it's easily the countryside part of our mission. I can actually look up at night and see the stars really well now, so that's pretty cool. I am now in the Warrenton 1st Ward, which is the largest ward in our mission! It is WAYYY larger than my last ward, geographically. The ward consists of a ton of farms and homes that are spread way apart from another. Some of our appointments take anywhere from 15-45 minutes  apart from each other, driving. Whereas in Alexandria everything is within just a few miles of each other.

A taste of the country out here! Lot of long dirt roads and people spread far apart!

My new companions is Elder Ethan Jones! We started our missions together in the MTC on January 6th of last year, so we will be hitting our year mark together this week! He was one of my favorite missionaries that was in my MTC group, so we were super excited to become companions and have had a great first few days together here in Warrenton!

With my new companion, Elder Jones! This was today during basketball.

I should also probably mention that we are "whitewashing" this ward. Both of the missionaries that were here before us went home last week, so we both came in to take their place. It has been quite the adventure the past few days trying to find our way around out here. Sometimes we feel like we're in the middle of nowehere, but thank goodness for a GPS! The GPS has been a life saver, however it doesn't warn us of the frequent deer that often cross the streets out here. Or chickens. There's all kinds of random wildlife around here.

There has been a lot of boundary realignments and new wards created in Northern Virginia over the past month or so and we are actually in a brand new stake. Just a couple weeks ago the Gainesville Stake was created. Consequently, a new zone in our mission was also created to align with the stake, so Elder Jones and I were assigned to be the Zone Leaders here in the Gainesville Stake. This will be my 5th transfer as a zone leader and his 1st, were both excited for it!

The members here are awesome! We've been able to meet and get to know a lot of them the past few days. There wasn't much work going on here as far as teaching investigators are concerned, but we're trying our best to work with what has been going on, and improving and expanding our teaching pool. It's a much different feel out here for both of us when it comes to finding investigators. Elder Jones is coming to Warrenton from Arlington, and I'm coming from Alexandria, so we've become accustomed to the city where there is a person to talk to every 10 feet.

Also, we don't live in an apartment complex, like most of the other missionaries in the mission, we live in the basement of a members home! Their names are Rachel and Steven Sippert, and they have a little boy that's full of energy. They have had missionaries living in their basement for almost 3 years now! They're an awesome couple, they even host a monthly "donut night" at their house, where anyone is welcome to come and enjoy fresh homemade donuts! They did it last night and we were able to go and meet more of the members of the ward there. Well try to bring some nonmembers to it next time it happens.
This ward has some great recent converts that have been baptized in the past year, so we look forward to working with them as well.

It's defiantly an adjustment being here. Coming from Alexandria, where taught numerous lessons every day and people were so open to learn, to a place where it's going to be much more difficult getting into people's homes. But our main goal as a companionship is to find joy in this journey and try our best to stay optimistic and positive through the opposition.

On a side note, one thing I was worried about was all of the people we were leaving behind in Alexandria, that some of them would fall through the cracks with all of the change, because that ward is being white washed as well. But I'm so relieved that they've got a great set of Elders there now! They're all in good hands!

I am going to miss the place I felt like was home in Alexandria, but I am excited to be here in Warrenton! Change is a good thing, although it can be quite uncomfortable I know we're going to have some great experiences here and learn a lot! I am grateful for this new year of 2017! I can't wait to see what wonderful memories and lessons lie ahead! I hope you all have a great week and a great year this year! Love you all so much!

Elder Jeremy Duvall
Washington DC South Mission

December 26,2016 Merry Christmas! Leaving Alexandria and some Exciting news!!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all had a great day yesterday! I enjoyed doing a 7-way Skype call with my family Yesterday! It was fun seeing everyone and getting to talk to you all!

 We set up a free hot chocolate stand in Old Town Alexandria a couple nights before Christmas.
We met a lot of cool people and helped warm up a cold night with some hot chocolate!

Tall Christmas tree in Old Town

Last picture with the Alexandria zone!
We're missing a couple missionaries in our zone in this picture.
We're going to miss our zone here!

We had a great week leading up to Christmas!

  

At the temple with Edgardo and Julio for the Festival of Lights!

We were able to go up to the temple for the Festival of Lights two more times this week! The first time we went up with Edgardo and Julio. Edgardo had a blast! He loved seeing the temple and looking at all of the different displays in the visitors center.

At the temple with Hawa.

 The second time we went up this week was with an investigator named a Hawa from Sierra Leone who we've taught a few times over the last 6 months and she really wanted to go up there, so we arranged for a member to take us all. She loved it as well!

On Christmas Eve we were asked by our bishop to join him in going to the hospital to give a priesthood blessing to a sick baby, the son of a mother in the ward. There's nowhere else I would've rather been on Christmas Eve than there helping that little child! There was such a tender spirit in that hospital room and it was incredible to see the young mother manage to stay smiling and happy amidst such a rough time on Christmas Eve. I felt really grateful for all of the people working at the hospital on Christmas Eve, sacrificing time away from their families to be there to help the people.

We started teaching Edgardo this week about some of the different commandments. He is so humble and willing to change! At the end of one of our lessons, he said the closing prayer. In his prayer he said something along the lines of "I'm very sad that my missionaries are leaving. I love them a lot. They've helped me to change and I'm going to miss them..." It was nice to hear how much he's appreciated us. He said this prayer after finding out that we are both getting transferred to new areas this next week. Edgardo came to church on Christmas and brought his brother-in-laws father, who is a member of the church, with him! His brother in laws father is also from Peru, but doesn't speak any English. It was the perfect Sunday though, because our ward and the Spanish ward combined for Christmas Day service! So half of the the songs and talks and prayers were in Spanish and the other half were in Enlgish. It was a fun Christmas Sunday at church! Edgardo will be getting baptized sometime in the middle of January.
Michael also blessed the sacrament for the first time on Christmas and is starting to be able to use his priesthood! He did great and was super excited about being able to do it.

We found out a few days ago that we will both be getting transferred out of our ward! They will be bringing two new elders in to "white wash" our area! They are lucky missionaries both coming into an awesome ward with a lot of work to do! We were surprised to find this out, but I guess we are both needed elsewhere! We thought the sisters in the ward will be taking all of our investigators, but now the elders coming in will have some good work to do! It has been an amazing 4 transfers (6 months) here in Alexandria and I'm going to miss this area and the people here a ton! These past four transfers have gone by so much quicker than my first four, I can't believe it's almost been a year since I got here. Elder Judkins and I have been able to be part of some incredible miracles and have had a lot of fun serving here. This ward is awesome! The bishop is great, the members are supportive, and we've met many people that are prepared and interested in learning about the restored gospel. I've learned a lot serving here and I look forward to the new lessons I'll learn with different challenges that may come in my next area. I won't find out until tomorrow night where I will be headed.

We got some REALLY exciting news last night! Our mission had a goal to have 300 baptisms as a mission this year, and on Christmas Eve we hit 300! Obviously the work we do is not about numbers, it's about blessing the lives of individual people. This goal helped us to stay focused and work hard throughout the year. The theme we've based this year on is from the scripture Alma 37:6-7 which talks about how the Lord uses small means to bring about the salvation of many souls. Throughout the year we've focused on different simple things we can do to become better missionaries each day, that'll help us to help others. We did a mission-wide conference call last night where they announced that we hit 300 baptisms. After that announcement there was some more amazing news! On January 14th, we will be having TWO members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles visit our mission!! Elder M. Russell Ballard and Elder Ronald A. Rasband are coming here in just a couple weeks! They will be joined by Elder Gong of the Quorum of the Seventy. We will be having a mission-wide conference with them all! President Huntsman said that it is extremely rare to have 2 Apostles visit a mission together at the same time, so we're pretty lucky. They are planning to come here for some other meetings and fireside they're doing, but Elder Gong talked with President Huntsman and asked him if it would be okay for them to meet with our mission while they are here, so of course President Huntsman accepted! I'm excited to get to shake both of their hands and learn from their counsel that we will receive!

In just a few days I will be in a new area! I'm sad to leave, but excited for the changes ahead! I love you all and I hope you have a great last week of 2016!

Elder Jeremy Duvall
Washington DC South Mission

We helped volunteer at a senior center this week,
playing games with and interacting with a bunch of old people.
I love the elderly!

We are going to miss Bishop Leavitt and his family!

Christmas Sunday with our Ward Mission Leader,
Brother Adam Boone. He's the coolest guy! And he's helped us out a ton!

Thanks for all of the Christmas gifts Mom and others!

18 December 2016 - Twas the Week Before Christmas

Hey everyone!

This next week is the last full week of the transfer, I can't believe how fast this transfer is flying by. Transfers are on the 29th!

This past week was full of more great experiences! At the beginning of the week we had one final visit saying goodbye to Isha and her kids. Due to the ward boundary changes, she's no longer in our ward, but we were able to have one last lesson with her and give her a Christmas card we made. I'm grateful for the time we have been able to spend over the last several months teaching and helping Isha! In the background of the picture you can see that she has her baptismal certificate framed on her wall, along with a picture of us all together on the day of her baptism. She was sad to have to say bye to us, but she's in great hands! There's some awesome members in the other ward that are going to take great care of her. I'm grateful to have been involved with her conversion every step of the way.

We're going to miss Isha and her kids!

We had an exchange this week with one of the district leaders in our zone and his companion. I got to be with Elder Chu for a day again! It's always fun to spend a day with a previous companion. I found out this week that Katie and Jackson, a single mother and her son that I taught in Centreville are likely going to be getting baptized in a couple weeks! (Refer to letter back on May 9th) finding them was a miracle! Katie and her kids made it up to the temple yesterday night and made a nice post on Facebook thanking all of the missionaries who have helped her along the way. Elder Shelley and I were the ones that originally found her over seven months ago. I'm grateful for the other missionaries who've helped her along the way! I had no doubt that she would eventually make it to this point! I hope to be able to make it out to Centreville for her baptism!

Edgardo came to watch a baptism that we had in our ward this week of a woman named Najwan. She is from Egypt! The missionaries in another ward had been teaching Najwan, and due to the boundary changes she was baptized into our ward last week. Edgardo enjoyed the baptismal service! Following the baptism we had a lesson with him, to help him understand more about baptism and why it's important. He came to church for the second time on Sunday and is enjoying getting to know more members of the ward! He will most likely be getting baptized within the next few weeks!

Recent convert Chris Ricks came out with us this week to teach a few different people.
One of them was to Bernadette a woman we met a couple months ago and have a taught a few times.

Chris Ricks and Michael Heaney both got received the Aaronic Priesthood yesterday and were ordained priests. Elder Judkins ordained Chris, and then I was able to ordain Michael. We're so excited for them to be able to exercise their priesthood and bless the lives of others through their service!

Group of us with Michael after the New and Returning Member Fireside.
Julio in the middle is now our assistant Ward mission leader.

Michael spoke last night at the New and Returning Member Fireside and did a great job! These are my absolute favorite events to go to. I haven't been to one in the last 6 months or so, but they're great! There's nothing better than listening to the conversion stories of all kinds of people, hearing how the gospel has changed their lives for the better. When Michael spoke he talked a lot about the atonement. Growing up, he was taught about the atonement, but never fully understood it. He always thought Jesus Christ's atonement was something that was just there, and he didn't quite know how to personally access it and what that would mean if he could. But after learning about and accepting the restored gospel, he finally came to understand that the atonement fully applies to him individually. He now knows that Jesus Christ did die for him personally, and that He loves him unconditionally. He compared the love that Jesus Christ has for each of us to the love a mother has for a newborn child. As a mother holds her newborn baby, she looks down upon it thinking that she would do anything in the world for that child, to ensure they grow up happily. This is the same way Christ feels about each of us! He would do anything for us to help us make it back to him. In fact, he already has done everything for us! We just need to have the courage and humility to allow him to help us. It was great listening to Michael and other recent converts speak about their experiences.


I am excited for Christmas! We've got some great plans with different families next weekend. Yesterday at church, I ran into my cousin David Phillips in the hallway! He's in the Annandale Ward, which meets in the same church building as our ward. It was fun to talk with him for a few minutes and I will likely be seeing him again this weekend.

With my cousin, David Phillips!

This is going to be a great week! Hope you all have a merry Christmas! Love you all!

Merry Christmas from the White House and National Christmas Tree!

Elder Jeremy Duvall
Washington DC South Mission

December 13, 2016 Christmas joy & Randall K Bennett

Trying to stay warm with a scarf. :)

Hey everyone! Happy Tuesday! We switched our Pday again this week because of a half-mission conference we had yesterday with Elder Randall K. Bennett of the Quorum of the Seventy, which was awesome!
This past week was great! We were able to go up to the temple on two different days. The first night we went up with the entire Penedo family. They absolutely loved it! It was pretty cold outside, but we all enjoyed the beautiful lights and the beauty of the temple grounds. Roberto, who was baptized in November, enjoyed being there with his wife and daughters. His wife Natalia is not a member of the church, but has become more interested in learning since her husband and daughter were baptized. She is from Ukraine, so the sisters at the Visitors Center gave her a Russian Book of Mormon and taught her a bit about it. She is being taught by the sister missionaries in our ward, and we are going over weekly to teach the new member lessons to Roberto and Angelica. Every night of December there is a musical performance from different local groups and the family enjoyed hearing all of the Christmas songs, especially Natalia! They also had a room with nativities from all around the world that were fun for them to see.

The Penedo family is awesome!
Natalia, from Russia, loved being at the temple!
 The sisters at the visitors center gave her a Russian Book of Mormon
 and Natalia is so close to deciding to be baptized
to join with the rest of her family!
Natalia and Roberto's daughters had a blast!

Natalia, Roberto, Julio, Angelica and Ivanka with us
by the Christus Statue that is shining abnormally bright due to the lighting.

Vibrant lights at the temple

Julio loved being there with us and his family!
He his Roberto's brother.

Saturday night, we were able to go up to the temple with Micheal. He's been baptized for just over one week now, but if you first meet him you would think he's been a member for years! The entire drive to and from the temple, he was asking us really good questions about so many different doctrines and beliefs of the church. It's cool to see his desire to learn! He is super excited to get more involved in family history, to eventually participate in temple work for his family.  He wants to know so much, so quickly! And it's incredible how well he is able to retain everything. Often times he has quoted different scriptures he has read, or lyrics of hymns he has sung, in order to explain a point. This time up at the temple, the concert at the visitors center was the Mormon Choir of a Washington DC. It's basically a mini-Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and includes members of the church from many stakes in Virginia and Maryland. They were really good! A few members from my last ward in Centreville were in the choir so it was fun to see them.

 Our second night going up to the TVC and Festival of Lights. Thanks for the matching ties Mom!

Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without Christmas music! On Sunday night, about 40 missionaries sang at a Stake musical fireside, called "Christmas at Mt. Vernon." We were the opening number. I enjoyed singing! This week was full of a lot of great music! I'm grateful for the special spirit music brings into our lives!

Our lesson with Edgardo, 

that Michael joined in on prior to going up to the temple with us.

Another highlight from the week would be the progress of Edgardo! He's doing great! Michael joined us in our second lesson with Edgardo. It was the most ideal teaching environment there, to have a man baptized just a week ago help us teach someone else that's preparing for baptism. It was good for Michael to not only hear the lessons again that he was taught before baptism, but to participate in the teaching. He gave a great, humble testimony to Edgardo. Edgardo came to church on Sunday and had a great time! He connected well with so many of the members, specifically those that served Spanish speaking missions, and he looks forward to coming back again next Sunday and learning more.

Different lesson with just Michael.

Our half-mission conference yesterday with Elder Bennett was great. He started at 8 in the morning with a small meeting with all of the zone leaders and sister training leaders, before the rest of the missionaries arrived. It was great to interact with him and help him understand what the missionaries in our mission could be improving on. He focused most of his training with the mission on the topic of obedience, which seems to be talked about all the time, but it is so important. The conference lasted until about 5pm, and included so much training on how we can be better at finding, teaching, and loving our investigators. Something that stood out to me was a scripture he shared. D&C 123:15-16 says "Let no man count them as small things; for there is much which lieth in futurity, pertaining to the saints, which depends upon these things. You know, brethren, that a very large ship is benefited very much by a very small helm in the time of a storm. . ." We will be given so much more power from in high as we focus on the so-called "small things" because obedience to the little things is what will ultimately bring the miracles. We can't expect miracles to happen in our lives if we aren't striving to be obedient to the small and simple things the Lord asks us to do. For me, it's easy to be obedient to the big things. Often times, it's more of a struggle for us to submit our will to the Lords will when it comes down to the small things. I love the analogy that a large ship depends so much on the very small helm when a storm comes. The same is true in our lives! When the "storms" of life happen, if we are in control of the "helm" (the small things" then we can have confidence that we will make it through.

I'm grateful for the opportunity we had to be taught be a general authority this week and I look forward to applying the many lessons we learned from him! He shared a lot of stories he's had from when he served as a mission president in Russia, and while serving alongside members of the Quorum of the Twelve, and First Presidency. Tomorrow we will have another opportunity to meet with him as a mission leadership council to discuss some goals for the coming year, so we're excited about that as well!

T-minus 12 days till Christmas! I'm excited! I hope you all have an amazing week! Love you all!

Elder Jeremy Duvall
Washington DC South Mission

Twelve days of Christmas package for Elder Duvall and Elder Judkins.  Each package had a label attached with a scripture reference to look up. They were to read the scripture and guess what's inside prior to opening each package..

12+ days of Christmas

Scriptures attached to look up and
try to guess what is in each package

I have enjoyed guessing the gifts based off the scriptures! So far, I’ve been able to get a lot of them! You are so clever Mom! Thanks for sending all of these! It has been fun! We enjoy having this little Christmas tree in our apartment as well :) 🎄 I actually grabbed it from my old apartment in Centreville a couple weeks ago when we were out there for transfer day driving other missionaries.

December 7, 2016 - Temple, Refugees, & Michaels Baptism

Hey family & friends!
We switched our Pday this week to Wednesday in order to attend the temple this morning.

Merry Christmas
from the Temple Visitors Center!

I always love going to the temple! We went with Paul Heffron, he's a 65 year old man originally from Boston. He joined the church about a year and a half ago. This was only his second time attending the temple for an endowment session, and he loved it! It was a great experience! The spirit is always so strong at the temple. There is nowhere else I would've rather been this morning! After leaving the temple, I always feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude for the eternal perspective that the temple brings to me in regards to our mortal existence. There is so much greatness in store for us, so much joy and glory awaiting us. I believe that the joy we feel during our highest moments on earth will be so small compared to the joy we will feel in the life to come!
Tonight we are actually going up to the temple again tonight with the Penedo family for the Festival of Lights that goes on every night, for the whole month of December! Thousands of Christmas lights and nightly Christmas concerts from local groups from around the world
We've had a lot happen in the past week and a half! We have both been feeling a bit under the weather this past week with headaches and colds and whatnot, but have still seen many miracles. I'll just touch on a few of them.
One day last week, we helped deliver furniture to refugees from war-torn countries in the Middle East. Many of them have come here within the last month and they have an apartment, but nothing inside of it. We helped out a Stake Relief Society President deliver furniture to a few different families. They were all extremely grateful! It was interesting talking to them and hearing their thoughts about being here in the U.S. They explained how weird it felt at first to be able to just walk around outside whenever and wherever they want and feel completely safe. But they are all happy to start adjusting to the culture here. Such humble, happy people! Some of the happiest people I know in life often tend to be strong in the attribute of humility. It was cool to be able to serve in this way last week, especially since recently hearing the church leaders talk about helping refugees, this was the first time I've witnessed it first hand (see "I Was A Stranger" by Linda K Burton from April 2016 General Conference).

 Elders Hall, Ostendorf, and Burleson are in a trio, and they taught Michael a lot before the boundaries of the ward changed and he came into our ward. We are grateful to be able to continue to help him along the path! His baptism was an amazing service.

 Michael had his baptism on Saturday afternoon! It was right before our ward Christmas party, and there was great support from the ward there. He was so happy the entire day. He even got to the church super early with us to be able to watch the font fill up. He chose to have Bishop Leavitt baptize him, and was proud to be the first baptism in the brand new Lincolnia Ward. He bore his testimony at the baptism, at church on Sunday during sacrament meeting, and during Sunday school in the Gospel Principles class that Elder Judkins and I taught. Every time he bore his testimony he talked about Romans chapter 6 verse 4 which reads "Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." He talked about how he truly feels like he has been born again and raised up to a new life, excited for the journey which lies ahead. He mentioned how he has prayed more in the last 6 weeks than he has in the past 6 years! And each time he talked about his conversion process and how he has felt like he has a greater desire to treat others kindly, and how he has felt so much happier now than ever before. His testimony is so strong! It's hard to believe he's barely been introduced to the church, he could easily be mistaken for a longtime member. Especially after seeing him at the ward Christmas party, interacting with everyone as if he has known them for years. I'm grateful for the small role we've been able to play in his conversion, but in reality, Michael was just prepared and the Lord has blessed him with understanding eyes and ears, ready to receive the truth. We are excited to prepare him to receive the priesthood, wherein he will be given greater responsibility and opportunity to serve the Lord and those around him! 

 Us at the ward Christmas party! Everyone liked our matching ties!

This was after Edgardo's lesson! (Julio is the one with the sweater on)

On Monday night we were able to teach this man Edgardo. He's from Peru, and has been in and out of different churches throughout his life, mainly Catholicism. His father-in-law in Peru was a member of the church and always told him he should check it out, and this week and took a leap of faith and reached out to us! His first time in our church building was Monday night, where he met us for a lesson. He was really receptive to the first lesson and curious to learn. After we testified of the Restoration of the gospel through Joseph Smith, he initially questioned it and said "You guys really believe this?" We simply responded "Yes! And it has blessed our lives eternally! And it can bless yours as well." When we teach people we always explain that we are not here to convince them. But our desire is simply to invite them to pray about the things we've taught and ask God if they are true, because he's the ultimate source of truth! Julio Penedo, a recent convert, joined us for the lesson and bore his testimony to Edgardo in Spanish. It was powerful! Edgardo is excited to come to church this Sunday and learn more! He wants to be taught by us instead of the Spanish elders because he wants to keep improving his English. He speaks it pretty well and understands everything we've taught, so we are excited to help him progress in the gospel! 

I saw a short quote today that I really liked. "It is in the stillness that we come to know God...and ourselves." I think that's profound. We can't truly come to know God if we are constantly hustling around from place to place, letting our lives become consumed by things going on around us. Sometimes we need to take a step back and take some time to ponder in the "still" moments of life. During those moments we can also come to know ourselves, particularly the potential that we have of becoming something greater.
I'm grateful to be here! I'm excited for the week ahead! I love you all tons! Hope you all have a great week!
Elder Jeremy Duvall
Washington DC South Mission

**Also, by the way, my Pday is going to be switched to Tuesday next week due to a mission conference we are having on Monday with a general authority that's coming to the mission.

This is us at church this past Sunday with two of our investigators David, and Fatmata. We weren't sure if they were coming, but they both showed up! This was David's second time at church, and Fatmata's first time in any church since she moved to the U.S. from Sierra Leone. Fatmata cooked us this African soup full of fish and other stuff and it was not appealing by smell or taste. Despite that, she enjoyed coming to church last week!

Next door neighbor Carl. He invites us over every now and then to help him finish off his desserts. This time it was his pumpkin cheesecake that was delicious! A great example of "loving thy neighbor" haha. He loves having missionaries live next door, and we love having him as our neighbor!