Elder Murray New York New York
6/22/2016-07/11/2018
Well here it is the last post for Elder Murray's mission. The time went fast! We are so excited to see him this Wednesday!! He will be sharing thoughts about his mission July 29th at the church on the corner of 2700 East and 4500 South (2675 East 4430 South to be exact) Sacrament meeting starts at 12:50 pm. We are all so grateful for your love and support over the past 2 years. I know Matt is exited to see you all!! The district bro Riley and Elder TYRELL We sang this song in church the other week and I heard this line and was just hit with a ton of spiritual bricks. In all reality it will never be over until I'm dead. However, as a missionary for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints the battle will soon be over and my oh my what a battle it has been. We're winning. And we already know who will win! How good does that feel?! Now we just have to use our God given gift of agency to not dribble out of bounds. I feel like when life is hard we have the ball. Its in our possession. You've got pressure, you've got the opponent all over you trying to stop you. Now what you do is up to you. You could save the pain and stress of it all and just turn over the possession, you could kick it out of bounds, OR you can think back on the days you practiced for this moment. Draw on the talents and skills you've developed! Go and score the goal! Maybe you'll trip. Maybe you'll miss the goal. However, you might just score. If you do trip or miss the goal, now you know what you need to practice. You've gained something very important. Experience. So remember, when times get tough you've got the ball and better yet you're not alone. You've got the absolute best coach in the universe (Heavenly Father) and the absolute best team captain in the universe (Jesus) and all your good teammates (friends, family, bishops, stake presidents, leaders) to help a brotha or sista out. Just a cool thought! The cool thing is if you have the right teammates you'll have a whole lot better of a time. Never choose a bad line up. Choose people who respect and listen to the team captain. So now that this is officially too long for anyone to read I will end it. Seeya in a few!
Oh and I will be speaking in church on Sunday July 29th! Y'all are more than welcome to come! Love you all and thank you for the support! Elder Murray Omni 1:26
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This is Matts Dad... I need to add a preface to this email...
Monticello is pretty cool! Not as cool as my companion though! He's a stud. He's from Spanish Fork and was trained by my MTC companion elder Bradley In New Paltz! We are In another branch here so it's pretty cool! In the 5 days we've been here we found 4 new investigators with real intent. It's been awesome. We just go out and find all day. We are dead Every night. It's the best feeling ever! There are alot of interesting people here in Monticello! 50 Percent of the population is Hasidic Jews! It's kind of cool! I stray away from talking to them but hey it would probably be good to chat with one of them. Tell them how the Book of Mormon is supposed to convince them of the living messiah. What's the worst that could happen right? They might just say no... but other than that we saw a bear! I'll attach the video here! I'm feeling great! I feel like I'm just figuring everything out! I could probably just do this for life 😉 jk I'll come home to see see y'all. Elder Norton just sent me the video of him getting home and I just cried through the whole thing. He was an awesome companion. He taught me how to love people. I'll be forever grateful for him. I can do my homecoming on the 29th. That's fine with me! I miss the smiths already! The Anderson cam. Ward mission leader. Love him n them Me Thomas and Liz Ross Geemon We go through trials to learn and grow. One day you'll meet someone who is going through the same exact thing and you will be a heaven sent blessing to the person you will help.
Moroni 7:33 Love you all! Elder Murray Happy Fathers Day!!!
Scripture of the week: Mosiah 2:34 I say unto you, that there are not any among you, except it be your little children that have not been taught concerning these things, but what knoweth that ye are eternally indebted to your heavenly Father, to render to him all that you have and are... Through the atonement of Jesus Christ, we can be all in for the Lord! Elder Murray We went on a nice run the other morning and because of that we had some solid planning. We planned our day we prayed for God to guide us where we needed to be. As we talked about the people we we felt to go to this specific street so we planned that in. At the end of our planning session we just felt good about our days plans. We set a goal to invite 1 person to be baptized everyday. So later on we went to that specific street and knock and knock and meet this guy named Jahliv. We invited him to be baptized right there on the doorstep. He accepted! It was awesome! We have met with him since and he seems solid. What's cooler is that just a couple doors down from him we found a Family from Peru. The mom answered and told us she had been looking for peace. Her son has autism and she wants to be the best she can to help him. Soon after the grandma came out and kept saying "últimos días!" And the mom said they're not Mormons mom and we were like "si si we are!" We later found out that the grandma had been baptized in Peru. We went over for a lesson and the whole family of 5 is interested. They came to church yesterday and loved it! It all starts in the morning! It was awesome!
"Planning is an eternal principle that has existed since before the world was formed. In the premortal existence, Heavenly Father introduced a plan that would bring about the immortality and eternal life of His children (see Moses 1:39)." - How do I fulfill my purpose? (PMG) I love you all! Elder Murray I only get 30 minutes to email today so it'll have to be semi short. Yesterday during the sacrament hymn (hymn 191) I had a spiritual experience as we sang
"Although in agony he hung, No murm’ring word escaped his tongue. His high commission to fulfill, He magnified his Father’s will." It has been a common theme throughout my mission to feel the spirit as we sing songs or as I read the scriptures that talk about submitting to God's will. As I sat there pondering I read Luke 2:42-43 and it says. Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. It was after Jesus determined to do His Fathers will and then... ...there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. I know that we have already covenanted to follow the Savior. It's not so much whether we have to choose now to follow him because we already said we would. At this point it's choosing whether or not to be men and women of integrity. After we determine to be men and women of integrity then he will strengthen us. I know it's all true! I love you all. Elder Murray Well hey y'all! This week was full of splits! It was awesome! I will not go too much into detail because of the lack of time I have buuuut to go into the good stuff. After having my interview with President Smith, Elder Norton had his interview. I was just sitting there all alone in the dimly lit chapel pondering about how to be a better missionary by balancing all responsibilities we have and everything we have going on in the area. It's all awesome! But I knelt down and prayed in the isle of the pews and I as I prayed it was just a really sincere prayer and wow. My mind just completely cleared and stayed that way for at least 2-3 minutes. Just complete peace of mind. I had never felt that before. Absolutely nothing but peace and then that same hymn just flowed into my mind. "Fear not I am with thee oh be not dismayed" it was pretty awesome. I know God is there and loves us. He is aware of our every need! I love you all!
Mark 11:24 Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. Elder Murray 1. Minigolf with roommates the other set of assistants and William
2. Soccer with the other assistants and William. William commentating haha 3. Elder Peña ironing my shirt because I forgot to and didn't want to take it off to iron it. Role Play Picture Things to know about:
-P-day change: we will have p-days on Monday from now on. So this week was awesome. It was transfer week and we welcomed 4 New missionaries to the mission! It was so awesome to see them here and ready to serve! When they first arrive we go to the mission home and we have a little testimony meeting they are just simple testimonies. We always start with singing hymn 26. Joseph Smith's first prayer. You can feel their little testimonies. Then my favorite part is the testimony meeting at the end of the night. Its all the missionaries that are returning home the next day. At the beginning we sing the same song hymn 26. It's different though. The spirit comes with greater force. There was something said that stood out to me. One of the elders that was going home said "this is not the end, it is the beginning of something greater" I thought to myself how could anything be greater than serving a mission? But then I realized that really is just preparation for life! Living to doctrine of Christ brings joy. I know that. They all bring such a powerful spirit! Some of my closest friends went home today. Elder Peterson, Elder Aurich, and Elder Smith! I'll miss them but we have already planned some things together so we'll be good. They're awesome. They all had such a huge impact on my spiritual development. Just to finish up with a verse from a song that invited the spirit to teach me this week. Fear not, I am with thee; oh, be not dismayed, For I am thy God and will still give thee aid. I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand, Upheld by my righteous, upheld by my righteous, Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand. The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose I will not, I cannot, desert to his foes; That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, I’ll never, no never, I’ll never, no never, I’ll never, no never, no never forsake! I know that the Savior is called the Savior because he truly saves us by strengthening us, and helping us get up again, and again, and again. He's touched my life and I'll never forsake the experiences I've had. Never. I love you all! 2 Nephi 33:6 Elder Murray This week was another one for the books. We got to go on a bunch more splits and work on some transfers with President Smith! Other than that we've been trying to find some more people to teach!
This week I have been studying meekness and sheesh I love it! Elder Bednar gave a really great talk on it last general conference here are a few of my favorite excerpts. Meekness is... ...righteous responsiveness, willing submissiveness, and strong self-restraint. ...strong, not weak; active, not passive; courageous, not timid; restrained, not excessive; modest, not self-aggrandizing; and gracious, not brash. A meek person is not easily provoked, pretentious, or overbearing and readily acknowledges the accomplishments of others. ...a particular spiritual receptivity to learning both from the Holy Ghost and from people who may seem less capable, experienced, or educated, who may not hold important positions, or who otherwise may not appear to have much to contribute. ...the principal protection from the prideful blindness that often arises from prominence, position, power, wealth, and adulation. ...an attribute developed through desire, the righteous exercise of moral agency, and striving always to retain a remission of our sins. Thus, meek is what we become as disciples of the Master and not just something we do. I love studying by topic. I just get so much more out of my studies! This principle really applies to becoming a better missionary because when you are meek all of the sudden nothing is about you! That's why strong self-restraint is highlighted. It's all about the savior and who you are working with! Not you. You become happier and more effective as a representative of the Lord Jesus Christ because you are becoming more like him and acting like him! It's awesome. So for the subject line... We started to talking to this lady and she was like "how can I join your church?" Both of us were pinching ourselves to see if we were dreaming or something haha but we snapped back into it real quick and said "hey all you gotta do is have the desire to learn, have faith, that will lead you to pray and ask God to know if it's true and he'll tell you and then you'll actually want to make changes in your life that bring it in closer harmony with Christ's teachings. Then we continue to be your guides and answer any questions you have, you will come to church and then be baptized! When could we come to your home and teach you more?" So we set a date to come back and it will be awesome! Thomas is doing well, and So are the Maravilla's. They are slowly but surely progressing. Thanks for the prayers for them! I love you all! Elder Murray Blast from the past. We were both pretty chunk. That was 18 months ago. |
MissionariesElder Murray called to serve in the New York New York North Mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints 6/22/2016 through 6/22/2018 Write to Matt
Elder Matthew Murray New York New York North Mission 700 White Plains Rd Ste 315 Scarsdale, NY 10583 Archives
July 2018
Current and Last Area Monticello
6th Area New Rochelle
5th Area
The Bronx 4th Area
West point 3rd Area
New Paltz 2nd Area
Yonkers 1st Area
Manhattan 100 Day Book of Mormon challange
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