Elder Murray New York New York
6/22/2016-07/11/2018
So fun fact of the week. The only reason it is easy for me to wake up and get out of bed in the morning is because all throughout the night I practice. Practice makes perfect! Elder Norton told me that I'll wake up at like 1, open the blinds, get on my knees, and kneel to pray. Then check the clock, see that its 1 am and get back in bed and sleep until we wake up at 6! It's pretty funny! I do this quite often haha.
On that note we had an awesome week! We went on 3 back to back splits started it off with going on splits with the West Point Elders, then went up to Kingston NY, and then to Stamford CT. We have Iona College in our area and the students there are super open minded. So Elder Lewis and I set some goals and made some plans to go out and achieve while we were there. It was solid. We did it. It took us longer than expected but we did it! We set a goal to teach like 10 New York minutes which is basically 10 short but solid conversations, and to get 8 peoples contact info so we can follow up with them and we found miracles! On our way back to the car we were just talking to everyone when we met Norman! He was wearing these big ol headphones and he definitely wasn't going to hear us if we waited until he got to us so we just started waving to him at a distance he waved back and we just stopped and asked him a question. He quickly took off his headphones and listened to us. We found out some of his concerns, interests, and needs and asked when we could meet again to share more of our message with him. He then told us he had some time right then. It was pouring rain so we asked if he'd be down to take a sit in the nearest Dunkin Donuts. So we did! We started with a prayer, taught the restoration , and invited him to baptism and he said yes! It was a pretty cool miracle. He was so thankfull for us! We'll keep you updated on his progress. I love going contacting at college campuses around the Mission on splits. We've been to UCON, SUNY Orange, SUNY Sullivan, SUNY New Paltz, Iona, Colombia, NYU. The prophets have said one of their main focuses are on young adults and I can see why! A couple cool thoughts from the Book of Mormon. Last Sunday was an amazing spirit filled sacrament meeting. We sang Hymn 270. That hymn is very special to me. After that hymn was sung I was looking for a scripture that correlated with the hymn "I'll Go Where You Want Me To Go". I turned to Omni 1:26 it reads: And now, my beloved brethren (or sisteren😊), I would that ye should come unto Christ, who is the Holy One of Israel, and partake of his salvation, and the power of his redemption. Yea, come unto him, and offer your whole souls as an offering unto him, and continue in fasting and praying, and endure to the end; and as the Lord liveth ye will be saved. I absolutely felt the spirit as a read this verse. No doubt about it at all. Jesus Christ held nothing back. He gave us His all. We are here to learn to do the same and oh the joy that comes from it. Easier said than done but repentance is the plan not the back up plan. I love this wonderful work and the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is all so true! I love each of you! Elder Murray
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This week was awesome. we had a really cool or correlation meeting with our ward mission leader and we talked about our investigators and his family. there's a couple of his kids who are falling away from the church so we talked about them as well and he asked us what we did to get on our missions, how we really desired to be there, and how we desired to use the atonement in our life. It took me back to all the times before the mission when mom or dad would tell me something was important and I would say something like "ugh. I don't care." Looking back on that I think wow how lame! I was such a poop. So I am so thankful I have had so many experiences that have helped me change and actually have the desire to improve. The reason why I say you are such awesome and amazing parents is because no matter how many times I said I don't care you kept at it! We are teaching a 16 year old that just doesn't care and sheesh I'm looking at it in a parents perspective and holy moly I don't know how I could do that. It's insane the amount of patience you need!
other than that we have had a breakthrough with one of our investigators moms. She is Jewish along with her son Thomas. She hasn't accepted a single thing that we've taught this entire time teaching her. However, we taught her about the atonement and about how Christ can help us change. She had been studying the book of Mormon with Thomas and in this lesson she completely accepted everything accept for that Christ was the son of God. Which is kind of huge but She accepts him She just doesn't realize it is him. Thomas said he was the same way. She explained to us how before she and Thomas had met missionaries she had this desire to come to find out who Christ was. So we asked her at the end of the lesson "what do you have against being baptized and becoming a member of the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints? She said she couldn't find anything wrong with it. Thomas was so excited. There are a few things we need to work on with her but we plan on setting a date soon. It was awesome! This work is not ours! I love you all! Elder Murray This morning in my studies I read Mosiah 4:9 it says:
Believe in God; believe that he is, and that he created all things, both in heaven and in earth; believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend. I loved this because there are things that we just comprehend but God has given us things that matter for our salvation and there are things that just don't matter for our salvation! It's pretty cool! We had an awesome lesson with a couple of our investigators. He's a 16 year old kid and has all these questions about the law of chastity. So we turned right to Alma 39. It was a good lesson and I feel more prepared to teach my kids someday! Fun fact! Thank you for all the pictures and emails this week! I loved them all! I love you all as well. Thank you for all the prayers and support! Elder Murray So this week was AWESOME! First of all tramsfer news! Elder Aurich got tramsferred and I'm back with Elder Norton. Round two HERE WE COME! We welcomed eight new missionaries to the NYNYN mission they are all awesome. My trainee Elder Brown got called to train which is super exciting. He received elder Di Deodato from Italy. It just so happens that Elder Massimo De Feo was his stake President! We had a bunch of people come to conference which was great! Thomas, Thomas' mom Liz, and her boy friend Matt, as well as JeanMarc, Wanjiru, Rob, and his two daughters Ashley and Maria! It was a really good turnout. Liz had a rough day the day before and she got in a really big argument with a close friend and she said she was just overflowing with anger when she came to conference with Thomas. Then she listened to the talk by Elder Massimo De Feo and she totally applied it to her life! It was sweet! Ok so General Conference! I could type an entire 5 pages about all the details I loved about it but I will just do top 2. I loved how President Nelson made it to the podium before the camera did 90 percent of the time. It looks like we need to pick up our pace to follow the prophet! Until Seventy Times Seven by Elder Lynn G. Robbins. I loved this part: “Success,” it has been said, “isn’t the absence of failure, but going from failure to failure without any loss of enthusiasm.” We never really fail in life when we are trying to be better! That was such an awesome thing to hear! Then I loved the talk by Elder Durrant too! We talked to a lot of people at the airport and nobody was super interested. We talked to this guy who was picking someone up and he was from India and we told him about the temple. Then later on the lady (who was holding a little dog) he was picking up walked past President and President commented on her cute dog and then later she came up to us and started asking all these great questions like what do you think of blacks in your church and we pulled out 2 Nephi 26:33 and she was like "oh wow that makes so much sense! We just moved to Connecticut and we are looking for a church! I remember when I was little the Mormons used to come over and study with us. And I loved it!" So we sent her up to the sisters in Connecticut and the sisters say she has time of potential! It's pretty awesome how it all played out! |
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
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