Elder Murray New York New York
6/22/2016-07/11/2018
We found a new investigator! His name is Theophilus Watkins! I love street contacting! It's so scary and I love it because it's so hard and then easy! Wow! Ha-ha am I making sense? Probs not. It's just hard to initiate the conversation. Then it's usually smooth rollin from there on out! Elder Newbold hates it but I love it so we take turns everywhere we go! 😁 we have an appt with him on Monday! Yeehaw!
So, this week we had zone conference! I love zone conference! President Smith is the best. We talked allot about goals and goal setting and goals and goal setting is awesome. Oh, and there's a whole new YSA stake in Manhattan which is awesome! Elder Rasband visited out mission President and President filmed him giving us a shout out! Like he always does in conference but Elder Rasband said he always sends the best missionaries to the NYNYN mission😉. He's awesome. He gave us some advice too. He said center everything on and in Christ. Testimony your life, your family and everything! I really liked his advice and will apply it! So, President, during lunch at zone conference, gave us the rundown on how to be smart with our money. He set a goal to retire at 40 and he actually retired at 36... Dang. I want to do that. So yeah basically he just said keep track of you money and don't spend money on what you don't need! He makes it sound so simple! It was cool though because elder Newbold and I decided to start budgeting our money about a month ago and then President come out and tells us to budget our money and yeah! Inspired. Budgeting is actually pretty fun! Going back to goal setting... We need to set goals that align with God's goals for us. As we set goals that align with God's, then we will be able to achieve them! President said to set goals that you would set if there was no possibility of you failing. Then, with the Lord's help and if they align with God's goals in the long run, you will achieve them! I loved it! During zone conference, my mind kept going back to Elder Ballard's talk called "Return and Receive" from April 2017 general conference, so that's what the next days studies consisted of! Here's a quote I really liked: "Experts on goal setting tell us that the simpler and more straightforward a goal is, the more power it will have. When we can reduce a goal to one clear image or one or two powerful and symbolic words, that goal can then become part of us and guide virtually everything we think and do. I believe that there are two words that, in this context, symbolize God’s goals for us and our most important goals for ourselves. The words are return and receive." -Elder Ballard I love this! The more simple the better. Just like the gospel! One step at a time will get you were you need to go! He goes on to say that he likes taking time to personally interview himself and ask: "how am I doing?" And it helps him stay on track! So I have adopted that. Each day we have companionship inventory and we go through our schedule and ask ourselves how we did and what we could improve on. It helps sloop much. Idk why I haven't been doing this my whole mission! Uhg. I invite you all to re-read Elder Ballard's talk! Follow his counsel! We also had another street display! We were there for about 1 and a half hours and it was a success! We met a college student and we got his contact info and will be meeting with him soon! So stoked! I love working with YSAs! The Book of Mormon board really catches people's attention too! Awesomeness. The Olsen family moved and it is so sad! We helped them pack up on Saturday and it only took 2 hours or so because the whole branch showed up! It was a really cool service experience! We will miss Blake and Quaid. I promised them we'd hang out and take them boating mom and dad so yeah just though I'd letcha know. Haha boysenberry are delicious (not as delicious as black berries 😉)! There's these big ol boysenberry bushes right outside our apartment that we discovered and I picked a whole bunch during lunch. Yum. Elder Newbold made a makeshift berry basket for me cuz I couldn't fit them all in my hand. Ohhhhh this is the coolest thing ever! We get to have a special mission sacrament meeting this Sunday! I am seriously so excited! All 200 missionaries get to have sacrament down in the Lincoln Square Chapel (which is the temple for those of you who do not know where that is) and it's missionaries only! President will be presiding and boy oh boy am I excited! I'll let you know how it goes next week! 26 And now behold, I say unto you, my brethren, if ye have experienced a change of heart, and if ye have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, I would ask, can ye feel so now? I love this scripture because it ties into goal setting. It keeps me on track and makes me want to improve each day. I know that as we continuously develop a personal relation with the savior and align our goals with his we will accomplish the things which he commands of us. I love you all! Elder Murray
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The creation of a street board It seems like just yesterday we hopped on the bus to the airport at 3am and boarded our flight to NY! I remember flying by the city and seeing the skyline and I was like wow! This will be awesome! And boy it has been! I'm just glad I still have another year!
This week was pretty good member wise but we didn't find a single new investigator 😐. Which has been really hard to do lately uhg. HOWEVER, we did have a super awesome experience with our investigator Jackson Rogers. He has been meeting with missionaries for a long time. He is good friends with the branch President, and he has said to continue meeting with him even though his progress is slow. He made progress this week though! Jackson has never said a prayer with the missionaries before... like ever. And we've tried so many times! This week we went over there and he always get stuck on the question of why does God let bad things happen. I have a testimony of not knowing the answer 100 percent and opening your mouth to teach. Just letting the spirit work with you and having Faith that what he is directing you to say is exactly what the person you are teaching needs to hear. It was a really incredible experience! Jackson asked the question about why God let's bad things happen, and because of the spirit we were able to answer his question to exactly what he needed to hear! He had just finished reading the first few chapters of the picture scriptures from the gospel art book, and he expressed his concerns about God destroying Jerusalem. God didn't technically destroy it He just let Babylon destroy it. He doesn't think God is a God of justice. We were able to explain that God warns, and warns... and warns the people and then he kind of let's off when they continuously reject him and his prophets. In a way that is still how it is today! His question was answered and it was really cool to see his understanding grow. Then at the end he offered to say the closing prayer and it was amazing! Short and simple but he opened with addressing Father in heaven and closed in the name of Jesus Christ! The spirit was so strong. These are the experiences that I will never forget! This week we had a district project we did and it turned out pretty great! We finally finished the Book of Mormon street display board! Yesterday I went on a split with the new Elder in the district, elder Howard. He is a great guy! He is from Orem Utah and has been in the city most recently. He has a brother over in Orlando on his mission and he said he is happy to be here in the NYNYN mission (probably because it's the best😁🗽) because it is blazing hot in Florida. He is companions with one of the elders in the district who is going home at the end of this transfer and I asked him what his goals are and he said his goal is to help elder Hughes have the best last transfer ever. So he will be sending me his plans soon! I just thought it was awesome of him to be so supportive! Ohhhh last thing. We had branch mission correlation and the branch mission leader is Brother Walker (from Jamaica) well apparently he has dentures and none of us knew... So we though he just got a bunch of teeth pulled! He came to correlation with NO TEETH! He must have been getting his dentures cleaned or something because yeah! Nothin. He was super self-conscious about it too! I felt so bad for him I wanted to cry! He was trying so hard to talk normal and he was covering his face and his mouth when he spoke. Ahhh I just felt so bad! And them after elder Newbold was like, I almost asked him if the tooth fairy came! Man it was a very funny/sad meeting. But the next day at church he had teeth again! We had the coolest leadership meeting this week. I love meetings with President. I always learn so much. Something I learned this week was about the atonement and decisions we will make in our lives. I was reading in alma chapter 12 and these 2 verses really stuck out to me! 14 For our words will condemn us, yea, all our works will condemn us; we shall not be found spotless; and our thoughts will also condemn us; and in this awful state we shall not dare to look up to our God; and we would fain be glad if we could command the rocks and the mountains to fall upon us to hide us from his presence. 15 But this cannot be; we must come forth and stand before him in his glory, and in his power, and in his might, majesty, and dominion, and acknowledge to our everlasting shame that all his judgments are just; that he is just in all his works, and that he is merciful unto the children of men, and that he has all power to save every man that believeth on his name and bringeth forth fruit meet for repentance. I love this because our sins cannot be. We must repent to find lasting happiness and joy, we must repent because we want to stand blameless before God at the last day. Can you imagine? Being able to stand blameless before Him? I am so thankful for the Savior Jesus Christ in my life. My awesome trainer Elder L'esperance sent me something that was inspired. I think that’s probably the most valuable thing I learned on my mission, that you can’t be perfect alone and shouldn’t even want that. More than anything else in life what we need is to be connected to the Savior, and the only way for that to always be a necessity is for us to be created imperfect. I have a testimony of that! I love you all! Elder Murray Split, Snapper, Newt, Snake, Top of the tower! So I will just get the fun stuff part over with first so ya'll can end reading this with the spiritual goodness. WE CAUGHT A SNAPPING TURTLE! it was on the side of the road and Elder Newbold says "look! I think that was an armadillo!" Haha so I looked back and saw that it was a snapping turtle! So we had to catch it/make it so it didn't get run over/kill someone in the process. The thing had a long neck that could reach around his she'll and try to get at ya! Super sketchy. It was like a 20 pound turtle! We also barbecued out of our apartment it was pretty funny. Probably not the best idea but hey gotta have some fun 😉
We were able to go on splits twice this week! There are aways what we call split miracles whenever we go on splits. So the first split was with Elder Hughes. He is a great guy and he's almost had to get home multiple times for some health problems but he's very optimistic and I learned alot from him about patience and charity. Then like 2 days later we went on another split and Elder Viera and I had some sweet miracles. We were in Elder Viera's area and the first door we knocked the man totally was open and told us he just barely started looking in to religion because he knew he needed to change his life around. We taught him all about the book of Mormon and set a return appt for the next day! So stoked to hear how the appt goes. And then in our area we finally have a new Investigator! His name is Kevin and he has a wife and 4 kids! Elder Newbold invited him to be baptized and he said yessss!! So excited! So Sister Burton sent me this fantastic talk. The talk is amazing! Ya'll will have to read it. It's called "The Transforming Power of Faith and Character" by Elder Richard G. Scott (October 2010). Man it is such an awesome talk! It is just what I needed to hear! The biggest message I got from it was consistency. Consistency in living the gospel is so key in our lives! There was a paragraph that I loved that I could really relate to. The imagery makes it so real! He says: "Noble character is like a treasured porcelain made of select raw materials, formed with faith, carefully crafted by consistent righteous acts, and fired in the furnace of uplifting experience. It is an object of great beauty and priceless worth. Yet it can be damaged in a moment through transgression, requiring painful, prolonged effort to be rebuilt. When protected by self-control, righteous character will endure for eternity." When we live the gospel consistently we are constantly molding our character and faith to become stronger and stronger and when adversity comes (because it will) we will be better prepared to face it with all of our heart, might, mind, and strength. When we have our father in heaven and Savior Jesus Christ fighting with us nothing is impossible! A great chapter I read in the book of Mormon this week was 2 Nephi 4:26-30. Nephi talks about how he is sorrowful because of how sin can so easily beset him. He then realizes all of the awesome experiences he's had given to him by God and that because Christ new we would mess up he became our Savior and redeemer. My invitation to ya'll is to REMEMBER all the incredible spiritual experiences you've had! They don't have to be big! I love you all! Elder Murray |
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
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