Elder Murray New York New York
6/22/2016-07/11/2018
You guys seem to be having a quality summer! Is everyone doing well over there? I miss yall. This week went by fast but nothing too exciting happened this week. We met a couple new people and set some return appointments and the people we did meet seem pretty solid! A lot of people cancelled on us last minute which kind of sucked but that's ok because we found new investigators! One of the people we found was named Tashiema and she had some really rough experiences in her life and we sat down with her on the steps she was sitting on and taught her how the gospel brings happiness and by the end of the lesson she had a book of Mormon in her hands and a smile on her face. She even said she wanted to come to church with us! It's awesome. It made me so happy. Then the other family we taught weren't religious at all and we taught them about how families are blessed with the gospel and we set a return appointment with them. They were black and awesome and her baby was the cutest kid ever! She gave me a high five and bones and I finally got her to smile after like 5 minutes but it was fun! Black people are the best. A lot of people in lower Manhattan have seem the Broadway play the book of Mormon and they always sing this song in it when we walk by and it's pretty funny. Other people like yell MORMONS! At us and we're like "yup! You're right!" Also pretty funny.
We had zone conference and it was way cool! It only happens every once in a while but we learned lots. I felt the spirit a bunch during the musical numbers and my testimony of charity and love grew. President was telling us how much he loved his family and how he would never let them stray off the straight and narrow and if they did he would be there for them to get them back on. That's what you (mom and dad) do for us and that's what I will do with my family too. Love, Elder Murray Answers to some questions about what it’s like here: I have no idea if it’s sketchy here “like downtown SLC” haha I guess it might be at night but I honestly can't really tell. Everyone here is pretty nice! If you start talking most people will carry on conversations and everything! It is sort of sketchy in Harlem and by the project buildings but I don't feel like threatened or anything haha We went to Harlem on accident when we got lost haha. It’s not in my area right now. We haven’t really been sightseeing on Pday yet. My comp has to do a bunch of stuff for school so we don't get to do anything but clean, laundry, and email on p days until he leaves in 3 weeks. Our apartment is tiny! And multiple very large cockroaches and a few mice too... probably because our roommates never clean up after themselves! Uhg we meet them clean today and it finally looks good! And I didn't take pics of the dead cockroach haha and we live with 2 other elders-they are cool. Elder Geppelt and Elder Schmidt. They both weigh over 200 pounds and are pretty funny dudes. The food is usually great unless they cancel on us! Then we just eat rice and chicken burritos for dinner haha. My short sleeved shirts are heavenly they are thin and comfy. It is soooo hot here. It's like worse than Florida. Everyday.
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Thank you tons for all the cereal and Spikeball its great. Ok this week has been so much better than last week! I'm getting used to the smells of the city and the weather. On Thursday we had our first leadership meeting because my comp is the district leader. We were reminded of the covenants we made in the temple to give our lives to serving God. It helped change the attitude of the mish because we are not here for ourselves we are here for heavenly father. It's been awesome!
On Thursday we were going to have president smith come out and street contact with us but he asked us to come help him in the Baptistery in the temple! It was way cool. I got to be the recorder and check off the names after they got baptized and confirmed. It was weird because usually really old people do that but I guess I can now too! President Smith baptized his daughter idk her name, Will his son, and Will's friend that is visiting. We did a ton of names. And they were all in mandarin which was cool!! Haha it was kind of funny to watch everyone struggle with the names during the Baptisms and confirmations. Ok the next most awesome thing is working with members. We cover two wards. The Lincoln square YSA ward and the Morningside heights ward. We had to start from scratch with the Morningside heights ward because they haven't had elders for years. Through the members there we have had a lot of success. We got to teach a recent convert named Chris Gonzales the importance of the priesthood and blessing the sacrament. We practiced they prayer a bunch and challenged him to bless the bread on Sunday. He said he would and he got up to the table and broke the bread and stuff but got scared and didn't but I'm sure he will next week. He acted though! Working with the YSA members is even more fun we get tons of referrals from them and they always want to come out and teach with us because they are basically all returned missionaries! And having a member present while teaching and investigator is always way better. The members in the YSA ward are all soooo awesome! So this girl in the ward came to us for referrals and told us about this guy that her friend had met at the library and we scheduled to meet up with him. We had a lesson at Aya's house and had an awesome lesson! We planned to extend an invitation for him to be baptized. I did it, and he said he would prepare to be baptized on the 6th of August! It's awesome. Other than that street contacting is getting a little easier and everything is going good! We met another guy on the street and he was super interested so we took him to the church temple and gave him a tour of the chapel and taught him the restoration in the chapel. It was so spiritual! We invited him to say the closing prayer and he did. It was pretty hilarious because he's not of our faith so he said this Pentecostal prayer with his hands outstretched and everything and then half way through he was like can we all hold hands so we did and he asked heavenly father if Joseph Smith was a real prophet and if the book of Mormon was true and I even felt the spirit! It was funny but cool. He also committed to baptism so I’m really hoping it works out. Members feed us every night and things are good! Oh and we set up a return appointment for Michael (the guy we gave a tour of the chapel to) and he gave us the address to his work and we must have put it in wrong... he said it was the little Italy restaurant so we went there and he wasn't there so we went to the next little Italy restaurant 6 streets over... wasn't there either then we went to the next one like 4 streets over. Wasn't there either. Well luckily we had a member with us. He is the best guy. His name is Chris Meek. He walked to all of these places with us and even better he helped us carry those boxes from the cereal yall sent me all around the city. We would have taken them straight home but we were going to be late to the appointment we had made with Michael if we did so we decided to just lug them around it was great! I almost died. I took out a guy on the stairs on my way down to the subway because he was on his phone and didn't see me haha luckily he didn't like fall down the stairs. Anyway that's pretty much my week! I love and miss you all! -Elder Matt Murray 1-4 Arrived 5 the district 6 the boxes 7 the cereal Wow. This place is crazy. Wellll where to start. We got on the plane to Detroit 2 days ago and we got to ride first class. It was awesome. They fed us breakfast and everything. I got to meet all of the other new missionaries in my mission and that was cool. We went to Wendy's at the airport and it wasn't that great but I used my gift card there so that was good. Elder Norton is such a good guy and I got to sit near him on the plane. Anyway after our layover in Detroit we got on this miniscule plane. It was so crunched I just put my head on the window and slept. It was cool to see the city from the plane.
After we landed the mission president and his family picked us up and put all the missionaries luggage in a U-haul and we drove to the mission home. We ate at the church right next door to the mission home and they had Olive Garden catered for us. It was soooo good. Bread sticks are amazing. We talked to a missonary named elder Sorensen who is going home today during dinner and he gave us some good advice. All everyone says is you just have to do it. Seriously everyone just says you just have to do missionary work haha. But anyway after dinner we had testimony meeting and it was spiritual. Then we ate dessert and the Smith's rented out the elders a hotel because they couldn't fit all 27 new missionaries in the mission home. I had night mares all night and it was awful. I was sleeping in a giant bed with Elder Norton and he said I was preaching the gospel in my sleep to so yeah that's fun. We got up at 6:30 in the morning and the office missionaries who works with the mission president picked us up. We went back to the he mission home and had a little study time in the chapel next to the mission home. All the trainers came to the chapel a little later and we had a devotional and then got introduced to our trainers and got assigned to our different areas. I got assigned to the Manhatten west area which includes the YSA wards and Morningside heights family ward. While we were waiting to get on the metro to Manhattan we did some street contacting. We got a return appointment and will send other misionaries to her because she lives in Scarsdale and that's not our area. My comp started it and I didn't really do much except some stuff about families but she seemed interested. Our apartment is like a 15 minute walk from the temple. My companions name is Elder L'Espérance from Quebec Canada. He goes home in a month and is a good guy. I'm leaning a lot from him. I've gotten to know the back of his head really well because I don't have a clue where I'm going while walking in the city and he walks 1000 miles per hour. Which is good. I'm definitely not gonna get fat here that's for sure. We walk just about everywhere and take the subway too. It's smells awful pretty much everywhere except the laundromat. Idk why anyone would ever want to live here its always noisy and stinky and gross. Street contacting is the hardest thing ever. Its just walk up to them, and talk to random people about the gospel. It is so uncomfortable to me. I know it's important and stuff but it kinda stinks. I'm gonna work on that today. Elder Norton got assigned to the Bronx, Elder Bradley got assigned to Poughkeepsie, Elder Smiley got assigned my same area and is in my zone. We met with the elders quorum president of the YSA wards here and he was a chill guy. He didn't feed us dinner though... he offered but my comp said the bishop was going to feed us. Then we went and met with the bishop of the YSA ward and he was cool and his family was kinda crazy. They didn't feed us either. They gave us some cookies and that was our dinner. After that visit we went home and had a planning session and went to bed. I was so sweaty and gross from walking 1000 miles per hour all day long. Today I woke up and there was nothing to eat in our apartment except instant mashed potatoes so that's what I had for breakfast... We are gonna have to do some serious shopping today. I love and miss you all Matt Here are a couple of pics from the last day at the MTC and the chapel and the first class airplane meal. Hi all!
It's pretty scary and cool to teach what they say are "real" investigators! It can sometimes be pretty frustrating because they just either don't have the desire or just don’t understand. So we're working on teaching more simply. It's crazy how much more powerful a lesson is when it is taught so simply! It's pretty sweet. Last week we had Nathan Marrs and Jen Cope. Nathan never could seem to grasp hold of the idea of faith. So we told him it’s just like trust. (This idea was taught to us by our teacher brother Bues.) We got through three lessons with him and we had the next lesson planned and ready but that morning he went to the doctor because he had an asthma attack. We left him with a note and a video for him to watch. Jen progressed a lot while we were teaching her. At first it was a little weird and we forgot about some things that we had planned and the lesson didn't go very well. The second lesson came around and we knocked on her door and she said she'd be right there but when she came to the door she was crying! She said she needed to stop being emotional. I was hoping that the appointment she had before us had made her cry. She said she needed to cancel and then she left. On our third visit we found out why she was crying. Her dad was really manipulative and rude sometimes and that's why she was crying. She made us cookies because she felt bad for canceling. They were was good cookies and we asked if there was anything we could do to help her. We taught her the plan of salvation and stuff. We also showed her the video called because of him. She said she almost cried during the video. We told her that that was the spirit working with her. It was cool! She reads the book of Mormon every night and that's also cool. We got assigned a new investigator this week and his name is Zack Labrum. It's sweet because he played for BYU Lacrosse and he was a middie. His coach was Marty Wescott and so was mine haha we both agreed that he was a grumpymold man. Anyway he is engaged and his fiancé wants to get married in the temple eventually so he is secretly taking lessons from the missionaries. The first lesson we kind of just got to know him and taught him about the restoration and the book of Mormon. We challenged him to pray before reading chapter one in 1st Nephi to receive guidance and understanding, and then after to ask if it was true. In our next lesson we asked if he had read and he said he forgot. We then taught the plan of salvation and it went well and I could feel the spirit helping me teach him. Its not some huge revelation thing but just small things like helping me remember words that will better help him understand what we're teaching. It's pretty cool! I asked him if he would feel comfortable saying our closing prayer and he did it and it was an awesome prayer! He asked for guidance from God to help know the truths of the gospel and know what to do for his marriage. We challenged him this time to read 1st Nephi chapter 22 and in our next lesson he said it wasn't as hard to understand as he thought and ya! He is going to read the intro and the trstimony of the witnesses and first 5 chapters until our next visit and we will talk about it and follow up! We have burgers every day for lunch and those are getting old. They usually do have pretty good salads tho so that's a lifesaver. Our teachers here are the best. I can almost always sit through a three hour class without getting bored in the slightest. It's easy to participate and everything. Our original teacher brother Pliler got his tonsils out and about a day or two after his surgery he came and taught us because he couldn't find a sub because it was the 4th of July. It was hilarious. He was high and said some pretty funny stuff like he was constipated and he had little mice in his throat scratching around and more. He's a funny dude and gets really into depth while teaching. Our other teacher is brother Bailey and he's pretty great too. He is from Texas and says yall a lot. He told us about this story on his mission where he literally saw his friend get moved out of the way of a car that ran a red light by an unseen being. I got the major chills while he was telling us about it. While we are speaking of chills our district is preparing a farewell hymn for Sunday because we are out of here Monday morning at 3:30 am! Anyway we were singing hymns together as a district after lunch because we had like 15 minutes before class started and we sang a couple and most of us are decent at singing so it's sounds pretty good but none of us could decide which one. Finally we came across hymn 100 nearer my god to thee and it was awesome! It was a very spiritual experience. The district I have is awesome. We're basically family at this point haha its fun to hang with them all at lunch and exercise time. Everything is good here and I'm stoked to go to NY on Monday! Oh and we get to call people at the airport so yeah be aware 😉👕👔 Love yall -Elder Matt 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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The Bronx 4th Area
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