Elder Murray New York New York
6/22/2016-07/11/2018
So this week was great! I studied a ton about charity and stuff again. Studying Christlike attributes everyday really helps. Like a lot! Transfer calls will be on Saturday. This transfer went by pretty fast! We have Mission Leadership Council tomorrow (MLC) so I am really excited for that. Then President Nelson will be coming to our mission on the 9th! So sweet! So excited! Today we played a ton of soccer and spikeball with our district! We have an awesome district. There are 8 elders. Its such a party! But yeah we found these mini goals and it was legit!
The coolest thing that happened this week was our investigator Shane came to church! He is a 14 year old boy that we met on the street! He accepted a baptismal invitation and hes awesome! He kinda fell asleep during church but he is 14 so I'll cut him some slack. He does t know much about god and sunday was the very first time he had been to church! So it turns out that there is a youth in our ward that is on his same cross country team and he has been excellent at felowshipping him! I love this work. You can truly see God's hand in it and I love it so much! My companion and I have been getting along this week! Such a blessing! I got to go on splits with elder Kirkham! I love that guy. Haha it's crazy. We were going on splits together a year ago! His parents went to Olympus high school and they are your age mom. Would you know them? He's the Klienman's cousin. Anyway we found a bunch of people in Newburgh and it was great! This is the scripture of the week. 28 ¶ Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. I love it. I love The atonement! As we yoke ourselves to the savior he will make our burdens light. He won't take them from us. He will give us the strength to bear them! Letting us learn from them and be strengthened by them! It's miraculous ☺ I love you all! Elder Murray
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So this week was pretty great! What an amazing lesson we learn in 1st Corinthians 13. I love it.
4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; 6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; 7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. 8 Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. 9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. 10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. 11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. A cool thing happened this week. So A sister (senior couple) started talking to us and telling us how she's never had a spiritual confirmation that the book of Mormon is true or that Jesus is the Christ or that God exists. She is probably 70 or so and has been in the church for 35 years. Her husband's been the bishop a couple times and she just opened up and told us all this. She told us that she doesn't absolutely know all these things to 100 percent true. As she was talking I could relate to her pretty well. I felt God's love for her and that has never happened to me before! It was just an overwhelming feeling and I could tell that she was sincere and that she wanted to know 100 percent and I just started to tear up. It was kinda awkward but I just testified to her that I knew that God loved her. I told her I could feel it for crying out loud! It was a cool experience. The baptismal covenant stuck out to me after that happened. Mosiah 18 I believe. We have been setting and achieving daily goals like maniacs this week! It gives you so much more purpose! We invited 16 people to church yesterday alone! It was awesome! President Russell M. Nelson is coming to our mission! I am so excited! Dang! Robert Vikara is getting baptised on September 2nd! We are excited for him! He is such a stud! All the cadets are back for school and it awesome! We get to meet with them all the time! They all love coming out with us too! So our ward is like a YSA/family ward 50/50. It's awesome! I love the mish! I love you all! Elder Matthew Murray This week was sweet! We found this kid on the street about a week ago and started to talk to him and he knew a lot about church history! We set up a time to come back and teach him more and he gave us his address and everything! So we went on a few splits this week and one of them I was with an elder in our district and Elder Peterson went on splits with the other Elder. The day we were on splits we went over to the kids house and before we could even knock on the door he opened it and his mom and brother were there! They were super nice and let us in and we got to teach them part of the restoration and set a return appt! It was sweet! They seem pretty promising! Their names are Yvonne, Shayne, and Jeremy. The name Yvonne reminds me too much of the comedy skit where the guy is like can I have yo numba? Can I have it? Anyway... on to the more spirtual side of things!
This week's studies were pretty good. I love studies.i was readi g in 2 Corinthians 9 and in verse 6-7 it says: "But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver" When I read this I was chastised by the spirit! I realized because the spirit taught me that I could and should be a more cheerful giver! So i am working on that. I feel that when we do things just because we are supposed to or because you're expected to you'll get burnt out real quick. You won't have happiness or joy if you just do it to check the box. When it's something you do and not just your head but your heart is in it too then we can truly be happy. Then we can progress. Another thing I learned again was set goals that are measurable and that you can track on a daily basis. We are starting another Book of Mormon Reading challenge! I'm excited! There was a cool event this week called the march back. Cadets march 12 miles from what they call beast. It's like a super hardcore training camp and it was cool! All the members were watching so we just walked up and down the street and talked to them all! I have pictures but I'll send them later! I love you all! The New York Times... but better 😉 This week was awesome! We had zone conference which was great! I was invited to conduct it which was super scary at first but then I realized that everyone there is awesome and I love them all. All of my companions in the mission were there except for Elder Lusk and of course the people that finished their missions. JUST a little update on Elder Lusk! He is killing it! Every time I see President He tells me Elder Lusk is on fire! He is actually serving in my first area! Lincoln Square YSA! Such a great ward.
So anyway zone conference! We talked about Joseph Smith a lot at this meeting and it was so cool. We sang praise to the man, we read and discussed the first vision and just counseled toger. Each time we talked about God the Father and Jesus Christ coming and restoring the gospel through the Prophet I felt the tingling of the spirit. It was a powerful testimony builder for me. It really just shows that God is our loving father in heaven! He has a plan for us! Before this event took place the plan of salvation wasn't looking too good. We were at a halt. So God, with his son our savior, restored the keys of the priesthood keys! We are so blessed. We also talked about the mission goal we have set right now. President was inspired to set a mission goal of 50 baptisms a month for three consecutive months. It is awesome! Please pray for us to achieve this goal! Elder Peterson and I conducted leadership meeting on Monday and discussed our goals as a zone. We set a goal as a zone to get 15 people at church each week for 3 consecutive weeks and build on It. We k ow that as we get investigators to church It get the members excited and then they want to do missionary work which speeds up the work by ten fold easily! It went really well and we all left with an excitement to achieve these inspired goals! After that Elder Peterson and I went to Elder Tatafu's district meeting. I was with him when he got called to be a district leader and he was pretty scared. Well his district meeting was awesome! Super well organized and the district was participating and everything! The Tyrells are a senior couple in their district and they are the coolest! After district meeting we asked the Middletown elders if we could do anything for them. Their area is really big so they asked if we could do a look up for them on our way back to our area because we only get a limited amount of miles and they didn't want to waste any. So we go and do a few look ups for them and it was sweet! We knocked on a door and this girl named Brittany opened the door and started to talk to us and how her dad is a Mormon but doesn't go to the Mormon church any more. Well we taught her the entire restoration and invited her to baptism on the porch. She said yes! We set up a return appointment for the other elders to go teach her! We then went next door and tracted her next door neighbor's house. Same thing. His name was Sam and we taught him the whole restoration extended a baptismal invitation and he said yes too! Holy moly it was such a cool experience! People are prepared out there! Oh I forgot to tell y'all that Elder Kirkham is in my district now! He is a solid guy. He is the Kleinmans cousin. I got to go on exchanges with his companion and Elder Peterson went on splits with Elder Kirkham. Elder West and I went to Newburgh and Elders Kirkham and Peterson stayed at West Point. Elder West and I had such a cool miracle happen! Elder Kirkham and Elder West received revelation that they needed to have a baptism on the 2nd of September to build their ward. So on the split we set a goal to set a baptismal date for September 2nd while we were there together. So we had pretty much every appointment cancel on us that whole day. We had our last appointment at 8. They were bible referrals. We got there and probably taught one of the most powerful lessons on the restoration I ever have. We had never taught together before but the spirit was so present and made it so much better! We invited them to baptism and as soon as we said September 2nd she started crying and she said that is her Sisters Birthday! She and her sister were really close and her sister has passed away. The spirit is so real! Elder Kirkham and Elder West were inspired! They committed to be baptized on September 2nd! Last but not least! We had the coolest family history training yesterday. So cool! I finally understand the why behind temple and family history work. So God has a plan for every single one of us. Well his plan cannot be accomplished without us doing temple and family history work. Moses 1:39 says "For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." This cannot be done without each and every child of God receiving their temple ordinances! Immortality is much different than immortality and eternal life. ALL of us will be resurrected and be immortal but eternal life is living with God and our savior Jesus Christ. Each dispensation has had its purpose and was fulfilled. This is our dispensation. We have been given keys to fulfill it. We need to fulfill it! If we don't Ephesians 1:10-11 says: "That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him..." then in D&C 2:2-3 it says: "2 And he shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers. 3 If it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming." So what I learned from this is that we need to do temple and family history work! The purpose of this dispensation is to gather Israel. So yeah! I have a testimony of that now! I love you all! I hope you have a fantastic week! West Point is awesome! Zone leading is fun! It's just super weird because I've gotten so used to district leading and its a whole different world! I love how the church works though! Delegation and all these cool responsibilities really give us a chance to learn and grow! The members here take really good care of us! They feed us every night! I love it because it really gives us awesome opportunities to build relationships with them! Also there is a senior couple here and they are great! They are the Goodiers from Maine and they serve as the military relations senior couple. Ok so we are doing this awesome thing with the members right now. Elder Wadsworth mentioned this talk called "write down a date" by Elder Ballard in the October 1984 general conference! We are committing all of our members to follow elder Ballards counsel to write down a date, for sometime in the near future to have someone over to be taught by the missionaries! We've already had about 7 member families COMMIT to a date! Ahh it's going to be awesome!!! I'll send you our spreadsheet of how we are keeping track. The members here are so faithful! I invite you all to read that talk and do it! And all the missionaries out there reading this invite your members and investigators to do this too!
Me and my new companion live in the city right next to the army academy. We live right off post. (That's how you say it. Its not "base" its post.) My companion is awesome! His name is elder Peterson. He is from Colorado, Idaho, Alaska, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Missouri, and then he got called to Turkey, then there was a war and he got emergency transferred to Germany, and then he got reassigned to NY! Yeah he's a problem child. Love him though. He's awesome. He has a twin brother serving in North Carolina. We have a blast together. Can't wait to see what's happening with the bishopric! Are you the bishop dad? Can't you just tell me? Sheesh. Its awesome that the walk abouts were so successful! I can not wait to go on huge family trips! They are going to be a blast! I love you all! |
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
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