Elder Murray New York New York
6/22/2016-07/11/2018
We were filming ourselves roll play the plan of salvation anndddd there is this cool way to take selfies on the Samsung. You basically wave at it and it takes the picture so yeah that was fun! (Pretty funny picture!) Another good week! This week was a good time. I went on the split with the district leader which kinda was the worst. His area is super different than ours because his area is in white plains and Scarsdale which are really wealthy areas and pretty much just normal neighborhoods with massive houses. The district leader and his companion don't really have any investigators right now other than one so we literally knocked doors for hours without any success in the frigidness. It's getting cold here! We talked to a few people but nobody was willing to set up another time where we could come back or listen to our message about the book of Mormon or the restoration sad for them I guess! Any way that's pretty much all we did all day until we had an appointment with their investigator and he is a Jehovah witness and kinda just wanted to bash about stuff. He doesn't quite understand the authority and how it was restored but we went over it and focused on it with him but all he could talk about was how we celebrated Christmas on December 25, and it doesn't say to celebrate Christmas in the bible... so yeah that was a little frustrating! We had a member come with us though and he helped a ton because he is a convert and could relate to him. Anyway the rest of the week is cool.
We had zone conference which was awesome. President smith and sister smith give training and talks and stuff and we got to work on making the restoration lesson more powerful as a lesson in our companionships. It was pretty cool to see all the missionaries in our zone trying their hardest to be better missionaries and be so focused and pay so much attention to President. I got to see elder Norton and Sister Hess from my MTC district as well as a couple of the other guys I that came out with me! They are killin it. Elder Brown and I had a cool experience with a media referral. This lady was on discover.mormon.org and ordered a bible and a book of Mormon so we called her and set up a time to visit. We taught her the restoration and invited her to be baptized. We didn't set a date yet but we are going to on Monday when we meet her next! It'll be awesome! Also we have an investigator on date for November 13th. She is older and wants to be baptized. She was a dropped investigator but one of the ward members wanted us to start teaching her again, so we did and she's quite knowledgeable! Her name is Janice and the only thing that we think is holding her back is her church attendance! Everyone that lives in downtown Yonkers doesn't drive and so there are a ton of less actives there. We have been trying to find her a ride but it's surprisingly really hard! We are trying to come up with a ward plan to get investigators and less actives to church. Maybe some sort of church van service. That would be awesome. Anyway that's pretty much all for the week!
0 Comments
Hey ya'll. Twas a pretty solid week! We are doing a 100 day challenge of reading the book of Mormon and right now I'm reading about Abinidi. Such a cool story. Nord was telling me about how cool the student manual for the book of Mormon was and so I have been using that as I have been reading too. It's so cool and you really do learn so much from it! We have a few really cool investigators. Ones name is Joseph, he has the cutest little daughter and she is seriously so tiny and she talks so fast you can't understand a thing she says! Haha she is always playing with my tie whenever we are teaching her dad. They are progressing and he reads and loves the Book of Mormon. Jay Lee is the daughters name. I'm hoping to gets pics with them next time we meet. We were supposed to meet with them yesterday but apparently Josephs ex-wife is in the hospital so we couldn't go over there yesterday.
We also have this way cool investigator named Dante. So we stopped him on the street and started talking to him. Elder Brown and I have this super easy way of stopping people. So one of us will walk just in front of the other and the elder in front will say hi and try to stop them and if that doesnt work then the elder in back will either introduce himself or say what's your name? And stretch out his hand to shake the strangers hand. It works probably about 90 percent of the time. Hopefully that makes sense. So Dante! He is awesome. He had met with missionaries before and has read a little bit of the book of Mormon and has the like base knowledge on how we got it. We were able to teach the restoration to him yesterday and it was actually a way awesome lesson! It went super well thanks to the spirit! We set up a return appointment and everything. We asked him to read and pray about the book of Mormon and he said he would. He said he wants to feel that peace that we were talking about. Soooo Yonkers is straight up sketch. So ghetto hahaha it makes me so happy to look gangsters strict in the eyes and say hi! Have a fantastic day! I know Heavenly father is protecting me and they all look like they need some cheer so yeah its so much fun. Seriously love how ghetto this place is. Everyone will listen to you! We got 22 other lessons this past week which is a ton for our mission. An other lesson is teaching a principle, committing them to do something, (such as read this chapter in the book of Mormon, or come to church) and then get contact info such as phone number, address, social security, and all those fun things to ask for 😉 it's a blast. For all yall that know the movie Creed, like the part when he is running down the road and the street bikers are following him doing wheelies and stuff? Well those guys are here and they are cray. They just ride their bikes around with their squad and run red lights like they're nothin... haha so there's that and also everyone in Yonkers couldn't give a poop if the light was red or not... we watch people roll through reds probably 5 times a day. It's hilarious because they'll be stopped and then they see that nobody is coming so they'll just sneak through it. People are insane drivers here. And these neighborhoods are actually sketchy. At least in South Yonkers. We had those media referral and this lady had ordered a bible and so we brought it to her and she was telling us this story of her son and how he got shot and killed right outside her apartment and stuff... We got to have a cool lesson on the plan of salvation! It's sad though. Anyway some super funny things happened this week. Our pad (apartment) has some quality dudes. One of which is going to BYUI this winter. We have this powdered peanut butter stuff in the cupboard and it like turns into peanut butter slowly after you get it wet. I challenged him to eat a spoonful of it and he did it... which I didn't expect him to actually do it but it's like a fine powder like cocoa powder (Elder Buehner) and it was coming out his nose and mouth and I was just yelling at him to just eat it! Not like mean yelling but like just ya, playful yelling if that's a thing. And he was yelling back "MY MOUTH IS LIKE A DESERT, I CAN'T BREATH". luckily he didn't die and it was hilarious so yeah good times. We run 4 miles every morning and that's fun except we get up at 5:40... uhg. So yeah that's pretty much life here. It's fun! Halloween rules are I think we have to return to our apartments by 6. Enough time to make some quality cookies and have a party. Oh sleepy hallow is in our area. Pretty sick. So the wifi decided not to work on the only day I needed it... I'm sorry! I'm writing this without wifi so if I haven't answered any questions its because I haven't gotten any emails yet.
This week has been pretty sweet! There are these things that are called media referrals and they are people that order a bible or a book of Mormon or both and then we go over there and give them a book and then teach them a lesson. We have two pretty solid investigators from those and we invited both of them to be baptized and they said yes! So ones name is Derek and another ones name is Joseph. The coolest part of this week however was the tracting experience we had. So we had this lesson set up and we texted the guy before and he told us to come over. We drove all the way to his house and knock on his door and his wife answers and tells us to basically go away... it was no chill! Well anyway we tracked around their neighborhood for a little without too much success and then we walked up a couple streets to go visit a potential investigator and set up a lesson with her and her family so we did that and that was awesome! Well this is the cool part. We walk down 2 flights of stairs and I knock on this door not really thinking too much about it. The spirit obviously guided me to knock on that specific door because there were 4 different doors right in front of me. Well I knocked on that door and this guy opens his door right across the hall apparently the apartments are connected. He starts to talk to us and we start talking about the book of Mormon and how it will bless us and help us and he invites us in his home and we teach the first lesson which is the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. You need know that people don't usually just let you in their homes the first time you meet them in NY. Especially Yonkers! It's a super sketchy place! He was super interested and he felt the spirit. He is going through a divorce right now and we read Ether 12:27 with him. "And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them." (I always like to share this scripture with people the first time we meet them) He told us that he loved the scripture and felt that it was true. We continued to talk about the priesthood authority that our church has and how our church is the only church with that authority to act in God's name. Wellll that was the perfect time to invite him to be baptized and the spirit was telling me to invite him to baptism. It's scary to do it but I did it. HE SAID YES. It was just so cool because we had just barely met the guy and he had felt the spirit so strong that he was willing to be baptized within 30 minutes! Ahh it was awesome! Tender mercies are incredible! I love our father in heaven and I know that he truly does love each and every one of us on an individual level! I really do know no matter how hard life's trials can be, our heavenly father will bless us. In D&C 111:11 it says "Therefore, be ye as wise as serpents and yet without sin; and I will order all things for your good, as fast as ye are able to receive them. Amen." I read this scripture as I was studying obedience and I thought it was so cool! If we are obedient we will be receiving blessings so fast that we won't be able to keep up with them! The mission is awesome. I love you all! Love, Elder Murray P.S. happy birthday mom! I sent you a letter ☺ You guys are so lucky you got to go to Causey! How was Chloe's birthday? I hope she got my letter! Here are a few fun pictures of Matt at the Temple, good bye 1st apartment, Goodbye Elder Tabor, and Hello Yonkers and Elder Brown It was awesome to see Kaela singing in conference! Haha I knew she was gonna be singing so it was sweet. Miss my cousins, and lacrosse, and guitar, I got to play ukulele and I can still play that so that's good! I got to play don't worry be happy and that was fun! Ahhh. So I got transferred to Yonkers... my new companions name is Elder Matthew Brown from California (The Last Picture). I will miss Elder Tabor for sure. Elder Brown has been out 7 weeks so I am finishing his training. Training is 12 weeks. Yonkers is crazy different from my last area. We have cars and there's houses and trees and grass. Greenery is awesome here in Yonkers. The leaves have not started to change yet. We got up to go running this morning at 5:45. It was great I loved it. Probably ran like 2 miles but my comp was dying so we had to head back. It really has been so cool getting down on our knees in people's front rooms and praying and listening to our investigators praying and asking if God is really there for them and then asking them how they feel. They tell us they feel more secure and more at peace and have more clarity than ever before. It's insane!!! But anyway going back to when I was in Manhattan... Conference was awesome! Man if we could have got all of our investigators there they would also get baptized. Seriously every question they had would have been/was answered. So awesome! Natsuki got to come to a session the one Kaela sang at and we talked about baptism with Natsuki and then they sung a song about baptism and Natsuki said all the songs touched her heart. We had a lesson with Natsuki right before the session and we established our purpose with her and asked what she wanted to get from us meeting with her. She told us that at first she was meeting with us to get to know about our religion but now she actually wants to know if this is the right path for her. It was sooo cool to see that change of heart! The member that came with us to that lesson bore her testimony and it was so spiritual! The members name is Karen Shamo and is Natsuki's roommate. Later on in the week we met with Natsuki again but this time with a member named Oliver. He hasn't received the Melchizedek priesthood yet and nobody knows why. He is such a solid guy and he helped a ton in the lesson. We taught her about how to recognize answers to her prayers. Oliver used the phone analogy how when you call someone you don't just say hi and then hang up. You say hi and then you wait and listen to what they have to say. That clicked for Natsuki and it was so cool! We got to walk Oliver home and built a good relationship with him. He is 23 so we are trying to get him on a mission. 😉 We were meeting with our other investigator named Jack as well. He is from China and is totally gonna get baptized. He has so much real intent and already has a testimony of the book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. We teach him over Facebook because it works better for him. We record an opening prayer and then the lesson and ask him to send us his question regarding the lesson then we record a closing prayer and send it to him. When he gets the time to listen to it he sends us his questions and we go from there! We are on lesson three with him and Elder Tabor and his new comp will commit him to baptism tomorrow. Another one of our investigators name is Alfie we got to meet with him on Friday night over dinner with Mia who is also a member of the YSA and is a recent convert. She has been a member for a year so she is preparing to go through the temple. She referred her friend Alfie to us. He is awesome. He has read so much of the Book of Mormon already and is so into it. He used to be in the military and was a big drug addict. He told us that nothing was stronger than the pull of the drug methamphetamine except the book of Mormon. He said that it is so much stronger. That was so cool to hear from someone like that. He is so cool and he committed to Baptism but we haven't set and date yet. Other than that I got to say bye to my friends in the ward and yeah! Yonkers will be good I'm excited to try my hardest to build this ward and train Elder Brown! I love you and I miss you! All of you! |
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
|