Elder Murray New York New York
6/22/2016-07/11/2018
Awesome District, he is off to Harlem YSA, My new Comp Elder Norton! This is gonna be sweet! I had a great week this week! Yesterday we had transfers and my new companion is Elder Norton from my MTC district! Elder Peterson got transferred to the Harlem YSA ward. He'll be missed! Elder Norton and I served around each other in Winchester. It's gonna be a sweet companionship! Today we did a service project for army community service (ACS) it was pretty fun! We helped set up a domestic violence awareness walk.
The past couple of days we have been visiting members because Elder Peterson wanted to say goodbye to them all. They are such solid families! One of the members here bought us 230 dollars worth of groceries on Friday... I didn't know what to do with myself! It was insane! She and her family are going to be so blessed! We walked around the store and she was just putting things into our cart. It was crazy. She is so faithful! Taryn had her baptismal interview and Elder Smith (district leader) was blown away by how well she answered the questions. She has been so prepared by the Lord. Then her baptism was on Saturday! Such an awesome day. There was so much support from the ward! She was so happy and excited! And she's not usually a super excited kind of person! After she came up out of the water she said "awesome!" Something I personally love is teaching the restoration at each an every baptism. It's so powerful and it's incredible what an attentive audience can do. When you have an attentive audience the spirit just flows! Elder Smith and his companion came and brought one of their investigators who speaks only Spanish. He had a cool experience when he was translating for her. He said the words were just talking out of his mouth. He wasn't even thinking. It's crazy cool! On Sunday Taryn got confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was amazing. I was given the opportunity to confirm her and it was seriously so cool! She has so much potential! I can just see it in her! She loves church and the gospel and prayer and wow! Then we had a lesson at a recently found new investigators home. Their names are Kayra and Don. They just moved in and are really awesome people. We invited them to be baptized and they said yes! We tried setting a date but they declined so we will work with them. In my studies this week I learned something great. I was reading in the Book of Mormon student manual and there was an excerpt from a talk that I loved! It's called "Zion in the Midst of Baylon" in the April of 2006 general conference by Elder David R. Stone. He said: "My involvement with the building of the Manhattan temple gave me the opportunity to be in the temple quite often prior to the dedication. It was wonderful to sit in the celestial room and be there in perfect silence, without a single sound to be heard coming from the busy New York streets outside. How was it possible that the temple could be so reverently silent when the hustle and bustle of the metropolis was just a few yards away? The answer was in the construction of the temple. The temple was built within the walls of an existing building, and the inner walls of the temple were connected to the outer walls at only a very few junction points. That is how the temple (Zion) limited the effects of Babylon, or the world outside. There may be a lesson here for us. We can create the real Zion among us by limiting the extent to which Babylon will influence our lives." My big takeaway from this was that we are existing buildings. We don't have to tear ourselves down and become someone completely new to be who God wants us to be and do the things that he wants us to do. We can build our Zion inside our existing selves no matter what the circumstance! We sure are in the world and we do have to live here but we don't have to be of the world! We just need to be connected to the world "at only a very few junction points" and we don't have to be negatively affected by the world. Something I feel to bear testimony on is the sacredness of the home. I know that the home can be a heaven on earth. My invitation to you all is to have family night once a week! It will change your lives. If you already do then look for ways to improve family night! I love you all! Thank you so much for your love and support. Elder Murray
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1. The awesome Newburgh zone! 2. Studies after general conference (Elder Peterson was sick on the couch behind me) It's been five months and the ward finally called a ward mission leader. His name is Kendal and he served in Nathan Morris' mission. He just got back at the beginning of the school year and is a cadet here. He's great! Last preparation day we finally met with Krista! She is the daughter of a couple who moved in about 3 months ago and she wants to be baptized! She is nine and is pretty awesome! We are trying to strengthen the whole families testimonies. Especially because in their last ward they got offended and stopped going. Bishop will be going over to their house tomorrow so we are excited to know who that will go. We got to have a bunch of video call lessons this week with Tim who is a cadet investigating the church and Allison who is engaged with an LDS cadet. It's awesome! I love doing video call lessons. They are so efficient! Especially when they are back to back. Tim is a stud though. He is roommates with one of our cadet members named DeMar and DeMar introduced him to he missionaries and he's been meeting with them ever since! Tim had a baptism date set but due to the inability to meet with him more frequently we had to move his date back. Cadets at West Point are so busy its ridiculous. Tim LOVES the plan of salvation though! It's the best. I got to go on a split with my wonderful Tongan friend and former companion Elder Tatafu! It was so great to be with him again! He is a hilarious guy. We took pictures but I can't transfer them to my tablet right now. Elder Tatafu is training right now and his companion is having a hard time with the language. He is a native Spanish speaker and learned English in the MTC. Elder Tatafu was kind of of the same way except his native language was Tongan. Elder Tatafu has been helping him with his English I think it's awesome how the Lord works! They are together for a reason! On Sunday I was able to do a baptismal interview for one of the district leaders in our zone. They taught Lisveth so well! She was so prepared and answered all the questions amazingly! It's always the coolest thing being able to get to know the candidates conversion story and understand why they want to follow Jesus Christ in their lives. Then when we were up in Middletown doing that President Smith called us and said he was driving by West Point and wanted to come out with us. We were 45 minutes away from west point so we weren't able to 😑 such a bummer. Taryn bore her testimony on fast Sunday! Ahhh one of the coolest testimonies ever. No fear no awkwardness no nothing! It was perfect! She explained that she had a really hard time in high school and there is this girl that still bullies her online and stuff. Like it was bad. She was super anxious about it and she just went out on her deck and cried. She said she had never turned to God before and she asked Him to take away the pain and she said he took it all away. She even closed with saying "in the name of Jesus Christ amen"! God loves his children. On Monday brother and sister Threet invited Taryn over for dinner and a lesson! It was awesome! We she is truly ready to live the gospel for the rest of her life. She has a testimony that Joseph Smith was the prophet of the restoration and she knows the Book of Mormon is true! Her baptismal interview will be on Thursday! We are so excited for her! She is getting baptized this Saturday at 6:30 pm. Scripture of the week was Moses chapter 1. Most especially verse 10 and 13. You'll have to read to make sense of 10 but in verse 13 it says: 13 And it came to pass that Moses looked upon Satan and said: Who art thou? For behold, I am a son of God, in the similitude of his Only Begotten; and where is thy glory, that I should worship thee? I know that as we truly come to find out that we are sons and daughters of god we will have a greater ability to resist temptation, become more confident, and have the ability to receive greater direction and guidance in our lives! I love you all! This week has been wonderful! I fully gained my testimony of the first vision. Like I know that it happened. I can actually say I know that it did. I don't think I could before, but now I can without a doubt! Ahhh it was so awesome! I don't think words can describe it. We had mission meeting on Friday and this is what I wrote down after this incredible experience.
September 29, 2017 12:34 pm I just fully gained my testimony of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Elder Holt taught us the restoration. He is deaf and he taught it in American sign language. Elder West was translating for us by telling us what Elder Holt was signing and then Elder West just stopped talking and we watched as Elder Holt signed Joseph Smith's first vision. The spirit washed over me and told me that this event absolutely took place. I now know without a doubt that Joseph Smith truly did see our Father in heaven and his son Jesus Christ. Joseph Smith was called to be a prophet and to lead and guide His church in these latter days. Then on Saturday and Sunday we had general conference! Elder Peterson was drop dead sick so we stayed in on Saturday but still got to watch conference at the church. It was kind of the worst. I had never stayed in and not worked on my mission... Annnd I'll never do it again! It was awful! But I made the best of it and re-watched some of the talks and took more notes on them. I have shaken 2 of the speakers hands! President Nelson and Bishop Waddell! So cool to see them speaking! Here are a few of my fav talks and why. They were really all so good though. Wow looking over my notes now. This is way to hard to put a few down! Elder Holland's was awesome! I loved the talents analogy. LOVED IT! Elder Christofferson's was also amazing! I love when apostles speak about the sacrament. I love how he commented on how each piece of bread is unique and how each one of us are also unique. We all have our own individual needs and the sacrament helps us fulfill them. Elder Bednars was amazing! I loved how he emphasized making the home a place where you can take everything you learn from the temple and church and all those good things and learn and teach how to apply the things you were taught by the spirit! During the Priesthood session I had an eye opening experience. Our investigator Shane came. Totally knocked out the whole time... I tried to wake him up the entire time and he just wouldn't stay awake! And then I looked back on my life when I was around his age. That's all my dad did during most of the Priesthood sessions too. And now a few years later I look back and understand why he was "annoying" me the whole priesthood session haha because it is extremely important! And he loves me. Thank you dad 😁 Anyway that's about all I have time for today but we went hiking so I'll send some pics! I love you all! Have a great week! 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
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