Elder Murray New York New York
6/22/2016-07/11/2018
Pics Mazda rx7 Goodbye Bently and Harris Polaroid! Classy yellow rain suit Fun apartment idk And that's Yonkers for ya Ok such an awesome week! So Saturday was probably one of the best days of my mission so far. It all started with getting up nice and early and Elder Brown let us do two laps instead of one because more than that he ends up falling asleep during studies which is normal towards the beginning of you mission. Then I found cracked wheat in our kitchen and I love that kind of hot cereal! So made that and we had these way good frozen blueberries and I put those in there and it was so flippin good. I felt pretty accomplished 🤑 then we went and visited this less active who we shared the Christmas initiative with and she said it made her happy, then this super old Irish lady stopped us and started talking our ears off and told us how she almost fell down the stars once. We tried to teach her but she was like nah and kept talking. So we told her we had to go and she told me I was a cute young man and I was just well thanks! 😁 then we got back to the car and I went to the back to get a book of Mormon and there was this MASSIVE flattened squirrel that I almost stepped on! It scared me to death! I may or may not have screamed... Anyway after that we went to look up this less active who people haven't been able to contact forever and she wasn't home... and it was a nice apartment building so we had to get buzzed up. So after we learned that she wasn't home Elder Brown started to walk out and I got prompted to ring a buzzer. I didn't know which one to ring soo I closed my eyes and just rang one. Well the persons buzzer I was lead to press let us right in! It was so cool! We went up and down taught her a lesson from the door because there wasn't another guy there and gave her a Book of Mormon. She said we could come back Saturday and I'm stoked. Then we asked her for referrals and she referred us to her sister across the street! We went over there as fast as our feet would take us and would ya look at that! She opened the door and let us teach her about the book of Mormon. It was so awesome. Words can't even describe how pumped I was. I was just happy all together that day.. like overly happy. But boy it was awesome! She said we could come back on the weekend too! Then we went over to Noels house (he is a less active member btw) and when he opened the door you could tell he hadn't had a good day. Well we got to talking to him and shared the Christmas initiative with him and the spirit and us and our joy totally changed his mood! He even thanked us and said he hadn't had a good day but we made it way better. It was awesome! Such a great day! Love you all!
Elder Murray
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No real pics but Elder Wadsworth cut Elder Cheneys hair and they didn't want to change so they just wore trash bags it was funny. Thank you for the awesome pics of the bathroom and the fire place! That will be way sweet! I also love the recordings! They are the best! Also I will be sending you all a letter hopefully today. Is it snowing and stuff over there? It is freezing here.
Hello! So this week we had a ton of appointments fall through it was pretty sad buuut we got a member bring a friend to church and we will be teaching him the discussions now! It's sweet! He's golden. He's already told us that he doesn't like tattoos and loved church and we'll be having thanksgiving dinner with him! It'll be sweet. He was such a tender mercy. We also had zone conference with 3-4 of the the zones in the mission. It was awesome. We got a sneak peak of the new Christmas initiative #LIGHTtheWORLD and it is AWESOME. So be lookin that up right after thanksgiving we will be doing a lot of service and stuff! And especially with investigators. We already have planned to go do volunteer work with Derek. He said he wasn't ready for baptism and didn't know if he wanted to join a specific church yet.. it was a bummer. But he still wants to meet with us and so we will continue to meet with him. He'll get baptized don't you worry. We had a zone activity today and we played volleyball and basketball it was way fun! There is this one Tongan named Elder Mafi and he is straight crazy haha he's hilarious he just yells and yells and president had to tell him to calm down like 4 times. President is awesome. At zone conference he gave everyone there a 5 dollar bill to go bug hot chocolate. I know yall know this scripture but it is awesome. Mosiah 2:17 17 And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God. It's so true! You completely lose yourself in the work when you serve others. It's because you are helping gods literal children. Your literal brothers and sisters! A scripture that goes along with that is Alma 37:6-7 6 Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise. 7 And the Lord God doth work by means to bring about his great and eternal purposes; and by very small means the Lord doth confound the wise and bringeth about the salvation of many souls. Even the smallest things can change people's lives! Continue to serve others and you will continue to find more joy and more blessings in your life. Love you all! Elder Murray Zone and district pics First injury of the mish We got to play sports at the Scarsdale chapel. Twas fun! That pic on the bridge was a ten second timer so I had to run and get to the river from the bridge and the bridge to the river. Twas fun like running around. The cemetery First, shout out to the awesome ward and ward members for the birthday wishes. Love you all! I would send you all a letter back but I won't have enough time today!
Hey! This week was pretty great! Other than the fact that we had to move Janice's baptism back because she never can make it to church. We had a ride all set up and everything and she somehow still didn't make it... but we had some more cool experiences! So, transfers happened and I get to stay with Elder Brown! It'll be a good time. He's great. It's sad because elder Bentley and Harris went home. But now we have new elders. Elder Cheney and Elder Wadsworth. They are cool! I am now the district leader for our area so we will see how that goes! Now I know that the Lord doesn't call the qualified, he qualifies the called. We had some pretty awesome lessons with our investigators Dante and Derek. We are helping Derek overcome his smoking addiction and he us going from 9 cigarettes a day to 4 so he can be baptized. He is an honest seeker of truth and he found and watched the restoration video all on his own and everything. He's great. Dante is this guy we met street contacting. He is one of our most normal investigators and said an awesome first prayer! I read the talk that speaks about ponderizing scriptures and it's an awesome talk! My Heart Pondereth Them Continually challenge each one of you to pick a verse of scripture each week and ponderize it. It really does bring blessings and joy! Oh my goodness. Heavenly father answers prayers. I knew that already but just a testimony builder experience. We had prayer in companionship study to just find 1 new person to teach that day because we had a lot of tracting and calling planned for the day and most the time people are not interested but we can teach them and then they don't want to see us again. Well we completely forgot that we had prayed about that and we were knocking doors and this kid opened it. He looked about 12 or thirteen and we started talking to him about the book of Mormon. He took a copy and we asked him if his dad other mom was home. The kid called his mom and asked where she was. She told him she was about 3 minutes away from home so we waited. She got home and let us in and we were able to teach the whole restoration and she explained to us how she has been looking for a church to be a part of and as we taught her the restoration she became more and more interested! It was so cool! We taught her about church and she is super interested. She will hopefully come with us this Sunday! She wants to raise her kids in a place where they will be able to have good standards and things. God does answer prayers. I felt totally guilty because that day we did not deserve any tender mercies. It was not a hard-working day neither of us had much motivation so that gave me a ton of motivation to work harder so I will actually deserve those tender mercies. We were able to have another delicious dinner at the Collazo home and that family is awesome. Sleepy hollow was awesome and super colorful! I'll send pics love you all! Elder Murray Sister Lazo, Holy scenery, Derek This week has been AWESOME! It's so funny because here in Yonkers there is A LOT of finding. We have a few member referrals in process but we haven't got to teach them quite yet. Finding can sometimes be a little discouraging when you don't find anyone to teach all day long... but those memories of long days vanish instantly as soon as you teach a lesson and feel the Spirit. Like a couple days ago we had a pretty long day of less active look ups, tracting and all the above finding with not much success. Then we had a lesson with one of our progressing investigators named Derek. I love that guy. He is experiencing the joy the gospel really does bring into people's lives! We had planned to teach him the word of wisdom because he told us he knew he had to stop. Wellll the spirit thought we should go about teaching it another way. First we started with a prayer and followed up with him how his reading and praying was going, he told us he had earnestly prayed and felt the comfort, peace, and strength the Spirit brings. It was great! Then we asked him how he liked the chapter we gave him to read in the BOM. He hadn't read it which was a little but of a bummer but we asked him if he even remembered what chapter we gave him. We gave him 2nd Nephi 31 about the baptism of Christ. But he said, "I think it was something with a 5 in it... " both Elder Brown and I instantly turned to Helaman 5:12 "And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall." We had him read it and his mind was blown. The Spirit was so strong and he paused for a moment after he read it and was like "wow!" And then another moment and he was just in awe and said wow again! He then read it again and ahhh it was sooo cool! The Book of Mormon is such an amazing book! He like went through every sentence and we watched as the Spirit testified to him that he needed to build his foundation in Christ so he could withstand all of Satan's temptations and not be dragged down to the gulf of misery and endless wo of his addictions. It was such a cool lesson.
More funny experiences: My comp rides a bike while we all go running every morning because he somehow hurt his achilles tendon (not sure how to spell that) and we ran (he rode) past this guy walking his pit bull and rapping to his music. And the dude called Elder Brown out hard core. The guy just yells while laughing "He's riding a bike! Boy, you gotta be running too!" I seriously was laughing for the next mile... it was hard, but hilarious. Elder Brown's pride was hurt haha. This week or maybe last... while tracting we knocked on this one door and it's like a straight up gangster party in the house. This guy opened the door and was like "what the cuss are you mother cussers doin here?" But he didn't say cuss. He was genuinely pissed. We were both kinda just like umm mm how are you? And then walked down the stairs becausem he closed the door. We got a good laugh out of that. Oh and on Sundays we bring Sister Lazo the sacrament. She is so funny and so old. But somehow her humor gets me laughing and I can not stop! It's bad! She falls asleep mid joke and I just can't... I needed to pray to stop laughing. Then I got Elder Brown laughing too. Maybe it's just because Sundays are always so tiring or something but I love that lady. She is awesome. And that is my week! Haha good times. Love you all! Love, Elder Murray Birthday cake Halloween party with Noel This persons decked out Halloween decorations. It was insane! Elder Bentley in his batman pajamas We waited for Janice (one of our investigators who is getting baptized on the 13th) in her front room for 15 minutes. While she was getting ready. We asked her if we should reschedule but she insisted she was almost done with whatever she was doing in her room. She is like 70 so we asked if she needed help but she just kept yelling at her son for 10 minutes straight. She just kept yelling "Terrance!" Elder Brown started busting out laughing and so I couldn't help it either. It was a good memory so we took a selfie haha Hey ya'll. What an awesome week! Last Sunday we had a miracle happen! We met up with one of our investigators after church and he is struggling with the word of wisdom. We were teaching him the plan of salvation when the thought popped into my head that we should give him a baptismal date! So, I did and he accepted! November 27 is his big day and he is super determined to get over his addictions. We are praying for him and he said he'll be able to make it to church next week! We are stoked. Other than that, we had the ward Halloween chili cook off so most of this past week was rushing around inviting every single inactive and less active member to the ward party and it was crazy but awesome! We got rides for two people we wanted to come and not many other were able to make it. The only problem here in Yonkers is nobody has cars so nobody can get to Scarsdale for church or anything! But this less active named Noel came with us and he is awesome. We got to hang out with him and introduce him to a bunch of members. Then we did some more look ups after the party. the next coolest thing was on Sunday we got to go eat at a member’s house. They are the Newman’s and they are really funny. The kids that are 11 and under are all obsessed with flags. If you name a state or country, they can tell you exactly what is on the flag and everything. It was hilarious! One of the youth named Josh is going to be coming out with us to teach lessons and it's gonna be sweet! After dinner, we went over to another member’s house and it turned out they were having a b day party and they made us come in and have cake. It was sweet because I got cake for my b day and it was good too 😉 the Lord provides! Haha we had a lot of appointments cancel so we did a lot of less active look ups and seeking referrals. I've made a goal to always have a referral for the missionaries when I get back because nobody ever has any! Wellll that's actually not true. We had another dinner with a member and he gave us one straight up! It was sweet. Working with members is so key even if you only get one referral in a month. We will hopefully be meeting with him next week! On my actual birthday, we had a few Facebook lessons and those went well! We had to go home early so we bought a pizza on the way home and I put candles in it and it was pretty fun. Love you all! Thanks for the b day wishes and I hope y'all have a fantastic week!
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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
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