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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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
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