April 30th - Transfers!

Dear Family,

Well everyone, things are doing pretty good here in Madera, but everything is honestly starting to get pretty repetitive and the weeks are blurring together. I still have a lot of fun and I love most of the people here. Good thing I am due for a change. This week we got transfer calls and I am going to stay here in Madera but my companion is changing. His name will now be Elder Vargas. I don't know how things will go but as long as I put my trust in the Lord, I am sure everything will be okay. 

Monday - this week we played sports like always and we had a district meeting on how to effectively use our technology. It was really cool. 

The next day was Tuesday and we taught the last English class that me and Elder Lilly will teach together, which was fun. We got a member to bring some food for everyone, which was cool. We also had two of our investigator kids come to mutual that night which was pretty awesome.

Wednesday was a pretty crazy day. We had studies in the morning and then worked in the Vineyard in the afternoon, which was super super hot. We were driving in stakes to keep the grapes up. That night we had a missionary coordination meeting which was cut short by an emergency that we had to help out with, but in the end everything worked out and we were only two minutes late back the the house, so we were all right. 

Thursday was a cool day. We had a meeting with our most progressing investigator that night and she had had a spiritual experience and knew that she needed to be baptised in our church. She choose a date two weeks from now so all we have to do is get her married and we should be on track for the baptism! Easy right? Not really, but anything is possible with the Lord's help.

Friday, we did some weekly planning which was good and then we had dinner with one of my favorite families. We also taught some good lessons that night.

Saturday was a really fun day. We had an activity for the Primary but everyone was invited and we got almost three families of investigators there. If only we could get that many to church. It was a great activity though and I won the egg race which was fun, haha.

Sunday was a good day. We had a missionary-centered sacrament meeting which was awesome. That night we learned the second half of our transfer calls so we know what we are doing and where we are going now.

Anyways, I love this work and I love this gospel. This week I reread President Nelson's talk about the Book of Mormon from the last General Conference in October and I loved it. I invite you to read it again. I love you all.

Love,

Elder Murray

April 23rd - Birthday Week

Dear Family,

My dearest family, I am so glad to hear about all of the great experiences that you are having back home. This week has been pretty great! I received two birthday packages and an awesome letter. I got the birthday package from Mom and Dad which was great, and I wore the tie on my birthday. I got the one from Grandparents Gentry before that which was so awesome and have to say I loved it. Thank you all for your love and support.

This last Monday was crazy. We moved to a new housing situation and now we live in a real house which is totally cool.

Then we had Tuesday which was a super regular Tuesday in the mission. We taught people and then taught more people English that night. How fun!

On Wednesday we went to the vineyard in the morning and did something new! We were changing out the end posts the whole time and I was getting really dirty. I borrow long sleeve shirts when I go to the vineyard so I don't get sun burnt so I was wearing a purple shirt. We had a cool recent convert come with us named Billy and he is pretty funny. That night we had exchanges with the district leader so I was teaching with Elder Wyne while Elder Lilly was with the district leader.

Then Thursday we spent the day cleaning out the other Elders trashed apartment so that we could close it down. That was pretty fun. I was mopping walls and stuff, after a while though it really started to suck.

Friday was another day in the life of a missionary. We taught people and helped out with whatever we could do. That was the day pretty much.

Saturday we had a really cool service project in the morning called "Love Madera." It was cool we got to serve the community and got cool shirts that say love Madera out of it. 

On Sunday it was my birthday and the day really kind of stunk to start out. The water heater broke the night before so I had an ice cold shower that morning and then I ripped my suit pants during studies because I am really fat now, not really but I am bigger. Then things started to get better because I got some cool gifts at church and then had a member make a cake for me that night. I also had a whole family of investigators come to church which I loved. That night the member made the cake that was super cool. It is tradition in Mexican culture to smash the face of the birthday person in their cake so that is just what happened. Thanks Elder Tapia haha. They do it on the corner though so that you can still eat it so that's good. I will include my presents from ward members in a picture.

That was my week and it was great. Here are some pictures of Birthday gifts, a gift from Lucio the sword Sting (with Book of Mormon for size comparison), Me on my birthday with Jose and his Mom, Me in the vineyard with other Elders, Me in front of the Madera sign, and finally some investigator kids who wanted to ride our bikes one night. Not in a particular order.

 
I love my mission and continue to work to bring souls to Christ. This week I read a really cool magazine article from the Liahona about President Nelson and how he really has been prepared his entire life to serve the Lord as a prophet in these latter days. I love and sustain him and look forward to hearing more of his council this upcoming October as well as studying his talks from the last conference we just had in April. Keep up the good work back home and know that I know this church is true and that our Heavenly Father loves us.

Love,

Elder Murray

April 16 - Moving Out

Dear Family,

This week has been pretty awesome. I have done a lot of stuff this week. For business, I received an awesome card from the grandparents Murray, so that was great and I really loved it. My birthday is in 1 week and I think it is crazy. I don't feel like I have already almost been here 4 months. It is sad I only have so many left to go.

So Tuesday this week was a huge day. We had a Zone Conference and received our new smart phones, which has totally rocked my world! I was just getting used to the missionary daily planner and how to use it and organize my area book. Now I have to relearn it all in a totally new and different way. I didn't think that they did a very good job of explaining the amount of new things we got this zone conference, so it has been a lot of learning this week. I am on Facebook and I don't have any sort of a schedule when I post and when I don't, but I can only post at the church when I have Wifi.

Wednesday was another crazy day. We started off the day in the church vineyard again and this time we finished all the pruning and got a chance to do something new. We dug out an end post that was like 6 feet under the ground and put a new one in. It was fun. That night we had an exchange with our Zone Leaders and I went with Elder Kauai. He is an awesome missionary and I love him as a leader. 

Then Thursday came and it was pretty good. We didn't get to do as much street missionary work as I would have liked to because we were doing updates on our area book and getting Facebook figured out most of the mid day.

Friday was pretty fun. That morning was regular but that night I exchanged again. This time it was because Elder Lilly had a baptism in his old area that he went to, so I was stuck with the English Elders. It was fun though because we met a lot of different people and I went to some areas of Madera I usually don't see because I work where the Spanish people are.

Saturday was good too. It was one of the only days this week I got to do just regular missionary stuff. The crazy thing that happened Saturday though, was that we got a call from the Assistants that told us we were moving from our tiny apartment to a house with the other Spanish Elders. So that was crazy and it was sort of sad because I have grown to like our old apartment because it is small and nice and we don't have to deal with other Elders all of the time, but we still had Elders in the same complex.

Sunday we had church and we got 3 investigators there for Sacrament which was great. Then that night we exchanged again, with the District leader this time, and I really enjoyed it. I think I learned a lot of good things I can continue to use as a missionary.

I love all of you so much and I love this gospel! I honestly don't know where I would be without it. I am so blessed to know that Jesus Christ died for me and that He loves me more than I could understand. I invite every one of you to pray to feel His love more in your everyday life and look for ways to share that love with others.

Love,

Elder David Murray

April 9th - Buenos tortillas, que pasa?

Dear Family,

Hello everyone! I am doing great. This week was pretty cool. We didn't have a whole lot of meetings or anything, so I had a lot of time to talk to people and do missionary work. I don't have anything for business this week, so I will get right to it.

On Tuesday, we didn't do a whole ton. We talked to a whole lot of people and found some cool potentials. Then we taught another English class. We didn't have as good of a turn out as we expected, but still a lot of people came.

Wednesday, we went to the vineyard again. I work in the vineyard every Wednesday morning, and I love it. Things are starting to get hot here, so I have to wear a hood in the vineyard so my neck doesn't get burnt. I already had that happen to my arms so I have been wearing long sleeves this week. When we work in the vineyard, so far I have just done pruning. The next couple months are just fertilizing and making sure things grow good, so we might not work every week. I guess we will see. This was my most exciting day this week, so I am going to keep writing. After the vineyard, Brother Hansen took us to Burger King which was pretty sweet. If you look, there is a video about the Madera vineyard online and most of the Mexicans are in my ward. I am good friends with the main guy in it, Brother Hansen, so try and find it. We also taught the law of chastity to a couple, which was cool.

(Mom's note: If you go look for the video, the person that uploaded it is Beth Lawrence. I guess the vineyard is actually a church-owned welfare vineyard to make raisins.)

Thursday, we had another day of missionary work. I am not sure if it was Thursday, but we had a cool experience this week that I want to talk about. We were riding down the road and a man called us over. It looked pretty sketchy and at first we thought we would just have to do some service, but this guy explained that he was a member of our church and hadn't gone in a while. Then he explained to us that he had a coworker who had been living with him and going through some hard stuff who also used to go to our church, and he wanted us to talk to him. This guy had a heroine addiction and he asked us for a priesthood blessing to help him with what he was going through. We gave him one right in front of a gas station and then got his info and went on our way. Crazy miracles happen when you are serving the Lord. I hope that man is doing a little better now.

Friday was another regular day just serving the Lord. We talked to a whole ton of people and met a really cool Catholic who was interested to here more about The Book of Mormon. He isn't like most Catholic people here because he actually knows his stuff, so we will have to see how it goes.

Saturday we had a priesthood dinner at night that was pretty funny. I love the members in this ward, they are all pretty cool. 

Sunday we had church and sadly nobody came from our investigators. We will just have to keep working and teach these people about the sabbath day! Also one of the members said the title of my email to us, and we thought it was hilarious so I added it in

I love you all and look forward to hearing from you again next week. Tomorrow is the big day that we get smart phones. I am looking forward to hastening the work by using technology and finding the people where they are which is online!

Love,

Elder Murray

April 2nd - Conference Missionary

Dearest Family,

This week was awesome and amazing! I really loved it. Business for this week is short. I received a package from Grandma which I loved. I think I ate too much candy this week. 

This week was great. Tuesday, I had my first interview in Spanish with the president and it was great. He said my Spanish is coming along good and that we need more new generation missionaries like me. We also got a cool training about fearing no man and staying away from distraction.

Wednesday, we worked again in the vineyard and it was great. Brother Hansen told a lot of stories about bears and camps which was way cool. We also visited a market called a Remate that day and talked to all kinds of people. They are super popular here in Madera. It was really cool. They also had 69 cent burgers at this place that day too.

Thursday was cool. It was just a regular day, so it was going to be good to catch up on our week. A lot of things fell through in the end though, so we ended up not having any numbers. Good thing you can do a whole ton of stuff without getting numbers to strengthen the kingdom, which is exactly what we did.

Friday was good. We weekly planned and had some appointments fall through like always, but we had a good night and visited a lot of people. This week we focused on showing a bunch of people the "Because of Him" video to get people excited for Easter.

Saturday was conference and I don't know what it is about conference as a missionary but it was stinking awesome! I learned so much and didn't sleep or get bored at all. We had a tri-tip dinner before priesthood session which was pretty good, and I could feel the spirit so strong through every session.

Sunday was pretty great too. I was blessed to watch the first 3 sessions and the priesthood session in English which was super cool. We had a lunch with Brother Hansen that was baked potatoes and things called resurrection roles for Easter. I was reminded of Anthony's Catholic joke as we drove by the Catholic church and saw people spewing out the doors. I watched the last session of conference in Spanish because we actually had investigators there! It was really great and I found I understood most of it.

As for some spiritual insights this week, if you didn't get a chance to watch all the sessions of conference, I would invite you to watch the talk by Lynn G. Robbins of the Seventy from the first session. This was my favorite talk out of all of conference. It talks about the way to find true success. It is failing over and over again and not losing enthusiasm, and that Jesus Christ knows that each of us will fall. We just have to allow him to pick us back up. Two other talks I loved are from the Sunday morning session by Larry Y. Wilson of the Seventy and from Henry B Eyring. Keep up the good work this week, and a very happy birthday to my brother Gabe!

Love,

Elder Murray