Christmas Call

We had a great time talking to David on Christmas! He told us some fun stories about his mission, such as the nerf gun war and the trampoline place a member owns called Quantum Leap.

He seemed really happy and was smiling and laughing a ton. He got up and down several times to do things, which is so typical of David it made us happy. He seems like he is working hard and really enjoying his mission. We are so happy for the blessing of his service.

December 24th - White Christmas!

Dearest Family,

Merry Christmas! This week has been pretty great. I'm not going to write a very long email today because I will see you tomorrow on video chat.

I would however like to encourage you to have questions for me so that I can answer them!

I should be calling anytime from like 10-11 my time tomorrow. I am not sure what time that would be for you all but I will send you a Skype message before we start.

This week was pretty great. We had a baptism here for a girl named Jansy. She is super cool! Other than that, we have been visiting people and doing our best to share Light the World messages with those who are members in our ward.

Sorry for such a short email. I am having a huge nerf war here and will tell you more about it tomorrow but to be completely honest this week has not been super exciting anyway.

Love you all!

Love,

Elder Murray

December 17th - Gift Exchange

Dear Family!

We have been pretty great out here in the field. As for business, I am doing well! I am excited to call you but I do not know anything about time or which platform I will be using so sorry. I will try and let you know next week so that you all can be ready for it. This week has been standard so I don't have much to tell.

This week the only thing that really happened was that we had Zone Conference. It was pretty fun. We had a gift exchange thing that we did and I got a "California Fresno Mission 2018" Blanket. It is super soft and I was stoked because I was one of the three people in the whole Zone conference that got one. That morning I sang in two special musical numbers which was fun. 

The other Elders had a baptism so we went to that with one of our friends and it was really good for her to see people and meet new people.

Other than that, this week has just been meeting people and singing practices for Zone Conference and teaching people and all that stuff.

Sorry that my letter was so short this week. I will try and do some more exciting stuff next week but I can't promise anything. I love Christmas time on the mission and I love all of you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Murray

December 10th - Light the World

Dear Family,

I am doing well. This week Elder Butler received his Christmas package and it was massive. His parents and family sent me some stuff too, which I thought was super nice of them to think of me. I am doing well in the realm of business and am awaiting a Christmas package from Grandma and Grandpa Gentry and the gift from Grandma and Grandpa Murray. Now for some cool stuff that happened this week.

One of the things we did this week was we had interviews with our mission president, which were super short. President has been making me sort of sad lately because he seems to have forgot my name he always calls me Elder Miller. I can't blame him though he has 208 or so missionaries and he only remembers the ones that either cause him problems or have some sort of circumstance. I was informed before interviews that the Senior Elder who I was going to sing with is sick and won't be able to sing for Zone Conference so I asked if I could sing with another Elder.

Friday the zone leaders had MLC or Mission Leadership Council so they dropped Elder Willis off with us. We burned this stuffed animal that was from a girl we are teaching who is trying to get away from her ex-boyfriend who is an abusive turd and also cheated on her. It felt good to burn it haha. She will be getting baptized on December 22, so we are super excited for her.

Saturday we did some cool stuff as well. That morning at around 7:30 am, we got a call that they needed help with a move and that they would come pick us up, so we went out to help move this lady in the ward. She needed to be out of her house by that afternoon so we loaded up her stuff and then went to the place where she was going to store it all. The place was some little crappy abandoned house in a little town called Ivanhoe and the walls of the place had tons of mold on them and the place was covered in dirt, so bishop was like "There is no way we can leave her stuff here." We took it to this member's second home where he doesn't have anything in his garage. The crazy part was that we had a baptism at 10:00 for this kid we had taught who turned 8 and we wanted to go to it even though it was a stake baptism. Our friend was coming to it, so we needed to be there so we had to change in like 5 minutes and rush over there. We ended up making it on time and all went well. Later that same day, we went to this lunch in that he had for his baptism and his birthday. 

Saturday we also went and sang at another retirement home and we talked to some old people which is always fun. The most fun thing to do is talk to old people who speak Spanish because you have to strain to hear them and they are always surprised that you speak their language.

Sunday we had stake conference which was cool. Our former bishop got called to be in the stake presidency after only a week of being released from bishop which was pretty cool for us because we knew him. I listened to the Spanish translation for some of the time because I like to practice my Spanish and I like to her how the translators translate the stuff. It really is interesting.

Other than that this week we have been sharing a lot of Lighttheworld with the people we meet and those we are teaching and inviting them to invite their friends to the special sacrament that we are going to have the 23rd of December. Entonces I would also like to invite you all to invite those that are your friends or maybe your cheer group or anyone that you know to come to the special sacrament meeting on the 23rd of December and tell me how it goes!

I love you all and wish you the best and look forward to hearing from some of you soon in the Christmas Video call!

Love,

Elder David Bruce Murray

December 3rd - Small Ladder

This week was pretty normal. To be honest, it has all blurred together for a while now. As for business, I received the Christmas package and it was great. I added the window sticky things to our front door with all the Jesus pictures. I ate some of those steak things and I put all the presents and the stocking under the tree. However, I did open one present early. We were going to bike to this city called Goshen that is like 10 miles away and we would be returning at night, so I figured it would probably be a good idea to have a light so I found the one that was the light and opened it. Hopefully that is okay. I am doing well though and happy to be serving the Lord this Christmas season.

I am going to opt for a more event based email today so you will have to read about what I am doing rather than the boring days when I did nothing. The first thing we did this week was we marched and sang carols in a Christmas parade here in Visalia and it was fun. My legs hurt and my throat muscles were sore afterwards, but it was good and fun.

Another thing we did was we biked to Goshen. We pretty much spent like 6 hours out there knocking doors because none of the potentials we had were answering so it was kind of lame. We did get to go to this little strange burger drive up place that was pretty good. Then later that night we found a family that is members that lives in Visalia who were up in Goshen. They were there because their house was getting fumigated.

Then we had a service where we set up for this big Christmas event that was called like the sword sisters or something at this other church. It was pretty cool and it is why I named the email what I did. They kept having to put stuff high up so they would always have me go up there and put it up because I am super tall so I told people that I am a small ladder. It was a fun time and we got some chicken sandwiches which were too much bread.

Another thing we did was that we went to sing and carol for old people in retirement homes. We spent some time talking with them afterward and it was cool to talk to ancient people in Spanish because like two of them didn't speak English. One of the English ones from Cali, and I said that I was born in Sacramento and that my grandparents still live there. I am glad my grandparents are not so old that they can barely converse with people. It gives me hope for my future. Granted they aren't 98 yet so Idk. Love you Grandma and Grandpa Gentry and Grandma and Grandpa Murray!

The last thing that happened was that our ward got a new bishop this week and he is the one guy I was telling you about who went to Davis High. He is awesome and probably my best friend in the ward so I am excited. I am sorry to see Bishop Chandler go though. He was awesome and so inspired. It is weird that I was one of the last missionaries to serve in his time as bishop. We had a new friend we are teaching named Jansy come to church and stayed all the way through the devotional.

Those were really the big events of the week. Hopefully you LOVED my email and you weren't mega bored. I love you all and wish you the best!

Love,

Elder Murray