March 20th - PIctures from Elder Murray

David did not write a letter this week, but he did send a whole bunch of pictures. We spoke to him on Monday. He and his companion seem to get along very well. Elder Hernandez is from Chile, and speaks English very well. He seems like a really nice young man. David's allergies are horrible right now, as they always are in the springtime. He is very allergic to grass and the pollen count is high. His back hurts quite a bit as well, but despite all of this, he seems in high spirits. They are keeping busy spreading the word of the Lord, and he encourages us to do the same. We are so proud of him and his missionary service!

March 11th - Stop Smoking!

Dear Family,

I can pretty much omit the business section now that I can talk to Mom every week, so I will skip it.

This week I will hit the most funny, or important things that happened.

Friday nigh,t we played soccer like we usually do with a whole bunch of guys which was fun. I am getting a little bit better at soccer and I look forward to playing every week.

It's allergy season again so I have been dying lately. It seems like I left my pills in my apartment in Visalia which sucks, so I called my last area to see if they could send them to me. I will have to buy some today to get me through the week.

We had an exchange with the Zone leaders this week which was good. I was leading my area so we visited some less active members and I taught in Spanish while my companion sat there. The Zone leaders here are English missionaries so they can't really participate much in our teaching.

We had a priesthood activity this week as well. We got a ride there with two brothers because we are trying to save miles and we mexi-rigged (as Dad would say) a bunch of tarps up around some picnic tables. It started to rain really hard and the tarps were not set up the best because these old Mexican dudes did them so one of them fell down. We ended up huddling under the other one, two white guys and a bunch of Hispanics, haha. It was a good time. We ate some carne and they prepared "tuétano" which is bone marrow. I was licking it out of the bone with my tongue because I had no other way of eating it. Everyone thought I was a weirdo, haha.

Earlier that same day we knocked on this lady's house and she told us that she was going to paint. So we offered to help and we went and changed. It was pretty funny. They had these two doggies named Jesus and Sol who were super fluffy. They tried to give us pizza after but we were in a rush so we took it to go.

We ended up teaching a lesson called the stop smoking lesson twice this week, which involves the person using cinnamon mouth wash and grapefruit juice so we bought a lot of that this week. Especially since we taught the lesson to three different people in this one family. Hopefully it will help them to stop.

This Sunday, I was blessed to have the opportunity to confirm Luisa which was super cool and the first time that I have confirmed someone. She was happy and brought her little sister who is five who doesn't usually come to church so that was cool. We also had one of the men that plays soccer with us come to church. He looked good! He had this red suit jacket on with black highlights, it was sweet. We were excited to see him there.

Other than that, my favorite man ever Raul Sanchez took us to this restaurant called Black Bear Diner this week and it was awesome. I have a picture of that but I didn't take very many pictures this week. Me and my companion both don't take a lot of pictures and that means that we pretty much just don't take any the whole week so I have two to send back this week.

Everything was good this week. We were super busy but we had a lot of fun. I love you all! Remember to read the Book of Mormon and pray! The church is true.

Love,

Elder Murray

March 4th - Chilean Adventures

Dear Family,

This week has been crazy so I decided I would write about it for the blog. It has been weird lately, being able to communicate with my immediate family each week, and it has been harder to motivate myself to write emails back home. This week however was pretty nuts, so I will go over the play by play so that it can live down in the history books.

Tuesday was a good day. We had interviews with President Mackay and I took some time to talk to him about our area. We were given a training by the Zone Leaders where we learned about 4 key points in missionary work that we will be striving to improve over the upcoming months of the mission. The four are Finding, Teaching, Members, and Leaders.

Wednesday was a regular day. We didn't do a whole lot. We just tried to visit a lot of people and a bunch of people either canceled their appointments or they weren't there.

Thursday one of the people we are teaching had her baptismal interview, so the Zone Leaders helped us to do that for her and she passed, which was awesome.

Friday was a crazy day. We started out in the morning with service at the Zoo which is always fun. Then we had to do some weekly planning which takes a while to do. Then that night we had our soccer night and one of the guys there brought like his whole team, so we had a bunch of nonmembers there. The best part was that almost all of them stayed to listen to the lesson which is usually just something simple we share with them. One of the guys even participated in the message which was super cool.

Saturday might have been even crazier than Friday. That morning we were supposed to have two appointments so we left the apartment early. Then we had a baptismal interlude that we gave. It was pretty nerve wracking because we had just received training on how we should do a baptismal interlude and our mission president was there. But it was the best one that I have done yet and President told us that the baptism was great and that he wished he could have videotaped it so that missionaries could have an example of what a baptism should be like. Later on that same day, we had a lunch with Raul Sanchez who is a member that posts about us on Facebook a lot. It was crazy though, because my first transfer in the mission field I served with this sister named Sister Balls who finished her mission that transfer and then returned home. Well, she got married and came back for the baptism so her and her husband were at the lunch with us and then showed up to our dinner later that night which was super weird and was making me realize how old I am. 

Sunday was the day of our friend's baptism so that whole day we were running around making programs or in MCM or Branch Council and we were just going all day until the baptism ended at like around 3. Then we went to a member's house because she invited us over to eat at her house for her birthday, so we went to that which was good. It has been a long time since I had mole from Oaxaca so it was good to have that again. Then that night we did missionary work and now here we are. The weekend was super crazy we were going almost nonstop for the last three days. 

Anyways, that was my crazy week! I hope you all are doing well and I look forward to hearing from you again soon.

Love,

Elder Murray

February 25th - New Companion

We didn't get a letter from David this week, but we got to talk to him! His companion Elder Wride was transferred and his new companion is Elder Hernandez. He and David were at the laundry mat when we talked to them this week. He seems to like his new companion and things are going well. 

February 18th - History Made!

This week, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints announced that they were changing the way missionaries communicated. From now on, missionaries will be allowed to call, text, email, or video chat with their family. Wow! Paul and I were amazed. This is really big! 

I got my first text from Elder Murray and it was really cool. We got to speak to him at lunch and it was so good to hear his voice. At first, we all thought it felt really strange. David has seen some major changes in the church during his time on the mission. After we talked awhile, it just seemed normal to me. I was talking to my own boy again, and it was really nice. 

David sent some pictures this week, and I got some from Facebook that I will post here. 

Dear Family,

I talked to a lot of you today, so I don't want to take very long writing this email. I will probably just talk about some highlights and send some pics.

This week it rained a lot so we were working in the rain for the majority of the time. We did our best to teach our friends and help them to grow their faith. 

We went to the zoo this week in the rain, which was pretty cool. It was muddy so we just cleaned poop and cleaned the pond which was pretty cool.

This week I also stepped on a thorn that went through my shoe which wasn't super fun. 

At church,  we had three friends show up and they enjoyed it. We will keep working with them.

Other than that have a great week and I will talk to you next week.

Love,

Elder Murray