This week has been pretty wild and pretty exciting so I will actually write an email this week to share with all of you.
We started off the week with this Monday ,when we went to go bowling on the Fresno State Campus. I did really well, nevertheless my Mission President's wife beat me with a score of 193 when I only scored 184. Anyways that night we went to work and we found a cool family from Iraq that speaks Arabic (Sadly they told us later this week that they only believe in the Bible and that they would not even read the Book of Mormon.)
Next day, Tuesday, we had our apartment checked for the last time by Elder and Sister Tardiff who went home this week. We also had an exchange with the Office Elders who are in our stewardship. I went into their area which consists of all the very rich people in Fresno so we visited a man who had custom furniture and furnishings from the Philippines and China. He gave us ice cream with whipped cream from a whipped cream maker. Later that night we went to welcome the new Senior Couple in the office named the Yarringtons. They are really cool. We talked about Japanese because that is where he served his mission, as well as Amish people because apparently my companion has a sister that was adopted from an Amish community.
Wednesday, we were able to finally have a more regular day and we ended with a meeting with our ward mission leader that was super good.
Thursday we went on exchanges with the assistants Elder Wyne and Elder Degn. I was in my area with Elder Degn. We had a couple good lessons and we ended the night at a practice with a very kind old lady named Sister Enns who is playing the piano for our performance of "When you Believe" this Wednesday. She reminds me a lot of Grandma Gentry. I love little old ladies!
Friday we had a pretty crazy adventure. We went out to dinner at Taco Bell with several missionaries from our district and one thing led to another and somehow we ended up letting the other Elders borrow our car for the night so we took their bikes. We spent a lot of time biking that night but it was good to get back on the bikes for a change. We visited with a super cool person who recently moved to the United States from Mexico City and we taught them about our purpose here in this life using Alma 34 with a member from the Spanish Ward that we attend.
Saturday was also nuts since we decided to take the bus in the morning and ended up walking for like an hour. It felt good though and made us feel like we were real missionaries in a foreign country instead of state-side missionaries with a car, haha.
Sunday we had three of our friends come to church. We had dinner with our recent convert family and we had several appointments with people that night.
Today we are going to have a Nerf War and I am excited to smoke people with my superior weapon. We will see what is in store.
I wanted to share a story that I read in a BYU devotional this week that really impacted me. The story goes as follows:
Many years ago the old country fair in parts of England was, besides being the place of exhibition for farm products, [the place] where employer and employee met. . . .
Farmer Smith wanted a boy to work on his farm. He was doing some interviewing of candidates. A thoughtful looking lad of about sixteen attracted him. The boy was confronted with a rather abrupt question from the gruff old agriculturist. “What can you do?” The boy swung back at him in the same style, “I can sleep when the wind blows.”
. . . Notwithstanding he didn’t particularly like the answer to a civil question he got from the teenager, there was something about the gray eyes of that fellow that got under his skin.
He approached the lad again with the same question, “What did you say you could do?” Again the same answer bounced back at him, “I can sleep when the wind blows.”
Mr. Smith was still disgusted with such an answer and went to other parts of the fair to look into the faces of other youngsters who might want a job on a farm, but there was something about that answer he got that stuck to him like glue. First thing he knew his feet were carrying him back to meet the steady gaze of those deliberate eyes of the boy with such strange language.
“What did you say you could do?” for the third time he thundered at the farm help. For the third time, too, the farmer got the same answer. . . . “I can sleep when the wind blows.”
“Get into the wagon—we’ll try you out.” . . .
One night Farmer Smith was waked about 2:00 a.m. with what might be a cyclone. It seemed that gusts from the north in only a few minutes developed with intensity to threaten the roof over his head. The trees cracked and noises outside turned the nervous system of our friend upside down. The speed he used to jump into his trousers was only outdone by the lightning as it broke up the darkness outside. With shoes half-laced he rushed out into the farmyard to see if anything on the premises was still intact, but he would need the services on a wicked night like this of that new boy. He called up the stairs of the attic where the latter slept, but the response was the healthy lung heaving of a healthy lad. He went half the way up the stairs and thundered again, but only a snore echoed back. In excitement he went to the boy’s bed and did everything but tear the bed clothes from the youth, but the lad slept on.
With a mixture of desperation and disgust he faced the gale, and out into the farmyard he plunged. He first approached the cow barn. Lo and behold, the milk producers were peacefully chewing their cuds, and the inside of their abode was as snug as a mouse under a haystack. It didn’t take him long to discover how the boy had chinked up the cracks of the cow abode and reestablished the locks and hinges. In the pigpen he found the same tranquility, notwithstanding the forces at work that night.
He turned to the haystack. As he felt about in the darkness, it didn’t take him very long to determine again the preparation of the lad with the gray, steady eyes. Every few feet on that feed stack wires had been thrown and weighted on each side. With this construction the alfalfa was peacefully under control and laughing at the elements.
Our farmer friend was stunned with what revelations he had in a few minutes of that cyclone night. He dropped his head. His mental maneuvers shot like lightning to the boy snoring in the attic. Again, the peculiar answer of a few weeks ago slapped him in the face: “I can sleep when the wind blows.”
I really loved this story when I heard it and it reminded me that honesty and integrity are valuable Christlike attributes that we should strive to develop each day in our lives. I, like this boy, want to be able to say that I can sleep when the wind blows because of the character I have and because I don't wait to repent or to be better. I hope that each of you will take that to heart and assess your character so that when the challenging times in life come, when you have to make a decision that you know who you are and where you stand and that decision comes second nature to you.
I love you all!
Elder Murray
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