July 2nd - July! Mission is a whole lot bigger!

Dear Family,

Thank you for all of your support! I really missed hearing from Jacob and Ben this week. That's okay though. I guess you are all together anyway. Jacob, you are getting huge! I wish I had biceps like those homie,s woooh. I am pretty sure I had something else to say but I can't remember.

Tuesday was a good day. We had interviews with the Mission President this week and it was really great. I learned a little about family history and how I can use it in my work.

Wednesday was also a good day. I had an exchange with my District leader in Reedley and Dinuba so I led my area and we had a good night. 

Thursday we worked in Dinuba for the day and we talked with a really cool new family that was a referral we received more than 3 years ago. Now we are teaching them and they are willing to learn. We ended up biking to Dinuba which is a 6 mile trip but Elder Reza got a flat tire so we had the Zone Leaders pick us up to take us back home. Then we went out to dinner with a senior couple that works here in our boundaries named the Brandts after that we worked two towns in our area that are farther away from where we live.

Friday we just worked the whole day in Reedley and we didn't have a whole ton to do so we spent the day trying potentials and less active members.

Saturday was fun. Elder Reza had a baptism to go to that night about an hour and a half drive away so he went to that and I stayed with our Zone leaders. He ended up getting home later than we should have but everything turned out good in the end.

Sunday was a really cool day. The sisters here in our branch had a baptism and we did the interlude. We shared a message on finding peace through Jesus Christ and His Atonement.  

My area here is very spread out. It is about a 20 minute drive to where we have church every week and we work two different larger towns that are about 6 miles or 15 minutes or so away from each other. One has about 25K population and the other about 20K. We also cover two towns further away called Orange Cove and Orosi they are both sort of tiny places and are hard to get to most weeks on the miles that we have. Anyways, sorry my letter was a little bit shorter today but I love you all and I wish you the best.

Love,

Elder Murray 

June 25th - Great trees and New Horizons

Dear Family,

Mother! Thank you so much for sending me glasses! I can finally see now and I don't have to be afraid I will hit a dog or a kid or worse when I drive at night. They got to me that Friday, and Elder James was very good about getting my Zone Leaders to pick them up. I still haven't gotten the other ones but I got a call from Madera the other day that said they were here so I may wear them when I get them just so I don't break the expensive ones. Thank you so very much for sending me money. I love my family.

Alright, as for the week, things start out this Tuesday. We worked in Dinuba that day and it was good. Elder Reza works very hard so there are not a lot of people that get past us without us talking to them.

Wednesday was a good day as well. I went on an exchanges with Elder Cranford and it was actually really great. We had some good talks about the MTC and the time when I freaked out because a bird pooped on me. Apparently there was a class watching me that I didn't know about lol.

Thursday was also a good day. We once again worked in Dinuba and we talked to a lot of people. That night we went to Orange Cove and tried to do some finding. Orange Cove is a very small town a little ways away from Reedley where we live. It is very beautiful and there are a lot of orange farms out there. Hence the name.

Friday we worked again. We had some good lessons and I was pumped to have new glasses and actually be able to see at night. That day it was 102 degrees outside and it was not very fun. The sad thing is that it will get much hotter before summer is done.

Saturday we had to go get an oil change on our car in Fresno. We ended up staying at Carl's Jr. while they were changing our oil and we finished our weekly planning, had a good dinner and then did a little studying before we got our car back.

Sunday was fantastic. I ended up having to give an impromptu testimony during sacrament meeting in Spanish and teach the Priesthood class in Spanish. I did pretty well and didn't have any problems. That night I had my first member dinner in a long time and I was very happy.

Thank you so much for all of your support and love as I serve in the mission field. Keep up the good work back home and always remember the Savior is there for you in your times of need.

Love,

Elder Murray

June 18th - Reedly and Dinuba

Dearest Family,

This week has honestly been pretty rough. I think that I am starting to settle in a little more and things are getting better though. I still have not received pants so I will have to keep waiting for those. As of right now, I still do not have glasses. . . it is getting really old. I finally sent all of you a package today with some dank mission crap. I just hope that you like it. Sadly, I kind of wish that I had not because I feel like I am plowing through my money and no matter how hard I try I cannot seem to stop. I went without a fast food lunch today and ate a bowl of Cereal instead. I have about 25 dollars for the last two weeks and one preparation day so we will see. I bet that I will end up spending more on the personal card :(. Mission life is sometime hard, family. I wish I was in one of those foreign places where you can live really cheap. 

Tuesday was the first day of this new transfer so I left Madera and went to Reedly, which is an interesting place. I miss Madera but I am getting used to it. My new companion is Elder Reza who is a pretty good Elder and works really hard, but he does some things that really get on my nerves. I am not going to have as many dinners here with members, so it looks like I will have to spend more money in order to not starve.

Wednesday was the first regular full day here in Reedly and it was pretty hard. Things are very spread out here. We cover like 4 or 5 cities and we can only use 1,000 miles a month. That means that I will be biking again when I am in Reedly. Wooh. We also don't have a church building that is open here, the one got shut down because there weren't enough people from this town to sustain it.

Thursday I had exchanges which was a well needed relief. I went to Parlier to work with an Elder that is really cool named Elder Christensen. We had a good time teaching some pretty poor people and also some kind of rich people, haha. It was fun, his companion is . . . you will never guess who . . . Elder Cranford! That means I will be reunited with my worst nightmares of the CCM when I have to go on exchanges next. 

Friday, I was back in my area and we had a good day. We got to talk about some things and work some things out so I feel a lot better about my companionship now then I did at first. There are not a whole lot of members here and it is going to be hard to get people to church because they have to drive to a neighboring city called Selma to go to church.

Saturday also wasn't very fun. It was just a really long day, it is getting really hot and it is hard. We also didn't teach a ton of people that day and those we did were outside, so yeah it wasn't good.

Sunday was a really good day. I got to meet the branch and there are a lot of cool people here that I am sure that I will get to know better as I spend more time here. That night we worked in a little town that we cover called Orange Cove and we found some really cool people that we talked to. It was a good day.

Today has been a good day, I was cracking up about how much of a shurd Jacob is and how jacked he looked in Dad's Lumber Jack picture. I bought some stuff and felt bad about it, and now I am writing y'all. Anyways, I love and miss you all and hope you have a good week. I hope my package gets there safe as well.

Love,

Elder Murray

June 11th - Pictures

Hello all! 

David didn't really send a letter this week - just a short, few lines to those of us who wrote to him. He did send a whole load of pictures though, so I will post these.

June 4th - Yosemite

Hello Family!

This week has been a really cool week. As for the business, the pants will be fine as I am getting fat. It is just that those type of pants are stretchy, so the still fit really well. The rest of the pants I have, however, do not fit. Also I am writing this email on the way back from Yosemite on my smart phone at the moment, so I am not sure that it will be very long. 

Tuesday was a really great day. We had the last of the temple days for a little while, because we are going to have to go a lot less due to the Oakland Temple closing down and half of the Modesto mission merging with ours. The Fresno Temple is gonna be packed. We had a really great time though, and then afterward we went to Chick-fil-A which was a nice change since we don't have one of those in Madera. After that Elder Vargas had a doctor's appointment in Clovis, so we had to drive to that and he had to get his hip checked out. They said that everything Is okay with it, he might just have to do physical therapy.

Wednesday was a pretty good day as well. We taught in the morning and then had a missionary coordination meeting at night so it was pretty regular day for us. 

Thursday was very much a day dedicated to service. That morning we went to the Vineyard which was really fun because we ended up taking a bunch of "toxic" wood stakes to the dump to dispose of them. It was extremely stank there. Then after that we ended up going to a member's home to do her yard work, which brought me back in the day to the parks and rec job when I was using the leaf blower pack. That night we worked more. 

Friday was a really good day. I had exchanges with the Zone Leaders so I went with Elder Tapia, the one that you met on Skype and we had a very good time. We set a baptismal date for an investigator and taught a less active.

Saturday was good. My companion had a baptism to go to from his last area so he left around dinner to go up there for that. I ended up going with Elder Wyne and a member and we had a good time teaching together. It was a good night as well. 

Sunday was really crazy. I had a lot of investigators at church. It was really only two families but there was a whole bunch of kids. I felt like I had to be a Dad in church corralling and watching after all these kids and telling them where to go. It was really great to have so many people at church though, I just wish I could have done a little more with the parents who actually care about our message instead of the punk teenagers that are forced to come along, haha.

Today has been so amazing, Lucio took us up to Yosemite National Park because it is in our Zone, so we did a really cool hike pretty much through the spray of the waterfall. I think that biking may have allowed me to keep up my hiking skills so Mom and I will have to go hike when I get home. Hopefully I am not too acquainted to having a car by then. I picked up some souvenirs at the gift shop and I hope to send some things back in a package for Jacob's birthday coming up, plus something I got at a swap meet in Madera for Gabe way back in April. I guess I will see if I can figure out how.

So my week was pretty fantastic, I hope that you all have a fantastic week this week and I apologize in advance if I don't get the chance to send all of you personal emails this week. I love you all and remember that the Gospel is true. I spent a lot of time studying about the tree of life this week in Lehi's dream. The tree represents the love of God and all members of Christ's church have partook of the fruit. Don't forget the last step of the Gospel which is to endure to the end and keep partaking of that fruit. 

I'll send pictures next week since I have no time.

Love, 

Elder Murray

May 28th - Spontaneous water/mud fight!

Dear family,

This week has been a very interesting week. As for business, I received the prescription and should only have to go one more week without glasses, which is good. The pants should work, I really hope that they aren't too big. The ones I have now are perfect size. Anyways, I think that's all for business.

As for this week, let's start out with Tuesday. I had Zone Conference this week so we had that on Tuesday. We had a training in Spanish for the first time, which was really interesting. We played a game where you have to get an oreo from your head to your mouth without touching it with anything but face muscles.

Then on Wednesday we had a pretty regular day. The only interesting thing that happened was that night, when my companion was at an missionary coordination meeting, so I was visiting people with a member. The member ended up playing chess with a investigator kid, which was pretty funny. 

Thursday was a pretty good day as well. We had an appointment with an investigator that night where we helped wash her car and then feed these tiny baby kittens with the things you use to put shots in people. That was very interesting.

On Friday night, we had a pretty great night as well and this is where my title comes from. We went to teach these kids and their mom. We are trying to help the mom to open up to us more about everything that is going on with her, but we love to play with her kids, so we were playing games with them like freeze tag and some other things and then this kid turns on his hose and they started filling up water bottles and throwing water on us, So we got them back by putting him under the hose and soaking him... He wasn't about to let us get the last laugh so he started throwing mud at us, haha. It really was a crazy night. Hopefully it helps the lady open up a little more now that she knows we are really just a bunch of fun kids. 

Saturday was just a regular day.We tried some people that we want to teach because we are looking for a lot of new people right now and then we had a pretty regular night on the bikes.

Sunday was a good day as well. We had church which is always good. I woke up a little sick that day and so I was worried I was going to get something bad but I blasted it with all kinds of medicines and remedies and I think I am not gonna end up getting any worse then I was Sunday morning. We had a really great lesson with a new family that night which was cool. He gave us some plants, then we talked to this guy on the corner where we live who was watering his lawn. 

Today one of the members took me and this other missionary to Fresno to play sports with a whole bunch of missionaries I don't know. It has been okay pretty far, but everyone left a little while ago so me and him are just chilling in the gym. I got to have Wendy's for the first time in 5 months!

Anyways, this week has been pretty great. As for a short gospel lesson, I started really studying the Book of Mormon this week and I have gotten through the beginning chapters of first Nephi. This is the second full read-through so far on my mission, and it really is exciting. I cannot begin to describe the power that the Book of Mormon has and the importance that it should have in each and every one of our lives. The gospel is true and I am so blessed to have the opportunity to serve a mission. Don't every forget the love that our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have for each and every one of you! I love you all!

Love, 

Elder Murray

May 21st - Operation Makeover!

Dear Family!

Alright, I have a lot of business today, so please bear with me. First of all, I broke my glasses this week. The side just snapped off, so I have an important task! I need you to send me my prescription as fast as you can, so that I can send it to a member to order me cheap glasses online. The next thing I have is, if and when you send me pants, please send me "Hagger" pants because those are like the only pants I wear. The rest of them are really hot or do not fit me right anymore, also they are just really BOM pants. Also, I pretty much spent all that money you put in my account really fast because I bought a bunch of allergy medicine. I already have lotion and stuff so don't worry about putting in anymore. Certain companions and roommates are much harder to budget with...

Alright, so Tuesday we had our last regular Tuesday for a while. We tried to talk to a bunch of people with not much success, and then we taught a English class.

On Wednesday we had a great day. We started it all out with the Vineyard, which is seriously like my major stress reliever here in the mission. I love Brother Hansen. He is probably one of my favorite members, so I also love going with him. Then I  had a lunch with a member and we got some great burritos. We worked the rest of the day and had a lesson that night where the mission president came out teaching with us. It was really cool, he complimented me on my Spanish.

Thursday was a great day. We worked during the day and we gave these two kids that have been coming to church with us white shirts and ties. I no longer have any of my flower ties, because I can't wear them, so I gave them all out haha. That night we had an annual priesthood dinner which was cool. It was in English though because it was for the stake so I felt bad for my Spanish members who could not understand. 

Friday was a crazy day as well. We had a lot of food that day. I had a 5 patty burger at this place at 12 and then we had dinner early at 2 o'clock so I had to eat that as well. Then we had this super fun service project at 5 where we ripped all of the shingles and weather stuff off of a house. It took us like 3 hours and we had fiber glass in our arms by the end, so we all went to bed early that night.

On Saturday, the big thing was that one of the other companionships here in Madera had a baptism for a man that I had taught on exchanges one time, who is really super cool. I volunteered myself for the interlude teaching so I could go. My companion was not very happy but it ended up being a super cool thing to go to. 

Sunday was a good day as well. We had church and had Jorge and Juan show up. Then we ate dinner at the Bishop's house which was cool. I got a haircut that night.

Sorry for how long winded this letter was. We did an absolute ton of stuff this week. The title of the email was because we ended up giving those same kids that we gifted the shirts and ties haircuts this week as well and so now they both look way better when they show up to church and activities and things. I love you all. I hope that each and every one of you has a great week. I wish you all the best.

Love,

Elder Murray

Here are pictures of us on the roof, studying, a family of goose we saw, giving a haircut and Elder Vargas in the vineyard.