July 29th - Baptisms!

David had a great week out in Fresno California. It is really HOT and temps are over 100 degrees most of the days. The most exciting thing this week is that he participated in baptizing a family they have been teaching. He was really glad that this family chose to join with the church of Jesus Christ. 

The last picture shows an interesting style of proselytizing they tried out - basically using a white board to teach people on the street. David said it felt really weird to not be wearing his regular white shirt.

July 22nd - Zone Conference and Fun Pics

David attended a zone conference this last week and we got some great pictures from the their mission blog. 

Anybody who knows David knows that he is a light-hearted, fun fellow. Many of the pictures he sends shows us that he is still the same David in the service of the Lord.

June 17th - A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Since the advent of the weekly phone call, David has not been writing letters very regularly, but we do get some great pictures! Here are the ones we've received in lately. 

Over Memorial Day weekend, David got to attend a veteran's service.

David has been serving in Fresno Area and is now a Zone Leader. He lives with another pair of missionary and it sounds like they have a great time together. The following pictures I downloaded from the Fresno Mission blog. Elder Murray is participating in leadership council. 

One of the things David planned with the other leaders was a Zone Olympics. 

David also shared that he and his companion got to help with translation. He looks very serious. When David works, he works!

Prep day is a time to have fun, so here is David doing some bowling. 

In really exciting news, they had a baptism this week! They are hoping the rest of this man's family will join him soon. 

May 20th - Picnics

We talked to David this week, but he didn't send a letter, so I will post some of the pictures he sent. It is so much fun talking to him each week and getting to enjoy his fun personality! I love that guy.

May 13th - Fresno!

Dear Fam!

This was my first week in Fresno. We were hosting a missionary who is going to be training this transfer for several days at the beginning of the week, so we were a tri-panionship for a little while. Thursday we did this thing called Open Your Mouth where, when you first come in the mission, you go out with a more experienced missionary and you contact as many people as you can. I went out with an Elder Chase from Colorado so we contacted a bunch of college students at Fresno City. It is a good way to get new missionaries out and to see what missionary work is like in the first few days.

It is weird being a Zone Leader especially since I am in the heart of Everything. Our church building currently is the mission office so I have been there more times in the last week then I have in my whole mission...pretty crazy. It's also a lot of added responsibility because I have to come up with a whole bunch of goals and plans with different leaders in our Zone and all kinds of other business type things.

We had a Mother's Day activity this week so I got to meet some of the Ward which was good. We had our friend and his wife come which was awesome because it motivated them to go to church the next day. 

It has rained a ton here in Fresno in the last week so we were pretty wet.

Sunday I got to meet the ward and we had a Hispanic outreach program meeting so we got to talk about new store front churches that will be opening up here in Fresno soon.  

That was my week in a nutshell I will call you later!

Love,

Elder Murray

May 6th - Seeing in White

Dear Family,

This week was an epic week and definitely one for the history books. I have a lot of pictures so I will attach those, also I will hit the highlights of the week.

We went to the Zoo again this week and I fed an angry snuffly piggy. It was good. We cleaned a lot of bird poop.

We played soccer again. I am getting better the more I play but I am still not very good compared to the guys I play with and I have no left foot.

We had Zone conference this week which was good. We drove up to Modesto and stopped to take a picture in some tiny town called Le Grange or something.

We had a mission conference with Elder Cook from the 12 apostles and it was super cool to shake his hand and for him to speak to us about some different things. He truly is a personal witness of the Savior Jesus Christ.

The same day as the mission Conference I headed down to Visalia because a couple I taught down there got married and baptised this week. That was super cool to see and since we had some extra time down there we were able to visit a bunch of people we taught.

Sunday was another awesome day because Angela got baptized! She is probably like my best friend here in Merced and super cool. She will be a senior in high school next year and we are super excited that she is finally on the gospel path! 

That was the highlights of my week. Hope you all had an awesome week too. Love you!

Love,

Elder Murray

April 29nd - Planada and Snelling

Dear Family,

I figured I should probably write a big email so that you all know what I did this week.

Tuesday was a pretty regular day. We had a district Council and we visited some people that day. We started around 9 am because we had an early appointment so we ended up biking like 25 miles.

Wednesday was more bikes and more appointments. We tried some people on the north side of Merced and then went down south that night.

Thursday was the third day of bikes. We decided we would do weekly planning on Thursday from now on so that we can make better use of the car. We visited people that day for the rest of the day, nothing special.

Righteous raccoon wants to accept the gospel. 

Friday we did our regular sports night and we were able to go to Planada, which is a little city like 10 miles from where we live in Merced. We talked to one of our less active friends out there for around 2 hours (the only one that came to church). We also talked to two other members while we were out there. It is a super Hispanic town so we love it there.

Saturday we had lunch at this Mexican place with another less active which was awesome! It was super tasty. I ordered some carne asada quesadillas. Then we went to visit some people including the man with like 10 cats. Then we had dinner with some members that night and the food was super good.

Sunday we had church and it was pretty disappointing. Almost all those that told us they would come to church this week were not able to make it for one thing or another so we were pretty down. I don't understand why people always put the Lord behind other things on their priority list. He is my first priority 100% of the time. That night we had no dinner so I cooked some chicken and noodles with some lemon and parsley garlic salt. Then we went to a town like 15 miles to the north called Snelling. We visited a part member family out there and met a man named Joe who was super nice and we were able to teach him the Plan of Salvation.The scenery was beautiful there and there were many, many cows. I will attach some pictures.

That was my week this week. Today we are planning on playing basketball, big surprise, and that should be it because the guy didn't go to Yosemite with us again. I love you all and have a great week.

Love,

Elder Murray