Spanish, Conference and lots of Blessings!

For some reason every week I say thatI dont feel like writing a big email out to you all and then i proceed to send a novel of information that im sure only like 3 of you care about. But this week i mean it, this email will be pretty short! 

We have been seeing a lot of really cool miracles that have been adding up upon each other. Elder Anderson and I found a really cool new area that I hadn't been to before and there is so much potential. We found a really awesome family too that has a 14 year old son that has never been baptized and the parents want him to learn so we are excited to meet with them! Also we found like 8 or 9 new spanish speaking investigators which is load of fun because my companion doesn't speak spanish ahaha. I even had a skype lesson yesterday with one of them in Honduras! They are going to be gone for the next 3 weeks but we had an awesome lesson via Skype and I am just so great full of the technology that I have been blessed with to continue to move the work forward while people are far away. 

We also had the blessed opportunity to watch General Conference this weekend! I loved it so much! We had 6 investigators watch it with us and 1 of them even walked 2 miles to the church building where we were showing it because he didnt have a ride! Talk about dedication!! I met a man who just go to the USA from Mexico about 2 months ago and invited him to come to conference with us (without even teaching him anything) and he came and brought his friend!! It was so cool. It reminded me of how much i love Hispanic people! They are so humble and love Jesus so much! 

Life is going really good, I found this new thing called "Wowb Butter" which is peanut free peanut butter and it tastes like exactly the same and is way cheaper than Almond Butter. Anyways one of the sacrifices that Elder Anderson and I are making this transfer is whenever we dont have a dinner or want lunch we make PB&Js in the car instead of driving back home or going out to eat. It has saved us so much time so far and we have already seen huge blessings because of it. 

Anyways I love you all and hope you had a great week! What was your favorite conference talk? Mine was Russel M Nelsons! Tell me how youre doing! 

PS i ran out of stamps and keep forgetting to buy more so if you've been expecting a letter from me thats why Im so sorry I still love you.

Elder Murphy

I dot really have an explanation for this week, but here are the pictures I took enjoy!

Goodbyes, Hellos, and a Testimony

Hello wonderful family and friends! I'm going to keep this one pretty short because I don't feel like sending a massive email this week. I will be online so if anyone wants to chat I will be available until 6pm Kansas time! 

This week was a little weird because we had transfers this week and Elder Watts was leaving so we had to say good bye to a lot of people. It was really nice, the University Branch had a little goodbye party for FHE and used it as a testimony meeting. It was really cool so see how much of an impact that Elder Watts had on the people here. We said goodbye to Gabriela, one of our recent converts and then said goodbye to John another one of our converts here. They were both so sad and I think John mentioned something about Elder Watts in all of the prayers we said together this week. He's a wonderful man there is no doubt about it. 

On Wednesday we said our official goodbyes and I stayed in Manhattan with Elder Miller while our we waited for our new companions to drive up. It was pretty boring I would have to say because Elder Miller was sick and we couldn't leave the apartment. At around 4pm Elder Anderson (My new companion) came and it was cool we went right to work. 

To start off the transfer we had a phone call with President McCuistion and lets just say we now have a strong desire to do a lot better. Its not like we were doing bad, but President McCuistion definitely stressed the importance of being a shining light and example to all the missionaries in our Zone. We are expected to be producing 3-4 times the amount that he has set as the expectation for the rest of the mission so we have been working like crazy these past few days. 

We had a really awesome Miracle already! One day we decided to try and visit an apartment complex that we had a few formers in. We had met a girl outside named Jaziah and asked her if we could come and share a message with her about Jesus Christ's restored gospel. She said that we could and then proceeded to refer us to her whole family that happened to live in the same complex. Through her we met Tray and Jaiann. They are a super sweet couple with a strong desire to raise their kids in a strong Christ centered environment. They let us in and we began teaching them the message of the Restoration using the pamphlet and they loved it so much. Tray was asking us so many heartfelt questions and while we were answering them Jaiann was reading ahead in the pamphlet and smiling the whole time. They both accepted the invitation to be baptized and were so thankful when we were leaving their home. 

I absolutely love being a missionary. The experiences that I have had on my mission are priceless and we get the opportunity to meet so many of Gods precious children. My testimony of this work grows each and every day and I feel so blessed to have a knowledge of my heavenly fathers plan for me. It is a sacred blessing to be a representative of Jesus Christ. He truly is my savior and my best friend. I am so excited for this Easter season. It is such and amazing opportunity to celebrate the Resurrection and remember the incredible gift of the Atonement. This morning I decided to study a little bit from the final days of the Saviors life before he was crucified. Everything that he did he did with love. I cant even imagine the amount of love that he has for the world. It pains my soul to think that he suffered for me and my mistakes because of his love for me. He truly is the PRINCE of PEACE. His life is a perfect example of that. He loved the very guards that whipped him and scourged him and mocked him and the Pharisees that spit in his face. He loved the man who nailed him to the cross. That is the kind of love, that as a disciple of him, I am called to represent. It can be hard when people slam the door in our faces. Its not easy, but that is the burden I have been called to bear. I love the scripture in Matthew 16:24,"Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." How vivid is that imagery, that we will also take up our own crosses. That we are willing to follow the Savior of the World no matter the conditions. I love Jesus Christ. I will follow him. I will be his disciple. 

I would love to invite each of you to study the life of Jesus Christ. Especially with the Easter season so near. Also, General Conference will be this weekend! you can find it on LDS.org and it will be an amazing time to hear from a living prophet and his 12 Apostles. I am so excited to hear their counsel!! Anyways I love you all! 

If any of you feel like it, you can send me a package or a letter! USBs would be a real cool Easter gift. or a "Mission" brand belt those are nice.

My Address is 1419 Leavenworth Apt 2, Manhattan KS, 66502

We had an awesome lesson, and our investigator gave us all her cigarettes!!

Elder Murphy

Exchanges, Transfers, and a Baptism

Hello wonderful family, friends, fellow missionaries, and other random people that happen to see/read these letters! I have to say this was a very wonderful and busy week here in the promised land of Manhattan Kansas. No, there wasn't any crazy weather this week like there was in the last email, but it did get up to like 80 degrees so that was nice. Anyways I am grateful for each and every one of you and hope these emails dont bore you to death! 

We had the awesome opportunity to go on exchanges with the APs this week! So we drove down to Wichita Wednesday night and barely made it there. We had plenty of gas to drive there, but for some reason the gas just plummeted about 30 miles north of Wichita and we barely puttered into a gas station. Our gas gauge went from like 40 miles until empty to 0 miles until empty in about 45 seconds and we were freaking out trying to figure out why. The closest gas station was about 7 miles away and we were praying real hard that we would make it jajaja. but hey we made it just fine. 

I was on exchanges with Elder White and I feel like I learned so much! Its crazy how important the little things are in missionary work! We were literally running around talking to every person we saw it was so fun. We had awesome lessons with 2 different people from Ghana that are refugees. They had about 20 people living in a tiny apartment but they were so humble and willing to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. One man, Innocent, lit up like a Christmas tree when we showed him a video of Jesus Christ getting baptized. His jaw dropped and he exclaimed, "OOHH I WANT THAT". Jajaja it was so awesome. He has so much faith in Jesus and just wants to do what it right. We also had a really cool lesson with a man named Orlando. Orlando it such a sweet soul. He is a BIG dude, but has such a sweet spirit. He also is so excited to be baptized. We we teaching him about some of our beliefs and the whole time he was just like, "That makes so much sense." He already has a huge testimony of the Book of Mormon too! Cool cool guy. 

Earlier in the week I also had the opportunity to go on exchanges with one of the District Leaders here in Manhattan. Elder Ortmann and I stayed in our area and met so many awesome people. We had some really awesome contacts and learned alot from each other. The coolest contact we had was with this girl named Jessica. She was delivering something for work and we decided to stop and talk to her for a minute before she got a call for a new delivery. She is so elect and loved everything that we taught her, but right as we were about to invite her to be baptized she got a phone call for a new delivery she had to do... Satan is the worst ughh. We called her later this week and she was still really solid but then didn't show up to church for some reason. Hopefully we can get back in contact with her soon.

 By far the biggest miracle of the week was John Sawyer's baptism! He is so awesome and I still cannot believe how far he has come since we met him the first day. His baptism was so powerful and watching his face when he came out of the water was so awesome! One of the most powerful of my mission for sure. He is so converted and it is so awesome. He called us last night and asked us if we could come over and we got really nervous because he never does things like that, but it turns out he had been writing his testimony and he wants to share it next testimony meeting but he need help on how to end it. Jajaja he is such sweet man. 

Also if you remember from a couple weeks back, we had an Indian investigator, "Johnny". Well for the past 3 weeks he was in India working on this crazy research project becasue he is like the best in the world at whatever it is that he does and he just got back this week. We had such an awesome lesson with him about real intent and before we even explained to him what it was he said, "Right now I have told God that the moment I feel his spirit of peace of love or joy I will be baptized that week. I will not wait, so that is what I am working on right now." That is literally music to any missionaries ears. He is super well fellowshiped in the ward and he loved church so all we have to do now is help him recognize those spiritual prompting he is receiving.

Some other big news that happened today, is that Transfers came in and I will be staying another 6 weeks here in Manhattan! Elder Watts will be leaving though and I will be with Elder Anderson. It will be crazy because for the first time I will be with a companion that doesnt speak Spanish so hopefully I can keep up the language. We are teaching a few people that speak spanish and there are a lot of members that do too so I think i will be ok! Never the less I am so happy for Elder Watts and he is going to kill it as a ZL in Derby (my last zone) so I am pretty jealous of him. I have learned so much from him and its sad to see him go but Elder Anderson Im sure will teach me so much too! 

I would just like to end with a quick testimony that I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints truly is Christs church once again restored to the Earth. Not because anyone has told me it, but because God has. The Book of Mormon is a powerful witness of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and has been key in my conversion. The spirit that I feel when I read that book can only come from God. I know it is true and I will not deny it. I love this work in which I am engaged and I love my Savior. He lives, he loves us, and he is my best friend. I challenge each of you to work on your relation ship  with him so that you too can saw with confidence that he is your best friend. If he already is, continue to strengthen that relationship, it will only bring you more happiness and more peace. 

Elder Murphy

Tornados, Snow, and Zone Conference

This was a wonderful week full of Kansas weather! For the first time I understood the phrase, "If you don't like the weather, just wait 5 minutes". When we were driving to our dinner appointment on Monday, we got an Emergency Alert that a tornado was spotted in our area and we needed to get to shelter. That was lots of fun. I think a total of 8 touched down in the area, but they didn't cause any damage so that's good. Later on that day we got some crazy hail too!

The news must have spread around the ward we are serving in that Elder Watts and I are Spanish Missionaries, because we got fed Enchiladas for all of our meals this week except for 1 haha. But hey I'm not complaining! I was in heaven because I miss Mexican food so bad! The ward here feeds us really well which is nice, but its really awkward when they pull out these really nice fancy desserts that they have made for us. Elder Watts and I promised an investigator who is giving up Coffee and Smoking to be baptized that we would give up desserts and sugar so he doesn't feel like he is going through it alone. Usually we have the other Elders assigned to our ward there with us and they get to eat our portions so they are loving it! 

We also had Zone Conference this week (Combined with Salina Zone) and it was lots of fun. Elder Watts and I gave a training on how we can use the Pamphlets effectively in our missionary work. We related it to a complicated basketball play and had another missionary come up and try to run it just off of a hearing it only and they were so confused. Then we drew the play out on a white board and he was able to get it no problem. The pamphlets that we have been given as missionaries are the same way. We have these great tools to use and the visuals help those we are teaching understand an otherwise foreign concept. Overall i think it went pretty good, our role play was pretty bad because both Elder Watts and I were sick and couldn't really think straight but thats ok because we have the Atonement to rely on. 

Saturday was a crazy day here in Manhattan as well. The college students here have made up this tradition called "Fake Pattys" because the school usually has spring break during St. Patrick's day. They use it as a 24 hour drunk fest pretty much. The party starts at 5am and doesn't end until the next day. This of course made it very hard to teach people about Jesus Christ, as their only desires were to get drunk. We started studies at 8am and the apartment complex was already rattling from the parties that had begun. I've decided that college is dumb and I am so glad I'll be going to BYU. We stayed safe though dont worry! We only got asked where the good parties were at like 2 times.

Luckily that day it started to snow so much of the celebrations were tamed down and force to be inside so that was a big plus. We got a good little bit of snow which was pretty weird because we were wearing short sleeve shirts earlier in the week. But you know thats part of Kansas weather jaja. 

Miracle) When we first got to Manhattan we were told by the previous elders to go to a house in a small town called Ogden on the way up and to see if Stephanie was there. We knocked and this really angry man told us that she wasn't there and rudely slammed the door. We came back a couple days later and the exact same thing happened, but this time we asked if we could share a message with him and he let us in! Long story short his name is John and he is getting baptized this weekend! It is so crazy to think that he was the first person we talked to when we got here and he was so closed off but the spirit opened his heart and he is one of the most tender souls i have ever met! I love this work! 

I love you all! Big shout out to my big brother Michael! He finished his mission this week in Mexico and im so proud of him!! Hit him up ladies!! 

Elder Murphy

Meetings, more meetings, some pictures

This week my love for the Savior grew in ways hard to explain. I LOVE being a missionary, I LOVE serving the Lord, I LOVE my Savior Jesus Christ. Sometimes in life it seems as if the hardest trails, and the least productive weeks of Missionary work are the weeks you learn the most. When the Lord humbles you, where he coaches you, and where he teaches you how you can improve.

Honestly this could be one of the more boring emails I send on my mission. We had a jam packed crazy week full of awesome Zone Leader responsibilities. We didnt even start actually working until Friday and even that wasn't even a normal day but here are some pics from the week! Love you! Send me pics and emails throughout the week.

Elder Murphy

We had lunch here. It was good

March MLC in Wichita

Manhattan Zone! (Sister Bybee is a good singer, photographer? Eh not so much)

Squad at MLC, Elder Watts is really good at basketball that's why he holding one 

Our Branch Mission Leader, he served his mission in Fresno CA!! (Spanish Speaking)

More Miracles, Exchanges, and a Baptism

This was week full of Miracles and I'm really lazy to type out a big fact email so I'll just overview the Miracles. Sound good? Cool!

Miracle 1) Gabriela Faraone got baptized!!! Wahoo!! Working with Gabby was soooo different that anything I've ever done before. She has a super busy schedule with college and what not so we taught her 90% of the time over FaceTime and iMessage. We pretty much only saw her in person at church and at some activities, but she has such a sweet spirit and desire to come closer to Jesus Christ. On Friday she passed her Baptismal interview and then was baptized on Saturday!! President McCuistion came and it was awesome. 

It was really funny because no one told us that the hot water in the building only lasts for about 20 minutes and then we have to turn it off, so the font was super cold and we were trying to boil water and pour it in to heat it up. Lol adventures of a missionary.

Miracle 2) Our investigator John Sawyer gave up Coffee to live the word of wisdom! The day we taught it to him he agreed to give us all the coffee he had! He had just bought a huge can of it too! The next day we came over and his coffee making machine was taken apart and on the dismantled! He says he is miserable, but he is fighting through it to be closer to his Savior Jesus the Christ!

Miracle 3) John's son, Justin, who had previously avoided us and hid from us when we went over came to church on Sunday! His fiance Stephanie had been trying to get him to go all week and they brought their two 6 year olds!! Because we double cover the branch and the 1st ward, we had to leave Sacrament early to go confirm Gabriela, with the intent of returning to the 1st ward because we didnt have any investigators coming to the University Branch. But when we got there, a college kid named Drew walked in and said that he had always been interested in the Mormon faith, but finally had the courage to do something about it. HUGE MIRACLE! We got his contact information and and are now teaching him! Anyways, back at the 1st ward, Justin and his family had left after the 1st hour and we didn't know why! So we went over after church and they LOVED IT!! Justin himself told us how much he liked it and how he cant wait to come back next week and stay all 3 hours!!

EXCHANGES) This week we also went on exchanges with the Wamego Elders and they had been struggling for a couple of weeks so I went to their area with Elder Miller and Elder Murdock came to Manhattan. One thing that I noticed that was really slowing down the missionary work was that didn't want to knock on anyone's doors to find new investigators because they felt that all the doors in the town had already been knocked. Elder Miller and I were street contacting in a busy part of town and no one was receptive. I kept getting the prompting that we needed to leave and that that wasn't where the lord needed us to be. So we got back into the car, and I challenged Elder Miller to find a street on the map where the Lord wanted us to go. He took a couple minutes of prayerful consideration and finally pointed to a street on the map. So we went there. We parked the car and knocked on the first house next to the car, where we met Steven and Douglas. They immediately let us in and we taught them a full restoration lesson and I could tell by the end that Elder Miller was a little bit in shock. Now, I dont know if they are still working with Steven and Douglas, but I know that Elder Miller learned the power of listening to the spirit and reaching to the powers of heaven to be guided. It gave him hope that they could find new investigators and work in Wamego Kansas. Overall, awesome exchange.

Overall it was an awesome week and I love being a missionary. Each day builds my testimony of the Restoration of this gospel. I love the lord and I love serving him. Right now I am reading the Book of Mormon in Spanish and specifically studying the Doctrine of Christ, and each page it seems like is colored up and highlighted like a rainbow. I love it. Each part of the gospel of Jesus Christ is a different color so each time I see that color I know exactly what the scripture will be about. I invite you all to pick up a copy of the Book of Mormon and start reading. Even if it's only a page a day or a page a week, read it and pray about it. You'll come closer to your savior then ever before. I love you all so much!!! 

Elder Murphy

Gabby got Baptized!!

Exchange selfie

This members house was on like the one hill and Kansas. It was awesome

Mango District!

How you know a lesson went well: when they give you their coffee 

MLC, Miracles, and some other stuff happened too

This week was just jam packed to the brim with things that happened. I can just tell you that missionary work as a Zone Leader is so much different than I thought. We are so much more limited with our time which forces us to be a lot more productive when we do have time to go out and work like normal. I love it. Elder Watts and I are just balling out and striving our best to be examples for the missionaries in the Manhattan Zone. We honestly saw soooo many miracles this week!

Miracle 1) We were trying to find one of our Investigators who lives about 10 minutes out of town, but she wasn't there and her boyfriends dad answered the door in a not very good mood. He quickly told us that she wasn't there and that he didn't know when she would been be home. It was very evident that he wanted us to go away. I felt really strongly that we needed to share a message with him. So I asked him if we could and the spirit completely opened up his heart and he let us right in! We started to shared our message with him and he opened up and told us how he really wanted to start on his path back to God! We have been back every day now and he has been praying and reading everyday and came to church on Sunday and LOVED it!! He cannot wait to be baptized on March 11!!

Miracle 2) As we went though our area book to try to find if there were any former investigators that we should teach and we decided that we needed to see Dave McCallister. He is such a sweet soul who had been to church over 10 times in the past and was going to get baptized, but said that the other Missionaries were really mean to him and that he stopped meeting with them. He really opened up to us and he is now progressing really strongly to be baptized on February 28! He was able to fly through the baptismal interview questions and the daily habit of reading and praying has grown his faith so much!! He even knew more people than we did at the church! Awesome!

Miracle 3) When we got here the other missionaries had been working with a girl named Gabby from Paraguay. She is going to school here at Kansas State and was a Buddhist. It has been so different teaching someone about Christianity! Before in Wichita, we taught pretty much 99% Catholics and Christians who had already had a faith in Christ, and here in my new area we run into people all the time who don't even know who he is! It's a blessing though because she speaks Spanish so we still get to teach and practice our Spanish with her. Anyways, she has been progressing really well and she is looking really solid to get Baptized this weekend!! WAHOO! It was crazy though, the previous missionaries taught her the word of wisdom before we had gotten here and when we went over it with her, it turns out they had taught it to her wrong!! They told her Green tea was ok and so she continued to keep drinking it. When we re taught it to her, she gave it up immediately and we bought her some herbal tea that she could drink instead. She has so much faith! Everyone keep her in your prayers!!

We also had a "MLC", and Missionary Leadership Council meeting this week, so I got to drive beck to Wichita! That was really funny because we dont have a GPS and we got super lost on the way there and on the way back. It was a really good meeting though and we learned a lot about the Direction the mission is going and how we can best help it as leaders. We had lots of amazing trainings, (the meeting was from 9-4:30, so LOTS of trainings) and I feel like we learned a ton about our responsibility as Zone Leaders. Good stuff to know if you ask me. 

Unfortunately because we are so jam packed all the time I did an AWFUL job taking pictures to send home this week but if one of y'all will remind me throughout the week to take pictures then I'd probably do a better job. 

LOVE YOU ALL!! EMAIL ME :)

Elder Murphy

The sun was blasting my face so I look like Sid the Sloth from the movie Ice Age... Im sorry

Dave McCallister!! He is doing so well! keep him in your prayers!

The Manhattan University Branch Missionaries.... the sisters stole my ipad.

MLC with the SQAUD. (Sister Bybee is famous or something like that, Rumor has it is that she was on the show the Voice and did kinda good) 

Old picture I forgot to send with Familia Martinez. I love them so much.

(Sister Martinez is the best cook ever you have no Idea)