Californian in Kansas: Christmas, Skype Calls, and a Baptism

Guys I am so excited for Saturday you have no idea. On Saturday at 11, the entire Arambula family will be getting baptized! 6 members of Luis's family will be entering this sacred covenant. We have been teaching them for the past 3 weeks and just looking back at how much they've changed and grown together as a family is so amazing to me. This gospel truly does bless families. We have been talking a lot with President McCuistian about them and he is so excited, he is even going to come to the Baptism on Saturday so we are super excited for that as well. As missionaries it is always so exciting to teach a whole family, and it seems pretty rare to me when a family as big as the Arambulas progress and change this fast. Anyways keep them in your prayers!!

Also, Sunday Luis got the Priesthood!! His whole family was able to be there and he can now baptize some of his family members! How cool is that! Just from his example of being baptized, his whole family will be getting baptized also and he can even help baptize them. The Arambula family is so amazing!

Another cool thing that happened this week was that Ramon Burciaga got Baptized!!! My very first week in the mission, about 18 weeks ago his wife was baptized and he's been taught ever since then and it was so awesome being able to baptize him. We have a standing dinner appointment every Wednesday at their house so it was so much fun seeing how excited he was getting as he prepared to get baptized. The Hermanas did such an awesome job teaching him, his family is preparing to go to the temple in a year and be sealed! Yay for eternal families!

For those of you who don't know, every Christmas and every Mothers Day, we as missionaries get to Skype home to our families and talk with them. It was soooo awesome being able to talk with my family for the first time since JULY holy cow! So much has happened since then and I miss them all so much. I was even able to talk to my brother who is serving a mission in Mexico!

I don't know if any of you remember, but in October our mission president did a big mission wide challenge to read the Book of Mormon at a rate of 9 pages a day (about the same rate it was translated into English). I am very happy to report that I accepted and completed that challenge and it was so cool! We started it on October 26 and finished it at 7am Christmas morning on a mission -wide conference call, where we read the last chapter together. It's something that I have decided to do for the rest of my life, read the Book of Mormon 9 pages a day. Think of how many times ill have read it when im all wrinkly and old!

Hmmmm what else happened. Oh yeah! I know Im going to get asked a thousand times what i did for Christmas, so Ill just have a whole paragraph on it for all of ya. Because Christmas fell on a Sunday, we went to church, and then after there was another baptism, and I was asked to give a talk at. Then we went to our Mission Presidents house and hung out and ate food with his family and then I Skyped home to my Dad and got to talk to all my Family in Texas. After that we got together as a District and went Carling until about 8pm then we went home for the evening and I had to take care of some Leadership stuff. Over all awesome day, very busy, but very awesome.

I want to close with a scripture that I really love from the Bible, its a prophecy of Christ's Birth: Isaiah 9: 6 "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."

Jesus is all of those things listed above. He is Wonderful, he is the Prince of Peace. He is our Savior. I invite you all to think in your hearts and ponder in your souls what the Savior means to you. He is always there for you. He is knocking at the door. Will you let him in? Or will you send him to the stables? Will you worship him in all your doings? Or just for an hour or two or three on Sunday? Will you take up your cross and follow him? Will you open your heart enough to feel of his everlasting love?

At the end of a District meeting last week, I asked the missionaries in my District a question. I want to end my email with that same challenge/question.

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO CHANGE TO HAVE MORE FAITH IN THE SAVIOR?

I invite each of you to think about that question and apply it to your life. Let me know how your relationship with the Savior increases this week!

Elder Murphy