Californian in Kansas: Donuts, Chickens and a Miracle

I touched a little on this last week about how I was getting a new companion, but now that its happened I thought I´d give you a little details. The night Elder Pankratz left I stayed with the Assistants to the President and then we woke up and had a meeting to go to. After the meeting we drove to this tiny little town in Kansas called Hutchison to meet Elder Watts. That was a fun experience because it was the first time I'd been out of Wichita while I'd been in Kansas. It was only like an hour away but still, pretty exciting. That took up a lot of the day and we didn't get to go shopping or do laundry which was a bummer. That's life i guess!

We also saw a huge miracle this week! We were in between appointments and had to go to the bathroom pretty bathroom and stopped a t some random gas station. On our way out we saw a sign that said that their Donuts were 50% off. Being the hungry teenage guys we are we really wanted some donuts, but we only had a dollar. We walked up to the counter and asked the lady if we could both get a donut for a dollar (we we weren't sure about taxes). When she replied to us,"Well I gotta get rid of them today so why don't you just take one of those bags on top and fit as many donuts as you can in there." FOR A DOLLAR YALL. You could imagine the look on our faces as we stuffed like 15 donuts into this bag. It was awesome

In attempt to find some new investigators, we came across a Part member Family, where the dad was not a member. We decided we should go over and met Andreas for the first time. He let us in and we started teaching him and it was going super well! He was really taking his time to answer questions and really just thinking about each question! Or at least we thought.... apparently he was falling asleep each time! Hahaha it was really funny. He still really loved the message and we are going to be working more with him.

OK y'all i saved this one for last because this is the real miracle of the week. For the last 5 or 6 weeks we have been working with a girl named Vivian. She is so awesome. She had been coming to church and loving it and reading the Book of Mormon everyday since we met her. She has had so many amazing experiences as we been teaching her and her testimony is so strong, she bears her testimony just about every Sunday in the classes and half the branch thought that's she was a member! Hahaha. Anyways, last week her parents told us that she couldn't get baptized, and that she was catholic and would always be Catholic. They would let her come to church, but they said for sure that baptism was out of the picture. I of course was so bummed because of all of the progress she had made and how strong of a testimony she had. She told us that she would get baptized on her 18th birthday if she had to wait.

Anyways, we went over this week to try to have on last talk with her parents on Saturday night. We sat down with her dad and we really just told him how ready Vivian was to be baptized. Right then the spirit just snapped and hit him really hard and he just gave her permission out of no where. So we pulled out the baptism form and had him sign it right there. The next day she took her Baptismal interview and flew through it no problem. Long story short she is getting baptized Saturday at 7pm!!

I also checked a box off on my bucket list this week! One of the Recent Converts in our area has chickens and he took one out and let us chase it which was so much fun. My inner Rocky was coming out. Pics to follow.

On Friday we had interviews with President McCuistian which was super awesome. Normally it's like the only one on one time you have with him but I was at his house like 4 times last week and he came to our apartment too so we didn't talk to much in interviews. President is such an awesome man, very inspired and you can just feel the love of Christ when he talks. He is definitely someone I look up to a lot.

Saturday we help a "Member Missionary Training Center" like and MTC for members where we taught them how they could do missionary work as a member. We taught them how they could invite people to activities and how they could give away a Book of Mormon! Overall I think it was really successful!! 8. Well im going to get running for now, but know I love you all and you're always in my prayers. It means so much when you reach out to me and share your weeks with me! Special shout out to the Young Women in my Ward at home! I got a bunch of letter from them recently and it was so much fun being able to read them! If any of you want to send me mail or a package these next few weeks send it to 7011 E 13th N, Wichita KS, 67206 because I'll be getting transferred soon. Don't know where but it's pretty sure that I'm leaving! Love ya!!

Elder Murphy