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)

Goodbyes, College, and Confusion

What's up family and friends!!

This was a very interesting week! I had to say goodbye to all of the amazing people I met in Wichita. It was really tough but it was so cool to be able to see how many people that played a huge role in the beginning of my mission. I definitely plan to come back and visit a lot of the people I met here. On Monday night we ate Dinner with Maria and Elena and Ramon. Maria and Ramon are literally my Mexican grandparents I love them so much. On Tuesday we said goodbye to the Martinez family and the Arambulas. It was funny because there were like 8 missionaries there because there were missionaries showing up for transfers that wanted to meet them. 

Wednesday was the official day of transfers and that day was crazyyyyy. I got to see so many missionaries that I hadn't seen in a long time. And I had a lot of them sign my Kansas flag. By the time we left we had about a 2 hour drive north to Manhattan. On the way up we had to collect Stake reports which is like a bunch of reports from all of the missionaries in the zone. That was tons of fun because our laptop and phone died on the way up. Then we came to a not very well kept apartment and Area Book so we had to start over from scratch. We did have a few cool investigators and are teaching someone that speaks only spanish which is a blessing. And we are teaching a man named Johnny from India and his house smells like an Indian cuisine. It's pretty awesome. Other than that, we are covering a family ward and a College Branch. It was hectic trying to get to both sacrament meetings to be with our investigators. But thankfully the members here rock and were loads of help. 

I cant really think of anything else to say but my apartment has wifi so thats really cool and we get to go to the gym every morning and it is so nice to be able to lift again. If y'all have any questions you can email me sorry this one is really lame! Love you!!

Elder Murphy

Saying goodbye to my Mexican family 

Maria - My Mexican Grandma 

Ramon - My Mexican Grandpa 

I forgot to put this in but We took out the brand new missionaries, I took out elder goodman it was a blast

This is the only picture I have from Manhattan 

This is Johnny. He is super Indian. I love it

Back in the gym grind 

Exchanges, Transfers, and A New Calling

So this week we went on lots of exchanges and it was pretty crazy because we didn't get to teach that much in our area. The first set of the exchanges that we went on was with our Zone Leaders. And I got to go with Elder Evans (My Mission Grandpa) and we had pretty much the most typical exchange that I could think of. We had like 7 set appointments with really solid and literally every single one of them fell through and we didn't see any of them. By the end of the night we gave up and trying to teach in their area and we went and taught some of my Investigators in Spanish hahaha. We even found like 3 new investigators for my companionship. Perks of a big area I guess. 

Then the next day we went on exchanges with the Assistants to the President, the tops dogs and leaders of the mission. It was cool because we got to teach in both areas. Because we cover all of Wichita, and so do they, we got to see both of our people. I went with Elder Gardner he is an awesome missionary who has been out on his mission for 24 months and goes home on Thursday. To be honest it was a lot like my exchange with Elder Evans because we couldn't find people to save our lives. The whole time we were driving between potentials and new investigators and former investigators contact that you could teach them but it is just impossible to find them. We also did some work for the mission and made new calendar for all the missionaries We made one in English and one in Spanish. I had to translate for it too so that was a lot of fun. 

Then because we got back late teaching we just stayed another night at their apartment so that was a lot of fun. After that we went to a zone training which was lots of fun because we got to learn this. I also gave a short training about using the book of Mormon teaching more effectively. A lot of my training was based off of what we learned during the worldwide broadcast, and also from MLC with brother Donaldson last week. Overall I think it went really good. I always like giving trainings because it's a great opportunity for me to be able to learn a lot more about what I'm training on. Lots of times we think that those receiving trainings are the ones that learn the most, but i love all of the studying and preparing that's goes into giving a training. 

I think Im gonna cut this email short and just get to the juicy new fun info because i cant think right now, so much is going on. Ok y'all ready? IM GETTING TRANSFERRED!!!! The lord has called me to serve in New York! Jk haha I’m going be serving in Manhattan Kansas! It's the home of Kansas State University and it'll be a huge adjustment because Ill be teaching 99% in English. I literally cried because I love Spanish so much. BUT WAIT THATS NOT ALL! IM GONNA BE A ZONE LEADER! 4 transfers in and I’m supposed to be in charge of a bunch of other missionaries. BUT WAIT THATS NOT ALL!! WE ARE WHITEWASHING IN!! (That means that my comp wont know the area because we will both be new.) BUT WAIT THATS NOT ALL!!! Elder Watts is my companion! We both have neither been Zone Leaders before so we will have to figure it out together. Im also the Senior Companion so that means I have to kind of take charge. It'll be a struggle at first but we will figure it out. I know that the lord will guide us and help us in this new path. I know that he will be there every step of the way. 

I Love you all! 

Email me through out the week because I have wifi in my new apartment so I can see them whenever! Ill email my new address new week!  

Elder Murphy

Derby Zone

All of my Recent Converts in Wichita. I love them all so much!!!

Delly! The coolest member in all of the world! 

A Broadcast, A Meeting, and Lots of Change

Okay this might be a really long email this week because I was sick last week so I didn't get to send out an email. It's been a while since Ive written one out so I kind of don't remember how haha. A lot of things happened these past  2 weeks but I will do my best to try and remember everything.

I guess I'll go ahead and start by talking about last week. Last week was really crazy we had a ton of meetings and didn't really get to teach that much. On Monday was P-Day so we work only from 6 to 9 those nights. On then on Tuesday we had district meeting, and Zone meeting, so our teaching time was a little bit delayed so we didn't get out until about two or three. 

Wednesday was a really awesome day, we were fortunate enough to have a worldwide broadcast for all of the missionaries all over the world. We were able to learn so much from Elder Oaks, Elder Bednar, Elder Anderson, Bishop Waddell, Bonnie L. Oscarson, Steven B Allen, and Elder Nielsen. They are members of the missionary executive committee which is kind of in charge of all of the missionary work all over the world. The main focus for the worldwide broadcast was, teach repentance and baptize converts. It was so amazing to be able to hear their insights, and their advice, about how we can be more effective missionaries. One of the things that I loved the most that Elder Oaks said, was to not skip a step. A lot of times in missionary work we get so focused on just baptism, but baptism is not the only part of the gospel that's important to our heavenly father. A big focus of the meeting was talking about how the gospel of Jesus Christ is a fruition teaching, it is not a series of steps or cookbook of ingredients. So now as a mission, our big focus is not specifically to baptize but to build the faith of the investigators and those that we teach. As we slow down to teach and build faith, we will speed up the conversion of our investigators. 

Thursday was a really amazing day also. We were able to have a special MLC a missionary leadership council. With a special guest of Brother Donaldson who is a member of the missionary committee in Salt Lake City Utah. We focused a lot on how to specifically apply the things that we learned during the World Wide Broadcast into our missionary work. This broadcast is completely changing the way that we do missionary work and it was so amazing to be able to receive the revelation and change as missionaries to become better teachers. One of the most amazing things that Brother Donaldson taught us how to use the gospel of Jesus Christ better, to teach our investigators. I will attach a picture of a diagram that he drew out that helps us see the gospel of Jesus Christ and how it helps us get to our father in heaven. It truly is gods plan for us to return to him.

He also showed us how to use the Book of Mormon more effectively in our teaching. In the past we had given our investigators random parts or chapters in the Book of Mormon to read in attempt to help them grow a testimony of it. Brother Donaldson pointed out to us that the Book of Mormon is just like every other book we need to start at the beginning and it really relates specifically to the investigators. The book is perfect. He then walked us through a role-play of relating first Nephi chapter 1 specifically to investigators and boy let me tell you it was fantastic. 

After the meeting, we went straight to an investigator's house and taught it the same way that he taught it to a lady name Cynthia. Cynthia was a former investigator of ours who was really awesome but was never able to progress in the Gospel. We decided to go back and to start over with the Book of Mormon. We taught in the beginning and the lesson was completely different. At the end of the lesson she offered prayer and it was one of the most powerful prayers I've ever heard an investigator say. She was in tears and we were also. I love being a missionary.

I also had the opportunity to drive a lot this past two weeks to do lots of baptismal interviews for investigators who are preparing to be baptized. I drove down to Arkansas City two times to interview Martin Pedro Martin a super cool Mexican man that is really humble and ready to change his life through the gospel

Last Saturday was also a real sad day we had a baptism that was supposed to happen. But unfortunately the morning of it fell through because Vivian's mom decided that she didn't want her to get baptized anymore. It was a huge bummer because Vivian is one of the most elect souls that I've ever met in my entire life she is so converted to the Gospel and so ready to be baptized. She now has the goal to get baptized on her 18th birthday. July 13, 2018. 

I think that about covers all of the information for last weeks email so I'm going to send this one off and write a new one for this weeks email love you guys see you soon bye!!

Elder Murphy

Kellogg District!!

Martin Pedro Martin, he's a homie.

Vivian! By far one of the coolest people I've ever met. 

Posterity Picture! (Elder Evans[trained Elder Sperry], Elder Sperry [trained me], and Me)