Californian in Kansas: 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