Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Miracles, Lake Charles

Hey y'all! I sure hope everyone's been doing well, I've been pretty good out here. 
This week was nice, On Sunday we saw a little miracle, it was right before church, and we went to try an investigator named Porsha who we hadn't seen in over a week, we were wondering if she still wanted a ride to church, so we went over to her house. Right when we pulled up she opened her door and was so happy to see us, she explained that she had just been praying to know what she needed to do in her life, then she looked up out her window and there we were getting out of our car! I really love when that happens. 
We had a pretty cool lesson yesterday with an older black lady named Effie and her young friend, Mason, he's white and 11. Effie was a bible referral, and when we knocked on her door, Mason answered, and came out and walked us over to the garage, he also explained that Effie was something like his great god-grandmother. Mason's parents are going through a divorce right now, so he spends a lot of time with Effie, doing lots of study and bible reading, those two are pals, and Mason is probably the brightest kid you'll ever meet, he plays just about all the instruments in band, and the baptist church he's been going to has him play piano for them. He evens knows that the King James Version is the way to go and completely rejects all other bibles. Right when we sat down in their garage, which is actually a really cool study room, they asked us what we got for them, so we gave them the Bible they ordered, and I kinda slyly set a Book of Mormon on the table too, then we said a prayer and started talking to them about the basics, about how we believe in God as our eternal Heavenly Father, etc., when Mason just said, "that's great, I know that, I want y'all to tell me about this here," and he puts his hand on the Book of Mormon, he couldn't take his eyes off it from the time I put it on the table. So we start out in the Bible in John 10 where it talks about his other lost sheep, then just go from there, reading scriptures from the Bible all about the Book of Mormon, the apostasy, the restoration, and this kid is just following all of it so well! He understands the apostasy better than just about anyone else we teach, he really liked Joseph Smith's story about his search for truth, and the story of where the Book of Mormon came from, he loved that! It all made sense to him that it was the native American's ancestors in the BOM, and the Israelites in the Bible, and that God sent prophets to both! It was a really fun lesson, teaching these two very attentive friends, on an old lady and the other a young boy, after the lesson, elder Kent and I just couldn't get over how awesome it was, we've got another lesson with them tomorrow, at the end of the one yesterday, I asked Mason what it would mean to him if he came to know this was true, and he just said simply, " it would mean that this was Jesus's church, and that I should join it, and so should everyone else!" Ah, I'm so excited for tomorrow, this kid is awesome! 
The rest of the week was good, I've been getting to the end of the Book of Mormon in my studies, and I've just read through Moroni 7 again, probably my favorite chapter of scripture, and so this weeks ponderize scripture is Moroni 7:13, read it live it love it! 
I sure do love y'all, but the Lord is who I love the most! I'm still happy to be out here serving him, I hope y'all have a great week wherever you are, 
Love, 
Elder Murdock,
True to the Faith
P Day at the Gulf




Shrimp Boats

Monday, February 20, 2017

Another Week in Lake Charles

Hey Everyone,
This last week I was asked to play a musical number in both the Lake Charles wards (Savior Redeemer of my Soul, one of my favorites, accompanied with a harp, so good!) and also to give a talk in sacrament meeting on The Atonement and missionary work, so I figure I'll share a little bit of what I found. 

The Atonement was the great sacrifice and burden that Christ endured and completed so that all of us would one day be able to return and live with Him and our Heavenly Father again.  He describes his pains in D&C section 19 as being so great that it caused, "even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit--and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink--".Without it, there really wouldn't be much of anything, all of creation would be pointless. As Elder Holland describes it, each of us would be in a never ending free fall. 

What I found interesting was that we can feel peace as we take upon ourselves the same burden that Christ took, at least in part. In Mathew 11:28 He says, "28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

That seems kinda crazy, doesn't it? To take up the same yoke and burden that Christ had sounds more stressful than peaceful! So how do we do it? 

Part of the answer I found is in D&C 19:23

First, we need to learn of Christ, and listen to his words. As we do this, we'll see that all Christ ever did was serve others, and love them. He never did anything for himself, ever. Second, he asks us to walk in the meekness of his Spirit. This means to do the things He would do, walk the paths he walked, and to do them humbly and meekly. To truly walk in the meekness of His spirit, we need to have the bond of charity, which is the pure love that Christ has for all of us, the greatest of all the gifts we can receive in this life. D&C 88:125 also defines the bond of charity as the bond of perfectness and peace. So there it is! The key to finding peace in taking upon ourselves christ's yoke is to have his pure love in our hearts, then go and do the things that he did. And what did He do? He preached the gospel, he healed the sick, raised the dead, served others, and sacrificed His will to do His fathers. 

In essence, He did missionary work! The same kind of work that each one of us who are members of the church have been asked to do. So, if you want to have more peace in your life, put on the bond of charity and then go out and help people! I like this quote that President Hinkley said in a talk he gave to BYU students, "If you are complaining about life, it is because you are thinking only of yourself. There was for many years a sign on the wall of a shoe repair shop I patronized. It read, “I complained because I had no shoes until I saw a man who had no feet.” The most effective medicine for the sickness of self-pity is to lose oneself in the service of others." 

I've definitely come to know, as I've served in my mission, that this is so true. If you want to feel better, just go help others! 

But those are a few of my thoughts, hope it's good!
Love, Elder Murdock


Saturday, February 18, 2017

New Comp-Lake Charles

Hey everyone! Here's my email this week, hope y'all enjoy it!
So, last weeek was transfers and I had to say good bye to Elder Crim
after only six wonderful weeks with him, we had a lot of fun together
and worked hard to see success, I was happy to serve with him and I'll
definitely miss him!

But, on the bright side, I got a brand new shiny comp named Elder
Kent! I felt kinda bad though, because on Sunday I got a pretty bad
head cold at Stake conference and I wasn't able to shake it until
Tuesday night, so his first impression of me was pretty sad, I could
hardly think straight! He's from Logan Utah, but has also lived for a
long while in Iowa. He's a great guy, I'm excited to be serving with
him, he's a hard worker and already loves it out here in Louisiana
(but who wouldn't? This is the best place ever!)

In other news, the Lake Charles Sister's up and moved out last week,
so we're now the only missionaries in the ward! Which means we get to
take over all the sister's old investigators and their old area, so we
now have a whole lot more country to go and see! I'm excited for that,
and for all the new wonderful people we get to work with.

Ok, so, one strange thing that happened this week and one cool thing:
On Thursday we were walking around a ghetto apartment complex looking
for new investigators, like you do, and right when we got out of our
car, we looked over and saw this big black guy driving around on the
side walk in one of those little pink electric Barbie cars, like a
real straight up OG. We couldn't believe what we were seeing for a
little bit, until we took a closer look and saw a little girl sitting
in the "passenger seat", still, it was a pretty strange sight to see!

Another cool thing that happened, on Tuesday we were walking around
 where we found Joyce, again, looking for more new
investigators. We had found about four people who seemed pretty
interested before we got to the end of the street, and I couldn't see
anybody else outside walking around, and I had been feeling pretty
sick so I turned around to go back to the car when he asked me if I
wanted to keep going on to the next street. I thought, sure, why not?
So we kept going and right when we were turning the corner on the
street, this young black lady comes walking right up to us and asks us
"whatchyall doing?" So we tell her that we're missionaries, and she
got all excited and asked if we had any bibles she could have, and of
course we did! We gave her a bible and a Book of Mormon and told her a
little about it. While we were talking to her I got pretty dizzy (we
were also fasting that day along with the rest of the zone to see
miracles happen this transfer) so while we were teaching I was just
like, can we sit down on the curb? So we taught her the restoration
while sitting on the curb next to a ghetto playground in the projects,
pretty neat experience! Her names Porsha, she's 20, is married and has
two little chiruns and wants to learn more! I'm so glad my comp was
listening to the Spirit while I was feeling so crummy.

Well, I sure do love y'all, but I love the Lord even more! I'm out
here working hard to follow His will, I hope y'all are doing the same
wherever you may be! This weeks ponderize scripture is Alma 42:30-31,
read it, live it, love it!
Love,
Elder Murdock
True to the Faith




Elder Murdock and Elder Kent




Monday, February 6, 2017

Crawfish

Hey y'all! I'm sitting in transfer meeting right now, it's been a
crazy day of driving and all, so this'll be a short email, I hope last
weeks makes up for it! I'm staying in Lake Charles, but Elder Crim is
leaving, we had a lot of fun together this last transfer, I hate to see
him go!

This week was pretty cool, on Tuesday I got to go to a big mission
leadership meeting, there's a lot of changes going on in the mission,
and all over the world too, I'll tell y'all about it next week, also,
elder Crim never had a chance to eat straight crawfish in his six
months in Louisiana, so we got some! That's all I got time for, I sure
do love y'all but I love the Lord more! Until next week!
Love,
Elder Murdock

True to the Faith