Monday, June 26, 2017

Week 101 Vidor

Hey everybody
Well I went and got transfered last week, now I'm in a place called
Vidor Texas, a little place that's actually full of Mormons. It feels
a lot like Utah really, just bigger. Because everything's bigger in
Texas.
My new companions name is Elder Anderson and he's a great guy, he's
from out there in Panguitch and loves basketball and missionary work.
We're whitewashing our new area, which means we're both new to the
area. It's actually how I started my mission, so I guess it's how I'm
going to end it!
We're also both brand new zone leaders for the Orange zone, which
means I get to go into Louisiana every now and then for exchanges and
district meetings and things. We actually went on an exchange this
week with the elders out there, Elder Anderson went out to Jennings
and I got to go back to Lake Chuck one last time with elder Ludlow and
Elder Saunders and see how the area's doing. It was nice to see some
of the places I served in again, and for dinner we ate at the Turreks,
a really great family down there, and they make amazing food! It was
nice to see them again, along with Pierre, seeing all of them almost
made me feel like I was serving there again.
Elder Anderson and I are still getting used to our area, we're really
still not too sure who all of our investigators are, or really what
we're doing as zone leaders, but we're both taking it one day at a
time, here a little there a little! I've definitely been learning a
lot more, it's crazy, no matter how far along I've come on my mission,
I still realize how little I really know, and how much farther the
lord wants to take me. I'm happy to go wherever that is though,
because I know as long as I keep Him as my guide, I'll never get lost,
or need to be afraid.
I've been reading some of The teachings of Heber J. Grant, he preaches
a lot about hard work and persistence, a couple of attributes I've
been needing to work on. It's so important to always be doing
something good, to work and work and work until you can't anymore. So,
the scripture of the week this week is Mosiah 4:27, read it live it
love it!
I sure do love y'all, and the Lord loves us all more than that! He's
in charge here, so just trust him.
Love,
Elder Murdock
True to the Faith

Elder Ludlow, Elder Saunders, Elder Murdock

Elder Murdock and Elder Anderson

Monday, June 19, 2017

Week 100

Wow, 100 weeks as a missionary, this is too crazy! I hope y'all have
had a good week, mines been a good one. Today's transfer day, and
sadly I've got to say goodbye to my friend Elder Chanel and everyone
else here in Jasper! Ive only been here for six weeks, I sure wish I
could have stayed longer but hey I guess the Lord needs me somewhere
else. I don't have too much time today, so I'll be keeping it short,
all in all, it was a good week, I had an exchange with Elder Wood, who
I'd had an exchange with clear back in Onalaska. It was fun to talk
about our missions and see how much we've learned and just
experienced, missions are crazy things! The rest of the week was
pretty much business as usual, I'm sure this next one will be a little
more interesting, I'll be getting a new comp soon and have a whole new
area to learn again, I can't wait to see what's going to happen!
I sure do love y'all, and the Lord loves you even more than that! Keep
him in mind and you won't go wrong! The scripture of the week is Alma
34:41, read it live it love it!
Love,
Elder Murdock
True to the Faith





Monday, June 12, 2017

Week 99



Talofa Lafa everyone!
This week was great, we did a whole ton of service for different
people, which was really nice. I forgot to take pictures of most of
it, sorry about that, so you'll just have to make up the picture in
your mind.

On Thursday we went and helped change the shocks in our branch mission
leaders car. He lives way out of town in a little neighborhood in the
woods, so his house is far away from any big stores, which is bad,
because we ended up needing another part in order to fix his car that
was sold miles away in town. The good news is, while he left us at his
house to go get the part, we were able to climb some of the big trees
in his front yard! These are the things we do when we get bored.

We also helped hoe some weeds out of a watermelon patch with Matt
Rogers, an older brother in the ward. This patch was huge, probably a
couple football fields long, with tons of melon plants, which were
just starting to bloom, it was nice to go work out side like that,
it's a great way to clear your head for a while.

Later that day we went over to a family we've been teaching for a
while to help do more service for them, and to teach them the rest of
the plan of salvation. I guess it went well because they all ended up
coming to church the next day! The only bad thing about that was that
their van broke right after church, so they couldn't drive all the way
back to their home about thirty miles away. Elder Chanel was able to
figure out what was going on with it, the front drivers side wheel
bearing was way worn down and unusable, so we spent time going all
over the place looking for parts and tools to fix it so they could go
home, but in the end we couldn't get the right part, so we had out
mission leader drive them all back home in his car. We'll be able to
get the part today and finish fixing the van, which is currently
sitting outside of our apartment, so alla well that ends well!

This week's spiritual thought is about Fa'a Samoa, or "the Samoan
way", Elder Chanel has been talking about it a lot lately, and we've
been connecting it to the gospel. So the main things you need to do to
follow the Samoan way is to have discipline in how you live, show
respect to others, especially your family, and have trust in yourself
and others, especially your family. This is a great modle of how we
should live as followers of christ. We discipline ourselves by keeping
God's commandments, (which do include showing respect to your parents
and your neighbors) and work everyday to make ourselves and others
around us better. We show respect for respect to God by doing these
things, and by loving Him, and we trust him by putting our faith in
Him and in His son, Jesus Christ, believing that his ways are higher
than ours. It's a simple little formula, but I think that's why
Samoans and other islanders are so happy and so able to go with he
flow all the time, because they keep things simple and follow these
steps.
Anyway, this is leading up to my scripture of the week, which is:
Proverbs 3:5&6, read it live it live it!
I sure do love y'all, and the Lord loves you the best! Follow Him and
you'll find peace like a river.
Love,
Elder Murdock
True to the Faith


Lunch with the Fred Elders










Tuesday, June 6, 2017

Week 98-Jasper

Hey y'all, welcome to the latest week of my life in email form!
This week was rather uneventful, most of it was doing service for others, which I don't mind doing at all! Elder Chanel is a real handy man, like, he can literally fix anything, plumbing, electric, carpentry, mechanic, anything, so we get asked to come help fix things a whole lot, I'm trying to learn as much as I can from him! On Wednesday we helped some recent converts in the branch rearrange their stuff in their resale shop theyre opening up, and I say stuff, because they just have all kinds of stuff, nothing really specific they're selling, you know, just stuff . After that we went to help a Hispanic couple in the branch with work around the house, fixing their lawn mower, fixing their toilet, and fixing some of the lighting in their house. We also helped out Brother Rogers with his tractors again, we didn't  get to ride them this time though, because we had to go get things ready for a dinner apointment with a part member less active family. Last Monday, Elder Chanel picked a big tero root that was growing in front of our branch mission leaders house. Our mission leader had never known what it was until Elder Chanel picked it, it's pretty much a big Polynesian potato, this thing

Anyway, the part member family wanted him to make it for them, and it took forever to boil that thing, but it tastes great, especially with coconut milk. while it was cooking, we prepared some songs to play and sing for them, something else they wanted us to do that night. Elder Chanel borrowed a members guitar and I played viola for them, and we all sang old hymns like amazing grace and all that with them. The non member of the family, Bertha, played the accordian with us, which was neat, sorry I didn't get any videos or anything of that, you'll just have to use you imaginations for that. 

On a more spiritual note, Elder Chanel and I talked a lot this week on the difference between knowledge and wisdom. Heres some thoughts on it:
Knowledge is great, we get it through study, listening to others, just paying attention to life, and it's what we store in our minds to use latter. It's like in D&C  84:85, where we're asked to tresure up in our minds the words of life. Now this is all great and all, but unless we actually do something with that knowledge, unless we live according to the knowledge, it's pretty much useless to us. I think that's a good example of being ignorant, knowing something, or having a knowledge of something, and not wanting to act on it. I like to call this being spiritually fat. Just like in life, if we sit down and have a big feast everyday, but never go out and exercise, we become fat, if we sit down and have a big spiritual feast everyday, like studying scriptures or go to church each week, if we don't go out and exercise the truths that we received then our spirit becomes fat, prideful, and overall unhealthy. We know too much, and don't do anything with that knowledge. Now, a wise person is someone who uses that knowledge correctly. That's someone who understands how they need to live, and they live that way. Jesus Christ is the ultimate example of this, of course. He had a perfect knowledge of the gospel, and pretty much everything else, and He acted in perfect accordance with that knowledge. That's what makes you wise, when your knowledge and your actions become one with each other. A wise person is someone who has experienced things, and learned from those experiences, and acts according to what he's learned, trying to become a better person after each experience. OK, I'm kind of going off on a rant now, I'll stop ðŸ™ƒ but this brings me to my Book of Mormon scripture of the week, Jacob 6:12;
"oh be wise, what can i say more?" Read it live it love it!
I sure do love y'all, and The Savior loves you even more of that! You can be sure of that!!
Love, 
Elder Murdock 
True to the Faith