Finding People, Energetic Apostles

Area:Baytown
Companion:Elder Hansen

 Howdy Folks!These past few weeks have been good. Baytown is much more city than Onalaska, and more diverse!  It's also a bike area, so I think I have more of a chance to be super buff by

the end of this!!! We've been finding a whole lot of people, but we've
been having hard times trying to teach them, especially when one of
them has some really crazy ideas and beliefs.  I've been doing a
lot this week, we got to see President Nelson, WHICH WAS AWESOME!!!!!
He is a really kind, and very funny man, also quite energetic, he just
bounced up the steps in the chapel! He also has really warm hands...
But anyway, it was awesome to hear from him, holy cow what a testimony
builder.  I've taken a lot of pictures, so I'll send you these, I hope
you like them all!  Keep up the good work back home, I love the snowman
missionary, you made! Y'all are awesome!
Elder Murdock

True to the Faith

This is the Elder Snowman Elder Murdock mentioned in his letter.  

Elder Murdock got to see Sister Park at the all Houston Mission Conference.
They went to school together, and Sister Park (polka dots) was part of the group that went with  us on a humanitarian trip to India last summer.

Baytown

Hello everybody! Sorry about not emailing last week, transfers were pretty crazy.  So, I'll try to be quick about what's happened these last two weeks!  My last week with Elder Leftwich was really nice, we were able to teach a nice lady. She was awesome, which probably means she is going to get baptized, and I'm not even going to be there! Oh well, it's still all good! Leaving Elder Leftwich was pretty sad, but I'll still see him throughout the mish.  It sure was fun to serve with him though, he was just a hard worker, I learned a lot from him.  

Elder Hansen is great! He reminds me a lot of Wes, because he can make up songs and such.  He has been out for a year.  This area has some more sketchy areas. There are a lot of of signs and things in Spanish here.  It is a bike area.  Also, we went to Pasadena for Zone meeting, and we had to go over a huge bridge to get there, it was a little bit bigger than the one in Onalaska! So, here is how I got pepper sprayed:

The second morning that I was here, we were just kinda waking up, and Elder Hansen found in his closet a can of pepper spray given to him from one of his last companions, Elder Harington, the same guy who was my first district leader.  Anyway, he had never tried to spray it before, and the instructions say that you need to do that, so he decided to go out on the porch to try it out.  He just sprayed a little bit against the ground, and came back inside.  The problem was, pepper spray apparently spreads out through the air really quick, and we didn't know that.  So, for about an hour, our apartment was full of pepper spray smell, and pepper spray particles, that got up into our noses and eyes and stuff and was really irritating.  Me and Elder Hansen sat there coughing and laughing for a good while, I couldn't feel my nose! It was a really weird thing, and now I never want to be pepper sprayed for real, because if only that much hurt so much, I never want to know how a full on spray to the face would feel!  Just remember everyone, be nice to people, so you won't get pepper sprayed.  

Im still doing good out here! Send small letters to my new address and if I were y'all, I'd send bigger things to the mission home from now on. 

I sure do love y'all! Oh, I almost forgot, Elder Nelson is coming to the Texas Houston South mission on Saturday, but the conference includes all of the Houston missions, so I GET TO See Elder NELSON again!!!! I'm so excited, because I was able to hear him give a talk at the MTC, and since then I've loved him.  Anyway, if there's anyone in the other Houston missions that I know, I'll be able to see them maybe!

Love you, do good to others, 

Elder Murdock

True to the Faith

Awesome apartment in Onalaska!  Hard to say goodbye.

Elder Hansen

Onalaska District

Good-bye Onalaska, Hello Baytown

This is the email we received this week.  Only Mitch would send this with no worries! We are wondering how you get pepper sprayed "a little." Either you are pepper sprayed or you're not-right? Can't wait to hear the story! Gotta love Elder Murdock!!  Also, thank you to all the members in Onalaska and Livingston. He loved it there and y'all were so good to the missionaries!

Email from Elder Murdock:

I'll be quick, I'm in Baytown my comp is Elder Hansen and we got
pepper sprayed a little, I'll talk next week love you! Oh, and don't
worry about the pepper spray I'm fine!

True to the Faith

Storm

Hello everyone! I hope y'all have been keepin up well. I've just been out here serving the Lord. We were able to teach  a lot of people this week, sadly, none of them came to church, but we will keep trying! Man, these people just need to go to church! One really cool thing though, we are teaching a girl who sings really well. Herself and boyfriend are interested in the Gospel. It's been a long time coming for these two, but they are finally accepting our message! We were finally able to sit down and have a real lesson with them about the restoration, and they just accepted it, even the Word of Wisdom! They just knew that the Word of Wisdom comes from God, so that made it a little easier on us. The other people we're teaching are doing well, like I said, they just need to go to church, but other than that, they are all progressing well. Nothing else too big happened, we had a crazy big rain storm on Thursday, there was even some hail down in Houston, and tons of lightning. Me and Elder Leftwich drove over to the lake and watched it all for a little bit, it was awesome! 

I hope y'all have a great new week, I might get transferred by the end of it, I hope I don't, this ward and area is amazing, and so are the people we are teaching, but no matter what, I'll do what I'm asked!

Love y'all, stay safe,

Elder Murdock.

True to the Faith

Crazy Big Rainstorm

P Day

P Day

Elder Murdock's Dad Steve was in San Antonio this week!  So close, but oh so far!!  He was sitting in the Houston airport when that big storm was going on!  Crazy!  We love Texas!

Happy New Year

Hello everybody! I've been good this week, we didn't do much for New
Years except go to bed at ten thirty, we were both really tired, and
we had to be in our apartment by six, mission rules, so yeah, this
year came in pretty bland I'm sorry to say! We had a good president
interview training on Tuesday, and it was great to hear from the APs
and President and Sister Drake, it was a lot about Preach My Gospel,
which really is amazing and y'all should read it, especially you Wes,
read now before you come out!!! We have a couple new investigators, we
need to see them a few more times before we know anything definite,
but they are still there! My testimony has defiantly grown, I've felt
the spirit testify to me just a few days ago! It's awesome and I love
it.
I wish I could see some of that snow back home, the cold is no fun
without it, and it has been pretty cold, in the forties and thirties
even! Me and Elder Leftwich are still doing great and getting along well.
I'll send some pictures of an exchange we had on Wednesday.
 Sorry, I didn't have a huge story to tell this week, but it was
still a good one, trust me! Well, we do have something funny, we have
an invading army of ladybugs coming into our apartment, there have
been a few of them all along our ceiling and our bedroom wall, the
kill count is at about thirty eight, so don't worry, there haven't
been too many. But it is super sad killing them, I mean, they're just
little ladybugs! But, it  turns out they bite us in the middle of the
night, so they have to go. We were actually shooting darts at them at
lunch on our ceiling, but we could never hit them, oh well!
I love y'all, watch out for ladybugs, and Happy New Year!
Love,
Elder Murdock

True to the Faith

Christmas, heat, and new apartment

Hello everybody! It was so nice to see some of you on Christmas,
you all look like you're doing really well! I also loved to hear all
of your voices, it made me so happy! I hope you all had a Merry
Christmas, it sure sounds like you did. Thank you to everyone who sent
me a little something this Christmas, I really enjoyed  all of it, and I
will use everything you sent, so thank you!
This week was a little crazy. I'm pretty sure I told all y'all about
my last apartments bathroom disaster, and how me and Elder Leftwich
stayed the night at my Bishops house a few weeks ago. Well, Bishop
up and decided to do something about it, and he got us a new
apartment right here in town! It turns out that a family in the ward,
 have this nice big spare apartment above the garage next to their house. It was only half finished. 
So, Bishop, some members who are contractors got started on Monday.  By the end of
Wednesday they told us we could move in! 
Those pastors work fast! We also helped out with the
painting and cleaning of the apartment, and if there's  a guy who
knows how to clean up a job site, I'd say I'm that guy (huh dad?)! So
on Thursday, Christmas Eve, me and Elder Leftwich decided to move
everything from our old apartment to the new one. It took us the whole
day, and about seven trips going back and forth. For some reason we
decided to do it all on our own, so it took a while. About the whole
day. By the time it was about five o'clock, I think, we were down to
our beds and our only couch, and some food in our fridge, so we
decided to call up the sisters and their truck (still jealous of that)
to help move the couch, because it wouldn't fit into our car, Sherm.
Well, the couch was a beast to get up the stairs! And, for some
reason, Texas decided to get all hot again all of a sudden, 83
degrees, and humid again, 80%, so by the time we got the couch up the
stairs we were sweating like crazy. The sisters were cheering us on
the whole way though! Man that really took it out of me and Leftwich,
so we spent the rest of the evening organizing the apartment, and
trying to recover from the day. It was a long one! It felt weird
looking back at the old apartment and seeing nothing again, just like
the day I got there, but man, I love this new one! I don't mean to
brag, but it's probably the best in THE mission. Except, we forgot to
turn on the water heater the first few days, so we had to take cold
showers for a bit!
So, not too much actual missionary work happened is week, but we were
still able to go and see people! We taught an investigator again on Wednesday
and on Saturday, but on Saturday there was still a lot of family over,
so it was a loud lesson. Like, Murdock Christmas party loud. We also
took some cookies we made on Tuesday with some members to some
investigators. One of them is a lady we met last week while
tracking, and taught the restoration to this week. She's really a
sweet old lady, and she calls us "baby" a lot, so it's kinda funny!
Other investigators are doing a lot better, and their family is still interested in
the messages.
Well, that's about it this week, I hope you all have a Happy New Year,
and keep doing well this next week too! I love you all,
Love,
Elder Murdock

True to the Faith

Elder Murdock and Leftwich hung a Christmas Tree  of lights and put their presents under it!

New apartment

We loved visiting with Elder Murdock on Christmas Day! He sounded so happy. He loves being a missionary in Texas!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everybody! Things are going great out here, we got our
apartment cleaned up real nice, and we are actually going to have a
new place to stay after Christmas. The Bishop and a few members in the
ward are setting up a guest house next to a members house out here, so
soon me and Elder Leftwich will be living in style! I sure like all
the Christmas pictures y'all sent, and all the ones the Birds sent,
they look awsome!
This week has been great, we did a lot of service for some ward members.
The ward got some members together to build a ramp to make
getting into their house easier.  Elder Leftwich is still doing great too! We just went
fishing today with the Cleveland Elders,and that was a lot of fun. We
were actually able to contact over sixty people in the past two days
just by going and knocking doors! We got a lot of return appointments
from it, and so we should have a very busy week this week! And we are
both way tired from it! Not too much else has happened, that family we
met last week is still doing good, we went by to check on them last
night and gave the mom a blessing. 
Oh, and I was really glad to hear about how THE UTES BEAT THE
COUGARS!!! That was fun to hear, but some of the members aren't too
happy about it! Oh well :)
I hope y'all have a great week this week, I'll see you soon I guess.
I'm so excited to see and talk to all of you, and I hope you are too! Merry
Christmas,
Love,
                 Elder Murdock

True to the Faith