Very Last Email!

Well, it looks like this it y'all! It's been a full and exciting two
years here in Texas and Louisiana. There's been so much that's
happened I guess it would take about 106 emails to share about it, and
then some. It's been extremely humbling to serve in this calling, to
know that I've been working side by side with it Savior these last two
years has been a learning experience that I will always be grateful
for. I feel like Ammon after his mission, in Alma 26, "Now have we not
reason to rejoice? Yea, I say unto you, there never were men that had
so great reason to rejoice as we, since the world began; yea, and my
joy is carried away, even unto boasting in my God; for he has all
power, all wisdom, and all understanding; he comprehendeth all things,
and he is a merciful Being, even unto salvation, to those who will
repent and believe on his name." I truly know God will forgive all who
come unto him and repent. He is our father and he loves us. All he
wants is for us to come back home and live with him. He's holding out
his hands all the day long, asking us to come back to him. I know that
we can, I've seen it happen in my life and in the lives of so many
others. I know this is only possible because of Jesus Christ, he is
our Savior, the light the truth and the way. This is His church, it's
true it's true it's true! Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, The book
of Mormon is proof of that, I know it is because it testifies of
Christ. The spirt has testified this to me, and is testifying it to me
now as I write this, what more proof do I need than that?
I love this gospel, I've loved my mission, and I love the Lord. I'm
excited to see what he's got in store for me next! For anyone whose
interested, I'll be giving a talk in church on Sunday the 13th of
August back in good old Mapleton Utah, at 10:50.  I'll get you the address! Hope I can see you!
I sure do love y'all, but I love the Lord more, I'm so glad I could
serve him these past two years.
Love,
Elder Murdock

Month 1- The Blackburns took Elder Murdock out to dinner in Onalaska.

 Month 24-The Blackburns tracked him down again and took him out!  Thanks Blackburns

Week 105-Last Week!

Hello everyone! This will probably be my last big email I send on my
mission, next week I'll be getting ready to ship out back to Utah. I
could go on and on about how much the mission has changed me, about all
of the times I've felt the spirit prompt me to do something and seeing
the miracles come from it, about all the wonderful friendships I've
made here, and the lessons I've learned, about the lives I've seen
change, and the sorrows I've felt, all the joy I've felt too, man, you
know, I could just go on an on about it all! In the end though, the
most important thing I've come to know here is that I have a Savior,
and that he loves me more than I may ever know, and that I love Him
for that. It's been a pleasure to serve him, and I hope to one day
embrace him, and look him in his eyes, and thank him for this
wonderful mission he let me serve.
OK, enough emotional stuff, this week we got to go on lots of
exchanges all throughout the zone, from right here in Vidor all the
way out to Jennings Louisiana. We also baptized a kind old lady this
week named Becky Bartok, she needed help in the font, so we both
stepped down and helped her to be baptized, it was a very sweet
moment.
I sure do love y'all, but I love my Savior more, I'll be serving him
for this last week with all I got!
Love,
Elder Murdock
True to the Faith

Elder Murdock Returns Home on August 1st!!

Week 104

Hello everyone! This week was super busy, so I think the best way to
describe it is with a photo montage, here we go!

Week 103

Hey everyone!
This past week has been great, we've been able to see the Lord work
his miracles out here in Vidor for sure! Like on Friday, we were
eating dinner with the Hoosiers, a family in the ward who have been
here forever. We asked them if they knew anybody they thought could
use some help, and they told us of a less active guy,
who lived down their street on a little farm. We decided to go see
him, and found him sitting out on the porch of an old trailer home he
converted into a feed barn for all his cows and pigs and such, they
were all moseying around his yard. We talked to him for a bit, he's a
good old dude with a big old beard who's been a member forever and
less active for just about as long. We asked him if he knew anyone
that would like to be baptized, and he said, "yeah! My little niece is
nine years old and needs to be baptized!" So we went over to his house
across the street where his niece is staying at for now,
taught them a little lesson, committed her to Baptism, invited them
both to church, and what do you know, they came! He was quite the
sight to see walking to church with a Hawaiian floral shirt and his
big beard, but Kiley was all smiles, she's great.

OK, one more long story, but this is a really cool miracle that I'd
like to share,

Yesterday we decided to go try walking around a neighborhood that we'd
never been to before, and found a good looking place to go on the map.
Once we got there, we both felt prompted to start walking down a
street to our right. We didn't find anybody too interested on that
street, we just talked to one man and gave him a pamphlet, he wasn't
too interested though. As we kept walking down the street, we thought
it was a dead end, and almost decided to turn around, but another
promting came to go down to the end just to make sure. Lo and behold,
the street kept going around the corner. Then we decided to check our
area book map to see if there were any less active or part member
families that lived on that street, and of course there were, this is
Vidor, it's like the Utah Valley of Texas, there's Mormons everywhere!
In fact, the very house we were standing outside of at the time was
the house that the part member family lived in, and the wife was
pulling into the drive way at that very moment! We called to her as
she was getting out of her car, asking her if James (the less active
guy) was home. She replied no, James is dead. What! Turns out that the
lady was James' wife, and that he'd been dead for almost a year now.
Her name is Liz, and has been a member of the church of christ for a
while now. They teach that families will not be together forever, so
she has been rather upset since the death of her husband. She was
crying a lot as we talked with her, she and her husband were both
still pretty young, into their fifties or so I'd say. We testified to
her that families are eternal, and that it's all part of God's plan
for us to be together forever, and that it's all because of Jesus
Christ and his Atonement that this is possible, and that we know this
because of the restoration of the gospel. We gave her a book of Mormon
and asked her to read it, and we'll be back to see her this Thursday!
She was feeling a lot better by the end, I'm just glad I've got a
testimony of a heavenly father who has a plan for me and my family,
and that we can live with him together forever because of it, and for
the chance I had to share it with her and help her be happier!

The scripture for this week is Alma 5:33, I've been studying more on
the atonement this week, and I've noticed there lots of scriptures
about the atonement which teach that we can one day return to our
father in Heaven and be received in his loving embrace. Anyway, read
it live it love it!
I sure do love y'all, but I know the Lord loves y'all more!
Love,
Elder Murdock
True to the Faith

4th of July Celebration

Expires

Week 102-Vidor

Hey there everybody, here's my weekly email, hope you like it!

Elder Anderson and I had a good week out here in Vidor, we were able
to see some miracles as we worked to find people to teach and put on
date for Baptism. One of those people was a kid named Trevor, a friend
of Amon Hutson, a young man in the ward. Trevor had met with the
missionaries a few weeks before we got here, and has been talking to
Amon a whole lot about the church even before that. He's had lots of
questions about god and which church is true, and now that he's found
the truth he's so excited about it! I was on an exchange with my new
friend Elder Mooney down in Orange when we had our first apointment
with him, so sadly I wasn't able to meet him til yesterday, but the
lesson went really well apparently, Elder Anderson was with Elder
Bohne, a real good missionary that came out with me. They thought the
restoration lesson in a literal sacred Grove of trees behind the
Hutson house, I was happy to hear it went so well! Now Trevor's fixin
to be baptized in a couple weeks by his friend Amon!

We've also been working with other members of the ward, we've been
making a push to work more with the youth and it's really paid off!
First there's Amon and Trevor, which was a miracle, then there's a
young woman named Whitney, who's fixin to go on a mission
herself, she helped us teach her friend Gabby, whose been
investigating the church for a while now too. So things are going
pretty great here, the Lord is blessing us with a lot of miracles,
we're just glad to be here serving in this way!

In other news, Saturday was Canada day, and Elder Bohne is from
Canada, so we decided to go and sing the Canadian National Anthem with
him after our exchange was over, he was pretty excited about that
🙂🇨🇦
Also, tomorrow is Independence Day, woohoo!!!!! Go
America!!!!!!!🎇🎇🎇 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🎆🎆🎆I've loved serving in this
great country, it's truly the promised land. I know it's a blessing to
live here, and especially to serve here!

One more thing, this was President Drake's last week as our mission
president, so we had a big zone conference this week to say goodbye to
them, it was pretty tender. I also got to bare my parting testimony
there too, which was strange. Our new mission President got here a
couple days ago, his name is President Hewlett. We'll be meeting him
tomorrow, so I'm excited about that!

I sure do love y'all, and I know the Lord loves you even more than
that, trust in him and he will show you miracles! This week's
scripture comes form Judges, about one of my favorite Bible hero's,
Gideon, in chapter 6:11-16, read it live it love it!

Love,
Elder Murdock
True to the Faith

Orange zone

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

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