Turkey, floods and grubs

Hey everybody! 

The NGOs are really great here in Texas, it's starting to feel cold even,
and it's been raining a ton for the past few days.
Thanksgiving was awesome! We had a good dinner with the Crocket family!
This week was pretty weird, especially on Saturday.  Our car only has
a few miles left to go this month, so we couldn't go anywhere far, so
we stayed in town mostly, teaching people we had met close to us. That
went actually pretty well, we have a new potential investigator, and
she seems really nice, too!
So, on Saturday, I woke up and went to the kitchen to make some
breakfast, and there were all these little grub things crawling all
over the ground! They were very gross, so me and Moe spent the morning doing a
thorough cleaning of the apartment.  Don't worry though, we got it nice
and clean, and it will stay that way for a while now! Also, at the end
of the day, we found out the Sisters apartment had some flooding from
their neighbor upstairs, so we went to go check to see if they were
alright. Sister Fernandez has been sick for the past few days, so she
was knocked out sleeping when it happened. When she woke up, Sister
White was cleaning up all the carpets, and tearing them up and stuff,
so sister F was really confused.  Anyway, they're alright now, doing
good!
Thanksgiving was great, like I said. We had the actual dinner at the
Crockets with their family, and we had dessert with the Hentschels.
It was all really good, and we both got so stuffed! We also played
some football and kickball with the Hentschel kids, they are awsome.
I'm really glad to hear that y'all had a great Thanksgiving too, I sure
did miss you though, but only a little! It does feel weird not being
with y'all this year, but I guess we just need to get used to it for
now.  
 I love y'all so much and I hope everything goes great for y'all this week! Enjoy the snow, I'm
pretty jealous of that. Till next week!

Thanksgiving Day

After District Meeting

Love, Elder Murdock
True to the Faith

Thanksgiving Week

Heeeellllooooo everybody! Things are going really great out here!
We've got some people who say they want to be be baptized, we are
teaching more people, and having fun doing it!
There's a family out here who loves us a lot, they are really sad
about Elder Moe leaving though. Because of that, though, they've let
us eat dinner with them as much as they can.  They signed up for every
Saturday night, and other days too. The best thing about it is, the
Grandma,whose house it is, lets some of her kids live
with her, and her grandkids.  Her son in law is the one we are
teaching, so we get to teach him each time we come over.  Oh, and it's
the same family who has the kid we baptized! They are awesome,
we are going over at thanksgiving to eat desert, She makes home made
pies!
We are eating at a different families house  for thanksgiving meal.  They have a nice house
on the lake, and they are also an amazing family. I sure miss my
family though, they are probably my favorite in the whole world! I
just wanted to let you know I'm taken care of out here.
So, a whole lot of kids were outside our apartment the other day,  and we
had fun playing with them. They thought it was cool that we were
"church people". And they all wanted some bibles, and Books of Mormon.
We gave them to them, and they thought it was awesome! I'm not sure if
their parents will like them, but oh well!
That's really about it, thanks for all the pictures, it's fun to see
how y'all are doing! I'll keep working hard out here, and I hope
Thanksgiving will be good for y'all! Say hi to all the family!
I love you guys,
Love,
Elder Murdock

True to the Faith

At the church on PDay!

Teaching a lesson!

Good week-Short Email

Hello family! Things have been going really well out here.We
just  got four new investigators that are all in part member
families, so good news! At least I hope so!
Not too much has happened this week, I'm sorry to say.  I went
on an exchange with elder Udal, the district leader, and that went
really well, he's a great guy! We tried to teach a few lessons, but
the people just weren't really as interested as I thought.  I got the package you sent.
 Thank you for all the winter gear by the way, I think it will help a lot, it's actually
starting to get colder out here!
An older woman in the ward passed away this week.  Most of her family are members so they have the Plan of Salvation.  It sure helps people during hard times.  We went over to the families  house to see if they needed any help from the Elders. They found out Moe was Tongan, and one of them
actually asked if he could do the Hakka. He said yes, and we ended up
doing it for them right there in the living Room! It was crazy, but so
is Texas. I love it out here, and I love all of you! Have a great week!
Love,
               Elder Murdock
True to the Faith 

Sporting the cool Tonga shirt!

Breakfast at the Mission Home with Pres. and Sister Drake

Investigators, Pool, and Baptism

Hello everybody! It's so good to hear how well y'all are doing, and I'm
so glad the Devils are going to Rice! I think it's funny that you play
East though, because there is a Tongan Elder in my district, Elder
Tukuafu, that played for East the year they lost to Timpview in the
state game. When I told him about the game he said he
didn't like me anymore! But, I think we'll be alright, once the game is
over! ! 
Big things are happening down here in Dixie guys, I'm glad to get to be a part of it!
This week has been good to us, we taught a lot of less actives this
week, as well as a couple of new investigators! One of them was A.T.
again, and he is still doing good, we taught him the full
lesson of the restoration, and he is still real interested, and he
wants us to keep coming by! The other man we're going to start
teaching is an older gentleman who lives near us.
He likes us, but he really wants to make sure
about the church before he commits to anything, so we're going to work
with him a bit.
Something cool happened the other night! We were going out to check up on a
less active, who we didn't have much luck with, but as we were driving
away, I saw these people playing pool in a shed house thing, and I
commented on it to Elder Moe, who loves pool (he beats me every time
we play) and he asked if we should go play with them. I said yeah, why
not! So we parked our car and went over, suits and all, and asked if
we could play a game with them. They were a little suspicious at
first, but when we told them we were Mormons, not J-dubs, they were
happy to have us!   Moe played one of the Gentleman first.
 Elder Moe beat him in pool. Then we played the ladies. One of them beat me, but I 
was able to teach the restoration during the game! Elder Moe taught
the other girl while I played.   They both took a Book of Mormon, and
would like us to keep coming by to play pool and teach. One gentleman who was the 
best at pool played Elder Moe. Moe beat him once, then lost to him. He was
wearing a cowboy hat, and he kinda reminded me of uncle Dave in a
way.  He isn't as interested in us as the others, but we were able to
clear up a few questions for him, and he said we were welcome back any
time. So that was cool!
We also baptized our 8 year old investigator.  I think it is so good for him to do this, and I
love that family as well.  
Well I'm doing good out here, I think about y'all  a lot, and I hope you
know how much all of you, Mom Dad and Wes and everyone else, have been
able to help me by being who you are! Thanks, and I love you!
Love,
                  Elder Murdock 

True to the Faith

Back Road

Baptism

District Meeting with a visitor!!

Racing for Book of Mormons, Halloween, and Teaching

 I hope all y'all are doing good after that earthquake. (We had a small earthquake here at home on Monday morning. It woke us up early!) I know I'm doing alright after a few tornado warnings out here, pretty crazy stuff lately I guess! It's been a really good week, we got some good stuff done and had fun doing it. On Tuesday we went out looking for people, and we stopped by to see these people we met a while back, but they weren't home. Instead, their kids were there, with some of their cousins riding bikes. We actually got to play with two of the younger kids. We played catch with a baseball a little bit, it was fun. It all started out with Moe challenging their older cousin, who was on a bike, to a race. Moe on feet, the kid on a bike.  Moe won, of course, and because he won, the kids had to take Books of Mormon from us! The younger kid,  who is about seven, invited us back the other day, but nothing really came of it, but I think we'll keep trying them out, we'll see how it goes.  Wednesday was great, we taught an 8 year old another lesson.  He is in a part member family.  His family all dressed up as opposite genders for the ward trunk or treat, and it was so funny to see them like that! I love this 8 year old! He is such a smart little guy, he's taking the lessons really well!  The rest of the week has been good, we had the sisters over to our porch for dinner on Halloween, and that was fun, we had Tongan food for Halloween! We all went as missionaries, of course.  Then just yesterday, we went back to see those kids I was talking about, and their grandma wasn't having a good day. She lives with them, and she just told us to go away. So, we decided to walk down the street a little farther and knocked on some houses. The first one we knocked on was an old couple who let us in and were nice, but just weren't interested, but they did say that their neighbor was a preacher if we wanted to talk to him. Of course we did, so we went over and knocked on his door, and, long story short, he and his whole congregation want to be baptized now! Haha, just kidding I wish. The preacher moved out not too long ago and another older gentleman lives there now, and this guy needs to be a Mormon! I'm not kidding, he doesn't drink, he loves the story of the early saints, he understands the restoration, and he's looking for a church around here where he can pay his 10% tithe! This guy is practically made for our church, I just want to keep teaching him! 

So, I took a lot of pictures this week. I think I'll let the pictures do most of the talking. I love you all so much, you're the best!

Love, 

              Elder Murdock

True to the Faith

Enjoying the view

Fishing early morning on P day

Rain, Pugs, and Prayer

Hello everybody! Yes, I am staying dry, but just barely! It's been
raining non stop for the last two days, and it only just stopped
today! It's  crazy! It's been good though, I don't mind it that much.Thank you for the
package! The pumpkins are awesome, and Elder Moe loved
those cookies. He grabbed a couple when I first opened it and walked
off, then he came straight back and said, dang those are good, grabbed
another handful and walked off again! I'm still with him here in
Onalaska after this transfer, so I guess there's still some work we
need to do here! I'm glad, I've really gotten to love this place and
this ward, it almost feels like home! Speaking of home, I'm so happy
to hear about the wedding! Tell Libby and Drew that I am really happy for
them, and that I'm sorry I missed it!   This week we had Stake
Conference and we couldn't go to the Sunday sessions due to the rain,
but I was able to go down Saturday night with our ward mission leader
and his wife. Sister and President Drake spoke there, and a big part
of their talks was on love, and it made me think of how much love the
Savior has for each and every one of us.  It also made me think of my
mission plaque scripture,  Moroni 7:48.
 I have truly felt the power of prayer as I've served
out here, especially as I've prayed to be filled with charity.  I've
been thinking about the love of Christ a lot lately, and about how I
need to show that love to others, even more now that I'm a full time
representative of the Lord.  I hope y'all  can find that love too!
So, something funny happened this week. Our heater got turned on for
the first time by our landlady, and it was getting a little too hot
for me and Elder Moe, so I opened up or front and back doors to get a
good breeze in, then I went back to reading my scriptures at my desk.
While I was reading, I heard this really creepy grunting and snorting
noise coming from the door. At first I thought it was just Elder
Moeakiola, because he does that a lot, but I didn't see anyone there!
So I looked at the door, expecting to see a great big dog standing at
it, but instead I find this hilarious little pug with a huge nose
trying to get in through the cracked door! He actually did get in, and
waddled all around our apartment until we finally shooed him out, but
it was so funny to see this little dog with its big tongue scampering
around the apartment!
I'm doing good out here, and I'm excited for this new transfer, to see
if I get to meet any  new people, or even get a couple baptisms!
Who knows, anything can happen out here, and I can't wait to write y'all 
back about it! Keep up the good work back home, and know I love you
all!
Love,
               Elder Murdock

True to the Faith

Stormy weather

Sneaky Pug

P Day

Talent shows, baptize, and ride

Hello family!  Elder Moe and I, along with the young men in our ward, did a Hakka for our talent show! It was so fun, Elder Moe especially liked doing it, and practicing for it.  The talent show was fun, we also did another skit with a young adult in the ward who just graduated.

This week has been great! On Tuesday we were on another exchange with the the zone leaders, so I got to go  down by Kingwood with a red head named Elder--- he's a zone leader. That was pretty great. We biked around a lot and even stopped at this Mexican food truck, and Wes, I actually got a Torta! I didn't drop it though, thankfully, but I thought of you when I got it. It's kinda like if you put a fajita on a sandwich, they are pretty good.  The place reminded me of some places we were at in India!

Then on Wednesday we had a talent show, and that was way fun to see all the ward and their talents. I didn't play viola then, but I still had fun doing some skits and things! 

Also, on Sunday, our Bishop's wife asked if I could play viola on Friday for the ward genealogy dinner. I told  her yes, but I would need to find some old Scottish and Irish jigs to play.  So, I went and found a few jigs to play on Wednesday, practiced and memorized them on Thursday, and played them on Friday! It was a little hectic, but it turned out alright. I love playing!

Then of course, we had a baptism on Saturday!!! It went really well, it felt so good to be able to help him into the water, I didn't baptize him, it was the another older gentleman that did that.  Me and Moe just helped him into the water because of his leg.  He did well though! He was very frightened though, but Elder Moe had him as he went under. It went off without a hitch and it was awesome! His confirmation yesterday went great too. It was amazing, being able to stand in the circle and help give him the Holy Ghost. Man, I love being a missionary! It made me hungry for more! I can see why dad loved his mission so much, it is just so amazing! I want to keep bringing people to the fold, to the true church! It's amazing seeing them grow in the gospel, and to see the spirit touch them in such an amazing way.  I'll keep working hard!

Ok, now I should probably answer a few of yalls questions: the weather is good, the heat is starting to go away, finally, but there hasn't been any rain for a while, we could really use some! 

I'm not sure about jackets and sweater vests, I think the jacket I have here will work for now, but if I need more I'll let y'all  know! 

Alright, things are going great out here, I love you all, thanks for caring about me while I'm out here, I can't believe how fast time flies! I'm already about to go into my third transfer next week! It's all going good guys, keep up the good work back home! I'm glad you had an undefeated season, tell the team they are the best!  Good luck in playoffs.  I love you. 

Love, 

                 Elder Murdock

 True to the Faith

P Day BBall

Ward talent night 

Some people are "dying" for the Book of Mormon

Baptism