feliz navidad
Christmas decorations from home
zone comas
package received
Monday, December 30, 2013
December 30, 2013
hey everyone!! i hope you all had a great christmas. this christmas was so different than any christmas i have ever had but one that i will always remember. on the 24th we had a party with the whole mission and we played futbol, had a BBQ (with normal hamburgers!) and we got to watch monsters university (but in spanish haha). it was so fun to see the missionaries from my old zone and my friends from the ccm! and then that night the ward mission leader invited us over for dinner with him and his family. the 25th was a normal work day for us but we got to skype! it was so fun to see and talk to you guys even for only a short time!! it was just what i needed to to keep pushing forward here. overall it was a day to remember our savior and to give service.
this week we have seen some great progress with one of our investigators juvinal. he is super catholic and at first didnt really want to talk to us because he had his religion and his bible and didnt need anything else. but we kept visiting him and taught him about joseph smith and the book of mormon and ever since then he has been reading the book of mormon and he says he knows its true and that joseph smith was a prophet of god. he hasnt left his house in about 2 years because he had to have his leg amputated and cant walk but this sunday he left his house for the first time to go to church with us! it honestly was a miracle! he wants to be baptized and accepted a baptismal date of january 11th. i know that its not going to be easy for him because this is the time when satan is going to try to tempt him most but he is strong and i know that if he keeps reading and praying he will be able to overcome temptation.
new years is coming up and its time to start making resolutions. i want to work on remembering my blessings more and remembering to thank the lord everyday for them. i hope you all have a great week and a great new years! i love you all and will talk to you in 2014!
XOXOXO hermana murdock
December 23, 2013
hello family! how is everyone? how is everyone liking the winter and the snow? i cannot believe i am saying this but there is a tiny tiny tiny part of me that kind of misses the snow. it just doesnt really feel like christmas without it. but im loving the warm weather and the sun! it makes me so happy to go outside now that it has warmed up. during the day its super super hot and even at night now its pretty warm. and they say that this is nothing compared to what it is going to be. i feel bad for my companion who hates the sun and the heat.
this week we had some great things happen:
-on wednesday we got to go to the temple! it was so amazing and so beautiful! the six hermanas in my zone all went together and then went to pizza hut after. it was such a fun day and reminded me of how much i love the temple and how much i took it for granted when i lived to close. the temple is not in our mission boundaries (its in the lima east mission) and so we only get to go 3 times during our mission. (i am sending a few pictures of my companion and i in front of the temple).
-im reading the conference talks from the october 2011 general conference and along with the ones i told you about last week i also love the talk by jeffery r. holland called we are all enlisted. i have really loved rereading the conference talks from past conferences because i learn new things every time. i encourage everyone to start rereading them if you havent already. i promise you will be spiritually uplifted.
-this week we have been visiting a lot of the inactive members and have found out that something happened a few years ago where the bishop offended people and then other people got offended by someone else and i dont know exactly what happened but almost every inactive person we visited this week said that they wont go to church because there are people there that they dont want to see. we have been trying to help them see the importance of forgiveness and have been teaching about unity. one day in my personal study time i found this scripture in mosiah 18:21 "and he commanded them that there should be no contention one with another, but that they should look forward with one eye, having one faith and one baptism, having their hearts knit together in unity and love one towards another." this scripture has kind of become our motto for this ward and we are working really hard to create unity and love here. thats what this ward really needs.
-we have a few investigators right now that i am really excited about. first we have willian, a single dad, who has been talking with different sets of missionaries for about a year and a half now. he is really interested in the church but has a really strong catholic background and has a hard time accepting some things (like how we dont pray to the virgin mary). but this week we watched the video the restauracion with him about joseph smiths first vision and he started crying during the movie and then he came to church yesterday!! he wants to be baptized but wont except a date...yet haha. next we have luis. he is the dad of an inactive member. we invited him to church a few days ago but we didnt know the address of the church so we said we would call him on sunday to tell him the address. so on sunday we called and couldnt get ahold of him. so we went to church and were sitting in relief society when someone came in and said that there was an old man outside looking for a gringa (white girl). and since i am the only gringa around they figured he was looking for me. he had found the church and had come all by himself!! we couldnt believe it we were so excited! and then we have efrian who is an old man who works all day making furniture in his little shop. at first he wouldnt really talk to us and would never smile but the other day we went to visit him in his wood shop and he started laughing (which is really rare for him) and we asked him why he was laughing and he said that he just gets really happy when we come to visit. ah it melted my heart!
-last night our stake had a christmas devotional with a youth choir and little primary kids acted out the nativity scene. it was a really spiritual devotional and then at the end all of us missionaries handed out books of mormon to all the investigators that were there. and we saw that luis and efrian had both come!! ah this is when i love being a missionary! (i will try to attach some pictures of my zone at the devotional)
so overall this has been a great week and i am super excited to talk to you guys on christmas!! we have our mission christmas party tomorrow and i am excited to get to see the missionaries in my old zone. i am glad that i have this opportunity to spend christmas as a missionary and really focus on christ and his birth. because that is what christmas is really about. i love you all and hope you have a great christmas!! until next week...
xoxoxo hermana murdock
¡FELIZ NAVIDAD!
December 16, 2013
HELLO family!!
christmas is coming up! i cant believe its already the middle of december! wow time is flying. the mission is going to have a big christmas party on the 24th which i am really excited about! it should be a grand time. and this wednesday my companion and i got permision to go to the temple!! we can go 3 times on our mission and we have decided to go this week. so after internet today we wont have p-day. it will be so great to go back to the lima temple. it is so so pretty! and this sunday the stake is going to have a christmas devotional and my zone made a goal for each companionship to have 11 investigators there. so that is our goal for this week.
we have had a few challenges this week. first we didnt have running water in our appt for about 4 days haha. that was interesting. couldnt flush the toilet, shower, wash our hands, nothing haha but thats life in peru. then we went to church and found that the ward is not very friendly. we dont have much support from them or from the bishop. but we are really trying to gain their confidence and we are praying really hard. but yesterday we were asked to speak in church and it was really great. i could feel the gift of tongues so strong. my companion said that i gave my talk without an american accent and that she could understand every word i said. it was a true testimony builder of the power of the gift of tongues in my life.
this week i have been reading the 2011 october conference talks because i found an english ensign!!! i was so excited! one of the latino elders had it for some reason and gave it to me. but 3 talks that i really really love and hope that you all will take a few minutes to read are
1- forget me not by dieter f uchtdorf
2-the opportunity of a lifetime by w. christopher waddell
3- love her mother by elaine s. dalton
you can just log on to lds.org and read them i think.
i love you all so much and hope that you all remember our savior this holiday season!! i know this church is true and know that everything we have is a gift from our heavenly father!
until next week...
xoxo hermana murdock
Friday, December 13, 2013
December 9, 2013
hello everyone!! i hope everything has been good for you all this week. i heard that it is super cold in salt lake! the weather here has been warming up and during the day it gets sooooo hot. but at night when the sun goes down it is still really cold. its just the beginning of summer here.
this week has been a lot of ups and downs for me. I got transfered to libertadores in the zone comas (about 2 hours away from my old area by bus). I was the only person in my zone to be transferred. it was a really sad day and there were definitely tears but change is good and change will help me to grow and learn. it was hard to say goodbye to the people in my zone and also the members in begonias. they are all so amazing!! hermana oleachea got a brand new north american to train in begonias and hermana hulse got a new latina hermana from ecuador in santa fe.
so my new area is in the zone comas and the ward is libertadores. there are 200 members in the ward but only about 75 or 80 active. its a really small ward but with some great members. one of the member families la familia ochoa called us the other night and said that they wanted to take us on a tour of the area and introduce us to some of the members. we were so thankful for them and their service and love! my companion and i are both new to this area and so we don't know anyone. It has been super hard for us this week because its basically like we are starting from scratch. But the lord is blessing us and we already have 3 investigators!!
so about my new companion. She is 23 years old and from Honduras. She has one transfer more than me in the mission and she was also trained by hermana Olaechea for the 6 weeks before I came to the mission. She is really cute and we get along great. she has a lot of fears though. a lot. But she has a really sweet spirit and a strong testimony and love of the gospel. I have had to grow a lot this week because I have had to kind of take the lead with talking to people and gaining the confidence of the members. I know that with time we will be able to have some great success here in libertadores.
this week we had the baptism of L and D!! my new zone leaders in libertadores gave me permission to go to the baptism so on Saturday morning we took the bus 2 hours away to my old area. the baptism was so amazing!! I realized that even though we were just baptizing 2 people it will actually be infinite. Because L and D will have families in the future and their kids will be able to grow up in the gospel. L has a really strong desire to serve a mission and so he will bring even more people into this gospel. It really is amazing!! I feel so grateful that I had the opportunity to teach them and get to know them.
Some people have been asking about my Spanish. it gets better every day but there are still some days when I really struggle. I can almost understand everything now but I still have a hard time saying what I want. but I know it will come. it just takes work and patience. and the gift of tongues is real!
I love you all so much and hope that you have a great week in the snow! everyone go and visit temple square and see that lights for me. I am definitely going to miss that this year. but it will be exciting to see how people celebrate the holidays here in Peru!
I love you all!
XOXO hermana murdock
December 2, 2013
HELLO MI FAMILIA!!
Wow I can't believe that its already December! in one month it will be 2014!! AHHHHHHHH. today we have cambios and I have no idea what is going to happen. I hope I get to stay in begonias 2 because there are so many good things that need to happen here but I know that whatever happens will be for the best. there are 29 new missionaries coming tomorrow and 11 are hermanas. the mission is opening a few new areas and the work is progressing so much.
this Saturday we have the baptisms of L and D! I am so excited. They are so ready to be baptized! yesterday at church I saw D holding hands with another little girl walking to primary. it was so great to see that she already has a friend in the ward.
sorry that I don't have much else to report this week. we have been working really hard to find new investigators but as of right now we only have a few that are really consistent.
But we did have an earthquake this week!! it was crazy. it was really small but we were in metro last pday (metro is a big supermarket like walmart) and all the sudden everything started shaking and we were by the fruit and some of the fruit was falling onto the ground. I don't know why but I just started laughing. for some reason I thought it was hilarious. and people were screaming and running. it was a tiny little earthquake and wasn't even scary at all but for some reason the people here were so scared haha.
I hope that you all had a great week and that everyone is getting ready for Christmas. It's going to be different but so great to get to experience the holidays here in Peru!
I love you all!
xoxo hermana murdock
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