Here I am! Uncle Moe, While you eat!‏

Hey! Sorry I haven't written yet! We tried to go play basketball with our convert family from last week with our 5 awesome baptisms (one of the family, the youngest boy doesn't know how he feels just yet, but we'll get him!). The baptisms went awesome last week. We planned 6 but sadly Zach decided he wasn't ready yet. Even though we all know that he is! Welp tonight we have 2 more baptisms! That will be 7 in one transfer! How amazing! It truly has been an awesome blessing! I know that Elder Richardson and I have nothing to do with it. It is all the hand of the Lord! So tonight we are baptizing, Sister Kirbys daughter.. She's about 48 or something like that, and we are also baptizing a friend of some members who is 18. She is way cool and accepted everything we taught right away! I THINK this transfer will be the most successful transfer on my mission thus far! It's so cool!.. Last night as I was laying in bed I discovered something really amazing... I am in love with the work! I will never let these two years go by but will make the most of it all! I am so grateful to be here and thankful for everyone's love and support! I love being a missionary! I hope that everyone is doing way good! I love and miss you all! Please bother the missionaries because in reality missionaries are never bothered when you say.. "hey.. i know some people.. what do I need to do?" And the missionary will say "Well, just give us their name and we will do the rest!" After tonight I will have had my second baptism that came from knocking. The rest were all referrals and media referrals from on high (as Jess) would call them. I love you all! Keep the peace and baptize all of Texas!

Best Saturday Ever!‏

Welp the family of 5 is set for their baptism tonight! I am so excited! One of them may or may not get baptized but we are planning that he will! Along with the family we have 1 other set to be baptized tonight so in total six! This week and the last have been stressful but I know that the Lord has helped! I love being a missionary as ever and I never want to stop! Can't think of much more to write, I'm pretty sure 6 baptisms is the best news I could possibly have to share! I just got done working on something with President McConkie a few minutes ago, I love that man! He is way funny and pretty intense.. Who'da thought I'd get to work so closely with him! Anyway! I love you all and hope everyone is well!

Welp

Welp today has been a cool day. The sisters had a baptism of someone that a lot of missionaries had taught in the past including myself, but after last transfer it was up to the Sisters to help her progress. Basically I can totally see that apart of the reason for Sisters moving into the area was so that Shyreka would get baptized! It was an awesome baptism and we invited Ann Kirby (one of our coolest investigators) to come and she loved it, shes about 65 and at the end of the baptism she leaned over to me and said "I hope mine will be as great as this!".. Statements like that is why I am here! I love Sister Kirby, she is an amazing lady! She will be getting baptized next weekend! Also we are working with a family of 5.. they are struggling financially right now and had to get rid of their couches and tv and beds and stuff.. But we have a great ward, and our ward mission leader went over this morning and loaned them one of his couches and chair. That is great missionary work right there! This family is awesome, feel free to pray that the Anderson family will be baptized this coming Saturday and that they will have strength to keep the commandments! We are also working with a really cool girl named Lauren. She was supposed to get baptized on the 22nd of August too, but it turns out her mom wants her to "learn more" before she is baptized.. However we will be teaching her and her mom tomorrow night and hopefully a baptismal date can be picked out sooner than later! Elder Richardson and I are not entirely sure where these great blessings are coming from but it truly is amazing how the Lord is working in our area with us! I love the work more than anything ever.. I have been fairly depressed the last week thinking about how one day I will be going home and how I want nothing to do with that day.. trying to figure out how I would even deal with my feelings that last transfer of my mission.. I wanted to ask Elder Cooney how he dealing with it.. Probably the greatest missionary in this generation. He is honestly one of the most Christ-Like people I have literally ever met in this life. He is going home this transfer and I hurt for him. But as I thought more and more about it I realized that my mission really doesn't ever have to end. I can and will be a missionary for the rest of my life and in the life to come. My mission doesn't have to end this time next year, but it will continue. People have often said a super untrue "doctrine" about returning from the mission and claim things such as.. "When you go home you will never be as close to the spirit as you were when you were on your mission." or.. "You will never have that same feeling of the spirit you enjoyed while on your mission.." both statements and any like that are totally and blatantly false and encourage a lax and mediocre returned missionary life. I read a talk that really helped me out and this is what was said:

"Occasionally, a missionary, following his release, will fall victim to this thought: “Well, this isn’t the mission field, so I cannot expect to feel what I was feeling there.”

But, in fact, the opposite is true. When you bring home and apply those principles learned in the mission field, you are prone to feel the Spirit and the Lord’s love MORE than ever before in your life. Your mission experience becomes a launching pad, so to speak, to even greater spiritual heights."

I feel sad for anyone who left their mission in their mission field, country or state..

But yeah anyway, I just love being a missionary! I'm not the greatest and that's alright. I just love the work! And that is the single most important thing. How can you not love serving the Lord each and everyday, it is a natural and important side effect of serving the Lord. That you will love it! I love and miss you all! Give Connor a hug for me! 20$ says he will serve in South Carolina!

-Elder McMurry

Howdy.‏

Well I think I am at that point in my mission where my emails are probably going to be less exciting... We are still working hard though! We have a great family of 5 we are working with but are concerned as to whether or not the parents will really commit to keeping the word of wisdom. Then we have that wonderful lady we met last Friday and she is going to be baptized on the 22nd! So that's way cool.. by the way, it was her birthday and im afraid you guys bought her a quadruple combination... I'll find out for sure on the price and let you know! I'm starting to find myself really disconnected with anything outside of missionary work which is a weird feeling but also a good feeling.. I think the world will be a different place for me when I come back.. but its a good thing that day is so far away! I hope Bec is doing ok! Has she had the baby yet? How are thinking going? If there has been something I have learned the last few weeks is that trials happen for a reason, and the Lord makes use of the trials we give ourselves.. why else would Jesus Christ be the escape for every possible experience and trials we face if it didn't have to do with His love for us or His Atonement? I certainly miss you all. Really all I seem to be able to focus on is being a missionary and also the family.. I'm not the greatest missionary in the world but I do try, pretty hard.. each and everyday. There are missionaries who don't.. and are kinda just along for the ride, but man, this work is so important, I love it even though it can be a really difficult task/experience at times. But I know that every blessing is predicated on obedience and I am trying! I love you all! Please help and love the missionaries in your area.. give them addresses to randomly knock on and whatnot, they will LOVE YOU for it! Anywho... Love you guys! Keep up being cool, and the Lord will bless ya!

-Elder McMurry


To the primary...

(for the two letters i got from them.. i think)

Hey Primary! Thank you so much for your letters! I really appreciate all that you do to support the missionaries! And your letters made me happy. Serving our Savior Jesus Christ is an amazing experience that you can all look forward too! The Lord will bless you and your family as you serve them either in another country like Japan, or Australia, or maybe here in the United States maybe even South Carolina. It will be a great blessing because as you serve the Lord as a missionary you will become more excited and prepared to start your own family and to be able to go the Temple with them. Never forget who you are and do everything you can to prepare to serve as a full-time missionary, whether you will be a Sister missionary or an Elder, you will be great! Jesus loves you, and you can show your love for Him too, by being a missionary today!

Never Gunna Leave..‏

That's my plan at least. I think I've decided I'm going to serve my mission forever. I just love it all. I love the work. I love the people. I love my companions and all the missionaries here. It's just the greatest blessing to serve a mission. I have been really humbled lately and really I have a lot I need to do better. Things are looking great this transfer as far as baptisms! We have A LOT of potential baptisms and I am so excited for all of these wonderful people. We met a really cool lady last night which gave me another strong testimony of planning by the spirit and following through with those plans. She lived on strange out of the way road but Elder Richardson and I knocked it anyway just as we had put it in the plans the night before and it turned out awesome! It's all about member work! Ask the missionaries how you can help them.. cause hey, you're the members you guys have lives and cant think about missionary work all the time, that's why its the missionaries job to take care of the teaching and worrying part of missionary work.. just cast your missionary woes on them and they will love you! But anywho! I love you guys and hope everyone is doing well.. Don't have much else to say.. I hope I get to stick around here for another transfer just to see these awesome baptisms! But.. Now that I want to hang around, who knows If I will? I'll go where the Lord wants me to go though! I miss you all!

-Elder McMurry

sometimes i think the some medicine would be good again cause there are a lot of difficulties in the work and sometimes we just focus to much on things that we don't need too and feel guilty for such trivial things.. i've really seen the simplicity of the gospel and that really.. we just don't need to worry as much as we members of the church do.. even though i still do from time to time.

Well..

I hope you guys are alright.. I know that there are always reasons for our trials. Our zone this week has been doing a "purification" week. where everyday of the week, we focus on an attribute in PMG chapter 6. Today is patience.. other cool things about how we can be happy are Mosiah 4.. an awesome section on being happy! Well mom we are about to go eat! I love you please be happy and do your best to find time to just chill.. Be happy cause I'm happy! Really that's all there is to it... also the lives of other whom have joined the church because of you and dad and how you have raised the 4 of us boys who have all served missions and been instruments in bringing many to the restored gospel! love ya!!! hang in there! see what principles in pmg chapter 6 you can apply in your life each day to become happier and spiritually healthier! a cool thing i learned from it was about hope.. in the gospel language hope is actually "certain", "sure" and "firm".. it is not "uncertain" as we see it today.. Christ had perfect hope, which was certain that things would happen! Its so cool! Just don't cloud your brain with worries.. just be happy! remember what president monson said... i think..
something to the effect of..

"we have the memory of june roses when we need them in the december of our lives"... basically the happiest memories are there to help us through the bitter cold in our life that we sometimes face!

love ya!