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