Ahoy!‏

Hey all! Thank you so much for your emails and stuff! I love you guys!! So this week Elder Adams and I have worked really really hard and I am just a little exhausted but that's usual and all in a days work right? Our baptism last week fell through but hopefully it will work out this weekend! Elder Adams is a great missionary and I wonder if he will get transferred and train this coming transfer.. he is just awesome! There will be 18 new trainers this transfer..it will be crazy! I love the work that I have been called too. Missionary work is pretty much the greatest thing anyone could ever be a part of! I do love it.. That's not to say it isn't tough and sometimes uncomfortable but those things are minor! I have learned so much about.. everything lately. Specifically I have learned a lot about Faith. That right there is one deep word.. its similar in depth of meaning like the attribute of Charity.. in that we just don't fully grasp the deepness of it and its awe stretching ability.. I haven't learned about how faith is so much "hope in things which are not seen but are true", but really how faith is an actual, real and spiritually tangible power that all of us are either gaining or losing. There is so much more to its power and application then perhaps we see and yet at the same time, it is as simple as we understand and as deep and complex as we can comprehend and deeper still. The simplest definition and the most complex definition are exactly the same. Yes faith is a deep deep subject but shallow enough for an eight year old to use and possess.

But anyway that was just one thought I had. The other was that of being "ready". I think of the statement made of the Savior, "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." This applies in all aspects and principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. "Callings from the Lord are given for men, not men for their Callings." Which falls in line with, "The Lord does not call the equipped, He equips the called." Before this goes over anyone's head including mine, this is the point that I am trying to make: We as children of a loving Heavenly Father are blessed with and given callings from Him with specific responsibilities and duties. Those callings come for our benefit and growth and for the blessing of others. The Gospel is rarely convenient. The Lord expects us to change and to grow and KEEP and USE what we have learned. We should never be content with being ready for something to come to an end for our own purpose and personal benefit. We should however be content with something to come to an end with the understanding that it is God's will that is being done and not our own. We must be ready to move in the direction that God wants us too, and not in the direction that we want to. I have no idea why I just wrote this but maybe its important.

Anywho! The work is exciting, tough and full of blessings! It is so awesome! Thank you everyone for your packages and emails.. It seriously has made me happy to know that you all still remember me! I remember you guys too! Thank you for everything! G-mom and Pop, Mom and Dad and everyone else!

Love
-Elder McMurricane


Thanks...

Thank you everyone for the birthday wishes! Things have been awesome and even awesomer with your packages, seriously.. it has made me way happy realizing that I'm not just typing letters onto a computer screen every week but that you guys actually care and love me, I feel a little bad each time I've gotten one and wish I could do something in return that compares but the best thing I can really think of doing or saying would be.. Happy Gospel!

Love ya!