Another Week!

Well, things must move forward I suppose! We had interviews this past week, it was an important interview for me to have with president. I know in most all of my emails and journal entries I only mention the most positive and uplifting things, things that will for the most part bless my family and others somewhere down the road. I say that to make the point that missionary life is often pretty tough, rewarding and worthwhile, but also tough. I have had some tough times in the past couple of weeks and so it was important for me to sit and receive council from President McConkie. I love him, and sustain him and he gave me some instruction on what I need to be doing so I have had some time to ponder on that. We often have difficulties because of others, life, and unfortunately most often ourselves. I have had difficulties because of my own shortcomings which have caused me great difficulty in recognizing my potential to be and become a better missionary! So with that said, I am ready to improve and become the best that I can be! I am grateful for the Atonement and for the restoration that helps us understand the very need of it!

Welp! We are still working with a wonderful investigator, Nicole Hasty. It is such a tough situation because she just lost her 2 year old daughter about 3-4 weeks ago. She also chooses to not understand a lot of things we teach her. He husband is a less-active member and is trying to help but he also has some difficulties to overcome. We have an awesome appointment tonight with a lady named Sara. We met her yesterday while she was pushing her son in a stroller. She also had a small chicken on the stroller and man I had to talk to her! So we went up and I said... "What you got there?"... funny huh? and She explained it was a chicken. It was I guess really a "chick" or whatever. But anyway we had a great conversation for a few minutes and she was very humble and asked us to come by tonight! We are excited to see her and put her and her husband on a baptismal date! Oh I forgot the other part of the story at the beginning about interviews.. Well during Interviews, Sister McConkie was training on member work and she looked at me and said, "Elder McMurry, were you here when Elder Johnson of the Seventy came?" I tried to motion to here that I didn't want Elder Hancock to know.. I bet she was really confused. Anyway.. I didn't really respond and then she said, "That would have been October 2008, yeah you were there.." Elder Hancock looked over towards me for a second and man.. I felt pretty bummed! Well the next night I told him that I go home next transfer.. He knew I went home soon, but not that soon. Anyway! So much for that! Well. I love you all! Thank you for all your prayers! I think you'll only get something like 8 more emails before I return.. I'm not mad about coming home, I am a little sad, but I will move forward with everything the Lord expects of me! LOVE YA!

"Declaration of Dependence"

This is me at our recent leadership meeting! Everyone signed a "Declaration of Dependence" on the Lord it was a neat meeting!

Too Fast!

I think the way I feel right now is probably going to be how we all feel when were about to move on to the next life.. maybe. Not quite ready, and it all just goes by so fast! Anyway, things are going well! We just finished our 4 day meetings last Friday! That was a really neat experience. Elder Hancock and I wanted to work as much as possible whenever we got back from the meetings even though we only had about 3 hours to finally work in our area. Well each night we arrived back in Elgin we took a 10-15 minute dinner and just went straight to work. That Wednesday I tried my best to apply what I had learned at the meetings and found out through prayer where the Lord wanted us to go that night. I had other plans, but had to follow the spirit instead. As I was riding my bike, for some reason this was an important moment for me as I thought to myself, "Man if I was riding my bike in the other direction towards my plans, I would feel guilty and unsure.." I thought this because I knew through prayer that I was not suppose to follow my plans, but the Lords instead. So we continued on that night acting in faith that these plans, (though they seemed so much less effective) would yield some type of fruit. We were simply being submissive to the spirit. Well we talked with one lead that we had which was cool because that was the first thing we did. Than we continued to follow the plans the Lord had given us, and ended up teaching 3 lessons in a row! The final lesson was a family of 3, they each became new investigators and accepted our baptismal invitation! It was an awesome experience! It wasn't until we returned home and kneeled in prayer that we realized what had happened. We had chosen to follow the Lord instead of ourselves. Even the night before on Tuesday we had a similar experience and found 2 other investigators who are simply awesome! So even though we lost between 16-20 hours of proselyting time, we still had a wonderful week! Elder Hancock doesn't know when I go home, I hope to surprise him at the end of next transfer at the transfer meeting itself. Hopefully he will see from that, that even in my last two transfers I worked hard, and rarely spoke about anything other than the work at hand. That I was never a "trunky" missionary. Well! I love you all! Thank you for your emails and letters! I'll leave you with a cool quote from Elder Ericson! "The Lord will pay as much attention to your prayers as you do."

Thank you so much for being the best parents in the world! I love you both and think about you often! Thank you for the package, I got it this morning! It really meant a lot to me! Well, time is moving forward, way way to fast. We have a baptism scheduled for the 31st! How great is that! A physical birth, and a spiritual birth! That will be cool! Don't forget to send pics of Matt and Jamie and the Baby! Thank you for your awesome emails and letters of love and encouragement, truly, even as a missionary you still need those things sometimes! I love ya!

The Power of the Atonement.‏

Though out my mission to this point the Lord has really provided me with constant opportunities to grow and repent, and progress and become better. The mercy and grace of our Savior is so great, we must be ready for it, and prepared mentally and spiritually to allow it place in our life. Justice on the other hand is just that, just. It has to do what it has to do and there is no room for this or that. Truly the Atonement must be understood, so that we can understand our role in our life here on earth and what our Savior truly has done for us.

I am tremendously grateful for Jesus Christ. I pray that one day, it will perhaps in the eternities become an incomprehensible gratitude, but as for now, I imagine my gratitude for the Savior is measured in what I know and understand about him here.

The other day as Elder Hancock and I were riding down the main highway that runs through Elgin (which happens to run from the Florida Keys all the way to Maine) a car honked and pulled over. This is a pretty normal thing in missionary life. Well we rode up to the window and say a young man driving and his mother in the passenger seat. The one driving looked at me and said something to the effect of, "What's up Elder McMurry?". I felt pretty confused but understood that they must know me, I had to ask though cause I didn't know what to say. After a few minutes the boy driving told me who he was. It was a missionary that was here only a few months ago but finished his mission. The primary reason I didn't recognize him was because he had grown his hair a little longer and also grown a goatee. Well we talked for about a minute and then continued on down the road. It was strange, but I redetermined that after my mission I would continue to look like a missionary, as that has been my plan.

Welp! We are working away. We have an awesome Sister, Sister Canty, on a baptismal date for July 31st! She is awesome! Right now her testimony of the Book of Mormon is intellectual, but that wont stand the tides, so we are determined to help her gain a spiritual testimony by the power of the Holy Ghost. Missionary work is so important, it is the work of the eternities. If we don't like it now, we won't much enjoy the Heavens in the life to come! That is what it is all about. Finally I got my bike tuned up today, it has gone quite the ways past its expiration date, so I got a few things fixed on it today, but not a lot. So! There are big changes coming to the mission. Our mission is starting the pilot program for the rest of the southern states and then there were some other changes as well. Primarily we are now having leadership meetings ever couple of months, in fact we are starting tomorrow. We will be going down to Irmo and will be having meetings for 4 whole days. It's pretty crazy. They start at 1:00pm on Tuesday, and will go till about 5:00pm, then we will head back to our own areas. Then they start on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at about 9:30am and will go till 5:00pm. The meeting will be for Zone Leaders, District Leaders and New Missionary Trainers. So Elder Hancock will be serving in Columbia the next 4 days while I am at the meetings. Starting in May 2011 the MTC will be teaching a new way for the missionaries, so our mission is getting ready for it now, that way it will be nothing new when those missionaries next year start coming. Neat! Anyway I love you all!

Aloha Familia!‏

What an awesome week! I love Elgin! It is such an awesome place to serve! Elder Hancock is doing great and beginning to love the work and have fun! It is a great blessing to be here!

This past week we had zone conference and it was awesome! Before the meeting we had a leadership meeting with all the zone and district leaders (our zone conference here is combined between two zones; this is the second time on my mission that I have served in the Ishmeal Zone, or Columbia zone.) While President was speaking with all of us, he stopped for a minute and looked at me and said something to the effect of, "Elder McMurry for example; Elder McMurry is baptizing this weekend, he knows how to baptize!" I felt confused for a second and then thought about Robert of course right away who I was teaching just a week or so before in Mt. Pleasant with Elder Douglas and even back to Elder Esplin. Robert had chosen to be baptized on the 3rd of July so we kept teaching him and began to make preparations for it. Of course then I was transferred and had to say goodbye to Robert, but as I arrived in Elgin I continued to pray for him and that he would be baptized on the 3rd. Well after President had said that I looked over at the assistants and they were both smiling at me and nodding their heads, telling me that Robert was indeed set for his baptism. At that moment I felt like crying, but I didn't, I was a man! Heh. Well... I felt pretty good to say the least at that point. Later during lunch, Elder Ericson, one of the assistants, and I were talking and he told me that President Evans did the interview and said amazing things about it in a previous zone conference for the Charleston zone, and said something like, "We got some good missionaries out there, like that Elder MacMurry!".. Anyway it was an awesome and wonderful day and I found out on Sunday that Robert Keith was Baptized on the 3rd and Confirmed a member of the church on July 4th! Woohoo! Needless to say that was the highlight of the week for me! The Elgin ward is great! We are planning for many baptizms in the month of July! Mom and Dad I got the journal! Thank you so much, you should have seen how excited I was, it is the exact one I wanted! Not much else to report on except that there are going to be changes in the mission. In fact our mission is going to start a pilot program we are learning about on Thursday that will effect the rest of the southern missions! Exciting eh? Well! I love you all!



It was great! Mom thanks so much for the journal! We are pressing on and teaching wonderful people right now. Because of the holiday, the libraries were closed yesterday so we only have a few minutes to email this morning before returning to the vineyard! Mom there is a member of the Elgin ward bishopric, whose mother, was the one that sent the missionaries to pop or gmom, im not sure who sent the email since they use the same address! How awesome is that! And thank you so much for the email about pop and the dyers.. I am so excited to read it!! Anyway! I love you and dad so much! Have a wonderful day!

Love YA!