PUERTO RICO!- July 31, 2017

hello! COMING TO YOU FROM THE CHAPEL IN SAN GERMAN, PUERTO RICO! i can't believe im actually here! and ive been here for ONE WEEK. actually, it feels like ive been here for like 5 years, besides the fact that i dont speak spanish haha. but its good. everyone here is super nice and friendly. everyone says hola and buenas dias when we walk around and say "buenprovecho" or however you spell it when youre eating in a restaurant haha.

ok. first of all, my companion is awesome! her name is hermana medina, she's from mexico, and has been on her mission for 9 months! she served 6 months in mexico because she couldn't get her visa and has been in puerto rico, in san german for 3 months. she's an amazing teacher and i learn so much whenever i hear her teach in lessons. she doesn't speak much english so we talk in spanish all day, which is good for me. shes very patient with my learning spanish. we talk in english at night in the apartment to help her learn, which helps her and keeps me sane.

puerto rico!!! my area, san german, is great! we share it with 2 elders, the zone leaders. its apparently a really big area, but we haven't been all over because most of our investigators live around us. its apparently called either "the city of hills" or "the city of pueblos" and such. but i understand about 75% of what hermana medina says so its kind of hard to know exactly ahah. heres a day in the life - we wake up, exercise, get ready for the day, planning, study, eat lunch, go out for the day and walk about 2134 miles (an estimate) and have 3-4 lessons and contact and such and such. then we get home at 9 and get ready for bed and read and then sleep, wake up, and do it all again!

the ward is great. mostly everyone speaks both spanish and english so thats good for me haha. i had to bear my testimony yesterday in sacrament and i was SO NERVOUS im pretty sure i was shaking but everyone was super nice and afterward said how great it was. theres about 70 members who show up every week, apparently. 

im basically just hermana medina's shadow. i just follow her around and sit next to her in lessons and watch her while she talks to people. haha. sometimes its like i completely forget how to have a conversation with people because SPANISH and they may or may not think im mute. whenever anyone looks at me while they're talking i just nod my head and hope theyre not asking a question or saying something too crazy that it looks like im agreeing with them.

but yeah! first week down. i can't believe tomorrow is august. so crazy. times flying, also going super slowly. i can't explain it. this was probably the longest week of my life. once i can actually talk to people i will be very grateful. just gotta keep working!

love you all! please pray for me. i need it. hahha. 

<3333

hermana murphy

1. first day! in san juan! 

2. this lady had a bird and it bit my finger also sat on my shoulder and POOPED ON MY SHIRT. HERMANA MEDINA LAUGHED SO HARD. IT WAS DISGUSTING. 

3. kinda cute.

4. someone gave uS THE BIGGEST AVOCADO IVE EVER SEEN

Last week in the CCM :0- July 20, 2017

hello fans! its me again! I CANT BELIEVE I LEAVE THE CCM NEXT WEEK AND AM GOING TO BE A REAL MISSIONARY! it doesn't feel real. im going to miss the mtc, but im so excited/scared for the field hahah. 

i got a letter from alyse this week where she said i didn't describe my teachers/days in enough detail, so i will do that.

my teachers: they are all dominican, most of them are fluent in english, and i dont want to sound dramatic, but my life had no meaning until i met them and they are my favorite people ever. ahahha. hermana martinez is our morning teacher. she teaches us from 9-12:30 and plays one of our investigators, neiva. shes basically what you would imagine if you had to think of an early-20s pregnant dominican girl. shes so loud and sassy and funny hahah. for example, she compliments our clothes every day and says "que bonita!! but it would look MORE beautiful on me!" because she wants all of them haha. its so funny. in the afternoon, we have hermana dumay. she doesn't let us speak english in class or else we have to do pushups haha. and she makes us memorize SO MANY SCRIPTURES EVERY WEEK and if we don't memorize them we have to do pushups. hahaah. lots of push ups. luckily i havent had to do any yet. but shes a really good teacher even though shes a lil scary. at night, we have hermano gomez. hes probably the coolest person ive ever met. no offense to anyone else, but if you met him you would understand. hes super inspirational and spiritual and gives the deepest talks and everything he says BLOWS MY MIND. hahaha. he plays our investigator javier. we teach almost every day. another teaceher that subs for us sometimes is hermano jimenez. hes the BEST. hes so funny. whenever you ask him a question about his life he lies about it and tries to make up all these stories which are obviously fake and its just so funny. literally the first converstaion i had with him i asked where he served his mission and he said "africa" and i was like ok..... what language did you speak? and he said "swahili" and i was so confused. and then he started laughing and said "just kidding, i served in mexico." thats when i knew he couldn't be trusted. but hes great. hes super sarcastic and always does these huge overexaggerated winks whenever hes joking and its great. we dab at eachother all the time. all my teachers are still in school and i dont know how they do it because they are in school AND working basically a full time job because they're here ALL THE TIME. they're amazing. im gonna miss them so much!!! 

ok now to the other stuff. this week i went out with a REAL MISSIONARY and did splits IN DA CITYYY!!! my companions name was hermana neff and she was basically a future me. my same height, *blonde*, plays basketball. she was kind of scary at first but once we started talking she was nice. we were out for about 6 hours and we were supposed to have 2 lessons, but they both fell through so we CONTACTED for the WHOLE TIME!!!!!! we started at some apartment buildings, where she would talk through the intercom and then she said "your turn!" so then i had to talk and people would say stuff back and it was so quiet and i could not understand ANYTHING. luckily shes been out for a year and is fluent because i had no idea what was going on. we then walked around the streets and went contacting at peoples houses. i started out the whole time and introduced ourselves and said we had a message and such and such and then they would respond, and i would look at her because everything goes right over my head, and then she would talk the rest of the time haha. it was so awesome. i was so nervous at first but it was so fun. i was so sweaty and tired at the end of the day but it was WORTH IT. 

on saturday, our district was kind of bad (because we have 5 elders now) and we watched the video "la expiación y la obra misional" TWICE. everyone should watch it. its like 10 minutes long but SO GOOD. so yeah. everyone go watch it. its in english. the atonement and missionary work. i wrote it in spanish to show how good i am now.

on sunday we watched legacy and an elder holland devo, which is always a good time. 

on tuesday we went to the store! so wow. such fun. 

yesterday we did service at the park. picking up trash and such. 

besides friday, its basically been the same. class every day, spirituality, being fluent in spanish, the norm. next time i email ill be in PUERTO RICO!!! 

love you all! dont forget about me!

hermana murphy

1. hermano rodriguez! one of the teachers here! hes so weird and funny. he doesn't teach me but the mtc is so small im tight with all the teachers.  please notice my tan line on my arm. so bad. haha. 

2. so wow. another picture of the hermanas. hahahah. surprise!

3. alma district hermanas!!!

life's good!- July 13, 2017

hello! wow! ive already been here for a month (tomorrow)??? times FLYING. i wonder why people say missions are hard.... . but anyways, this week was great! on friday, we went contacting at the university again and we got two peoples informations and passed out restoration pamphlets to some other people! one of the guys called us over and was like "ay mormones!" and so we were like AYYYYY SOMEONE WANTS TO TALK TO US. then we went and talked to him but unfortunately i could not understand one word that came out of his mouth. so i would just awkwardly laugh whenever he said anything and nod my head to act like i knew what he was saying and then would ask another question hahaha. and the other person was a super nice lady who was very open to talking about religion and having the missionaries over. people are so nice here! they're not even creeped out when you ask what their address is! hahaha. on sunday, i had to give a talk in church! we have to write talks every week and then president gulbrandsen just chooses random people every week to give talks and he finally chose me. and of course it was the first week that people who actually speak spanish are here and i read a scripture that had words that i had no idea how to pronounce. but whatever. it was fun! sunday night, we watched David A Bednar's devotional called "Characteristics of Christ" and it was soooooo gooooooooooood. he talks about developing the character of Christ, which is to "turn outward in service and love when the natural man would turn inward." and we learn of Christ when we act like him. good stuff right there.

yesterday, Elder Hugo E. Martinez came and gave a devotional! it was super amazing. i was sitting in the front row and he kept making eye contact as he was speaking and it was like WOWIE. such power. he talked about giving up our will for Heavenly Father's and being exactly obedient and serving with ALL our heart, might mind and strength. it all ties in. who would've thought. and we all got to shake his hand and introduce ourselves afterward and he said "i do this not so you can meet me, but so i can meet you." what a guy. quality. but yeah it was super spiritual and i had to ponder for the rest of the day. 

other than that, its just a lot of learning and sitting in class! its great though. i love it. its crazy how much you can enjoy classes when 1) you actually like your teachers and 2) you want to learn what they're teaching! all my teachers are amazing!

that's it. talk to you all next week! enjoy these qt pics. love you all!

hermana murphy

1. twinzies!

2. new girls in our room! 

3. im sending this picture for 2 reasons. 1, because it has the new people in my district. 2, because i look like dad when he looked like quasimodo. i guess we're related or something. 

#blessed- July 6, 2017

hi! wow its been 3 weeks already! so craaaazyyyyy. this week was so good! on Friday, we all went to the local university and contacted! in spanish! whaaaaaat. it was pretty scary. the hardest part was just going up and talking to people haha. but we got THREE peoples addresses for missionaries to go teach them! and one fake address/phone number. so thats fun. but it was so fun to talk in our broken spanish to people. everyone was so nice! and everyone was catholic haha. on Sunday, we went on the ROOF. whoa. it was cool. we could see some of the city and the beach and we gotta take some #lit pics. we watched president uchtdorf's devotional on Peter and it was goooood. the Haitian missionaries left on Tuesdaymorning so that was sad :(((( we were bffs. update: soeur thelusma gave me my jacket back. so that was nice of her. haha. but i miss them. they were so fun and nice. and every time i tried to speak french to them they got really excited. now no one is happy when i say "como ca va" :'(. Tuesday was THE 4TH OF JULY! woo!!!! everyone here was super excited for some reason that i didnt really understand because we're not even IN THE US but whatever. they had a super nice dinner with some good ol american food. hamburgers, mac n cheese, corn on the cob, apple pie. it was nice. yesterday, about 50 new missionaries came! SO MANY. there are 7 hermanas about about 40 elders. soooooo yeeeahh. all the elders are very awkward. and now its so crowded. we have 3 new hermanas in our room, who are all from the US so i guess we can't practice our spanish with them. too bad. but they all seem nice. 

my teaching is getting slightly better every time we teach! we taught hermano jimenez one night and he was acting as a non active member and he was such a good actor it was like WHHHOOAAAA. we invited him to church and he said yes and he only said yes to hermana smith and me out of our whole district. YEAH. he said we had the best lesson. so yeah. wasssup.

thats all i can think of! every week is a blur because we're doing something every single second of the day. no blugging allowed :'( 

and cole, we get nutella here everyyyy dayyy. you mad?

ok bye! love you all! have a good life

hermana murphy <3

1. all tha hermanas on tha roof!

2. me and one of my FAVORITE PEOPLE, hermana martinez! she is one of my teachers and is so sassy and funny and i love her. shes pregnant, if you cant tell from her shirt slash stomach.

3. DANE!!! this is a boy i met named dane, too! hes from the island of ANTIGUA and had a super cool accent. like a mixture of jamaican english austrailian and everything. him and 2 of his friends played basketball with us and they insisted we called them steph curry, michael jordan, and lebron james hahaha.

4. HERMANO JIMENEZ! one of my favorite teachers. theyre all my favorite and i can't decide who i like the best. he thinks im really funny. we're best friends. "he likes me a lot so we're friends" - dallin.

5. i thought mom would like this so here.