and Wetness is the Essence of Beauty- August 28, 2017

hola! how goes it! i hope everyone had a gr8 week. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO CAMILLE!!!!!! ON THURSDAY!!!! WOOO!!!! WHY I LOVE CAMILLE: shes so niiiiceeee!!!!! camille always sends me funny stories and pictures of cora and its so fun to read them. and camille always thinks im so funny (she has a really good sense of humor!!!). she's always good about emailing me every week (and when i was home and had a phone and was connected to the world, texting and facetiming!). i love camille!!!!

i got a letter from alyse this week telling me my letters are TERRIBLE!!! just kidding. she said i need to describe more. so heres some of the aspects of my every day life - 

ok. so san german is technically campo, but we live in the middle of this little town. but if you drive like 10 minutes in every direction you're in the campo. its like a rural little suburb. the houses are so cute. it reminds me of beauty and the beast when belle sings "little town, its a quiet village...." thats basically how it is. people ride horses around and have chickens and animals and its a little quiet town. its great. i feel like im in a 3rd world country sometimes, sometimes i feel like im in the US. its just a mixture of both. 

we have AC in our bedroom which is #blessed. we just use it when we sleep and its amazing. the one night i slept in mayaguez for intercambios they didnt have AC and it was a lot harder to sleep. hahah. blessed.

there is no public transportation so we walk everywhere. and its HOOOOOT but this last week its rained almost every day which is amazing because there are clouds and its not as hot and i dont die. yay!

what we eat every day. for breakfast its either eggs or oatmeal (yes..... can you believe it) and occasionally, if we feel like spoiling ourselves, pancakes! for lunches we eat a lot of quesadillas and sandwiches and ive made pasta and rice and baked potatoes. i do most of the cooking around here hahha. theres a chinese fast food restaurant right next to our house and its great. like panda express but even BETTER. and hermana medina said "they're speaking CHINESE!!"  and i had to explain to her that i've heard probably the equivalent amount of chinese and english in my life. #irvine reppin. i feel at home there. haha. last night we went to a members house for dinner and she made pastelon which is like lasagna but instead of noodles theres platanos and i didn't think i was going to like it but it was suuuuppper good. everything they make here is super fatty and good and oily hahaha. 

we have good stores here. a good grocery store right next to our house and a supplies store next to it. and theres walgreens and kmart about a 30 minute walk away. woo!!!!!

i have no idea about anything politics related, if puerto rico is going to become a state or anything. no one tells me anything.

yep! those are some of the mundane aspects of my every day life! 

today, i finished reading the book of mormon!!!!!!!!! wooo!!!!!!!!!!!!! i started about 2 weeks into the MTC and have been reading it every day and im DOOONEEE! it was great. what a book. everyone should read it! its TRUUUEEEE!!! if only all of our investigators read it. sigh.

this saturday we have TWO BAPTISMS PLANNED! pretty crazy. one of them is for nayelis, the daughter of the recent convert! we've been teacher her all week and have more lessons this week to help her get ready! and the other is for a lady named evelyn. she lives with her grandpa, herbert, who is a recent convert. she comes to church every week and goes to all the activities and i literally thought she was a member because NO ONE TELLS ME ANYTHING. but last sunday the bishop was talking to her and said "lets set a baptismal date! how about september 2nd!" and she was like hmmm ok! and i was confused because i thought she was a member but hermana medina explained to me after hahahha. and she said she wanted us to teach her, and not the elders, who baptized her grandpa. so she's ours! haha. we still have to teach her a lot this week but she's ready to be baptized on saturday! haha its funny, none of the people we are finding and teaching are progressing super fast but we have gotten 2 people in the last few weeks who just say they want to get baptized. oookkkkkk!

thats my week! well, a lot more happened but probably nothing you guys would find interesting. a lot of contacting and teaching and not understanding whats going on. haha. but im getting better!!! 

love you all!

1. zone activity today! we went to the BEAACHH and played capture the flag and it was so fun. 

2. our HATS. hahahahhahah. we look so dumb. but i DONT WANT TO DIE

3. tha beach

Water is the Essence of Wetness- August 21, 2017

Hello family and friends and people!

apparently there is an eclipse happening right now as i type but we're just chillin in the chapel because about 15 people have told us this week that we shouldn't be outside while it happens. haha. they're all so concerned for us.

This week i had my first BAPTISM!!! a woman named Johanna! I didn't do much. She was all set for baptism by the time i got here. But i got to be here for the baptism! woo! the baptism was great. it was very spiritual and Johanna was so happy. and so were we! woo! she got confirmed yesterday in church too. 

my spanish is definitely improving. as of now, i can more understand more of the general idea of what people are saying. they still cut out like 75% of the letters and just sounds like a mixture of t's, u's, and b's but im getting there. i am learning more of how to contact and teach and actually trying to express my thoughts. haha. it doesn't sound hard. but it ISSSSSS. spanish. wow.

a daughter of a recent convert, named nayelis, told her mom that she wants to recieve the missionary lessons and be baptized! woo! so we started teaching her this week and have a baptismal date for september 2! we also met a woman named Irma this week who is great. we met her one day crossing a bridge and started talking to her. Turns out she's Mexican and she loves hermana Medina because there are like no mexicans here haha. so they have a special bond. but we have taught her a couple lessons and extended a baptismal invitation for september 9. she, like everyone here, said "well I don't want to commit..... so fast... meh meh meh mip mip meep." but we got her to agree eventually and now we have that date! so everyone pray for us haha.

i think our biggest challenge is getting people to church. for some reason none of our investigators want to come to church. which stinks. so we gotta find a way to get them to come. 

sooo yeah. (haha im sure dad likes that I said that)

that's my week. its still hot and humid and sweaty. except one day we had the NICEST WEATHER EVER. it was amazing. it was cloudy all day and i didn't even sweat. and yesterday we had the craziest rain storm. one minute it wasnt raining and about 10 seconds later it was POURING and we were just huddled under this little shed thing hahaha. good times. 

love you all! plz dont forget me.

hermana MURPHY

1. baptism! yes i realize i am a giant. 

2. intercambios! i went to mayaguez with hermana santos!

August 14, 2017

HAPPY BIRTHDAY THIS WEEK MOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOURE THE BEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! what i love about mom: shes nice and has a good sense of humor :-))) jk. its true, but ill add a little bit more. mom is so selfless! she always thinks about others before herself, especially her children. whenever i think about charity, i think about mom because she is kind to everyone, even complete strangers, and i have never heard her talk bad about anyone. she loves everyone and everyone loves her. the EQN missionaries are lucky. love you!!!!!!

this week was a good week. we have a baptism scheduled for saturday, the 19, for Johanna. she has been recieving the lessons for a long time apparently, but she seems ready for her baptism. 

last week, we were teaching a woman and she could tell i didnt speak spanish very well (for some reason... i cant imagine why) and she said "theres a girl who has an english book of mormon! you should teach her!" so she gave us the address and we showed up and it turns out this girl, Tania, has taken the lessons before and was going to get baptized but got sick and ended up not getting baptized. this was like a year ago. so she was really excited to see us and she speaks ENGLISH #blessed so she speaks to us both in english and spanish haha. but we've been teaching her and shes super awesome! we'll see what happens.

another thing - we had a zone conference on friday and they talked a lot about praying for specific things. so on saturday hermana medina and i decided to try this out. she said "at 5:00we will find a woman at Joanne apartments with a lot of bags and we will help her and then we'll teach her." and i was a little speculative... not really sure what to think haha. but she had a lot of faith that we would find her. we were at joanne apartments and we were in the elevator at like 4:55 and it stopped to let someone in. and in walked a lady with a shopping cart of bags that she was taking out to the dumpster. and we both looked at eachother and asked if we could help her take her bags out and she said yes and so we helped her. then she kind of left us when we asked if we could teach her she was like meehhhhh so she went up the elevator and we said "ok maybe it wasnt her." so hermana medina said "im thinking of the numbers 2 and 5, so lets go to floors 2 and 5." we went to 2, and no one was there, then we went to 5, and decided to knock on the doors. the first 2 didn't open, but the 3rd door, a woman opened the door and let us in. she is very christian and agreed to let us talk to her. about 5 minutes later..... the door opened and in walked THE LADY WITH THE SHOPPING CART!!! WHAAAAT???? she seemed very surprised to see us hahaha and we were super surprised as well. her name is Ana and she doesn't live in that apartment, but is friends with the lady who lives there and helps her take care of her son who has cerebral palsy. so it was a MIRACLE!!!! she was the ONE. it was so crazy. i dont know if im conveying it very well but it was AWESOME. so we're gonna go back and teach her this week. 

so yeah. thats some cool stuff that happened. 

love you all!!!!!!!

hermana MURPHYYYYY

1. zone conference! my friends!

2. making pizza at a members house! the olmos! they're the best. they have missionaries over every week on sunday and make pizza and its sooo gooood.

August 7, 2017

hello! its me! ive been wondering if after all these years you'd like to meet.......

lolz. 

this week was good! heres what went down:

on tuesday, we had our first district meeting! it was GREAT. it was so refreshing and nice to see other missionaries. my district is awesome. also it was in our chapel that has AC so that was nice. haha.

i actually started talking in lessons this week! woooo!!! its just a few sentences here and there, but it feels so good to teach. people are so interested in what youre saying (some of them) and the spirit helps me so much because when im talking in lessons i don't stutter or anything! i just say what i want and its all goooood. its just a couple sentences but its better than what I could do by myself! #blessed. 

we have 

in my personal study, ive been reading at the end of Alma and the beginning of Helaman. I read about the strippling warriors and it was soooo gooooooood. even better than the animated hero classics, believe it or not. its very inspiring to know that the Lord takes people who are so inexperienced and weak but if we have faith he will help us and NOT LET US FAIL. a very good message for my current situation haha. gotta love it. 

also, my area is HUGE. it covers 3 cities or something, san german, lajas, and sabana blanca. go look on a map. its ginormous. and we walk everywhere. unless we get rides from people haha.

thats it for this week! love you all! 

hermana murphy

1. my district! im squatting a lil so thats why my legs look funny hahaha. the elder taking the selfie and the other next to him are the elders we share our ward with. all the other missionaries are in cabo rojo.

2. selfieee!!!!!! today for p-day, a super awesome family in the ward took us to this field in lajas and it was so fun and cute and i loved it.

3. me and hermana medina! ("whats a me-an?")