February 26, 2018

sup FAM. GOOD STUFF HAPPENING HERE IN CABO ROJO!

first of all, we now have housemates!!! there are now sisters in mayaguez and they showed up at their apartment on thursday night and found out it didnt have light and was disgusting, so they're living with us until they get it fixed up. so we have hermana guido and hermana cluff. and hermana cluff is STRAIGHT OUTTA THE MTC. #mems....... its a good time

fun news - now we are only covering the two cabo rojo wards! woo! im glad because it was very stressful covering 4 wards haha but now we are just gonna be working full time in cabo rojo. EXCEPT we have permission from the zone leaders to still teach tania from san german! woohoo! so we gave all our other san german investigators to the elders and our mayaguez ones to the sisters. woohoo! 

lemme just say. cabo rojo is the BEST. the members are so BOMB and we have solid investigators. and its SO BEAUTIFUL <3___<3

in cabo rojo 1, the first week we went there there were 26 people in sacrament meeting. and then there was 30, then 34, and yesterday there was 40! WE HIT 40!! YEEEAAAAHHHHHH. SOOO GOOOOOD. we had a ton of less actives show up. every tuesday evening we go out with some ward members to visit less actives and its been WORKING! the member support is awesome. theyre all so cute and excited to have missionaries here. we had so many dinners this week and the members just love us. haha. 

we found a miracle lady this week. her name is MIRIAM, and we have had 2 lessons with her and she came to church on sunday! AND gave us a ride! she was SO EXCITED, she showed up at 8:25 (and church starts at 9 haha). we have taught her lessons 1 and 3 and we were like "baptism?" and she was like "yeah!" and shes on date for march 17th. AND she actually keeps commitments! woohoo! 

we got a SOLID reference for a family this week who was taught by missionaries like 5 years ago but moved away but just moved back! we had a lesson with them and they are awesome. la familia guzman! their daughter got baptized (but she lives in florida now) but they have a TON of potential and went to church a ton and stuff. we had our first lesson with them last night and theyre awesome. REFERENCES!

this week we were looking for less actives in this one apartment complex and we saw these kids walking around and started talking to them. and then they told us that their mom was changing the tire on their car right outside. so we walked over with them and started talking to the mom and she  was like "yeah its been a hard day..." and just started crying for like 10 minutes and kept saying "mi vida no ha sido facil...". it was SO SAD. but we stood there and tried to cheer her up and she said we could come back and teach her and we did and shes so awesome! she has indeed had a very hard life but she has never even talked to missionaries before! so we can help her out. and she has the cutest kids in the WORLD. except for the ones who are related to me! haha

so ive mentioned that we are teaching dolores, but i HAVENT mentioned that we are also teaching her friend vivian. vivan is usually there when we teach dolores and this week we went over to teach and she was like "ya know, the first time you came over, about an hour before i told dolores that i wanted to find the right church" WHAT??? crazy. so she's awesome and was gonna come to church but shes also old and really sick and got sick on saturday so she couldnt :( but shes another super good investigator who is defs progressing. and shes down for baptism. 

today we went to EL FARO!! a member from cabo rojo 1 brought us and it is SO BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BEST P DAY EVER!!! its right on the beach and we walked around and saw all this STUFF!!! it was sick. MANY PICS TO COME!

also SHOUTOUT TO COLE AND HIS BIRTHDAY TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 17!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE COLE BECAUSE HES LIVING IN ECUADOR LIKE A BOSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND HE HAS ALMOST NEVER MISSED A WEEK OF EMAILING ME!!!!!!!!!!!! HES ALWAYS SO NICE AND WE LIVED ALONE TOGETHER FOR LIKE 3 YEARS LOL SO WE TIGHT. HES THE BEST!!!!!!!!!!!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY COKE!

well. thats it! HAGS!!!!

HERMANA MURPHY

1. hermana morales!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! shes a member who comes out with us ALL THE TIME. shes awesome. she served a mission in chile after her daughters grew up and was like an actual proselyting missionary with young companions and everything. shes so cool.

2. cow

3. tania made us hamburgers after we cleaned our her house!!!!!! YUM! so fancy.

4. a lil windy!

5. compy!!!!!

6. ARTSYYYY

7. selfie game #WEAK

8. artsy lighthouse pic!

9. paradise!!!

February 19, 2018

hello!!! its been a pretty SOLID week. lots of tiny little miracles happening ALL OVER THE PLACE.

we had a mission conference with bishop Davies from the presiding bishopric. it was awesome!! thats a plus about having a small mission. we can do WHATEVER WE WANT!!! hahah jokes. but we all got to go, opposed to the time elder eyering came and only like 10 missionaries got to go. ahahha. but bishop davies was awesome. it was a super spiritual meeting. he talked about church organization and how mission presidents are called. he said "YOU were called for your mission president, and your mission president was called for YOU." pretty crazy thought. he also told us the secret to working with the members. EVERY time we go into a members house, share a spiritual thought and build their faith in Christ. then they will see that you love Lord and they will too. he said its SO SIMPLE. its like the snake stick thing that no one wanted to look at because it was so easy. hahah. so we're doing that. 

saturday was a GOOD DAY. we went to san german early to clean a recent converts house with hermana olmo (the G.O.A.T.). so this lady is Carmen, and shes like 80something, and she is a convert of hermana medina. we cleaned her house before and oh maaannn. its a work of art. so dirty. so we go over on saturday and we were yelling her name and knocking on the door and windows and she wasn't answering. she also wasn't answering her phone. so we asked the neighbors and no one had seen her. BUT hermana olmo knew that carmen said that she goes sometimes to see her friend down the street. so we asked her friend and she wasn't there. then we go to the store to look for her and she wasn't there. SHE WASN'T ANYWHERE TO BE FOUND!! by this point, we had been looking for her for like 45 minutes and had come to the conclusion that something had happened to her in the house and she had died or something. some of the neighbors had come over and i was GENUINELY NERVOUS. they were all debating if we should call the police or something. FINALLY, A CAR PULLS UP AND CARMEN GETS OUT. one of her friends had come and picked her up and they went shopping or something. CARMEN!!!! hahaha. it was SO STRESSFUL. WE THOUGHT SHE DIED. but luckily she didn't. we then cleaned her house for like 3 hours and made a little bit of a dent. at least now there arent AS MANY cockroaches. :-------) SERVICE!!!! MIRACLE!!!

also on saturday. we went to go see johanna, my convert. the last time we went, she told us that she hadn't gone to church in a little while. so that was sad. but that night, we invited her to read the book of mormon every day, and she would be able to finish it by the end of the year. and she was SO DOWN. so we went back to follow up, and SHES DONE IT!!! she's read a chapter a day for the last couple weeks. IT WAS SUCH A GOOD FEELING!!!! and she went to church the last two weeks. WOO!!!!!! thats what EVERYONE wants to see in their converts. SHES DOING IT!!!! so happy. MIRACLE!!!

we went to go see an old investigator, jorge perez, from san german. he lives SUPER far, so we went with a member in her car to go see him. hermana medina and i only taught him once before the hurricane but he was SO AWESOME. and i had just been thinking about him for a little while so i wanted to go see him. we went to his house and he wasn't home :'( but as we were driving away, i said "it would be a MIRACLE if he drove up right now in his car." and as i said that, HE DROVE UP IN HIS CAR!!!!!!!!!!! MIRACLE!!!!!!!!! we were able to talk to him and he was so happy to see us and we're gonna teach him this coming week. WOOO!!! this might sound like a lame story, but i was SOOOO EXCITED. JORGEEEEEE!!!!!

we're getting more missionaries this week!!! SHOUTOUT TO MALLORY MOODY MY BFF WHOS COMING. YEEEAAAAHHHHHHHH. #BYUTAKESPRSJ. and we're getting FOUR NEW MISSIONARIES in our zone!!!!!!!! so this means that we're not going to be covering mayaguez anymore. TBH im kind of relieved because its a little STRESSFUL covering four wards and now we can focus more on cabo rojo. woo!!! and cabo rojo is the BOMB. yesterday, we got FOUR DINNER INVITATIONS FOR THE WEEK. and we didn't even have to ask!! they just invited us!!!!! #blessssssed

we have some pretty solid investigators. we're still working on getting them to come to church. thats the main problem. that and that NO ONE ON THIS ISLAND IS MARRIED. but slowly but surely we're getting some good progressing investigators. dolores is AWESOME. we showed up for a lesson and she had done all the "extra study questions" in the back of the restoration folleto and was like "i was up very late doing this". and we taught her and she GOT IT. it was an awesome lesson.

we also have benji and jorma, two investigators (not married) but benji is SO DOWN to get baptized. before the hurricane, he was reading the book of mormon a TON and was all the way in jacob. and he went to church a TON  of times. hes seriously awesome. but he cant get baptized until they get married, and jorma didn't really listen to the lessons before but she is listening to us now and we THINK we're making some progress. 

a couple weeks ago i started reading the new testament and its sick!!!!!!!!!!!! ive never actually read it all the way through so i thought i would do it and its been super interesting to read about Christ's life and teachings. 10/10 would recommend.

also everyone should go read the talk "Kindness, charity, and love" by president monson! classic.

love to all!!!!!!! 

hermana murphy

1. yay!!!

2. celebrating 8 months IM SO OLD

3. Anjomil!!! him and his grandma are recent converts in cabo rojo 1 and hes SO CUTE

4. WEEKLY RAINBOW

5. dont pay attention to our sunburns!!!! @mom :-)

February 12, 2018

hello! what a fun week! lots of adventures. including:

ok remember at my first baptism when i was really mad because i had to sing a solo in front of like the 6 people that attended? well, hermana peterson and i had to sing a duet in front of the whole mayaguez STAKE yesterday. HAHAHHA. all the missionaries in the stake (so 6 of us) had to sing a musical number and APPARENTLY its not fancy enough if the hermanas dont sing a verse alone by themselves (according to every elder in this mission). so we sang divina luz and hermana peterson sang alto and i sang soprano and then the elders came in on the 2nd and 3rd verses. WHO WOULDVE THOUGHT that my 2 years of high school choir would help me so much on my mission. hahahahahhaha. 

also. we have a SICK investigator named yamara who has come to church with her aunt the last 5ish sundays and is AWESOME. we taught her the restoration and she totally believes everything and loves going to church. she said "i know the day i get baptized WILL come, i just have to be patient because im very impulsive." but shes super awesome. AND, so she's an investigator from mayaguez and she offered to pick us up from cabo rojo, drive us to mayaguez to teach her, and bring us home at the end of the night when we're done working. AND she was like "i want to go with you guys to el faro next monday!!" so that'll be fun. yamara is saving our miles AND our p days!!!! shes awesome.

we also found DOLORES, an old investigator of HERMANA GREEEEENNN (SHOUTOUT) and shes super cool. we taught her the plan of salvation and when we got to the part talking about the spirit world she was all like "i feel like i KNOW this, like ive heard this before. i was just thinking about this about a week ago and i just KNOW this is true." yeeeahhh buddy. she totally believes the plan of salvation. but then she went off about how women should be able to have the priesthood hahaha. so once we fix THAT issue, she'll be GOLDEN. 

in stake conference yesterday, they announced a new stake presidency and now both of the councilors are 2 of the bishops of the wards we are covering, so were gonna be going through that these next couple of weeks. so fun! 

we are still working with jessica and tania. jessica's date fell because she didn't go to church yesterday :-) but shes still doing well. we just gotta get her to read the book of mormon. JUST READ THE BOOK!!! ITS NOT THAT HARD!!!!!! haha. i think that's every missionaries struggle... 

today was SO FUN! we had a MISSION ACTIVITY!!! XD at el MORRO! since we are in the farthest area in the mission from san juan, we drove last night to ponce to sleep over there with the STLs to avoid having to wake up at 4:30 in the morning to get there on time :-) so this morning we left ponce at 6:30 to get to el moro at 8:30. and we played sports and chilled there for a while! it was so fun. old san juan is so cute and the weather was so nice and it was just HEAVEN. WHEN YOU LIVE IN THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PLACE ON THE PLANET *blessed* it was such a fun day. 

following are lots of pics! sorry! not. 

bye!!! much love!!!!!!

hermana murphy

1. a fun cat that followed us around for like an hour

2. look!!! my name!!!!!!

3. ~views~

4. RAINBOW!!!!!!!

5. FUN DRIVE TO SAN JUAN!!!

6. IT WAS A LITTLE WINDY BUT HEY! SAN GERMAN!

7. ~views~ part 2

8. fun times at el morro!

9. bandera!!

10. hermanas!

11. mi comp!

12. lolz last pic lololololololololol #selfiegame10/10

13. one more pic!!!!

WE ARE SMALL IN NUMBERS BUT HUGE IN SPIRIT AND POTENTIAL: President Smart - February 5, 2018

hello!!!!!!!!! this week was a GOOD ONE! on tuesday, we went back to my old stomping grounds, SAN GERMAN! i had a plan to contact all of my recent converts and old investigators and NO ONE WAS HOME :-) haha except we saw some members and Johanna (my first baptism) and tania (my old investigator)! they're both doing awesome. we put tania on DATE! we walked in and she was SOOO HAPPY to see me. hehe. and we talked about life after the hurricane and she told hermana peterson "you know, i was supposed to be baptized the saturday after maria" and then we were like "well when is your baptism going to be?'" and then she said "when can it be?" so YEAH. we still have to work on a couple of the commandments but she still has all the desire to be baptized. YAYY!!!!!! we're going back to san german this week to find some more of my PEOPLE. 

on wednesday we had zone conference!!!!! slash mission conference. we had to drive to caguas, which was about a 2 hour drive. good thing it was on the 31st because that was a TON of miles. haha. but it was amazing. they talked A LOT about working with members. A LOT. and i realized something. my whole mission to this point, ive been working to try to make it easy on the members and make it so they dont have to do anything, because i dont really like asking people for help or making it an inconvenience for them. but thats not how it should be!! president smart said that we have to work with the members in a way that if we ever had to leave again, they could still function and work without us. we have to train them and help them to be missionaries! and that really helped me realize that i need to be relying more on the members. this is a VERY different mission than it was when we left, and thats good! we are learning more and more to work with the members. before, we just walked around all day from 12-9 but now, we get RIDES from members! and get members in our lessons! so good. haha.

we have had a TON of member support this week. we had an hermana come out with us for FIVE HOURS on saturday. FIVE!!!!! she just kept saying "a donde vamos?" after every appointment. haha. we also went to the mayaguez ward yesterday and its POPPING. the whole relief sociey presidency is under the age of 25 and 2 of them are converts of less than 3 years. there are multiple people that have come to church that havent heard the missionary discussions. after church, we just went out with one of the councillors for a couple hours to visit less actives. it was awesome. we've been getting so much support from the 2 cabo rojo wards and mayaguez. we still gotta work with san german. but weve gotten a good number of references and lots of members helping us. 

one of the things we are facing is lots of people that love to go to church that 1) arent married or 2) dont want to commit to baptism. weve contacted some of the missionaries old investigators that have gone to church a TON and love it but arent married. so we have to work on that. looks like we'll have a lot of weddings coming up!! haha.

anyways, hermana peterson and i are still learning on how to work our huge area. its a challenge but its also fun! its like whitewashing, but funner, i imagine... haha. 

well i dont know what else to say except that the mission is awesome! 

have a good week!!!

love

hermana MURPHY 

1. zone conference!

2. zone conference part 2!

3. zone conference part 3! THE MAYAGUEZ ZONE. straight POWER right here. 

4. here's a pretty view

5. here's me with a pretty rainbow!!!