Hurricane 2.0- September 18, 2017

ANOTHER HURRICANE? EN SERIO???? @MOTHEREARTH is trying to punish us or something. we're gonna be in our house again all day on wednesday and currently trying to plan some fun productive things to do. because we're MISSIONARIES and need to be PRODUCTIVE!!! WOOO!!!!!!!!!! but srsly. thx 4 the hurricane :-) we just heard that we are going to be in our house all day after the district meeting tomorrow and wednesday. :---) :)))))))) :) :) :) :---)

this week was great! first of all, we had evelyn's baptism. FINALLY! we were finally able to teach her all the lessons and she was baptized on saturday and is very happy. i luv baptisms. for some reason....

we moved alex's baptism to the 30th of september because we still have to teach him some more and are working on the word of wisdom! but he came to church yesterday and we didn't even have to persuade him! steps in the right direction! and he came with us to dinner at a members house (the olmos, the greatest people) and he had a good time. he is really progressing! too bad maria is coming so we can't teach too much this week :(

also this week, we were contacting and met a man named jorge perez. and hes from ECUADOOORRRR!!! he told us where his house was so we went a few days later and found it. but its like up this steep driveway so he couldn't hear us yelling from the bottom. hermana medina went up to go knock on the door and saw TWO GIANT DOGS sleeping at the top. and one of them opened its eyes and SAW HER AND THEY STARTED BARKING AND CHASING US AND WE THOUGHT THEY WERE GOING TO EAT US. IT WAS SO SCARY. we ran away and the dogs were staying by the fence and FINALLY the owner, JORGE, came out and was like "come on up! they dont do anything!" and we were like ummm nope. your dogs are going to eat us. and he kept insisting that we walk past the dogs to his house and we just kept standing there hahaha. he finally came down and got his dogs and we could walk up to his house in peace without dying. we were teaching him and it turns out his sister is a member! and hes been to church before! and without even asking him, he was like "yeah ill go to church next week! i promise!" and it was great. so nice when people arent difficult. 

we found some other good people this week and have good investigators! Tania is really busy with school and being a mom and such (its hard because all the young people here have kids and are super busy and distracted in lessons so its hard to teach them). so we havent taught her too much. 

life is good though! with me luck with hurricane part 2. so fun!!! hermana medina has decided that she doesn't like to run so she works out outside as I run in circles around our street. hahahaha. and schools here start really early so everyone is like outside and i look dumb haha. and we had some food at members houses this week again and it was great. the food here is gooood. riiiiiice and meat. mmmm. and we actually bought some fruit and vegetables! mom, you should be proud :) and today it started pouring as we were walking and we didn't have umbrellas and some nice random ladies gave us a ride! people are so nice. luv. puerto rico #yeah!

love you all! hopefully ill have electricity and can email next week!!!!!!!!!!! if not, im sorry. 

love,

hermana murphy

1. evelyns baptism! <33

2. heppy 3 months to me! hermana medina is too nice.

3. just proselyting, ya know. the usual.

HURRICANE!!!!!- September 11, 2017

HELLO! thanks everyone for your worry this week with HURRICANE IRMA. if i had to describe it in a word, i would say... weak. haha. we were inside from 5 PM on tuesday and all of wednesday and it was pretty boring.the 4 hermanas from cabo rojo were going to come stay with us for the hurricane because our house is safe, but then they were here for about 2 hours when they got a call from the assistants that they wanted them to go back to cabo rojo. so tragic. it was going to be a hurricane party. i included a picture........ a true tragedy. we didnt have electricity all day on wednesday so we just read scriptures and ensigns.really nothing exciting happened all day. just a lil wind and lil rain. we even had a wood panel over our window and didnt need it. and its still there because we dont have tools to take it down haha. on thursday it was "service day" for the whole mission! which was great! except for the fact nothing happened here in good ol san german. sooooo. we went to a recent converts house and cleaned!! the hermanas from mayaguez were staying with members in our ward so they helped us too! and the elders. so there were 8 of us, and that was not enough. shes pretty old and lives in a big house and can't really clean. so there were approx 8000 cockroaches:---) haha. we cleaned all day. good times. sooo fuuuuun. gonna bleach my shoes because theres probably cockroach guts on them. 

yesterday was GREAT! we had FIVE investigators in church!!!!!!! FIVE! we had dianette and her brother ivan, alex, alejandro (the son of a less active, 9 years old, we're working with them) and benito (kind of creepy old man that we are giving to the elders :-)). weve never had more than 1 or 2 investigators in church so it was AWESOMEEE. and alex has gone to church twice but didnt like it but we CONVINCED HIM TO COME and he seemed to enjoy it. woo! we have 2 baptisms planned for this saturday, alex and evelyn. we still have a lot to teach alex though because we can never get to our lesson because he asks like 1023 question every time which takes forever. but were having a FHE tonight with the Olmo's in our ward about the word of wisdom because he has some problems with dat. wish us luck!!!!

also ive said how people love giving us avocados. we got FIVE YESTERDAY. FIVE. IN ONE DAY. hahah. good thing avocados are delicious. it reminds me of the video "the californians." hehe. 

so yeah that was this week! hurricane irma! hopefully we dont have another one any time soon. love you all! 

1. just doing some 12 semanas while waiting out hurricane irma in the dark. i think the church could use this as an advertisement as some kind.

2. WE LOVE AGUACATE

3. what could have been... sigh....... #rip

4. #rip elder arteaga. we're getting a new elder in our ward this week!

September 4, 2017

hola familia y amigos! (see! im fluent!)

this week was a GOOD WEEK! the highlight was our baptism on saturday of Nayelis. i think i talked about her a little bit in my last email. shes 13 years old, daughter of a recent convert, Maribel, and her brother is in the bishopric. she said she wanted to get baptized so it was easy! all we had to do was teach the lessons! and she didn't have problems with anything. she comes to church every week, probably the easiest baptism in history of baptisms. we were going to baptize evelyn this week too, but she got moved to next saturday. yay! baptisms!

on friday, we had a family home evening with the ward and it was GREAT. like 50-60 members came and it was super fun. there was a ton of food and we played games and everyone had a great time. and we had THREE investigators there! Dianette and her mom, Antoinette, and Alex! Dianette is a 16 year old girl who hermana medina found when we were doing exchanges. she is great. she is always willing to have us come teach her and is always trying to come to church, but she doesn't drive so she hasn't been able to. but we've taught her like 3 times and shes always willing to pray and ask questions and its amazing. its like she actually WANTS us to come teach her! so weird. haha. and Alex is about 30 and we've been teaching him for a little while. he has a baptismal date for september 16th. he always has super deep doctrinal questions that I have no idea what hes saying but hes very attentive and a good listener to our lessons. he says he knows that the message is true but he doesn't know God's will or something like that and doesn't know if he has a testimony and i dont know. its confusing. but we're teaching him a couple times each week and hoping he can get answers to his prayers!!!!!!! 

another great thing that happened this week - we went to Tania's house, and we've talked about baptism a few times but she hasn't committed to anything. but we walked in (and this day, we weren't planning on seeing her but we were near her house and decided to stop by) and she said "guess what! me voy a bautizar!" and we were like :--------) what so confused. we thought she was joking but nope! she had a dream about baptism and she already has a testimony of the book of mormon and the church because shes recieved missionaries before. she is super close with one of the missionaries who was here like a year ago (whos home now) and she told her about the dream she had and she decided she needed to get baptized. it was an answer to her prayer. so we've been back 2 times this week to teach her lessons and shes great. its kind of hard to teach her because she has 2 young kids who are kind of crazy haha but she understands the message and has a date for september 23! wooo!!!

so yeah. those are the most exciting missionary things that happened this week. 

i can't believe im done with my first transfer in the field! soooo weird. one of the elders in our ward is finishing his mission tomorrow, so we're getting a new one! we recieved like 4 avocados this week hahaha everyone likes to give us avocados. good thing because theyre DELICIOUS. another thing. so we have 2 cd's in our house. one with some of the classics, some david archuleta and sisters in zion and good stuff. and the other one has motab. haha. im going crazy. we listen to the same ones every day. its like the same 30 songs. #lit and dont worry. the hurricane got NOTHING on me. i can take it. "HIT ME" as one of my favorite movie characters would say. im getting a really nice farmers tanline which is fun.

that was my week! lots of walking! lots of sweating! its alll gooood. all good in the hood. i started reading the book of mormon in spanish! welll see how this goes. it might take 6 months but I WILL DO IT. WOO!

 love you all! 

hermana murphy

(is this descriptive enough for you? WHAT DO YOU PEOPLE WANT?)

1. nayelis!!!!!!!!! (reppin the otavalo shoes again)

2. a nice little street! 

3. SWAG

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?")

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