swag - April 16, 2018

hi! im emailing so early because i have to go to the dentist in bayamon today :-) fun p day! but anyways, we had a gooooood week!

so luis is now on date for the 28th of april! hes great. we taught him twice this week and he came to church yesterday! we brought obispo cruz with us both times because luis has a lot of super deep questions obispo can answer them haha. but we have super good lessons with him. we taught him on thursday and left him 1 nephi 8 to read (about the tree of life) and he told us yesterday that they talked about that chapter in the priesthood class and then he read it after church and it all made so much sense! it was cool. and he has refused to say the prayers in our lessons UNTIL YESTERDAY and he FINALLY said the closing prayer and it was so good. A++ prayer. and he asked us "what days have you come? like the exact dates? i want to write them in my book of mormon" :''') so nice. also so his girlfriend is silvian cupeles and her sister is robilain and theyre both preparing to get their patriarchal blessings. but they can't find robilain's records in the church system so she needs to find her baptismal date or something but if they cant find it bishop says that she has to get rebaptized HAHAH. and luis was like "just get baptized with me on the 28th!" hahah so MAYBE we'll have two baptisms! hahahah.

this week we had MLC and it was sooooo good! we talked a LOT about recieving revelation, based on the conference talks from a couple weeks ago. i felt very young there because i was the youngest missionary there by at long time and it was intimidating hahaha but i learned so much. basically im a NEW WOMAN! hahaha. just everything now is pointing to us becoming more "spiritually self reliant" through recieving our own revelation and its super important. i love the smarts. theyre so smart. 

hahah. funny stories about hermana morales. so this week we brought her to a lesson with benji and jorma. and benji was like I DONT WANNA GET MARRIED and hermana morales just looked at him and goes "YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE! YOU HAVE BEEN LIVING TOGETHER FOR 6 YEARS YOURE BASICALLY ALREADY MARRIED" and then she started talking about how she can plan the whole wedding and get jorma a dress and put flowers in her hair and give benji a tie and shell help them find a ring and it was soooo funny. and on friday she called and asked for benji's phone number and i asked why and she said "es un secreto!" and i asked why again and she said "encontre un vestido para jorma!" hahahha. and then on SUNDAY i walked into sacrament meeting and they were sitting next to eachother so i went to sit by them and i saw that hermana morales had brought a thing to measure benji's ring size hahhah. shes gonna make this wedding happen. MEMBER SUPPORT!

last night we were looking for this one guy in this huge urbinization and couldnt find him and were about to go home and we turned the corner and found this family of SEVEN KIDS. JACKPOT. AHHAHA. theyre very active in their own church (for now) and theyre all homeschooled and basically the PERFECT MORMON FAMILY! when we left hermana peterson and i just both looked at eachother like :O so we're gonna baptize them.

obispo cruz got released yesterday and we were like NOOOO but he was like "dont worry! youre still like my daughters" hahaha YES. maybe now he'll have MORE time to come out and teach with us. yesssss. 

on saturday we had a lesson with miriam and the zone leaders came because we literally have no idea what to do ha ha ha and it was a suuuuuuuuper good lesson on the holy ghost and the sacrament and she UNDERSTANDS EVERYTHING but then she told us about how her husband doesn't want her to come to church and since she has to take care of him she can't just leave in the morning to go to church because she has to give him breakfast and stuff and get him ready for the day and if he refuses to get up early she can't do anything :( but she was like "ill be there tomorrow!" but then she didnt come :'( so yeah. thats that. sad. president smart is going to visit her with us this week.

S/O to hermana GREEN who came to cabo rojo this week. its been a good time. LOVE HERMANA GREEEEEN! 

well we're gonna head off to bayamon soon for my SUPER FUN DENTIST APPOINTMENT! have a good weeeeek!

<3 hermana murphy

1. MLC! 

2. learning to play dominos with albert einstein! jk, hes just a member's brother

3. HERMANA GREEEEEN!

4. hermana morales measuring benji's ring size AHAHAHHAHA 

5. OBISPO CRUZ GOT RELEASED :'(

6. george! (recent convert from CR1!)

April 9, 2018

hello!

shoutout to @sisteraubreyholt who told me to format my emails better. #shoutout

this week i took it upon myself to ask around for cool stuff to do on pdays. and lots of people told us about cool hikes around here. so we went on a hike this morning to some caves! its near the playa buye and was super pretty and FUN! i attached some chevereeeeee pics

this week we got a SOLID new investigator. hes named luis! hes 23 and is the boyfriend of one of the members in cabo rojo 1. he has come to church 3 times and to 2 of the ward activities since we've been here! hes super cool and curious and WANTS TO BE BAPTIZED! seriously. we taught him on thursday and his girlfriend, silvian, and her fam were there and obispo cruz! we taught him about the restoration and after he was like "so, what do i have to do to be baptized?" and i almost started laughing because THAT NEVER HAPPENS. and obispo cruz explained that we have to teach him some things and he has to keep the commandments and stuff, and he asked luis "if you could get baptized right now, would you?" and he thought for a second and said "......yeah". so hes super solid. i dont know why we didn't put him on date right there. but we will this week. and he came to church yesterday. it was SICK!

also, other good news. I FINALLY LEARNED HOW TO MAKE PUERTO RICAN RICE!!!!!! we taught benji and jorma last night and we asked them how and jorma gave us the spice stuff we need and i made it last night and it was GOOD. needs more oil, though. arroz y habituelas <3

benji and jorma. BENJI AND JORMA. benji still doesnt want to commit to marriage. WHAT THE HECK. hermana peterson and i decided that we just have to go CRAZY BOLD on them. JUST DO IT. haha. but i love them. we have the funnest lessons with them hahah.

other than that, this week was just a normal week. yesterday, both the wards passed around dinner calendars so we have double dinners this week :-----) so we are trying to switch it so we can have lunch and dinner...... hahaha.

welp. thats it folks!

have a great week!

<3

hermana murphy

1. lionsrule100!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2. haha this is the cutest house ever!!! she wanted a pic with us and with her house. shes just some random lady that we contacted while she was cutting her grass with scissors hahahah

3. ~~views~~

4. hikes! caves!

5. ~~mystery~~

6. ~~selfie~~
7. PRSJ

G CONF = MIND BLOWN ?? - April 2, 2018

hello! ok. first things first. A TEMPLE IN LAYTON?????? YEEAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH. SO GOOD. I SERVED THERE!!!! also. GENERAL CONFERENCE WAS SOOOOOO GOOOOOOD! i brought my notes to the library so i can talk about ALL THE GOOD THINGS! and i got to watch it in english, fortunately :) they were showing it in our chapel in spanish and english. miriam came to watch it! woop woop!

also, before all of that. transfers happened! and hermana peterson and i are both staying in cabo rojo! and we're the STLs for the mayaguez zone! woooo. they arent sending any more sisters to this zone though so we're just over the two sisters that we live with LOL. more missionaries are getting here this week! but it looks like all the heramnas are going to the other side of the island. 

ok. so this i went into general conference with EIGHT SPECIFIC QUESTIONS that i wanted the answers, and they all got answered! it was so good. i loved all the talks. i cant choose a favorite! 

ok ill just list some of the good stuff

elder Lynn G Robbins - "success is not the absense of failure, but going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm" TRUUUU

ELDER BEDNAR'S TALK. WOW. soooooooo goooood. hes my fave

elder Godoy's talk just reminded me of Les Mis (and made me reevaluate all my life choices)

all the talks on recieving revelation. that was definitely a theme. one thing that president smart is focusing on is being "spiritually self reliant." and that is very true. we need to learn how to receive revelation for ourselves!

im just throwing out a wild guess but i think that dad LOVED elder de feo's talk. just a wild guess :-) 3 nephi 5:13!!!

elder oaks talk! he quoted some of my fav scriptures about the small and simple things :)))

president nelson making prophesies ALL OVER. it was crazy

and all the other ones! so good

this week, we were able to see miriam a few times. she is still not sure if she wants to be confirmed but she DID come to watch conference and loved it. and we know that she was paying attention because she told us "i loved the prayer because they prayed for all the missionaries!!" haha. we're hoping that she will get confirmed this sunday. PLS PRAY A LOT.

we found a cool family yesterday! the mom is lisa and she lives with her two young sons. their dad died like 2 years ago and she went from being catholic to christian and shes super cool! we taught the plan of salvation and they all loved it. and the 11 year old son wanted a book of mormon! haha. it was so fun. especially because we didnt find any new investigators ALL WEEK until sunday. so it was a good end to the week. 

im just getting ready for another transfer in cabo rojo! gonna be LIT

love

hermana murphy

1. WE TAKE THE BEST DISTRICT PICTURES

2. exchanges with hermana thelin THE BEST STL EVER and she told me it was her 15th cumplemes so i made her this very thoughtful piece of art :)

3. COMP CUT MY HAIR!

4. I CUT COMPS HAIR!

5. im as tall as a palm tree!

6. HARDCORE twinning with hermana rivera. dresses, journals, and watches! yeeeee

7. dont ask how i got up there!!!!!

March 26, 2018

hello! this week was good. except for sunday. that was a rough day. but ill get to that :-)

benji and jorma made us dinner again this week. REAL MVPS. and JORMA ACTUALLY READ IN THE BOOK OF MORMON. she told us and we FLIPPED. i legit thought hermana peterson was going to have a heart attack. haahah. but they're progressing wonderfully. we just gotta get jorma to come to church. and we were like MARRIAGE! CHASTITY! and benji was like mmmm i dont know... but we gonna fix that. 

we put dolores on a VERY TENTATIVE BAPTISMAL DATE. for april 21st. shes like "im praying i just havent recieved my answer!" so we have to help her recognize her answer. and she cant cone to church because she has to take care of her sister with alzheimers and she needs her niece to come take care of her while she  goes to church but she hasnt.... so i just want to call her niece and EXPLAIN SOME THINGS TO HER. but dolores is sooooo funny. this week she said a prayer and was like "por favor ayudame a recibir una respuesta.... por favor bendice a mi familia.... y mandales a estas chicas buenos novios! amen! wooo!!!!" HAHAHAHHHAHA. it was the funniest prayer ever. no one even corrected her of not saying "in the name of Jesus Christ" because we were all laughing too hard. hahahahhaaha. gooood times. 

so I DID NOT MENTION LAST WEEK something. because i didnt feel like it. but MIRIAM did not get confirmed. because she didn't come to church. because her niece came into town and we tried to get her to come but she didnt. but we were EXPECTING her to come to church yesterday, so i didnt say anything :) but unfortunately that didnt happen. so. we saw her a couple times this week and things were going all good! she even agreed to fast with us on saturday! we had some super good lessons on faith and the gift of the holy ghost and all that good stuff. and we started to fast on saturday at lunch with her. and let me tell you that fast was A CHALLENGE. BECAUSE WE WENT TO A FOOD PARTY FOR CABO ROJO 2 THAT NIGHT. AND EVERYONE WAS TELLING US TO EAT HAHA. MORE SACRIFICE = MORE BLESSINGS. anyways so everything was going all good. miriam EVEN invited us over for breakfast on sunday morning to break the fast! woo! and THEN. on sunday morning at 6:28 AM she called us and said she didn't want to come to church, that she didn't feel ready, and that we could keep visiting her but she doesn't feel like doing it anymore. soooooo. that was terrible. but hermana peterson and i decided THAT WASNT GOING TO STOP US. we had so much faith. we were even FASTING!!!!!! and we have been studying faith a lot this week and had an AWESOME district meeting on faith, so we were feeling good. so at like 7:30 we went over to her house and were prepared to answer any questions she had and figure out what was going on. but when we got there, the door was closed, but her car was there so we know she was there. so we stood outside and i said "i am not leaving until she comes outside." so we stood outside her house for an HOUR, calling her name and trying to get her to come outside. but she didnt :( and she had turned off her phone so we couldn't contact her at all. it was soooooo sad. and hermana peterson just said "i imagine that this is what Christ feels like in the picture of him knocking on the door." SO TRUE. literally we were going to stand out there ALL DAY. but we couldn't do anything if she didnt answer the door. but we just kept calling for her. but nothing. so finally we sent her a long text message and left a note on her gate. and we had to leave to go to church. and we went to church and STILL she didn't come. so it was a rough day. but the hard times are what you learn from, i guess. we learned A LOT about faith. in our district meeting, one of the things that we talked about was that SO MANY MIRACLES come by faith. but when we have that much faith, and do all we can, and what we ask for doesn't happen, that doesn't mean that God is ignoring us. but he will never take away someones agency and force them to do anything. yesterday  i just kept thinking about that scripture in helaman 12 that says "o how great is the nothingness of the children of men; yea, they are less than the dust of the earth. for behold the dust of the earth moveth hither and thither, to the dividing asunder, at the command of our great and everlasting God." like I WISH THAT I COULD JUST FORCE HER TO COME TO CHURCH! IF ONLY SHE WAS DUST...... AT LEAST DUST DOES WHAT GOD SAYS. but too bad. but anyways it doesn't mean that god is ignoring us.... he's doing all that he can too. he's inviting and trying to help them make the right choice but he cant force anyone to do anything. and even though we were fasting and we stood outside her door for an HOUR, she cant be forced to do anything. but this whole experience didn't decrease my faith, if anything it increased it. 

so that was something that i learned this week :-) good times!

yep. thats it.

bye!

love

hermana murphy

1. what people think we're like

2. what we're REALLY like

3. zone activity playing beach volleyball and it started POURING

WE'RE HALFWAY THERE WHOA LIVING ON A PRAYER - March 19, 2018

sup fam! yeah this week i hit 9 months WOO. crazy stuff. yep. 

this week was good! miriam got baptized!!!!!! woop woop. she was so happy! she got her interview on friday and got baptized on saturday. she was SO EXCITED to pass the interview that she KISSED THE ELDERS. HAAHHAAHAH. BOTH OF THEM. ON THE CHEEKS. needless to say we were all surprised and i laughed SOOO HARD. we need to explain that rule to her. but anyways the baptism was super nice and YES hermana peterson and i did sing a special musical number. NORTHWOOD CHOIR!!! 

also BENJI AND JORMA WENT RING SHOPPING. THIS IS REAL. AHHHHH. they went but apparently benji ran away when he saw all the rings.... hahaha. but its a step in the right direction. THEYRE GONNA GET MARRIEDDDDD. theyre so awesome. we had the FUNNIEST lesson with them. we brought bishop cruz again and hermana morales and we were just laughing the whole time. if i wrote what we were laughing about you would all think it was dumb but trust me. it was funny. and they bought us pizza! <3 true friendship

this week we spent some good time contacting. yesterday, literally all of our plans fell through. ALL DAY. it stunk. haha. but anyways we were with members like all day but didnt teach any lessons because no one was home and it was terrible. and at about 8:00 we were like "ok we have an hour left. and this has been a terrible day. we gotta DO SOMETHING!!' so we prayed and got to WORK and did some hardcore contacting and found a family and the dad was like "come in!' and was super awesome. woo! so it was a good ending to a not so good day :)

but really i think the biggest accomplishment that i had this week was that i FINISHED READING ALMA IN THE BOOK OF MORMON IN SPANISH. idk if any of you remember, but i started reading the book of mormon in spanish in my first transfer. and i just read it during language study for a little bit but it has taken a long time. and i have been in alma for literally months. FINALLY IM DONE. it was a good one. but YESSSSSS. so close. soooo close.

we had zone conference this week and it was based on the book of mormon and how to use it better. so now hermana peterson and i made the goal to ALWAYS have a book of mormon in our hand and to try to give a book to EVERYONE. "THE BOOK SPEAKS FOR ITSELF!' also one sister shared an experience she had and started out by saying "so one day we were just winging it... by the spirit" and now thats our life theme. thats basically what we're doing in the mission. hahaha. 

welllllllll. thats it. have a gr9 week everyone!

hermana murphy

1. cute lil dessert that miriam made for us LOL

2. zone conference ROOTBEER FLOATS!!

3. zone conference TWINNING!! 

4. fun relief society activity with miriam!

5. cabo rojo 1 YEAH

6. miriams baptism!!!!!!!

7. zone conference sisters!!!

8. zone conference zone!! mayaguez #SWAG

yeeeee! - March 12, 2018

hey! its been a good week! miriam is still gonna get baptized this saturday!!! woooop woooop! shes so awesome. we taught her all the commandments and got her some fake coffee stuff and shes good to go! 

also BENJI CAME TO CHURCH AGAIN! BENJIIIIIIII. HES THE BEST. and we didnt even remind him. he just showed up! and OK so we had a lesson with him and jorma and obispo cruz and benji was like "i have to get married to be baptized right?" and we were like yeaaahhhh and obispo cruz was like "i can marry you! for free!" and benji was SO DOWN he was just like "jorma will you marry me right now?" and it was super funny and she was like mmmmm hahah. but jorma gave us a ride home and she was saying how SHE was the one who wanted to get married and benji didnt. but it looks like benji wants to get married. SO. if she wants to get married, and he wants to get married, i dont know what the problem is! so MAYBE we'll be having a wedding soon. YESSSSS. ive always wanted to go to a mission on my wedding. wooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

one night this week all of our plans fell through (literally everything) so we decided to contact in this neighborhood. and literally NO ONE wanted to listen to us. for like two hours. we DID talk to a testigo de jeovah, who only came outside because she thought that WE were her fellow testigos. but i asked her questions about what they believed because i was curious HAHAH. but she didnt accept a return appointment :'( but anyways. it was like 8:54 and we were walking back to the car to go home and we saw two ladies walking around and i was like "hey! lets talk to them!" and so we did and turns out that one of them is moving and needed help getting her stuff from her old house to her new house. so we offered to help and went back on saturday to help her move. and after that we had a lesson with her and it turns out that she actually has a lot of biblical knowledge and understands a lot. she asked us a lot of deep doctrinal questions (for example. if Judas iscariot needed to betray Jesus because it was necesary for him to die, why was he punished so bad? deep) and we read 3 nephi 11 with her and she was like "hey. this is NOT how i was baptized in the catholic church! they just sprinkled some water on my head!" and we were like "well do you want to be baptized like Jesus was?" and she was like "well yeah, its necesary! what do i need to do to be baptized?" so shes on date now! wooop woop! for the 7th of april. we'll see what happens. shes named carmen. classic. but shes cool and it was a cool experience.

today we went to the mall and this old guy called us over and i was like "hey! an old man that wants to hear the gospel!" and he was like "son de la iglesia presbitiriana?" and we were like "no, somos misioneras de la iglesia de jesucristo de los santos de los ultimos dias!" and he was confused so i was like "los mormones" and then he was like :0 "los mormones van al infierno. no son hijos de dios. no tienen el espiritu santo. son hijos de satanas" and just going on and on and on. LOL so that was fun. all of our faces were just like *upsidedown smiley face* and i didnt know what to say without being offensive so i just said "have a good day" and we just walked away HAHAHA. it was funny. some people are just so confused :-)

WEEKLY EPIPHANY. so i was studying in preach my gospel about the spirits role in conversion. and i was doing one of the study boxes and it said to read some chapters about people's conversions in the book of mormon. so i read alma 36 and some other GOOD chapters and i had an epiphany. the gospel makes us HAPPY when we are truly converted, so as we teach our investigators, we should see them becoming happier. because if they're not, they're not feeling the spirit and not becoming converted. so if they're not becoming converted, we either have to teach better lessons or they're not keeping commitments or SOMETHING is not happening and they are not progressing. idk. it was MIND BLOWING. if we arent seeing them become happier then somethings gotta change. it was a solid study. also i gave a 15 minute talk on this yesterday in church. 

lifes good. cabo rojo is the BEST! happy birthday to dad and lucy on saturday. i love lucy because shes so nice and has a good sense of humor! and i love dad because he give good advice because hes such a good mission president and also has a good sense of humor :)))))) hahaha

much love! heres some fun pics from this week. 

LUV

hermana murphy

1. the DISTRICT

2. murphy peterson window washing!

3. my twin, vivian! shes a patient at some members' old person home (im sorry, i cant remember the politically correct name). we have the same birthday, only she was born in 1929. lolz.

4. who am i? WHO AM I? (24601)

5. fun times with anjomile!

6. fun art!

7. more fun art!

8. yeeeeeee

#blessed week - March 5, 2018

hey! this week was super good. not TOO much has changed but its moving along. 

so miriam is the BEST. shes just SO DOWN for everything. we taught her the plan of salvation and she decided that us 3 were pals in the premortal existance. haha. and she came to church yesterday and just loves everything and is still on for her baptismal date on the 17th. some of the ladies at church were like "her baptism cant be on the 17th! we have a relief society breakfast that day!" and i was like ???????? is it going to last ALL DAY???????? like can we not have it in the afternoon???? hahah. so we'll see what happens with that. shes already been to church twice so she could TECHNICALLY be baptized this saturday. but idk. but miriam is the SWEETEST lady in the world and hermana peterson and i decided that she has all the attributes she needs to go to heaven. shes AWESOME! 

benji also came to church! woo! hes awesome. he hasnt wanted to come without jorma but she works on sundays but he finally came. so since hermana peterson and i are covering both cabo rojo wards and they meet at the same time (just do the meetings in different orders) i went to cabo rojo 1 and she went to cabo rojo 2 so i had to teach gospel principles by myself. and it was going to be ONLY benji and miriam and i ahhaha but then i made 2 other members come in to the class too. so we had a full class with 4 people. hahah. 

other than that, all of our investigators are doing the same. theyre all good. we're working with benji's wife so she can get a testimony and want to get married. 

this week i did some pondering and was thinking about all our investigators and had an epiphany. i was like "wow. basically all of our investigators are 60 year old women." and i was wondering why and i realized that its because 60 year old women are the least scary to talk to. hahah. and they're great. truly. love all them. but the wards really need us to find young families with primary kids and youth. so thats what we're focusing on. its so sad, the primary in cabo rojo 1 only has 1 kid. WE NEED TO FIND HIM SOME FRIENDS!!! and it was pretty cool, in these past couple days weve found several families that are all down to listen and have appointments with them. woo!

also heres another epiphany i had. so we were with hermana morales (classic) looking for this old investigator and all it said was "callejon asensio" but we didnt know where that was. so we were asking around and stopped at this house to ask and as we were talking to this one guy i saw this young mom and her daughter walk up and i was like "i need to talk to her" and then we were like already walking away and getting into the car and i was like "no this is going to be so awkward we're already driving away" and i started having all these things going through my head. like i was like "i can just come back another day and itll be less awkward" and i was like seeing preach my gospel float through my mind where it says "a successful missionary" and i was like AHHHHHH. HAHAHAHAHA. it was a huge internal battle. i basically saw my life flash before my eyes. and then we were like driving away and i was like "ok wait we should go talk to that girl" and as we walked up it was INDEED awkward but NOT AS BAD AS I EXPECTED!! hahahh. and my epiphany was that if i didnt talk to her, i would be, by definition, an unsuccessful missionary. because i wouldnt be doing my job of inviting. so thats that. 

the definite highlight of the week was the HERMANAS CONFERENCE we had at the mission home on wednesday. i finally got to see HERMANA MOODY!!!!! only about 6 months too late lol but it was so good!! they had all the 8 hermanas who were here first give trainings and hermana peterson and i gave a FIRE training about working with members haha. and it was just so fun to see everyone. i love the mishhhh!

welp yep thats it. good week! woop woop!

<3

hermana murphy

1. LOOK!!! THIS IS REAL LIFE. MY BEST FRIEEEENNND

2. EX COMP LIFE

3. getting free limbers on the street ~~~blessed~~~

4. sisters conference! so goooood