February 8th - Snow!

 Hey!

This week has been a crazy one! We've been doing a ton of walking and a ton of stuff with our members. They're all really awesome and have been super kind to us. Especially all the old couples, which is awesome. We were fed many times this week and it was all amazing food, from a really Mexican soup from a family we helped set up a drive by birthday, to just homemade cheesecake. It was really awesome actually. The story of the drive by birthday was funny because the big tent thing that we had to set up was broken so we ended up tying it to a fence and a bush. I'll send pics lol.

This week the wind has been crazy every day like 30- 50 mph gusts and it didn't help that it snowed on Friday night into Saturday. It left like huge 5 foot drifts everywhere because of the wind. Also sooo many trees were knocked over and broken cause the wind, will send pics for that too.

We went out and shoveled a bunch for people and met a family that had five acres, and it was really pretty in the snow. Funny enough that couple was also sealed by President Nelson.

We lost power for about 12 to 13 hours and it was a cold morning. We put all our food out on our back porch, and bundled up a bunch. It was a hard day on Saturday as you can tell. But it was a really cool experience even though I thought I was gonna get away from the snow for a couple years. Anyways, I miss you all and keep you in my prayers every day. I hope you are all doing well and hope that you are staying safe.

Love,

Elder Murray 

February 1st - Week 20 or sum

 Hello everyone!! 

This week I got my comp and I moved into the Enumclaw ward finally!! The first part of the week was pretty much the same as last. I was sleeping on the couch and I was living out of my suitcase, but on Saturday my new comp flew in from Utah. His name is Elder Saunders and he's a really cool guy from South Salt Lake in Utah. He's actually gonna be playing basketball for BYU when he returns home. He's a transfer ahead of me so well most likely be going home at the same time. We are in a biking area with no bikes so we've been walking, which hasn't too bad, just really, really cold cause it gets windy up here and its not like a dry cold like in Colorado. It's more humid so it's actually very different. So far the ward members have been very kind to us and we have loved the ward. We have already met with quite a few of them but the ward is seriously big, and there are members everywhere its really awesome. It's a very country type town, lots of farms outside the normal neighborhoods, and it reminds me a lot of Roxborough, which I might have already told you.

We have been teaching a really awesome couple who started coming to church because of one of our ward members. They seem really interested though so its gonna be fun to continue to meet with them on their 4+ acres of land. There's a lot of places like that in the area, so its gonna be fun for me. It's really nice having a bed again and my own area with my own comp. I'm excited to see what I can do for the people of this town. Hope you all have a great week. I love ya and miss ya tons but I know I'm doing the right thing out here. Bye bye for now!!

Elder Murray 

January 25th - Enumclaw!

 Hey Everyone! 

This has been my first week in Enumclaw Washington! My new zone and area. It's been very good so far! I love all the people we've met and the scenery as well. It reminds me a lot of Roxborough, even though there are more animals and more spaced out houses here. It's just very country, and I love it.

My companion will be Elder Saunders but he's home for medical reasons and will be back hopefully soon. My current comps are Elder Hyatt and Elder Elmore. They are awesome guys and we've been working really hard but having a really good time. The apartment is pretty good but I'm sleeping on the couch cause we don't have a 3rd bed. Which also means I'm living out of my suitcases. Which is alright cause it's just temporary. We've been teaching a few including a girl who has plans to go on her mission as soon as she can after she's gets baptized, which is pretty incredible if you ask me. We're still waking up early to lift, but now we lift at a barn so that's super dope. Everyone around here uses wood stoves for heat it's really crazy and old school. So far people have been fairly nice, every once in a while they threaten to sick the dogs on us but that's just apart of the work. No new rule changes or much beyond just the normal masks and such. I'm really excited for this area. I'm genuinely enjoying it here. I hope that I'm able to make some meaningful changes to our area cause its been pretty neglected that's for sure. It'll be a fun time. Hopefully I'll get a bike sooner than later as well for the area. I hope you all are staying state and having some good times. I love and miss you all.

Elder Murray 

January 18th - No Email from Elder Murray

 Now that we get the very great joy of talking to our missionaries every week, we don't always get letters from them! Jacob has a phone on mission and is allowed to use Facebook Messenger. He does a video call each week in the late evening of his prep day. He calls late so he can talk to Paul as well and we prop him up while we eat dinner, so it's a lot of fun. He continues in the Kent area and thinks he will transferred soon!

January 11th - Biking Sucks

 Hello!!

This week has been really crazy and has gone by super duper fast. The first couple days went pretty quick. Tuesday and Wednesday we had full day exchanges and I went to the other missionaries' areas each day. I first went with the Russian speaking Elder Herron and we grinded. We tracted like the entire day, we found some good russian people as well as some english people for our and surrounding areas. The next day I went to my old ward with Elder Kirkham and we tracted for like another 8 hours, and he showed me some tech stuff because he's a mission tech specialist, which is pretty cool. We got to find some nice people out in the country and we met a guy with like 6 dogs. It was nuts cause they were huge dogs too, like easily over 100 lbs. Kinda scary.

The next day was zone conference with President and that was super spiritual as always. I helped give a training to our and one other zone, and in front of President Beardall. So it was pretty spooky but I was able to do a pretty good job, I didn’t stutter at all! Then on Friday we had to start our car fast, which means we used too many miles last month so they revoked our car privilege for 5 days, so we've been on bikes since then. It ends tomorrow so that's nice at least. It's been really hard on the legs cause we've been biking something like 20 miles a day. My legs are getting used to it, which is good at least. I've just been super tired lol.

We're still teaching a lot but productivity has gone down since biking. We talk to less people now. We reactivated a family this week which was super awesome. I'm excited to hear from all of you and i hope you have an amazing week, as it is the last week of my 3rd transfer. Love you all!

Elder Jacob C Murray

January 4th - Challenge

 Everyone!!

This week was a true grind. We knocked so many doors, talked to so many people and taught a whole bunch of lessons. We invited 3 people to be baptized in February and they all said yes!!! That's super exciting I hope it ends up working out. We woke up at 5:15 every day this week to go workout and it feels pretty awesome. Yeah I'd take a nap in the car every once in a while but it was totally worth it. We had a ton of people give us food this week. Three pizzas, chicken and rice, teriyaki beef, some great soup and a bunch of treats (that's my favorite part).

I have started memorizing a scripture every week. I think this is awesome cause it helps me apply it more to my life when I spend the time to find an important one and them to memorize it. So I invite you all to do the same this week, find a scripture and memorize it. I'm expecting to hear them next week!! We met some awesome people this week as we got to help out with the food bank.  They are awesome, we really just helped sort food and move boxes but got to know a lot of the other workers there. What a good opportunity to spread some love. Besides that nothing too crazy happened. We saw some cool fog and it rained a lot lol. We got some Wendy's and we got some McDonalds. We can't do too much with the other elders because of covid rules so it's really just been a lot of work and a lot of effort to bring others to Christ. Which has been working. Our zone has been doing awesome things as well. Hopefully you all had great weeks and I look forward to talking and emailing individually and sorry I didn't have too much exciting stuff this week. I'm praying for you all and I love you and miss you all. Thank you for your support as well. Have a great week!!  Memorize sum stuff.

Elder Murray 

2021

 Happy New Year!! 

This week has been a good one and there's a bunch of reasons why!! Well I guess I should get the bad out of the way. It rained every day this week like the whole day. We saw a car get in a wreck with the siding of a road, we saw some crazy people, and even got yelled at! And that's pretty much it to be honest. But it's all normal stuff.

We had our friend Lisa come to church this week for the second time which is really exciting. We are gonna try and put her on date this week because she is super solid. It makes me really happy because I was actually a part of finding her, since we helped her move in. Also we put another one of our friends, Jason on date too for February. It's been a great experience and we've been focusing a lot on faith since we had MLC this week and talked about how it can improve our work. Now for some fun stuff, I saw a door that had a crappy little branch taped to it and it reminded me of mom's sweet home decor.(Pic will be sent)

Then on Wednesday we helped a member move and they gave us 25 bucks for some food. So naturally we bought 150 nuggets from Burger King and I ate 50 in one sitting. Felt like a champ. On a bad note, I'm now 225 lol. Gotta watch those calories.  On new years eve we had to be in by 7 PM because of safety. We bought some cookie dough and mountain dew and celebrated at about 9 pm lol. We went to bed before 10 and woke up at 4:30am on new year's day to workout before MLC which was at 8:30 an hour away. So a pretty crazy time but sadly no pictures. I will try and get some more because I don't have all that much to send. We went on a all day exchange with the APs and the one I went with is committed to BYU for football so I'll be cheering for him when I get back which is super funny. He's a nice guy. Anyways that was my good week and I'm glad to be able to serve for all of 2021. I'm hoping for some good success this year and have some goals to help make that happen. I love you all and look forward to hearing all about your experiences this year. Thank you for your support and love I can feel it every day.

Love,

Elder Jacob Murray