MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

HO HO HO EVERYONE!!!!

This past week has been crazy with a bunch of traveling to different places and it was the holidays. So let’s get right down to this. 

On Wednesday we had to go down to Toronto for Zone Conference. Zone Conference is just a big meeting with all the missionaries and we talk about what we can do better and how to improve ourselves. It was pretty cool. I got to see some of the people that I came out in the mission field with and talk to them about their areas and what they have been up to. Zone Conference was from 9:00 am to about 5:00 pm, so we were kinda ummm whats the word I am looking for here??  Ummm oh yeah I remember now, the word is STARVING!!!!! WE WERE SOOOOOO HUNGRY!!!! We ended up going to this Caribbean place and it was super good! I got some jerk chicken and I will tell you what them Caribbeans know how to make some chicken because I pretty much inhaled all of that food. But yeah that was pretty much it on Wednesday.

The only thing exciting that happened on Thursday was that I got a haircut. That's right, ya boi has gotta be looking clean out here while he is spreading the good word. One of the members said she would do it for free since we have been shoveling her driveway for her. So I ain't gonna turn down a free haircut!! However when she was cutting my hair she was going around with the scissors and I don't know what happened but next thing I know she has SLICED THE INSIDE OF MY EAR!!! She started apologizing and I said it was fine until I started feeling the blood fill the inside of my ear. But it is all good. Sometimes the cut re opens and it starts bleeding again but a little bit of blood ain't gonna hold me back. 

Saturday was Christmas Eve and that was pretty good. We went to the Rostirolla's house for lunch and played some games. Sister Rostirolla is SUPER competitive!!! She would freak out if I started winning in any sort of way. She called me a cheater like a hundred times but she could never prove it so I guess I did a pretty good job of covering it up 😉 We also went to the Dunning's that night to have dinner and that was pretty good. Brother Dunning was super generous and got my companion and I tie pins with chains on them. It is super nice and I am so grateful for him and all the things he does for us.  

On Christmas day we only had one hour of church so people could spend time with their families. After church we went to the Jones for lunch and it was delicious as always. But then they brought out the Monopoly game. And if you know me at all then you know that I go hard when it comes to Monopoly. I AIN'T PLAYING NO GAMES!!!! THIS WAS REAL LIFE GOING ON AND I WAS GOING TO WIN!!! I didn't end up winning because we ran out of time and we had to be somewhere else. So I had to call it a tie with Brother Jones but I would have won because I don't lose, it’s that simple. We went to the Cepeda's for dinner and they always feed us super well. 

The highlight of the week though was definitely the opportunity I had to Skype home and talk with my family again. I am so grateful that they give us the opportunity to do that twice a year. I love them so much and always love talking with them and hearing about all the great things they are doing back home. I cannot wait for Mother's day so I can do it again. 

But yeah that was about it for this week. Thank you all so much for the continual support you show me while I am out here. You don't know how much it means to me to read and hear all of your up lifting comments.  

I love you all and hope everyone's holiday season is amazing. 

Question of the day: what is the best thing you got for Christmas?

--

Elder Murray

coleton.murray@myldsmail.net

Christmas Skype

We got the best Christmas present ever yesterday...A Skype call from Cole!

He looked great and is doing fantastic. We were able to spend about an hour talking to him and it was just like he was back home again. He kept us all laughing the entire time with his stories. Even though he has only been in Owen Sound for just under 2 months he absolutely loves the people and the area. We were able to ask him a lot of questions and finally were able to get some answers about mission life in Canada. He said that they have had more snow there than he has ever seen and they aren't really into the winter months yet.

Here are a few things that he shared about things in Canada:

"Every thing is crazy expensive! It cost like $15 for a box of mozzarella cheese sticks!"

"They don't have $1 bills here. They have $1 and $2 coins that are called oonies and toonies."

"The exchange rate is pretty great here so I bought myself a really cool knife. I have to buy myself some souvenirs while I'm here." ☺

"I think I have gained a little weight during the holidays because everyone just wants to feed us all of the time."

"There is only one Ward in Owen Sound and we only get between 50-60 people at church each week, today there were only about 30 people."

"The next closest set of missionaries to us are about 1 1/2 hour away so we don't hang out with any other missionaries unless we have meetings to go to."

"I keep forgetting to take pictures, but really it would be kind of awkward to knock on someone's door to ask them if they wanted to hear about the gospel and then say 'Oh hey just a second while I take a picture so that I can send pictures home to my family." 😕

"I went to Toronto a couple of weeks ago and it was insane. The traffic was absolutely horrible and there were people everywhere!"

"We only clean our apartment if we have the time so no it is not 'Mom Clean' but my side of the room is a lot cleaner than my companions."

"I bought myself this red tie, do you like it? My goal is to have 365 ties, one for everyday of the year."

"The car we drive is all wheel drive. We each have a card that you have to swipe through this reader thing if you are the driver and it records everything about your driving."

Cole wanted us to let everyone know that he misses you all a lot and is thankful for all of the support that he gets from each of you. He is excited to see what the rest of his mission has in store for him and is looking forward to all of his upcoming adventures.

CRAZY!!!!!!

Hakuna Matata everyone!! 

First off I want to say that this email is going to be pretty short because I have a lot of stuff going on today. But I can tell you a few stories of what has been going down the past couple of days. 

The biggest event that happened was that I had a snow day on Thursday. ⛄ ⛄ ⛄

Yeah I know right, snow days out on the mission. However on that day it dumped over 2ft of snow on us, IT WAS INSANE! Everyone was saying how they have never seen so much snow fall at one time. So we had to stay inside all day long. We pretty much just studied and cleaned the apartment. We also had to keep ourselves entertained so we wouldn't lose our minds. One of the things that we did was take scissors and knives and throw them at some boxes that we drew targets on and tried to get the best score.

Other than that everything has been the same just spreading the word and now shoveling driveways a lot so people can get out of their homes. I love being out here. It is so much fun and I am learning a lot. 

Let me hear from all of you and tell me what you have been up to.

Question of the day is, "If you could be any Disney character who would you be and why?" 🦁 👸 🐭

--

Elder Murray

END OF TRANSFERS

REACH FOR THE SKY!!!!!! 

Howdy everybody your favorite deputy back once again!

This past week we have just been getting hammered with snow up here. We have gotten at least two feet just where we live! It is insane but I am loving it soooooooo much. Most of the week has been mostly just a lot of traveling. 

First I went to Midland on exchanges and that was pretty cool to go and see a new area. During the exchange we were driving after a dinner appointment and we were coming over this hill and right as we reached the top there was a DEAD DEER IN THE ROAD!! We hit that thing head on and went right over the top of it. I am pretty sure we went airborne for a couple of seconds. Amazingly however there was no damage to the car so we were pretty excited with that. Then as we kept on driving we got a ride check. A ride check is when there are cops posted on the ride and they pull you over and see if you have been drinking. So we pulled over and they were shining a light in our faces and asked if we had been drinking. We said no but I guess he didn't believe us because he stuck his head in the car and started to sniff and try to find any trace of alcohol. Of course he didn't find anything (I hid it too well). I am just kidding!! He told us to have a good night and we were on our way. That was mostly everything that happened during that exchange. 

Next, we had to drive to Barrie for Zone Leadership Meeting. That was pretty good. I learned a lot and learned how to be a better missionary. We stayed in Barrie that night because in the morning we had to get up and go to Brampton for our temple visit. While we were in Barrie that night however some craziness went down. The Zone leaders have this thing called Satan's Blood in their apartment and it is food that is crazy hot! It is like eight hundred thousand on the hotness scale. (A ghost pepper is one million to give you a comparison). Two of the Elders decided that they wanted to try it. They both put some on some spoons and went for it. Fast forward through all the tears and liters of milk that they drank, one of them ended up puking because he couldn't handle it and the other one turned pale white and just started shaking uncontrollably. It was kind of scary but everyone is fine so there is no need to worry. 

The next morning we went to Brampton because it was the end of the transfer. We had our follow ups and also a temple session. It was super cool to see everyone that I came out to Canada with again and to hear all of their stories they had to tell. The temple was super amazing!  The inside of it was so beautiful and so peaceful. It makes me sad that I can't visit it more often. But I am so grateful for the chance that I had to go. 

That night we had to go back to Barrie because we had Zone Council and on the way back we stopped at a place called Smoke's and got some Poutine. If you don't know what Poutine is it is basically fries covered in gravy and you can put bacon and cheese on it. It is super good and I would highly recommend it. Zone Council was good also, learned a lot and got to hang out with the Zone. 

The last thing is an update on Jim Baker. He is doing so well!! We have a baptism date set up for Jan 21st and he is starting to come out to church now. I can just see how much he has grown and how much his testimony has grown also. I cannot wait for the day when he gets baptized. 

That was about it for my week now I want to hear from all of you and everything that you have been up to. I love and miss all of you so much.

And like a wise man once said "Merry Christmas you filthy animal"

--

Elder Murray

ANOTHER MOVING EXPERIENCE!!

What is going on everyone!? Hope everyone's past week was super great!

My past week has been all sorts of crazy and eventful. This past week alone I have given 5 priesthood blessings. Everyone is getting extremely sick or going into surgery up here, it is insane. There is also this cat named Bert that hangs out in front of our apartment all day long, so when we come back he just starts meowing at us and tries to come inside with us. Every time I see him I just say "Bert you crazy cat, you better get outta here!” The neighbors look at me kind of weird but what can you do.

I guess I should tell you about a moving experience I had again. Sooooooo lets get right to it! It was this past Thursday a less active member was moving out of his apartment and he wanted some help so obviously we were the first ones to volunteer and there were two other members that had trucks and trailers that were willing to help also. We got there and one of the members was standing outside. As we pulled up he told us that the individual that was moving (I will just call him Bob) had nothing packed yet. So Bob had nothing packed and he came walking out and we asked him where he was moving to and he said he didn't know yet he still needs to find a place. SO HE HAS NOTHING PACKED AND NO WHERE TO GO!! One of the members asked him why we were even there to help him move and Bob says, “Well I have to be out today.” We thought he was getting evicted or something so that's why he had to move out but no he informs us that he has A HIT out on him so he needs to move out as soon as possible because they have already tried to kill him once. So with all of this craziness going on and just being informed that I could possibly get killed trying to help Bob move it started pouring rain. Like I mean POURING rain! Luckily I had a waterproof jacket on, the only problem was that there is no hood on it and I didn't have a hat so my head was pretty much just getting soaked that entire time we were there. Bob finally found a storage unit that he could take all of his stuff to so we packed everything up and headed over there. When we got there and started putting everything in it became obvious that all of his stuff wasn't going to fit. So he went and got a bigger unit and we had to take all of the stuff that we had already packed in before and move it to the bigger unit. We started helping him move at 10:30 and didn't get done until 2:45 so we were pretty soaking wet and cold. The member that gave us a ride felt bad for us so he decided to take us out to Montana's (pretty much like a Texas Roadhouse) for lunch. The food was amazing and delicious. Right as we were leaving another member texted us and told us to meet them at Montana's for dinner in an hour. So we had Montana's twice that day and it was super awesome.

I think the only other funny story I got is that we decided to go drop by a former investigator and when we got there he was extremely drunk. We had a pretty interesting conversation about politics and Jesus Christ so I am glad I was there to hear it. He decided to say a prayer at the end and in his prayer he said and I quote "thank you for sending these two gentleman in my intoxicated state to bring light to the darkness" so that was pretty cool to hear.

Finally an update on Jim Baker, we have gotten to know each other really well he is more like a friend than anything. He tells us about the movies he watches and shows us his paintings that he works on. The last time we were there he said he would get baptized sometime in the near future he just doesn't know when. So we are working on trying to get a date with him and hopefully get him baptized. 

I am loving it up here in Canada. There are so many great people and so many experiences that I get to be a part of. I am so grateful for all of you and the examples that you set for me. I love getting to read your emails and hear about all the awesome things you are doing down there.

I would just like to leave you with a scripture to read, it is in John 14:15-18. I have seen the scripture bring tears to people’s eyes because it means so much to them and it means so much to me.

Well tell me all about your experiences you are having and the things you are going to be doing for Christmas!

And like a wise man once said "I'll be back"

Elder Murray