Elder Will Murdoch-Ft. Worth Texas Mission

A Palm Sunday miracle: Church is always a stressful time as a missionary, you could spend all week convincing and trying to sell people on coming to church, inviting as many as possible and they'll all say yes just to call us during the opening hymn to tell us that they only got 7 out of 8 of their required hours of sleep or that their friends cousin is doing a revival and they have to go there to support them or something.  Currently we have one investigator that puts up no argument with coming to church, he is also the hardest investigator to communicate with because he speaks Portuguese and only very little French. We're not exactly sure  why  he keeps coming to church because we only have it translated into French but he just sits there and tries to feel the spirit. What a boss.  Other than that though, no one will come to church, either they'll give one of the excuses listed above or will tell us flat out that they won't come because they think we are both...

Me and my boy Emmanuel There was a double exchange planned this week, I would be staying in Africa first with Elder Dyer (legendary Zone Leader/African Elder) and then the next day I'd be with Elder Wenzel (aka Tom Cruise).  Fun facts about gorilla attacks: The exchange with Elder Dyer was awesome, we just did service for an investigator, P*****, all day helping him move to a bigger apartment. No one in the ward helped so we called in two other sets of Elders to help us out. The highlight of the day (besides sitting in traffic next to 6 flags for an hour and a half watching everyone have fun) was when P***** was talking about Congo. He told Elder Dyer, "We will go to Congo one day, see the gorille." We werent sure what "gorille" meant and he didnt know the English word so he described it to us, "A man-beast with--" he pointed to his hair, "this all over his body" By this point we had figured out he waa talking about Gorillas...

It wasnt particularly a crazy week but a few tender mercies were noteworthy: 1. Sister Julius: Allow me to tell you a little about Sister Julius. She was born in Tanzania but moved to Rwanda when she met her husband.  She never went to school and so She never learned French and her Kinyarwanda is a little rusty, her native language is Swahili. Despite her lack of formal educatuon she was a midwife for many many years. In Rwanda she also had many children but due to conflict and disease apparently only 3 still live. Somewhere along the way her husband died and she and her family moved back to Tanzania as refugees for a while where a few of her grandkids were born. In 2010 they came here to Texas as refugees. She rarely left the house and relied on her family to take care of her. Since she never left the house she never learned English. The story doesn't progress much except for she had a few more grandkids. Then, in 2015 the missionaries found her, keep in min...

Disclaimer:  This email is not intended for children. Please do not read this with children under the age of 14. Also not intended for those who are squeamish or worry a lot. Mr. Worldwide: This is a short story but I still think it was very cool.  We started seriously learning Swahili recently and after we had listened to a "Learn Swahili CD" we pulled up to a house where the primary language was Swahili (The dad speaks decent French) the kids answered and we spoke what Swahili we knew with themv "Jambo?" "Habari-gani?" "Nzrui-sana" "Wewe unafahamu kingireza?" "Kidogo" Then the wife showed up and we switched to French  "Est F***** ici?" "No, Il à travaille" Then we switched back into Swahili "Kwa heri!" "Asante!" Then we went to a Mexican restaurant where missionaries eat for free. The Spanish Elders must be the only ones that go there because ever...

Elder Uceda: All week long we anticipated the arrival of Elder Uceda, when the day finally came the northern half of the mission gathered at Trophy Club to hear him speak. First, Sister Whitney spoke and then President Whitney spoke and at the end of his remarks he told us we'd recieve a training from the AP's and we'd hear from Elder Uceda after lunch. After the training President Whitney was bearing his testimony on how important planning was when Elder Uceda was moved upon by The Spirit to relieve President Whitney of the microphone. "Elders and Sisters, I love all of you. I prayed before I came here that I could love all of you before I saw you. And now, here I am and I love all of you so much more." He said lovingly with his Peruvian accent.  Then without changing his tone at all his message changed drastically. "Elders, here is my message today: you are not good teachers. In fact you're all really awful." He motioned toward everyone in ...

Me and the boyz Foufou: There I am with bits of beef speckled on my face choking on a doughball like a biscuit from Popeye's, a former Congolese preacher is laughing at me and our host pleads with me, "My friend, please hurry I need to go to the hospital." You're probably wondering how I got myself into such a pickle. Thursday  morning we went to see B*******, a little background about him:  he used to party hard drinking and smoking like it was the end of the world. During this time he occassionally saw missionaries but he didn't take the message of The Restoration seriously. Then one day, according to him, some of his co-workers started pointing at him saying, "You die. You die." This terrified him. For weeks he couldnt eat or sleep and everyday his co-workers repeated the ominous message. Then on a sleepless night, his spirit tormented and his body exhausted he turned to God. He found The Book of Mormon he had been given and read ...

Africa: Wednesday morning, approximately  9:30 am.  After a gut wrenching car ride to Hurst I said goodbye to Mexia and Hello to 'Africa' the area where everyone wants to be assigned.  Here's the low-down: 4 years ago an actual African (fluent in French and Swahili) converted a bunch of African immigrants and created a French/Swahili branch and lo' 'Africa' was born. The problem was that this Elders companion was as white as they come and spoke no French or Swahili and never did. So, everything fell apart when the African elder was transferred out and another white non-French/Swahili elder was transferred in. Since, neither missionary knew French or Swahili the branch stopped growing and soon most of the Africans went inactive. Even though the branch fell apart for some reason they kept Africa as an area and for years they kept putting non-French speakers in the area and none of the Elders that came into the area ever bothered to learn French. As you can see...