Week of Thanksgiving?? What?? I was just in the MTC last week!!‏

Seriously though, my friends and fam, is time going by as fast for you as it is for me??

Saying goodbye at transfers :) bittersweet!

I am very excited for Thanksgiving. I was curious how holidays would be on a mission, and I am just so stinking excited now! As we pulled out of Walmart last week I felt prompted to hand this homeless looking guy a mormon.org card with our phone number on it. I told him it was the best kind of help (hehe), and he could call us if he needed any. Lo and behold, Saturday we received a voicemail from Melvin saying he just really needs Thanksgiving dinner for his family. It was the sweetest most humble call and I am so grateful that my ward is providing a big thanksgiving dinner! We are inviting his fam as well as other investigators needing more dinner. I'm surprised by how many members of the branch will be coming to offer fellowshipping... I just can't wait!

The spirit of charity and service is exactly what I need to be influenced by right now. There have come specific challenges out here that are really testing my ability to love and be patient as Christ is. It is so super hard! It is just not a natural thing for me!!! I sit and try and think of ways that I can help people by mere service, and I get stumped! So I prayed and the Holy Ghost told me just this morning that it starts with my companion and she sure is giving me a lot of opportunities so I have got to make sure I take them.

Such a side thought but my comp and I are way into Essential Oils right now, she has a whole box of em! And there are like three ladies in our ward who keep giving us little tinctures of new things to try. So this morning to get rid of my acid reflux I decided to try drinking a teensy bit of Ginger oil. Later Sister Walker asks me if I drank it and I said yes and she was like, uhhhh youa re NOT supposed to drink it, it is ONLY for topical use!! Ahhh!! I smell so strongly of ginger right now haha I am laughing here at the library I swear in a cloud of ginger and I feel bad for those who might get a wiff!! But on a more spiritual note, I know Heavenly Father actually planned for oils to come into my life at this time because I've been having physical set backs as well as spiritual set backs and as I've prayed for it to go away I've been introduced with a new oil to relieve, and I realize this is my answer, His way of healing me. I am really gaining a strong testimony of what a Sister said during church yesterday, that "the Lord's way is ALWAYS better than our way." As long as we are working on our faith, we will understand that he is going to either heal is in certain ways or allow us to keep struggling so we learn a more powerful lesson and gain a more important strength. So if I'm to give any advice to you already wonderful friends and family, it is to always ask that Heavnely Father blesses you and helps you, and then be truly open to how He chooses to do that.

NANCY IS ON DATE FOR BAPTISM!! Our mission president chose to have us invite every single person we teach to get baptised on Christmas Eve, he calls it "Noche Blanca." It is so inspired and I cannot wait to start asking with boldness and love. She is still praying for a true answer whether this is right for her. She already has a testimony of the Book of Mormon so I have no doubts!! But she needs all the help she can get so if you have a sec, say a little prayer for Nancy!

Felix is now officially less active as a recent convert and my heart is weeping for him. As is Karen, another RCLA, who has completely lost her testimony of the Restoration of the FULL gospel, all within two months of being baptised. Satan is working so hard. As I've mentioned in the past about signs of the last days, one of them will be a greater separation between those who choose dark and those who choose light. That is why we need to put our every effort in becoming stronger individuals. If not, then the ever-pressing darnkess will seep in. But anways, I am praying hard and I know that no matter what, the Lord will bless them.

I am so grateful for my Heavenly Father. I'm sure some of you are probably starting to check out of my weekly emails haha, it's hard to tell when I am so disconnected with everyone, but I just need to bare a simple testimony to leave you with. The pride in me often says I understand the atonement, I understand how the Lord blesses me daily, but then I learn something entirely new and realize I know hardly anything at all. He is so pure and so perfect, He wants us so badly to allow His spirit to fill us always, we just need to ask and allow it in. 1 Corinthians 2 says "Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man." The perfect plan, to have a Savior perform the atonement so that His grace has ALREADY sufficientely saved us, and then he is with us every step of the way as we stumble toward heaven so that he can plead for our redemption, so that we might enter the gates of heaven. I love it. I know this is the perfect plan and I know I'm going to keep messing up and it is because I need to learn something more profound. Else if I do not learn it there is no way I'd be able to physically behold the glory of God or to even desire to be around it. After all of the days of laboring and praying to the Lord, Enos found a level of understanding that he was able to teach to his people. His final prayer is the last verse of his book, and it is currently my favorite scripture. I apologize if I have already shared it, it is Enos 1:27.

I love you all. I am so excited for Thanksgiving and I hope you all turkey it up and thank God for His amazing gifts!! One of them I've learned, is the gift of spirituality, the TALENT of spirituality. But anways happy holidays and see ya talk to ya next week!

Best,

Sister Murphy Senior