British Nationalism with a Side of Potatoes

Hey Ya'll,

This week has been pretty crazy. At the beginning of the week we were working really really hard and we tracted for pretty much an entire day, but we really didn’t see anything come from it. It made a few days really long, but I am getting used to things. And it has been HOT this week – really hot – which made tracting even worse.

Later in the week I had a workover.  It was me and an elder named Elder Mosalakae.  He is from South Africa. We were in Soufend [sic.]. We went and street contacted for three hours or so and we got quite a few potential investigators. Elder Moalakae and I tracted a little circle street, and they were all Jewish!   Almost all of them answered the door with some really cheeky comment about being Jewish -- I couldn’t help but laugh. But it was still a pretty hard week.

We still have two baptismal dates lined up! They are on Sunday.  I am really excited about those. I have grown really close to the people we are baptizing. Elder Murri and I have been giving the woman that is getting baptized (Chris) and her husband (Andy) some lessons about the temple.  They are the two that I call my British parents. They really like the temple, and they plan on getting sealed in it in a year or so. So yeah, the baptismal dates are still on.

My goodness I cannot tell you how many potatoes we eat for every meal!  On Sunday three of the four courses were potatoes.  There were mashed potatoes, [croquette] potatoes, and fried potatoes, and fried chicken. I’m still getting used to eating all continental style, but I am not too bad at it. And I really like all of the food here -- I am loving it.

The buzz here is all about the Olympic opening ceremony. That is all everyone is talking about. It made a lot of British people cry I think. They all liked the history part. So there has been some British nationalism this week, everyone is proud to be British. Which is fun because Britain is really starting to feel like a second home.  I feel the same as they do almost.  Not to the extent of crying about it though. Really though you should hear people talk about how good it was, they absolutely loved it.

I went into London today just to be around the Olympics. It was pretty exciting to be around that atmosphere.  We went into Hyde Park and they had all of these huge screens playing all of these different events, and there were people from all over the place. It was fun.

That’s all I can really think about this week. We are praying for a really good teaching week this week. I am still loving the Book of Mormon and study time.

Love you guys so much. Thanks for praying for me, I can really feel it.

President and Sister Jordan

excerpts from an e-mail from Michael:

Dear Son,

How are things this week?

I am so looking forward to getting your newest letter today. They are the highlight of our week. You always sound great and your stories are fun. Last week's letter was a perfect example. You had some strange food, ran into strong critics, and also found new investigators. The perfect week!

What is new this week?

Our news is that we were in London for three days. I ended up coming for the world report story I told you about. We did not know what to do about telling you so I sent a note to your mission president and told him we left it up to him. He decided to ask us not to see you thinking that it would be hard and that other missionaries do not have that chance.

We felt if we saw you it might be the wrong choice and if we did not, we would wish we had. Not great either way so we told the mission president  we agreed with him. Hope we made the right choice and that you agree.  Took all I had not see you but wanted to do whatever was best for you. I hope you feel good about it?

We met the mission president and his wife. Nice people.

Love you son. Can't wait to hear from you.

Love, Dad

from Jen:

So while we were in London, we went to church at the Hyde Park chapel.  President and Sister Jordan met with us after sacrament meeting and spent a lot of time telling us about the London mission and the missionaries.  It was so nice to get to know them a little bit.  They were very gracious and it was good to see how they love all the missionaries and are watching out for them.  Christian is in great hands.

Christian replied on his P-day:

Dad, I got your e-mail today.  That is crazy that you were so close and yet so far away haha. I am kind of glad that you left the decision to President Jordan. If anybody should have a say in it he should. And it probably would have been hard to say goodbye again. I actually have been thinking a lot about home recently and I think seeing you wouldn’t have helped. But yeah, like you said, it would have been nice nonetheless. I really don’t know how I feel about it all. But I’m sure that it was a good decision. I guess it will make things even better when I finally do see you guys.

Southend-on-Sea Pictures

Here are some of the pictures Christian recently took since he moved to Southend-on-Sea in Essex. 

We learned online that Southend became a seaside resort during the Georgian era, attracting many tourists in the summer months because of its seven miles of beaches.  Southend Pier is the world's longest pleasure pier at 1.34 miles.

Click here for the pronounciation:  "Southend-on-Sea"

Near the pier is Adventure Island, an amusement park with more than 50 rides.

This online picture is a view of Adventure Island taken from the pier.

MTC Picture Recap

Christian's pictures haven't been coming through with his e-mails, but this week we finally figured out a photo-sharing system.  Here is a recap of his MTC experience through some of his pictures:

walkway to the temple

at the temple

in Preston

President and Sister Walker during the church history tour

with his companion in Preston

at President Hinckley's first missionary apartment

Christian loved the village of Downham

The Williams

after the testimony meeting the night before leaving the MTC

The Walkers

London, Cockles, Bashing, and Gnashing

Hello Everyone,

It was a pretty interesting week this week. We found 6 new investigators and we met everyone in Southend that hated Mormons and wanted us to know about it.

I went into London and did some work with one of the AP's from Wednesday to Thursday. I was in the mission office for the workover since the AP was my companion for those days.  First off. London is nuts.  The underground was so crowded because of the Olympics, it took us a long time to get from place to place. Everybody is a tourist.  But it was fun. We talked with some of the investigators that the AP's have.  They were pretty much all Chinese.  It was kind of hard teaching them because they don’t have any knowledge of God or anything like that. It was fun going into the city with all that stuff going on though.

It is really hot in Southend right now, and there is not even a cloud in the sky which is quite rare. And when its warm and sunny the people of Essex are known for shedding off a few layers of clothing  . . . so it has been rather interesting.

I had the weirdest meal of my life this week. Andy and Chris gave us these little sea mussel things called cockles, or cockels or something. They said you can only get them in England and the other coastal European countries up to Denmark. They gave me and Elder Murri a huge cereal bowl full of them for each of us, except instead of cereal it was cockles and instead of milk it was vinegar.

This week was the most bashy week I think could ever happen while I am on my mission. We saw those Jehovah Witness guys who HAD to give us their 2 cents.  And on Saturday there was a whole anti-Mormon stand thing on the main street. We walked through it and one of the guys stopped us.  They were shouting and yelling and there was gnashing of teeth, but in the end I think we settled the guy down and we parted ways.  I thought we answered his false accusations very well.  Every time we would answer his stuff with scriptures and what not he would just sigh and give us a look like we were speaking gibberish.  We eventually walked away.

I Bought Some Multi-Vitamins Too

By the way, on making food – we get take and bake pizzas and we eat A TON of mashed potatoes. I bought some multivitamins too so don’t worry. If you could think of some SUPER easy meals that would be nice. We usually have about 45 minutes to eat and that includes making the food as well.

Third Week in Southend

Hey there,

I had " bubble and squeak" [on Saturday]!  Somebody had us over for afternoon tea. I actually liked it, even though it had cabbage. I like the food here a lot. We had African food a few days earlier – it was really really good.

We take lots of trains here which is fun.  I forgot to mention that.  It is pretty efficient, I must say.

Also, [Friday] was really interesting.  We talked with a Muslim family who invited us into their home.  In their house they really did all of the teaching, not us, and they give me a Quran in English.   I looked it over – it’s pretty interesting. They were really nice people, though, and in fact they had a lot in common with our church. It was cool to talk to them even though we didn’t really get a word in. But nonetheless they were super nice and even fed us.

Later that day a couple of Jehovah Witnesses stopped us and talked to us to. Elder Murri says they stop him a lot. They really just bashed Mormons and the Book of Mormon.  It was the worst hour of my entire mission thus far. I just scowled the whole time, I’m pretty sure.  Finally we just left.

I love the time I have to study here! I didn’t think I would before I came out on a mission but it’s the best.  My knowledge of the gospel, especially of the Book of Mormon, has grown leaps and bounds! It’s incredible. I'm trying to understand the Old Testament better as well.  I love it. I don’t keep very good notes, but I’ll work on that.

We have a 100 % confirmed baptism date for the 4th of August! She and her husband are the ones that want me to stay with them.  They feel like my British parents haha. So that’s good. We are teaching a lot of other people too.  We had a solid 2 weeks of just finding hour after hour.  It sucked at the time but now we teach a ton of lessons. I am still reading the Book of Mormon which I am loving.  During study I try to understand everything in every chapter and I do all of the cross reference things.  It’s really good.

No health problems or anything.  My lower back has been kind of hurt for the last few weeks but I think it is going away.

I went into some of the stores here today, holy cow!  The clothes here are tight! They are all super cheap too. I got a few skinny European ties just so I can blend in a bit more. Compared to the suits here my suit looks like a parachute :(   but it’s all good in da hood.

Hope all is well in SLC.

All is good here in GB. (rhyme intended)

Love you guys.
  

Later that day….

Hey!!!

We are meeting with the B of M girl next week!

We actually have a nice investigator pool going! Elder Murri and I worked HARD the past two weeks and now we have like 8 investigators coming to church and about 12 total.  It’s awesome.  Hopefully we can get some baptism dates soon. We have seen a lot of miracles this week as well!  For instance one day we were walking down High Street and Elder Murri was asking how many people have a Book of Mormon in Southend (or in the Essex accent "Soufend”) that we don't know of.  We prayed about it and we met 3 people that day that have read the Book of Mormon!  It was awesome.

Smell ya later.

Second Week in Southend (All is Good in the Southend 'Hood)

Ahoy there.

All is well in the field!  We have 2 people getting baptized on August 4^th -- wooohoo!  The only thing I could complain about is my back hurts at the end of each day but that’s about it.

I met my new mission president, President Jordan.  I already really really like him.  He is going to do miracles here I think.  When I was talking to him he got all excited and said he had talked to my dad before [he came to London]. I’m really excited he and I started our missions at the same time. He is great and his wife is just as wonderful.

Speaking of miracles one happened this week. On Tuesday my companion felt that we should go knock on some doors on the other side of town, so that’s what we did. We took a bus up there and the second house we knocked on some 20-something-year-old girl answered and let us in. Her name was Hailey and we started talking about the Book of Mormon but she had to go to work and left. But she was really interested. On Thursday when I was packing my bag I didn’t know why but I put an extra Book of Mormon in my bag. Later that day we saw Hailey on the street and I gave her the Book of Mormon. We called her yesterday and she has already started reading it and we are meeting with her this week. Pretty awesome.

We don’t have a car, or bikes. But we do have feet. And we have bus passes that we can use to get us to distant parts of our area. Our area is really really big actually. I am always lost so it’s good Elder Murri knows his stuff.

Things with Elder Murri are great. We get along brilliantly. We teach well together too. So all is good in Southend hood.

By the way one of the baptisms is this woman named Chris Sanders. Her husband is a member. They are probably almost sixty in age and they are THE BEST. I feel like they are my parents here. They always feed us and invite us over. And Chris is getting baptized. Their house is nice too so it’s fun going over there. But I am telling you this because one day I was talking to them about surfing. They were telling me that the place to do that in England was Cornwall (which I already knew of course) but then they were saying that when I get off my mission they want me to come spend a couple weeks with them and go to Cornwall so I can surf and so they can show me "the real British countryside." Pretty crazy, aye?

I went into London today and saw all the Olympic stuff. It was pretty cool.


Love you guys.
Christiano Purdy

First Week in Southend

 
Ahoy!

                Things are good. Each day I get up, study, scrounge something to eat, and then we go street-contacting on like the main street thing. Yesterday when we did that one of the people we talked to bought us ice cream and wants to meet with us again. It’s amazing how blessed you are as a missionary. Then we usually have some appointments and a dinner appointment. We have had a dinner appointment every night! It’s great. We eat that down-home British food. It’s very good actually.

                There are some great investigators here and some good less active members as well. Everybody is very nice.

                I’m still trying to learn how finances work here!!! The mission card thing is fine -- I just never know how much I have on it.

                I haven’t taken pictures yet here but I will!

                Yesterday was my first day of church in the ward. I got up, said a few jokes, said my testimony, and everybody was very nice. We have a dinner appointment every night this week and I think we have a breakfast appointment. The members here are quite nice.

                The usual meal is mashed potatoes and Yorkshire pudding with some kind of meat. I guess this week somebody is taking us to some restaurant called The Carvery. My companion said it is pretty dank. And usually we drink apple juice. It’s all pretty good.

                My companion and I dedicated a grave yesterday. Graveyards here are actually really scary. All the graves seem like they would be in that one scene of Harry Potter. But I am telling you this story for a different reason. While my companion was dedicating it, I looked at one of the other graves and it was some old lady. It said her name on the headstone and what not but underneath her name was a quote. All the quote said was "I told you I was sick." I almost started laughing so hard but instead I just smiled. I guess her family didn’t actually think she was sick hahaha.  Poor woman.

                I am not really homesick but I am kind of America sick. You never really appreciate what you have till it’s gone. Europe is so much different than the states, but I LOVE England so far.

                I forgot to mention one thing. I saw a fox yesterday. It was cool. I guess you see them all over the place here. I had never seen one before that. It was in the yard of an Anglican church just kinda chillin’.

                All is good here. Tell everyone I love them.