A Really Hard Week

Ahoy everyone,

            This week was hard – really hard. It has been awhile since I have had a week that was this frustrating. I feel bad for poor Elder Mongelli.  His second week in the mission was not the best.  Lots of our appointments cancelled on us, bad weather, a few of our investigators dropped us -- it has been rough.  We ended up doing a lot of finding, just going door to door in the mud and rain and fog, and it was just not the week I was picturing, so I hope this week will be a bit brighter.

            We also saw some miracles however.  We were tracting and we had been at it for 3 hours I think, and nobody was interested at all! So we said a prayer that we would find one person that would be interested in learning more. We picked out a street that we felt would be good and we went at it.  Nothing happened until the last three doors.  We went up to one and I knew this was the house that was going to have someone who was interested! So I got really pumped, but nobody was home.

            So we went to the next one – same story! And then we went to the next one and the same thing happened.  Needless to say, discouragement started to creep into my little cotton socks, but then lo and behold, a car pulled up to the house where I thought someone was going to be interested.  A lady went inside, so we walked back over and knocked on the door.  She was WAY interested.  She is interested in the Book of Mormon and has tickets to see the Book of Mormon musical in July.  I don’t know how we will deal with that, but I am just excited to see a prayer answered so directly.

            Other than that we are STILL teaching Marina.  It honestly hurts my heart that I want her to just accept the gospel so bad.  But I guess she just doesn’t see it the same way I do.  It hurts, but we are going to just keep trying and keep praying.  She is so close.  I am really close with her sister and her family that are members, which is good.  I just love the whole lot of them.

            My license still hasn’t come in, so driving is still a struggle.  We are working it out though.  Poor Elder Mongelli is not the greatest of drivers.  He really doesn’t have any perception of choosing one lane haha.  And roundabouts are not his forte, but it is OK.  The license should be here this week!!!

            Not too much to bring up besides that.  I love England, I love being here, I love the gospel.  I have been studying a lot about the creation, the fall and the atonement this week, which has been good.  I especially have enjoyed the creation.  I like learning about that.  Hopefully the weather warms up here soon.  I need some spring to warm these old bones of mine.

            I love you all and I hope to hear from you soon.

Scenes from London

Christian uploaded some pictures onto our photo-sharing site.  They are from January 14 when he was in London with Elder McCormack for meetings.   Enjoy!

Random Stuff

from Jen:
We happened to be online this week when Christian was sending his P-day e-mail.  Here is some random stuff from our short question-and-answer session:

Hi son. How are things? 

            Things here in Sittingbourne are good.  We are just trying to find some more people to teach. We are teaching Marina again! which I am really excited about because I REALLY want her to get baptized. She is great. We had a really good lesson with her and we have a couple planned this week that will be good also. We set a couple of potential appointments this week.  One of them is Brazilian so we will see how that goes.

            Springtime has hit Kent and it is great.  Things are starting to grow and it is great being in the country.

Are you driving?

            I am learning to drive [a stick-shift] and what not.   [I can’t officially drive all the time] yet cause I need to get a Brit license.  The office said it is in the mail, so any day now.  Elder Mongelli’s driving is crazy.  He doesn’t know what to do in roundabouts.

Did you get to go to London to pick him up?  Did you ever get to go through the London temple?

            Yes, I went into London to pick him up.  I miss going in there.  No, we can’t go to the temple.  It drives me nuts.  I want to so bad.

I was thinking about the people you were teaching in Southend. Did those baptisms go through?

            Yes, Michael Everett from Southend got baptized but his mum didn’t.

Do you travel a lot in your area?

            Yeah, a ton.  We cover from Sittingbourne to another place called Rainham.  It’s a lot of area which is why we have a car.  I like driving here a lot.  It’s good … it’s just a really tough area!   But it’s good.  I am learning a lot

            Hey, I forgot to tell you Elder Murri is AP now.  Crazy, aye?

Adventures With a New Greenie

Hello, hello from England!

            As I said last week … I am training! I went into London on Wednesday to pick up my new companion and his name is.........Elder Mongelli from Italy!

            He is a great guy!  I love him and he makes GREAT pasta.  He is from a place called Bari in the southeast part of Italy.  He is a good guy and wants to work.

            Sometimes I can’t understand him though.  His English is probably a 6 or 7 out of 10, but I can already tell it has gotten better in just a matter of days.  At first people could not understand him at all, and now people can get the gist of what he is saying.

            I love the guy -- he is great.  We have had some funny times together.  He drove once and crashed into a pole and popped the tire and bent the wheel a bit – haha.  But we fixed it.

            [Another day] we were tracting in this middle-of-nowhere village named Upchurch.  It’s really small and it was really dark and nobody was listening.  But then we knocked on one door and an old lady answered.  She invited us in and we started talking to her. Her dog was sitting on the couch and Elder Mongelli moved it off so we could sit down.  And right where he was about to sit there was a puddle.  The dog had peed all over his seat.  But instead of telling the lady, he just put a pillow from another chair on it and then sat on that.  We didn’t tell the lady, we just started into teaching the restoration.  We asked her if she believed in God.  She said yes and went on to tell a story about how she knew her husband was going to die when they got married. We both found that rather strange but carried on teaching.  We went on and asked her if she had heard of Joseph Smith.  She said no and then told the same story about her husband -- word for word.  I just kind of thought that she forgot she told us that story already, so we carried on.  Then later on in the lesson we asked her if she would like a Book of Mormon.  She said yes and then quoted the same story for a third time -- word for word.  It went silent for a second, and then Elder Mongelli whispered to me in his Italian accent, “We don’t need to be here anymore.  She is already saved.”

            So we said we had to go and just got up and left hahaha.  The poor woman was handicapped and I had no idea until twenty minutes into the lesson.  

            I am really excited to train and serve with Elder Mongelli and to keep doing the Lord’s work.

Flamin' Nora!

                Transfers came in . . . and I am staying in Sittingbourne. Which is good news, but there is a twist.  Elder Jensen will not be staying! Instead I will be training a new missionary!

            I got the call from President Jordan last night that I will be training a new greenie this transfer.  Flamin’ Nora!  I am so nervous!

            I thought Elder Jensen and I would stay together another transfer.  But I suppose the Lord had other ideas and instead I will be getting a brand new guy -- straight outta the MTC.

            Elder Jensen did the driving here, so I don’t know how the whole manual car driving in roundabouts is going to work, or how I am even going to help this guy be a good missionary, but I guess it is all part of the adventure. A good scripture that pretty much explains how I feel is Moses 1:10: “And it came to pass that it was for the space of many hours before Moses did again receive his natural strength like unto man; and he said unto himself: Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed.”

            I feel very inadequate, but I am really excited as well. I know that the best thing to do is to recognize my weakness, be faithful, and put my trust in the Lord. That is the key to success for me. It’s going to be an interesting transfer.

            Well, that is the biggest news of the week. The weather sucks.  Again, people are not really bothered to listen to us, and what not. But I am excited to get this next transfer rolling.

Love you all, stay happy,

Elder Purdy


from Jen:  

We received a beautiful letter from Christian's mission president who wrote, "You would be pleased to see the missionary your son has become ... He is doing a great work and is blessing the lives of many."

President Jordan also enclosed a copy of the letter calling Christian to serve as a New Missionary Trainer which read, "You have been chosen because of your obedience and faithfulness in living the mission rules and in serving the Lord 'with all your heart, might, mind, and strength.'"

Gravesend Gudwara ... with pictures this time

from Jen:  
We just received the pictures from Christian's February 4th P-day outing to the Sikh temple in Gravesend.  I'm publishing the same post, but with pictures this time.



        Ohh . . . and we went to some Sikh temple in Gravesend.  It was fun.  We had to wear these funny things on our head, but it was definitely interesting.

The Gudwara in Gravesend is supposedly the largest Sikh temple outside of India.

(photo downloaded from TripAdvisor)

The Browns

Here is a picture of me, Elder Jensen, and a senior couple -- The Browns -- that are in our district.  They go home next week.

Cooking? Not so much ...

from Michael’s e-mail: 

How are your cooking skills?  What do you make for meals?

            Yeah, I cook curry a lot or I fry up eggs and bacon and stuff.  I have gotten pretty good but Elder Jensen is kind of a bland eater so I haven’t cooked anything good in a while.  We just make sandwiches and stuff.

Dover

Spring time is hitting over here.  It’s looking greener than ever.  It’s a beautiful day.

We are going to Dover today so I will take plenty of pictures.

Dover Castle is a medieval castle in the town of the same name in the English county of Kent.  It was founded in the 12th century and has been described as the "Key to England" due to its defensive significance throughout history.  It is the largest castle in England.

with companion Elder Jensen

with the sister missionaries assigned to Gillingham 1st Ward

 

Filled With Love

Hello one and all:

            The sun is shining today! It has been a long time.  We had a foggy spell for a couple weeks.

            I had a good week.   I think I was really filled with love this week for the people we met.  I love English people . . . most of them don’t love you when you are a missionary, but I love them. That was definitely a blessing of the week -- just being filled with love.

            Once again, our teaching pool slimmed up some more.  I hate it, but with the bad comes the good.  We found some more people we are going to teach -- a girl who is Welsh, and her boyfriend.  The boyfriend’s mum is a member.  He told us he wasn’t that interested, but we taught him Lesson 1 and after we left his mum said that he wants us to get him interested.  Power of the Holy Ghost!  We found another family who is semi-interested, and we got in contact with Marina again and it’s looking up . . . just in time for transfers!!!

            This is the last week of transfers and I will let you know what goes on with that.  It’s going to be mental!!!!  There are so many people coming in -- LOTS of sisters.  I think we are getting 90 missionaries by June or something ridiculous like that.

            

I love you all!!!

Elder Purdy

A Hoo-Ha to Remember

Pictures from the Hoo-Ha

(see previous post from February 25)

click to see definition of "hoo-ha"

The Hoo-Ha was good.  There were lots of people to meet.  We will see if any missionary stuff comes from it.  We made a pecan pie for it and it blew everyone’s mind!!  Nobody had ever had it.