A Birthday and a Baptism

Hello Hello,

            We had a good week this week! Really mental in fact.

            The families we are teaching are doing well, never a dull moment I'll tell you what. We had a good lesson with the Simbis yesterday. We taught a lesson while we snacked on some sugar cane. Apparently that’s what they do in Africa! They are loving what we teach and we always feel the spirit with them. Lots of our lessons this week were really focused on reading the Book of Mormon. We read 3 Nephi 11 with Yohanna and he loved it. The spirit was powerful as we read it together, and he recognized it for sure. The Book of Mormon is so powerful. 

            Had a couple exchanges this week. I didn’t even see Elder Vogel for 2 days straight haha but we got lots of work done in our area and the other missionaries’ areas as well. Found a cool guy from Portugal that we are going to start teaching. He looks a bit like John Lennon which is cool.

Christian, Neil, Roy, Elder Vogel

            My birthday was pretty great. The weather was really great – sunny and warm. We played some football with our investigators. It was fun, lots of them came. And then we had a couple lessons. And the best part of all – Roy got baptized! Neil baptized him. It was great to see Roy get baptized by another recent convert. We sang "I am a Child of God" in Chinese at the baptism and the spirit was super strong. It was the best way to spend a birthday! 

            The weather is still great today! And I am looking forward to another great week in Norwich! Great things are happening!!

Love,

Elder Purdy

Plain, Small, and Simple

Christian's zone.
Christian is top row, third from the right. His new companion Elder Vogel is to the left of Christian,
and to the right of Christian is Elder Jensen -- a former companion from when he was serving in Sittingbourne.

Ahoy,

            We had a really busy week last week,

            We had to move the baptismal date of the family from Zambia, but they are still doing well. They will be getting baptized in early March now. We also have baptismal date for another family from Africa for March, and we started to teach a family from Portugal as well. So lots of families! It’s brilliant. The gospel is all about families and it’s great to be able to see families here in England accepting it. For me it has been fun to introduce the Book of Mormon to them. As we read passages to these people it is great to see them understand and love what the Book of Mormon teaches.

            We should have a baptism this Saturday. Roy from China should be getting baptised, and Neil should be baptising him! I’m happy for him. It has been cool to see his progress as a member. He passes the sacrament and he gave a talk in church this last Sunday and he should be going to the temple in March.

            The weather has been OK here. Other parts of the country are flooding right now, but Norfolk is fine – blue skies and warm. I really don’t have anything negative. Life is good.

            We had interviews with President Jordan yesterday. It was good to have some time with him and Sister Jordan. They asked if I knew of a good place to eat in Norwich for dinner and I told them to go to a place called the Waffle House. It’s a restaurant where they make different waffles for dinners and lunches and what not. They called me after their dinner and said they spoke with their waitress and she was interested in us going around and teaching her family about the restored gospel. Another family!

            It reminds me of a talk given by a Seventy named Francisco J. Vinas, he says:

“Among the old and sacred values to which we should return are the plain and simple principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ. These should be firmly established in our homes to ensure happiness in family life. It is precisely because these principles are plain and simple that many times they are not considered when there are challenges to face that affect family life. At times we have the tendency to think that the more serious the problem, the bigger and more complex the solution should be. That idea can lead us, for example, to seek help from people or institutions outside the home when in reality the most effective solution will come by applying the glorious principles of the gospel in our homes in the small actions and duties of everyday life. The scriptures remind us “that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass” (Alma 37:6).

           How true that is.

Hope you all have a good week!

Elder Purdy 

Happy New Year!

Ahoy,

            Well Elder Cuche and I finished the year off the right way – with a baptism! Neil got baptised on the 27th. We were at one of our Mission Leadership Meetings in London and had to head home a bit earlier than usual to get everything set up. It was a lovely service. He didn’t want a lot of people there so there were a few members and such. Elder Cuche gave a talk on the Holy Ghost and I gave a talk on enduring to the end. After which we had a musical number where we tried to sing "I am a Child of God" in Chinese – didn’t go well. Sister Lee, the missionary from Taiwan, really carried the team on that one. But everybody enjoyed it I think.  Elder Cowan baptised him and everything else went very smoothly.

Elder Cuche, Elder Cowan, Neil, and Christian

            Jenny is doing really well. She is the lady who found out she was half Maori a few years back and tracked down her family. It turns out over half of them or something are members so she has a huge interest in the church. We really get on with one another. She is in her 60's or so and she is just a lovely lady. She lives a bit south of Norwich in a place called Pouringland in a very English Cottage. We had a really good lesson with her. She has some mixed up ideas about Mormons but her sister in New Zealand is a member and has really been a good influence on her and helped her. During the lesson she said, “I don’t think I could join any other church except the Mormons,” which dropped my jaw a bit. But then she said, “I am too old to do anything about religion.”  She has come to church a few times and has loved it but thinks that she can only come three times or so and then we won’t let her come anymore haha but she has loved attending church. So keep her in your prayers, she is a wonderful person.

            At the end of our lesson with her she showed us a picture of one of her great-grandfathers who was Maori and a member as well. He was some sort of tribal leader, and by his picture there was some quote by him where he was telling his people to love each other and never forsake the church of Christ. It sounded familiar to me and I looked in the Book of Mormon and it was almost exactly like 2 Nephi 31:20!! We showed it to her and she liked it a lot.

Elder Cuche and Neil

            We spent New Year’s Eve with the Carruthers family. They are so fun! We had a good time and in the evening we taught Emma and Neil and played some Monopoly haha.

            I have been really thinking about things God wants me to do, with investigators, as a missionary, as just a normal person. And I love how the phrase “Be faithful and I will be with you” comes up so much in the D&C. That tells me that God wants us to make our own decisions sometimes. We need to be obedient and faithful to what he has given us, and then God will help us with the choices we make. Brilliant!

The Church is true.

Love,

Elder Purdy

Baptisms Make All the Hard Times Worth It

Elder Doudou, Emma, and Christian on Emma's baptism day

            Well, I will be staying in Norwich for another transfer! – which I am happy about.  My new companion is Elder Cuche from France. He is a great man and I am excited to work with him.

            The biggest news of the week is that Emma was baptized. It was a great service. The spirit was strong, lots of her friends came, lots of members came. It was good. I gave a talk at the baptism on the Holy Ghost. It went all right and then our Ward Mission Leader baptized her. She was grinning from ear to ear afterwards. One of her friends from Greece came and was very impressed and we are going to start teaching her. We see her on Thursday. Baptisms make all of the hard times and stressful times worth it.

            Also something very miraculous happened. A long time ago our mission received a package from America from a sister in Utah. Inside were some scriptures. In a note she explained that in SLC she had met a man named Calvin Rush and that he lived in Norwich and that he was a good guy and was in Utah for skiing, and she was sending him some scriptures. That was it … no address, no number, just his name and the city he lived in. So my companion and I have been trying to hunt him down for ages but to no avail. All we found out was that he was a builder by trade. So we went to one of the building agencies around town and it just so happened that he worked with them. We got his number and stuff and got in contact with him. He was a bit freaked out ... thought it was a joke. It had been 2 years since he had been to America. But he got his package and we will follow up with him this week! It was really something. He was pretty stunned that this lady went through all this effort.

Doing the Shaka at our Chinese meal!

            Sunday our Chinese gang had us over in their university accomodations for some Chinese food. I felt like I was back at university – it was fun. They made some really good food: noodles, chicken and potatoes with some other things that I don’t know, tomatoes with chili sauce etc. It was a good time. They are great.

           

Bob hard at work

The rest of the week has been good – busy and stressful but good. Lots of things to do. It feels like there is never an end of things to do on the list. We are working hard to find people outside of Norwich since that is the main part of our area. But it has been hard. We are teaching lots of students and it has been good, but exams are coming up and I am not sure how dedicated they can be to learn the gospel if they are studying for their tests. Only time will tell.

            But I am grateful for my opportunity to be here and to serve the Lord here in England. I know that the Plan of Salvation is real, it’s perfect, and it leads to everlasting happiness. And it was good to see Emma make a covenant this weekend as part of this plan.

Love, 

Elder Purdy

"I am Covered in Sunshine"

Hello hello,

            Man, what a week – fast, busy, rainy, cold, and everything in between!

            Well, may I just say Emma, one of our investigators from China, is golden. She is amazing, and our Chinese teaching pool keeps multiplying and replenishing because they keep bringing friends. We may have to rent out a theatre or something soon. Jokes, but yeah, it’s getting pretty crowded. 

            But Emma is so good. She reads the Book of Mormon every day, she prays, she understands things so well, and is very much looking forward to her baptism on the 9th of November. We had dinner with her, her friend Neil, and some members on Saturday and had a good time. At the end we shared the Restoration DVD in Chinese. Afterwards we asked them how they felt. And Neil put it very simply by saying, “I am covered in sunshine” haha. They came to church the next day and it was good.  We are seeing them three times this week – another dinner with more members, I believe. The ward really likes her. So I am over the moon about all of that. 
The only put-off for her was when we showed her the baptismal font at the end of church yesterday and there were like 10 dead spiders in the bottom.  You could tell she was kind of concerned about that haha.  Woops.

            We had a couple exchanges this week. On one of them I went to a place called Lowestoft on the coast – really nice town.  I was with Elder Bright who is in his third transfer. We had some powerful lessons. One was with a lady named Carmen. She has investigated for a few months now, loves the Book of Mormon, but hasn’t been able to stop smoking. We really didn’t know where the lesson was going while we were with her. She got really mad about how she is so stressed and how she doesn’t really want to come to church and all these things. While listening to her I felt really prompted to just tell her to relax, so I did. And I kept going on about how the gospel is there to help us find peace, and that really she doesn’t need to get all worked up about things in her life and that she needs to look at all of the good. Boom! The spirit was there and it was powerful. She looked at us for a second and then I said how she just smokes because she is stressed and if she just relaxes a bit and enjoys life she won’t smoke. Hit the nail on the head. I am so grateful for the spirit. It can literally fill our mouths in the moment we need it. We just need to be worthy and listen.

            Other than that this week was up and down. So much is going on and we are really trying to get this zone to reach its full potential. It is certainly a task but we are working at it.

            Here are a couple pictures of the meals I have had this week. I didn’t know what else to take a picture of.

Elder Purdy

A Baptism!

            Well I am just well chuffed over our week. It was a good one. Tuesday we were in Letchworth Garden City, a nice place. I like it there.  It’s really green, and as a matter of fact the new Simon Pegg film was filmed there. We saw part of the shooting a few months ago, so that’s fun. But we saw a lady named Ajinder up there. She is an Anglo-Indian lady – really nice – and we had a good lesson on the Restoration with her. She enjoyed it and said she really felt some "positive energy" in the room as we spoke, and said she saw the "the light in us." I don’t know ... I guess she is just one of those people. She has gone to Nepal, though – went to go meditate and have a nice holiday. She took a Book of Mormon with her, so hopefully she will read it. The rest of the day we walked around the streets, saw a less active and talked with people. A good day.

            Wednesday we were walking to the train station to catch a train and I stopped this lady named Lauren. She a single mum, and as I said who we were she said "Oh yeah I have wanted to get baptized for awhile and so does my mate." So I hope we have a couple baptisms coming up! We sat down on a park bench with her and had a real nice chat about God and families and what we do as missionaries. We should be seeing her on Wednesday. Miracles happen. She has had a rough couple years it sounds like and I really hope she sees that this can really help her.

            Thursday we had a meeting in St. Albans – pretty cool city with lots of Roman ruins – and I had a workover with Elder Peirera from Brazil. He surfs as well so we talked about that a bit and had a good day together. We took him to Isabella's house, who is Brazilian and so is her mother, and they just jabbered away in Portugese. I just waited until we could speak English again. We ate dinner with them and then went tracting.

            Friday was a bummer – hosed appointments  and rain. It’s getting a bit colder here as well, which is always not fun.

            And Saturday Emilie got baptized! It was great. She was grinning from ear to ear afterwards and her mother was very proud. We taught them at a family’s home called the Meades so we had Brother Meade baptize her. I gave a talk about baptism. It was really nice, and her family that aren’t members seemed to really enjoy it – until the next day when Kylie told me they still think we are a cult that is going to hell …

            We are looking forward to this week. Elder Botcha is getting his patriarchal blessing tomorrow and we really want to get one more baptism this transfer. Most of our investigators have kind of fizzled out into not being interested, but we have some good new ones and we are excited to find some more.

            

Love you all,

Elder Purdy

Meow

A lady asked if we could baptize her cat a few days ago. We really didn’t know what to say. We thought she was kidding so we laughed.

 

But she wasn’t kidding.

 

Baptisms!

         

            Our baptisms were yesterday!   We baptized Christine and Mark. Chris got baptized by her brother, and I baptized Mark.  It was great. 

            When I dunked Mark under the water he really wasn’t expecting it, so when he came back up he was coughing haha, but it was still spiritual.

            Mark bore his testimony. It was really really good.  Here is an excerpt of it.

            “Simply put, the ultimate meaning of our lives is to love fully – that is, we ought to have love towards everyone we are connected to.  This obligation to love implies the ability to love. Faith tells us that God is love manifest; He who embodies unconditional love.  Loving God is in and of itself the process of learning to love. Doing thus, we learn to understand and love others. . . . "

            It was a really neat experience.