I'm Glad the Members Like Us Enough to Let Us Teach Their Friends

            In other news, the teaching has been going well.  Our investigator J almost stopped meeting with us, but now he is way stoked on the gospel and really wants to get baptized. So I am really excited about him, he is a really good guy.  He just struggles with smoking cigarettes, but we are working on it. He loves the Book of Mormon too, which is way cool.

            We got 3 referrals this week!!!!!  That’s really good for this mission -- that is almost unheard of. One of them is from a really old lady in our ward. She asked us to come teach her ladies club in the coming weeks, hahaha.  So I am really excited to go in front of all these old English ladies and talk about the restoration.   In the back of my mind I think they will be a tough audience. But hey you never know.  The other two are just friends from members that they will invite over so we can teach them. I am really excited about them though. I am glad the members here like us enough to let us teach their friends.

            It was Stake Conference this week.  That was fun. My mission president came and spoke.  He talked about the Book of Mormon.  He said something similar to Elder Holland in General Conference.  He said, "Hyrum and Joseph would not have been reading from the Book of Mormon on the day they were going to die, if they did not believe with all their hearts that it was not true."  I thought that was really cool, and quite true.  If Joseph really had just made it up, he would not have been seeking for comfort and peace in it when he knew he was going to die later that day.

            Pretty cool.

            Well that’s all I have for today.

            Love you all.

More Than You Ever Wanted to Know About the Battle of Assandun

Helloooooo,

            Pretty good week this week.  For starters we went to some hill where a battle was fought in 1016 called the battle of Assandun. It is in my area in a place called Ashingdon.

            Here are the details:

Edmund and Canute the Great in battle

The Battle of Assandun was fought on 18 October 1016. It was a victory for the Danes, led by Canute the Great who triumphed over the English army led by King Edmund II ('Ironside'). The battle was the conclusion to the Danish reconquest of England. In earlier times, England had been seven kingdoms, but by the late 900s, there were two kingdoms. The Danes ruled two thirds of England -- The Danelaw, the area north of the Thames, along the Lee, northwest through the midlands including eastern Mercia to Chester and the River Dee. The Saxons ruled the area south of the Thames, the west - Wessex and western Mercia.

            Canute had besieged London with major support from the English nobility against the Saxon hierarchy; particularly the Southampton nobles. The siege was in response to Edmund's reconquest of recently Danish-occupied Wessex, as well as conducting various indecisive offensives against Canute's army. London had withstood the siege and Edmund repulsed the Danes, but needed troops following a successful attack against the Danes in Mercia.

            Leaving London, Edmund risked traveling into the countryside, dominated by enemies and at risk of being attacked by Danish soldiers. Canute's intelligence became aware of Edmund's movements, and while marching through Essex, Edmund's army was intercepted by Canute. The surprise interception overwhelmed the English, causing some of them to desert, and the Danes poured on the English, killing much of the nobility. Some sources claim that the Danes were losing ground, and that Eadric Streona had previously made a deal with Canute to desert the other English forces.

            Following his defeat, King Edmund II was forced to sign a treaty with Canute in which all of England except for Wessex would be controlled by Canute, and when one of the kings should die, the other king would take all of England; and that king's son being the heir to the throne. After Edmund's death on 30 November, Canute then ruled the whole kingdom directly and thus, for the first time, England became a single united kingdom covering the same territory as it does today.

            King Canute was accustomed to building a church, chapel or holy site after winning a battle to commemorate the soldiers who died in battle. A few years later saw the completion of construction in 1020 of the memorial church known as Ashingdon Minster, located on the hill next to the presumed site of the Battle in Ashingdon. The church still stands to this day. King Canute attended the dedication of Ashingdon Minster with his bishops and he appointed his personal priest Stigand to be the priest there. The church is now dedicated to Saint Andrew, but it is believed that it was dedicated earlier to Saint Michael who was considered to be a military saint and churches dedicated to him are frequently located on a hill.

            So yeah there you go.  I forgot my camera when we went there....but I found a picture online and it is attached.

            Pretty cool.

           



hilltop where the 1016 Battle of Assandun was fought

Ashingdon Minster  (St. Andrew's)

           

My Favorite Afters

           Thanksgiving here was good.  People fed us really well.  The actual day of Thanksgiving a Lithuanian family fed us, and it was good.  Friday somebody took us out for Thanksgiving, and Sunday somebody made us a roast. So I have eaten very well this week.   Brits think we are really weird for celebrating Thanksgiving.   I don’t think they know why we celebrate it haha.

           The holiday season is great! People love having us over and keep inviting us to their homes for Christmas!  Pretty much everyone in the ward has asked us to come around that day.  

            I have had Christmas pudding once.  People are always making us roasts and stuff – it’s great. What I am loving is that everyone is making treacle sponge!!  I think that is my favorite afters that people make for us.

            I am doing fine.  I am meeting cool people and I am in the coolest place in the world.

            Love you and I hope you are well.

treacle sponge

Miracle Blessing

             Well hey there everyone,

            Another week another migraine...nah just kidding.  We had a really good week this week!

            As a matter of fact, Elder Teixeira, the Europe Area General Authority came and visited our mission on Thursday. It was way cool to be able to listen to him and get some insight on what we need to do to move forward with the work. He talked a lot about getting referrals from everyone, he gave really good lessons and it was a good time had by all.

            Elder McCormack took up his little challenge of asking everyone for a referral, and we asked our investigator, J, if any of his friends were interested, as it turns out 3 of them were interested and we are meeting with them this week. So I am really excited about that. Things are looking up.

            So something funny happened this week, I was in Southend with another missionary named Elder Hansen, and our ceiling started to leak! So we got a ladder out and went up into the attic to see what the heck was going on. When we got up there, it smelled absolutely terrible! Probably one of the worst smells I have smelled, and it turns out there were like 3 dead pigeons up there! Ahh it was disgusting, but it was pretty funny at the same time. I don’t know how they got up there, but it was pretty gross.

            Oh yeah and a couple nights ago a fox jumped out at me and my companion and it made me yell.  It was funny.

            A miracle happened this week as well -- this just happened last night. We were at a part member family’s house for dinner.  We were having a good time and everything and then the wife (Charlotte) who is the member, asked for a blessing.  I didn’t see a reason not to give her one so I gave her one.  When I was finished she gave me a really astonished look.  Apparently parts of my blessing to her were word for word the same as her patriarchal blessing!

            Things are going quite well.  Elder McCormack and I are doing some great things.

            Love you guys, hope you are all doing well.
  

An Excellent Week

Friends and Family!

            Well hey there everyone, I hope you are all doing well. Elder McCormack and I had an excellent week this week.

            Well first, a pretty crazy thing happened on Tuesday.  We had to get a train into Ilford, which is right outside of London. There isn’t a train that goes straight there from Southend so we thought we got a ticket to Barking and then planned to walk to the chapel in Ilford. Well, we ended up in the most dodgy place I have ever been! We were walking down the street and there wasn’t a white person as far as the eye could see. We stuck out so badly -- two white guys in suits walking down a street full of people from Pakistan and India and all those places. We got some pretty funny looks. I thought it was fun though, and actually people were saying hello and everything to us. So it really wasn’t a bad place, but we still stuck out like sore thumbs.

            We gave an investigator named J a baptismal date for January!  He has been trying to get off the cannabis and he hasn’t smoked in about a fortnight. So he is doing well.  He came to church on Sunday and had a good time. I am really excited for him.



haggis   (photo from the web)

            I got called a Pikey a few days ago...which pretty much means Irish scum. So I guess the guy thought I was Irish or something. But I really didn’t take much offense to it.

            Things with Elder McCormack are going quite well.  We ate haggis a last week.  It was my first time having it, and I must say it was very delicious. Ours wasn’t a very traditional one.  They are usually made out of pig. Ours was made out of sheep liver, sheep lung, and cow heart. It was pretty good.

            People here are really excited about President Obama. They really like him over here. So that’s good and fair I suppose.

            I still read the Book of Mormon every day.  I am just about to finish round #2 and then I will go for #3.

            Well that’s all I have for today.  You know England really feels like home now. I feel quite at home with all these great people.

Love you guys,

Elder Purdy

My Favorite Thing is Helping People

online with Michael:

Hi.....I am online doing a survey, so I decided to drop you a quick line.

So glad. How are things?

Things really are going well, I love Elder McCormack.  The thing is, it’s kind of hard to work really hard.  I brought it up with President Jordan and all he said was "you are doing fine" but I don’t feel like I am.

Well, if there is one thing I believe about missionary work it is that you do best when you lose yourself in the work.  That doesn’t mean losing yourself in drudgery but losing yourself in trying the best you can and enjoying the experience regardless of the results.  In other words, you can enjoy doing it even if people are not lining up to be baptized. 

It seems like you were pretty happy when you and Murri were hitting it hard.  You once said that you could get along with anyone if they were willing to work.  So, go to work.  Make it fun and interesting work.  Serve, love, grow, learn—that is missionary work.  What do you think?

I agree, and don’t get me wrong.  I am not sad or anything.  Elder McCormack is great.  I really do love [him]. 

You are a good man and I am proud of you.  I learn from you and I am sure that everyone else does as well.

As I said, don’t worry about investigators coming and going.  That will happen all the time.  Your progress is measured by your growth and effort.  You cannot control how others react.  You can only control putting your effort out there and letting the Lord know you are willing to go where he needs you.  The other end is between God and the individual.

Don’t worry.  Be your happy, friendly, hard-working self and nothing but good awaits you.

Things are going OK.  I am just sick of all of our investigators going nowhere, like a lady who came to church wayyyy drunk.  Needless to say we haven’t invited her back yet.

I bet the drunk lady was feeling the spirits!  Haha

What is your favorite part of the work?

My favorite thing is helping people . . . and all the weird stories I will have by the end.