Gung Ho and Guns Blazing

Ahoy there one and all,

            Time here in Sittingbourne is going by far too fast.  I don’t know what time is anymore.  We are always busy, always running around – it’s crazy.  Sometimes I feel a bit robbed of time! I spend so much time on the phone with conference calls and talking to other missionaries, its mental.  It’s good to feel accountable for things though.  I’m growing a lot.

            All is going quite well.  We are teaching a girl named Ara.  She is the daughter of a member named Catherine.  She is good.  She is 15 and she likes coming to church, but doesn’t really believe in God. We talked a lot about how we are children of God, and how before we came here we lived with him.  It was a very spiritual lesson.  I know she enjoyed it a lot, and I know that she is feeling her Heavenly Father’s love for her. I think that inherently everyone knows that they have divine potential,  that we are destined for much much more than mediocrity, and we can reach that potential through the gospel by being shaped into that person we were designed to be. We are hoping to have her baptized this transfer. We haven’t seen Marina for a while now.  I don’t know what happened.  She just stopped seeing us and stopped reading and coming to church.  I am very disappointed about that, but I hope things will turn around again.  I am still very excited about Ara.  She is solid.

            We have had a fun week.  We have still just been trekking around all of the little villages around here.  It has been fun learning how to drive since my license came.  I am terrible at roundabouts.  I just go into them gung ho and guns blazing.  It keeps things interesting for sure.

            We have been really busy with less actives.  That’s actually how we got to teaching Ara was through our less active lessons.  It has been so good to go to all of these people and help them feel that spirit they are familiar with, to remind them how happy this can make them. It is working.  Our chapel was looking more full than usual on Sunday.

            We have been working really closely with Sister Stocker as well.  She is great.  I love her.  She helps us out a lot in this area.

            Elder Mongelli is good.  We get along really well and I am excited to work more with him some more.

            Well that’s all the time I’ve got.  God Save the Queen.  Enjoy the pictures.

Love,

Elder Purdy

Christian's district -- he is the only American.  His companion Elder Mongelli is from Italy.
Christian is standing next to him.  The others from left to right are from South Africa, Brazil, England, and Malaysia.

When Did Liam Get Hair?

Christian's response to this picture taken before Liam went to prom:

When did Liam get hair????  That’s news to me.  
He looks like Mozart.

Temporal Blessings Have Rolled In

Hello Hello,

            I had a fantastic week this week.  We really worked hard, and even more important we prayed hard. And we definitely saw our prayers answered. We really needed to find some people to teach this week and we found four.  One of them is a daughter of a member, and another is a lady from the Caribbean (lots of them around here).  The daughter is named Ara and the Caribbean lady is named Leonciaduzant, which is quite the mouthful. But they are both very sincere about learning the truth of our message and finding out if this is the true Church of Jesus Christ.

            The weather has been quite nice here, and we have been so busy with teaching. We truly have been blessed.  I am excited to keep the ball rolling. The members have caught the missionary spirit and all of our investigators are doing well. Leonciaduzant kind of has a concern about the Book of Mormon.  She doesn’t see the point of it.  She thinks the Bible is enough.  But she has agreed to read it and see if it sheds further light on her knowledge of the gospel, which it will of course.

            Temporal blessings have rolled in as well.  Elder Mongelli received a package this week from his family, and it was the biggest box I have ever seen!! It took a while to get it up the stairs into our flat. He opened it up, and there was nothing but food inside, and may I just say … it is absolutely delicious!!!   Lots of cheese, lots of pasta sauces, and because they know I am American, they sent a jar of peanut butter that said "For Elder Purdy" that made me laugh, but they sent me some other things as well.  It is good being with a companion who has a mother who loves to cook wonderful, wonderful food.

            I can’t think of much else that is going on.  We had a fantastic week, and I believe that we will have a baptism this transfer.  My British license came in the mail as well, so I am sea worthy!!

Love you all

Elder Purdy

A Humble Abode

Oh yes, and were tracting in the middle of nowhere.  We went up to this shack and some gypsy lady lives in there!!!!!   She was pretty interested in learning more, so maybe we will stop by again.  Here is a picture of her humble abode ...

Trying My Hand at District Leader

Hello hello!

            Well yesterday we got transfer calls and Elder Mongelli and I will be staying together again for another transfer! I am excited to work here another six weeks along with that I am trying my hand at district leader.   I will definitely be busy and we surely have plenty of potential to have a baptism!!

            We have been all over the place trying to find new investigators.  We prayed and felt that we needed to get out of Sittingbourne and go to some little villages that are scattered about in our area. And what a decision that was!  We found four or five really good potential people that I am really excited to meet with this week, along with our other investigators like Marina.

            Speaking of her, she is going to be the death of me.  I think that is the problem with missionary work.  You start to love the people so much that it honestly hurts you to not see them come to church and to not progress towards baptism.  We are still working with her though.  I will keep you posted on what happens.  I think I need to just show her that she matters to us, and that she definitely matters to our Heavenly Father.  When people understand their true relationship with their Heavenly Father, then prayer becomes natural, and so does living the gospel.

            Other than that, the weather this week has been beautiful.  I love England so much.  Flowers are popping up everywhere and I can actually see the sky now. It is great.  It has been fun to go around to these little villages in this weather as well – everything is so old! I took a picture in a village called Lower Halstow next to an Anglican Church named St. Margaret of Antioch that was built by the Saxons back in the 7th century or so. So cool.

            I love you all, I love England, and I love the gospel.

            I have studied a lot about the Atonement this week and am so grateful for the sacrifice that our Saviour Jesus Christ made for us.  To think that the creator of this earth died for us so that we may live again is something that I cannot fully comprehend.

Have a good week

Elder Purdy

Ah Man, I Love the Gospel

Hello again! 

            I loved Conference!  I felt the spirit so strongly in the talks that were given.  I think my favourite was Elder Eyring’s or Elder Uchtdorf’s.  They were good ones.

            We had a good week this week.  We were running around to meetings in Canterbury and in London so we have been pretty busy. It has been good to go to meetings, but I am looking forward to a week just doing our thing -- teaching and finding people.

            Speaking of which, here is a story for you guys.  We were tracting in a little village called Lower Halstow -- super country, lots of sheep -- but anyways we were not having much success.  We really wanted to find some people to teach so we said a prayer.  It was getting late and after the prayer we still didn’t find anyone until we both looked at a house and we knew that was the one.  Sure enough we knocked and a gentlemen answered and said we could come back the next day.  It was cool to see the Lord’s hand help us out so plainly, but … when we went back to the man’s house it turns out he was a Christian minister from Illinois of all places.  All he wanted to do was have a good ol'-fashioned Bible bash with us.  He knew his scriptures and his weird Mormon doctrine quite well.  He wanted us to give him historical evidence of the apostasy.  Whatever … I guess God does have a sense of humour haha. After we came out of our "lovely" meeting with him we knocked on a few more doors and we found a lady who speaks perfect Italian so she and Elder Mongelli can understand each other.  We will be going back this week.  I will keep you posted on her.

            Ah man, I love the gospel though.  I don’t know why but I have had to deal with so much anti stuff on my mission.  But you know what … let ‘em talk.  The gospel is true.  Joseph Smith was a prophet – I have known that since I was a little kid, and nothing is going to shake that. 

            Other than that, we have been working with a lot of less actives.

            Here is one more experience. 

            We went to a less active’s house.  This was the first time we were meeting with this person and the first time we have been to their house, and a girl we didn’t know answered the door.  I asked if our less active was there and she said yes but then she asked how we knew she was here.  I was rather confused to say the least.  It turns out, that this was her daughter’s home.  We didn’t even know that they had a daughter and somehow we went to her house AND our less active was there.  We taught her and her daughter and we are going to start teaching her daughter and her non-member husband.

            That’s really about it for this week.  The Book of Mormon musical has taken off here.  Everyone loves it and I think we are going to see a lot of attention from it.

Love you all.  Have a good week. 


Here are some pictures of Lower Halstow from the internet:

Happy Easter!

Hello Hello!

            We had a good week this week! We have felt really impressed to just go see less actives – just hit our less active list hard – and it has been really good for this area. And man, our ward list is so out of date.  We have gone around to find some people and they moved out like 2 years ago.  It’s fun. They are spread out all over our area as well, so we have a good time cruising the streets.   It was slow last week, but this week was better.  This area is hard work I will tell you what.

            It is still so cold here, but the trees are starting to bud and plants are growing.  England is pretty this time of the year.  I will get some pictures.

            Also, M has a baptismal date! Ahhhh man, music to my ears every time I say it. It is for the last week in April.  It is still going to be a long road to get her into the water, but we are going to do everything in our power to get her there. She is not having too much support from her family, and she is really scared but I am soo excited.  I know that she will be so blessed for this. So I will keep you updated on that.

            This week we have a ton of meetings – two in Canterbury and one in London.  It is going to be difficult to plan a good week around so much traveling, but I think it will be a good week.  The focus is just less actives. We have seen some miracles come from that already.  Lots of them have family members that are not members so I hope we will be able to teach them. It’s good.

            I had a workover with Elder Murri on Tuesday and Wednesday.  It was fun being with an old friend. We laughed, we cried, we reminisced, we got some work done. It was a good time. I got some pictures.

            Last but not least, Happy Easter.  We spent some time with some members, ate some proper English roast, and talked a bit about the Atonement – a good day indeed.

            That’s all I really have for now.  Picture #1 is of us with one of my favorite families at our Jamaican night.  The kids are half Jamaican.  The other picture is of the Elder Murri posterity.

from Jen:  We're not sure who the "Elder Murri posterity" are, but Elder Murri is in the middle, Christian is to the right of him, and next to Christian is his companion Elder Jensen.