In his e-mail, Christian said he could Skype around 10 a.m. our time so we came home from church about 9:55, set up the computer, and there he was! I don’t know if there was
supposed to be a time limit, but we Skyped with Christian for over 2 ½
hours! He looked and sounded great.
Busier than he’s ever been in his life, he
spends a lot of time on the phone with his missionaries and driving around to
the villages in his district. In his district, he is the only missionary from America. The other sisters and elders are from Italy, Brazil, South Africa, Malaysia, and England.
He said that Kent is absolutely beautiful and he loves England. His flat is on the old Roman road
that became the pilgrimage road to Canterbury Cathedral. (Chaucer’s Canterbury
Tales, anyone?) He loves all the ancient churches, old Roman burial grounds,
and historical sights.
He said studying is one of his
favorite parts of being a missionary.
After reading the Book of Mormon four times during the first six months
of his mission, he studied parts of the Old Testament, finished the Pearl of
Great Price, and is now studying the Doctrine and Covenants.
He reported that the London mission will be
changing dramatically in the next few months.
There will be 45 people going home before July and 80 new missionaries
coming in. That will make Christian one of
the elders who has been there the longest.
“It’s mental!”
We told him how we went to the
temple as a family the day before, and he mentioned how he really misses the
temple. The London temple is out of their mission boundaries, but he is hoping he'll have at least one chance to go before the end of his mission.
A few of our conversational
highlights included when Michael asked if street-contacting in the town square
was how they found people to teach.
Christian said Sittingbourne is so small that there isn’t really a town
square. He said one time when they were in
town where the shops are that some guy literally came walking out of the woods
with a dog on a rope. The man and the
dog looked like they’d been living in
the woods for quite some time -- and that it had been rough living.
Christian’s area is very rural. There are lots of woods, dry stone fences,
hedgerows, old buildings, and fluffy sheep. He told Sean that he would
appreciate the fact that there are a lot of graffiti artists around, which is
not that unusual. But the fact that they
graffiti sheep is a bit odd.
We asked him how people
responded when he knocked on their doors.
One man burst out laughing when he opened the door and saw two
elders. “I just saw your play in London!”
he said. But the most common answer when people were asked how they felt about religion in general was, “Not bovvered, Mate.”
Which led to us being entertained with
his renditions of various accents – Scottish, Irish, Cockney (wow, that’s a
whole different language -- and nothing like the way Dick VanDyke spoke in Mary Poppins), Jamaican, and Essex where they commonly end sentences
with “I’n’it?” One time someone on the
street in Southend offered him a snack. “Would
you like some popcorn i’n’it?”
We got to speak with his
companion for a few minutes. What a
great guy! Elder Mongelli was full of
happiness and had a very infectious smile.
I don’t think he understood us very well, but he laughed and smiled a
lot. Soon after he arrived in
Sittingbourne, Elder Mongelli's parents sent him a huge box of food – pasta, an entire wheel
of Parmesan, bottles of his mother’s sun-dried tomatoes, a jar of peanut butter
and M&M’s “for Elder Purdy,” and a ton of other stuff. He said his family was afraid there was no food in England. He and Christian
probably set some kind of record for making pasta every day for six weeks until
they couldn’t stand it anymore. Even Elder Mongelli groaned when he told us "Six weeks!"
We also spoke with some of the
members of the ward who have grown especially close to Christian. It was so fun to talk to them and hear their
stories and insights. It seems that Christian
is known as a pretty serious guy who rarely smiles. Hard to believe, i’n’it?
