Life in the East End

Hello from the East End!

a popular BBC soap opera /
Christian is living a true "EastEnder" life

            The first night I was here there was a fight outside our window hahaha.

            I am loving it here in London. We are really trying to build up a teaching pool because we don’t really have one, but it’s going really well. Literally nobody is from England in our area so it is really fun to go out and speak with people – lots of people from Jamaica, Ghana, Nigeria, Poland, Brazil, and loads from Muslim countries. A mix of all of this makes for some pretty interesting conversations in the street.

            Elder Harding is my companion. We have known each other for a long time in the mission and it has been really good working with him. We get along great and are having a good time. The ward here in Stratford is great. They all know it’s my last transfer and they want to help me go out with a bang. So I am really stoked to be here. I know this is where the Lord wants me to be.

            One experience this week really helped me realise that. We were tracting in West Ham and there weren’t many people listening. We had been doing it for a couple of hours and we decided to go back home and eat some dinner. I was kind of frustrated that we didn’t find anybody because I really want to have a baptism this transfer. As we were walking back we stopped a girl who said we could walk back to her home and share more with her. Her name is Priscilla. She is originally from Ghana but grew up in Germany and now lives with her Auntie here in London. She’s one of the coolest investigators I have ever had. None of her family live here except her Auntie, and she is only about 17-20 years old. We shared the Restoration with her and she said she would start reading the Book of Mormon that night. The whole lesson just clicked for her. We asked her if we could help her out with anything and she said, “Just come back and share more with me. That’s all I want you to do.” So keep her in your prayers! We are seeing her again this Thursday.

            After that we tried to speak with a guy but he just grunted at us like a dog....

            We also met a girl from Ecuador that seems very interested as well.

            We are also teaching a guy from Brazil. He is a really wonderful guy named Marcello. He knows everything we have to teach him, but just wants to feel when the right time to be baptized is. He loves the church but, but just doesn’t feel ready to make the step into the font. I am excited to work with him.

            Time is really flying and we are making the most of it here in Stratford! It’s a great time to be alive!

Love,

Elder Purdy

Neverending Cycle of Finding and More Curry

          

            Things here are going well, just chillin’. We found a couple new investigators, but people are starting to just kind of fizzle out.   It’s frustrating so we are trying to find some other people – neverending cycle.  I find the best place to find people is usually the time when you are not even trying to find people.  The unplanned, by-the-way person is usually the best person to find.  They are usually put in your path for a reason, like on a train or something,

            Anyways, here is my latest curry haha and some naan.

Life is Good

            What a crazy week! I will start off with a pretty interesting experience,

            Elder Torbit and I were coming back from a walk out to a village and we just got back into Hitchin.  It had been a pretty hectic day and we both felt like we could have been more productive that day.  We were walking down the street and we came up behind this Jamaican lady.  We started walking and talking to her.  Her name was D- and she was just having a stroll down the street to clear her mind. We stopped at a bench and sat down with her and were just chatting about nothing really, then we started talking about the gospel and what we do as missionaries.  And then nobody said anything ... it was just silent and the spirit was really strong. This went on for like 15 seconds and then D- started to cry. Turns out she lost her husband at the beginning of July to some illness and she was really just missing her native land of Jamaica.  So that’s why she was on a walk – just to clear her mind with all the stuff that was going on. We testified, read in the Book of Mormon about what happens when we die and she just cried the whole time.  We really cheered her up by the end, and we are hopefully going to see her this week. God puts prepared people in the way of His prepared servants.

            We saw I- a lot this week, she is doing really well.  She is the 12-year-old who is half Brazilian. We planned to teach her the Restoration this week.  When we went there to teach that to her she said she had a question and asked, “I want to know which church is the true church.” Perfect question! We had a good lesson and we invited her to pray just as Joseph Smith did. She couldn’t make it to church, but she promised to come next week. 

            Also we taught E-, our 9-year-old investigator, and we invited her to be baptized on the 25th of this month! So we have 3 dates! She is doing really well and she is definitely making the decision to be baptized herself.  I am really happy for her.

            We are doing good work here, but we need to find more people to teach! That has been one thing we need.  We went tracting for 5 ½ hours on Saturday and not too much happened – lots of slammed doors and what not.  Guess it was just one of those days. We are both really feeling the urge to find some new people though.   I focused my studies around that this week and it was really good.  I love talking to people and seeing their backgrounds and where they come from.  I really pray we have more success this week.

            Things are good. We have a meeting in Hyde Park next week, and I think it is about getting Facebook pages.  We are living in the space age fo sho!

            Life is good.  We had a pretty fun Nerf fight with some members’ kids, we have met oodles of crazy people, and we are having some really good lessons.

Love,

Elder Purdy

Gotta Keep on Keeping On

Hello from very very sunny England,

            It has been so warm all week.  I has been in the high 90's for the past couple of days and there has been no sign of a rain cloud for a while!  It has drained all my energy. Every night we come home I am just exhausted.  It has been really humid which hasn’t helped much either.

            We had a couple miracles this week.  On Wednesday we had to go to the chapel to print off a talk.  While we were walking there we met a young girl named Tasha, right outside the chapel.  We stopped her and started talking to her.  She was really nice and we invited her in to take a tour of the chapel.   I didn’t think she would want to, but she agreed! So we took her in there and we had a good lesson.  We talked about the Book of Mormon and she was really really happy when we gave her one. Hopefully we will see her this week.

            We also met a guy named James.  We met him last transfer but he was really hard to get a hold of.   On Thursday he called us and wanted to meet up in Letchworth.  We went and met him and had such a good lesson.  He was asking all the right questions like “why don’t we have a prophet today?”  We gave him a baptismal date for August 25th, and he was stoked.  He really wants to change some things in his life and get closer to God.

            Our teaching has been really good.  We study a lot of chapter 3 in Preach my Gospel and we are doing really well at getting good points across to people. Unfortunately lots of our appointments cancelled on us this week.  We spent a lot of time in the sun tracting and street contacting, and we spent lots of time with members teaching them about missionary work and how they can participate. That is something President Jordan has been stressing so much! Getting into member homes and teaching them, gaining their trust, and finding people to teach through them. It has been really good for us.  The members here are great and we have been sharing really good lessons with them. We share some video called “I'll Go Where You Want Me to Go.”  It really invites the spirit into the room and people really see how easy they can share the gospel!  All you have to do is be really casual about it.

            I can’t really think of too much else that happened this week.   I feel like we are going good places though.  It is that time of year when everybody goes on holiday and we won’t see them for a couple weeks ... sigh, but just gotta keep on keeping on.

                                                 

Love,

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 ...

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:

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.

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.