Translations for 9/22 (don't judge the Father, but here's a little Purser Humor

Translations as per your request:

Faggot:  Cigarette  (thought you had me on that one, didn't ya?)
Fritter:  Noun (fri' tur) one who frits.  (I have no idea, uh, something akin to an English scone, cross between a biscuit and a chocolate chip cookie)

hi dad (Greetings, father of my physical body)

how are things going back in the promised land (Ether 2:7)? to answer your question yes (affirmative) I have met some Posh (heh, rich kid) people who smash (squash, mush or otherwise attempt to adhere via pressure, friction, surface tension and a physical change) the food on the back of their forks (I shall call it a pitch) but the rest of us normal (Illinois) blokes (home boys) we use our forks the way God intended (Thou Shalt...). I found out a couple days ago that I am Twelve stone (12st = 168lb 0.0000oz). I also learned that my cardigans (what you ride down the hill in the snow, wait that's a tobogan.  Uh sweater) shed (small building) like dogs (all men are: ) thank goodness for those rolly tape things that get stuff off your clothes (a lint duck). I also found out that my regular trousers (pants, DON'T say it Elder!!!) must have shrunk in the wash because we did a bit of service (Jacob 2:18) two days ago and I put them on and they were really snug (as a bug in a..) and I have (NOT) gained enough weight to justify (willful rebellion) them being that snug. elder Orr and I had to take the M5 (I didn't look it up, its either a specific train OR Motorway #5, (that's my vote)) to Birmingham on Friday (gotta get down on..) for follow up trainers (underwear you use when you can almost consistently potty in the toilet) meeting. tomorrow (the sun'll come out) we will need to go down to Rubina (wales) for ZC (Zone Conf, as opposed to Gen Conf) well I need to pop off (dash, be off like a dirty shirt) now (ahora) you now how it is Emails to write people to bring to eternal life and that sort of thing.

Cheers (raise your glass to the bride and groom!)

Probably can't post that one on the blog,
ur pa

Sorry, got behind. 2 more emails from 9/15/2014

Hello everyone

It is very nice to hear what is going on back in the states. as for me it has just been another week in paradise. Elder Orr was sick at the beginning of this week so I had to just sit around the flat waiting for him to get better. Then we went on our last exchange of the transfer. then we had our last district meeting of the transfer. 

 

I got to teach my twenty fifth lesson yesterday which was exciting (not counting lessons taught to members at dinner appointments and such), also one of our investigators with a baptismal date has read all the way up the end of Alma, and the other one has said that he doesn't feel like drinking any more; which is amazing because missionaries have been trying to get him to give it up so he can get baptized for two years now. So hopefully in the next three or four weeks I will be sending home some baptism pictures!!! 

 

Things are going great out here! I cannot believe I am already on week five of the transfer next week is going to be my first dodge week! although there is pretty much no chance that I will be going anywhere so it is not a true dodge week but still. 

 

I swear that the Weeks are shorter here because it still feels like I got off the plane yesterday but I have been in the UK for over six weeks. I am so glad that I came out here. 

 

(please make sure this next part gets read to the young men in the ward) 

 

I would encourage everyone of you to serve a mission. If for no other reason, do it so that you can  learn to more fully appreciate the atonement of Jesus Christ. 

 

When I came out here I thought I understood the atonement pretty well, but now I realize that I did not have a clue. You cannot claim to understand the atonement until you have found people who are in desperate need of his salvation and you show them the way; you teach them what they need to know; and you invite them read the book of Mormon or come to church; they say that they might, and you pray and fast with all the energy of your soul that they will be filled with a desire to do what you invited them to do.  You fast and pray like you have never fasted or prayed in your life; and then you go to see if they come to church or read the book of Mormon and they did not do it. 

 

And you experience the greatest feeling of disappointment you will ever feel in your life, and say to yourself "Why? I did everything my power to bring you closer to God and all that you had to do was show up to church or read the book of Mormon and you did not do it." 

 

And then finally you partially understand how the Savior feels about you, because you realize that he loves you more than you love your investigators, and that he has done all the work so that you can come closer to God, and all you had to do was accept it, and yet how many times have you not done it for some foolish reason. 

 

And you finally come to realize that when we choose not to fully partake of the atonement of Christ, we cause him to feel the same sorrow that you feel when your investigators do not follow through. 

 

If you were an ordinary man you would give up after feeling that kind of disappointment, but you are not an ordinary man any more: you are a representative of Jesus Christ, the savior and redeemer of the world, and he would not give up and let the atonement go to waste, and neither will you. 

 

So you go back again, you teach them again, and invite them again. Sometimes this process goes on for months, until finally it happens!  And they come to church or they read the book of Mormon, and you feel a joy that you have never felt before, and you finally realize why Jesus went through the atonement; why He suffered so much because He knew that He would feel this joy at bringing so many souls back to God and that in the end it would all be worth it. 

 

I won't lie to you, a mission is hard, but you will never have another opportunity to learn the things you learn out here.  You will never have another chance that you can say that you went out everyday and did work of Lord and even if everyone rejects you, you can still have joy, because you brought one soul to to God, and that was yours. 

 

But I can promise you that if you have faith, and you work hard everyday, you will get baptisms and you will have great success. and I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ Amen

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Happy Birthday Mom!

I am so glad that P day fell on your birthday this year, so I could send you an Email.  I believe I said this in the Email that you did not get last week, but I did get your letter with my drivers licence and everything which is good because President said that he wants me to start driving next transfer (yikes!!!) 

 

But I guess it makes sense because Elder Orr is probably only going to be here for one more transfer while he finishes training me, then he will go some where else and I will probably stay in the forest. 

 

I liked the pictures of what you did to Trev's room and with everything else I hear your doing, I probably won't recognize the place when I get back home (hahaha). 

 

By the way when are Bethany and Abi expecting? I can not remember, and do you think any of the other girls are about to make an announcement? 

 

Well Mom, I hope you have a very happy birthday today!  I love very much and I wish I could say that I wish I was back home enjoying it with you, but to be honest I have too much I need to do over here still so I don't wish I was back home yet.

 

Best of Britain

Elder Landon Purser

 

9/22/2014 - dad email

Hi Dad,

Sounds like you guys are really partying it up with out me (hahaha). I have decided to start sending you fun facts and English/welsh/Scottish words just for fun. So today my fun fact for you is that Monmouth, the town where I live, is the ancestral home of the Rolls family who are the Co-founders of Rolls Royce. Your English words for the day are Faggot and Fritter.

As a bit of news Scotland decided not to become an independent nation in case you have not heard. today we got to enjoy the adventure of defrosting our Freezer which was quite interesting because the Elders living here before me have been putting it of for months so it was completely full of Ice.

Last week Elder Orr informed me that he was going to go vegetarian this week and I informed him that we would be buying our groceries separately this week. We are going to go shopping right after this so we will see if he goes through with it.


Well I need to go have lunch and go buy groceries so I will talk to you next week (well not actually talk I mean that I will hear from you and then you will hear from me and it will be kind of like talking but not really but you know what I mean) I will attempt to send some more pictures but we will see how that goes.

Bye bye boys! Have fun stormin' the castle! Do ya think it'll work?  It would take a miracle.  Good bye!!!

Elder Purser

P.S. I still want to hear your interpretation of the English words and phrases I send home

email, busy week for Elder Purser

Hello Everyone!

I am glad to hear things are going well back home, although it sounds like a lot of people have gotten sick or hurt, but hopefully they will all get better.

Things have been going very well here. I got to go to my first Zone conference last week, which was really fun I got to see a few of my friends from the MTC there and we also got to go to Stroud for another baptismal interview. They have had three baptisms in the last few weeks and they have a few more investigators on dates already!  At this rate they will baptise the whole town by Christmas!

Here in the forest of dean we taught another eight lessons last week, but we had to drop three of our investigators and one of our really good investigators has moved to Bristol. So our teaching pool has been a little decreased, but we still have a couple people on track to be baptised and we have lots of lessons lined up with new investigators for this week.  So hopefully we will be able to refill our teaching pool.

As for the new flat we still have not been told when we will be moving in.  I know that we are having lots of new missionaries coming in right now and the mission office is scrambling try to find them all places to live, and we are not being thrown out for another month, so we are pretty far down the priority list when it comes to moving flats.

Which is probably a good thing because it looks like this is going to be a pretty busy week, so it would be pretty crazy to try and move and keep all of our commitments. Although if we do our job right, it will not get any better in the weeks to come.

It is so strange to think that I have been in the UK for over seven weeks now and it still feels like I just got off the plane. It is even crazier to think that I am on the final week of my first transfer and that tonight is dodge night! It is a little scary because anything could happen.  Nothing probably will, because I am still in the middle of training, so it would be highly unusual of them to transfer Elder Orr or myself.  But it has happened before, so we cannot get too comfortable, but we will find out one way or the other when the Zone leaders call tonight!

If we do stay then it will most likely be Elder Orr's last transfer here because he has been in the forest for about five months, which means that I will be assigned to drive the car, and yes they do drive on the left side of the road here which was pretty terrifying for the first month or so.

I do not think driving here will be too bad, the forest is a relatively quiet place. The only real trouble we have is that the county lanes that are out away from the towns are so narrow you can barely fit one car through them and they have this nasty habit of planting massive hedges on both sides of the road. So whenever you come across a car coming from the opposite direction you have to get very creative to pass each other.

By the way I would like to announce that no one back home is ever allowed to call me a picky eater again! After eating the food here, most of it is quite tasty, but every so often we come across some absolutely disgusting stuff. Like a few weeks ago when we went to a members house and they served us vegetarian lasagne  which was absolutely awful but I ate the whole with out complaining.

I also discovered on exchanges that I have been spoiled here in the forest. Elder Orr is a very good cook and we get invited to dinner with members all the time, which I thought was the norm until I went on exchanges and found out that meals with members were once in a blue moon there, and that the menu in the flat was frozen dinners and sandwiches.

Anyway I need to wrap this up. I am loving it here in Wales and England. We have had beautiful weather the last few weeks, the work is going great and we eat like kings here, so life is good.

Also I am going in for my first haircut today which is going to be so weird not having mom do it. Keep me informed about life back in Idaho and I will talk to you next P Day!!!!!!!!!

Cheers

Elder Purser

Hi Dad,

How are things going back in the promised land?  To answer your question, yes, I have met some Posh people who smash the food on the back of their forks, but the rest of us normal blokes, we us our forks the way God intended.  I found out a couple days ago that I am Twelve stone.  I also learned that my cardigans shed like dogs! Thank goodness for those rolly tape things that get stuff of your clothes.

I also found out that my regular trousers must have shrunk in the wash because we did a bit of service two days ago and I put them on, and they were really snug and I have not gained enough weight to justify them being that snug.  Elder Orr and I had to take the M5 to Birmingham on Friday for follow up trainer's meeting.  Tomorrow we will need to go down to Rubina for ZC.

Well I need to pop off now.  You now how it is Emails, to write people to bring to eternal life and that sort of thing.

Cheers

Elder Purser

P.S. translate that one for me

Pictures 9-22-2014

A shot of Gloucester cathedral, which is where they filmed a lot of the scenes in the harry potter films. Sorry it is not very good, but we were driving on the Motorway when I took it

Here is a picture of what English money looks like,

A shot of one of the old fancy churches here in Monmouth

and a picture of our last district meeting

email from 9/8/2014

hello everyone!

How are things back in Idaho? Things have been going great here.  Last week was quite the experience though, because we had exchanges planned for Tuesday to Wednesday and then we would have Zone meeting, then exchanges Thursday to Friday.  But then the Zone leaders called and asked if we could do an exchange with them before zone meeting. So we went on a back to back to back exchange with Zone meeting crunched in there.

And because Elder Orr has to stay in the forest with the car, I ended up going to do missionary work in Yate, then Cheltenham with the zone leaders, then Stroud all in one week. I left the flat first thing Tuesday morning and did not come back until Friday, which was exhausting. But it was also cool because I got to have my first experience riding on a Double Decker bus; I got to see more of the mission than I have ever have, and now Elder Orr and I are the only missionaries in the field who can say that we have had four different companions in one week. 

We also found out which flat we are moving into, sadly it is not the one that comes with a dishwasher, so we will still be doing our dishes by hand.  But it will still be a major upgrade from our current flat, which is about the shabbiest place I have ever seen.  The only place that compares with our flat is the Stroud flat which is just as bad.  They are looking for a new flat too. 

Today elder Orr had his dentist appointment to get his chipped tooth fixed.  You would faint if I told you what the bill was these dirty English dentists are even worse than the American ones (ha ha ha).  While I am on the subject of the prices of things here in England, I would exhort all of you back home to repent of all the nasty things you have said about gas prices in the states, because over here they charge a similar price but they sell it by the litter not by the gallon which is high way robbery.  

This is probably why food prices are so ridiculous in the English grocery stores. Which is why Elder Orr and I always shop at the little German grocery stores that they have over here, which offer better food at half the price. They make ASDA (or Walmart as we call it back in the states) look like a racket. 

While I am on the subject of food you might like to know that I ate my first Kebab today which is not actually English it is more of a Greek food, but it is still quite popular here. I liked but I think I prefer fish and chips; you get more food for less money and it tastes better.  Also sister plant said that the next time we came over for a dinner appointment, she would make us Eckle cakes.  I am still not entirely sure what they are, but they sounded good from the description she gave. 

I also had the good fortune to find a fifty pound note at the bank, which are very uncommon, but now I have a complete collection of all the British pound notes from the fiver to the fifty.  I am still working on getting the coins, but it is so difficult because they use so many more coins here than back home.  Anyway if anybody would like to get some English money, just let me know and send me some money on my personal card and I would be happy to get it for you on one of my P days. Well this Email is getting pretty long, so I should probably wrap up.  By the way has Dakota got her mission call yet?  Or is there anyone else I know going on a mission? And how is Activate and Shakespeare going?

Best of Britain 

Elder Purser

Hi Dad,

Thanks for the pictures of the baptism.

It is crazy to think how much has happened, both here and back home. It is crazy to think that we are starting week four of the transfer. I am already a third of the way done with my twelve week training, and Tana is a member of the church now!

By the way, I saw the craziest thing last week: I saw two stop signs! For a second I thought I was back in America. Because they don't have intersections with stop signs here, they just have traffic lights and roundabouts.

I also found my first fifty pound note, so I have a full set of English money friends now. Although I never carry it on me because England is loaded with Chaves (gangsters) although luckily England has had strict gun control for decades now, so the Chaves don't have guns. Which means they will rob you but they can't shoot you, so maybe Obama's got it right after all (yeah right).

Speaking of the devil, he was actually here in Wales last week. I tried to convince the people to keep him, here but they didn't want him either.

While I am on the subject of politics things are in quite a stir here because Scotland is going to have a vote in ten days on whether or not to declare their Independence from the UK and it looks like they might pull it off this time. I hear that things have gotten very heated up in Scotland over it and there have even been some acts of violence.

Most of my friends in the MTC went to the Scotland Ireland Mission. I hope that they are all OK. Anyway it was nice dumping all my concerns on you. If you want me to get you a full set of English Money, just let me know and send over the cash on my card. I may even be able to get my hands on another fifty pound note if I am lucky.

Best Of Britain,
Elder Purser

2 emails dated 9/1/2014

Hi Dad,

To answer your question: Elder Orr is from Alberta Canada and he has about nine months left. He is also the district leader. Being the district leader's junior companion is quite interesting, because you are the only person besides the district leader who gets to go on exchanges with every missionary in the district. Because the other areas are so far away and we have a limited number of miles each month, this week we are going to do "back to back" exchanges to save miles. Which means that I will spend most of this week away from the Forest of Dean because Elder Orr has to stay in the forest with the car.  It also means that I get to tag along for all the baptismal interviews and zone leadership meetings which are this week.  I don't get to go in of course but I will be in the same building.

By the way If you have received any money from the book (I have no idea if you have yet because the mission has completely blown all the details about that out of my mind).  I would remind you of the instructions that I gave you before I left. That you please do not leave the money in my bank account, but put it to good use after the manner that we previously discussed 

thank you so much

Elder Purser

 

 

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Re: Good Sabbath

 

Hi everyone!

It is good to sit down and read about all the great things going on back home.  I am excited to hear about Tana's baptism on Saturday.  You will have to send me some pictures. You will have to let me know when Beth leaves and who else is going on missions.  I am really excited about all the great things happening in the work. 

 

You know, people have been really unfair to the missions here in England and Europe.  There is plenty for us to do here. We have two investigators on baptismal dates and we had nine lessons this week And we would have had more, except we had to cancel several appointments because they were with investigators who were single mom's or teenage girls, and we cannot teach them unless another responsible man is present.  And no one in the branch would go with us.  

 

While I am on the subject, I would like to plead with any one who reads this Email to please volunteer to go with the missionaries! There is nothing more depressing for a missionary than to have people who want to be taught, but you can't teach them because with out the help of the members, it would be against the mission rules. 

 

On a happier note I got my first Welsh library card, which means I can now use the local computer lab with out paying for it, and because its the beginning of the month we can go pick up our monthly allotments so I can once again have more than ten pounds to my name (not counting my one hundred pound emergency fund that we are not supposed to use). 

 

Last week was quite interesting, because we got to go house hunting to check out all the possible flats that Elder Day at the mission office found for us. We visited five flats and all of them were a significant improvement to the flat we are currently in. We sent in our report on each of them and we are waiting for the president to decide which one will be our new home. 

 

Elder Orr and I are hoping they put us in the third one we saw, because it had a much nicer bathroom than our current flat and a fully furnished kitchen with a real dishwasher included. If they put us in that one, we would probably be one of the only missionary flats in the mission to have a working automatic dishwasher which would be awesome!!!!!!!!! Forgive my excitement, but lets face it, washing dishes by hand gets old after the first twelve times.

Since writing the above, we just got a voice message from Elder Day they have decided which flat we are moving in to.  Unfortunately he did not say on the message so we will have to call him when we finish Emailing. Anyway, I need to wrap this up, so that we can go back to the flat. 

 

Flat inspection is on Friday and we have to give the flat a deep cleaning today. Elder Orr says that Elder and Sister Durraq, the senior couple in charge of inspecting flats in our zone, are the toughest flat inspectors in the mission and Elder Orr and I have a goal to to get a perfect rating.

 

Good bye, good luck, cheers.

Elder Purser