Sister Pursglove in the England Manchester LDS Mission: Weekly Letter #29: April 20, 2020

Hello everyone!

Do people get as bored reading my emails as I think they do? Hopefully not because I pour my heart and soul into these suckers. I'm doing amazing. Name that Kris Jenner quote.

QUARANTINE STATUS:
It makes 40 days as of today. The UK government just extended it for another 3 weeks so we're getting pretty darn good at this lockdown stuff. Once we get out and talk to people and interact with humans, pretty sure we'll panic but who knows?! Life is crazy!

HEROES OF THE WEEK:
1) One of the counselors in the bishopric and his son came and cleaned out our mess of a back garden. It literally was a scene from a horror movie. We had rats, a bunch of dead trees, suitcases and garbage everywhere, etc. We also did not have the tools and neither did our neighbors so we couldn't do anything about it. But fear not! They came over and raked, and shoveled, and trimmed, and cut, and burned everything so now we just have a dirt patch to do something fun with! Let me know if you have any suggestions. My idea is a carrot patch but Sister Minaker is thinking a dandelion field.

2) My parents. They ordered us Pizza Hut online from the United States and got it to us here in the United Kingdom. They're the best. There you go Dad. You got your shout-out. :)

FUNNY STORY:
After said bonfire to clean up our back garden, I smelled like smoke so I decided to go run and take a quick shower. I then had a choice: Did I want to treat myself to a long hot shower after a long tiring day of staying in our flat for 4800 hours, or did I want to take a super speedy shower so I could go to bed early? For those who don't know me, sleep will always win over anything (except food). I made my choice and what a choice it was. After putting shampoo in my hair, 1 minute after turning on the water our electric shower died. I don't know what I did wrong, but that was definitely karma for something. We have now been "washing" in our kitchen sink while waiting to find someone to come fix our shower. Moral of the story is to treat yourself. Take that long shower and then you won't have to worry about shampoo in your hair, you'll just have to worry about drying off and going to bed. :)

SPIRITUAL STORY:
We were able to have another really good week of being able to call a ton of members, returning members, and our friends. This lockdown has really been a blessing in so many ways, because it's allowed us to do so much more work with the members, especially without having to worry about traveling time and whatnot. Technology is such a blessing!

This week we had a Mission Devotional where Sister McReynolds had us make 2 lists. First was a list of all the challenges we've experienced or come across in the lockdown so far, and the second was a list of blessings we've come across. After we had made the lists, she had us go through and cross out everything on the list of challenges that we had no control over. After we had done that, almost everyone in the mission had a longer list of blessings than challenges.

While it definitely has been a little different and kind of rough at times, the blessings have been absolutely amazing! Heavenly Father is so aware of us, and knows exactly who we are, what we need, what we want, and what will be best for us. He loves us and truly wants the best for us. While this doesn't necessarily mean that just because He loves us, life is going to be easy-breezy beautiful, it does mean that we can understand why bad things happen to us and to others, and why things like this virus occur. If you want to know how I know that, or why bad things happen, you know the drill—shoot me an email.

Hope you all are doing well! Love you lots and safe social distancing!

Photographs below :)