Sister Pursglove in the England Manchester LDS Mission: Weekly Letter #34: May 25, 2020

Hello hello hello! Please forgive this awful photo of me, but my companion thought that I looked kind Britney Spears. You be the judge.

Another week another dollar, right?

Thanks for all the emails and sorry I haven't been writing as much recently. Life has been crazy and I honestly haven't been in the mood to write so sometimes that's what happens. So sorry, but another week, another dollar!

QUARANTINE?
Yes. Don't know how long it's been but it feels like a while. Who knows when we'll get out but as of right now, no human interaction still and from what we've heard, church won't be happening until July. This may or may not be true, but that's just what I've heard. Who knows?

FUNNY STORIES?
Sister Minaker got this massive box filled with big bubble wrap and I made myself a couch out of the box and a dress out of the bubble wrap. Not really funny, but I can't remember anything.

EMBARRASSING STORY?
Okay. This one is funny but is actually slightly disgusting—so life as normal for Sister Pursglove. For those who don't know, I am a believer in soaking dishes. What I mean by this is that I'd rather soak a dish in water overnight that's super dirty, than put in 30 minutes trying to chip off everything. However, as I have recently learned, this is not always best.

About a month ago, I decided to make pancakes. I then filled my pancake mix bowl with water and put it under the sink, where we put our "soaking dishes" so no ants will get in and drown. RIP.
However, soon after I put the bowl underneath, I made a goal to stop soaking dishes and to just wash them. So I stopped. And guess what? I forgot about it.

Fast forward to yesterday. A month later. I go under the sink to get bleach to clean out shower and what do I see?
My pancake mix bowl filled with water with A TWO INCH LAYER OF MOLD floating on top of the water!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We were disgusted and had to throw the bowl away.

Moral of the story: don't soak your dishes.

SPIRITUAL THOUGHTS?
Something I have been thinking about a lot lately is how short my time here really is! It's been eight months (and 2 days). Before you know it it'll be 9 months (halfway). Then it will be one year. Then it will be done. Then I'll be home and sad.

I love it here & I don't know if I'll want to go home (but check in with me later). I love this work, I love the people I've met and the people I've been able to "work" with, and I really love the Lord. Throughout isolation especially I have seen that this is His work and no matter what happens, it isn't going to be stopped.

Now to be quite honest, we haven't found many new friends. Unfortunately, we aren't getting people baptized because alas it is still illegal. To the outside world, I am sure it would seem that missionary work is taking a break, and that missionaries are just having a quick fun vacation. However, that's wrong. In fact, God has SLAMMED that fast forward button and we are trying to catch up!

In fact here's a quick fun fact: I have almost taught more people in isolation than I have my whole mission. Before we were confined to our flats, we maybe taught 5ish lessons a week (on a REALLY good week). We spent a lot of time outside talking to people to try and find friends and having to travel everywhere. Now, we teach around 20 member lessons and 3 non-member lessons each and every week.

So in the end, missionary work is here to stay and it's been amazing.

THE END
Thanks for always writing and thanks for always reading! Love you lots and have a good week!

Photographs below :)