Weekly Letter #36: June 8, 2020
So sorry to do this 2 weeks in a row but I am very low on time today so this email will most likely be decently short!
Showing posts with label Oldham. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oldham. Show all posts
Monday, June 8, 2020
Monday, June 1, 2020
Covid-19
Oldham
Hello hello!
And another week passes by! Honestly don't have a whole lot to write so this email will probably be
pretty short.
QUARANTINE?
All right everyone—we are partially free at last! We are now allowed to meet up with people (in groups of 6) and meet in parks or back gardens (only open spaces) while social distancing. And of course, only within walking distance to not use public transportation. This is probably some of the most exciting news in the world because we now can have tea appointments, meetings with our friends, member lessons, etc. As a matter of fact, we're about to go have a 5 Guys (the burger restaurant) picnic in the park with some of my most favorite members. Life is so good.
FUNNY STORY?
As mentioned in previous emails, the 2 biggest issues I have come across in the past are:
1) Spiders. As a quick reminder, the spiders here come only second in size to the spiders that reside in Australia. They are massive. They don't joke around. They are here to kill and they are not nice.
2) Our shower. I don't know what is up with the shower at our place, but it's almost as bad as the spiders. The only plus of our shower is that it has water coming out of it. It isn't always the nicest water, but it is water nonetheless. Count your many blessings.
Okay, now that we have established some background information, let's begin the actual story.
It was a Monday night. I decided to take a shower before I went to bed (bad choice part 1) to relax and enjoy my quarantine life. I got in the shower, turned on the water. Started washing my hair, was singing some good hymns and generally having a good time.
Cue the plot twist.
Because I am an IDIOT, I decided to look up and take a gander at my surroundings to see what's going on, to look at the ceiling, see why the acoustics are so good in the shower, etc.
Now I'm sure a lot of you are far ahead of me, but let's think about what likes to dwell on walls and ceilings. SPIDERS. Big huge spiders that have pincers big enough to eat your arm! And what was up on this ceiling that I have now seen because I made the poor choice to look up and around? A MASSIVE SPIDER!
So of course I now had a difficult life decision to make. Do I run out of the bathroom scared and terrified or do I mark the shower as my territory and refuse to back down? Option 2. I am not a wimp.
I sat in the farthest corner of that shower as far away from the spider as I could get and I washed my hair the fastest that I have ever done in my life. Maybe 3 minutes tops. I then ran out and got the hoover to suck it up and kill it. I am a HERO and a SURVIVOR.
SPIRITUAL STORY?
Honestly don't have a huge amazing story this week but I did read this quote and I really liked it so here we go :
Elder Orson F. Whitney wrote: “No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude, and humility. All that we suffer … builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God … and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven …”
Life is hard sometimes. Don't we know that. We have spiders, spiders in our kitchen, and spiders in our shower. Life is hard.
For real though, difficult things happen quite often. A popular question we come across quite often is, "Why does God allow suffering to happen?" This quote is one of the possible answers to this question. It's pretty self-explanatory and anything I say on top of this will mess it up so I'll just say that there are reasons, and if you want to discuss it more, email me.
Love you all and thanks so much for all you do! Photographs below :)
Weekly Letter #35: June 1, 2020
Hello hello!And another week passes by! Honestly don't have a whole lot to write so this email will probably be
pretty short.
QUARANTINE?
All right everyone—we are partially free at last! We are now allowed to meet up with people (in groups of 6) and meet in parks or back gardens (only open spaces) while social distancing. And of course, only within walking distance to not use public transportation. This is probably some of the most exciting news in the world because we now can have tea appointments, meetings with our friends, member lessons, etc. As a matter of fact, we're about to go have a 5 Guys (the burger restaurant) picnic in the park with some of my most favorite members. Life is so good.
FUNNY STORY?
As mentioned in previous emails, the 2 biggest issues I have come across in the past are:
1) Spiders. As a quick reminder, the spiders here come only second in size to the spiders that reside in Australia. They are massive. They don't joke around. They are here to kill and they are not nice.
2) Our shower. I don't know what is up with the shower at our place, but it's almost as bad as the spiders. The only plus of our shower is that it has water coming out of it. It isn't always the nicest water, but it is water nonetheless. Count your many blessings.
Okay, now that we have established some background information, let's begin the actual story.
It was a Monday night. I decided to take a shower before I went to bed (bad choice part 1) to relax and enjoy my quarantine life. I got in the shower, turned on the water. Started washing my hair, was singing some good hymns and generally having a good time.
Cue the plot twist.
Because I am an IDIOT, I decided to look up and take a gander at my surroundings to see what's going on, to look at the ceiling, see why the acoustics are so good in the shower, etc.
Now I'm sure a lot of you are far ahead of me, but let's think about what likes to dwell on walls and ceilings. SPIDERS. Big huge spiders that have pincers big enough to eat your arm! And what was up on this ceiling that I have now seen because I made the poor choice to look up and around? A MASSIVE SPIDER!
So of course I now had a difficult life decision to make. Do I run out of the bathroom scared and terrified or do I mark the shower as my territory and refuse to back down? Option 2. I am not a wimp.
I sat in the farthest corner of that shower as far away from the spider as I could get and I washed my hair the fastest that I have ever done in my life. Maybe 3 minutes tops. I then ran out and got the hoover to suck it up and kill it. I am a HERO and a SURVIVOR.
SPIRITUAL STORY?
Honestly don't have a huge amazing story this week but I did read this quote and I really liked it so here we go :
Elder Orson F. Whitney wrote: “No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude, and humility. All that we suffer … builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God … and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven …”
Life is hard sometimes. Don't we know that. We have spiders, spiders in our kitchen, and spiders in our shower. Life is hard.
For real though, difficult things happen quite often. A popular question we come across quite often is, "Why does God allow suffering to happen?" This quote is one of the possible answers to this question. It's pretty self-explanatory and anything I say on top of this will mess it up so I'll just say that there are reasons, and if you want to discuss it more, email me.
Love you all and thanks so much for all you do! Photographs below :)
Monday, May 25, 2020
Covid-19
Oldham
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 :)
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 :)
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Monday, May 11, 2020
Covid-19
Oldham
This week has been a lot of the same. And by a lot of the same I mean exactly the same.
This week has been pretty good! Not a whole crazy lot to update on from this week work-wise, but we have gotten better at organizing our Sunday schedule and moving things throughout the week so that Sundays aren't insane and draining, and the rest of the week we only have 1 call per day. We're figuring out this lockdown thing pretty well, if I do say so myself.
Weekly Letter #32: May 11, 2020
This week has been a lot of the same. And by a lot of the same I mean exactly the same.This week has been pretty good! Not a whole crazy lot to update on from this week work-wise, but we have gotten better at organizing our Sunday schedule and moving things throughout the week so that Sundays aren't insane and draining, and the rest of the week we only have 1 call per day. We're figuring out this lockdown thing pretty well, if I do say so myself.
Monday, May 4, 2020
Covid-19
Devotional
Oldham
Hello hello hello!
Today my connection is really, really bad so there is a high probability that this email will be VERY long, and there will be very few personal emails sent out. My apologies for this but what can you do?
Weekly Letter #31: May 4, 2020
Hello hello hello!Today my connection is really, really bad so there is a high probability that this email will be VERY long, and there will be very few personal emails sent out. My apologies for this but what can you do?
Monday, April 27, 2020
Covid-19
Oldham
Hello and good afternoon!
Today marks 47 days in lockdown. Whoever would have imagined a solid transfer of my mission would be spent in a flat in Oldham, England? Not me!
As work goes, this week was absolutely wonderful. We set really steep goals for ourselves, mainly for our returning members and we ended up achieving all of them which was definitely a blessing! We were able to teach 10 out of 8 returning members (so we exceeded our goal by 2), and then had 11 out of 10 either for a devotional with us, or who watched the Ashton Stake Devotional after talking to us briefly about it (so we exceeded that goal). We also then had 5 out of 4 friends who watched the devotional and talked to us (the third time we exceeded our weekly goal)! I absolutely adore Oldham. I love the members, I love our returning members, and I love our friends. I definitely know at the beginning of this I was a little scared to see how things would go but it's been absolutely amazing. The work has flourished and we are seeing so many miracles all the time.
Our miracle for the week was the fact that we were able to have a devotional with a returning member who has refused a spiritual thought with the missionaries quite forcefully while I've been here (so since November at least). We texted her and asked and she said yes!!! I think I just screamed in our room for a solid 5 minutes because I couldn't believe it. It went really well and here's hoping that's the beginning of a softened heart!
I'm doing super well right now. I feel like I did at the beginning of my mission and I'm loving it. I feel like I've rediscovered our purpose and have re-centered my focus on Christ. I was reading a talk by Elder Marvin J Ashton and he quoted Nathaniel Hawthorn who said, "Happiness is like a butterfly. The more you chase it, the more it will elude you. But if you turn your attention to other things, it comes and sits softly on your shoulder."
I feel like that's how I've been this past month and a half. I've been trying so hard to feel happy and motivated again, and to feel like I did before, and it just wasn't happening so I just kept trapping myself in this guilt cycle that I was having a difficult time breaking. However, as soon as I tried to turn my focus more on the Lord (definitely still not perfect at that by a long shot) and on accomplishing our goals for the work, life got better. Doesn't necessarily mean I wasn't stressed or frustrated by situations and people, but I just felt happier and more at peace than I've felt for a while.
This week, I have a SPECIAL INVITATION! Our mission is doing another Facebook live devotional, and I would love for as many of you that can, to join! It will be on Sunday, May 3rd, at 6:30pm our time which is 11:30am MDT. People who were recently baptized will share the stories about how they came to know God.
It's always very inspiring, and the music is pretty darn good, too. Actually, one of the musical items will be featuring the England Manchester missionaries, including none other than myself and Sister Minaker! Here is the link. You don't need Facebook to watch, and all are welcome to join! I would also love to hear how you liked it!
To close this very long email, I feel like this scripture is kind of the summary of these last few months.
Hebrews 4:14-16
14. Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.
15. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
16. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.
Peace out.
Sister Pursglove
Photographs below :)
Weekly Letter #30: April 27, 2020
Hello and good afternoon!Today marks 47 days in lockdown. Whoever would have imagined a solid transfer of my mission would be spent in a flat in Oldham, England? Not me!
As work goes, this week was absolutely wonderful. We set really steep goals for ourselves, mainly for our returning members and we ended up achieving all of them which was definitely a blessing! We were able to teach 10 out of 8 returning members (so we exceeded our goal by 2), and then had 11 out of 10 either for a devotional with us, or who watched the Ashton Stake Devotional after talking to us briefly about it (so we exceeded that goal). We also then had 5 out of 4 friends who watched the devotional and talked to us (the third time we exceeded our weekly goal)! I absolutely adore Oldham. I love the members, I love our returning members, and I love our friends. I definitely know at the beginning of this I was a little scared to see how things would go but it's been absolutely amazing. The work has flourished and we are seeing so many miracles all the time.
Our miracle for the week was the fact that we were able to have a devotional with a returning member who has refused a spiritual thought with the missionaries quite forcefully while I've been here (so since November at least). We texted her and asked and she said yes!!! I think I just screamed in our room for a solid 5 minutes because I couldn't believe it. It went really well and here's hoping that's the beginning of a softened heart!
I'm doing super well right now. I feel like I did at the beginning of my mission and I'm loving it. I feel like I've rediscovered our purpose and have re-centered my focus on Christ. I was reading a talk by Elder Marvin J Ashton and he quoted Nathaniel Hawthorn who said, "Happiness is like a butterfly. The more you chase it, the more it will elude you. But if you turn your attention to other things, it comes and sits softly on your shoulder."
I feel like that's how I've been this past month and a half. I've been trying so hard to feel happy and motivated again, and to feel like I did before, and it just wasn't happening so I just kept trapping myself in this guilt cycle that I was having a difficult time breaking. However, as soon as I tried to turn my focus more on the Lord (definitely still not perfect at that by a long shot) and on accomplishing our goals for the work, life got better. Doesn't necessarily mean I wasn't stressed or frustrated by situations and people, but I just felt happier and more at peace than I've felt for a while.
This week, I have a SPECIAL INVITATION! Our mission is doing another Facebook live devotional, and I would love for as many of you that can, to join! It will be on Sunday, May 3rd, at 6:30pm our time which is 11:30am MDT. People who were recently baptized will share the stories about how they came to know God.It's always very inspiring, and the music is pretty darn good, too. Actually, one of the musical items will be featuring the England Manchester missionaries, including none other than myself and Sister Minaker! Here is the link. You don't need Facebook to watch, and all are welcome to join! I would also love to hear how you liked it!
To close this very long email, I feel like this scripture is kind of the summary of these last few months.
Hebrews 4:14-16
14. Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.
15. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
16. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.
Peace out.
Sister Pursglove
Photographs below :)
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