Hello beautiful people,
I have officially been out a month ! Missionary life never stops, however it is so rewarding. I am so lucky to be able to have the experience and am so blessed to have all of you in my life ! Love you all !

Okay, so the weather. It is so similar to unpredictable Melbourne. It is summer here, however, it constantly changes from being absolutely f r e e z i n g to it being hot and humid, to it being sunny, to being cloudy, to hysterically raining. We always seem to get caught in the rain ! What is ridiculous though is the ward we are in, we have a set of Elders, and they have never been in the rain once. I don’t know how, but whenever they are inside, that is when it rains. They always look good with their suits and dry appearance, meanwhile, Sister Cannon and I always look slightly flustered and wet.

Speaking of missionaries, there is another Australian in my district ! Elder Cowdery. However, as of Saturday, he has been diagnosed with chicken pox ! It’s so unfortunate. What is even worse is that we had a large multi-zone conference on Friday and there could potentially be a chicken pox outbreak within the England Manchester Mission (EMM). I’ll keep you updated aha ! But the multi-zone conference was so much fun. I was able to see other fellow Australians such as Sister Triptree, Elder Van Dyken and my MTC friends ! It was a wonderful reunion as well as an informative day to be strengthened as missionaries.

I realized that I am a currant bush (Mormon Message) and I need to be cut down. No one ever told me how prideful I was ! So here’s to the next 17 months of me learning how to be humble. Wish me luck aha !

Oh, and this week I came crashing down, literally. It was my day to have the mobile, and I was texting and walking at the same time. It has clearly been too long without my phone because I couldn’t do it. I fell down the curb, and now I have two swollen knees that are bruised beyond belief. Nevertheless, there is a positive, I was wearing a white skirt which stayed white. #blessed. So we have made a rule that you can’t text and walk aha. England – 5 Mads – 0.

On Saturday we had my first street display with the other elders in our ward. Basically, we were in Town Centre, we set up a banner and a table and either made an effort to speak to people or people approached us. Although I was a Sales Consultant for two years, I was so nervous. However, a miracle happened ! Let me set the scene, it was a really busy day because this Giant Festival was on, and by Giant, I mean these large puppets which they call ‘Giants’. It is a family fun day with a parade, activities and  I ended up approaching one of the volunteers at the festival. She was probably around my age but we started talking and I somehow transitioned onto the gospel. I wasn’t particularly bold, in fact, I thought that I had probably just made a friend, but I asked if my companion and I could speak with her again and she said yes ! I got her name and number, get this, her name is Isis. Yes, not kidding. But she is a student and we will be teaching her later this week. Yay.

In the EMM, we are only allowed to take photos on Monday so I have attached photos of the sun that happened to bless us with its presence and our view from the flat. We take public transport which is so convenient to get around and are currently emailing in the Town Centre at the public library. You’ll all be happy to know, that I am trying hard not to wear black, and somehow I wear a lot of pink. What has even happened to Mads !?

Anyway, I hope everyone has a lovely week. Be safe and keep smiling.

Much love,
Sister Turnbull