A 20-year-old says that spending two years in the midst of a pandemic volunteering abroad was the best decision he could have made.
Luke Harbon from Southport was just 18-years-old when he decided to move to South Germany for two years as a missionary for Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Luke would spend his days speaking to people on the street and volunteering in the community before the coronavirus pandemic hit and turned his mission upside down.
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He told the ECHO : "At the start of my mission we did a lot of street contacting by going out on the streets in cities and we were basically peaking to people.
"We also went door to door speaking to people that way. It was a lot more social.
"Then coronavirus hit and no one really had a clue about what we were supposed to doing. We were used to going out and speaking to people but for a certain time we weren't able to do that so we had to find different ways around it.
"We did a lot of work on social media. We created accounts as a mission and we would upload content, pictures, videos on there to spread the message in a way that meant we didn't go against covid guidelines."
Despite the restrictions that came into place, Luke decided to stay on his mission whilst others in his group decided to move back home throughout the pandemic.
Luke told the ECHO: "It was a tough experience with sometimes realising that I was missing out things because I was devoting myself to serve and to be on this mission however I always thought about the blessings and the opportunities I was getting by doing this mission.
"The people I was meeting and the person I was becoming would be a lot better than if I was to be at home and doing the classic stuff 18, 19, 20-year-olds were doing.
"Looking at the bigger picture that although sometimes in the short term it may not look like the best thing to do but in the long term it was the best choice I could have ever made."
Thanks to his mum, Christie, 48, and dad, Michael, 47, Luke was able to afford to go out on this mission, with his brother, Jared, 22, also volunteering as a missionary in London when he was 19, Luke also had the confidence to go abroad and complete the two years.
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