On New Years, I would NEVER believed what just the first half of this year would hold.  A pandemic reminiscent of the Flu of 1918? Graduation cancelled? School online? Missionaries coming home from across the globe? Mass graves for those without family being dug on an island off of NYC?
But now, at the end of April, this pandemic feels never-ending. Stories on the news are grim, so I stopped looking at the news. Now, it just feel like I'm in a bubble. I only know two people who have gotten it: a girl from my program who was in Europe when everything exploded, and my home teacher who was a pilot on the NY route.  Because of that, it's easy to forget the seriousness of the pandemic when I'm just sitting at home. But then I go out.
Here is what a pandemic is like:

• 60% of people in the stores wearing masks or handkerchiefs around their faces
• Stores aside from grocery stores, pharmacies and other essentials shut down for weeks on end
• All restaurants offering take-out options just to try to not go out of business
• Plastic screens going up in front of all cash registers
• Some places only taking card, not cash
• Gas prices dipping well below $2, which I don't think I've ever seen since I got a driver's license 
• Signs everywhere reminding you to wash your hands, keep 6 feet away and don't touch your face
• All social media apps including banners on the top reminding you to stay home 
• Ads everywhere encouraging you to buy online (so that clothing stores don't go out of business)
• People eyeing each other suspiciously when they get too close 
• TP, cleaning supplies, pasta, canned food, frozen fruits and veggies, and ground beef being emptied out in the stores for days or weeks
• Senior hour at the grocery store allowing senior citizens to buy food without being in contact with the crowds...but I still see a lot of elderly people at the store during regular hours anyway.
• Stores shortening their hours so they can restock
• Lines wrapping around the stores with chalk indicating 6 feet of space, and a store clerk standing with an eye pad to count how many people enter and exit the store and then tell you when you can enter
• Hand sanitizer everywhere
• Playgrounds and picnic benches taped off 
• Funerals limited to 10 people
• Church from home every week
• Clinics with white tents outside the door to screen your temperature and track where you have been the last two weeks
• Doctors offices not allowing you to enter if you present any symptoms of COVID-19, instructing you to call a specific number instead
• People eloping left and right, usually in the desert or on the tops of beautiful canyons, because temples are closed.