Ross, Emma

Man. I just love missionary work. I love that we can expect miracles from the Lord. I love that we get to see people's lives change for the better because of Jesus Christ. I love the Book of Mormon and the peace and power that comes when we read it. I love church. I love the Savior. I love working with other missionaries and being united in this great effort. I love my mission leaders. I just really love this Gospel.  It brings me joy:)  This week was "building momentum week"! We had a goal as an entire mission to have 180 friends not of our faith at church on Sunday. And we met that goal! We ended up with 197 friends at church as a mission. Our branch had 15 friends at church! Woot woot!  It felt so cool to be united with the entire mission. Throughout the week we sent each other ideas of how we can invite our friends to church and cheered each other on. It was so cool!  Amelia, Blessing and her daughter, Nathaniel "the great" (I'll tell you his story), and...

God is good!!  We've seen some amazing miracles this week.  At the beginning of the week we both felt like something was missing. Like Heavenly Father wanted to bless us with miracles but there was something blocking us from receiving them.  BUT THEN. the next few days happened.  We continued praying and asking God for direction and to put us in positions where we would meet new people and see miracles. And He did! On Tuesday we were doing service (gardening) and Marshall was there! He came up to us and told us that he wanted to get involved in our church and learn more. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he said he'd come to church on Sunday. He didn't end up coming which is SAD but. I have faith he'll come next week.  On Wednesday we went to the beach and were getting some things done on our phones (calling a few people, Ed ap, etc) and then sonya walks up to us. She is the sweetest ever! She sat down on the bench we were sitting on and we just started talking. ...

Wowowowow.  One of the most amazing weekends of my mission!! I just want to start of by saying how grateful I am that I get to serve here in Northern Michigan. I've been in the traverse city district (we're not a stake yet) my entire mission thus far and it has been the greatest experience of my life!!  We had a district conference this weekend and all of us missionaries in the northern-most zone in MI got to attend.  IT. WAS. POWERFUL.  Our zone had the opportunity to spend some time with Elder Randall K Bennett- he was the presiding general authority at the conference! He's the president of the North America Northeast area (this is the third time he's visited our mission and man have we learned sooo much from him!!) On Friday, our mission president and his wife, his counselors, elder and sister devries (regional president), and elder Bennett met with our zone for about 4 hours. We talked about what it will take for this district to become a stake. It was all center...

Heyoooo!!  Wow. I have been taught so much this week!  Up in Cheboygan, people were pretty humble and willing to accept the message of peace and joy that we share. If they didn't accept the message, they were typically kind and still wanted to be our friend.  Traverse City is a bit different! The people here are pretty set in their ways and a lot of them are well off. We've also done a lot more work on Instagram, which is a ton different than Facebook.  All that being said, I don't think I've experienced as much opposition my whole mission as i have this week! There's been quite a few people who just want to bash our faith. It hasn't been terrible, but it's still more than normal. And it has taught me sooo much.  A while back David A. Bednar gave a devotional to missionaries around the world and he said, " we don't need to defend the Doctrine, we need to declare it. We never need to be on the defensive ". Never has that thought stuck with me mo...