Week 49

 Good Morning everyone! I hope you had a fantastic week this week! Mine was very busy. We finished our quarantine, had exchanges and had some cool experiences!

So as you may know I have been sick for the past week or so. This week Elder Anderson ALSO started getting sick. I stayed home from church last week and watched over zoom and we have been staying inside and not going out. We have been very blessed with food lately as well. My Mom sent us a Costco shipment, our branch mission leader bought us a few things and some members that we are close with named the Kellogg's had a lot of fun surprising us with some groceries! 

Getting pent up inside was starting to get to me by the end of the week. On Wednesday Elder Anderson started not being able to taste or smell... I am pretty sure we had Covid haha. We asked Sister Heap and apparently the standards are that we stay inside for 5 days (from when we started having symptoms) and then we wear a mask for 5 days after that. Thursday was our last day staying inside! We stayed really busy as we were inside using Facebook to try and reach out to people. Nevertheless, it was a little bit hard to keep a finger on all the people we were teaching. 

On Friday we were very excited to get out. We could now start visiting and doing our normal things if we wear a mask 24/7. The COVID testing here is crazy and we discovered we couldn't even get tested for a week... there are too many people trying to get tested I guess!

Sorry I do not have very many pictures this week. I was inside a lot and I ended up not taking very many. But we did have some cool things happen even though we were inside all the time until Friday. We had a really cool experience this week leading the Zone. We have been emphasizing goals each of the District Leaders needed to roll forward in their Districts and as they reported them to us in a meeting, we realized that they were not seeing the vision we needed them to. We ended up spending like 2 hours calling every District Leader and walking through setting a goal for their District. It was such a revelatory experience! 

On Saturday we had an exchange with some Elders from Petoskey! It was really fun being with them. I went with a guy named Elder Reese and we had a really good time together. We did a lot of "finding". We walked around downtown and tried to talk to people and we did a lot of knocking. We both need practice! By the end of it, he and I were half frozen and we headed home feeling pretty unsuccessful. We still had a great time. We taught this lady one of the more powerful Restoration lessons of my mission. She strongly believes in the Trinity and I explained clearly to her the doctrine of who God is. It was so crazy the spirit that was in the room. it was working hard and instead of Christy getting defensive, she began to really ponder what we were saying. We asked her to truly read the Book of Mormon and give it a fair chance. We left the lesson feeling so good and I believe that she will really read and ponder the Book of Mormon. It was so fun to see Elder Reese teach. He is still in training and as we left the lesson he was so pumped. I was so grateful to be there with him as he learned to teach by the Spirit! 

I love the Book of Mormon so much. What I have realized is that no one can get around the Book of Mormon. It is either true, or it is not true. If the Book is true, then that means that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of God. Most importantly, it means that Christ's New Testament church has been restored. If it is not true, then that means that all those things are false. But it HAS to be one or the other and everyone must come to their own conclusion whether it is false or whether it is of God. No one can get around it. The craziest part about it all is that the Church of Jesus Christ sends knucklehead 18 and 19 year olds like me, and tells us to go find and teach people about the Book of Mormon. And we say "don't take our word for it!" I truly plead with everyone I meet to sincerely read the Book of Mormon and then to pray with real intent to know if it is true. I can undoubtedly affirm that it is. If you don't believe me, prove me wrong! Read it and ask God. 

This week was honestly pretty tough. Missions can be discouraging. I feel like a pretty lousy missionary right now and there are a lot of things going on this upcoming week that are stressing me out (including Dillon's Baptism that will be this Saturday!!) But there is one promise that brings me comfort in the scriptures that I read this week. 

Moses 1:3

3: And God spake unto Moses, saying: Behold, I am the Lord God Almighty, and Endless is my name; for I am without beginning of days or end of years; and is not this endless?

This is God's work. He is right here with me laboring for His children in Michigan and he knows how I feel. He knows how you feel! Turn to him in prayer. 

I Love you!

Elder Elliott 

 ( Don't mind the blindfold, we were playing a game with the Petoskey Elders called "Blindfold Tag" they invented lol).