Christmas was super good! We spent Christmas morning at the Nelson's house, who are some super awesome members of our ward! They hooked us up with some presents. They gave us really nice down coats that are water proof, Adidas hoodies, and iron man triathlon watches that are water proof. My family sent me lots of goodies, some new CMU gear that is sick, and some new socks and Gs that I very much needed. Thanks for everything! We had a great time with us and the Sisters there.
Church was really good and it was fun to just see all the ward members and wish them all Merry Christmas. We had a special church program with the Christmas story from the Bible being read and then special musical numbers were sung in correspondence to each excerpt from the Bible. It was super good!
Christmas Eve was spent at the Hansen's house, and we had out investigator named Jeffrey there, too! It was such a great, spiritual evening and Jeffrey loved it so much. Quote of the night from him after dinner: "Man, those biscuits were off the chain!" He ate like 5 biscuits. Brother Hansen got us new ties and new beanies. I got an Adidas one that is really nice and my tie is super cool, too! We read the story about the 3 trees on the hill who all had dreams to be great things like a treasure chest, sailing ship, and tallest tree. (It is called "The Three Trees".) We also read the story about Big Tom taking a licking for the little crippled boy and I got pretty teary eyed at the end of the story as I thought about the Savior taking our licking for us as well. It was a very good Christmas Eve.
We got Bishop Patterson, Brother Hansen, and the Nelsons Christmas cards and we got Bishop Patterson and Brother Hansen $15 Great Harvest gift cards and the Nelsons a 30$ gift card to Spasso, which is this super good Italian restaurant in Wayzata. They loved them, and I'm glad we did that because they do a lot for us.
We played basketball on Wednesday night at the church with DeAndre and some other guys that Johnny brought. It was super fun and DeAndre is doing good, he is just hard to get a hold of sometimes haha because he doesn't have a phone. So we've been doing our best to have lessons with him, but it's been kinda hard this last week!
Brother Hunsaker came out teaching with us this week and we basically went through the the NAC/less active list and we had a lot of success in finding people who didn't want to ever see us again. One guy said he would call the cops on us if we ever came back, one guy had moved so the guy that lived there went off on us for interrupting his evening, and one guy opened the door and shook his head and slammed it. So, pretty solid evening!
We have been tracting a lot this week to find some new investigators. Our mission president has been telling us that people's hearts are softened at Christmas, but we haven't really seen it this week. Most people don't want to talk to us, and we only had a few people say we could come back. It's been kind of slow as far as finding, but I'm excited to go back to the people who said to come back and share our great message with them!
I've really enjoyed Christmas this year, even though it was hard to be away from family and friends. The Minnetonka ward feels more like home every day, and I'm grateful I can stay here for one more transfer. This ward is pretty great! As we've been able to study the atonement and the savior more this month, I've grown to love my Savior more and more and want to share His message of love, peace, and happiness. This gospel is so amazing and it really does change lives. It ends all good-byes and heals broken hearts, dreams, and families. I'm grateful to be on the Lord's errand at this time and continue my spiritual progression while helping others with theirs as well. I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year this week! Enjoy the bowl games and let me know how they go! I love you all very much! Family, thanks for the great FaceTime call! It was so good to see you and I love you all dearly!
Much love,
Elder Beach
#MavUp #10
12 Ties of Christmas continued...Tie from former high school football coach, Coach Anhder.
Tie from my quarterback coach and friend, Riley Jensen.
Tie from former Young Men's leader and friend, Rick Lungman.
Tie from our Stake President, President Tracy Walker - eating dinner at an awesome ribs place with Brother and Sister Fors.
Tie from a former little league football coach and friend, Brett Payne. This is with Brother Haradon, whom we have recently helped reactivate.
Tie from former Bishop and Home Teaching companion, Grant Cardon. Christmas Eve with Jeffrey.
My favorite tie - the one from my Dad that I got to wear on Christmas and during the FaceTime with my family.
Brother Nelson on Christmas Day.
Christmas Day with Elder Nielsen and the Sister Missionaries.
Some thoughts my Mom sent me on Christmas Day. This is what a mission is all about.
