Hello to all my family, friends and coaches back home, at college, and serving the Lord! I hope and pray all is well with you back home. This week has been fast and my mind is blown that it is 2017 haha!
Elder Nielsen and I are getting along great! We are having a good time and he loves to work hard so we've been doing some good work this week. Our goal is to have 20 new investigators and a baptism by the end of the transfer. We are gonna have to work really hard to get those goals, but I'm excited to see what happens!
On Tuesday we did a bunch of stop bys for some investigators and former investigators to kind of clean up our area book. We also tracted for a few hours and didn't really have a lot of success but we met this guy who was our age who was in the marine corps that we were able to share a Book of Mormon scripture and a Mormon.org card with. He was super cool and said he was back to basic training after Christmas so we just left him a card and told him to check out the website and stuff! One of the last houses we knocked had a no soliciting sign on the door, but as missionaries that doesn't stop you at all haha. So as we are walking up to the guy's door, his dog comes running up to us and it was a cool dog so I started playing with it and then Elder Nielsen knocked on the guy's door. He answers the door, points at the "no soliciting" sign and says, "Take a f***ing hike!" Then Elder Nielsen goes, "We are just sharing an uplifting scripture to brighten people's day!" He just shut the door haha. It was pretty funny!
We had a lesson with the Wilcocks Tuesday night. Brother Wilcock is less active and has been for like 50 years. His wife is active but is starting to get Alzheimer's and is starting to struggle. Anyway, we go to their house and he is watching the Holiday Bowl on TV and we started talking about football! He told us he used to be friends with the "Purple People Eaters" (really good defensive line for the Vikings) and it was cool. He said they would throw some wild parties that he and his wife would go to haha. So right when we were going to start our message, he says, "Well, I'm gonna watch the game if you don't mind!" And I, being me, was like, "Yeah, I don't mind!" So we watched the game for about 20 minutes and talked while we watched it. We ended up having a cool chat about how the gospel is a blessing in our lives and it was pretty good haha. I'm not sure how we ended up talking about that, but it happened!
Wednesday we had a lesson with Eleshea about overcoming trials and relying on the Lord to help us in hard times. She said she hadn't been able to move into her new apartment because she got a bad letter of recommendation from an apartment she had lived in like 3 years ago. It was weird and I didn't get it, but she said she really appreciated the lesson we shared and said she would come to church on Sunday. As we were teaching her in the stairwell, this guy came down the stairs and asked if we were the Mormon missionaries. And we were like, "Heck yeah, we are!" He said he had been taught in Brooklyn Park by some missionaries and said we could come by sometime. We have stopped by twice but he hasn't been home either time so... we will see if we can get ahold of him.
Thursday we had service at Feed My Starving Children,and that's always a good time. We always go to Taco Bell after for lunch and so we can hang out for a little bit. Elder Nissenbaum is one of my good buddies I've made and his companion is Elder Fabrizio. They were not getting along and I guess Elder Fabrizio had been trying to beat up Elder Nissenbaum. So Chaska and Waconia districts were on exchanges while we were at service so yeah... it was kinda awkward haha. We had a lesson with Brother Hartranft who has gone through about every trial imaginable in the last 3 years. It's crazy what he has been through, but he is still staying strong in his faith. We shared the "Will of God" Mormon message with him and he really liked it. He's a good guy and I feel so bad for him. We try to visit him every week just so he has some company! We also had a lesson with Jeffrey on Thursday and we retaught the restoration because he didn't understand it that well. He struggles with understanding gospel concepts and stuff so we have had to teach him very little at a time and super simply. He's doing well though and he is progressing so that's good! We also had a lesson with the Smith family in our ward. They are so awesome and I love them. Brother Smith is the nicest guy and their second oldest son is at USU right now. Their oldest son is on a mission and then they have 2 daughters and another son at home. They are great and always have a great spirit in their home. We shared "The Hope of God's Light" Mormon message and both just bore our testimonies about how God loves us and knows each of us individually. It was really good!
Elder Nissenbaum called us when we got home and said he and his companion had gotten in a huge fight and his companion flipped out on him and some profanities were exchanged and then his companion threw him into a wall so Elder Nissenbaum was in Waconia with Elder Lish, and Elder McCleve was in Chaska with Fabrizio. Elder Nissenbaum was so mad and he said things just weren't going well in their district. We decided to take them out to Buffalo Wild Wings on Friday so Elder Nissenbaum could just have a break. He is district leading a district with some tough missionaries in it and his comp is crazy haha, so we figured he needed to get away for a few hours. We went at 7 pm and got some really good food and had a good time watching a little bit of the Michigan vs. Florida State game. Elder Nissenbaum was feeling a lot better I felt like when we left and just being around some new people so it was a win-win.
On Friday before we went to B-Dubs (Buffalo Wildwings), we tracted for 2 hours. We prayed we would find a young family to teach and also be an answer to someone's prayer. The first door we knocked on was a young family and we shared a short message with the mom in the doorstep and had a prayer with her as well. We ended up teaching 5 first lessons while we tracted and the last door we knocked, this lady answered and said she had been struggling with work and stuff and the uplifting scripture we shared with her was really good. She said we could come back this week and teach her more about the church and the restoration. It was super cool! When we tract we pick an area where we want to tract and then pray over the area map and ask god to inspire us as to which streets to tract. Then we each pick 5 streets and compare the ones we got and we always have one street that is the same so we go to that street and usually have pretty good success. It's a good way to tract.
On Saturday, we didn't have a dinner and so we decided to have dinner at 8 pm at McDonald's so we could watch some of the Clemson/Ohio State game. It was basically over when we got there and Clemson was killing them so we just got our food and went home and went to bed early on New Year's Eve haha. We tracted for a few hours from like 6-8 in this one neighborhood we felt we should tract. So we knocked for like an hour and nobody was super interested. We started down a street in the neighborhood and it started getting really dark and not well lit. I started getting a kind of uneasy feeling. It was a more wooded area and the houses were spread out more. I don't know why I had a weird feeling, but I did. I didn't really think anything of it, I just thought I was being paranoid. So we kept knocking for about a half hour and I finally got to the point where I was like terrified out of my mind so we basically ran back to our car haha. While we were on the way back, we passed a certain point on the street and that uneasy feeling left. I don't know why I had that feeling and I probably will never know but I'm glad we followed it! It was weird haha.
On Sunday we had one investigator at Church named Kevin, who is the boyfriend of a member of the ward. He had a good time and we had a lesson with him on the gospel of Jesus Christ after church. He moved his baptismal date up to March 4 and that is super good! He said he wants to read the whole Book of Mormon before he gets baptized, but I totally respect that! He's doing great!
KeAndre and DeAndre are the biggest flakes on the planet. We've set up 4 appointments with them and they aren't there for every single one. It makes me mad, and I want to help them, but if they aren't able to keep commitments with us, they obviously won't be able to keep commitments with the Lord. So we are going to lay off for a while with them.
On Sunday, the bishop told us he got this text from a lady who had moved in to the ward and her daughter was wanting to get involved in the church. We stopped by their house and the daughter and son were there but the mom and dad were gone. We talked to the son and daughter for a while and they are super cool. The son is a junior named Chris and he plays basketball and raps and stuff haha. We showed the "Hope of Gods Light" to them and he made his mom and non-member dad watch it after he had already watched it. He said we were an answer to his prayer. He said he wanted God to send someone to him as a sign that God cares about him. So it was cool to be an answer to his prayer! The daughter is coming to church next week! The mom, daughter and son are members but are way less active so we are going to help reactivate them.
The work is going well here and I'm happy to be here at this time. I know this really is the work of God and that nothing will stop the work. We had a lesson on Sunday about the second coming of Christ and how we would live our lives differently if we knew 100% that Christ was going to come in 2017. That really made me think about some things I would do differently if I knew he was coming in 2017. I would like to challenge you all to ponder that question and make changes you feel are necessary to help prepare yourself to stand in the presence of the Lord one day! I love you all and pray for you all each day. Hope you have a good week!
Much love,
Elder Beach
#MavUp #10
