On Monday we had like a half p-day because we went to the temple on Wednesday and you have to count your temple trip day as a p-day. (I don't know why, that's just how it is.) So Monday morning we went and did some stop bys in Hopkins because we didn't have the car till Wednesday when we were with the ZLs. So we walked around and stopped by all our investigators and potentials in Hopkins and the only one we talked to was Kendall. He used to come play basketball with us quite a bit but hasn't been coming much lately. He smokes weed and stuff but then he goes to the gym like 3 hours every day. He is in insanely good shape, but he smokes a lot and that slows him down a lot. But anyway, we talked to him for a little bit just to see how he was doing and if he needed anything from us. He said he was doing good for the most part and offered to give us a ride, but we were super close to our next person so we declined. I hope he can figure stuff out someday soon. He is a good guy, he just has some things he needs to change that would make him be a great guy! No one else we stopped by was home, so we tracted for about 45 minutes and didn't have a lot of success in that regard. We emailed and did laundry till about 4:30 and then Brother Keepman came and picked us up for dinner at their house. They are awesome! They've fed us quite a bit, and I love going to their house! I shared the Friday Night Lights dinner message again about being perfect in effort, and they loved it. It seriously is a hit here. After dinner we did some more stop bys and called it a day.
Tuesday was a jolly good time. We biked 12.5 miles up to Plymouth for an appointment that fell through on the way up. I absolutely hate when stuff falls through. Because then it throws off like the rest of your day. So we tracted for 2+ hours on this street we decided to tract on. We actually had a decent amount of success, so that was good! We taught this high school age girl and her younger siblings on their doorstep. She said she knew Audrey Smith in our ward so that was a good connection there! Then the next house, there was a dad and two little boys out front getting into their car and we said, "Hey we are sharing a quick scripture about Jesus, can we share one with you really quick?" And he was like "Yeah, sure!" Haha his boys, Sam and Joey, were like, "Why are your names Elder?" It was pretty funny! Anyway, we shared Alma 7:11-12 with them about atonement, and I bore my testimony on the power of the atonement and how it can help us so much in our lives. It was awesome! They listened intently and I was able to speak with the spirit. It felt so good! It's hard to explain, but when the people actually listen and you can bear your testimony, it just feels like everything clicks. It's amazing! Then the dad's mom came out and we talked to her and she said she was Roman Catholic. We talked about her beliefs and ours for a little bit and offered her a Book of Mormon to teach her more about Jesus Christ. She kindly declined, but we may have planted a seed with the dad and the kids. They seemed to feel the spirit when we spoke with them. We will have to go back sometime this week. We also met this super nice lady who answered the door and said she was on a call for work but she would love to hear our message. She said just stop by whenever and try to catch her at home when she isn't busy because she works from home. She was super nice though! We decided to go to Jimmy Johns for dinner because it was close to where we were and sounded good. When we got there, biggest tender mercy of my mission: "This Is How We Roll" by Florida Georgia Line was on the radio. Me and my companion were just jamming and singing to it and everyone was looking at us like what the heck are you guys doing? It was good though! Then we had an appointment at 6:30 up by the church and we get there and the guy says he forgot we were coming over and then said he actually didn't want to meet with us anymore. It was a guy we found tracting like two weeks ago. It was a bummer. So then we started the long bike ride home to visit Jeffrey. One thing a mission has taught me really well is how to deal with rejection and how to just roll with the punches. Things get changed up so much and people cancel and nothing ever goes as planned. You just have to be able to adjust on the fly and make the most of what happens. On the way home I got the WORST quad cramp ever on my bike. We were going up this hill and it just locked up. Like I couldn't bend my leg at all. So I'm just on the side of the road trying to bend my leg and get the cramp out and my companion is trying to help me and it was bad. It finally went away and then we walked for like 5 minutes and then biked to Jeffrey's. Haha it was not fun, but super funny after. Jeffrey had been in Washington DC for the last two weeks, so he told us about his trip and stuff. He got to inside the Pentagon because his cousin works there, so he got a VIP tour which was super cool! We reviewed the Plan of Salvation because he didn't really remember it from last time. It was a rough lesson because he kept falling asleep, so yeah... He's a good guy though, and told us it was good to see us and talk to us! We had a super good lesson with him on Sunday though....
Wednesday was the temple trip day!! We all met at the Lake Nokomis building and took the van to the temple. I haven't been to the temple since August, so I was very excited to go! We were supposed to go to the temple with a question that we could find an answer to while in the temple. So I had a question in mind as I went. I've done this before when I've gone to the temple and I never feel like I get an answer until we go in the Celestial room. I had such a good experience there and found the answer to my question, so it was good! The temple is such an amazing place and I love it there. After that we hit up Panda Express really quick. They jacked their prices up so everyone boycott Panda till they lower them again! Then we went back to the church to get the cars and go to the ZLs apartment to play games and stuff. So we are riding with the Plymouth Elders and Elder Pierson is the driver. I'm getting my stuff in the back seat of the car and he pulls up on top of my foot and parks. So he's parked on top of my foot and I'm like, "Elder! Elder! ELDER, GET THE FETCH OFF MY FOOT! BACK UP!!! BACK UP!" I was so mad, and my baby toe got smashed. It was the one I broke against Fremont last season in football. So I'm screaming in my high pitched scream voice to get off my foot and he (thank the heavens he backed up off my foot and didn't pull forward over my foot) finally did. I learned in that moment that the mission does change you to be a better person. Pre-mission, I would have dropped some serious cuss words right there and on my mission the worst word I said was fetch. So I'm definitely becoming better! We then went to the ZLs apartment and had some birthday cake cuz it was Elder Heden's birthday. We went shopping after and went and tried to see Ke and De to get them a ride for basketball. They weren't there and then Johnny texted us and said he wasn't going to basketball, so we didn't have a ride for anyone. Kris Clark said he was coming, so we showed up at the church and he was the only one there. Like literally. It was us and Kris that showed up, so we just played 21 and then the Plymouth Elders showed up and we threw the football around for a while. It was frustrating when no one shows up because the whole point is for the members and less actives and investigators to be there and build relationships. But oh well. Sometimes it doesn't work out.
Thursday we had FMSC (Feed My Starving Children). We show up and no one is there. So we are like what the heck? So they had us put stickers on bags for 2 hours. After that we had a lesson with Brother Armstrong. He is a less active guy in our ward we have been working with. We talked to him about the Priesthood and how he can receive the Melchizedek Priesthood. He is way into like supernatural stuff, so we told him he has the power to cast devils out of his house with the Priesthood. He thought that was pretty cool, because he thinks he sometimes has ghosts or demons in his house or something. Anyway, it was a good lesson, and hopefully we can get him to come to church soon so he can get the priesthood! He is such a nice guy and hopefully we can help him. He has some really bad social anxiety issues so he struggles in that regard but we are working with him! After that we had a lesson at the church with Steve Jordan and Brother Broadbent, who is our Ward Mission Leader. We taught the plan of salvation and it was really good! We drew it on the white board as we taught it so I think that helped Steve get a visual of what we were teaching. He seemed to understand most things we taught and liked the idea of us being sons and daughters of God and how we have the potential to become like Him! He read the first 5 chapters of the Book of Mormon like we asked him, and he said he didn't really understand what was going on. We went over them with him, just like the general story of what was going on, and he said he was going to read it over again! He is so committed and I love that! It makes me so happy to see someone who is really trying to change and become more Christlike.
Friday was weekly planning. We got that done pretty well this week, creative juices were flowing again. We went to go stop by a potential because their bio on the area book said stop by at like 3:30. So we went by, but they weren't there. On the way back I had a thought to call Brother Cohen. So we called him and he was like, "Yes, let's meet at Wendy's right now!" So we met him there and he just unloaded all this stuff on us that I didn't really want to know about. It was bad. He said he had almost gone into a depression slump again right when we called so he was super glad we called him. It was the weirdest lesson I've had with him, but it seemed to help him a lot to get some stuff off his chest and if that's what we can do to help then I guess that's what you do. Then we had a dinner up at the Smith's house in Plymouth. They are awesome! I am going to miss them a lot! They had some Dominoes pizza for us, and we just talked and had a fun time and then, I got to share my Friday Night Lights dinner message, and it was a hit once again. It must be a good one because everyone loves it. Then we had to hurry down for our lesson with Ted Fors in Minnetonka. We were going to watch a Living Scriptures movie with him, but we couldn't get ahold of his brother, so we decided we would read the story out of the Book of Mormon we were going to share with him. We read Mosiah 17-18 which is about Abinadi getting killed and Alma and the waters of Mormon. It was super good! We had a great discussion about repentance and basically the gospel of Jesus Christ. It ended up being a super good lesson and I think I learned as much as he did during the lesson! After that Brother Cohen wanted to meet at Wendy's again so he wouldn't be depressed right before bed, so we met him again and had another interesting conversation. Friday was like the rainbow of types of lessons in Minnetonka.
Saturday was so hectic. Oh my gosh. So we had zone service and there was 2 different shifts. One was 2:45-4:45 and the other was 4:45-6:30. So we were slated to do the afternoon session, so we scheduled all our stuff so we could do the afternoon one. Then the ZLs told us we were going to do the evening session because the Minnetonka Sisters had to do something in the evening. So then we had to switch up our whole schedule again for that to work for them. Every Saturday we have coordination meeting and breakfast at the Bishop's house. So we show up and the Sisters are like, "You're going to afternoon session right?" And we were like, "No.... the evening one." And they're like, "No, you're going to the afternoon session because we need to go to the evening session." I was pretty chapped at this point and basically said screw it, we are going to both sessions. Haha so we went to both sessions. Before we went, we finished tracting this street in Plymouth we had started on Tuesday. We talked to this one old lady who had Alzheimer's and her husband was sick so we said a prayer for them. It was cool and it really made the lady's day that we talked to her for like 15 minutes. Then the next two houses we knocked basically told us to go away. The first one this guy answers and tells us to get off his property and we were never welcome back. The second guy says that there is no such thing as an uplifting scripture and to get off his property. Just getting some hot wife points so no complaints from me... There's a joke that every time you get rejected, you get a point towards how hot your wife will be. After that we headed up to the zone service thing. We got to run this thing called Viking Sleds, which are like dog sleds but someone sits on the sled and you push them and then stand on the runners. It was pretty cool! So the event we were at was called Plymouth Fire and Ice on Gleason Lake. It was literally on a frozen lake. There was hockey, dog sleds, Viking sleds, ice fishing and all kinds of cool stuff. It was pretty fun! They did a fire dancing show after the evening shift and then this huge fireworks show after that. It was so much fun. There's been a lot of drama in our zone between Elders and Sisters and there was some more at the zone service. That is the part of leadership I'm not looking forward to at all. I have like a zero drama tolerance. After we left there we had a few lessons to go to and the first one was with Kris Clark who is the less active young man in our ward. We showed up and no one answered the door, even though it looked like people were home. Then we stopped back by our apartment to grab some Books of Mormon for tracting. We tracted for about an hour and fifteen minutes. We didn't see much success, but I had a cool experience. As we were knocking doors, I had this like vision of my dad doing this in his mission in Texas. I realized that I'm part of something much bigger than myself and the Minnesota, Minneapolis Mission. This is the Lord's work and nothing is going to stop it from progressing. Even if things are tough at times, everything we do is helping the work move forward. It is my job to continue to help the work progress and continue the legacy left by my dad and the many missionaries before me and leave a legacy for future missionaries to continue as well. It was a really cool revelatory experience for me. It gave me a new fire to be a better missionary and share the gospel with everyone.
Sunday was another hectic morning. We had like 5 people who were supposed to come to church. Steve Jordan texted us at 8 AM and said he had the flu and couldn't make it. Go figure. Then Antonio texts us and says his mom won't let him come to church. Then Tabitha texts us and says she couldn't find a babysitter for her kid so she won't be there either. I'm about ready to throw the phone through the wall at this point. We know Kevin is going for sure. And that's it. Jeffrey won't answer our texts or calls, so we have no idea with him. We get to church and Kevin is there with a new tie on looking sharp. It was cool to see that! And we called Jeffrey again at like 10:50 and he said he was coming. He got there at around 11:10, but hey! He made it so that was great. A lot of the ward knows him so like 15 people said hi to him and stuff right after Sacrament meeting. He loves when people talk to him, so that was good. For Elders Quorum we ended up having a discussion on prayer because Jeffrey said he was struggling with prayer. It was sooooooo good. Johnny Chapman killed it and helped Jeffrey out so much. Jeffrey totally understood everything and the spirit was finally working in him! It was so cool. Jeffrey left church very happy he came, and very much uplifted spiritually. That is what church is all about. After church we ran home and broke the fast because we were both starving. Then we went and tracted these town homes for about an hour before dinner. Most people weren't home and the ones that were said they either 1. Weren't interested 2. Already went to church so they didn't need to listen to us 3. Were watching the super bowl pre game. So that's about how that went for an hour. Then we had dinner at Steve and Kerri Nelson's house and they are awesome. The other Nelsons in the ward had dinner with us too, so that was pretty fun. We had a fun time talking about the super bowl and who was going to win and stuff. They are awesome. I'm going to miss them so much! Then we tracted some more town homes, but there was this guy who had his dog out for a walk and told us everyone was gone or watching the super bowl and wouldn't talk to us. He was right! So we went and stopped by Mike who lives in Stormy and Robert's building because we hadn't seen him forever. They were watching the game and it was half-time, so we were let into the apartment right in time to see Lady Gaga doing some weird dance thing on a piano bench. Then we left pretty quick haha. We got invited over to the Smith's to watch the super bowl, but we felt we should only spend an hour or less there. So we tracted their street until 8 pm and then went and watched the 4th quarter and overtime, which ended up being the best part of the game by far. All I have to say is that Tom Brady is the best quarterback and probably football player to ever play. Hands down. No questions. No disputing that. He is the best or the GOAT (greatest of all time). It was a fun evening with them and throughout the game, we kept relating things in the football game to missionary work or to life and lessons we learned from the game. Lots to be learned from that game as the Pats were down 28-3 and won 34-28. It was a good time and I'm glad I got to witness the best super bowl ever...
It was a good final week in Minnetonka. I'm soooo sad I have to leave this ward and people I love so much. My heart pretty much broke when I found out I was leaving. I'm going to miss the people here a lot and hope I will be able to serve here again towards the end of my mission. That would be so fun. I'm hoping the Lord can mold me into a good district leader because I have no clue what I'm doing at all. Should be a good learning experience for me though, and I know I will learn a lot and grow as a missionary and leader as well. My favorite scripture is Alma 26:12 "... I will not boast of myself but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things." Love you all and hope your week is awesome!
Much love,
Elder Beach
#MavUp #10
Watching the Super Bowl and the GOAT.
Dinner with one of my favorite families!
Temple day!
I love the temple!
