Hello to all my friends, family and coaches back home, at college and serving the Lord worldwide! Hope y'all are doing well and have had a great week! This week has been crazy and due to a lot of meetings and service opportunities and weird p day schedule, it seems like we haven't done a ton of missionary work but it seems like we've still had a lot of success haha.
So last Monday was a half p day because we were going to the Twins game on Thursday. So we went down to Lake Marion Elders' apartment to email and do laundry until about 1 pm. Then we were supposed to help this less active lady move some furniture at 2 pm so we went home to change, and when we got home she said the truck was late and would be there at like 3 pm. So we did some more studies and training for about 40 minutes and then headed up to help her out. It was Sister Jana Jones. Her daughter is Anna Jones. She is currently going through a messy custody battle with her ex husband, and they are both less active. We are really working hard with Anna to help her get active again. Jana is active, just misses sometimes due to health issues. Anyway, we helped them move a ton of furniture from a U haul truck into their apartment. They were very grateful for the help, so that was good! Then we did some tracting after dinner and it was pretty fun! We didn't really find anyone but we shared a couple first lessons and just had a fun time haha. Elder Sherwood wrote down everything funny that happened so here are some highlights:
1. We knocked on a door and this golden retriever comes to the door with a giant stuffed bear in its mouth. It was super cute, unfortunately no one answered.
2. This Asian lady answers a door and says "I Methodist! I no listen!" And slams the door in our face.
3. We knock on the door and this super drunk guy answers and says, "I'm an atheist. I believe in aliens more than Jesus. Anyway, I'll shake you guy's hand cuz you're doing good work. Us white boys gotta stick together. White power!" Then he shut the door and Elder Sherwood and I were like, "What the heck just happened?"
4. Elder Sherwood and Elder "Tree" (see picture below) I couldn't stand next to him cuz of this tree, so we hung my name tag on the tree and he knocked on the door. (we already knew no one was home)
It was a pretty fun evening even without much success. I'm really starting to enjoy missionary work, even though it is a grind and pretty disheartening sometimes!
Tuesday was MLC so we did a combined district meeting with the Spanish district. I had everyone bring their favorite conference talk and we discussed them and how we can use what we learned to be better missionaries and help our investigators. Then I gave a training on Chapter 14 of PMG which is "Flirt to Convert" I tried to make it serious and actually applicable, but some people just couldn't take it seriously. Overall I thought it went well though haha. Then we had zone service at Prince of Peace food shelf and then had a lesson with Daren. He asked a lot about temple ordinances like baptism for the dead and sealings and stuff. It went well, we tried to keep it really simple. We've really tried to focus on just gaining a testimony of the Book Of Mormon cuz if you do that, everything else will follow. And you don't have to know everything before you get baptized cuz you learn a lot after! Sister Gretz told us to invite Daren and his family over for dinner and FHE at their house on Saturday so we did, and he said they would be there. After that we had a lesson with Brady and Jonah who are recent converts in our ward. We had a lesson about the Book Of Mormon. So we had a discussion based on the questions 1. Why is the Book Of Mormon important? 2. What is the purpose of the Book Of Mormon? 3. How can I gain a testimony of the Book Of Mormon? It was a really, really good lesson. We showed "Testimony of the Book of Mormon" by Elder Holland and he goes hard in that video, so it was a great finale to a good spiritual lesson. We invited them to read the Book Of Mormon each day, and pray hard for a strong testimony of it. It was great. Tuesday night we did some more tracting and we talked to this guy for like 30 minutes. He said he had met with missionaries before and didn't believe in Joseph Smith. I asked him if he had read the Book Of Mormon and he said no and I said, "Well sir, there's your problem. If you don't read the Book Of Mormon you're never gonna believe in our church or anything about it!" He said the Bible is the only true book of scripture and he'll just stick with that. He kept saying that we were representing Joseph Smith and his church and every time he said that I would say "No, we aren't representing Joseph Smith and his church. We are representing Jesus Christ and his church." He didn't seem to get it but wouldn't shut up, so I just quit saying anything after a while and let Elder Sherwood talk to him. He told us to go knock on like 5 of his neighbor's houses, though. It was about 8:30 when we got done talking to him, so we knocked on a few of the houses and the last one had like 4 super nice trucks out front. This teenager pulled up right before we got there and Elder Sherwood wanted to go talk to him, so we ran over and Elder Sherwood started talking about his truck and stuff. Then we transitioned it into the gospel and gave him a Book Of Mormon and invited him to church. He said we could stop by this week sometime. He said his parents might not be super interested but we said it's ok! It was pretty cool to cap off the night well.
Wednesday was new missionary training in Bloomington. It was fun to see everyone again and there were some really good trainings given. President Elhert, who is in our Mission Presidency, gave the best training I've ever heard. It was seriously so good. It was how we can study and receive answers for our investigators and help them to receive their own answers. It was good! Wednesday night we did some stop bys with Brother Sauser and had a really good lesson with Sister Brown, who is a less active sister in our ward. We shared the new Easter video "Prince of Peace" with her and she really loved it. We also talked about coming to Sacrament Meeting and why it is important. She said Satan really works hard on her on Sundays. She has depression a little bit and she said Sundays are always a hard day for her. We told her we could arrange for the Young Men to bring her the Sacrament after church if she would like that and she said she would! Reminded me of good old 10th ward days. Sister Gretz texted us and said she had a surprise for us, so we headed over to her house real quick to grab it. She had found out the Pugmires had a barbell and weights, so she borrowed those for me and got Elder Sherwood a putt putt golf set thing and ukulele to practice haha. She is awesome!
Thursday was so much fun!! In the morning, I got to lift weights'. I did snatch and snatch balance and overhead squat. It was so awesome haha. Then we went to Savers with the Lake Marion Elders to try and find some Twins Ties or Twins colored ties to wear to the game. Savers had some super nice ties for like $2-4 so we just ended up buying some of those haha. Then they told us they were having a 50% sale on Saturday so we decided we were going to go back and get me some new slacks cuz mine are wearing out a little and some more ties haha. Anyways, after Savers we had to take the bus from Apple Valley up to downtown Minneapolis to Target field for the game. We talked to this cool dude from Mexico on the bus and he took a selfie with the whole zone haha. He was a pretty cool guy! I invited him to church and gave him our number and the church address. Well it was supposed to be 55 degrees and sunny at the game, but we ended up sitting in the upper deck in the shade and it was like 37 degrees. So it was a little chilly at the game, but it was super fun. The Twins won and swept the KC Royals so that was sweet! With the tickets we got we got free hot dogs and drinks so that was sweet. I got to sit by the Mission President and he's a hoot. He loves baseball so he was calling all the pitches and stuff and then would compare it on the jumbo Tron for what pitch it was. They played "Lose Yourself" by Eminem so everyone was singing along with it. Elder Nissenbaum asked President if he liked Eminem and President says, "I like m&ms..." We were like, "President..." It was pretty funny! They played "Anything Goes on a Friday Night" by Florida Georgia Line and I was jamming to that haha. I miss country music. It was really fun to be able to go to a baseball game with a bunch of missionaries. They had Elders Oldroyd and Harper do a bottle flip contest at one of the inning breaks on the jumbo tron haha. It was fun! When we got home we went to the Gordhamers for dinner. Sister Gordhamer's mom and dad aren't members and they were there, so we got to talk to them during dinner and it was really good! We shared the Easter video and our testimonies of Jesus Christ and it was awesome. They both felt the spirit.Then we did some more tracting and called it a night!
Friday was a little crazy. We had weekly planning but Brother Seaman had a friend named Chuck Deramo who isn't a member who needed help moving some furniture from his office to his house. So we decided to help him out. He has met with missionaries in the past like 15 years ago. He met Brother Seaman at a McDonald's and then they ran into each other again at the same McDonald's on a later date and stayed there and talked until like 2 am. So now they are good friends. Anyways, we went and helped him move some huge cabinets and stuff. He is taking us to lunch at Doolittle's wood fired grill this Wednesday. Should be good. We are going to see if he would be interested in taking the lessons with us. He's a nice guy and he's asked a lot of questions while we've been helping him. Friday night we went tracting and did some stop bys. Not a super successful night haha but it was good.
Saturday we had a funeral for a member of our ward who passed away. His name was Siam Solomon and he was like 13 years old. It was crazy, they went on vacation and he got pneumonia and it just went downhill way fast and he ended up dying. The funeral was really good and it was a really spiritual experience for me. Bishop Clifford and Brother Gordhamer spoke at it and Bishop's talk was really good. It made me realize how grateful I am for Jesus Christ and his atonement and resurrection on Easter Sunday. Without it, death would be the end. Life would just be done. But death is just a milestone on our celestial journey. Bishop talked about how without love, death would know no sorrow or sting. So no matter what, when loved ones pass away we will feel sorrow and the sting of death, but that can be swallowed up in knowing that we will see them again and we will all live again because of what Jesus Christ did for us. I will forever be grateful for the knowledge we have of the plan of salvation and of the atonement and resurrection. After that we went up to help move some huge glass cabinets on Chuck's wall. Elder Sherwood was a cabinet installer before his mission so he was money helping get them off the wall and taken apart. I'm just good for moving stuff haha. So we helped out with that till about 4 pm then went home to get ready for our dinner and FHE at the Gretz with Daren's family. It went so good. Daren and his wife really hit it off with Brother and Sister Gretz. Their kids loved Sister Gretz haha so it was good. We had Santa Fe chicken and it was awesome, and then we went to this farm that a member had in the Lake Marion ward and it was super fun. The kids loved it. Then we went to the Gretz' house and had dessert. Daren brought a cheesecake and Sister Gretz made bunny buns. They're cupcakes that look like a bunny is upside down in them. It was so good!
Sunday we had ward council and then had church. Church was really good! We didn't have any investigators there. Daren said he still won't be able to come until like next week. So we are keeping our fingers crossed that he can come next week. After church we went tracting for about an hour and half. It was raining up until we parked the car and got out of the car to start and didn't rain until we got back into the car to drive to dinner haha. We didn't find anyone, but we had some good conversations with people. We met this one guy named James. He was out playing with his kids and talked to us for about 10 minutes. He knew some LDS people and talked to them but said it just wasn't for him. We gave him a card with our number to call us if he needed help with yard work or anything. He was pretty cool and told us to go talk to his neighbor because they had spiritual conversations all the time haha. So we went and talked to his neighbor and he had also met missionaries before but didn't really feel like it was for him either. He said he was an atheist which surprised me. I just bore my testimony that God loved him, and even if he didn't believe in God, God still loved him and wanted what's best for him. He said we could stop by this week so that's good! Then we went to the Lamb of God concert with the Lake Marion Elders and one of their investigators. She is really cool and is getting baptized in 2 weeks. It was really good! I got to see the Keepmans, Nelsons and Hadleys from the Minnetonka ward. I really miss them so much. I'm going to see if I can pull a few strings and serve in Minnetonka my last transfer haha. That would be sweet! Lamb of God was awesome and I loved it. The Minnesota Mormon chorale was way good. It was a great week!
This week was really good, even though we had some crazy stuff going on haha. Last Monday I was feeling really down because I just felt like I was working hard and all that and wasn't seeing a lot of success. This week I tried to see my successes each day and was able to find a lot of them. Mom also emailed me about a difference I am making and that really helped too. Satan definitely tries to hit me in that a lot. Getting down on myself and feeling like I'm not making a difference out here. I know I am though, and it really is easy to see the success and difference you make, you just have to take a step back and look at the bigger picture sometimes. I know all missionaries serving are making a difference in someone's life. You may not be able to see it, but just believe me when I say you are! Every single person serving is making a positive difference in someone's life. So always remember that! I hope you all have a great Easter this week and remember the true meaning of this holiday. I love you all and please keep my grandma in your prayers. She is going through some health struggles right now. Thanks! Love you all!
Much love,
Elder Beach
#MavUp #10
Elder Tree
Just happy to be missionaries!
Seeing some old friends at the training.
At the farm.
Twins game.
