Last Monday we did some laundry and emailed home and then played basketball at the Lakeville chapel. We got some Subway for lunch and that was pretty good! I love P days. Haha it's funny cuz we used to look forward to the weekend, and now we look forward to Mondays. That will be something I will have to switch back to when I get home haha. After basketball we went to Lorraine Haines' house to help her move some stuff for her hot water heater to get replaced on Tuesday. So we moved a bunch of stuff in her house. She has so much stuff in her house!
On Tuesday we did zone service at Prince of Peace and it was pretty fun. It was a very busy day despite the rain! We were filling orders like crazy. We were a little short handed because the Crystal Lake Elders and Sisters took their p day on Tuesday so they could go to a science museum. So at one point during the day, I was the only one running the food orders and it was insane. I was flying, haha. So it was pretty fun this week! After that we went to Costco with everyone for lunch. Elder Sherwood and I and the Gretz fasted for Colt on Tuesday, so we broke the fast then. Hanger was starting to set in, and we had a lesson with Daren at 4 pm, so we needed to be on our best for that! Our lesson with Daren was a bit of a roller coaster. We retaught the restoration and it was going really well until we got to the apostasy. He really struggles with this concept and also the restoration of the Priesthood. So he asked us what doctrines were lost or corrupted. So the first and most obvious is the idea of the trinity and through the first vision and the Book of Mormon we know that God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost are separate beings. He said that all Christian churches believe that. I wanted to tell him that a month ago he didn't believe that! Literally like a month ago, we had a whole lesson about that with him because he believed that Jesus Christ is a part of God and how they are the same personage or being. So we listened to him talk about that for like 20 minutes and we finally just left it at we both believe the same things now. Haha sometimes you just have to agree with people and let them say their piece. Then he started asking about the Priesthood and how he believes that everyone that believes in Christ has the Priesthood because it comes from Jesus and he says Jesus lives in all believers, so everyone has the Priesthood. Doesn't make sense to me, but oh well. So then he tells us that he already has the gift of the Holy Ghost. We've gone over this so much. So finally Elder Sherwood saved the day. He's been studying a lot about the light of Christ and told him that what he has been feeling is the light of Christ and not the gift of the Holy Ghost. We showed the patterns of light video by Elder Bednar, and it made a lot more sense to him. It almost was a bad lesson, but Elder Sherwood saved it! After that, we went out with the EQP and the High Priest Group Leader to visit prospective Elders. We have 67 prospective Elders on our NAC list, but half of them have moved or are do not contact people. So anyway, we ended up stopping by like 5 each in two hours. We are going to get through our list in like 3 weeks. Most of the prospective Elders are part member families, but most of them are not interested, so I guess we will see how it goes.
Wednesday we tracted in the morning and met this lady named Maralyn. She invited us in and basically just Bible bashed with us. I gained a very strong testimony of why we need the Book of Mormon after that visit. She asked if we believed we needed to be baptized to be saved. I said yes we believe that and then showed her several bible verses and BOM verses as well that teach that. One of the ones I used was John 3:5 where Christ tells Nicodemus that a man must be born of water and of the Spirit to be saved in the kingdom of God. She said that means you need to be born physically and have your spirit be born, not being baptized and receive the Holy Ghost. So that's why we need the Book of Mormon to clarify when people try to interpret the Bible on their own! I literally said like 2 things the whole lesson. The Spirit was telling me to not speak because she didn't want to hear what we had to say, she just wanted to prove us wrong. Elder Sherwood did all the talking and he basically just bore his testimony the whole time. That was one of the most clear impressions I've ever received from the Spirit to not talk. It was literally like a voice I heard that said, "Do not talk." So I didn't. And we now have a return appointment with her for this Wednesday! Not sure how that happened but Elder Sherwood is killing it haha. After lunch we went and saw Stew Peterson in the old folks home. He is a super cool man. He taught at the church college in New Zealand for 4 years and then served in California for 2 years on a mission. He has two daughters and one of them is in our ward. He is a very smart guy and is fun to talk to. He reminds me a little of Brother Bradford from home haha. He's just got a funny sense of humor and is such a nice guy! It was fun to visit him. After that it was pouring rain, but we decided to tract this street in Burnsville called Sherwood Place. We met this one lady named Kristy who was moving to Arizona next week and said she had met Mormon missionaries before. She said she had talked to Jehovah's Witnesses and a lot of different missionaries before. She said she had one question that no one could answer: Why do bad things happen to good people? We told her we don't have that answer and only God knows why. We just know that they do happen and that people have agency and sometimes when people use their agency poorly it causes bad things to happen to other people. We gave her the link to a conference talk called, "God Shall Wipe Away All Tears" from last October general conference. So hopefully that can answer her question! Wednesday night we had Brother Connolly come out with us to visit the Bigboys. We had texted Justin Bigboy and he confirmed we could come over that night. So we get there and once again, they cancelled at the door because they had to go to the hospital again. I am starting to wonder if they actually need to go to the hospital or just don't want to meet. It was raining insanely hard and there was some tornado clouds forming. So we had to pull over and wait it out for a little bit. It was raining so hard.️ We did some stop bys of some less actives and visited the Hawleys to end the night. Brother Hawley is active but his wife isn't and we aren't sure why. She was really nice, but didn't say much when we were over. Hopefully we can help her out a little bit!
Thursday was a day where literally everything fell through. I went to a chiropractor in the morning to get my neck adjusted because it's been bugging me for a few weeks. He is way cool and I'm going to give him a Book of Mormon this week when I go back. He's pretty awesome! After that we went and visited Brother Hosman. He told us some of his stories about when he was in the navy in the Korean War. He had some sketchy stories. Anyway, it was a good visit and I'm glad we could see him. He loves when we come and visit. After that we tracted this huge street in Lakeville for 2 and a half hours and didn't talk to like anyone haha. This one guy talked to us but he just tried to bash with us so we ended up just leaving and made an agreement that whenever people try to bash with us from now on we will just bear testimony and leave. We finished tracting the street and then had dinner with the Dotys. I love them! We seriously have the most random conversations when we have dinner there haha. After that Brother Moerschel came out with us and we went and stopped by a bunch of people we met while tracting. Nobody was home but we went to visit the Offoriatas and we had a great conversation with them. Sister Offoriata is Brother Moerschel's bank helper lady. So they listened to Whitney Houston songs while we talked to Brian and AJ about school and the Book of Mormon. AJ is reading all the stuff we give him to read, so that's been great. He's only in 6th grade, but he seems super with it and seems to like when we come over and stuff. I'm hoping one day his family will realize that the church is a good thing and be able to start attending. For right now, sister Offoriata just doesn't seem interested. It's sad, but it is what it is.
Friday was weekly planning and so we got that done and then went and tracted this street way up in the north part of our area for about 2 hours. We weren't having much success but then got two doors in a row that talked to us and it was great! The first one was a lady named Nicole who talked to us on her porch for quite a bit. She asked a lot about us and where we were from and why we were here and stuff like that. She took a Book of Mormon and said we could stop by sometime when we were up in that neck of the woods. Then the next door this guy named Kevin let us in. He was really awkward but had a good spirit about him. We taught him a restoration lesson and gave him a Book of Mormon and he said we could come back this week. Hopefully both of those people pan out into something. We also met this guy named John from Florida who was a Florida State fan. He knew about our church so we talked for a while about football haha. Always do that when I get a chance. We didn't have a dinner Friday night so we went to Savers to get a new tie for President Nelson's arrival to the MMM. I found a black and blue paisley floral tie. It was sweet! Then we did some stop bys after dinner and then had a lesson with Jaidyn on the word of wisdom, law of chastity and the law of tithing. I'm very grateful we have all these commandments. One thing I've found as I've studied all these Commandments is that all of them have many blessings promised with them. That is one thing that is very cool about God's Commandments is that they all have promised blessings if we follow them. After that we had a fire at the Gretz house with Katelynn and Mikey and Brother Gretz. Elder Sherwood shared the light of Christ video and tied it into the fire. It was pretty cool!
Saturday was awesome! President Russell M Nelson came to our mission conference in Bloomington. He is awesome. I never realized how funny he, is but he has an amazing sense of humor. We all got to shake his hand and I could just feel the goodness in him. I really want to become that kind of man. Like people can just see the light and goodness in me and feel it when they shake my hand. Elder Craig C Christensen also came and spoke with us. His talk was really amazing and I needed to hear what he had to say. He talked about that there is no greater feeling than serving a mission and then getting off the plane. He said it will be the most difficult thing you will ever do, but when your plane lands, you will feel that your sacrifice was accepted by God and He is proud of the work you did. I'm really glad he talked about that. One thing he also said was that the things you learn and become on your mission, you never will be able to change those things if you continue to live worthy to covenants you've made. I'm grateful for the man I'm becoming and will continue to strive to live worthy of the covenants I've made! After the mission conference, our zone blitzed Prior Lakes area cuz they are struggling to find people to teach right now. I went with Elder Bolinder. He is super cool and we found this guy named Orlando. Reminded me of "Four Christmas's" with Vince Vaughn haha. Anyways, he let us in and we taught him about the restoration and the Book of Mormon and some other stuff he had questions about. We gave his info to the Sisters so they can go back and teach him hopefully. It was pouring when we were tracting and we got drenched haha but it was fun! After that we did some more tracting in our own area but didn't really find anyone. Then the Gretz took us to Culver's for dinner and we went to the YSA fireside with Jaidyn that President Nelson did. He is such a personable and funny guy! It was awesome to hear him twice in one day!
On Sunday, Daren texted us and said he was in New Jersey for work and wouldn't be at church or at home this week. So we didn't have anyone at church on Sunday, which was a bummer. After church on Sunday we were supposed to go out one with Ryan Tennant, one of the priests in the ward. He texted us like 5 minutes before he was going to pick us up and said he couldn't go. So we took Juan Suarez out with us. He doesn't have a car and can't drive and his family is less active but he comes to church every Sunday. He is really quiet until you get him to open up. Then he's a hoot and half haha. We were able to take the sacrament to Sister Brown at her place. She was sick and wanted us to bring her the sacrament. That was such a great experience for me. It brought back some great memories of doing that for the elderly folks in our own ward. I don't know why I ever disliked doing that. I didn't fully understand the importance of the sacrament until I've been out and now I know why it is such an important part of our week. I love church so much more now and especially the ordinance of the sacrament! After that we did some stop bys and stopped by this guy named Don who lives in Lakeville. Elder Wolfley and I found him, but he was kind of flakey on return appointments. He was home on Sunday and we talked to him in his garage for about 30 minutes. He said he could see that we were men of God and could see the light in us. I thought that was so cool. That made my day! He said he wanted to check out our church with his family next week so hopefully he comes to church with us next week! After that we had dinner with the Lyons and then Brother McGill took us up to the President's fireside. He just got divorced and is moving back up to Canada. He really enjoys coming out with us, so I'm glad he was able to come with us to that. It was super spiritual and really great this month. I got to see Elder Peterson and connect him with Brother McGill, and they talked for a while about Edmonton since they are both from there! It was great! Jeffrey also gave the closing prayer at the fireside. He is doing so well and I'm grateful to be a part of bringing him into the church. He just seems so much more happy now, and I'm glad he has found that happiness.
Just a cool testimony story from this week for me. I was really having a hard time with all that Colton has been going through. I didn't understand why he of all people had to have these trials. I was angry with God and couldn't understand why God wasn't helping him get better. I just had a lot of anger inside me this week and I couldn't seem to get it out of my system no matter what I did. I knew Colton needed to be home to get medical help and get himself better. I was still having a hard time coming to grips with the fact that my best friend that I have done everything with the last 6 years wouldn't be doing the same thing with me anymore. That was hard for me and I was mad about that. I was being selfish. I didn't realize that God's plan is greater than all of our own plans. God's plan is what matters most. While I was sitting in Sacrament Meeting on Sunday, I was just praying to feel at peace with everything. As I was praying, I got an email from Colton saying that he was sad he had to be home, but he knew that it was God's plan for him at this time and he was at peace with it. After I read it I just felt the Spirit pour over me and I felt that peace I had been needing to feel. It was such a sweet tender mercy from God. I felt his love for Colt and I knew that God needed him to be at home getting better right now. I don't know why, but I know it is God's plan. I don't know why I'm still out here and why I've been blessed to be healthy, but I know that I can't change that and I just need to make the best of it. My dad told me to honor my friend and brother by continuing to serve honorably and bringing people to Christ. I'm grateful for this gospel and for all the blessing it brings us. I KNOW this is is God's church on the earth and that he has a plan for each one of us. We can't always see the end results of the plan but we just have to have faith and rely on the merits and mercies of Him and trust that He knows what is best for us. I love you all and hope you have a great week!
Much love,
Elder Beach
#MavUp #10
Our whole mission at the Mission Conference with Elders Nelson and Christensen.
Got to see Jeffrey at the fireside. He looks so happy!!
One of my former companions, Elder Johnston, from the YSA Stake.
Ran into a friend from the Minnetonka Ward!
Looks like the Sacred Grove!
Elder Sherwood.
