Hello to all my family, friends, and coaches back home, at college and serving the Lord around the world! Hope this email finds you well and enjoying football season and general conference season as well. Best time of the year! This week has been good even though we've had insanely hot, humid days and also torrential downpours as well. But we still work regardless of the weather.
So Monday was the usual: laundry, email, throw the football around. Can't complain about that. We had dinner with the Robacks down in Becker so we headed down there at about 5 pm for our 5:30 pm dinner. It was fun! I love them. They're a great family and Brother Roback is the Elder's Quorum President and is one of the only people who will drive us around and joint teach with us haha. Funniest thing happened at dinner: we were eating and their youngest daughter just lets out this huge burp. I was so surprised because she is like 3 and not very big and it was huge haha. I had a good chuckle at that! After that we were supposed to have a lesson with a less active YSA guy named Keegan at the church, but he cancelled last minute so we messaged a bunch of less actives on Facebook and then went to our lesson with LJ. It was a little scattered because LJ was kind of crazy and not really focused, but we reviewed the Plan of Salvation with him and he remembered a decent amount of it, so that was good! We also talked to the manager of the group home and he said there is only one guy working there on Sundays so there's nothing they can do to get him to church. So that sucks, but we are going to see if we can get his parents to sign a thing that allows us to drive him to church on Sundays. Hopefully that works out.
Tuesday we had a blitz exchange in Alexandria with Elders Searle and Bentley. It was pretty fun! I went with Elder Bentley for the day and we did a lot of finding and stop bys and biking. It was nice to get out and bike cuz I haven't biked since Apple Valley. Elder Meyer doesn't like biking much, not sure why? I've suggested it several times and he never seems too stoked to bike, but oh well. We went to Qdoba for lunch, which is kind of like Chipotle but way better in my opinion. You get the same thing pretty much, plus all the add ons for free. So at Chipotle, guacamole is like $2 extra, which is dumb, but at Qdoba it is free. So I got this way good grilled chicken bowl with a lot of pico, cheese, guacamole, corn, grilled peppers, and pinto beans. It was way good! Elder Bentley and I basically biked around all day and stopped by people who weren't home. We didn't do much finding (knocking doors, contacting, etc.) but it's not my exchange, so I just do whatever they have planned and suggest doing other things along the way! It was fun though and we talked to a few people who were pretty cool! Alexandria is definitely a "sticks" area. Just lots of little farm towns and not a lot of people haha. It was fun though, and after the day was over we went on a 3 mile run, which was awesome. I'm in way better shape than I was when I first got to Sauk Rapids, and I can definitely tell haha. Elder Bentley was a champ and ran all 3 miles with me.
Wednesday morning we headed back to Sauk Rapids and had district meeting in the morning. I went to the Buffalo district meeting and it was good! We had a couple trainings on using Facebook messenger effectively and also on finding because for some reason, our zone does little to no finding each week, and sets really low goals for finding new investigators and doesn't usually hit them. However, this week we did a lot better, so I was super happy about that! We are going to start doing some zone "Tracting Hours" where we will start with a conference call and get everyone hyped to go knock doors and then everyone will knock for an hour in their areas. Then we be able to share cool experiences we had, and hopefully this will encourage the zone to keep working hard at finding people to teach! After lunch we contacted everyone on Facebook and sent them this General Conference hype video we found and invited them to watch General Conference this coming weekend. After that we went to campus to do some contacting and low and behold, another church was there doing some contacting as well. So we walked around and talked to people for like 15 minutes, but everyone thought we were Jehovah's Witnesses, so we figured it wasn't worth our time haha. Oh well! We went and stopped by the dude we found a few weeks back. He wasn't home, but some of his neighbors were mowing their lawns and stuff so we offered to help. This one dude basically tried to run us over with his mower and wouldn't talk to us, so we figured he wasn't interested. The other people weren't super stoked to see us either. Then we stopped by Sharon who we found a few weeks back, too. She is a parole officer and works like all day, but we stopped by anyway. Her husband was there and he was not the nicest guy I've met. He basically told us to never come back because his wife wasn't interested and never would be. Some people make me shake my head and laugh haha. The Sisters wanted us to give one of them a blessing after, that so we did that and it was good! The Priesthood is for real, everyone. I have such a strong testimony of Priesthood blessings! They are truly from God! We went and saw Rustin Bird after that, and he was drinking and smoking a lot so we didn't talk to him for long. He seemed really depressed and not himself, so we called his sister-in-law and told her because she and Reegan help him out make sure he doesn't die or do stupid things haha. She said she and Reegan were going to check on him that night when Reegan got home from work. Hopefully he's doing good! We haven't heard anything from her, so I'm hoping no news is good news. After that we went out to Foley and knocked doors for about an hour or so and met some really nice and cool people but nobody was super interested. People always think we are just trying to get them to convert to the LDS church. Which I guess we are, but we really are trying to get people to convert to Christ. This is His church with His gospel and His Priesthood, so by converting to Him, you would convert to His church. But it takes a lot of time and repeated effort with each person to help them see that, so we just share our small message and hope it plants a seed that will one day grow and blossom into "the fruit of the gospel!" We had a really good lesson with Rosalee that night too! She had started reading the Book of Mormon, so we taught her a full Restoration lesson and she seemed to like it and enjoy the message. We both bore our testimonies at the end, and I could tell she was feeling the Spirit. I hope she continues to read the Book of Mormon and pray to know if it is true. If she does, she will gain a witness of its divinity and of the truth of the restoration of the gospel through the prophet Joseph Smith!
Thursday we did some service for Connie again, and that was good! We raked a bunch of leaves for her and then mowed her lawn. We also set up a church tour with her for the following morning so she could come check out the church and get a feel for it before she comes sometime. After that we had a quick lunch at Subway, which was great. I used to hate Subway, but I love it now haha. After that we did some service at the humane society, which is always a good time! We hauled bags of dog and cat food into storage for them and then helped set up chairs for a presentation, and then, of course, we washed dishes and crates. It was fun! I like helping out there. After that we had to get an oil change in St. Cloud, so we went to the Toyota dealer there and I had a way good cup of hot chocolate from their free hot chocolate and coffee shop thing that was there! After that we went and stopped by Christy's mom who Christy referred to us. Christy lives out in Foley and her mom lives in St. Cloud and has a lot of yard work and needs some help, so we went to her mom's place and got some yard work service set up for Wednesday morning, so that should be fun! After that Ethan Olson took us up to Rice to have a lesson with the Squires family. Brother Squires is less active and their kids kind of are too, but Sister Squires is way active and wants her whole family to be active. We taught a Restoration lesson and talked about if we have a testimony that 1. Jesus Christ is divine, 2. The Book of Mormon is true, and 3. Joseph Smith is the prophet of the Restoration, then we have a solid foundation of testimony. We invited them to read the Book of Mormon as a family and pray to know if it is true and to help their testimonies of the Savior and of the Book of Mormon increase. Brother Squires seemed really not engaged in the lesson and his answers to questions were a little concerning to me about his faith or testimony or desire to have either of those. He's a tough nut to crack, so we are going to keep working on them. They all came to church this Sunday, so that was great! After that we had a lesson with Sister Davis and Luke and Russell. We taught them the Plan of Salvation and used Elder Meyer's little wooden Plan of Salvation kit as a visual. It was fun and we tied it into how we can be with our families forever when we are sealed in the temple, and invited them to attend the temple and get recommends for the temple trip that is coming up! After that we went down to Brother Massey's place and he took us out to the Mexican restaurant called Giliberto's. It was really good and only like $6-7. I got a way yummmy grilled chicken burrito.
Friday morning we had a church tour with Connie, and it went about as bad as possible. Sister Hoese from the St. Cloud ward was our joint teacher because we couldn't find anyone else to go, and she loves us haha. So we showed Connie around the church and then she starts talking about polygamy and how she could never belong to a church that practices polygamy. Elder Meyer was like, "Well, some prophets in the Old Testament were polygamists, so does that change anything about their teachings?" Then she proceeds to go on about how the guys just wanted to have sex with all the women and it didn't benefit the women at all. It was so weird and Sister Hoese was trying to help her understand why there was polygamy, and she just wasn't getting it. Then we showed her a picture of Christ in the Americas and talked about the Bible and the Book of Mormon and how, if we come to know the Book of Mormon is true, we know God has called prophets to lead us on the earth once again. She literally cannot understand the difference between the Bible and the Book of Mormon. It's so frustrating. Like we brought a Bible and a Book of Mormon and held them in our hands and were like, "This is the Bible. A record of the Jews and the life and teachings of Christ. This is the Book of Mormon. A record of the inhabitants of the ancient Americas and their dealings with God and teachings of the gospel of Jesus Christ." She still thought the Book of Mormon was just some book written by Joseph Smith that was just his take on the Bible. So frustrating. Anyway, we did our best to testify and teach and allow the Spirit to be there, but Connie just won't listen, and she talks the entire time, and it's just hard haha. But hopefully one day she will read the Book of Mormon and feel the Spirit witness to her it is true, and then she will realize what we've taught her is true and will bless her life! But until then, not sure what's going to happen with her. After that we weekly planned and then we were supposed to have a lesson with Cassondra on campus, but she didn't show up (later found out her mom came up to visit and she forgot to cancel), so we knocked doors for 2 hours before dinner. It rained really hard Friday morning and then the sun came out and it was 92 with like 85% humidity. So we knocked doors from 4-6 pm, and basically sweated our heads off for two hours and no one talked to us haha. It was good though, and we had fun, just one of those days where people weren't interested! We had dinner with the Bridensteins after that and then we had a lesson with Sister Hagen and Brother Charter. Sister Hagen is this lady we had never met and decided to stop by last week. She is less active because of health issues, so we set up a lesson with her for Friday night. She absolutely loved having us over. She said she hardly ever gets visitors, and so it was awesome to just talk with her and socialize I guess. She was adamant that we come by regularly to visit her, so we are probably going to start doing that weekly! Brother Charter is also going to give her rides to church now, which is awesome! After that we had the best lesson with LJ we've had by far. We went over the gospel of Jesus Christ again and he remembered quite a bit of it. He also was way more focused and everything just went super smoothly. He wants us to get him a big print Book of Mormon so he can start reading the real one since he read the children's one in like a week haha. So we are getting one of those for him soon!
Saturday we knocked doors in the morning and met quite a few cool people and gave out like 4 Books of Mormon. The last house we knocked on was awesome. So we knocked on the door and I could hear a football game on tv through the door. So this older gentleman answered and I said, "Hey! We are the missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We are sharing a message about Jesus Christ, that his church and gospel have been restored to the earth by a prophet named Joseph Smith." He cut me off and told me he wasn't super interested. So I asked him who was playing on tv? He proceeds to open the door and invite us in to watch football!! It was all I could do to not cry tears of joy. Anyway, we went in and sat down to watch and started talking to him about his life and stuff. His name was Bill and he's 94-years-old and lives alone because his wife passed away recently. He is Catholic and a way nice man! He said it gets pretty lonely around the house being by himself, so we told him we'd come visit him! He seemed pretty stoked about that. We started talking about what we do as missionaries and gave him a Book of Mormon, Plan of Salvation pamphlet and had a great prayer with him, too! He invited us back for next Saturday, so hopefully we can watch some of conference with him (and college football jk haha). So it was way cool to meet Bill! After lunch and comp study we went to campus again to try our luck and talked to a decent amount of people. Campus wasn't popping like it usually is during the week, but we gave out a few Books of Mormon and a lot of pass along cards. After that we did some stop bys down in the ghetto part of St. Cloud. Not a lot of people were home, but we did get in contact with this lady named Sarah who is a potential, and she followed us on Facebook, so that was good! After that we knocked some doors and stopped by a few more people and then had some dinner at our place. After dinner we knocked this street up in north Sauk Rapids and most people weren't super stoked to meet us, but we met this nice dude and his red bone hound named Otis. I got a picture with Otis because one of my favorite books ever is "Where the Red Fern Grows", so I had to get a photo haha. After knocking, it started pouring right when we got done, and luckily we had a lesson with Flora at the church on Facebook scheduled. We taught about serving in the church and doing member missionary work. She told us she had a friend at school she had been talking to about the church, so we encouraged her to continue to do so, and if her friend was interested to give her our number or Facebook or whatever! After that we had coordination with Brother Charter and then called it a night.
Sunday morning we had coordination meeting with the Bishop, and I guess my blood sugar got low during it becaues I have a hazy recollection of the meeting, and then I remember eating yogurt at our apartment like 30 minutes after the meeting got done. Elder Meyer did a good job realizing I was low and drove me home and fed me granola bars and yogurt and bananas! So I kind of came out of my low blood sugar haze and it was like 11:15 am and I was like, "Why are we at home and why am I eating yogurt?" Anyway, my blood sugar was 40, which is weird because I've been lower before and have been fine. But all is well now. Not sure why it went low, I ate the same thing for breakfast and took the same amount of insulin I always do. But anyway, I'm alive and well haha. Anyway, after I was in my right mind, we went back to church and had Ward Council and it was good! Sacrament Meeting was awesome, even though we only had one investigator there, Dan Smith. After church we had the ward potluck and it was super good! Lots of soup and salad so I had a ton of salad haha. I forgot to mention that Elder Meyer and I taught primary to the 5-6 year old class and it was pretty fun! They are very energetic and the Primary Presidency gave us lots of treats to keep them on task haha. But it was fun and went well. After the potluck we had a lesson with a less active family down in Becker, so we went to Clear Lake first to stop by Rebecca. She wasn't home and her husband told us to come back in 10 minutes and he would talk to us. So we knocked some doors in Clear Lake and while we were like 200 yards from the car, it just started pouring. Like raining buckets of water on us. So we sprinted back to the car and by the time we got there our shirts and pants were completely soaked through. And go figure, as soon as we got in the car it quits raining like 10 seconds later. So we were soaked to the bone and then talked to Rebecca's husband, and he very politely told us to never come back because they already had a church they went to. So that kind of sucked, but hopefully she reads the Book of Mormon and feels it is good and true! After that we went to Becker to have a lesson with the Duke and Callan families. They live in the same house and are both kind of less active, but are way cool families. So we had a lesson about the atonement of Jesus Christ with them, and watched this Mormon message called "Lifting Burdens". It's really good and I would encourage everyone to watch it! We also sang "I Stand All Amazed" with them because singing brings the Spirit, even if you are awful at singing like me. So it was good and the Spirit was definitely there! After that we stopped by Dan Duncombe in Becker and shared a quick message with his family about general conference and how God has called living prophets and apostles to teach us and speak to us! We invited them to watch conference this weekend, so hopefully they do because Dan's brothers and parents are all active! After that it was like 8:20 pm, so we headed back home to good old Sauk Rapids and called it a week.
On Friday we were at the church and I was running in the parking lot. I was running like imaginary plays and then scrambling or running the ball like 40-50 yards. There is a high school like a half mile from the church and I could hear the Friday night football game going on. I kind of checked out and had some good times reminiscing hearing the crowd at Hansen Field in Smithfield on Friday nights. It was fun for me to be able to relive some plays from the "high school glory days" haha. Still under the Friday night lights, they were just church parking lot lights and I was a missionary. As I thought back on high school I realized how grateful I was to be able to be where I was at that moment in time. Serving the Lord and sharing His gospel with those who are looking for it! Nothing will ever be able to replace the experience of serving a mission. It has helped me in so many ways and built my foundation of faith 100x. I strongly advise all young men to serve missions and to put your heart and soul into it. God will open doors you never thought possible and if you sacrifice school, football, girlfriends, jobs, whatever, God will bless you so much for it. It's a small sacrifice in the grand scheme of things, and you will never regret your decision to serve the Lord. It's a privilege and blessing to be out here! Love you all and hope you have a great week! Congrats to my Mavs and Cats this week both getting the W's. Keep up the good work. Thanks for all the prayers and support, seriously couldn't do it without them. Also happy birthday to my sister, Addi, and Dad! Love you both so much and hope you had great birthdays!
Much love,
Elder Beach
#MavUp #10
Me and Otis.
Working hard on keeping in shape.
The delicious taco salad I had.
Lunch at Qdoba.
