Elder Beach Minnesota Minneapolis Mission: Miracles in Nokomis

Hello to all my family, friends, and coaches back home, at school, and serving around the world! Hope you all are having a great week and enjoying life and just loving whatever you’re doing right now! I know I sure am! This week has been great! We’ve seen some cool miracles and had a good week of finding and had a few people at church as well So. let’s get this party started:

Monday was P day and Elder Peterson needed a haircut so the Richfield Hermanas cut his hair. After that we went to Mall of America and walked around and did a little shopping. I found the same pair of Nikes that got stolen when I was in Hutch for $32 at Nordstrom Rack, so I jumped on those really quick haha. We also got matching floral ties for MLC the following day haha. After that we went to the church and played some ping pong with some other Elders and finished up emailing. We were supposed to have a giant snow storm on Monday, and they actually cancelled school because of it. But it didn’t start snowing until like 5 pm. So everyone in the zone basically confined themselves indoors until the end of the day even though there literally was no snow on the ground. Elder Peterson and I were a little sad because no one wanted to do anything on p day. We literally would call teams and be like, “Hey, want to go to the Hicken's? Or Mall Of America?” They’d be like, “Nah, it’s snowing pretty bad.” (Elder Beach looks out the window, sees absolutely no snow anywhere, proceeds to hang up the phone.) I’ve come to realize that people in Minnesota talk big about winters here, but in reality, they freak out when it gets really cold or “snows a lot”. It was funny because it did snow like 6 inches, but didn’t snow until Monday night. So Monday night our cars got grounded due to the 6 inches of snow on the ground, so Elder Peterson and I walked around and did stop bys and then walked to our appointment with the Ludwigs. They’re a younger couple that referred themselves like 5 months ago and had been taught a little bit by the other Elders. We got the privilege of teaching them Monday night. They are Lutheran and just want to learn about the Mormon church teachings just for information. They have some interesting beliefs and we had quite the lesson with them. Basically they just started asking about what you need to do to go to the Celestial kingdom, so we shared some stuff out of D&C 76 and talked about the doctrine of Christ. Then they’re like, “We believe all you have to do to be saved in heaven is confess Jesus Christ as your savior.” I was like, “So let’s say I’m a rapist serial killer. I go my whole life raping and killing people and then right before I die I say, “I accept Christ as my Savior”. So I’m going to heaven or no?” They’re like, “Oh yeah, you’ll go to heaven for sure because you accepted Jesus as your Savior!” We were like, “Nooooo, that isn’t how it works people.” So we got into this little debate about it and then Elder Peterson is like, “Ok, let’s open up the Bible to Acts 2.” So we read where Peter teaches that you need to repent, be baptized, and receive the Holy Ghost to receive salvation. As soon as we read it you could just see the gears turning in their heads and we literally just sat there in silence for 30-40 seconds waiting for them to respond. They had nothing to respond to it, so we just shared our testimonies and called it good for the night. On the way out, Elder Peterson was like, “That was the most Bad-A moment of my mission hehe.” Good stuff!

Tuesday morning was MLC in Bloomington. We have a lot of ZLs and STLs that have been called back into leadership after being released. Most of the ZLs and STLs go home with Elder Peterson and myself or one transfer after us. It’ll be interesting to see if there are new faces at the next MLC because I know President isn’t really sure who to call for new ZLs and stuff haha. There are like 3 zone leaders, including myself, who have gotten called back into ZLing, which usually doesn’t happen. So I guess we will see. MLC was pretty good! The APs gave a really good training on characteristics of a good leader from examples in the scriptures, so that was pretty cool. I’ve been studying that a lot this week. So, yeah! MLC was good, lots of sisters shedding tears, lots of people trying to make more rules that make no sense, and some good laughs from Elder Peterson as well. So it was good! After MLC we had a quick lesson with Steph. She had a lot of questions about what the Book of Mormon was and where it came from. We answered her questions and invited her to read it and pray about its truthfulness. She said she would and we are meeting with her this Tuesday as well! After that we had some dinner and then after dinner we did a few stop bys and then had a super good lesson with Eli, the dude we found like our first day here. We knocked on the door and he let us in and we had like a 2 hour lesson with him and his cousin, Ryan. At this point I feel like Ryan might have more potential than Eli, so it was sweet we got to meet with them both! Ryan was just playing video games when we got there and the more we talked to Eli, the more Ryan became engaged in what we had to say! He actually turned off his video games so he could be part of the discussion. It was sweet! Eli basically just pulled up an anti-Mormon website when we got there and asked a bunch of questions off of that. We answered all of them pretty easily and used scriptures to back them up, so he liked that, too. Ryan had a lot of questions about just random stuff and then started asking a lot about the Plan of Salvation. We had to go because it was like 9:15 pm, so we set up to meet this Tuesday evening. I’m excited to meet with them again. We’ve talked to Ryan a little bit on Facebook this week as well. He’s a cool dude and seems pretty solid!

Wednesday morning we went to the Waconia district meeting at the Minnetonka chapel. We haven’t been to one of their district meetings yet, so we figured it would be worth a trip out there! It was really good and we got to know people in the district better, so that was good. After that everyone went to Arby’s for lunch. Elders Gabrielson, Seng, and Wang got the “meat mountain” which is a $10 sandwich that has every single kind of meat on it. Basically a heart attack. The thing was huge! I really have grown to dislike fast food. I just feel nasty after I eat it. Subway is great, Panda Express is great, but like Arby’s, Taco Bell, McDonald’s, etc. just make me feel nasty. I’ve really cut down on my fast food consumption and will continue to do so when I get home. I would advise it to all people. After that we helped Sister Wind and her husband clean out their house because they’re moving. They’re hoarders, so it was a disaster to say the least (pics included). I don't know how people can live in houses like that. Basically all we did was move stuff from their bedroom and attic into boxes in the main room of the house. So we didn’t really clean much haha. The house is condemned and Elder Peterson was like, “I would just grab anything of value and then pay for a gallon of gas and a match and burn the place down!” I thought that was funny haha. We found like almost $200 cash in books on their book shelf. Pretty nuts! After that we had dinner and then stopped by a few less actives and had a lesson with Theodes Scott. This lesson went really well. We taught him the restoration because he had some more questions about it, and after he’s like, “I just can’t believe that Joseph Smith saw God face to face.” So we pulled out like 2-3 biblical references about people seeing God face to face. He was like, “Man, I don’t know the Bible as well as I think I do...” I feel like pretty much everyone we talk to is like that haha. I don’t feel like I even know the Bible that well, but I know it a lot better than some people we talk to that claim to know it inside and out. We invited him to read 2 Nephi 31 and Alma 34 to answer the questions he had of “What does God want me to do with my life?” This week we will be following up on those with him or reading them with him if he hasn’t read them yet! So that was good!

Thursday we exchanged with the APs and I worked in our area with Elder Nelson. That was really fun and we had a great time and saw a lot of miracles! We helped Sister Wind out again, and this time we found about $800 cash in another book shelf we cleaned out. There was mouse crap all over in it and in the books and it was pretty nasty. After that we tracted some town homes and found a whole bunch of really solid people! It was great. We gave out a few Books of Mormon and had some solid conversations with some people. The first guy we met was from Russia and I can’t remember his name, but he was so nice and so impressed with us that he gave us each an orange and gave me a little carving of Christ from Russia. It was pretty sweet! It was really cool meeting him and I was grateful for his kindness. It made my day! After tracting we went home and had some dinner and I made my special of chicken, broccoli and sautéed mushrooms. Elder Nelson loved it, so that was good. After that we had a huge list of less actives to stop by, so we started whittling through that and got about half way done on it. We were heading back up to the church around 8:50 pm to exchange back, and the North Elders called and said they were stuck in a snow bank in the North part of their area. So we drove up there and pushed them out, and we got stuck, too, in the process. Pretty funny! All in all it was a solid day and I was happy to see some finding miracles.

Friday we had the Spanish district meeting in the morning and then did some weekly planning until dinner. We had dinner with the Ramseys again, and they made this really good tempura shrimp stir fry over rice. It was super good! Haha more on this later. So after dinner we knocked some doors for about an hour or so and found 3 new investigators! It was awesome! We met some really cool people and hopefully we can continue to teach them in the future. After that we kept working on our list of less actives to stop by. The next lady on the list was Rebecca Gilgen. We read her teaching record and it said she was a "do not contact" and she was in a relationship with a woman. When we pulled up to their house, I really had to pee, and Elder Peterson was like, “Let’s just go to a gas station and not stop by them.” I was like, “Eh, we are here, let’s just see how it goes!” So we knock on the door and this older gentleman answers and is like, “Elders! Come on in!” So we are like, "Ok...." Anyway, long story short, Rebecca Gilgen is Cindy Lacayo’s sister that we were in the Hill Cumorah Pageant with! The Gilgens who were there were her parents, and I guess Cindy Lacayo texted them and told them I was serving in the Lake Nokomis ward and to watch for me while they were there house sitting. And then I showed up! haha So once we got that figured out, it was super funny and cool! We did some pictures with them and it was really cool! I don’t think it was by accident that we happened to stop by right then!

Saturday Elder Peterson had food poisoning and puked his guts out all night Friday night and Saturday morning, so we didn’t do much Saturday. I did a lot of studying and watched some videos on gospel library, too. Saturday morning we did get out for a little bit and found a new investigator, so that was good! After that he wasn’t feeling too great, so we had the North Elders come do a quick exchange so I could get out of the apartment for a while! I went with Elder Hickman and we did some stop bys in this super ghetto part of Minneapolis, and then went to Aldi really quick so I could get some stuff to make dinner for everyone at our place! I made the “Beach Special” of chicken and fish, broccoli and sautéed mushrooms. It was a hit once again. After that Elder Peterson was still feeling pretty gross until about 7:30 pm, so we did a few stop bys and then came home and he just went to bed. So Saturday was kinda rough, but we found a new investigator and I got to improve my cooking skills!

Sunday was a hoot and half. So at church we had 2 investigators show up who were in the area book! We got to talk to both of them and one is a part member family so we are going to visit them in the next few weeks! Haha after church we had choir practice and that was nuts. Our choir is very amateur if you catch my drift, and this one dude in the choir thinks it’s Carnegie Hall or something and was getting pretty fired up at everyone because we suck at singing and can’t read music that well. Then just the women were supposed to sing and he’s just going ham on his part and we were like, “Dude, it’s the females only right now!” Anyway, he was taking it a little too seriously I thought. After church we did some stop bys of people on our less active list and we were supposed to have like 3 lessons back to back to back, but all of them fell through so that kinda sucked, but we did some tracting and didn’t really meet anyone super interested. Haha so for dinner we got fed by none other than the choir dude! It was actually a really good dinner and we talked to him a lot about his mission and stuff. He’s a nice dude and by the time we left he wasn’t upset about our lack of musical talent haha. So that was good! After dinner we stopped by less actives and then 2x2 all their houses. That means you knock 2 doors on each side of their house. We met this really funny German Shepherd dog who wanted to play with us really bad haha. We had minimal success contacting less actives, but we met some nice people knocking doors and had a good time. We go to the church at 8:30 pm to do numbers and training evals for the week. We texted the zone and asked them to send in numbers by 8:30 pm at the latest. One team sent theirs in at 3:30 pm and some others sent theirs in at 5 and 5:30 pm. I was like, “Dudes, there’s 5 hours left in the day! Get to work. The week ain’t over yet!” The team that sent their numbers in at 3:30 pm was like, “Sorry guys, we got goosed this week.” And they had 0’s on every single key indicator. I was like, “Get out there and knock some doors and find some people! It’s freaking 3:30 pm. You go till 9 pm!” Man, I was a little upset with that haha. But I know that team worked all the way till 9 pm, so I was proud of them for that!

Well, it’s been a great week here! We hit or exceeded all of our key indicator goals for this week, so that was great! The work is picking up slowly but surely, just gotta keep working hard! I’ve been able to study a lot about leaders this week. I love learning about Captain Moroni, Alma, Mormon and other leaders in the scriptures. The greatest leader of all, though, is Jesus Christ. He is our perfect example of how to invite others to follow you and then work with them, teach them and show them what to do while you’re beside them every step of the way. He is my ultimate example, and I hope we can each strive to emulate his example more each day. I know I’m a long way from perfection, but I hope one day I can get there with His help! Love you all, have a great week, prayers up from MN!

Much love,

Elder Beach

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