Howdy to all my fam, friends and coaches back home, at school and serving the Lord around the world! Hope you’re all doing well and enjoying whatever phase of your life you are in! I’m so happy to be here in Minnesota and be sharing the restored gospel of Jesus Christ that I have come to love so dearly! The last 23 months haven’t necessarily been the best of my life but they have for sure been the best for my life. This week I’d like to just share some cool miracles we had and also some fun stories and not so much a day by day thing like I usually do.
One of my favorite things about Minnesota is the members here. They are some of the greatest people I’ve ever been able to associate with. Just a quick two stories on this: last Sunday, Brother Parsons grabbed us and was like, “Hey! I’m cooking this week, come over Monday and we will have some brats and grill a little bit!” We were like “Sweet, we will be there!” So on Monday we got to have brats and some good food with Brother Parsons and his family. We were able to have a great discussion about President Nelson’s talk on revelation and shared some experiences we have each had, and it was really awesome to just be able to spend time with them and feel the spirit.
So the coolest part of our week this week was Thome’ Nicocelli go baptized! He’s been investigating the church for about 6 months. He’s known about the LDS church for nearly 20 years. He basically was a dry Mormon and lived basically all the same standards we live as members of the church. Originally he wanted to join the church to find a “blonde Mormon wife and have 10 kids with her.” He quit meeting with the Elders for a few weeks when I first got to the area and for the last 4-5 weeks he’s just been on fire. He epitomizes “feasting on the words of Christ.” It is so awesome to see his growth in the gospel. The members of the Lake Nokomis ward have been instrumental in helping Thome’ in his conversion to the gospel. Elder Bearss has been a beast with joint teaching and being a role model for Thome’ to follow. Brother Shaffer baptized Thome’ on Saturday and Elder Bearss confirmed him on Sunday at church. The Elders Quorum has done a great job of fellowshipping him and he already has ministering brothers and is getting set up so he can be a minister to others as well. Thome’ is amazing and seeing his progression in the gospel and his love for Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ has been an inspiration to me. It’s been even more proof of the power of the Book of Mormon and the restored gospel to not only change lives, but to bring us to Christ! It was such a blessing to be able to be a small help to Thome’ with his decision and effort to “come into Christ and be perfect in Him.”
On Sunday after church, Elder Akins and I biked over to the northeast part of our area. We have a ton of members over there that nobody knows anything about so we are helping the ward sort through the list of people. We stop by each member and then knock 2-5 doors around each member we stop by. We were able to share 3 Books of Mormon and find 2 new investigators in 3 houses. So we did 3 member stop bys and at each one when we knocked a few doors we found someone who was excited to hear the message that God is speaking to us through prophets and that His church is on earth today. We met a man name D'Mar who was at home watching basketball while his girlfriend and kids were at church. We talked to him about the Book of Mormon and shared Moroni 10:4-5 with him and testified that he could know for himself the truth of our message, just like we know of it’s truthfulness for ourselves. He was so excited to receive more of the word of God. He told us, “It would be disrespectful for me to turn this book down! I’m excited to read it!” He told us he would read Moroni chapter 10 and pray to know if it is true! It was sweet! After that we met a college age guy named Tegan. He told us he was atheist but that he was studying a lot of religions right now. He said he still didn’t know if there was a God or how to know absolute truth. (Back story) We had Brother and Sister Lankton write their testimonies in the front cover of some Books of Mormon for us to give out while tracting. I had Brother Lankton's and it was my only one left. He had written that you can know that God lives and loves you as you read the Book of Mormon as part of his testimony. I shared it with Tegan and he was really intrigued by it. We also shared Moroni 10:4-5 with him and told him, “You can know the truth of all things, by the power of the Holy Ghost.” That’s what we are promised in verse 5! Tegan said he would start reading it and we could come back next Sunday and share some more with him! Sunday was such a fun day, just being out, talking to people, sharing the gospel, and bearing my testimony to those we met. Not everyone we talked to wanted to listen, but as we testified I knew the spirit was there and hopefully somewhere along the way they will remember the feelings they had while talking to us!
On Friday we got a service referral from a lady who is here doing an internship for a photographer in our area. The photographer had like 20 yards of dirt they needed help moving so Elder Akins and I did like 15 wheelbarrows full of dirt moving for them and then shoveled like 5 feet deep of dirt off the sidewalk and made a path so people could walk through it! The lady who referred them was an RM from Provo and she was out here working with them. So she was there helping too, and we were able to talk a lot about missionary work and the church with them. It was fun to serve and teach at the same time! That is my favorite part of missionary work is serving others. It’s awesome! After that we got to serve at the VA! Haha this week we had lunch with them and played some board games and just visited them for a while. They have the greatest hearts and I love talking to them. We also did a little music time thing. Hermana Nissinen played the piano for all of us and this one guy started taking all his clothes off while she was playing so like 3 staff members had to wrestle him and get his clothes back on. It was quite funny haha.
Elder Peterson and I started “MyPlan” on Tuesday, which is this thing you do your last transfer to prepare you to go home. This week were to read through our patriarchal blessing and look for promised blessings, warnings, and Christlike attributes/things your Heavenly Father wants you to become. That was probably one of my favorite studies I’ve done on my mission. One thing that really stood out to me was that I will have lots of moments in my life where I will have to choose between my will and the Lord's will. Doing the Lord's will is not always easier, but it said I will be able to find true, enduring happiness as I humbly submit to the will of the Lord. What a cool promise that is! I’m so grateful that we have a Father in Heaven who loves us and speaks to us so often. We only have to listen. I’m thankful for our prophet, Russell M. Nelson. I know that he was called and prepared by the Lord and that he is truly a prophet of God. I know the Book of Mormon is true and we can truly get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts than by any other book. I know this for myself because I have read it many times and felt a strong desire to change things in my life to draw closer to my Savior each time I read it. I’m so very grateful for the atonement of Jesus Christ and for repentance. I fall short of what I would like to be every single day. There are times where I’m just like, “Man, what are you doing?” I’m grateful that through the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and his Atonement for each of us, that I can be forgiven for my shortcomings, weaknesses, and sins, and be comforted in my afflictions and strengthened by the Lord. This truly is a gospel of peace and hope. I know it is true!
I love you all and hope you have a great week! Thanks for the prayers and emails, I love hearing how everyone is doing back home. Can’t wait to see you all soon!
Much love,
Elder Beach
Thome's baptism.
Showing off our boots.
Quite the contraption we came upon.
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