A big hello to all my family, friends and coaches back home, at school, and serving the Lord around the world! Hope this email finds you all doing well and enjoying life! First off, transfers: ELDER ELI PETERSON AND I ARE FINALLY SERVING TOGETHER!! We are so hyped to be serving together. First time since the MTC. Reunited at last haha. I’m so excited! We will be ZLs in the Minneapolis zone, Lake Nokomis ward. Anyway, we’ve had a pretty good week here in Rochester District 1, so let’s get this started!
Monday was p-day as usual. Just played some basketball at the church and did some running and all that! Still doing my best to stay in as good of shape as I can for when I get home haha. Elder Bowman wasn’t feeling the best all day so we called Sister Bearss (the mission nurse) again and she said he had the flu and couldn’t go out for a couple days. So we went to our dinner appointment and that was it for the day. Having my comp being sick is the worst. I just watched some church movies and read the Book of Mormon Monday evening and then did some working out once the day was over.
Tuesday, was pretty much the same story. Elder Bowman still had a cough, sore throat, and chills so we had to stay in again. I almost cried. I watched all of “The District” and watched all the Bible videos and worked out for like 2 hours. I was going nuts inside haha. We went to Walmart to go get some medicine for him in the afternoon and that was a blessing to get out of the apartment for a while haha. I literally was going nuts. It was not good. I was like pacing the apartment and fidgeting with everything haha. Tuesday night we usually have dinner with the Oesterles, but we didn’t go because they have a bunch of little kids and we didn’t want to get them sick. So Brother Oesterle dropped us off a pizza for dinner and then I worked out again and went to bed at like 9:30 pm. Tuesday was a little rough haha.
Wednesday Elder Bowman felt a lot better, so we went out for a whole day Wednesday. We had a lesson scheduled with this former investigator named Jo (lady) in the morning at 10:30 am. Her husband I guess was super opposed to missionaries in the past and was kind of a jerk to them, so that’s why she got dropped. We stopped by a few weeks ago and got a lesson set up with her for that day, so we showed up and guess who answers the door? Her husband. And he was not a nice man haha. He’s like, “You Jehovah's Witnesses?” I was like, “No, we are from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints!” He looked at me like he wanted to kill me and then said, “Get off my property!” And slammed the door.... so that’s how that went! I don’t know why people are so mean. Like seriously. Just say, “Sorry we aren’t interested, have a nice day.” You don’t have to be a total jerk. Oh well! After that we knocked some doors for a little bit and didn’t see much success, but it was nice to just get outside! We had some lunch after that with Bishop Roberts at this Mexican restaurant kinda like Cafe Sabor in Logan. He had a bunch of new move in people on his LDS tools he wanted us to visit this week, so we talked about them and some other people and had a nice lunch. After that we did service at Channel 1 Food shelf, and we were the bread checkers again haha. We actually finished everything that they had as far as bread, so we ended up spending about an hour restacking and organizing all the good bread on shelves and stuff. It was fun! After that we knocked some doors for about 45 minutes before dinner. We met some nice people and some not as nice people. This one lady we knocked into was like, “Yeah, I’ve heard of your church. It’s a cult and you don’t believe in Jesus Christ.” I was like, “Last time I checked we believe in Jesus Christ. I mean we are the Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter-Day Saints.” She’s like, “Well, you don’t believe in the right Jesus Christ.” I was like, “We believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Savior and Redeemer of the world. We believe that it is only through Him that we can find joy and happiness in our lives and return and live with our Father in Heaven again some day. If that’s not the same Jesus Christ you believe in then I’m sorry to hear that!” She literally had no clue what to say. She just stood there for like 5 seconds and then closed the door haha. I hope I at least gave her something to think about. Anyway, after that we had dinner at Chick-Fil-A with Sister Fieck. The Dahlis were also there so we ended up sitting with them, too. It was fun and we had a good time talking about the work and how the Dahli’s daughter is doing on her mission. Sister Dahli said that some of the Elders at the MTC were pole dancing and her daughter was like, “Why the heck are they doing that?” Then Sister Fieck was like, “The only time I’ve ever seen someone pole dancing was on TV. It was this humongous fat lady on America’s Got Talent. I thought it was about the funniest thing I’d ever seen!” Elder Bowman and I both just died laughing. It was hilarious haha. After dinner we stopped by a bunch of people to invite them to basketball and try and set up appointments later in the week. We stopped by this one guy we found tracting like a month ago named David Carson. He took a Book of Mormon from us, so we stopped by to see if he had read it. He had! He had some good questions about where the Book of Mormon fits in chronologically with the Bible so we answered his questions and set up a time to meet him the next day! After that we went to basketball and it was great! An investigator named Duncan that the sisters are teaching brought a bunch of his friends and we ended up having a great discussion with them after basketball. They had a bunch of questions and we were able to answer them and they are all pretty interested in the church now. It was awesome! Only sad thing was I got popped in the nose pretty good again, and it hurt pretty good. The eyes were watering. haha
Thursday morning we had our last district meeting and it went super long. I had Sister Moore give a Safeguards for Using Technology training that was supposed to be about 5-10 minutes and was 25 minutes and then Elder Chen gave a 25 minute White handbook training which usually takes about 2-3 minutes. So by the time it was my turn to go it was like 11:30 am. I shared some stuff from President Barney’s letter this week and then we had a testimony meeting! It was really good and the Spirit was super strong. It was really good even though it went really long. After that we were supposed to meet with this guy we found the night before doing stop bys. His name was Mike and he lived with/where a former investigator used to live. So we show up to his house and as we are walking up to the door this car rolls up and it was Mike and the former investigator we were looking for (Samuel). These dudes are kinda hood rats so Samuel starts saying how Elder Bowman looks like a pimp and needs to drum up some business and stuff. He also used a decent amount of profanity, so it was funny, but not the most productive use of time because they weren’t super interested. They just wanted to tell us about all their antics with the law and having to go to court and stuff. So yeah! After that we had lunch real quick and then had a lesson with David Carson. It went really well! He feels like his church is the original church of Jesus Christ. It’s a Baptist church and he seemed pretty set in his ways with it. He was just curious about the Book of Mormon. He couldn’t seem to understand that it is a record of a group of people from the ancient Americas. He thought it was a “lost book” from the Bible and couldn’t seem to get that it wasn’t. It’s a whole other testament. He also said he couldn’t believe Joseph Smith was a prophet if it didn’t mention him in the Bible. We just shared our testimonies with him and that seemed to hit him pretty good! He’s like, “You can’t know the Book of Mormon is true if it isn’t in the Bible.” I asked him how he knew the Bible was true and he literally couldn’t give me an answer. Elder Bowman then shared his testimony of how he came to know the Book of Mormon was true through reading it and praying about it and receiving an answer from God. David was like, “Yeah, that’s how I know the Bible’s true.” And then I said, “Well, that’s how we know the Book of Mormon is true. Because we’ve read it, prayed about it, and God told us it is true. We are not going to deny the things God tells us are true.” After that he quit arguing with us and actually listened! It was so great because he just shut up and listened and pondered what we said. It was great. You could tell he felt the Spirit, he just kept fighting it. He invited us back for this week, so that’s good! After that we did a bunch of stop bys on the west side of town and nobody was home, so we did some knocking doors and we didn’t find anyone super interested. We knocked up in this kind of secluded area by Bakeel's house. The first 6-7 doors we knocked on nobody was home. After that it was a bunch of Muslims right in in a row. They’re such nice people but just not interested. It’s a bummer. Then we knocked on this older dude's door and he’s like, “Oh I know you guys! I guess you’re the new ones.” We are like, “The new ones....?” He’s like, “Yeah, they been coming around here and meeting with me for about 15 years. Usually it’s an older couple or some older guys.” We realized at this point he was talking about JWs so we were like, “We are from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Or Mormons.” You’d have thought the man saw the devil himself. He’s like “Ohhhh.... ohhhhh noooooo! Not here. Not here,” as he closes the door while crossing us up (the cross thing with your hand). Some people... After that we had some dinner and then we had two lessons set up and confirmed out in Dover and Eyota so we headed out to Dover first and on the way out our 7:45 pm appointment fell through in Eyota. So we were like, “Oh no. Hopefully it isn’t one of those nights.” Well..... it was haha. Dana Schwarze fell through at both houses. Nobody answered at either one we’ve met him at. Then we stopped by this less active lady in Dover who apparently just showed up on our records. She opened the door and was like, “Sorry boys! I’m not a member anymore.” Then slammed the door. After that we just drove around and stopped by people who lived way out in the sticks in our area and didn’t have a lot of luck there either. Anyway, that’s howThursday went!
Friday morning we started weekly planning and then the ZLs called and asked if we could help a member in their ward move some furniture, so we said sure! We called the guy and his name was Josh Duke. I was like, “Man, I know that name from somewhere.” So anyway, we met up with him and it was the Duke's son from Sauk Rapids! He just got home from his mission like 2 months ago. I hadn’t ever met him but now I have and he’s way cool! We helped his friend move some mattresses from her apartment to the Salvation Army. After that we met Dr. Coleville at McDonald’s. We showed up and he’d already eaten a 3 course meal, so we just sat down and listened to a few stories about 85 year old men with ED and other men with other problems relating to their reproductive systems. Dr. Coleville is so funny. He tells us the weirdest stories. Josh Duke offered to take us to lunch, so when things started getting weird with Dr. Coleville, we texted him and were like, “Hey, we will take you up on the lunch offer haha.” So he took us to Chipotle after we finished talking to Dr. Coleville. He just told us a bunch of crazy mission stories. He served in Colorado Springs and that mission sounds nuts. He had some funny stories haha. After that we got weekly planning done and then had a really good lesson with Big John. We watched President Nelson’s talk about the Book of Mormon (from last conference). Big John loved it. Afterwards he was like, “Wow.... I need to read the Book of Mormon.” We were like, “Haha yeah you’re right!” It was awesome and Big John is starting to realize that we do have prophets and apostles on earth today and they are God's representatives and speak what He wants us to hear! After that our lesson with Dennis fell through. So we went downtown to do some contacting. We did an hour of contacting and literally talked to 2 people. But that’s because those 2 people talked to us for 30 minutes each. But this was not a good thing because they were both crazy. So the first guy was out in a super nice coat, nice dress clothes, nice shoes, everything trying to get $41 for a bus ticket. I was like, “Bro, your coat costs like $300. Maybe just sell that and downgrade a little.” I didn’t say that, but I thought it. So anyway, when we contacted him, he was sort of in a bare knuckle brawl with this black dude on the street, so we stepped in and the black dude was like, “You need Jesus! Talk to the Mormons!” Then he ran away so we didn’t get to talk to him unfortunately. Anyway, this dude told us he was a hustler. So he literally just begs for money, but he is actually pretty well off. He pulled out a fat stack of cash from his pocket to show us. So then he starts preaching to us. Like crazy stuff and he starts “speaking in tongues” and all this garbage and we were just like, what the heck is going on? So finally we were just like, “Alright, we gotta go haha.” So he prayed for us to be led by the Spirit and we went on our way. Then we met this even crazier dude who was sitting on a bench. So we started talking to him and he told us he was Timothy, the apostle of Christ. We were like, “Ok......” So I’m pretty sure something was wrong with this guy because he told us a 30 minute story about how he thinks about death a lot and thinks he’s been reincarnated like 20 times on earth. Then he told us he walked 5 miles from his house to sit on this bench because people were trying to butcher him and eat him or something. It was the strangest thing. I literally just sat there and thought, “What would Christ do if he was here right now?” Literally the only thought I had was, “just be kind to him.” So we just kind of talked to him and listened to his stories and stuff. I don't know if anything will happen from our interaction, but you never know. After that we had dinner with the Caspers and they are awesome. They gave Books of Mormon to all their neighbors for Christmas! Super awesome people. After that we did a few stop bys and knocked some doors until about 9 pm. We met this dude who told us the Baptist church was the original church Christ started and that his house was that church. It was pretty interesting to say the least. It was just kind of a weird day haha.
Saturday nobody showed up to the Book of Mormon study, so in the morning we shoveled some driveways because it snowed and knocked some doors. This one guy was out shoveling and I felt impressed to stop and help him, so we ran over to help him and basically got preached to for 30 minutes about how the Bible is the only word of God. He kept calling us kiddos and acting like since he was older, he knew everything. And since he read the Bible and was super well-versed in it, he knew everything. Basically what the whole conversation boiled down to was he, in a very round about way, told us our church was not the true church and that the Pentecostal Church was the original church that Christ established. He didn’t seem to think the fact that Christ was already ascended to heaven made any difference as to whether or not He started the church. We explained that it had already been established long before the day of Pentecost as we read in Matthew 18:17. Then he kept asking us what came first, the chicken or the egg? We were like, what came first, the church of Christ or the day of Pentecost? He didn’t like that much, so we just decided to let him be and peaced out. After that we had some lunch and shoveled some more driveways and then headed to Stewartville for a lesson with Brother Beecher, who’s a super cool less active guy. He grew up in the church, left home, went less active, then met his wife, started dating her (she’s Catholic), he started going back to the LDS church and gained a strong testimony it is the true church. His wife isn’t super ok with the church because she’s super Catholic. Anyway, he’s awesome. He travels for work a ton, so he is hardly ever home and his wife basically said she’d leave him if he attends church. So he’s kind of in a pickle there, but he has a super solid testimony and is a great guy! We shared, “Be Ye Therefore Perfect - Eventually” by Elder Holland and he thought it was great! Such a strong spirit as we watched and he said it was just what he needed to hear. After that we stopped by the Reps and it was Brother Rep's birthday so they had some friends over and were drinking and stuff. We basically ended up just playing with their kids for a little bit and I talked to Esten who’s in 4th grade. He loves art, so he showed me all his art stuff he’s working on. The dude's got some talent. I was impressed with some of his drawings. After that we met Brother Lupton at Chick-Fil-A and had dinner with him. He’s awesome! He and his wife are super young, don’t have any kids, and just way cool. They camped out at Chick-Fil-A to get free food for a year, so he had like 100 free #1’s on a gift card thing. We met a dude who lived down in Spring Valley while we were there who met with missionaries before and wants to again. So dinner was inspired for sure. After that we stopped by a bunch of less actives and knocked this super sketchy apartment building and then called it a night.
Sunday we had church and nobody came this week, unfortunately. Brother Wesman gave a super sweet lesson in Elder's Quorum about football and how it relates to our life and battling the adversary. So I got to help a lot with the lesson haha. It was sweet! I loved it. After church we did a few stop bys, knocked some doors, and had a lesson with Ricky and Mary Ann. Ricky participated a lot this week and it was good! We just had a really basic lesson on our relationship with God and prayer. We felt like we needed to get back to the basics with them because they both have some disabilities and the stuff we had been teaching may be a little confusing for them without a good foundation first. So we taught about that and they both understood everything and Ricky had some great comments about prayers he had had answered. After that we had birthday dinner with the Oesterles because Elder Bowman’s birthday is Monday. That was fun as always. His parents drove down from ND to drop off a cake here. We actually missed them on Saturday by like an hour haha. We almost saw them at our place because they drove by like an hour before we got back from Stewartville Saturday night. Pretty wild! Haha Brother Oesterle wanted to show us a part from “Saturday’s Warrior”. So we watched like the first 20 minutes of it with their family. It’s pretty funny and seems like a Mormon classic I’ll have to watch when I get home! After that we met with the Clows. Jordan, their son who’s 16, just spilled his guts to us about getting high and drinking and he thought he had an STD and all this crazy stuff. It was a little wild. Brother Oesterle and Wesman came too because they’re their home teachers, and Brother Wesman just kept shooting us these odd looks like, “What is happening?” We were just like, “No clue?” Anyway, we had a good heart to heart with them so it was good. Brother Oesterle did most of the talking and stuff, which was good because I didn’t know how to help Jordan with those things. Brother Oesterle works with teens and adults with drug and alcohol problems so he was the right man for the job.
Well, that’s the week folks! I’m sad to leave Roch 1 because I feel like the work is just starting to pick up a little bit, but I’m so hyped to serve with Elder Peterson in Lake Nokomis. I’m really excited. It should be a party. In a good way, of course. Anyway, I love my mission, I’m so grateful to be here right now. I’ve been studying the Atonement of Jesus Christ a lot this week, and one thing I learned that I loved was that everything we’ve ever done wrong or will do wrong has been atoned for already. That gave me so much relief knowing that even though I’m going to mess up and fall short every day, I can still be forgiven and keep moving forward on my eternal progression. There is no sin, misdeed, or wrong that Christ has not already paid the price for. We have but to turn to Him and obey the laws and ordinances of the Gospel for His Atonement to take full affect in our lives. It will heal, uplift, strengthen, change, and purify us so one day we will be able to stand spotless before the Father. I’m grateful for my savior, Jesus Christ, His life, His example, and His endless and matchless love for each one of us. May we each strive to follow Him more each day! I love you all and have a great week!
Much love,
Elder Beach
#MavUp #10
I took Elder Bowman to lunch at HuHot for his birthday. We had fun with an app putting animals on our heads...
Mahi Mahi tacos to make my Dad jealous. :)
