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! This week has been pretty hectic and crazy with transfers and all that, and my area book from Rochester is gone, so I will do my best to fill in on all the details. We’ve had quite the adventurous time here in Lake Nokomis so far, and Elder Peterson and I have about a laugh a minute haha. It’s been great and I’m so excited for this transfer. The ward is great and there’s a lot of work to do in the area!
So Monday was p day and I found out Elder Peterson and I were going to be zone leading together, so we video chatted and shed some tears of joy together. We played some basketball with some young men in the ward because it was President's Day so they didn’t have school. We also went to HuHot for Elder Bowman’s birthday! Happy 20th my man! We had dinner with the Smith family Monday night. They live way out in Eyota, which is like 20 minutes East of Rochester. When we got there it was a nuthouse, and there were like 7 kids there just going crazy. So we had a quick dinner and then Sister Smith started asking us all these questions about the Priesthood and then just kind of lost it. She just went off about how people in the church are so hypocritical and how her home teacher is just like “over the top on everything” and all this crazy stuff. She basically just vented to us for like over an hour. At the end, literally the only thing I felt prompted to say was, “Would you like us to give you a Priesthood blessing?” She said, “Yes, I would love that.” So I got to give her a Priesthood blessing and it was one of the coolest blessings I’ve been able to give to someone. I remember I said some things that I felt really weird saying. I was like, “Why does God want me to say that?” Haha but it ended up being just what she needed to hear and it was a great testimony builder for me to say the words the spirit put into my mind and not fight them or question them. It was about time to head back to Rochester after that so we stopped by a few people in Dover but nobody was home, so we headed back and called it a night!
Tuesday we basically just visited people the whole day to say good-bye. We went to Chatfield to say good-bye to Sister King. She was super sad we were leaving. I’m going to miss her. She was such a sweet lady! After that we stopped by to see Dennis really quick and he was pretty sad we were both leaving. We told him to keep meeting with the missionaries and reading the Book of Mormon. He said he would give the new Elders a “fair shot”. Dennis is awesome. I’m really going to miss him. After that we stopped by the Wesmans to say good-bye to them. They’re awesome. I’ve really enjoyed getting to know them and serving their family. Then we had “Taco Tuesday” at the Oesterles and it was great! Their kids were super sad to have us leave. Their son, Asher, went and locked the door and said we couldn’t leave. We had a laser gun war with them in the basement and they loved it. The guns were pretty sensitive to anything that hit them, so I was getting killed off of laser beam rebounds off the window. It was a little frustrating, not gonna lie, but it was fun! After that we said good-bye to the Joslins and the Mancinis and called it a night.
Wednesday we just spent the whole day packing and cleaning up the apartment and making sure the area book was all updated and ready to go for the new Elders. We went to basketball Wednesday night as usual, and Sam Good came with us. He’s a Priest and is such a great kid. He’s awesome. We had a huge turnout to basketball. Like 14 guys showed up and the Austin Elders came up to sleep over before transfers. So we had a lot of guys there! It was way fun and I had a blast. No nose injuries this week, so that was good! We had a good time with the Austin Elders after because they slept over with us. Haha we were all just sprawled over the floor and the beds. It was pretty funny!
Thursday morning we got up and there was no hot water in the apartment. So we all took ice cold showers ️and then packed up the car and headed up to Bloomington. We got there a little late because Elder Bowman was having some stomach problems so we had to stop a few times on the way up haha. When we got there, we parked the car and then here comes Elder Peterson at full sprint and dives into our car through the door to give me a hug haha. We are super excited to be serving together. It’s a party for sure. So nobody knew what car we were supposed to take, so we finally tracked down our car, got all our stuff loaded in it, and then got our apartment keys and stuff and headed out. Elder Hickman, who was just zone leading here, is opening Lame Nokomis North Area and training, so he’s been helping us out a ton with everything. So we got to our new apartment and it is literally the “Taj Mahal” of missionary apartments. It’s insane. Like we feel bad our apartment is so nice. It’s got 2 fitness centers, real weights, rowing machine, barbell, squat rack, pool, game room, and then the apartment is just insanely nice. So we are pretty content with our current living arrangements haha. We had dinner with the Brodegards on Thursday night and they were pretty nice. Their kids were super funny haha. After dinner we just got our area book all set up and our phone and stuff. We literally didn’t have an area book, so Elder Hickman has to send us like all the potentials and stuff one at a time from his area book, so it took forever haha.
Friday morning we went to the Spanish District Meeting and then we accounted with the APs right after that. Then we were going to do weekly planning, but basically all we got done was setting goals. We had to work on the transfer calendar and get everyone’s exchanges put in and get it all finalized, and that took like 2.5 hours. Then our area book deleted like pretty much everything, so we were trying to figure out what to do with that and it was just a big hassle. I’ve been super frustrated the last few days because we just have a bunch of administrative stuff we’ve had to do and haven’t done a lot of missionary work. Friday night we had dinner with the Bearss and the North Elders, too. They made ribs and bunch of veggies and stuff and it was so good. Sister Bearss made some bomb guacamole and I ate a bunch of that haha. After that we were supposed to have a lesson with a less active RM, but it fell through so we went to the church to meet up with the North Elders because Elder Hickman was going out with a member to visit less actives. So we ZLs and Elder Jamieson (greenie) trio'd it for the night. It was pretty fun. Elder Jamieson is super green, so we took him tracting to break him in a little bit. We knocked till about 8:45 pm and didn’t have much luck until the very last door. This college age guy named Eli answered and we had a great conversation with him. He asked us about how prophets are called and how we know if the prophet is the true prophet. Elder Peterson and I answered all the questions and it literally was like something you’d see in “The District.” Like you couldn’t script it any better. Eli took a Book of Mormon and said we could come back Tuesday night, so that was sweet. After we left, Elder Jamieson was like, “Man, you guys are so good at talking to people. You’re just like....seasoned.” I was like, “Yeah, when you’ve been in the frying pan of missionary work for about 20 months, you tend to be relatively seasoned!” We had a good chuckle at that. So it was a pretty good first tracting experience for Elder Jamieson.
Saturday was basically a joke of a day. So we had a snow storm the night before, and apparently they have these things called “snow emergencies” here where you can only park on one side of the street. We didn’t know about this thing obviously because we’ve both been in the sticks for the last 8 months. So anyway, we go to an appointment with the Iversons. Brother Iverson got baptized last fall, so we are doing new member lessons with him. So we are getting to know them, and right when we are going to share the lesson, Brother Iverson goes “Your car is moving....” So we run outside and our car is gone. We have no clue where it went, who took it, why, etc. There were cars parked literally 50 feet behind us that didn’t get towed. There’s no signs anywhere, and we were like, “What the heck?” So we finished the lesson and then had the North Elders come pick us up and take us to this ghetto impound lot in north Minneapolis. So we waited in line for like 45 minutes to get our car out and we get up to the window and we were like, “We have no clue why our car got towed?” He’s like, “I don’t know either, but I need ID and a credit card in my hand and I need it now.” (Proceeds to slap his hands). He was kind of a jerk about it all, so we weren’t the happiest. We also found out they gave us a parking ticket so they could legally tow us. It was a joke! So after that, Elder Peterson got thrown in a van and driven into the ghetto to go pick up the car. I just had to sit at the impound lot for a while and wait for him to get back. It was a little nuts because I didn’t know where he was. I thought he could have been dead in a ditch somewhere, so I just prayed he would return to me alive and well. Thankfully he was returned alive and well. After that we told President Barney and he was pretty mad at the tow people because we literally got towed for no reason. There were no signs that said we couldn’t park there, and cars parked 50 feet behind us who got no tickets or towed. It was so dumb. So Elder Peterson is getting reimbursed from the mission I guess. We are also contesting our ticket tomorrow. After that we had to work on the zone focus with the STLs, so that took about an hour and half and then we got like 30 minutes of weekly planning done and then had dinner with this older couple in the ward whose name I forgot. They were super nice though, and we shared a dinner message about charity and had a great chat about how when we develop charity we will have a greater desire to share the gospel with others. It was fun! After that we had a pass off lesson with a less active RM named Jake Stapely and his girlfriend, Bailey. The North Elders taught a super awkward restoration lesson. I’m pretty sure it was Elder Jamieson's first lesson and it was a little rough, but he will be good to go in no time. Elder Hickman’s a good trainer. Anyway, Jake Stapely is a way cool guy and we are going to get him active again. After that we finished up weekly planning and called it a night.
We had to get up at the crack of dawn on Sunday to get to the stake report meeting in Bloomington with Presidents Kerr and Barney. It went really well for our first Stake report meeting, so hopefully we made a good first impression as ZLs. After that we had church and got to meet most of the ward. Church was super good! The ward is solid, and I’m excited to work with the members here. After church we were supposed to meet with the bishop at 12:15 pm, but that didn’t happen until like 1:15 pm, so we did some studying and planning and then met with the bishopric and talked about people to visit and just got to know some members and stuff. So that was good. After that we headed home and worked on our training for Zone Conference on the topic of desire. We literally just kept hitting a wall with how we wanted to present it and finally the inspiration just started flowing. So we got it pretty much all the way done and then headed to dinner with Sister McLain, the Bearss and the North Elders. It was fun and her grandkids are super funny. We had a good time but were there forever. She is kind of lonely, so she talked a lot and we were there almost 2 hours. We finally were like, “Yeah, we gotta peace out. ” So we headed over to Hopkins to meet with this less active guy named Robert Keck. He’s in a wheelchair but is super cool and has a great testimony. We had a really good discussion with him and shared some of Elder Eyring's talk called, “Mountains to Climb”. He really like it and loved the part about having the foundation of faith in our hearts or else our ability to endure trials will crumble. He said he had experienced that many times in his life! After that we did a few stop bys and then headed to the church to do numbers and training evaluations with the greenies. All of them seem like they’re doing good!
Well, it’s been a good week here in MN. I’m pumped to serve with Elder Peterson and to be in the Lake Nokomis area. I’m grateful to be here in MN at this time, and I love the people here and love the work we are doing. I’ve been studying Christ-like attributes and the Atonement of Jesus Christ a lot the last few weeks and my testimony and understanding of it has increased 10 fold. In Preach My Gospel it has a quote that says, “As your understanding and testimony of the atonement of Jesus Christ increases, so does your desire to share the gospel with others.” I’ve definitely seen that in my own life. As I understand more and more the power and influence the atonement of Jesus Christ has in our lives for the better, it makes me want to share that even more with people and just be like, “Come experience the joy this brings me!” I’m so grateful for my Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ. To say it quite simply, “He’s the man!” Love you all! Hope you have a great week and enjoy the last little bit of winter.
Much love,
Elder Beach
#MavUp #10
Saying good-bye to the Wesmans.
We're going to miss Sister King!
My gourmet lunch I made.
A cool house we tracted into.
Wednesday night basketball with the Clows.
Elder Peterson and I are so happy to be together!
My posterity! (Sons and grandsons!)
