What’s up to my family, friends, and coaches back home, at school, and serving around the world! Hope this email finds you well and enjoying the first part of March. This week has been super good here in Lake Nokomis! We’ve been pretty busy, which has been a nice change of pace for me haha. My last area was pretty slow.
So Monday we had our P day and we went to a member's house in the Eden Prairie Ward with a bunch of Elders in the zone and watched "The Singles Ward" and had some tacos. After that we went to the Hicken's house and played some basketball and pool and hung out for a while! It was pretty fun! I hadn’t been there since I was in Minnetonka, so it was fun to hang out there again. After that we had dinner with the Fuluvaka family. They live right next to Minnetonka's area on the West side of the Lake Nokomis area. We had quite the interesting dinner with them haha. The 3 kids just roasted each other the whole time and Sister Fuluvaka talked to the North Elders about this guy they’re teaching that they’re trying to set up with Sister Fuluvaka. Elder Peterson and I kinda got stuck at the counter just eating by ourselves so it was a little weird haha, but it was fun! After that we knocked some doors for about an hour and half and didn’t really find anyone super solid but we had a good time! Haha this one dude answered the door and was like, “We don’t answer the door to strangers.” Elder Peterson was like, “You just did.....” haha I thought that was pretty funny but the guy just kind of looked confused and shut the door. We then finished up our training for Zone Conference and called it a night.
Tuesday we went to Teppanyaki with a member for lunch and it was so good. It’s one of my fav restaurants here in Minnesota. It’s an all you can eat Chinese buffet with a Mongolian grill and all you can eat sushi. It’s so good! They had some way good fruits and stuff and I love doing the sushi. It was a solid 10/10. After that we did some stop bys and knocked some doors for about 2 hours around our apartment. We did a spirit walk, so you just walk around and knock on whatever doors you feel like you should and talk to everyone that’s outside! We met this lady named Steph who was super cool and took a Book of Mormon and said we could come back this Tuesday! So that was sweet. We talked to a lot of people who wanted to talk about politics as well haha. It was good though, and we made some good contacts with some people and found a few potentials so that was good. After that we had dinner with the Bundys. They’re super cool. Brother Bundy is in the bishopric and Sister Bundy is in the YM presidency. After dinner we met the Anderson family. They’re less active, but they’re super cool so we are going to start working with them and hopefully help them get back to church. After that we were supposed to have a lesson with Eli, whom we found with Elder Jamieson last week, but that fell through and he wasn’t there. Then we were supposed to have a lesson with this other dude we found on Monday night that said we could come back, but he also fell through. We knocked a few more doors on the street the latter dude lived on and called it a night!
Wednesday we had Zone Conference in Lakeville with the Minneapolis and Lakeville zones. So as Zone Leaders, we are in charge of making sure everyone gets to Zone Conference on time and stuff. So we make travel plans of how everyone will carpool and stuff to Zone Conference. So everyone was supposed to meet in Bloomington at 8 am so we could take the APs truck and the 15 passenger van down to Lakeville. Basically half the zone didn’t follow travel plans and it was just a huge fiasco and headache. Everyone made it safely there and on time though. It was just frustrating because we sent out travel plans on Monday and then sent out a text to every single team in the zone saying, “We sent out travel plans, check your emails, and call us if you have questions.” So Wednesday morning rolls around and like 3 teams don’t have a clue what’s going on and we were like, “Look, we sent stuff out Sunday, you should’ve gotten it, and you didn’t let us know if you didn’t get it.” Then people were mad at us for some reason, so it was just a headache and half again. Flashback to Sauk Rapids. But everyone got there on time so it ended up working out. Zone Conference was good. We basically spent 2.5 hours watching safeguard videos we’ve already watched like 3-4 times so everyone could get their smartphones. We’ve already seen them several times because the Zone Leaderss already have smartphones. So it was a little long haha. Elder Peterson and I gave a training on “Having Desire”. President Barney said like half the mission just doesn’t really want to get out and do finding or work when it’s cold or the work is slow. So we got everyone fired up and pumped up to go do some finding and get to work! It was good I think. After Zone conference we did exchanges with the Waconia Elders. I went with Elder Gabrielson in Lake Nokomis and Elder Peterson went to Waconia. We didn’t have anything scheduled so we just did some stop bys and knocked some doors in between. We found this super cool dude named Jose. We taught him about the Book of Mormon and gave him a copy. We got his phone number but he hasn’t responded to anything yet, so we will probably stop by this week. We also had a lesson with Theodes Scott and his brother, Otis. Theodes has been investigating the church for like 10 years and hasn’t progressed a whole ton but I’ve never met him, so we stopped by and found out he broke his leg last week. So we gave him a blessing and talked about the plan of salvation and why we have trials in our lives. We got a return appointment for this Wednesday so that was solid. That was pretty much our night after that!
Thursday morning I had to account with 3 DLs so that took like the whole morning and then we went to Feed My Starving Children with the zone and did service there. We packed like 85 boxes in an hour and half so that was pretty decent. After that we hit up some Chick-Fil-A for lunch and then dropped off the Plymouth Elders and headed to the church to put in people's miles and get our car report done. After that we had a lesson with this lady named Kathy. She’s from Louisiana and grew up Baptist. The Elders tracted into her last summer I think. She’s very charismatic. She loves to talk and we didn’t get to say much during our lesson. We did get to know her very well, so that was good at least! She’s going to Texas this week and then driving to Utah to visit the state with some siblings of hers. So she’ll be out of town for like 3 weeks unfortunately. After that we had some dinner and then we had a pretty sketch encounter with a satanic lady. So we were trying to stop by this less active dude and we couldn’t find his house. We found basically where it was but not like exactly where it was. The street he lived on was also no parking on both sides. So we parked in this duplex parking lot up the road a little bit and walked to where we thought it was. The house didn’t exist, so we walked back to our car. I was backing Elder Peterson out and this old beat up car pulled up right behind our car so I walked over and this lady (I’m pretty sure she was Somalian because she had a hijab on and looked Somalian) was in the car. As soon as I looked into her eyes I just got this sick feeling. It was literally like looking into the eyes of Satan. It scared me so bad. I just like froze up and then she just started asking all these questions about why we were there. I was basically in a panic at that point and just tried to get her to move so we could back up and leave. She finally did and I got the car and Elder Peterson was like, “Dude, what happened out there?” So I told him and I was just like pretty rattled and just felt bad. It was the weirdest thing I’ve ever felt. We just drove around for a while and I was kind of trippin' a little, so Elder Peterson gave me a Priesthood blessing and that helped a lot. It was one of the sketchiest things I’ve had happen on my mission. I’m not even sure why or what happened, but the adversary is real. However, I know that the Priesthood is more powerful and that Heavenly Father will always triumph over the adversary. After that we stopped by some potentials in Hopkins and didn’t have a whole lot of luck with people over there. Most of them were in lockout apartments, so we didn’t have a whole lot of luck getting in contact with them haha.
Friday morning we had the Spanish district meeting and before we all met at this restaurant called Currans that has this $2.49 breakfast special. I didn’t get it because I’m trying to save money and eat good haha. It looked super good though! District meeting was super good! Hermana Winterton gave a really good training on setting realistic but solid goals. It was a really good review for everyone. After that Elder Peterson wanted to go to Taco Bell for lunch so we took the Spanish Elders with us. After that we accounted with the APs and then got going on weekly planning. Weekly planning took forever this week. We went through all our potentials and formers and members and made a new group of focus people we wanted to work with this week. That took a long time just going through all of the people and their teaching records and stuff. We had dinner with the Ramseys and that was pretty funny. Brother Ramsey told us all these super funny stories from his mission in South America. He’s super cool. They used to be in the Sauk Rapids ward like 8 years ago so we talked about some stuff that’s been going on up there and how the ward's doing and all that! After dinner we still had a little bit of weekly planning to finish up and then we knocked some doors for a little bit. We also had a lesson with this potential named Robert. We found him in the area book and called him and he wanted to meet up that day. So we met him at this BBQ joint about 2 miles down the street from the church. He had a running tab on sodas there. He’s in a group home so I’m not sure he’s all the way accountable, but he’s a good guy and likes church, so yeah! We just got to know him a little and taught him the first part of the restoration. So that was good and he also wanted to come to church on Sunday, and he was able to make it to church, so that was money.
Saturday morning we stopped by a bunch of people in the morning and found a new investigator named Heather. She was outside smoking, so we just stopped by and talked to her about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith and stuff. She wasn’t super interested, but she said her mom would be so she told us to come back on Sunday. But then they weren’t there, so that was bummer. After that we had some lunch and then stopped by a few referrals we got. One of them had an address in a strip mall, so that kind of sucked. He also had no phone number either. Then we got a Book of Mormon referral and so we stopped by her house and nobody was there. We had confirmed like 15 minutes before and we showed up and nobody was there. So that was a bummer as well haha. After that we had to get everyone’s February goals put into a spreadsheet and graphs and then get all the March goals put in as well. People for some reason have a hard time sending in stuff when we ask them to, so went spent literally an hour just calling and texting teams to get them to send stuff in. We were a little cheesed after that hour haha. We did a few more stop bys right before dinner and didn’t get to meet anyone we stopped by. We had dinner with Elder and Sister Gadd (who work in the mission office) at the church and that was super good and fun! After that we drove out to the Minnetonka church to play some basketball with Johnny Chapman and some recent converts/investigators from the zone. It was great to see some people I hadn’t seen in like a year! There was a recent convert family there that got baptized in the Minnetonka Ward in December. The Sisters contacted them in a park in July and they got baptized December 1st. They live in our ward but went to the Minnetonka ward the whole time they were getting taught haha. The Sisters kinda kept it on the DL. Anyway, after b-ball when we were heading out, the Dad grabbed me and Elder Peterson and thanked us for coming to play and was super appreciative of the good examples we were to his son and his son's friends that came out to play. It made my day. I never thought that playing basketball with a bunch of 7-8th graders on your mission would make an impact on anyone, but I guess it does. My parents always tell me that people watch us wherever we go because of the position we are in and that sure proved it. Everyone who is reading this email, always remember that people watch you wherever you go. If you’re a missionary, athlete, parent, friend, etc. there are always people who watch you. You can be an example for good or for bad, so always remember that!
Sunday was great! We had Ward Council before church and Elder Bearss brought Robert to church and he stayed all 3 hours, plus called us after church to thank us for bringing him. That was sweet! After church we went home to change out of our suits and discovered the power was out in our whole building. So that was a bit of a bummer. We went to the VA hospital with one of our ward missionaries to visit some veterans there! That was so much fun! They were so appreciative to have visitors and we met some cool people and also some crazy people. I figured it would be a good service opportunity because it was Sunday and we didn’t have much to do. We figured that’s something Christ would do on a Sunday was visit the sick and afflicted in the VA hospital. So it was great and I loved it!🇺🇸 After that we had dinner with the bishop and his family. His youngest son is crazy and super funny. He kept us entertained the whole dinner haha. After that we did a bunch of stop bys of less actives and single sisters in the ward and got a few things set up for this week! Then we did some numbers and training evals with the greenies and called it a night. Thankfully the power was back on when we got home, so we celebrated our first week by cooking a few pancakes.
It’s been a good week here! I’m loving my last little bit of the mission. It’s flying by, so I’m just trying to enjoy it and serve and help as many as I can! Elder Peterson and I have a hoot and half, so that’s been great haha. Much love to everyone back home. Family! I love you guys. Thanks for all you do for me! Prayers up from MN.
Much love,
Elder Beach
#MavUp #10
Mall of America with Elder Peterson!
$2.49 breakfast! A missionary's dream!
Basketball with some old and new friends in Minnetonka!
My favorite thought of the week.
