Hello to all my fam, friends, and coaches back home, at school, and serving around the world! Hope this email finds you well and enjoying life! Things are going pretty good here in Lake Nokomis. We’ve had a lot of administrative stuff to do this week with transfers and zone conferences and MLC, so it’s been kind of a hectic week, but we’ve seen a lot of cool miracles. (In Joker voice) “And...here.... we... go...“
So Monday last week we went to the Mall of America with the zone and it was fun! The Sisters were a little hard to work with because they’re like, “Oh, let’s go to this store!” So we start walking there and then they have to stop and look at like 10 stores on the way. So we ended up just kind of ditching them and doing our own thing. I just don’t have the patience to sit in Bath and Body Works for 30 minutes. Call me crazy! I found some super sweet snap backs at Boot Barn but they were like $25-30 and I’m looking in the $10-15 price range haha, so I didn’t get them. Maybe another time. After P-day was over we literally did travel plans for like 2 hours. They yanked like 3 cars from our zone so it was a joke trying to get everyone to and from transfers. This next transfer is going to be even more ridiculous because we don’t have as many cars. We’ve already reserved the "vanimal" for transfers so we can haul people around in it haha.
I literally can’t remember what happened on Tuesday. I’m pretty sure we just did stop by nation most of the day. Nothing majorly cool happened haha so yeah.... Oh - it snowed like 8 inches, so we did a lot of shoveling.️
Wednesday we did a bunch more stop bys and some tracting. We found this lady named Renee, and she was Catholic but as we started talking more to her, she opened up a little and said we could come by Monday morning to share some more with her and her family! So that was pretty sweet! We were supposed to have a lesson with Virginia (a lady we found last Wednesday night at like 8:15 pm), but it fell through and we haven’t been able to get in contact with her since. So that kind of was a bummer. That happens a lot. We find people that we think will be interested and then they flake out and we can’t ever get in contact with them again. Oh well! Just gotta keep working and pushing forward! Wednesday night we had a lesson with the Ludwigs. It was probably one of the most out there things I’ve ever been a part off. We invited them to read 2 Nephi 31, and then they texted us like half-way through the week and said they read it and wanted us to read Matthew 19 about the parable of the rich young ruler. So we did and literally couldn’t find any major similarities or comparisons we could think of. Like obviously they both talk about following the commandments and doing what Christ has asked us to do. So we get there and they are like, “So according to this story, the only way to receive eternal life is be perfect in keeping all the commandments or just accept Christ as your savior because we are all sinners.” They were getting really nit picky with the story of the rich young ruler about how there’s no way he could’ve kept all the commandments even though it literally says in the story that he had. We talked about taking things in the Bible literally because they seem to take half the things literally and the other half figuratively or just disregard it all together. This week they changed their doctrine of “faith is a product of baptism" to "only babies get faith from baptism while adults can have faith before they are baptized.” We asked them for scriptural evidence of this and they have yet to give us any. They literally just interpret scriptures in their own way and think it’s doctrine. You can’t do that! That would be like me saying, “Oh this is what this scripture means and that’s the final say.” I have no authority to do that and probably wouldn’t have the greatest explanation of what it means. So basically it was pretty dumb.
Thursday was transfer day, so we had to drive down to transfers so we could drive the North Elders home from transfers because they lost their car. It was fun to see Elders Meyer, Woolley, and some other buds from the mission. After that we did weekly planning and then had dinner with the Hehrs. They’re kind of less active but have a son on a mission in Colorado Springs right now. We had a great dinner with them and it was awesome. I felt like we built a good relationship with their family so that was great, and then they came to church on Sunday so that was also sweet. After that we were supposed to have a lesson with Lisa Jones, who is a less active who’s husband is a Lutheran. So we had gotten an appointment set up with her last week, and we had a lesson with her this week. We just got to know her a little bit and taught her the restoration lesson and invited her to read the Book of Mormon. Her husband was asleep when we went over, so he wasn’t part of the lesson unfortunately. After the lesson we knocked a few doors and found this lady named Queesha and taught her and her family and set up a lesson with them on Monday night! So that was a sweet miracle.
Friday we had MLC (Mission Leader Coordination) and it was fun to see everyone! Our whole MTC District is Zone Leading right now ,so that’s pretty sweet! Elders Peterson, Cross, Hickman and I had matching floral ties for MLC, so we were the swaggiest zone there by far. After MLC we had dinner with Brother Ramsey and his family, and it was a hoot. Elder Hickman's face on one of our pics looks super funny and people on the mission page were “cyber bullying” him. So we showed Brother Ramsey the picture and he was like, “Yeah... you kinda brought that on yourself.” It was so funny! After dinner we did some tracting and stop bys and called it a day!
Saturday we had a lesson with the Iversons and that went super well! Sister Iverson told us a lot about her earlier life and she’s been through some tough stuff! I feel like my life is busy and difficult sometimes, but man I sure don’t anymore haha. She’s one tough cookie. We talked about general conference and everyone’s impressions of it! They both enjoyed it and got some great insights from it. After that we did a bunch of stop bys and 2x2 where you knock two doors at each stop by. We’ve really enjoyed that method of finding and it’s been working out pretty well for us! So that’s been sweet and is a good way to break up tracting and stop bys because doing each of those for hours on end is not fun. It was pretty good, and we got in contact with a part member family we hadn’t met yet and had a good connection with them, so that was great! We also met some sweet people tracting. The Gadds bought us Subway for dinner and it was super good! Haha I love the Gadds. They’re awesome! After that we went to Minnetonka to play some basketball. Brother Hansen was there and I got to talk to him and he invited me and Mom and Dad to have dinner with them when we visit! So that was sick. We had like 20 people at basketball so it was crazy haha.
Sunday was awesome! We had 2 people at church and lots of less actives! Lisa Jones texted us right before church and said that she wasn’t able to attend, but her husband listened in to our lesson on Thursday and loved what he heard and wants to come to church next week! They also are reading the Book of Mormon together, so we were hyped. After church we had a lesson with Brother Christensen and just talked to him about some struggles he’s been having. He’s been super stressed out with work so we just talked about some stuff he can do to help him out and also invited him to read or watch the General Conference talks and receive his own revelation about how he can be closer to God and do the little things right (church, pray, read) so it was really good! He’s a way cool guy. After that we did a bunch of stop bys and then had dinner with Bishop Chrysler and his family. We ended up being there like 2 hours because we kind of had our coordination meeting with him at the same time as dinner. Haha at dinner they made home made corn dogs and chicken noodle soup for me. So, Elder Peterson ate 8 corn dogs and I was like, “You won’t eat 10...” So he ate 10, then Elder Hickman was like, “I can't let him eat more than me!” So Elder Hickman ate 10, then they both ate 11. Then I was like, “You can’t just end on a tie.” So they both had a biscuit with jam for the tie break and both ate it. Then Elder Peterson put down another corn dog and Elder Hickman tapped out. It was so funny and everyone was like cheering them on and having a grand old time with it haha. After that we had to do some numbers and get Zone conference travel plans ready to go and a bunch of administrative stuff. I’m not a fan of it, but it needs to get done for everything to run smoothly. So that was our day. Monday and Tuesday we had some sweet miracles, but I’ll write about those in next weeks email.
This week's been great! I’m excited to be here another transfer. I’m grateful to be in this Zone. I really love the missionaries here. They work really hard and I appreciate that a lot! I know this is God’s true church on the earth. I know that Jesus Christ lives and He is our Savior and Redeemer. I’ve never seen him, felt the nail prints in his hands and feet, or listened to Him teach. But I know He lives. I know he loves us and I know he is the head of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I’m so grateful for our prophet, President Russell M. Nelson. I know he is called of God and is truly the prophet on earth today. I know the Book of Mormon is true and each time I read it the spirit reaffirms that truth to me in the pages and messages of Christ and how we can draw closer to Him! Thanks for all your prayers and support on my behalf. I’m in the last leg of my sprint to the end of my mission. I’m going to give it all I've got and leave it all on the field. I greatly appreciate your prayers and love that strengthen and support me when I sometimes feel I have nothing left in the tank. Love you all! Have a bomb week.
Much love,
Elder Beach
#MavUp #10
Our former MTC District are now all Zone Leaders!
It was fun to see Elder Woolley again!
It was also fun to catch up with Elder Meyer!
Visiting at the VA hospital.
Visiting with Brother Hansen and his kids at basketball.
Elder and Sister Bearss took us to Jones Burger. I had a salad...
Matching ties for MLC.
We had to do a "fake laugh" pose because that's what the Sisters always do.
Sunday "sauna night".
It's still winter in Minnesota!
