The Snow Has Returned!

Big hello to all my family, friends, and coaches back home, serving the Lord worldwide and at college! Minnesota has become the "great white north" once again, as we received several inches of snow yesterday and temperatures dropped into the teens.️ It's been a pretty good week, with its ups and downs for sure. I'm really loving the mission though.

So last Monday was p-day and we didn't really do much. We went to Taco Bell and got the new triple double crunch wrap cuz Elder Nissenbaum said it was super good, and I hadn't ever had one, so we went there for lunch. It was pretty good! This zone isn't the greatest for playing ball on P days. Most people just sit around and play board games or email all day, so it's tough to get a good game going. But me and Elder Nissenbaum and Elder Barrett, who's a Spanish Elder, played Big Pot, Little Pot, which is a shooting game for basketball. I hit 7 half court shots in a row haha. It was pretty sweet! We went to Red Robin Monday night to get a burger (shoutout to Uncle Mike for the money!) While we were there, Daren comes up to us and was like, "Hey friends! How's it going?" And we were super surprised to see him there, but we said it was going good and asked if we were still good to meet up tomorrow and he was like, "Yeah, I've read the whole book of first Nephi and I have a lot of questions!" Our jaws proceeded to drop to the floor haha. But we said, "That's great! Can't wait to discuss them!" It was raining cats and dogs Monday night and we had planned to do some tracting, so we decided to do weekly planning and make phone calls and get appointments set up for that week. When Brother Ruff came out with us we weekly planned for like 45 minutes and didn't get much done, so we finished it up. It was so cool to see Daren at Red Robin and the fact that he had been reading was awesome!

Tuesday was district meeting in the morning and I gave a training on the missionary plan that Brother Ruff gave us, and I think it went pretty well. The APs came down to our district meeting (not sure why) but they both said it was a really good district meeting! So that was cool.  After that we had service at Prince of Peace, and there were a lot of orders this week so we were busy filling orders for like an hour and a half. Then the main guy that runs the show there was like, "I need 4 guys to help move some stuff," so I volunteered along with Elder Newbold, Nissenbaum, and Freihner. They got like 10 pallets of pillows from Costco. So we got to move these huge boxes of pillows into storage. It was pretty fun! After service we did a zone blitz of Lake Marion's area cuz they are struggling with finding investigators. I went with Elder Nissenbaum and we tracted and the first house we knocked on these two kids that looked like they were in 7-8th grade answered. We talked to them for a little bit and gave them a Book of Mormon and a restoration pamphlet, and they said they'd talk to their parents about it and see if we could come share more with them. I doubt if anything will happen with it, but it was cool cuz we got to talk about football with them and they were pretty cool kids. We didn't see a whole lot of success after that. Most people said they already knew our message or weren't interested. So when we got done, Elder Wolfley and myself hurried to our meeting with Daren. It went really well! He had some really good questions from the Book of Mormon and we were able to answer them and clarify them. One question was, Why did Nephi kill Laban when it is a commandment to not kill? We explained that in that chapter it says, "It is better for one man to perish than for a whole nation to dwindle in unbelief." He said that made sense since Nephi's people wouldn't have had the scriptures or law of Moses or their genealogy if they didn't get the plates. So anyway, we taught the plan of salvation and it went pretty well. We drew out the picture with it and used scriptures from the Book of Mormon and bible to clarify and back up what we taught. We got really hung up with the Fall of Adam and Eve. He felt like if Adam and Eve hadn't eaten the fruit, we all would've just been born into the Garden of Eden and lived perfect happy lives. We explained and explained that the purpose of life is to have to make choices and learn and grow. I don't know what we said, but finally something clicked, or the spirit touched his heart or something, but he finally was like, "Oh! Ok I got it!" And then explained to us perfectly why the fall was essential to the plan. It was super cool! He took a lot of notes and said he wanted to read 2 Nephi 2 and Alma 40 to learn more about the plan of salvation. He really is interested I think. He told us he is a man searching for truth about God. I hope he can recognize that this is the truth and it will bless his life so so much. After dinner Brother Connolly came out with us. He is the Assistant Ward Mission Leader. We stopped by some less actives and members that no one has seen or heard from in like a year. We found this guy named Curt Johnson. He is a pretty cool guy! He is a less active that is way more converted to the social side of the church than the actual gospel of Christ and the church. He seemed like a guy that we could get back to church if we can get him around people in non church situations. He just needs some good friends in the church to help him out! That was about it for Tuesday.

Wednesday we had a lesson with Trish, who was a potential investigator we stopped by on exchanges and said we could come back. She said she was really hesitant to meet with us when we got there, but once we started talking to her about the restoration and our message she opened right up and actually agreed with a lot of the stuff we taught her. She said that she feels like all churches change to fit society's standards and it shouldn't be like that. If God is unchanging then shouldn't his church be the same? We said, "Yep, that's how it should be!" And we talked about how the Bible has so many different versions and stuff and she was like, "Yeah I totally agree. I don't know why so many different bibles exist?" She told us her dad was a retired pastor, and he even changes his beliefs from time to time. She said she would read the Book of Mormon and ask her dad why there is so many different versions or translations of the Bible. It was a really good lesson and she said next time we come over she wants us to teach about why bad things happen to good people. Should be a good discussion. Right after that, we went to see Harry Colwell again. He was having a rough day with health issues. We showed him the Power of God Mormon message and talked about the Priesthood, how important it is and what a blessing it is in our lives. When we were planning our lesson for him, I felt like we should ask him if he wanted a Priesthood blessing. So I asked him, and he said he would really like one. He asked me to give it and it was awesome! I seriously love giving blessings so much.  It is such a cool experience to be the mouthpiece for the Lord! We had an appointment with Joyce finally set up for Wednesday at 4 pm. Brother Seamen was going to joint teach with us, so he met us there, and of course, Joyce wasn't there.  I am really getting sick of people not being there when they say they will be. So Brother Seamen was like, "Come sit in my car and we can chat for a few minutes." He basically taught us how to use questions to make a lesson become a gospel discussion instead of us teaching the whole time. I feel like we already do a pretty decent job at that, but he had some good tips so it was good I guess. We had dinner with the Lewis family again! They are pretty great. I love having dinner with them haha.  It's a party. We had an appointment set up at 6:15 pm with this guy in Rosemont that we had tracted into and he said we could come back. He texted us at 6 pm and said it wasn't going to work, and we asked if we could come back another time and he never answered so I don't know if anything will happen there. W e did a few stop bys and then decided to tract some town homes that are in the way south part of our area. It was like 6:30 when we started and we didn't have a lot of success at first. This one guy answered the door and said he had already heard our message. I said oh yeah?! And he was like yeah. I said ok, so what's our message then. He just blankly stares at us (cuz he obviously didn't know it) and then he shut the door. People make me so mad sometimes. I'm like seriously! Just listen to our message for like 5 minutes. Everyone I've met who sincerely listened to us for 5 minutes actually likes what we have to say. It's sad.  Anyway, so we tracted and basically no one listened to us at all. I was getting pretty bummed out and it was like 8 pm. We had like 10 more town homes to knock, so we started down the last street and the first door we knock this guy answers and just lets us right in! His name was Joel and his wife's name is Cynthia and they have a little girl named Skylar. They said they were "lost Mormons" and were from a branch off a colony that went to Mexico from Utah and practiced polygamy and believed Joseph Smith's posterity should've been the next prophet. They didn't really know anything about the church and hadn't been active in their church. They wanted us to teach them about the restoration and Book of Mormon. They also said they wanted to come to church on Sunday haha, so it was pretty cool.  We taught them the restoration lesson and they said they'd come to church on Sunday. So Wednesday ended up being a good day! We definitely saw a miracle finding them. 

Thursday morning we tracted for an hour after I had to account with the ZLs. We finished knocking some town homes by where Joel and Cynthia live. No one was home for the first 10 doors we knocked and then two houses in a row said they were going to call the cops on us. The second one basically went like this:

Me: "We are representatives from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints..."

Crazy guy: "We aren't interested."

Crazier lady: "We are calling the cops on you!"

Me: "For what?"

Crazier lady: "For harassing us!!"

Crazy guy: "Honey, now isn't the time..."

Me: "We are just sharing a message about Jesus Christ."

Crazier lady: "I'm calling the cops right now!"

Me: "Have a nice day"

They didn't call the cops, so yeah. People are so crazy. This week with tracting hasn't been super productive and I have wanted to seriously ask some people if they were dumber than a box of rocks sometimes. It's hard when people just say really stupid stuff to just look at them and smile and say have a nice day! And still have charity for them. It amazes me the love God must have for us even though we do and say really stupid things. After lunch we visited the Bradfords at the old folks home. They are so great! We showed the Mormon message "Mountains to Climb" by President Eyring. It was really good. Brother Bradford has been struggling with his health lately and it was a good one for him to see. They are the nicest people. They asked about my grandparents and I showed them a picture of our family after Jackson's football game and they were like, "That is the sweetest looking family!" I was like "Yep! My family is awesome!" I am very grateful to have such a great family. I've realized how lucky and blessed I was to grow up in a great home that taught me the gospel and taught me how to work hard for the things I wanted. Thursday afternoon we did some stop bys and finished tracting this street that was a nicer neighborhood we had started earlier in the week. We didn't have much success there either. Man it's been a tough week tracting! We've still been doing windows of Heaven to know where to go tracting, and it just doesn't seem to be working as of late. I don't know why. I've had success with it my whole mission until like the last 2 weeks. Not sure why? Thursday night we did splits with Brother Lyon and Brother Moerschel. I got to go with Brother Moerschel haha. He is an interesting guy! He drives really slow everywhere we go and then gets mad at people for tailgating us.  We did some stop bys to some less actives. We stopped by this guy named John Wade. He answered the door and had a nose ring and tattoos everywhere but he let us right in! I figured he would be a nice guy cuz usually people with tattoos and nose rings are nice people I've found haha. So we shared a quick message with him and his kids and he said we could stop by today or tomorrow so that was cool! I asked the bishop about him on Saturday at coordination and he said he's a really good guy! We finally had a lesson with Melina and Zack on Thursday night. They're super nice people but man they're flakes. They haven't met with us since before I got here cuz they cancel literally last second every time. But I finally got to meet with them so that was good. We shared the new Ask of God video on LDS.org with them. They liked it and we invited them to church and promised that if they read, pray, and come to church (CPR) then they will see blessings in their lives. God will bless them to be able to provide for their family and have many blessings. Well, they haven't come to church and didn't come this Sunday either. They have a lot of struggles in their life right now and if they would just do the little things, they wouldn't struggle as much because of the peace the gospel brings! 

Friday was weekly planning, so we got started on that and we get a text from Brother Moerschel. He's says "Do you want to go to Farmington Steakhouse for lunch?" And we were like heck yeah haha. So he took us to Farmington for lunch. We are definitely going there when we go back to visit Minnesota.  It was super good! So after that we  finished weekly planning. After that we tracted some town homes up in the north part of our area. Haha once again, not many people wanted to talk to us. We had dinner at the Hongs that night and they are super awesome! They're from Blackfoot, Idaho and have a little girl. They're like in their mid-20's and are pretty cool. Brother Hong served in Dallas, Texas. Then we tracted right by their house after dinner. We said we are going to knock 10 doors. So the very last door we knocked this younger dad answers and says he wants to hear our message. So we shared a quick restoration message with him and he listens to the whole thing and then when we ask him to accept a Book of Mormon he says, "I actually don't believe in God, so sorry guys. I studied theology in college and I don't think there is a God." Then he shut the door and I was like wowwww.... Then we went to the Gretz house to a FHE with their family and the boyfriends and girlfriends who live at the house that aren't members. Sister Gretz had asked us to pray about what to do for the lesson. We felt we should share a lesson on forgiveness and repentance. So we split into groups and read the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15 and the story of Alma the younger in Mosiah 27. It was a really good lesson and at the end of the lesson we showed the Mormon message "The Savior Wants to Forgive." It was a really good lesson and Sister Gretz was crying at the end and told us that is exactly what her family needed at that time. Their son Mike is 17 and he is less active and his girlfriend lives at their house, and their daughter Jaidyn is 20 and her boyfriend lives there, too. Their daughter and her boyfriend participated in the lesson but their son was really pushing Brother Gretz's buttons about participating in the lesson. He sat in on it but didn't really do or say anything. He did make Oreo cheesecake for the treat though, so that was good! Then we played Pictionary and that was a party. It was a really great night and I feel like the Gretz family might be one of the reasons I got sent here to Apple Valley. I really hope we can help out their kids.

Saturday I felt like we basically ate food all day. We had breakfast at the bishop's house and did coordination meeting, and then we went and finished some studies, and then we had lunch with a less active named Suoa Ly. She is from Laos and is Hmong. She is super, super nice and fed us two whole fishes, rice and chicken. It was super good. Then Saturday afternoon we did some stop bys of some former investigators and potentials and then did some tracting. We actually found one guy who said we could come back next Saturday and he took a Book of Mormon and a pamphlet. So that was good! Every now and again you find someone to talk to! So for dinner Sister Ekanem, who is this African lady in our ward, gave us this huge thing of rice and salmon and chicken to eat. It was super good but I was so full from lunch, I didn't eat much.  Saturday night Brother McGill came out with us. He is a ward missionary and is a really shy and quiet dude. We stopped by the Duos, who are a less active family. They wanted a copy of the Bible so we took them one and showed them Mormon message about William Tyndale translating the Bible into English. It's a good one. Then we went to visit this guy in our ward named Brother Sauser, who is like 32 and isn't married. He seems lonely at church, so we stopped by to visit him! So we get there and it was like a total nerd cave. Like he had Lego star wars stuff everywhere and was playing legend of Zelda when we got there. Haha it was crazy. We shared the Hope of God's Light with him and asked him to pray for an increased desire to do missionary work. That's been what the bishop has asked us to do instead of asking for referrals. Ask the members to pray for an increased desire to do missionary work. It's weird, but out here, if you ask people for referrals, they don't feed you or let you come over much, so... yeah. I don't know why, but that's how it is. I hope it isn't like that back home.   We went and visited the Leavitts, but they said they had the plague at their house and everyone was sick. They said to come back next week. They're the less active family struggling with their testimonies and stuff. Then we went to see the Oforiatas, and they didn't answer. So it's like 8:30, everything has fallen through. So we stopped by this one family that hasn't been to church for like a month. They said they were sick too, and didn't let us in either.  We stopped by two potentials, and by then it was 9 pm so we headed back home. 

Sunday we headed to church and it was Ward Conference so that was fun. President Noches is awesome. He is the Stake President. We were expecting Melina and Zack and the Bigboys to be at church, and we had two rows saved for them and they didn't show up, so we were pretty bummed out. However, Joel and Cynthia showed up and stayed for all three hours! They really liked it and said we could come again this Wednesday night to teach them. The Davis family and some other families just jumped all over fellowshipping them, so that was awesome! I was really glad to see that! It started snowing way hard after dinner, and we went and tracted this street we felt we should. So we knocked the whole one side of the street and literally no one was home or immediately said not interested. Then we start on the other side and this black lady opens the door and she's like, "I'm a born again believer so I'm saved. All Jesus asks us to do is to pick up our cross and follow him." I was going to "Bible bash" (just point out some things from the New Testament that would make her think about what she just said), but I figured she wasn't worth it, so we just kept going.  Then the next lady we talked to answers the door and says, "Jesus was born, died on the cross and rose on the third day!" I was like, "Yeah, that's exactly what we teach!" She's like, "Oh... well I believe in Jesus so I'm good." I was like, "Have you ever heard our message before?" And she's like, "No, but I believe in Jesus so I'm good!" It was at this moment, the whole week's worth of frustration just kinda came down on me. I basically like lost all hope in humanity. It sounds dramatic, but I was just like, "Why does no one anywhere in our area want to hear this message??!!" It is the greatest message in the world! And no one wants to hear it. I don't know why???? I was pretty bummed out for a few minutes. Then we went to dinner at the Peterson's house, and that was good! Then we did a one hour blitz at Lake Marion's area cuz they are struggling worse than us. So I guess I don't have much to be sad about. It had been snowing and there was like 3 inches of snow on the ground, so when we got to the apartment the Lake Marion Elders weren't there. I was like, "Elder Wolfley, let's go knock doors and offer to shovel people's driveways if we can share a 5 minute message with them." We had brought shovels with us so we just went to a neighborhood by their apartment and started knocking doors. The last door in the neighborhood was this Indian guy. He said we could shovel his driveway and share a message with him. So we shoveled his driveway and he let us in and he and his wife listened to our restoration message. They really liked it and took a Book of Mormon and gave us their number and said they're going to come to church in a few weeks. I seriously was like, "Man, why can't this happen in our area?" It was 8:45, and so we headed back to the Lake Marion apartment and gave them our find. They said they had stopped by a member's house and the member ended up having a referral for them, so they got hung up there. It was such a dumb blitz, but we ended up finding someone so it was cool.  

Man, I felt like a door to door salesman this week haha. It was tough, but what's cool is that the thing we are "selling" is the gospel of Jesus Christ, and that His church has been restored. I'm really hoping we can find some more people to teach this week. In PMG it has a quote from President Hinckley that basically says, "Each morning missionaries should wake up and plead with the Lord to soften the hearts of the people and that they can find those who are ready for the message of the gospel." I've found myself doing that more and more than ever this last week. Things always get worse before they get better. We are just in a slump right now and I feel like soon things will pick up in our area. I've really gained a strong testimony of the atonement this week. As I was studying the prodigal son and Alma the younger, I realized that I had never really poured out my heart to God and asked for forgiveness for my wrongdoings. I began to think back on the times I had messed up in my life and basically I had an Alma the younger/ Enos experience. Like my soul was "racked with torment" and I felt godly sorrow. I prayed with all the energy of heart for forgiveness and I felt God's love for me like never before. It was such a feeling of peace and love. It's hard to describe, but I literally was just super happy and had "no more desire to do evil." What a cool experience and a testimony of the atonement and God's love for me and each of His children. God will never turn us away when we humbly come before Him. I have a strong testimony of that. I've also found myself turning to the Book of Mormon more and more. I'm reading Jesus the Christ and the New Testament, but the Book of Mormon is really where I find myself wanting to study from and I read it too, along with those other books. It has a power in there and answers to questions you can't find anywhere else. It really does contain the fullness of the gospel of Christ. I would invite all to read it and study it. Apply what you learn to your life and pray to know if it is true. If you do, God will not leave you. He will answer your prayer and confirm to your mind and heart that it is true and it is the word of God. I love this church and this gospel and I love being able to share it with people, even if they're few and far between haha. Thanks for the prayers and emails. They mean the world to me and help me during the down days. You are all in my prayers and I love you all!

Much love,

Elder Beach

#MavUp #10

Zone basketball on p-day.

We found a Pikachu in the snow.

Some cool stuff from a book I'm reading.

Lunch at Farmington Steakhouse.

Lots of Finding!

Hello to all my family, friends, and coaches back home, serving the Lord, and at college! I hope this email finds you all happy and doing well. This week has been much better than last week. We still haven't seen a ton of success with finding people to teach, and I still haven't met any of our investigators, so hopefully this next week will bring more success and more people to teach the gospel to!

Last Monday night we didn't have any appointments set up so we decided to tract some town homes right across the street from our apartment. We shared a quick restoration lesson with a few people and gave away a Book of Mormon to a guy. He said we could come back in 2 months.  One of the last houses we knocked this younger mom answered and we shared a little about the restoration and about the Book of Mormon. She said she was putting her kids to bed, but we could come back on Saturday at 6 pm. More on that story later... We had finished a street and it was 8:50. We were like, let's just start heading back to our apartment cuz it's like a 5-6 minute walk. I had a really strong impression to keep tracting until 9 pm on the dot. So we turned the corner on the town homes and this dude was parked in his driveway in a car. We knocked the house next door and then he rolled down his window and asked what we were doing. So we told him we were missionaries, and ended up sharing a restoration message with him and giving him a Book of Mormon! He seemed pretty interested and gave us his number to call him. He actually lives in the Crystal Lakes area, but he said to call him in a week or so. I don't know if it will turn into anything, but it was cool to follow a prompting and have it result in sharing the gospel with someone.

Tuesday we were supposed to have district meeting and interviews with the Mission President,  but then they changed it last minute to Saturday. So we had zone service at Prince of Peace again on Tuesday. Haha this one lady that works there had her last week there. She is moving or something so it was her last time there. We got a zone picture with her, and they were some funny pictures. They are the ones that will be posted below.  Elder Rodriguez took the funniest selfie with the zone and his fly on his pants was open. After service, the Lake Marion Elders took us to Arby's to get a shake because we led the zone in new investigators last week. In our zone, the team with the most new investigators gets milkshakes from the team with the least amount of new investigators haha. So it's incentive for everyone to be finding people. After that we had a guy named Daren who said we could come by Tuesday at 4 pm. So we stopped by and he answered the door and was like, "My kid just came came home from school and he's sick. But come on in!" I thought for sure he wasn't gonna let us in, but he did! We sat down and taught him a restoration lesson and it was awesome! He had so many questions about the Book of Mormon and the people in it haha. We went into a lot of detail on the characters because he was really interested in all of them! He asked us if he could ask the elders of his church if the Book of Mormon was true and we said, "You can ask anyone you want. People are going to give you their opinion. We know it to be true. The only way to know for yourself is to read it and ask God if it is true." He really seemed to like that and said he would start reading it this week and invited us back for this Tuesday.  I was so happy after that lesson! That's the first lesson I've taught in like 3 weeks. It feels so good to teach and have someone be interested and listen to your message. He has some really solid potential, and if he reads and prays, I know he will receive a witness that it is true. He had some questions about personal revelation vs. revelation from the prophet. I shared my story of how I received an answer to commit to CMU and told him the prophet receives revelation for the church as a whole and not for each individual person. We each receive personal revelation from God regarding ourselves and our families (if we are fathers). He really liked that and believed in personal revelation so that was cool!  I'm excited to see what happens with him. After that we had a lesson with some recent converts in the ward, Brady and Jonah. They are the young men that got baptized a few months ago. We took Brother Pugmire with us cuz he is the YM President in our ward and can help get them ready to go to the temple to do baptisms for the dead. We shared the "Hope of God's Light" Mormon message with them. Their mom, who isn't a member, sat in on the video and listened as we shared our testimonies of God's love for us and how spiritual light doesn't come to those who merely sit in darkness, it takes an act of faith to open our eyes to the light of Christ. It is such a great message in that video that God knows us, he answers our prayers, and he has a plan for us. We just need to have faith in him and press forward with hope. Later that evening we had a lesson with Bert Goff, a less active guy in our ward that is trying to quit smoking and receive the Melchizedek Priesthood. We went over D&C 107 because he had read it on his own last time the Elders met with him. He had a lot of questions about it, so we answered some of his questions. Brother Pratt came joint teaching with us, and he is awesome. He had some great insights as well to Brother Goff's questions. Then we went and visited Sister Davis. She has cancer and is a less active lady. Her daughter isn't a member but lives with her. We just popped in to say hi because Brother Pratt is her home teacher. I hadn't ever met her, so it was cool so visit her!

Wednesday we did ZL exchanges with Elder Newbold and Kemberling! I got to stay in Apple Valley with Elder Kemberling. We switched at the church at like 11 am and then went to Subway and had some lunch. Elder Kemberling is a convert and is from Alaska. He has a pretty cool conversion story! It was fun to get to know him a lot better. We had a lesson with Harry Colwell at 1 pm, so we drove up to that and we read Mosiah 17 with him. We read like 10 verses and he seemed to lose interest and go off on these huge tangents that had nothing to do with anything we read. So anyway, we kept trying to bring it back to what we were talking about but it wasn't happening. When we left, some funny stuff went down. Elder Kemberling had some really bad gas going on. We got in the car and he just lets this huge fart go and says, "Elder. We need to go to a gas station right now. I just crapped my pants." I was like, "Are you serious??" And he was like "Yep! I'm serious!" I died laughing, and so we drove to a gas station for him to change his pants and stuff. It was bad. Then we had this super cool miracle after we got the problem taken care of. We stopped by this potential investigator named Trish who lives up by this trailer park and she was there and we shared our testimonies of the Book of Mormon.  She said she was struggling with her faith right now. She just had a lot of trials recently and doesn't know what she believes in anymore. She said we could come back on Wednesday so that was cool! Then the major miracle for the day: I had scheduled in a less active named Anna Jones to go visit at 3:30 pm that lived in the same apartment as the Trish. So we stopped by Anna's house. She opened the door and was like, "Oh good, you're here!" And me and Elder Kemberling just look at each other like, what the heck? So we go in and her mom lives with her, too. Her mom's name is Janna.  She said, "Oh I'm glad you made it to help us move these boxes of stuff down to storage!" So we asked about the plan because we didn't know anything about it. She said she had talked to some Elders at church about coming to help move stuff today at 3:30 pm, and we asked them who they were because we are the only Elders in our building. The Eagan Sisters are the other missionaries in our church building. She said it was someone who looked like me but was taller. I had no clue who it was, but anyway, it ended up working out perfectly and we helped them get their stuff moved and move a dresser in their apartment. I had no idea how it all worked out like that, but it did, so it was a miracle for sure. We had dinner with the Hosmans in our ward and then we had like 5 appointments set up from 6-8:30 pm with people we found tracting. So we went to go see all of them, and the first 3 weren't there, and the last two told us they weren't interested. One of the guys said he didn't believe in our church because we believe that Zion will be in Jackson County, Missouri, and then quoted Amos 3:3 (3 Can two walk together, except they be agreed?) and said he can't listen to our message because of that scripture, which made no sense. So by 7 pm, everything had fallen through. So we had some more town homes nearby we wanted to go tract. We tracted those for about an hour and half until we got really cold. It was like 5 degrees with windchill, and we weren't dressed for the weather haha. We found a few potentials, but no one really solid. We did a couple stop bys on the way home, but no one was there unfortunately. It was a fun day all in all, and I had a good time and learned a lot from Elder Kemberling. 

Thursday morning was MLC, which is Mission Leadership Conference. Every three months they have MLC where the district leaders come to it. It was good, but it was super long, and I had a struggle staying awake at parts haha. I learned how to work better with the Ward Council. As missionaries we just need to be more blunt with people in Ward Council and say, "This is what we can do for this person. Is there anything else we can do for them or to help you help them?" That was like the major thing I took away from MLC. Mostly it is for the ZLs and STLs. As a district leader I didn't say much, and most other district leaders just sat there and soaked it all in. I'm pretty sure most people don't like MLC. The funniest part of the day was the Duluth ZLs (Elder Johnston that I served with in the YSA ward, and Elder Anderson who was my ZL my first transfer) both lost their driving privileges and so the Duluth STLs had to drive the truck back up to Duluth and the Elders had to sit in the back.  Everyone gave them so much crap haha. MLC got done at like 3 pm, and everyone visits for a while after, so we got home at like 4:30 and had to run to ALDI and get some groceries cuz we finally got our car back on Tuesday. We haven't gotten groceries for 2 and a half weeks, so we've been living off oatmeal and stuff like that.  Then we had dinner at the Doty'shouse. They are awesome but their house is insanely crazy. They have a boxer named Kevin who is psycho and all their kids are teenagers and crazy. So it was a funny dinner to say the least. Then we went over to the Gretz' cuz Elder Wolfley said he could bake a cake for their oldest daughter's 20th birthday. She is less active and their son, Mike, is less active and he is 17. Jaidyn's boyfriend and Mike's girlfriend live at their house too, and aren't members, so we baked a cake and had that, and then both shared a spiritual message. It was really good! Elder Wolfley's cake was insane. Chocolate cake with cream cheese vanilla frosting. It was the best cake I've had.I shared the Friday Night Lights message and like almost everyone had seen Friday Night Lights, so it ended up being really good! It was a really good night, and Mike and his girlfriend came to church on Sunday so it worked!

Friday was super cool! Brother Ruff, our ward mission leader, decided he was going to spend the whole day with us so he could get a better feel for what we do as missionaries and what a typical day looks like. So he brought us donuts for breakfast and we did weekly planning together and he had this paper called the "Ruff Plan to Successful Missionary Work." We went over that for about an hour, and I learned a lot from that. He previously served as a bishop and he uses stuff from being a bishop and a missionary to create this plan. It was really good, and I'll send a copy home for Jackson! Brother Ruff took us to Panda for lunch and then we did some stop bys for like 4 hours. We stopped by literally 20+ people. We found this one guy who named Robin Blanchard, who is a "lost sheep" for the Apple Valley ward. That means people who we haven't been able to get in contact with for like a year or more. So we buzzed this guy's apartment and he let us in and we go up to his apartment and this guy answers and lets us in and says "Robin is over there in the chair." So he had just had back surgery and has a lot of physical disabilities. He isn't interested in the church much, but he said we could stop and check in on him from time to time. So that was good! Literally everyone else wasn't home.  Then we had dinner at Brother Ruff's house with his family, and then we went tracting in the evening! Haha literally nobody wanted to talk to us. It was crazy. Most other days we have people that will at least talk to us, but literally no one even talked to us. I said, "Brother Ruff, you picked a "Ruff" day to come out with us!" He had a good chuckle at that.  He set up a lesson with an active member, Brother Hong. He is pretty newly married and has a kid. He actually served in the Dallas, Texas mission. Shoutout to dad! Anyway, Brother Hong just posed as an investigator that he taught on his mission.  We taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ by reading 2 Nephi 31 with him. It was such a good lesson. I love teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ! Now that I've actually tried to live it every day and seen how great it is, I love sharing it with people and teaching about it! After we finished teaching, Brother Ruff and Brother Hong said we did a really good job and the spirit was definitely there. I really want to be able to teach people more and help them feel the spirit and help them draw closer to God. It's hard to do that sometimes when you only get a few moments on the doorstep. I try to bear testimony as much as I can while doing our door approach so that the spirit can testify to them that our message is true! It was a great way to cap off a pretty long, slow day!

Saturday was district meeting and interviews with the Mission President. District meeting was really good! I gave a training on this talk by Tad R. Callister called, "Becoming a consecrated missionary." It is a really good talk and I would encourage all missionaries and prospective missionaries to read it! Funny moment from my training: we were discussing this part about how you have to "leave your fears on the sacrificial altar and talk to everyone." One of the things it says is you just have to square your shoulders and just do it. So, Shia LaBouf has a motivational video called "Just Do It" and someone made a video of him giving this speech as if he's at general conference. I'll share it in the photo share. It is super funny. So I was like, "I brought a motivational speaker to pump you guys up to talk to everyone!" And I showed that video to my district. Well, the Mission President walks in like halfway through to get the next person for interviews, and I just hurried and grabbed my iPad and was like "....so just DO IT! Talk to everyone!" And Elder Newbold was on the ground laughing because President walked in right during the video. It was so funny! Haha then the Prior Lake Sisters did a training on recognizing and understanding the spirit. They did the guiding game where you blind fold someone and then someone else is the Holy Ghost and the blind folded person has to listen to the Holy Ghost while everyone else distracts them. It was super funny. I'll include a video! Interviews were same as usual. In and out with President. Not much was said so I guess that means he's not worried about me or anything. Afterwards the Spanish district wanted to go to this place called El Super Taco where you get like foot long tacos. They were $10, so I didn't get one, but everyone said they were way overpriced and not as good as the price indicated. Then we had a lesson right after that Brother Parsons, a less active ward missionary. We invited him to church and he said he would be there, but didn't show up. However, his wife showed up, so that was good! We also met with a former investigator, Alisa, who is handicapped and in a wheelchair. Somehow she had requested a BOM online and the Sisters had met with her before a few times. We talked to her dad mostly. He said he is Catholic and is too old to convert, but we shared our testimonies of the truth of our message and our church as we talked. Like things would come up that would be related to something we teach and we would share a little about it and testify of it. He seemed like he felt the spirit but was kind of fighting it a little. I feel like he has potential, so we will see! We are meeting with him again on Saturday! We did some stop bys and then tracted this street in the southeast part of our area. We met this really cool guy named Matt. He said he only had a few minutes to chat because he was watching his young kids, but he liked our message and said to give him a call this week to set up an appointment. I really think he has some potential, too. He seemed very genuine and interested in hearing the message of the restored gospel! So I am excited to go back and see him this week! I woke up with a cold on Saturday, and I was dying by like 8:30 pm. My nose was so stuffy and I was coughing and sneezing, so we went to Target and bought some NyQuil and called it a night. I took some walking out of Target and I was out cold by the time we got home. Elder Wolfley had to smack me to wake me up. So I went in and changed and went to bed.  I HATE BEING SICK SO MUCH! It's hard to do good work when you are sneezing and coughing and your nose is so stuffed up you can't breathe. 

Sunday, no one came to church that we were planning on. But....a Doug Watters came to church and the Gretz's son Mike, and his girlfriend his girlfriend came to church, too! So it was pretty good, all things considered. After church, Brother Humphreys a super cool member of our ward, wanted to race us in his mini van, so we tried to but we have a Tiwi in our car hah,. and can't go super fast. He killed us haha. After church we had a lesson set up with Victoria for 4 pm cuz she rescheduled on Saturday. We talked to her at 5 pm on Saturday, and she said we could come Sunday at 4 pm. So we called her at 3:30 pm to make sure we could still go over, and she's like, "I totally forgot and I'm out of town until Wednesday!" So that was a bummer, but it ended up being for a good reason! We decided to tract these town homes for an hour by our apartment, and the first door we knocked, this lady answers and let us teach her the first lesson on her doorstep. The spirit was super strong and you could tell she could feel it. She said she had been looking for a church and I was like, "I think you just found one!" She said we could call her and set up an appointment next week cuz she is swamped at work this week. She said she would start reading the BOM though! We kept knocking for a while and this one guy answers and we had an interesting conversation. It went like this pretty much:

Guy: Who are you?

Me: We are representatives of Jesus Christ and are sharing a message that His church has been restored by a prophet called of God. We would love to share our message with you!

Guy: You believe that Jesus is a prophet and not the son of God?

Elder W: No we believe Jesus is the son of God and our Redeemer, but that God called a prophet to restore His church. You're familiar with the Bible and the prophets in the Bible correct?

Guy: Yeah, I believe the Bible. I just don't believe what you guys believe!

Me: So you're saying you don't believe in prophets?

Guy: (literally 10 seconds of silence. He had no clue what to say.) Have a nice day gentlemen. 

Us: You too, sir!

It was so funny. He had no clue what to say. You could tell he was thinking about it really hard. So I'm glad if nothing else, we made him think about what he really believes in. We basically tracted the rest of the day. We didn't have a lot of success, but we met some nice people and it strengthened my own testimony that the gospel has been restored and our church is led by a prophet of God!

I love sharing the gospel. It is truly a blessing to be a part of the Lord's team and be sharing the message that His church has been restored to the earth. I know it is true and I want everyone to know it is true, too. It is such an amazing message. The Book of Mormon is also true and is without a doubt the word of God. I can't ever deny that after the witness I have received. I know the gospel of Jesus Christ is the way to living a better life and becoming more like our Savior and Redeemer. It is a privilege to be sharing this message with the people of Minnesota, even if they aren't super receptive! I know someone is out there that needs to hear our message. We just gotta keep knocking until we find them! I love you all and hope you have a great week. I pray for all my family and friends every day, so know there are prayers from Minnesota being sent your way. 

Much love,

Elder Beach

#MavUp #10

Our zone after our service.

Foot-long tacos.

Tough Week...but Awesome Ending!

Hello to all my family, friends, and coaches back home, serving the Lord, and at college!  Hope you are all doing well and have had a great week. This week has been one of the toughest of my mission. We have had a lot of rejection and appointments fall through. However, as we have continued to work hard and put our faith in the Lord, we saw some awesome miracles and success to end the week!

We had district meeting on Tuesday again. I'm actually really loving being a district leader. It's really pushed me outside of my comfort zone and made me stretch to be a better missionary and have more charity and love for those I'm serving. It's been a good experience for me! I love giving trainings at district meetings, too. I feel like I learn a lot and also can help my district learn and apply things that relate to being better missionaries. It's cool and I also learn a lot from the people in my district, too. I am one of the younger missionaries in the district, so it's a blessing to learn from more experienced missionaries.  

After district meeting we had zone service at the Prince of Peace food shelf. That is really fun and we were way more busy this week! We had a lot of people come this week to get food, so we were filling carts full of food for about 2 hours straight haha. After that we took my bike to the bike shop to get it fixed. We met the lady who hit me at the shop and got everything squared away. She's a single mom and a school teacher. She was super nice and really good to help with the bike and everything! The bike store guy said it needed a new back tire and would take a week or so. We wouldn't be getting the car back for at least a week and then we couldn't bike either. Elder Nissenbaum let me borrow his bike until mine got fixed. So we tried to talk to the lady that hit me about the church, but she wasn't super interested. She goes to this church right by our apartment haha. We are going to text her and just be like, "Hey can we come share a quick message with you?" And see what she says. We then had to walk home after we got done there and that took like 45 minutes. Elder Nissenbaum's bike was at our apartment, so we grabbed our bikes and biked up to this guy named Moises that we had found last week. He was there and said he was too busy. This is basically the story of the week. We have appointments set up and either on the way there or right when we get there, people cancel. So then we had to bike all the way back to dinner and basically wasted an hour. I hate when people set up appointments with absolutely no intention of keeping them.  That evening, Brother Ruff went out with us and we visited the Duo/Smith family. They are less actives and are pretty cool. Their son goes to Iowa Western college. I remembered that a girl I know from Sky View, Sammy Guadarama, goes there for soccer, so I asked him if he knew her and he said he sure did. So that was cool to make a connection there. He and I kind of hit it off after finding we had a mutual friend. We talked about football and soccer and track and we shared the "I'm a Mormon" video about Jason Smyth who is a 4 time Paralympic gold medalist. It ended up being a cool evening. We also visited the Leavitts, who are a less active family. We visited with them for about a half hour and when we left we invited them to church. Brother Leavitt was like, "Yeahhhh... we might come soon. We've been going to Community of Christ church." I guess they've been struggling with their testimonies. He said we could come over whenever though. Hopefully we can help them with their testimonies and help them find their faith again! 

Wednesday was a rough day. We had an appointment set up with a lady down in the south part of our area in the afternoon. So we biked down there and of course, she wasn't there. So we finished tracting this street we had started last week. We had zero success and it was a bummer. We biked up to the north part of our area after dinner to stop by some less actives and investigators. We met this one lady who was less active. She said we could visit on Friday! The bike I was using got like a half flat tire on Wednesday, so it was half flat and wouldn't pump up or go all the way flat. Go figure.  Wednesday was a long day. We didn't see hardly any success and basically just ended up biking all day on a semi flat tire. I really was struggling with why I was even out here. It seems like all we've done since I've been here is bike and knock doors. We haven't taught a single lesson with an investigator since I've been here. Everyone has been telling me how great this area is and when I got here we had 4 people with a date set and now we have 0, and I've met one of our investigators and we haven't taught anyone since I've been here. So I was struggling on Wednesday. When we got home Wednesday I just was like, I need to workout and burn off some steam. That helped, but not as much as I would've liked. So I just unloaded some stuff to God and told him all my frustrations and dropped all my anger on him. That helped a lot. Then when I got done this scripture from D&C 58 popped into my head. It's verses 2-4: 2 For verily I say unto you, blessed is he that keepeth my commandments, whether in life or in death; and he that is faithful in tribulation, the reward of the same is greater in the kingdom of heaven.

3 Ye cannot behold with your natural eyes, for the present time, the design of your God concerning those things which shall come hereafter, and the glory which shall follow after much tribulation.

4 For after much tribulation come the blessings. Wherefore the day cometh that ye shall be crowned with much glory; the hour is not yet, but is nigh at hand.

I REALLY needed those verses at that time. I just felt like I was sucking as a district leader and as a missionary. I realized that was just Satan trying to get me to feel down and depressed and not work hard. I am grateful we have the scriptures and prayer to uplift us in times of need!

Thursday we had a lesson with this less active guy named Harry Colwell! Harry is a cool dude.  He is like 80 years old and is married to a non member. His wife is kind of anti Mormon so he hasn't been to church in a while. He told us he wanted to meet with the bishop and have us come over once a week and start trying to get back to church.  So that was pretty cool! After that we had to bike all the way to the south west corner of our area for another lesson with Brother Parsons. He called us and cancelled when we were halfway there. So, once again we wasted like 35 minutes of biking. I am basically about to kill someone at this point because we have had like 7 appointments fall through this week already. Oh, on Tuesday, Bert Goff, another less active guy we are working with, called and cancelled like last minute, too. So that's basically how our week went haha. Anyway, back to Thursday. So Elder Wolfley had to use the bathroom so we stopped at Walmart really quick and then hustled home because it was freezing.  I've decided that when it's in the 20's with 20 mph winds it's colder than when it's -15 with no wind. Wind is an absolute killer with the temperature. We then walked down to our dinner appointment because my bike currently had a flat tire. We tracted these townhomes by our dinner appointment but... no one listened to us.  It is so frustrating when people are like, "I believe in Jesus already," and then just shut the door. I'm like, "We have so much more to offer!! Please listen to us!" Uughh,h it's frustrating sometimes. Haha dinner was awesome, though! We had dinner with the Lewises. They are super awesome. They grew up in Missoula, Montana and so we talked about University of Montana and football and CrossFit and it was great. Then Sister Lewis pulls out these nerf guns and starts shooting her kids. The kids had some and were shooting her and us and there was like an all out nerf gun war during dinner. It was a party. I hope my family is like that! Then we met with this less active guy named Joe Brockway.  He is a big time gamer and loves video games and stuff like that. He lives with his girlfriend who is Japanese and is moving to Japan with her next year. He was an interesting guy, but really nice and I felt like we hit it off pretty well considering we have like nothing in common haha. Then we walked like 2.5 miles home and it was super cold because the wind was blowing right at us the whole time. Rough week....

Friday was weekly planning again. I tried to kind of be in charge of planning this week, so it went a little more smooth. We got our whole upcoming week planned out. So that will be good because the last few weeks we've kind of been winging it when appointments fall through. We will have much better plans this upcoming week though! Friday afternoon we just did a lot of tracting. We decided to tract these townhomes just off the main road in Apple Valley. Not a lot of people were home, but we just kept knocking and talking. Haha this one door we knocked, there was a cat outside the door and it looked really cold and it was super fat and had a huge part of its back shaved. I felt so bad for it, but I didn't know what to do for it. So we kept knocking and it followed us for like 6 townhomes haha. Like it would go door to door with us. No one answered at any of those 6 doors, but man, if someone opened a door and 2 missionaries were there with a fat, orange cat, what an interesting conversation that would be! Haha so we kept tracting and had no one who wanted to listen. When you tract for 2 and a half hours and no one wants to listen, it's a little discouraging. After dinner we tracted for about 2 hours as well and literally. NO. ONE. WOULD. LISTEN!!! I was so down in the dumps. We went to the Doty's house at 8 because Elder Wolfley wanted to get cheered up and they're awesome. Brother Doty shared some cool stories about finding and tracting from his mission and it got us pumped up again to do some finding. It was a good way to end the day and I really needed it, too. I'm grateful for good people who can pump you up after a bad day!

Saturday morning we helped a less active family move all the stuff in their apartment into a storage unit. Their names were Mason and Kody Kellington.  Mason got in a motorcycle accident last year and has a rod and 8 screws in his leg and has a bunch of plates and screws in his arm too. He got majorly messed up and is lucky to be alive. So we got to help them move and it was pretty fun! We had a lot of the Elders Quorum there and Bishop Clifford came, too. There was some crazy heavy stuff we carried down this super narrow staircase to get it out of the apartment, and I got to volunteer to carry the heavy stuff. Grateful I have had football workouts and current workouts to help me stay strong and able to move stuff.  See, I try to use football as much as I can to share the gospel haha.After we loaded up the U-haul truck, we took it all to the storage unit. They had a football buried in the truck and Brother Davis found it and wanted me to throw him a pass so he could say he caught a pass from a college quarterback. Oh! Cool side story. So this part member family in our ward, the Singers, have a son playing QB at a D2 school in north Minnesota. The dad isn't a member, but I talked to Sister Singer at church and she said when her son was home next month for spring break they would have us over for dinner and we could talk football and throw it around a little bit! I'm going to try to use that as an in to the dad and share the gospel with him. Anyway, the bike shop called on Saturday and said my bike was done and ready to go (thank Heavens because we had been walking the last two days.) Brother Connoly, who is the assistant ward mission leader, needed help getting a fridge out of his truck and into his house, so we helped him move that in exchange for a ride to the bike store. We met the lady that hit me (Jenna) there and got everything payed for and biked to our dinner appointment after that. We visited the Bradfords again after dinner. Brother Bradford was so grateful for the blessing we gave him last week and said his diabetes is doing better. We had a great visit and they enjoyed having us over! They're great! I love visiting them. Then we tracted some more at some townhomes right by the assisted living place. We prayed beforehand and said, "Heavenly Father, we don't have any appointments, and we are going to tract for an hour right now, so please help us find people." So we tracted and we found a few families and some cool people that said we could come back on Tuesday night! It was a blessing to have some success to cap off a rough week! 

Sunday was easily the best day of the week! Elder Wolfley and I were supposed to speak in church, but they had 2 youth speakers, us and the high council speaker, too. So they ended up postponing my talk for a few weeks due to time constraints. But we had Haymonot and the Gretz' less-active kid came to church, so that was good! And Beth Bigboy texted us and said her husband potentially has a job lined up starting tomorrow! So Sunday was good at church. After church we had this lady that said we could come back Sunday and teach her. So we biked for a half hour up to her house and we get there and, of course, she isn't there. Her mom answered the door and said she wasn't there. I was like, "Oh my gosh, ok." I asked if we could get her number so we could call her before we came up again to make sure she was there and the grandma was like, "I'm not gonna give you her number!" And I was like "Why not?" And she said cuz she didn't even know us. I was so mad because this was like the 10th appointment we had gotten stood up on. I said "We would just like it so she doesn't waste an hour of our time next time we come up here. We just wasted an hour of our time coming up here to share a message with your daughter and she isn't here when she says she will be here. We will stop by another time." I just left because I was about to lose my mind. So then we biked all the way down to this other appointment, and of course, they weren't there either. So we were right by these townhomes and we were like, "God, we need a miracle and we are going to tract for 45 minutes before dinner." So we knocked like 7 doors before anyone answered and the first one that answered was this girl named Mai.  She was super cool and let us teach her a first lesson on her porch. She took a Book of Mormon and we set up an appointment for next Saturday. Then the next door we knocked basically the same thing happened! She said we could come back on Friday this week. Then the next door, this lady answers and says, "Are you the Mormons?" And we were like, "Yes ma'am, we are!" And she says, "Yay! You're back! Missionaries used to teach me and now you're back." She said she had read the Book of Mormon twice and had taken all the lessons multiple times but didn't pray ever and didn't believe in prayer. She said she wanted us to come over Thursday though, so we are going over and visiting her Thursday. Then we had to hurry to dinner with the Lyon family. They're pretty cool and we had fish and veggies and it was super good! Then we decided to tract these other townhomes by their house until 8 PM or till we ran out of Books of Mormon. We had 4. So this neighborhood had a sign that said private property: no soliciting or trespassing. But obviously that wasn't going to stop us, so we started knocking doors! We saw some incredible success Sunday evening. We taught 3 first lessons and had like 8-9 people say we could come back Wednesday night and share a message with them or continue to teach them. It was so great to have so much success after such a tough week. Elder Wolfley also got over his shyness of tracting and just had some killer door contacts and defended the faith well. It was awesome, and I felt so proud to be a missionary on Sunday! I wish I could just feel like that all the time. But that's not how it works unfortunately. We gave away 3 Books of Mormon and 5 total on Sunday. We ended with one left and couldn't find anyone to give it to, but we worked our butts off Sunday and last week and the Lord blessed us with some success and miracles Sunday. It was amazing!

I'm going to share a little bit of advice to those preparing to enter the mission field this summer and fall. The mission is the hardest thing you'll ever do. If you think school is hard, it's not. If you think 2-a-days for football is hard, it's not. If you think relationship troubles you have are hard, they're not. The mission is seriously so hard and there really is nothing to fully prepare you for it. Some things you can do to prepare are 1. Read and study and gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon. 2. Live the gospel of Jesus Christ and gain a testimony of the atonement. 3. Pray for charity and love the people you will serve. If you do those things, you will be a great missionary. Now, the mission is the toughest thing I've ever done. But it is the most rewarding and the greatest thing as well. I've grown so much in these last 8 months and I've gained a rock solid testimony of the Book of Mormon and of Jesus Christ and that this is His church. The Priesthood has been restored by a prophet called of God. I know that to be true and I will never, ever deny that. If you let it, the mission will change you and mold you into what God wants you to become. It is hard, but anything that's worth it never came easy. Bringing people to Christ and to the waters of baptism is very, very hard, but there is nothing sweeter than seeing someone who wants to change and become better and being able to help them. So all you future missionaries, it will be hard and it will be tough. Not gonna sugar coat it. But it is so worth it if you work hard and put your heart into the work and "lose yourself in the service of others and God!" 

I love all of you and hope your week has been great! Thanks for all the prayers and support, I couldn't do it without you all. Sending lots of love to my family and friends back home. I love you all so much!

Much love,

Elder Beach 

#MavUp #10

Teaching one of our favorite couples.

The fat, orange cat that followed us around.

This is what a rough week in Minnesota looks like!  (We found some empty bottles lying around and it made for a good picture...)

Here's me at the playground, doing fire pole climbs.