Things are picking up!

Hello to all my family, friends, and coaches at home, college and serving the Lord around the world! Hope you all had a great week and are enjoying summer break! We had another super slow week of finding and stuff, but Saturday and Sunday were awesome and we found like 5 people and taught a lot of lessons, so we finished strong this week!

P days are way different out here in the sticks. There isn't much to do because everyone is so spread out, so we wake up and go to the church and workout and then do studies and then shop and then go to a member's house to do laundry and email. That's about all there is to do so that's what we did last Monday. It sucks not being around other missionaries like in the cities. We had dinner with the Brinnleys and the YSA group at like 7 pm and then had a lesson with Brother Charter and his kids. He has had some marriage problems and so we stay in contact as much as we can with him because he might go insane sometimes haha. He's a funny guy though and so are his kids! We also did some stop bys and no one was home as usual so yeah, that was Monday! 

Tuesday morning we had to coordinate rides and all the logistical stuff for Zone Conference. That took like all morning haha. We also had to plan a 30 minute training on accountability. When I first found out about that, I was like, "How in the heck are we going to give a 30 minute training on accountability from a 2 paragraph section in Preach My Gospel?" But we managed to make one, and it ended up being pretty good haha so that was good.  After that we drove down to Clear Lake which is about 30 minutes South of us and tracted for about 2 hours. We met some cool people but no one was super solid. We talk to so many people who will listen and take Books of Mormon and stuff but just won't set up return appointments. I wish I could see what ends up happening to the Books of Mormon we give away because I'm sure at least one of them gets read and will affect someone's life! We had dinner with the Roback family in Becker Tuesday night and they are super awesome. Brother Roback is the Elders Quorum President. I really like their family. I ate so much watermelon there haha. It was super good! I shared the Friday Night Lights dinner message and Brother and Sister Roback loved it. They said they went to that movie for their first date! Sounded like a good date to me! haha Sister Roback told us this story about when she was at a YSA activity and was wrestling and she got put in this like "anaconda squeeze" hold and farted super loud and everyone was dead silent and just stared at her. I choked on my watermelon and almost died because I was laughing so hard. It was so random and funny.  After dinner we drove down to southern Becker to stop by some people and most people we stopped by had moved or weren't interested but that's ok cuz Becker is super far away! We tracted this street down there and met this super cool guy named Alex. He was from Romania originally and we talked to him for about 20 minutes. He was in his garage moving stuff and we offered to help and then ended up talking about the Book of Mormon and the restoration! He was really nice and said we could stop by next time we were down there. So it was a pretty good way to end the day. 

Wednesday was exchanges with the Alexandria Elders. They just blitzed our area and rode down with us to zone conference on Thursday. So I went with Elder Bentley and we had a party haha.  We had like 15 stop bys planned and the first person came out to talk to us on her patio.  Her name was Debrelle Bergan.  She was really nice and has been reading the Book of Mormon a little bit. She referred us to this family in the apartment building across from her so we went over there to check it out. While we were walking over we contacted this lady from Tennessee who was up to visit her daughter. She had met missionaries before and had a Book of Mormom. She said she was around until the end of July and gave us her number and said to give her a call. The apartment building was a lockout so we couldn't get in and buzzed the apartment she gave us but no one let us in. So we walked up the road a ways to this other apartment building where this guy named Jerry lives. He wasn't there but we talked to this cool old lady who was waiting for the bus right by his apartment. The bus pulled up right after we started talking to her but we gave her a card and talked about the Book of Mormon a little bit so that was fun! As we were walking back to our car I heard this song and it sounded really familiar and then I was like, "Oh, I know that song!" It was a country song by Chase Rice I really like. This guy was jamming it in his parked car, so obviously I went over to talk to him and right when we walked over he rolled up his window on us.  So we didn't get to talk to him at all. After that we tracted this like super out of the way road. It was pretty rural and I doubted anyone had ever tracted it so we went for it and had a good amount of success! The first door we knocked on this lady talked to us for like 10 minutes haha. She basically just talked about moving to Hawaii but we tried to get in gospel stuff here and there haha. We then met this lady named Taunya. She talked to us forever and took a plan of salvation pamphlet and really liked it! She said her mom had just passed away so we talked about how we can be together as families forever. It was cool. Then we met this guy sitting out in his car named Bob. He told us he had read the whole Book of Mormon and it was wrong and our church was wrong and that he belonged to Calvary Lutheran church and that it was the true church because they taught only from the scriptures. I was a little confused because we teach from the scriptures and from the words of modern prophets and apostles. Anyways, Elder Bentley and he got into a Bible bash and Elder Bentley just went off and roasted him and was like, "If you have read the Book of Mormon and don't believe it then you have been deceived!" Then Bob just said we were wrong and the Bible was right and all that stuff. And they got into a little argument about the revelations scripture about not adding to the word of God. I was just dying cuz it was like a fire and brimstone debate. After that we had dinner at our place and then Brother Paulsen took us out to Foley for the evening. When we got there, the whole town was having this huge parade thing and so the people we were going to visit weren't able to be visited. We literally couldn't get to the houses we wanted to get to cuz there was so many people in the streets and stuff. It was insane. Foley is this really small farm town like 30 minutes East of Sauk Rapids, so we get out there like once a week. I was pretty mad because we weren't able to see people because of the parade. There literally was no way to get to the houses we wanted to get to and the people probably weren't home anyways.  It was a bummer but we ended up stopping by this less active lady who lives on a farm and met her and her new husband. Brother Paulsen and her husband talked about fishing for forever and we talked to her about her history with the church. She said she isn't active and isn't planning on being active but was happy we stopped by and visited her! After that we drove home and had a party with Elders Boothe, Bentley, Myer and myself haha.

Thursday was Zone Conference in Brooklyn Park, which is like an hour and little bit from our place. We had to be there 30 minutes early to set up, so we left our place at 7 am. So we woke up pretty early to get there on time haha. I got to conduct Zone Conference, and I was a little nervous to do that because I've never conducted before, but it wasn't too bad.  Elder Myer and I gave a training on accountability and it went really well. We used some stuff from Chapter 8 in Preach My Gospel and some other talk that Elder Myer found by Elder M. Russell Ballard. It is scary being in front of like 40 missionaries and training them.  I'm brand new to Zone Leading and don't feel like a super great Zone Leader or anything, so it was scary, but it ended up working out! Elder Peterson and I hung out at lunch and had a party haha so that was good. I love him, and I hope we can serve together at some point in our missions. We wrapped up Zone Conference at about 3 pm and then we had to stick around for interviews with President, and all the Sisters in our zone wanted blessings for various reasons, so we gave all of them blessings. Once again, it was awesome and I love giving blessings. We finally got out of there at like 5 pm. I got a final picture with President and Sister Forbes. They go home this week and I am really going to miss them.  We went to dinner in Maple Grove at this really good restaurant I went to once up there. We got omelettes and hash browns and toast for like $8. Super good deal.  Then we drove home and got home at like 7:30 pm. We did some stop bys and tracted after that but didn't see much success. I was beat at the end of the day. I feel like the days we do nothing are the ones I get most tired from haha. 

Friday we weekly planned and did accounting stuff until 4:30 pm. It was insane. Elder Myer and I were going nuts and were like taking a break every 30 minutes and doing push-ups and jumping over chairs and stuff so we didn't go crazy haha.  We drove up to Brother Charter's house so he could take us up to Little Falls for dinner with the Dobsons. When we got there, Brother Charter told us he had destroyed a toilet at his work and was super gassy. I don't know why he tells us these things but he does! So the drive up was interesting, to say the least. It was about a 45 minute drive and the windows were open for most of the drive. The Dobsons made us a huge feast for dinner which was great! They made ham, stuffing, sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, and last but not least, baked beans. I love sweet potatoes so much. I honestly don't know why I hated them before the mission.  So anyway, Brother Charter and Elder Myer had a contest to see who could eat the most baked beans. It was not a good idea given the current state Brother Charter was in.  The Dobsons are less active and we had a lesson with them about fasting.  Brother Charter was ripping farts off the whole lesson. It was so bad. He is our Ward Mission Leader and we were just like, "Oh Brother Charter, what are we gonna do with you?"  It was bad. We stopped by some less actives up in Little Falls but most of them weren't home or weren't interested so that wasn't too good.  We stopped by this one less actives house and it was just this run down old shack of a house. We knocked on all the doors about no one was living there anymore. It was a little scary haha. 

Saturday we finally found some people to talk to and have lessons with.  In the morning we just walked around this ghetto part of our area. There's a motel called the "Thrifty Motel" that's basically a brothel and drug house. These two ladies who were from this other church stopped us and gave us some pamphlets for their church and said it was the true church. They were like 65 years old we tried to give them a pamphlet from our church but they said our church was wrong and the only way to be saved was accepting Jesus Christ as our savior. It was pretty weird to say the least. I told them we did that, but they said we were still wrong. I tried to start telling them about our church but they said we were wrong unless we read the pamphlets they gave us and accepted the Bible and Jesus as our savior. I just told them to "Have a nice day" cuz I hate Bible bashing with people.  I read their pamphlet and boy is it such a bunch of bogus.   I will send a picture of it.  They asked us if we believe Jesus is God, so we started talking about the Godhead but they weren't having any of it. They told us Jesus is God and not separate beings, but as I read their pamphlet it contradicted what they said. I just have to shake my head sometimes. I'm grateful to be a part of the true church of Jesus Christ and have the fullness of the gospel! It is truly one of the greatest blessings in my life. After that we contacted these two guys named Jay and Ryan who were out in their driveway "making trash." (Throwing away trash haha) They were super drunk and asked us all these weird questions about Joseph Smith and plural marriage. We talked to them for about five minutes and then had to leave. They were super weird and crazy but they invited us over for dinner to have flat chicken. We had no clue what flat chicken was but it sounded interesting ha ha.  So we told them we would swing by at 6:15 pm after our actual dinner. After that we had lunch and then had a lesson with Mark (less active YSA) at the church. That went super well! We had a lesson about the plan of salvation and it was awesome. We drew it on a chalk board and taught it as we went. Mark had some super good and deep questions, so we spent a lot of the time talking about those. It was a really good lesson though. After that Spencer Baker came out with us. He just got home from his mission in Brazil and is super cool! I like him a lot. We did some prospective Elder stop bys, but none of them were home. This one apartment we stopped by was a lockout, and this guy that was going in with us just let us in when he went in. So we got in and all these old guys were sitting around shooting the bull and being "apartment cops". They made us leave and buzz ourselves in. I was like, "We are visiting so and so and we just got let in." They made us go out, shut the door, and call the guy to get buzzed in. He wasn't there unfortunately.  The guys were being big time jerks and Spencer was like, "Is it always like this?" And we were like, "Yeah, it isn't uncommon haha." We then had a lesson with Sister Brainard, who is a less active lady. She has been less active for so long she doesn't know anything about the church or when she got baptized or anything. So we got to know her and shared about the Book of Mormon and invited her to read and pray. She said she is planning on coming to church this next week. We then had dinner with Sister Kennedy and had some mac n cheese. Then we went back to Ryan and Jay's house. This is a funny story: so we get there and knock on the door and Jay answers and he is hammered. Like bloodshot eyes, everything. He's just in his underwear and that's it haha.  He lets us in and shows us Ryan, who is passed out in the bedroom because he is drunk. Then he gave us some flat chicken, which is basically a full chicken that got run over by a truck and is flat. I don't know what is better about it but it tasted good nonetheless. Then he gave us some homemade cookies and they were also really good! Then he's like, I wanna show you guys something on YouTube. So we turns on his tv and pulls up YouTube. We were ready to like run away in case he showed us porn or anything like that. So he pulls up "Guy on a Buffalo" and it was the funniest thing I've ever seen.  Everyone watch it so you know how much I laughed haha. It was so random and Jay was like singing along with it and all that.  Jay just seems like a lonely guy and he invited us over again this week so we will see how it goes! We then had a meeting with the ward missionaries and Brother Charter and did some ZL paperwork and called it a night. 

Sunday was awesome, too! We went out and did some stop bys before church and didn't have a ton of success. So Matt, who was an investigator and dropped us, showed up to church again this week! We had no clue he was coming but he came again, and Sister Kennedy brought this guy named David that I guess she is dating haha. He was super nice too, and we are having dinner with them this week! After church we had a potluck with the ward and that was pretty good. We tracted this street called Utah Road after dinner and had a lot of success there. We found a guy named Roan from South Africa who plays rugby and he talked to us for a while on his porch and took a Book of Mormon and said we could come back this week. We are going to try to go to one of his rugby games soon, too.  We also met this guy named Richard who took a Book of Mormon for his wife and said she would be interested. He said he lived the simple life and didn't really believe in God. He just worked, fished, and kept his wife happy haha. I was like, "Dang, you got it figured out!" We also met this lady named Deb whose sister and her whole family were Mormons but she wasn't. She let us in and we talked for like 30 minutes. She was super nice and we left her a challenge to read "Fourth Floor, Last Door" by President Uchtdorf because she has a prodigal son, so to speak. He just kind of left home and became an atheist and lives his own lifestyle now. So she was worried about him a lot and that talk is awesome for that topic. After we tracted we had a lesson with Reegan Bird and his family. He is a less active member that we think may actually be an unbaptized child of record. He doesn't show up in the church records but he told us he is a member and grew up a member. His mom is a member in like Hutchinson or something. His wife is a Jehovah's Witness, but she loves us and always makes us food haha. They are having us over on Thursday for lunch and to help them with yard work.  Anyway, we just talked about what Jehovah Witnesses believe and then she asked about the Book of Mormon and so we did a history of the Book of Mormon lesson and invited them to read it and pray about it. It was a super good lesson and the spirit was very strong. After that we did numbers and went to sleep. 

This week has been really great! It went by so fast. Things were really slow when I got here, but they are starting to pick up quite a bit. I know when we work hard, plan well, and have faith, God will help us in His work. I know this church is true, and this is God's work we are doing. I'm grateful to be a part of hastening the work and sharing the restored gospel of Jesus Christ with all those I meet. In less than a year I will be home. That's crazy! I am making the most of every day I get out here because they go by so fast! I love you all, thanks for the "hump day" packages, family! Love you guys! 

Much love,

Elder Beach

#MavUp #10

Sunset in my new area.

Some interesting places we tracted into.

Last visit with President and Sister Forbes before they go home.

Loved seeing old friends at Zone Conference!

The St. Cloud Zone.

Sauk Rapids Week 1 in the books!

Hello to all my family, friends, and coaches at home, college and serving the Lord around the world! I hope and pray this email finds you well and enjoying life. Transfers were this week and it was so hard to leave Apple Valley. I will dearly miss the people there and Elder Sherwood. He was such a fun companion. Such a bittersweet week for me, but I've settled in quickly to Sauk Rapids and I'm excited to be here. 

Last Monday I think I mentioned this already, but we went to Valley Fair in Shakopee with the Gretz and Lake Marion Elders. It was a party.  We went on a bunch of roller coasters and stuff and then at around 2:30 pm this huge storm hit and they closed the park. It was a bummer but it was still super fun and we had a blast. There wasn't a cloud in the sky when the day started, and then as it went along, this giant storm from down south came up right over that area. Oh well, it happens!  After that we went to Culver's for lunch and then went to the Gretz house and played Snorta, which is this super funny game where you have to make animal sounds and then guess each other's animals and stuff.  It was fun! Monday night we basically just went around and said bye to everyone and then got packed up. 

Tuesday we finished packing and then Daren took us to chick-fil-a for lunch! That was so sad. We all just talked about what we had learned from each other, and Daren was bawling because we were leaving. It was a sad lunch.  I'm going to miss him so much. There aren't a lot of people I've met on my mission that have the faith and open mind and heart that Daren has. He was a diamond in the rough we found in Apple Valley. After that we went and saw Stew Peterson and Bob Hosman at the old folks home. I will seriously miss them so much. I love visiting the elderly folks. They just have such a good spirit about them and they've lived good lives and have such great advice! The Bradfords weren't home and unfortunately we weren't able to connect with them before we had to leave.  I was super sad about that. After that we finished packing and cleaning up the apartment a little bit. Then we went to the Gretz to hang out a little bit before we went to say bye to others in the ward. We visited Bishop Clifford's family and the Lewis family as well. I will miss both of them a lot. Bishop's family is awesome and I will miss them. The Lewises were so fun! I loved having dinner with them and hanging out with all their kids haha.  After that we went to the Gretz for dinner and our last bonfire. That was so bittersweet. I love the Gretz a ton! I seriously can't wait to hang out with them after the mission.  They did some killer chicken and salad and fresh fruit for dinner and it was super good. Sister Gretz kept playing all these sad songs while we had the fire haha.  When the time came to head home, they gave us some gifts (s'more stuff and candy and thank you cards) and we said our goodbyes. That was tough. Everyone was a little teary eyed and we didn't wanna leave. There were a lot of emotions as we drove away.  

Wednesday morning we loaded up the car and headed up to Bloomington for transfers. As we were driving up, Elder Sherwood played "Hardest Thing I've Ever Loved To Do" by Nashville Tribute Band and I was just kinda lost it. Up to that point I had kept my emotions at bay but the tears just came out at that point. It just felt like I was leaving home and family all over again and it was tough. The drive up was hard for sure. When we got there I got to see all my buddies from around the mission and that was great. It's crazy how many missionaries that were my ZLs and served around me are now home or going home this transfer. I'm gonna be one of the old guys in about 2 months. Kinda crazy.  I got all my stuff into the new car and said goodbye to Elder Sherwood. I'm really gonna miss him. He was definitely one of my favorite companions I've had so far. I was riding up to Sauk Rapids with Elder Harper, who I know from around the mission. It was fun to talk to him as we drove up! We didn't get on the road till like 3 pm cuz we had to wait for a Tiwi in the new car and then get a new bike rack and it took forever. Then we had some Panda for lunch and started up. It's about an hour and half to where we live in the area, but we live like right in the middle of the area. We met Elder Harper's comp and my comp at our dinner and moved my luggage into the car and then had dinner with the Petersons. They're super cool.  They live out in the middle of nowhere on a farm so they have a sweet property.  After that we drove up to Little Falls with Brother Christie to visit Zach and Rodney Dobson. They are  a less active father and son. Zach is the son and he is progressing super well! They're really cool and we had a lesson about the plan of salvation with them. They are having us over for dinner this Friday and making a Thanksgiving feast for us! Little Falls is about 45 minutes north of where we live and that's driving 55 mph on the highway the whole time. So our area is quite a bit larger than Apple Valley haha. It's also about that long to the south part of our area too! Anyway, after that we just headed home because it was like 9:15 pm and got my stuff unpacked and all settled in. Our apartment is pretty nice, and we have a weight machine in the apartment. We live like 10 seconds from church, so we go there every morning to run and stuff so it's been good! I'm still at 194 lbs, so doing good with weight haha.  

Thursday was insane. We worked on the transfer calendar and the zone focus for like 5 hours. I wanted to run through a wall. I'm not a logistics/paperwork guy and so that was not my favorite. Elder Meyer became a Zone Leader here like a week before me, so neither of us know how to Zone Lead or like anything about the area. So we've been treading water the last few days with all the ZL responsibilities and figuring out people we are teaching and stuff. They had a ton of new investigators and people they were teaching when I got here, and since I got here like every single one has dropped us and doesn't want to get taught anymore. Sounds like Apple Valley... So we are starting from basically ground zero and all that. There is a ton of less actives in the ward, so I'm guessing a decent chunk of our work will be with them. I love working with less actives though, and so far in my mission I've had most success with less actives rather than investigators, so that's good for here haha.  Thursday afternoon after we got all the ZL stuff done we went to the Hilsgens to give Sister Hilsgen a blessing. She is less active and her husband is active. They live in a trailer park in Sartell which is just north of Sauk Rapids. They were super nice and gave us a huge jar of strawberry and rhubarb jam.  So tasty! I seriously love giving Priesthood blessings. I have such a strong testimony of them since I came out. God truly knows what we need and what we need to hear. I also know that through the Priesthood authority we can be comforted and healed. I gave the blessing and I don't remember much of what I said, but I remember saying something in it that was super random (at least I thought it was haha). But it ended up being something she needed to hear! So cool! I love it! Brother Hilsgen asked if we could help him out unloading his shed and redoing the floor in it on Saturday. So we agreed to that and headed out. We drove out to Foley to visit the Cosgroves who are an older less active couple that want to get sealed in the temple! We knocked on the door and no one answered. Then this truck pulled in and the dude never got out, so we called Brother Cosgrove's phone and no one answered. Then this teenage girl comes and lets us in and we have no clue what's going on.  Then the dude in the truck gets out and tells us to go away and that the Cosgroves aren't interested in what we are sharing. We were a little confused, but then we finally got in and Brother Cosgrove was like stoked to see us, so that cleared up all the confusion haha. The dude who told us to go away was was actually a really cool guy.  The girl was Brother Cosgrove's granddaughter visiting from Texas. Brother Cosgrove is starting a gun business right now and drives a truck for a living. He drives Saturday to Wednesday so he can't ever make it to church. That's why he is trying to get their gun business up and going so he can just do that full time. Anyway, we taught a restoration lesson and Tim and the granddaughter sat in on it and participated. It was really good! Brother Roback, the Elder's Quorum President, came with us too, and they really hit it off so that was solid! We left Tim a Book of Mormon to read and he said he'd check it out.  Hopefully that goes somewhere. Anyway, the Cosgroves are awesome, and they invited us for dinner every Wednesday and to do a lesson after dinner too.  Super fun!

Friday we finished making the zone focus and transfer calendar and all that and then started weekly planning. That took us to like 2:30 pm so we did some stop bys kind of south of Sauk Rapids. We met some super cool people as we were walking around. We met this Asian guy named Mark at this apartment and we are going to stop by him this upcoming week. We also met a less active lady in our ward named Sister Brainard and we are having a lesson with her tomorrow! In this area for stop bys we park the car and then walk around to stop by people and talk to like everyone out on the streets and do a little tracting. It's pretty fun! I've enjoyed it so far. Anyway, we just got to talk to a lot of cool people. We had dinner dropped off to us, so we ate at our place and then had a lesson with a guy named Mark who is a less active YSA member from Iowa. Our ward is a YSA magnet ward as well so we do some YSA work here, too. Anyway, he is going to St. Cloud State for an internship and decided he wanted to start coming to church again so we've been teaching him and he came to church on Sunday, too! He's a quiet guy but really nice and sincere and has super good questions, too. After that we did some more stop bys and ended up having a super cool conversation with another guy named Mark who is the dad of a potential investigator. He said he used to have some neighbors who were Mormons and he absolutely loved them so he just complimented us on the good people we were. He wasn't interested much in talking religion, but we just had a really cool chat with him so that was good. After that we saw these two ladies working on a car in the parking lot of the apartment building we were at so we went over to help them. They were replacing a headlight and the front part of the car was rusted on and we couldn't get the bolts out to fix it. So we did what we could but didn't do much. It did give us a chance to talk about what we do as missionaries and give the one lady, Tiffany, a Book of Mormon. She said we could give her a call and stop by this week to share some more! Haha. We then went to stop by this guy named Jeremy who is a potential that Elders Meyer and Nelson found like a week ago. He works at an "adult store" (think Doctor Johns in Logan) so I figured he would be an interesting guy to say the least.  Anyway, he wasn't home but we found this guy named Julian who was crazy and had kicked Elders Myer and Nelson out of the apartment the last time. Anyway, he started talking to us and we ended up teaching him the restoration lesson. He told us he used to be a tool and did drugs and stuff and he's still a little crazy from all that haha. But anyway, we gave him a Book of Mormon and he said he'd read it. He also said he was coming to church but cancelled last minute. 

Saturday was a little more normal of a day.  We went and helped Brother Hilsgen with his shed, and he had a ton of stuff in there haha. We unloaded the whole thing and stuff was everywhere. Then we hauled in a bunch of crushed up concrete and dirt and leveled it all out on the bottom so the bottom was even and level. It took like 2 hours.  Pretty fun stuff! Then we were supposed to have a lesson with Nick and Seky, who are some new investigators, but they fell through so we did some stop bys up in Sartell and didn't really find anyone. Haha we stopped by this less active that we knew nothing about and this old lady answered the door and we were like, "Hey, does so and so live here?" And she just goes off and tells us she's gonna call the cops if we ever come back and just ripped us a new one. I literally almost busted out laughing and was just like, "You have a nice day ma'am!" She didn't like that much hahah.  We also had a lesson with Timmy Beckrich, who is a less active dude in our ward. He is really funny and loves anime movies and stuff like that. He hasn't been to church for like a month or so, but he came on Sunday, which was really sweet! Haha we basically talked about movies the whole time and I was able to introduce him to "Angels in the Endzone". He said he was going to illegally pirate it and watch it that night.   He's a hoot! After dinner we tracted this nicer neighborhood and didn't really find anyone. Everyone was really nice but not interested. Then we went onto the next street and found like 3 people in 5 houses. It's crazy how it works like that sometimes. After that we did some more stop bys and called it a night!

Sunday we did a bunch of stop bys in the morning and did some tracting before church. We have 1 pm church, so that's kinda nice I guess.  Matt, who is a YSA investigator, came to church and so did Mark, the less active guy from Iowa, and so did Timmy! It was pretty cool! The ward is super small here. Like we don't even fill 3/4 of the chapel, so yeah. It's not very big! Church was good, we talked to like everyone to get to know people and set up a few lessons for this week! After church we drove up to the way north part of Sartell for dinner with the Brinkerhoffs. They are super cool and really nice. We fasted on Sunday and I pigged out at dinner. They made grilled chicken and rolls and fresh fruit and I ate a ton haha.  It was super good! After that we visited Brother Grider. He was out playing his guitar on his porch and played a song or two for us. We shared a quick lesson about fasting and he said he is reading a Book of Mormon and marking it up to give to someone as part of the stake challenge in January. So that was fun! Then we had coordination meeting with Brother Charter, who is the ward mission leader. He is really cool and I got the "new missionary" treatment from his kids when I got there haha. They put you in this big recliner and throw a blanket on you and give you a foot massage.  It was super nice! Then we did coordination meeting and headed home to do numbers for the zone. That's something we do each Sunday night. We get all the date set info and key indicator numbers from the zone and send it to the APs. 

This week has been tough emotionally, but fun! I feel like I've adjusted quickly to being in a new area. I'm excited to serve in Sauk Rapids and to help the ward grow and improve. I was so sad to leave the Apple Valley Ward, but I know this is where I'm supposed to be at this time. I'm not sure why yet, but by the time I leave I'm sure I'll know! Thanks for all the prayers and support! I love you all and have a great week. 

Much love,

Elder Beach

#MavUp #10

Saying goodbye to friends is hard!

The last supper at the Gretz.

Seeing old friends at transfers is awesome!

My new area - Sauk Rapids!

Me and my new comp, Elder Meyer, cleaning out the shed!

Look at all the stuff that was in it!

Transfers!

A big hello to everyone back home, at college, and serving the Lord worldwide! I hope y'all are doing well and have had a great first week of summer break. Transfers are this week and I will be zone leading in Sauk Rapids coming up this transfer. It is about 3 and half hours northwest of the cities. I'm really nervous and excited. I don't feel at all adequate to be a Zone Leader, but I know the Lord has called me to do it and He knows me best! Elder Sherwood is also getting transferred to Prior Lake and they are pink washing Sisters to Apple Valley (that means that only Sisters will be in Apple Valley). I'm honestly so sad to be transferred. I feel like we are finally hitting it off with all the members and getting them more involved in the work and stuff. I've loved this last transfer here and I'm sad to leave. But on to this week's adventures!

Last Monday was awesome! We went to Mall of America with Jaidyn Gretz and the Lake Marion Elders. It was so much fun! I wish I had like $1000 to spend there haha. We bought some new ties and got a Moana themed tie that was black and had tan palm tree beach scenes on it.  So now we and the Lake Marion Elders have matching ties haha. I also got a purple and black camo tie that is sweet and a black mirage snow flake tie for Christmas time. The mall is huge and has 4 floors and basically every store ever in there. You could easily spend a whole day there. It was sweet. Monday night we went bowling with Mikey and Jaidyn to try and build our relationship with Mikey. He is super funny once you get him to open up haha. He is really starting to open up to us, so I'm hoping we can help him progress a little now.

Tuesday we had district meeting and then went to Prince of Peace again. It was a super busy day again and I think we had even more people than last week.  It was very busy. Right after that we had a really good lesson with Daren. We taught a lesson about eternal marriage and temples. It ended up basically being a really great discussion about eternal families and how through the Priesthood authority that's been restored, we can be sealed as eternal families. It was great! I felt like it finally clicked for him that you can only be sealed as a family in the temple and in order to enter the temple, you need to be baptized and receive the Holy Ghost by proper Priesthood authority. He asked us, "So if someone wanted to get baptized and get married in the temple but their wife didn't and never did as long as she was alive, could they still be married for eternity?" We talked about doing ordinances for the dead, so I felt like that was good. He still won't set a date for baptism and at this point I'm not sure what's holding him back. Hopefully we can get him to baptism soon! After that we had dinner with the Amott family. They are really great. Sister Amott is awesome! She always is like, "If we can do anything for you, let us know!"  She's super helpful and is helping us out with Jaidyn a lot, too.  We went out with Brother Cluff and Brother Koran to visit prospective Elders on Tuesday night. I went with Brother Cluff. We visited a few people and not a lot of people were there or super interested in talking to us haha. The last person we visited was Ryan Van Deusen. He was a really good athlete in high school and was less active and still is. He plays minor league baseball right now and has a kid on the way. Anyway, we had a great chat with him and he said he likes the church and all it teaches, he just got burned out in high school because of all the time commitments with church. He said we could stop by from time to time though and even gave me and Elder Sherwood these free drink coupons for drinks at his games haha. So hopefully we can make it out to one. 

Wednesday morning we helped Brother McGill move out of his apartment. He just got a divorce and is moving back to Canada, so we helped him pack up all his stuff. It was pretty fun and we did a really good job.  Wednesday afternoon we did a ton of stop bys to people we had found tracting in Lakeville. We didn't really have a ton of success with anyone, but we talked to most people we stopped by, so at least that was good. After that we tracted for about an hour and half and didn't really find anyone. We talked to a lot of people but not a lot of people were super interested. Oh well! Some days are slow like that haha.  After that we had dinner with the Jacobsons and that was pretty interesting as usual. Sister Jacobson is super talkative and Brother Jacobson is more quiet but he is so funny.  He has some great one liners he kept pulling out haha. After that Brother Moerschel came out with us and we visited the Wallaces, who are a less active older couple we discovered a few weeks ago. I guess the Sisters used to visit them all the time. They are from Utah and have been less active their whole lives. They go to some really small Lutheran church in Burnsville. I'm not sure why, but they do. They love the missionaries, though. Brother Wallace just had prostate cancer surgery so we said a prayer with them for him and shared a message with Sister Wallace about reading from the Book of Mormon each day. She said she needed to read the Bible more each day and basically disregarded anything about the Book Of Mormon. I found that interesting. The tender mercy of visiting them was that sister Wallace was watching the CMT awards on TV and I got about 10 new country songs I need to listen to when I get home haha.  We also visited Don again that night and had a great talk with him about the Plan of Salvation. I have a feeling he could start progressing soon, so I'm hoping he can start reading and coming to church and stuff. He didn't make it this week unfortunately.

Thursday morning we cleaned the apartment a little bit because we had an apartment inspection on Friday. It got moved to Monday, so at least the apartment is very clean now! We had a cool comp study we did out of Preach My Gospel that day. We read Alma 26 and 29 and talked about how we individually felt about our missions. It was neat to reflect on how I felt at the beginning of my mission verses around 6 months out verses about a year out. I seriously feel like I'm a way more effective missionary now. We are so much more balanced in our work and we work with less actives, active members, investigators, and do lots of different methods of finding. I've really enjoyed working in Apple Valley the last few weeks and I'm hoping I can stay one more transfer. I finally feel like we are getting really tight with the ward. I'm starting to feel like Minnetonka again, where there is a lot of families and people that we are friends with and people are asking us to help out with service and with church callings and stuff now, too. It's been really good to get to that point! We visited the Bradfords in the afternoon and had a really cool talk about patriarchal blessings and the Priesthood. We were all able to share a cool story about our patriarchal blessings. The one I shared I don't think I've shared with my family before. So before I got my blessing, I was really thinking a lot about what I want to do for a career and marriage. As we all know, I have not been very successful or productive as far as finding a significant other compared to my best friends haha.  So I had some questions about those two things and I hadn't said anything to anyone about them. In my blessing, both questions I had were answered very directly and it brought me a lot of peace knowing that God knew my desires and questions and the patriarch was able to be in tune with the spirit to answer those concerns I had. It was a huge testimony to me! After that we chalked the Tree of Life at a park with a splash pad thing. It was super hot and humid this week so there were a lot of young families there with their kids. Anyway, as we were drawing, I felt something hit me in the back of the head. I thought Elder Sherwood had thrown some chalk at me, but as I reached up on the back of my head I quickly realized a bird had crapped on my head.  So I was a little cheesed about that, but nothing I could do except laugh it off and finish up the drawing. I was able to wash a little bit of it out at the splash pad thing, but I still had a lot in my hair haha. 

We then tracted these town homes in the north part of our area we hadn't done yet and found like 3 people in 45 minutes. One guy was from Arizona and works construction up here in the summers. He was super familiar with the LDS church and went to the Mesa Arizona temple pageant like every year! His name was Daniel and he took a Book of Mormon and said we could call him and set up a time to come teach him more this week! Sister Ostler bought us two huge pizzas from Papa Johns for dinner. I decided I really like Papa Johns pizza. It's good! After that we had a lesson with Lorraine and Brother Ruff came with us. We read the talk "Fourth Floor, Last Door" with her by President Uchtdorf. It really gets taken from a missionary perspective, but it is meant for trials in our lives and remaining faithful until the end. After we got done she said, "You guys must really do your homework because everything you bring here to read just is spot on for me!" Elder Sherwood and I just smiled at each other because we know it was God and not us. We prayed about what to share with her and both agreed that that talk would be good for her!

Friday we weekly planned and then helped Sister Kellington with some more yard work! She gave us this huge plate of fruit for helping her, so it's been really beneficial for us to help her because she gets help with yard work and we get free fruit! We then did a bunch of stop bys and tracted in Lakeville. We didn't really find anyone but we talked to a lot of people and gave away a few Books of Mormon so that was good at least! We had dinner with the Gretz and they made chicken and veggie cabobs and they were awesome! We did an Family Home Evening with them as well about putting on the whole armor of God. It was really good and their son, Jackson, was our model of wearing the armor of God haha.  Sister Gretz mom was there from California and she isn't a member and she participated quite a bit and so did Mikey, so that was awesome to see! Friday was a long day but it was good, too. Family Home Evening was really fun, but it was really productive as well. One thing I took away from it was something Brother Gretz talked about. He said that Satan doesn't shoot cannon balls at us. He finds little chinks in our armor and shoots his "fiery darts" at us. So each day we need to put on the whole armor so we can be as protected as possible. Satan knows right where to hit us. Each of us have different "chinks" in our armor and he tries to exploit each one. 

Saturday was crazy busy and fun! We had breakfast and coordination with the bishop and his family. That's always a party.  Then we went home and did studies and then a bunch of people from the zone were having this waffle lunch thing at the Lakeville building so the Lake Marion Elders wanted us to go with them. So we drove down there with them and did that. It was kinda weird I guess. Like the Crystal Lake Sisters did all the cooking and stuff and then wouldn't let us help at all. But then they kinda got mad at us for not helping but I was like, "We offered to help and you said no, so I don't know..."  Anyway, after that we did some stop bys and then tracted for about an hour. While we did stop bys we stopped by this lady who is Tyus Jones mom. He is the point guard for the Timberwolves. He played at Apple Valley High School and then played at Duke and now plays for the Timberwolves. So that was pretty cool.  Saturday was the hottest day of the week by far. It was about 95-97 degrees and there was like 80% humidity. The heat index was like 109 I think. So while we were tracting we were just dripping.  We tracted from 3-4 pm and it was hot. After that we helped the Pugmires set up for this big ward party and farewell party for the some people who are moving to Idaho. There was a ton of non-members there, so we talked to a lot of people. The YM and Brother Hong started a game of ultimate frisbee and we played with them for like an hour. It was fun! They had a giant water slide in the backyard, so we did that too haha.  It was a fun day and we talked to a lot of people and were able to talk to a lot of people about the church and what we do as missionaries. We also helped Lorraine move some boxes into her house from her garage so she could put her car in the garage because it was supposed to hail on Sunday. Super fun day!

Sunday it was crazy weather.  It was really stormy in the morning and the APs texted out to be careful because there was really heavy rain and lightning. Anyway, we went to church and everyone who was supposed to come (Daren, Natalie, and Don) cancelled last minute so that was a bummer.  It was fast and testimony meeting, and it was one of those ones that was super weird and not super spiritual, so Elder Sherwood was convinced God knew it would be that way and made it so nobody came to church.  After church we did some stop bys in Burnsville of some people we've tracted into. We got a return appointment for next Sunday with this Indian family that is super nice. I hope they can pan out! After that we had a lesson with the Seamans. Brother Seaman's wife is not a member so we did a lesson about the Book of Mormon with her and it was really good! After that we had dinner with the Dotys.  After that we did some tracting and stop bys but didn't have a lot of success. We then went and did laundry at the Lake Marion Elder's apartment because we were leaving at like 8:30 am for Valley Fair. 

Valley Fair was fun but kind of a bummer. We got there at like 9:30 and went on a bunch of rides and then this huge rain/thunderstorm came so they closed the park at like 3 pm. It was a bummer, but we had a blast and it was great! 

I'm really sad to be leaving Apple Valley.  I've loved serving here and I've really come to love the members and all the people we are working with. I'm excited to change it up as far as an area and people, but I'm seriously going to miss everyone here. I've finally gotten really close with the members here and will really miss them.  I know this gospel is true and that this work will continue to go forward in Apple Valley even though Elder Sherwood and I are leaving. Thanks for all the support and know I love you all and sure miss you! Have a great week and enjoy this awesome summer time of year! ️

Much love,

Elder Beach

#MavUp #10

At Valley Fair!

We will miss this family!

Giant water slide!

Our chalk drawing!

Jackson Gretz, our model for putting on the whole armor of God!

Our car.

We love helping people!

Matching Moana ties!