Good week in Hutch!

     Hello to all my fam, friends, and coaches back home, at school, and serving around the world! Hope this email finds you well and loving life and enjoying all you do! First off want to give a big shoutout to my SV Bobcats on the great season! I’m proud of your hard work and dedication to carry on the winning legacy at SV.  Don’t hang your heads about the loss. We are always gonna have losses in our lives, but it’s really about how we respond to those losses and whether or not we learn and improve from them. I know it sucks, trust me, I’ve been in exactly the same spot. Just hold on to the great memories you’ve made with your brothers this season.  This week has been pretty good in Hutch! The work is starting to pick up a little this week so that’s been great! We also had 4 people at church, which was crazy. That was a miracle for sure. God is truly in charge of the work!

     So Monday we went to the Mall of America as a district for p-day! That was pretty fun and I got some new Nike shoes because someone stole my other ones off of our car in the parking lot of our apartment. The ones I got were only $49, and are pretty good, so I’m happy with the deal I got! It was fun to walk around and see all the stores. We were there for like 4 hours and saw like half the stores there. It is an insanely huge mall! After that we played some basketball at the Buffalo church. and that was pretty fun! We ended up blitzing Buffalo Monday night because we had nothing scheduled in Hutch and we needed to do laundry, too. So that was pretty fun to work with the Buffalo Elders. I don’t know if I mentioned last time but the guy that Elder Harper and I found decided they were just going to stay at their church they currently went to. So that was unfortunate, but it is what it is!

     Tuesday we headed back to Hutch and then we had this big Facebook live video thing with President and Sister Barney talking about the Christmas video the church is doing for this year. It’s pretty much exactly the same as last years one. I didn’t see hardly any success in using the one last year with members or investigators so this year we will have to up our game a lot and come up with some creative ideas in using it this year.  After that we drove down to Brownton and stopped by some people we had found a few weeks back. None of them were home, but we did get in contact with a less active lady named Sarah. She was super nice and talked to us for like 20 minutes on her porch. She joined the church like 7 years ago and then felt judged by people at church because she fell back into her habit of smoking. So she hasn’t been to church since then, but she loves the missionaries so she was more than happy to talk to us! We basically just talked about her family because she has 8 kids haha. We asked her if we could come do an FHE with her family and she said she would talk to her husband about it. Her husband is from Alabama and is Southern Baptist and doesn’t like Mormons at all haha.  So that is basically our only hold up right now. We haven’t heard back from her yet, so hopefully we can get something set up with them! After that we knocked some doors in Stewart and Buffalo Lake. Stewart is a tiny town haha. We didn’t find anyone solid but we did get to meet this super cool less active dude named John Meehan! He was pretty cool! He really enjoys doing art stuff so he had some cool paintings he had done and some Halloween art bottles he had painted. They were sick! He also is doing some crazy LEGO stuff right now, so he showed us that, too. He is less active because his wife doesn’t really come to church much, and he’s like half blind so he can’t drive himself anywhere. So he’s kind of dependent on his wife for rides to places, but she for some reason doesn’t come to church much.  So we are going to try and get him a ride figured out for this next week. He lives by like no one, so I’m not sure who we can get, but we will find someone. After that we had dinner with the Angel Munoz family. They are awesome and we got to help them cook dinner. Angel is so funny.  He told us about how much he hates Texas because there are a bunch of “fake Mexicans” there who can’t speak Spanish.  He’s a hoot! We had this shrimp salsa stuff for dinner that was way good! It was chopped up shrimp, red onions, and cucumbers with some blended up peppers and stuff that was spicy haha.  It was way good though, and the Munoz family are awesome! Dad, hit Angel up on Facebook and talk some Espanol with him.  He would love that! They are a solid family and we had a way good time with them. We are trying to start teaching Angel's brother named Eddie, but he isn’t super interested so we will keep trying on that one for sure. After dinner we had to head home because it’s like 50 minutes from our place in Hutch. They live in Fairfax, which is the southwest corner of our area. 

     Wednesday was what Elder Layton would call a “death day.” Everything we had scheduled fell through and all our backup plans fell through before 6:30 pm. It was rough. We only met with one guy the whole day and he was a less active we hadn’t met yet named Armando. He was super chill though, and loved the Elders. He works 6 days a week and his only day off was Wednesday, so it ended up working out well for us! He told us he’s trying to find a new job so he has time to come to church and be with his family more. After that we stopped by every single investigator, less active, everyone in Glencoe and no one was home or wanted to talk to us. We then knocked doors for like 2 hours and it was pretty chilly. We gave out two Books of Mormon and they both said we could come by this week. One lady was pretty interested so I’m hoping she will turn into someone we can teach! Anyway, so 6:30 pm rolls around and we still have an hour till we go home for dinner. We had stopped by like literally everyone and it was cold and it had just been a rough day. We ended up finding like 2 more people in Glencoe to stop by, but neither of them were home. We knocked a few more doors also to no avail. So we decided to stop by some people on the way home who were formers and less actives who lived in this super teeny town called Biscay. There’s like 100 people that live there haha.  The one dude who was a former member said he was too busy to meet and the less active was less than thrilled to see us.  However, we worked till the end of the day. Wednesday was one of those days that just sucked. Like anyone who’s a missionary knows what those days are like. But we just worked hard even though nothing worked out. Something I’ve learned as a missionary is that all bad days come to end. You just have to make it to the end of the day and then you can start fresh the next day! There was some quote my mom sent for “thought of the day” about that and it was going through my head from like 6:30 pm on haha.  But it was good to just get the day over and start a new day on Thursday!

     Thursday was a much better day.  We went up to Litchfield and the first stop by we did let us in and we talked for an hour and little bit! Her name was Patricial Lopez, and she was a former investigator. As we got talking, she told us she had read like all of first Nephi in the Book of Mormon and she said she felt like it applied so much more to her than the Bible did. I thought that was really cool because the Book of Mormon is literally written for our day. As we take the time to read it, we will see that! So we got to testify to her of the Book of Mormon and how as she reads it she will be able to learn the gospel of Jesus Christ and feel the peace and joy of reading the stories and learning the doctrine in that great book! It was an awesome lesson and she said she was interested to have us come back and teach her more about the plan of salvation because she had some questions about that! So that was great!  After that we knocked doors and it was like 5 degrees. People were like, “Why the heck are you out in this weather?” I got some news for ya: In Minnesota, we go out every day! Rain, shine, snow, death cold, heat, we are out working and sharing the gospel. So if we come knocking on your door when it’s 5 degrees outside, don’t be surprised! We didn’t find anyone solid but it was fun to get out and get acclimated to the cold a little bit! We had dinner with the Lindquists and they are awesome! Brother Lindquist is a homey haha. We had a great time visiting with him. He used to be in the Branch Presidency so we talked about a ton of less active people we could go visit so that was great. After dinner we stopped by a few less actives in Litchfield and then this lady from Elder Layton’s home Ward was out here, so she brought him some stuff from home. Oh cool story: We stopped at a gas station to go to the bathroom and warm up and we got talking to this guy working there. He used to be married to a member of the church and so he knows who missionaries are and he loves the Elders. So he was like, “Anything you guys want is on the house!” We didn’t take anything because we had just eaten, but he sent us home with a huge box of muddy buddies.  He was a good dude and said to stop in whenever we are up in Litchfield! So that was cool! After we met with the lady from Elder Layton’s Ward, we stopped by some more people in Hutch and found out that like 5 less actives no longer live at the address they are listed at.  So that was good to know!

     Friday we went and got some fruits and veggies in the morning because we are going through them like crazy. We eat a ton of fruits and veggies which is good, but now they’re starting to get way expensive because they aren’t in season, so that kind of is a bummer, but it is what it is! After that we started weekly planning and got that done at like 3:30 pm. We knocked doors for 2 hours and it was cold! The wind was killer and it was like 3 degrees “feels like” temperature, and my hands were so cold the whole time even with gloves haha. We met some interesting people in our two hours.  We knocked on this one door and this lady answers and just goes off and was like, “I believe in God and Jesus Christ and I’m a born again believer and you guys are deceived, etc etc.” I was like, “Hey! We believe in all that stuff, too!” And then she just slammed the door.  Then we met this crazy lady who told us the Book of Mormon wasn’t true and that there are no more prophets. I asked her “Have you ever read the Book of Mormon?” She never had, so I asked her, “How can you say the Book of Mormon isn’t true if you’ve never read it?” She didn’t know how to answer that, so we just bore our testimonies of it and offered her a Book of Mormon and she declined still. I was kind of sad, but everyone’s got their agency! Then we met this JW who tried to tell us the Book of Mormon was false because of the verse in Revelations that says “Don’t add or diminish from my word” -  something like that. I said,  "Well most bible scholars of today have agreed that it is just talking about the Book of Revelations and not the whole bible. And also the Book of Revelations wasn’t the last Book of the Bible written before the Bible was compiled."  I also told him it says that in Deuteronomy 4, so did that make the whole New Testament invalid? He was like, “It doesn’t say that in Deuteronomy 4.” I said “Yes it does! Look it up!” He didn’t know what to say to that so he just slammed the door.  I just had to laugh.  After that we stopped by a bunch of less actives and most of them had moved, so it was good to get all that updated in our area book. After that we had a lesson with Jeana and Jonathan Bustamante and their friend, Kevin. Kevin was super nice and they just railed on him the whole time and kept calling him gay and stuff and I was like, “I wonder why Kevin hangs out with them?” He’s a nice guy, so it was weird how they were all friends haha.  Jonathan was on one and he was being crazy and talking about some weird stuff.  I basically just sat there and was like, “What the heck is going on?” We ended up showing the “Testimony of the Book of Mormon” Mormon message by Elder Holland and Jeana really liked it. She said it was one of the only general conference talks that she had really been impressed with and felt the Spirit! So that was awesome! After that we made some fish and grilled peppers for dinner with Sweet Baby Rays Honey Mustard BBQ sauce and it was amazing. Grilled peppers are way good! (See picture below.)

     Saturday we originally were going to go out to Cosmos again, but Brother Jacobs (recent convert) needed some help on his chicken coop, so we ended up going out to Lester Prairie and helping him with that for about 3 hours. We got all the insulation and walls put in and and got the roof secured to the building and everything. It was fun and I learned a lot while helping out! They were super thankful we could help them because it’s starting to get cold and the chickens need to be inside now. After that we drove out to some insanely small towns on the East part of our area to track down some less actives. We found out a few of them had moved and some others weren’t home. So we are slowly whittling down our list of less actives who still live in the area.  After that we visited Brother Constans! He is the ward clerk and lives alone in Lester Prairie. He’s a little unique! He takes thrifty to a whole new level. His only item of furniture is a 2 step ladder and he sleeps on an inflatable mattress. He showers once a week in a very unique way using the least amount of water possible and he only buys super cheap things. His house is pretty interesting haha.  He is the nicest guy though. I absolutely love him and I’ve met him like twice. He’s just super humble and loving even though he is an interesting guy. Coolest part of his house is his giant safe full of all his coins and money and stuff. It’s pretty sweet! (Pics below). We read Moroni 7 with him and he had such good insights on charity and having patience with people. That’s something I realized I still need to work on.  It’s funny how some things in life you get good at and then you just can do it (riding a bike, driving stick, etc.), but then there’s things in my life that if I don’t continually work on, I eventually lose my ability to do them at a high level (throwing a football, working out, being patient and charitable). Being patient and charitable are some things I think I will always have to work on in my life. Those things just do not come naturally for me haha. But I’m grateful that I can always be working to improve on them! After that we visited the Thomas family. They’re semi active and we hadn’t met them so we had a good visit with them and Sister Thomas’s parents from North Carolina. We shared this video called “Lifting Burdens”, which is a compilation of the apostles' testimonies of the Savior's Atonement and the power it has to change and heal us. It’s such a good video and after we watched it they told us how Brother Thomas had been in a bad accident at work and wasn’t expected to live, but through prayers and faith and Priesthood blessings, he miraculously is still around! It was cool to hear their own testimonies of how the atonement of Jesus Christ had helped them through that tough time! After that we headed home and had some really good salad for dinner and went for a nice 2.5 mile run and headed to bed. 

     Sunday was probably the best day we’ve had in Hutch. Miracles on miracles here. So we started the day and had a bomb Branch Council. We reported on all the less actives we had found and met with and every single person in Branch Council got assigned to fellowship one of them! It was awesome. Then 4 investigators showed up to church, and 3 of them we hadn’t met!  So Brother Reisewitz, who is married to a lady who isn’t a member came with her, Victor came and brought a friend, and then Jorge Munoz’s son from California came with his family and he isn’t a member yet. His name is also Jorge Munoz. He loved church and Elders Quorum, especially haha. Elders Quorum was a riot on Sunday.  Brother Alvey and Jorge II were on one just going back and forth about cooking and eating and all kinds of stuff and people were just making the funniest comments.  I was dying haha. After church we headed up to Dassel and stopped by a few less actives on the way up but none of them were home. In Dassel we met with Dylan, Nicole, and Caitlyn again and Caitlyn has started reading the Book of Mormon, which is awesome and she is way excited to keep reading more this week! We shared “Lifting Burdens” with them and Nicole was like, “That video really peaked my interest. I’m going to read the Book of Mormon because I want to learn some more about the things said in that video.” We were just like, “Let’s go!!” haha After that we went to Cokato and stopped by some of the less actives that lived way far out in the sticks. We stopped by this one lady and her husband was like waiting for us at the door and just ripped into us for coming back after telling us to never come back. I was like, “Bro, I’ve never been here before! I’m sorry we showed up to try and help you guys out!” He just yelled at us to never, ever come back and slammed the door.  The next lady we stopped by, basically the same thing happened! I was like, “What the heck happened that made these people hate the church so much?” It’s crazy! The last dude we stopped by was kind of interesting. When we got there he acted like he wasn’t the dude we were looking for, but then was like, “I’m just messing with you guys. I’m this dude!” We were like, "Oh sweet!"  He told us he grew up in the church, served a mission, and when he came home he eventually left activity in the church because he said he never had a testimony. He told us he had read the Book of Mormon literally dozens of times, prayed daily, came to church, etc, but never had a testimony of anything. I found that odd but he said he just couldn’t keep living a lie. He said he didn’t believe in any of it and never got an answer to his prayers, so he just quit coming. I’ve never heard of someone who does all those things right but never gets an answer to prayers or testimony. One thing I know for certain is that God answers prayers if we ask with a sincere heart and real intent. I’m sure there’s more to his story he didn’t tell us, but I still felt bad that he had never felt like he had a testimony! That made me feel super sad for him. We offered to help him with yard work and he said he was good, but if we ever needed to just get away from mission life for a while, we were welcome to come chill at his place.  So at least he was nice! After that we drove up to Buffalo and grilled some chicken and fish for dinner and it was the bomb!  Caribbean Jerk marinade from Walmart. 10/10

     So this week I learned two things that stick out to me: 

1. Always work hard to the end, even if it’s tough and nothing seems to be going your way. If nothing else, you can look yourself in the mirror at the end of the day and know you did all you could. It’s like the “clear eyes, full hearts” idea from Friday Night Lights. If you do all you can, you can look your family, friends, God, and yourself in the eye with clear eyes and full hearts knowing you did your best. That is a good feeling to have!
2. I’m grateful I have a testimony of the restored gospel. I honestly didn’t have a strong testimony at all before my mission, but I’m so very grateful I’ve been able to develop one since I’ve been out here. Elder Layton and I talked about our own testimonies for a long time after we visited the last dude I talked about. The thing we both said we always fell back on when we have doubts is 1. We know the Book of Mormon is true and Joseph Smith is a prophet and 2. Jesus Christ lives and this is His work.  As we have faith in Him, all things are possible. I find myself on days that suck and I wonder why I’m out here always going back to the fact that I know without a doubt that the Book of Mormon is true, that Joseph Smith was God's prophet of the restoration, and Thomas S. Monson is the prophet today, and God loves me no matter what! I know 3 things to be true. And because I know those things are true, it is so much easier to believe everything else! The Book of Mormon is truly the keystone of our religion and should be the keystone of our testimonies of the Savior and the restoration of His gospel here on the earth. 

     Thanks for all the prayers and support! Love you all! Hope y’all have a great week and enjoy the many blessings we have. Gratitude is a great attribute to have! Do what you love with those you love because life goes too fast to not do that!

Much love,

Elder Beach 

#MavUp #10

Money from Brother Constan's safe.

Grilled fish and peppers!  Yum!

Me and Elder Layton with facial hair...

Free muddy buddies!

Helping build a chicken coop!

Week 3 in Hutch

     What's up to all my fam, friends, and coaches back home, at school, and serving around the world! This week has been a cold one in Hutch haha. Lots of snow and wind and cold but it’s fun to be out in it all day! Makes me feel like a Bad A missionary.  Elder Layton is doing a good job managing the cold weather too haha. The work in Hutch is really slow right now and we don’t have a ton do, but we do our best to stay busy and work hard.

     Last Monday we had Mission Conference in Crystal and Elder Ringwood came and spoke to us. He is awesome! I think I talked about his visit a little in my last email, but I really enjoyed his message of faith in our finding efforts. It made me inspired to continue to work hard to find those that are prepared to receive us and have faith to open my mouth and talk to all those who we cross paths with. It is hard and mentally rigorous to do that, but when I do, I feel like I’m leaving no stone unturned. After we had Mission Conference we blitzed Buffalo and did some stop bys and knocked a few doors. We also got our laundry done and the members house we did it at had a messed up laundry machine haha. It would fill up with water and then just stop halfway through the load, so we had to wash it halfway and then we’d have to redo the cycle and stuff and drain it and all that so that was an adventure, We did some Facebook work too, and I got to talk to Flora and Brother Cosgrove from Sauk Rapids and see how they’re doing.

     Tuesday was Zone p day in Elk River and we raked this lady’s yard (5-6 acres) and I got this gnarly blister on my hand which is getting better, but it splits open again like every day because it’s cold and dries out really easy so that kinda sucks. But it is what it is! After that we played some basketball in Elk River with the zone, and that was awesome. I haven’t had a good ball game in a while, but it was great to run around and compete a little bit. We also threw the football around for like an hour and that felt so great! So playing some ball was a jolly good time and then after that we went back to the lady’s house we raked at and she made us dinner and we had a huge bonfire in her yard. Elder Woolley, Layton, and I made it and it was blazing hot haha. Super good fire if I do say so myself! We just sat around and talked and sang some hymns and it was pretty cool! We all stayed at Buffalo Tuesday night because we did exchanges on Wednesday. So when we got there, I realized my email didn’t save from earlier in the day, so I had to rewrite the whole thing on Thursday. So that was a bummer, but I got it done. It takes a long time to write emails, so I’m always gonna make sure it’s saved from now on.

     Wednesday I went with Elder Harper in Buffalo and Elder Layton and Woolley went to Hutchinson for the day. We went and helped Brother Yarco with some yard work because he tore his ACL and just had surgery. We raked up his leaves and put them in a trailer and hauled them back to his horse pasture. So funny story: the horses in the pasture got out while we opened the gate. They literally just stampeded the gate right when we were going through it, so we spent a solid hour and a half trying to wrangle them up and get them back in the pasture and keep them out of the road and stuff.  They didn’t really want to go back in, but we finally got one and then the other two followed him. Horses are pretty stubborn haha.  So I now have the talent of “horse wrangling” in my arsenal as well haha. After that we stopped by some less actives and met this way cool less active family who said they love the Elders but hadn’t seen them for like a year! We shared a quick message about the Book of Mormon with them and got a dinner set up with them for this week with the Buffalo Elders. So that was pretty cool! After that we knocked some doors for an hour or so. It’s easy to tell if missionaries have done a lot of finding or not on their missions by how well they can talk to people on the street and at the door.  After we did some tracting we had a burger feast at the YM President's house. All the young men were there and made their own burgers and they had basically anything you could want on a burger. So I had 2 bunless bacon cheeseburgers with all the toppings and fry sauce.  Really yummy! They had the baseball game on, so we got to see part of that. I’m not much into baseball, but some of the YM and YM leaders were going insane haha.  I guess the Astros ended up beating the Dodgers in game 7. After that it was about time to head home, so we stopped by one or two more less actives on the way home but no luck. Elder Harpter is approved to swim because he has a bad back and knees or something, so we got to go swimming when we got home, which I haven’t done for 16 months! It was great! I am awful at swimming but I would just swim like as hard as I could for as long as I could and try not to sink.  Elder Harper is like a fish and just swims right by me and I basically just would sink.  He played water polo in high school, so he’s a good swimmer!

     Thursday was a rough day. We didn’t do much in Buffalo. Elder Harper is going home this transfer so he’s getting a little trunky. We sat at the church for like 4 hours while he accounted and did “My Plan” for getting you ready to go home. I just tried to do Facebook work and study and stuff but 4 hours is forever and I got sick of sitting around really quick.  After that we had a lesson with one of their investigators named Raul. He’s a cool dude and has lots of medical problems, but he has a great faith in God and that God loves him and has power to help him. We read the Book of Mormon with him because he has a hard time understanding the Book of Mormon when he reads it but gets it better when someone reads to him! He loves the Book of Mormon and also prayer, so that is awesome! After we met with Raul, we drove down to Howard Lake, which is a pretty small town in the south part of the Buffalo area. We knocked some doors for about an hour and it was pretty good! The first door we knocked this guy answers and I was like, “Hey, we are missionaries from the LDS church, sharing a message that God has called a prophet to restore the Church of Jesus Christ, etc. etc.” He says, “The Book of Mormon isn’t true. It says in the Bible that you can’t add or take away from it.” So I explained that it says that in Deuteronomy 4 as well as Revelations, and it’s talking about the Book of Revelations, not the whole Bible. I then invited him to read the Book of Mormon, and he said no because it wasn’t true. I asked, “Have you ever read it?” He said, “No.” I said, “Well then you can’t look me in the eye and tell me it isn’t true if you’ve never read it!” He didn’t like that and got mad and said we were a corrupt church and he belonged to the true church. So I asked him if he belonged to the Catholic Church because the only two churches on earth that can be true are the LDS church or the Catholic Church. He looked at me like I was a freak and said, “No, I’m a born again Christian!” I was like, “Ok...?” Then he went off on a rant again and slammed the door and told us we were corrupt and going to hell. Haha oh well.  The next door we actually got let in and we taught this guy with 2 kids the restoration lesson and he said he and his wife were looking for a new church because their church had a bunch of old people in it and they were all dying so they wanted to find a newer and younger church. We taught him about how the church was restored and about the Book of Mormon and he seemed really interested in it and told us he would talk to his wife about it. (found out today he wasn’t interested) So anyway, that was pretty cool though! After that we had dinner and that was really good! We ate with this member family and we had a great discussion about the atonement of Jesus Christ and invited them to share their testimonies of it with someone they knew. It was 8:30 pm when we got done with dinner, so we headed home and did some more swimming and called it a night. 

     Friday was interviews, so the Buffalo Elders drove all 4 of us up to St. Cloud for interviews and district meeting. It was really good! President Barney is awesome. In my interview he was like, “Elder Beach, I know Hutchinson is like one of the toughest areas to be in right now, but I appreciate your hard work!” I was like,“Haha thanks President!” Hutch is really slow right now. He talked to me about maybe closing the area next transfer. I suggested that Elder Layton, Elder Woolley in Buffalo and I work in a trio and work the Buffalo and Hutch areas. President really liked that idea, so we might be doing that next transfer but spend most of our time in Buffalo and a few days a week in Hutch just because there isn’t much work to do there right now. I’m hyped and hope that happens because the Buffalo area has a ton of potential and we would explode it if we all worked there because we all get along really well and we all work really hard! We will continue to work hard in Hutch though, and try to find some people to teach! After interviews we went to Subway for lunch because it was “National Sandwich Day” so if you bought a foot long and drink you got a foot long free. That was pretty great! We headed back down to Buffalo and then got packed and headed home to Hutch. We started weekly planning and got about halfway done and then had a lesson with Jeana Bustamente and her brother Robert. Robert is a crazy guy.  He is obsessed with Japanese things and is just a little weird haha. Jeana said she doesn’t understand why we always talk of Christ and put so much emphasis on Him when she felt like He would want us to just do the things He did but not spend so much time teaching about Him and focusing on Him. We talked about how without Him, His teachings, Atonement and example, we basically couldn’t do much as far as progressing in this life and building our faith. She said that made sense and then asked why we always ask her to read scriptures but never tell her to do anything else. So I had a cool idea: I said “Jeana, this week, we are still going to ask you to read the scriptures, but I want you to pray and ask God what he wants you to do to serve and follow Jesus Christ (because she loves serving others and wanted to know why we don’t just ask her to do that). Then you read the Book of Mormon. Doesn’t matter where, but read it and God will tell you who to serve and how to serve them!” She loved that idea and said she would do that. So that was pretty cool and I hope it works for her. I know it will if she really does it with faith and asks sincerely and then reads sincerely, too, God will speak to her as she reads the Book of Mormon and tell her what she needs to do! 

      Saturday we cleaned up the apartment because it is still just thrashed and I was sick of it. It’s like 90% clean now, so it’s good enough now haha.  So we did that in the morning and we literally had nothing planned, so we were like, ok let’s pick a town no one's ever been to and go tract it haha. So we found this town called Cosmos, which is like 25 minutes west of Hutch, and we drove out there and knocked it for 4 and a half hours. It was really cold. ️ Like 20 degrees and the wind was pretty good too haha. We knocked the south half of the town in 4.5 hours and didn’t find anyone super solid. We knocked the weirdest trailer park ever.  Funny story: we saw this old guy with a big beard taking a wagon full of propane tanks with his granddaughter to the gas station to fill the propane tanks. All of a sudden we hear him yelling at something and we turn around while we are on a porch and this random girl had run out of her trailer and tried to steal the wagon.  He was like yelling at her to get out of there and then she just turned around and ran back into the trailer.  We also saw this really crazy dude taking pictures of a whole bunch of random things all nailed together on a trailer (basically looked like a shack made of random things and full of random things). We walked by to see what it was and he was trying to sell it for $2500. It was like a bunch of crap smashed together on a trailer for $2500! It was a weird place.  I’m just going to say that haha. We got done at like 6 pm and so we went home and finished weekly planning and had dinner and hit the hay. 

     Sunday was Stake Conference and it was way good! It was broadcast to our building so we got to watch it with the branch and then had a potluck after. That was fun and it was good to interact with everyone and get to know people better! After the potluck we headed up to Dassell and Cokato and stopped by people we had found. None of them could meet in Dassell, so we knocked for like 2 hours and found this dude named Tim. We knocked on his door and he was like, “Ah, I’m not super interested. I’m just moving a couch right now.” So we offered to help and he let us in to help!! We moved it from his living room to his garage. He has a monster Great Dane dog haha. It’s huge. He made us some hot chocolate after because it was cold out haha. We ended up talking to him and his wife for about 30 minutes and gave them a Book of Mormon and restoration pamphlet. He said he works crazy hours and stuff but we were more than welcome to stop by whenever we were up there! So that was pretty cool! After that we went to Cokato and stopped by some less actives and formers. We got in with some formers who also lived in a trailer park. Their last name was Samuelson, and they were super nice! They’re an older couple with 2 kids who are 7 and 5. Sister Samuelson's Mom and Dad and sister are members in Texas, but they aren’t. We taught them the restoration lesson and I let Elder Layton teach most of it because he never gets to teach anyone and I hate it! We don’t have anyone to teach ahhhhh! It’s frustrating as a trainer because I want him to be able to teach well, but we never get to teach anyone.  But it was a blessing to be able to teach them so he could get some good experience! After that we knocked doors in the “death cold” as Elder Latyon says for about an hour. We were knocking this street and it was really dark and I just had this weird feeling about it. Like we knocked a few houses after I got the feeling but I just have had that feeling a few times on my mission and it’s a weird feeling so we just got out of there.  I don't know if anything bad would’ve happened or what, but I just felt really uneasy where we were, so we got out of there! After that we stopped by the Christensens who are a less active family in Cokato. They’re super nice so we got to visit with them for a few minutes. Brother Christensen is a really good dude and I’m excited to get to know him better. He works in Alexandria as a cop and works like 60 hours a week, so he has a crazy work schedule. But they were awesome. After that we headed up to Buffalo to spend the night with them before district p-day! 

     This week's been pretty good, even though it is slow. I don’t know how I find so much joy and satisfaction in the work haha. It’s weird because we don’t see much results like you do in football or weightlifting or crossfit, but I still get the same satisfaction of working hard and inviting others to come to Christ. I also learned it is very important to follow the promptings we receive from the Spirit. Whether those are to talk to someone, walk down a certain street, get away from a certain street, etc. Having the Spirit guide us is so awesome and is crucial to our work as missionaries. I’m grateful we have the Priesthood to give the gift of the Holy Ghost so we can have it as our constant companion to have it guide us and help us in all we do! I pray you will take time to consider what can I do in my life to increase the influence of the Spirit in my life? I’ve found many things I can do each day to help me. Praying more frequently is one, always reading the Book of Mormon is another, praying for charity is a huge one for me as well. I hope you can find one that you can do to help you, too! I know you each can.  Love you all! Hope you have a great week and keep loving life and enjoying what time we have here doing the things we love with the people we love even more! 

Much love,

Elder Beach

#MavUp #10

P-day at the Mall of America.

The "horse whisperer"...  Exchanges with Elder Harper in Buffalo.

My delicious lunch.

It's freezing!  20 degrees!

Week 2 in the books

     A big hello to everyone back home, at school, and serving around the world! Hope this email finds you all doing well and enjoying the last little bit of fall. Winter is well on its way here in Minnesota and we’ve had snow and some chillier temperatures. ️ Elder Layton is terrified of the cold because he is from St. George, so it’s been so funny to see him try to get adjusted to it.  Anyway, Happy Halloween to everyone, hope it was a great time. Congrats to my brother, the other Elder Beach, for 12 week training! You’ll do great and it’s a party to have a greenie haha. This week has been pretty slow again, but we’ve had some cool miracles and lots of funny stories!

     Monday was district p-day and my birthday, so we went to the Pole Barn American Ninja Warrior gym in Buffalo. It was way fun and I got to lift weights all day so I was a happy camper.  I’m happy to report my power clean has stayed pretty decent despite not lifting heavy at all on my mission haha. I put up 8x3 @195 and 5x2 @205 so I was pretty happy with that. Good stuff! After p-day we headed back to Hutchinson and had a lesson with Jeana Bustamante. She’s a less active in the ward. Her brother is also in the ward and is semi less active but they’re really cool! Elder Layton and she had the weirdest/funniest discussion about a bunch of random stuff and I was just laughing at Elder Layton because he’s such a goober haha.  I kept interjecting questions about how long she’s been in the church, when she went less active, why, etc. She said she reads the Book of Mormon almost every day and as we were talking I felt impressed to invite her to read Alma 36-37, which is Alma’s final council to His son Helaman. I don’t know why, but I just remembered reading something in there that I felt would apply to her! So she said she would read it this week! It was good. After that we had some dinner at Subway which was awesome (thanks Mom and Kim for the gift cards!) and then headed home and went to bed.

     Tuesday we did some service at the food shelf in Hutchinson. It was pretty good but not nearly as fun or busy as the food shelf we worked at in Apple Valley. I was so appreciative of how thankful and humble the people were that came in. They were so grateful for the help they were receiving and it made me way happy to serve and help them! I learned a great lesson from working there: be humble enough to ask for help when you need it and also humble enough to be gracious and thankful to those that help you! After that we went and had some lunch and then went down to the town of Brownton, which is about 25 minutes south of Hutchinson. It’s a super small town. Like the population is like 900 people or something like that. So anyway, we stopped by every less active and potential we had there and had some luck with visiting Sister Hughes, a less active lady in an assisted living place kind of thing. She’s been less active since she was 13 and lived in Utah at that point. She said someone in the church had offended her family so they quit going and now she hates the church (except for missionaries haha). We shared the Hope of God's Light Mormon message and invited her to read her scriptures, pray, and come to church. Those are really the basics of living the gospel, but as we strive to do them consistently and with full purpose of heart they help more than anything! She told us she prays every day, and said she would read scriptures more but still won’t come to church. We invited her and she was just like, “Ehh...”. So that was kind of a bummer but everyone has their agency. After that we knocked doors for like 3 hours and met the pastor of a local church and he was super nice but not interested obviously. We also gave away like 5 Books of Mormon, so that will be good to follow up with people and see if anyone reads it and feels the spirit and wants to know more. Haha funny story: we saw a dude fixing a flat tire on his car and some other dudes were just chilling on the driveway so we walked up to talk to them. This one dude on the driveway just yells “I’m gay! Go away!” We were like “We don’t care! We have a great message for you!” He’s like, “Are you Mormons?” We were like, “Yessir!” He then freaks out and is like, “Go away! I don’t want to talk to you people!” I was like, “Man, ok, chill dude haha” As we were walking away Elder Layton was like “Man, that guy was a freak!” Haha I had a good laugh at that. Elder Layton has started talking in a southern accent and he sounds so funny. Elder Woolley talks in a southern accent so Elder Layton has started to as well and now I’m starting to as well just because I’m around it all the time haha.  But Elder Layton sounds so funny.  We knocked until about like 6:30 pm. As we were walking from the other side of town back to our car, we passed this house where a guy was in his garage. We walked by and we were like half a block past him and I felt like I should go back and talk to him. So we did and he wasn’t really interested, but we gave him a card and went on our way. Even though nothing happened, maybe it will later because of that card we gave him. Never know! After that we did some stop bys in Hutchinson and like no one was home or lived where they were listed. Funny story 2: We knocked on this less actives door at 7:30 pm and someone comes to the door and yells, “Who is it?” I said, “The missionaries from the LDS church.” They yell, “Go away! We are sleeping!” I was like, “How are you talking to us if you’re sleeping?” Then they screamed at us to never come back, so we said, “Ok! Have a good sleep!” And left haha.  People are interesting sometimes! After that we were going back to Subway again for dinner and we drove by Hutchinson High School and they had a football game going so we stopped and watched for a few minutes and it was pretty fun to check out a football game.  I haven’t watched one in a good while. After that we had dinner and called it a night!

     Wednesday was actually a relatively busy day! We went down to Glencoe and just walked around and stopped by people. We met a guy named Curt while we were out walking around whom we taught a short restoration lesson to and gave him a Book of Mormon. He said we could swing by whenever and share some more with him so I’m hoping he reads it! After that we tried to stop by Tim Keifer, this less active guy we can’t get ahold of haha.  The last two weeks when we stop by he’s literally leaving right when we get there! It’s crazy. So we missed him by like 10 seconds and then we stopped by this less active member named Dale Whipple. He’s a great guy. Super nice and he loves to talk haha. Like the dude can talk. We sat there for almost and hour and said nothing. Just because we couldn’t get a word in! We had a lesson at 5 pm and I finally was like, “We have to get going, unfortunately, but we’d love to hear the rest of this story when we come back next time!” He basically told us half his life story of working in the trucking business. After that we had a lesson with Sister Ackerson and her daughter. They are also less active. Lloyd Thurn joint taught with us and that was awesome! He shared some good insights as to how the Book of Mormon has helped him in his life. We invited them to read the Book of Mormon each day and we would follow up with them next time we came over. After that we had a lesson with Victor who is a dude who got baptized, and then took his name off the records for some family issues. It’s a long story. But anyway, he’s a way cool guy and still comes to church pretty regularly and even gave us a referral. We’ve been asked to just share spiritual messages with him once a week or so and invite him to keep coming to church. So that’s what we did!He’s got a super strong testimony. The referral he gave us was for his friend in Brownton, so that’ll be good for next time we get down there! After that we had the branch trunk-or-treat at the church so we went to that. We bought a big bag of candy for the kids at ALDI so we gave out the candy and all the kids loved us haha. I also got to meet a bunch of the branch members so that was great! After that we had dinner and called it a night!

     Thursday we went to go visit this guy named Tom who is a sort of investigator that’s been reading the Book of Mormon but hasn’t been to church and isn’t really progressing in any other way. He had family over so we asked if we could rake his lawn and he said, “Sure!” So we raked his lawn and it was crazy. The wind was blowing like 30 mph so we’d rake and then the wind would just blow it all away and then we’d rake it again and same thing would happen haha.  It was rough, but we finally got his front yard done. The backyard has like 3 inches of leaves so that’s for another day! After that we accounted with Buffalo, had some lunch, and then headed out to Silver Lake! We stopped by this lady named Jen that we found last week. She had her dog staked out front of the house and it was going nuts and barking at us and looked like it wanted to eat us. So I “dog whispered” it and then it loved us and wanted to us to pet it and stuff. So we knock on the door and no one answers, so we start to leave and we get like halfway down the sidewalk and it just freaks out and starts chasing Elder Layton and trying to eat his leg off. He basically almost got straight murked by the dog. That’s a new word we use that basically means killed or died or anything bad that can happen to you.  After that we knocked doors until we were pretty cold and then headed to a gas station to get some hot chocolate to warm up. Then we went to Lester Prairie and stopped by this guy who had met with missionaries before but hadn’t had any contact for a while. So we stop by and this dude is crazy. He’s got some weird ideas about the Bible and stuff. He told us he was a missionary for his church but he doesn’t really do anything so I don't know what classifies or qualifies him as a missionary.  He told us we do too much to be “saved” and that all we need to do is have a personal experience with Christ that is on the same level that Saul/Paul had in the Bible. He said he had been personally visited by Christ so he was saved. I was like, “Ok, so what about John 3:5 where Christ says, “Except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God?” He said that meant you are physically birthed by your mom and then born of the spirit means you have a Paul/Saul moment. So I was like all you have to do is be born and then have a coming to Jesus moment?? He said, “Yeah, pretty much!” I was like ok whatever you say dude haha. One of a thousand reasons we have the Book of Mormon is it teaches us exactly what we need to do to receive salvation: exercise faith in Christ unto repentance, be baptized by proper Priesthood authority and receive the Holy Ghost by the same authority and then endure faithfully to the end of our lives. Not just be born and have a coming to Christ moment. Nobody can agree on what bible verses mean so I’m glad we have the Book of Mormon to clarify all the doctrines of Christ. After that we stopped by a few more people who weren’t home or interested and then headed to the Jacobs for dinner. Brother Jacobs is a recent convert, so he had some questions about the pre-earth life and the war in heaven. I’ve never really taught a whole ton about that stuff on my mission so it was cool to dive into that a little bit and why it all happened and how it is all part of God's plan for us! After dinner he wanted to play “Settlers of Catan” with us, so we played that and it was really fun! I hadn’t ever played it but it was cool. Brother Jacobs murked us, but it was still fun! After that we headed home and called it a night and went to bed because I pretty much had the plague.  So that was no fun this week. 

     Friday I felt like death, so that kind of sucked. We were supposed to have a lesson with this dude named Roger. He lives right next to our apartment but when we got there his 3-year-old daughter told us he was asleep so that was kind of bummer. So we just started weekly planning. That was a little better this week, but still tough. I still don’t know a lot of people and so it’s tough to plan for people, but we got it done and I was having a rough time because I have the plague and my nose is plugged up and I’m super tired. After we got done, we went and knocked doors in Elder Layton’s first snow storm! It was a jolly good time and I thought he was gonna die haha. He isn’t used to the cold and snow. The wind was a killer and just cuts through you, but I’m used to it and he isn’t haha. We gave out a few Books of Mormon, but nobody super solid was found but it was still fun to get out and teach and testify, even if only for a few seconds on someone’s door.  After that we had dinner with the Alveys and that was really good! We had venison tacos and they were the bomb. Really good! At least from what I could taste they were good haha. After dinner we were supposed to have a lesson with Lorraine that we found last week and we knock on her door and she answers and we see her daughter is there. So Lorraine comes out and gives us the Book of Mormon back and says she read it but doesn’t want it and thanks for coming but she isn’t interested. So that was a bummer. Then we were gonna see Sister Gonzalez and she wasn’t home either. So we stopped by a bunch of less actives and none of them were home either! I was feeling like crap and wanted to just go home and sleep. It was like 7:30 and I was like go until 8:30 pm and then go home. Keep working hard until then. So anyway, we kept stopping by people and at 8 pm we stopped by this former investigator named Steph. She let us in and we were able to teach her and her kids the restoration and it was pretty cool! I was so happy we got to teach someone finally.  It was a good way to cap off the night! After that we went home and I took a steaming hot shower and passed out haha. 

     Saturday we went to Litchfield and it was like a beautiful fall day! It was like 40 degrees and sunny and no wind. So we walked around and stopped by a ton of people and like no one was home but we met some cool people and got to talk to them! We met this guy who wanted Elder Layton to play at some place he made called the Jam Shack, which is a music shop where people can go to get free instruments and learn how to play them. The dude was pretty cool! He said he had lost a daughter a while back so he quit believing in God because he felt God wouldn’t take his daughter away. We gave him a plan of salvation pamphlet and invited him to read it! He said he would check it out, so I hope he does! We then met this dude named Jorge from Mexico who moved up here like 10 years ago to work with his cousins. He was working on his rain gutter so we offered to help, but he was good to go. We talked to him about what we do as missionaries and the Book of Mormon. He said he would love a Spanish one, so we went to the car to get him one and when we came back he wasn’t there.  So Elder Woolley and Layton are going to bring him one today! We had a dinner with Sister Taylor at 5 pm and we got there at like 4:30 pm, so we knocked these duplexes across the street from her. Crazy cool story: So we knock and knock and keep going and the last door we knock on this lady answers and is like, “The Elders! How are you doing?” We were like, “uhhh... good!?” She told us she had met with missionaries when her family used to live in Willmar and they were super good friends with the Elders and had all the lessons with them. She said her family was looking for a church right now and she was friends with Sister Larson, who is the Branch President's wife. She is awesome and I guess they’d been talking a lot about the church. So this lady we met named Erica was super happy to see us and Elder Layton and Woolley are having dinner with her and the Larson's tonight so that should be sick. After that we had dinner with Sister Taylor and I was still like super sick so I wasn’t able to eat much haha.  After that we had a lesson with the Lindquist family and that was good! They’re pretty cool! Then we went and knocked doors for a while and then we had a lesson with the Larson family. They had just got back from Florida, so they were a little wiped out but I already love their family. They are so awesome. There is such a great spirit in their home and they are just the nicest people. They’re awesome! After that we headed home and I passed out haha.

     Sunday was great! We got to teach Primary again and then we had combined 5th Sunday for Priesthood and Relief Society and we had a “deep doctrine” discussion on tithing and fast offerings and it was really cool! I learned a lot haha. I never thought I would ever learn that much about tithing and stuff but I sure learned a lot. After church we visited Sister Gonzalez with Brother Patino, and that was good! We basically just played with her kids the whole time and showed some Mormon messages to them haha. It was good though and Brother Patino talked to Sister Gonzalez about some stuff with her house and coming to church and all that! After that we had dinner with the Mitchells. They are way fun! They are super good at doing member missionary work, too. Like they kill it in sharing the gospel. So we had a great dinner with them and played “Liars Dice” that they play in Pirates of the Carribbean 2. It was way fun and I had a come from behind win. We shared a message about the atonement of Jesus Christ with them and it was super good and they had some great insights. We invited them to share their testimony of the atonement of Christ with someone they know. After that we got packed up and headed up to Dassell and Cokato. We ended up being in Dassell the whole evening haha. So we stopped by Dylan, Nicole, and Caitlyn and we talked to them for like 45 minutes. They really love talking to us and we were able to talk about the Book of Mormon more, baptism, and what we do as missionaries! Caitlyn hasn’t been baptized yet, so she was asking us about that so that was sweet.  After them we stopped by Marcus that we gave a Book of Mormon to last Sunday. We weren’t expecting much with him, but he let us in and was like, “Yeah so tell me more about your church and stuff.” He’s Catholic and thinks the Catholic Church is the true church and has some weird ideas on stuff that he thinks is in the Bible but isn’t really in the Bible.  So we started teaching him the restoration and how the apostles were killed off and couldn’t call more after Christ was crucified. He said that Peter was the first pope and that the church was run through him and the Priesthood went in an unbroken line. We talked about how the apostles were killed off and then the church fell into apostasy. We shared Acts 1 with him where they call Matthias to be a new apostle and he got all confused about that and then said all this weird stuff that we believe there’s 11 apostles and then 13 apostles. It was weird but we did our best to explain to him the restoration and reason for it. He seemed convinced he was right until we started using the New Testament to show him he wasn’t right then he starts talking about the apocrypha and how there’s stuff in the Bible that was taken out. I was like, “Yeah, those are biblical books that are taken out of the Bible.” He goes, “Except in the Catholic Bible.” I said “The Catholic Church is the one who took them out of the Bible in the first place!” He didn’t have a whole lot to say after that, and he finally started listening a little haha.  Then his dad came over and started talking to us too, and his dad was a good dude. He was super friendly and really nice and listened to what we had to say and all that! It was great and we ended up having about a 2 hour discussion with them.  By the time we left we were all friends and it was cool! We drove up to Buffalo after that to sleep over with them before mission conference the next day!

     Monday we had mission conference in Crystal and Elder Ringwood came and talked to us. He talked a lot about having the faith to find and told us a ton of stories from his mission and experience as a Mission President about cool finding miracles. He talked a lot about the seed planters, the harvesters, and how each one is just as important but being a seed planter is sometimes harder because you don’t always see the results of your efforts. It really motivated me to keep working hard to plant seeds here in Hutchinson so one day they can be “harvested” by other missionaries or members. It was really good and I loved mission conference. I also got to see a lot of my buddies around the mission! 

     Tuesday was zone p-day in Elk River so we raked leaves for like 3 hours at someone’s house and I got this gnarly blister on my thumb. Basically all the skin between my thumb and pointer finger got ripped off.  It didn’t and still doesn’t feel too great haha. But I’ll survive so no worries. After that we played some ball at the Elk River church and threw the football around for a while, too. It felt so good to throw the ball around.  After that we went back to the lady’s house we raked for and had a big bonfire and sat out under the stars and chilled. It was pretty fun! Good time with the zone and it was awesome to see Elder Meyer again. We hung out like the whole day and had a lot of good laughs! 

     Thanks for all the birthday wishes and cards and gift cards. I am grateful for all the Subway gift cards. Those are money out here because we don’t get fed quite as much as Sauk Rapids. So they come in handy for sure. I’m grateful to be out here planting seeds in the Lord's vineyard and inviting everyone to come unto Christ and be perfected in Him. This is truly a marvelous work to be a part of and I love it! Love you all and have a great week!

Much love,

Elder Beach

#MavUp #10

Zone P-day!

Hanging with Elder Nissenbaum at Mission Conference.

Got to see my trainer, Elder Cordara!

Good times with Elder Nielsen!

Week one in the books!

     A big hello to all my family, friends, and coaches back home, at school and serving the Lord worldwide. Hope this email finds you all well and enjoying the beautiful fall weather and time of year. I love fall here in Minnesota and I am seriously loving sharing the gospel so much! I’ve really caught the missionary spirit and I’m just loving life on the mission right now! I was super sad to leave Elder Meyer and Sauk Rapids, but Hutchinson is way fun already and the Branch is awesome, so I’m excited to be here. Elder Layton is pretty fun, too, and we have a good time all the time. 

      So Monday was p-day and we found out I was getting transferred, so I did some packing and laundry and emailed and all that good stuff. We had dinner with the Robacks on Monday night and it was great. We had salad with chicken and tons of veggies to add on! I love it! They’re a way cool family and I’m going to miss them a lot! After dinner both of our appointments in Becker fell through so we came back up to Sauk Rapids and finished our Book of Mormon video and posted it on Facebook. Apparently there’s some rule about not trying to make your videos go viral, and that was not our intention, but apparently it has like over 2k views, so that’s pretty sweet!  If you haven’t seen it yet, check it out! Elder Meyer is the star of the show!

     Tuesday we actually did a ton of stuff. Usually on Tuesdays of transfers I just pack and say good-bye to people, but we ended up doing a lot of missionary work in Sauk Rapids and it was awesome! We raked and mowed Connie’s lawn one last time and she was pretty sad to see us get split up. I’m grateful I’ve been able to help her out with her yard work and stuff. It’s been fun! After that we had a quick lesson with Ashley and her kids on their front porch. We talked some more about the Plan of Salvation with them and our lesson was cut short when one of her kids pooped her pants and then started trying to take off her diaper and drop it on the porch.  So it ended kind of weird, but it was a good lesson and I hope they can continue to get taught. We were driving up to north Sauk Rapids to stop by some people and as we were driving, we saw this lady out raking leaves. She was elderly, so Elder Meyer was like, “We should stop and help her!” So we did, and it turns out, she was 95 years old and lived by herself! She still does yard work by herself and all that. She was literally brought to tears by the fact that we stopped and offered to help. She said she had been raking leaves and shoveling snow by herself for 10+ years and no one had ever stopped and offered to help. We were able to give her a Book of Mormon and she insisted we take $5 each. We tried very politely to decline, but she wasn’t having it and made us take it.  She was so thankful and happy we stopped to help and it literally just made my whole day to serve her! Basically the rest of the day we just went around and said bye to people and then capped the day off with a lesson with LJ. It wasn’t the greatest lesson and he said he still wasn’t going to stop drinking coffee yet. So we talked some more about that and how it isn’t just something we are asking him to do, God is asking us to do it. We also shared the promised blessings with him in D&C 89. I hope he can exercise the faith to quit drinking and trust that God can help him with it!

     Wednesday morning the Hutchinson Elders just drove up to Sauk Rapids and dropped off Elder Meade so he could ride down to transfers with Elder Bentley, and then I rode back to Hutchinson with Elder Layton. When we got there I was like, “Oh my gosh. This apartment is trashed.” So I was like, “Ok, we gotta clean this place up a little bit.” It was disgusting. There was like rotten food and stuff in the cupboards that had been there for like over a year and just garbage everywhere and it was a joke. So we spent about 2 hours cleaning just the kitchen and it still isn’t in pristine shape, but it’s doable now.  After that we went out to Glencoe to visit some people. The guy we were supposed to visit wasn’t home, so we stopped by Lloyd Thurn, a recent convert in the branch, and had a good visit with him and read 2 Nephi 29 with him. He is such a solid guy. He’s got a heart as big as outdoors! I’m excited to continue to work with him! After that we basically knocked doors until dinner because Hutchinson literally has no one to teach. We found one person named Kayla who was pretty cool and talked to us for a while about the Book of Mormon and what makes our church different from other churches. She said we could come back this Wednesday so that was cool.  After we knocked forever we went out to this guy's house named Ron Cody. He lives out on a farm, so we helped him haul some wood around for their fire and wood burning stove and stuff. After that we had dinner with their family, so that was pretty good as well! He’s a good dude, just got some kinda crazy ideas on religion and stuff like that. He loves the missionaries though, so that’s awesome! Sorry, not a whole to report on Wednesday. Just lots of knocking doors with little success. 

     Thursday was very similar to Wednesday. We cleaned up the apartment some more in the morning. I literally don’t think it’s been cleaned for like 3-4 months. It’s thrashed. Like our apartment in Sauk Rapids wasn’t the cleanest, but it looked like a 5 Star super nice hotel compared to Hutchinson’s apartment. So we cleaned up some and then went grocery shopping because they had like no healthy food at all. Just lots of beans and rice and ground turkey and stuff like that. So we got a ton of fruit and veggies and yogurt and good stuff like that so I can stay slim haha.  So Thursday we went out to Silver Lake and Lester Prairie. Silver Lake is this super small town like 12 miles east of Hutchinson. And then Lester Prairie is like 9 miles past Silver Lake. So anyway, there was like 2 people in Silver Lake and neither of them were home, so we knocked doors for about 3 1/2-4 hours and found 2 new investigators, talked to some super nice cool people, raked some leaves for a lady, and tracted about half the town haha.  It’s pretty small! I absolutely love knocking little towns like that. I’m excited to continue to do so. We find some people who are super mean, but some are just way nice and humble and ready for the gospel! It’s awesome.  We had dinner with the Jacobs in Lester Prairie Thursday night and we got there about 30 minutes early so we drove down the road until we found a very small neighborhood and knocked it! The second door we knocked we met this lady who worked in Eden Prairie with a doctor who’s a member of the church. She was super nice and receptive so we gave her a Book of Mormon and invited her to read it, and she said we could swing by whenever we were down there! So that was pretty sick. After that we had dinner with the Jacobs. Brother Jacobs is a recent convert as well. They are way cool! We had a good dinner and then I guess the Elders usually play a board game with them after dinner. So we played “Ticket to Ride”, which is a way fun board game. Haha we had a good time with them and it was good to just talk and get to know them. Something that will be a change of pace thing for me is in this branch the members and missionaries are super close and we actually do stuff like playing board games with the members and doing a lot of service for them just because everyone is so spread out and we are sometimes the only people from church they see besides Sundays. I’m not used to that because I’ve been in smaller, more densely populated areas my whole mission, but I’m excited to really get to know everyone in the branch and serve them! Should be fun!

     Friday was weekly planning and that was a little rough haha. Elder Layton doesn’t really enjoy weekly planning, so I kind of did a lot of it by myself and I don’t really know anyone or anything about the area haha.  So hopefully we have a good, productive week this week! We should have a much more productive week than they usually have though, so that’s good! I’m amazed at how many missionaries have no idea how to plan or just don’t put in the effort to plan well. If you plan well your days and weeks go by so much faster and better! After weekly planning we knocked doors in Hutchinson for about an hour and half and didn’t see much success there. We had dinner with the Alveys after that. Brother Alvey is the Elder's Quorum President, and he is pretty cool! They’re a solid family in the branch and are super nice! I shared the Mormon message “Same Jersey” with them about the rival QBs and the one baptized the other the day after their game. They really liked it and we invited them to try and find someone they are friends with who may be going through some trials or may be interested in the gospel and share it with them or serve them and be their friend! After dinner we knocked doors again for about 5 minutes and found this older lady named Lorraine! She let us in and we taught her about the Book of Mormon and the Plan of Salvation too! She is Catholic and lost her husband and a daughter(?) recently I believe. She was so appreciative that we just knocked on her door and visited with her that she gave us $10. Once again I tried to politely decline, but I’m pretty sure she would’ve killed us haha.  She was the sweetest lady, and it was cool to brighten her day so much just by visiting and sharing the gospel with her! After that we visited Sister Gonzalez and her crazy kids and boyfriend. She just moved into a house and is renovating it, so we are going to help her out with some of it. We just went over and got some details on it. Elder Layton went all star mode and taught her boyfriend a full restoration lesson and gave him a Book of Mormon, too! It was pretty sweet! I was like “Let’s go! You’re a beast bro!” So that was solid, and after that we called it a night!

     Saturday we went up to Litchfield. We had one lesson at 4 pm and the rest of the day we just knocked doors and stopped by people. So we ended up knocking doors for about 4 hours again.  We found this one lady named Rocky who was sitting out on her porch smoking. We were walking to our 4 pm appointment and we walked by and I looked up and saw her and I just felt like we really needed to go talk to her so we did! And she was super interested in the Book of Mormon and loved the fact that we used the Bible and the Book of Mormon to teach about Christ. We set up a return appointment with her for this Saturday and got her number and everything! It was way cool! So our 4 pm appointment was with Sister Lopez and her kids. We usually meet on her porch because of the rule of 3, but we get there and it starts raining buckets. Like insane. ️ So she told us to sit in her car until it stopped raining haha. So we sat in there for like 20 minutes until it quit raining buckets and then had a lesson with them about the importance of going to church and why we take the sacrament plus blessings of taking the sacrament each week! It was really good, but unfortunately they still didn’t make it to church on Sunday.  Sad day but oh well. After that we ended up playing football with her boys outside and it was a party.  Her kids are insane and the oldest one was body slamming his younger brothers and it was hilarious and we were laughing so hard haha.  After that we did some more stop bys and then had some dinner at Subway (Subway is the G.O.A.T.)  and then we stopped in Darwin on the way home to check out the world's biggest ball of yarn haha. That thing is enormous!

     Sunday was awesome as usual! We had branch PEC before church so I got to meet some of the people there and then we had church and we taught primary and Elders quorum lesson! It was really fun! I got to meet Brother Constance, whom I guess is like this super weird dude in the ward. I haven’t been to his house yet, but I guess he has no furniture except for a TV, TV stand, and a 2 step work ladder to sit on. Then he has a blow up mattress for his bed and that’s it. Plus a super expensive safe full of gold and coins and all this money.  He has a house but he just doesn’t spend money on anything. He just puts it in his safe.  He’s a really nice guy, just has some interesting comments and stuff haha. Anyway, the Munoz family is awesome! They make up like half the branch haha. So it’s two brothers and both their families and then their kids' families too haha. They’re way awesome and I’m excited to spend some more time with them! Brother Munoz talked to me about football for like all of church.  So we are like best buds already haha. It was sweet! I love the branch already and I barely know anyone.  After church we knocked doors up in Dassell and found like 4 new investigators! We had another Sunday surge and it was awesome. I don't know if people are just more receptive on Sundays or what, but I love knocking doors on Sundays because we always seem to find people.  After that we went to Cokato and visited this less active older couple who have a ton of health issues, so we got to meet them and visit for a little bit and then we had dinner with the Christensens! They are super cool and nice! We ended up talking about the biggest lessons we had learned on our missions and sharing those things with them. It was a way cool discussion we had!  After dinner we drove up to Buffalo to sleep over before p-day because we went to the American Ninja Warrior place again for p-day!

     This week has been awesome! The work is pretty slow in Hutchinson right now, but we are gonna pick it up and work hard and see some miracles! I’m way excited to be here and working with Elder Layton! Thanks for all the birthday wishes and presents! I loved all of them! Hope you all have a great week and enjoy life. Do what you love and let it kill you. Life’s too short to not do what you love with those you love! I’m so grateful I can be sharing the gospel I love with people I love! It’s awesome. Love you all! 

Much love,

Elder Beach

#MavUp #10

Healthy breakfast!

Saying good-bye to people I love in Sauk Rapids.

Heading to Hutchinson with Elder Layton!

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Raking leaves and the water tower.

The biggest ball of string in the world!