It's hot!!

Howdy to all my family, friends, and coaches back home in Cache Valley, serving the Lord and at college! I hope you all had a great week and are enjoying the start of summer. The weather here has started getting hot and muggy once again as summer rolls in, so we've been sweating a lot this week haha! 

Last Monday we did our laundry and then went to our ward BBQ for Memorial Day! It was really fun and we met our Bishop's friend who went to Wisconsin and loved Wisconsin football. So naturally, we talked about football for a good 10-15 minutes haha.  The Flake family also had a family they were friends with that came. They had met the missionaries before so it was cool to talk to them for a little bit! Daren and his family cancelled last minute so that was a bummer. After that we went to the Burnsville chapel and played some basketball for a few hours. Jaidyn and Ariana Gretz came and played too, and the Sisters actually played this week too so that was fun! After we played basketball the Zuis family from the Lake Marion ward had us and the Lake Marion Elders over for dinner. We didn't have a dinner so they invited us to come. They feed the missionaries every Monday.  They are hilarious and it was fun to have dinner with them.

Tuesday we had district meeting and it was pretty good! Brother Pratt from our ward asked us to give Sister Davis a blessing at the hospital. She had kidney failure and has a bunch of very severe health issues. She wasn't supposed to live through last week, but she's doing better now. Priesthood power works! Her daughter isn't a member but loves the church and appreciates all the help Brother Pratt and other members give them. After that we did service at Prince of Peace. Literally insane this week haha. There was almost 40 orders, so we filled orders from noon until about 1:45 straight with no breaks. It was crazy! Right after we had a lesson with Daren! Brother Flake came with us to joint teach and that was super good! We read D&C 89 and talked about the word of wisdom and blessings associated with it. Daren liked it a lot and actually already lives the word of wisdom haha. So that was good! Brother Flake and Daren talked most of the lesson so that was good! We've taught Daren almost everything, so just building relationships with members is what he needs at this point. We are going to start teaching out of the Gospel Principles book now because we've taught everything out of Preach My Gospel already. It was good though! Elder Sherwood had a $10 haircut coupon at Sports Clips that expired on Tuesday, so he went and got his haircut. A member from the Cottage Grove Ward was there and paid for his haircut haha. It was pretty nice of him. Then we had dinner at the Lewises! I love the Lewises. Brother Lewis made salmon and it was dang good.  Dagan, their youngest son had a Chewbacca mask and a fart gun from Despicable Me so he was fart gunning everyone the whole time at dinner haha. All their kids wanted us to jump on the trampoline with them after dinner so we did that for like 5 minutes. It was fun! I'm gonna miss them when I get transferred. Brother Lewis and Brother Hawley came out with us for prospective Elder visits Tuesday night. Brother Lewis and I visited the Wades. We had a really good visit and Brother Lewis and Brother and Sister Wade hit it off really well. I basically ended up playing with their dog Scout while they talked haha.  It was really good though, and Brother Lewis said he was going to try and make himself their home teacher!

Wednesday we did exchanges with the ZLs and I went with Elder Kershaw to Crystal Lake. It was pretty fun. We basically did stop bys all day. At about 3 pm, we stopped by this guy who lived in an apartment building. There was a family moving out in the parking lot and we offered to help them. So they accepted our help and we helped load up their U-HAUL truck and actually unloaded it at their new house that was about a mile away. They were very appreciative we helped out and they told Elder Kershaw he could stop by with Elder Kemberling and visit with them! So service is an awesome missionary tool! We were supposed to have a lesson with their date set, but she wasn't there when we went to her apartment. So we did some tracting after that and didn't find anyone. Most people were older and said they had a church already.  Haha that is honestly the most common excuse we get.  Right after that we went to the stake center to play basketball. Elder Kershaw told me on the way down that I was going to be a ZL pretty soon. I'm not sure how excited I am about that because they have to do a lot of extra work and it takes away from doing actual missionary work. But anyway, the ZLs recommend who they think should train and be in leadership and stuff so I don't know what will happen.

Thursday morning we taught Teagan, Katelynn's sister the Plan of Salvation. It was really cool. We drew it out and then as we were drawing it, we iMessaged her on my iPad and her iPhone. She is deaf and we don't know sign language, so that's how we have to communicate haha. She liked it and said she believed everything we taught. I hope we have planted some seeds for her though. She and Katelynn are now in Florida with her parents. Right after that we went over to Sister Kellington's house to help her with yard work! She is awesome and I don't know why we haven't been over there that much haha. She and her husband are active in church, but all their kids and grandkids aren't active. Their one grandson, Mason, is less active and a prospective Elder and lives with them right now, so she wants us to help him get active again. So anyway, we dug some holes to plant these huge plants in and then we did a bunch of mulch on her pathways in their backyard. They have a super cool and big backyard. She had to go to work right after we got there so she told us, "You basically have free run of my house if you need it, and here's where all my food is, so help yourself!" We were like, "Uh... ok!" We didn't really take advantage of that as much as we could've but she did give us a bunch of grapes and watermelon that we greatly appreciated because fruit is my favorite. I'm seriously gonna eat so much healthier when I get home. We eat really healthy here or at least try to.  Basically all we buy from the grocery store is fruit, yogurt, and milk haha. After dinner on Thursday we had a lesson with Lorraine and Brother Moerschel came with us again. It was a good lesson. We read the talk, "Peace Be With You" by Elder Eyring from the women's session of conference this April. She really liked it and actually texted us after and told us how much she liked it! So Thursday was pretty good!

Friday was weekly planning and we actually had a lesson in the middle of it to break up the long grind of planning haha.  There's this lady named Grace who lives right across the street from us in some town homes. We found her like 2 weeks ago and had our first come back lesson with her on Friday. She didn't let us in, but we did our best to teach the Plan of Salvation on her doorstep. Her daughter was running around and it was so hot but we did our best and hoped she felt the Spirit. It went about as well as it could've and she said we could stop by again next week! After we got done weekly planning, we had a lesson with Brother Colwell. We showed "Voice of the Spirit" Mormon message and talked about listening to the Spirit when the world has so many voices and noises that try to compete with the Spirit. After that we tracted in Burnsville for about an hour and half. It was hot! It has been really humid and in the 90's this week. So we were just sweating our heads off haha, but it was fun. Nobody really talked to us, but we worked hard and had a good time! After that the Gretz had us over for dinner and then we helped them set up for Mikey's graduation party on Saturday. We moved and set up like 5 canopy things and then moved a ton of tables and chairs. Right after that Brother Humphries came out with us and we taught Johanna. She texted us and said this would be her last lesson with us because she would be really busy this summer. Our last lesson we had with her was really good but this lesson was not really that great. She was really trying to disagree with everything we said and was just really not open. We just ended up talking a bunch about the Book of Mormon and we showed "A Testimony of the Book of Mormon" by Jeffrey R Holland. She literally was like, "That was nice. It's nice that Joseph was willing to die for something he thought was true. It's basically just like dying for Jesus. Like if any Christian dies for Jesus it's just like that." I was like wow.  The whole point we were trying to get across was the Book Of Mormon is true and Joseph Smith is a prophet. She didn't seem to get that. After the lesson, Brother Humphries was like, "She seemed really condescending and not open." I was like, "Yeah, unfortunately that's how it goes sometimes."  After that we had a great member lesson with the Hong family. They're really cool! It was a much better note to end the evening on. 

Saturday we had Bishop's breakfast and then hustled to the Gretz to help getting set up for the party. We worked fast haha. Sister Gretz was stressing pretty bad and we were doing like everything to help her out. Anyway, we got everything done on time and it was good to go.  A ton of Brother Gretz family came and Sister Gretz mom was there, too. So there were a ton of non members there. While we were eating, I was looking around to see who I could go talk to. I saw this couple sitting on the other side of the yard by themselves, so I went on over and sat down and started talking to them. Their names were Junior and Jennifer.  We started off with some small talk, just like who you were and where you're from. She is Brother Gretz cousin. They're from Iowa in a super small town. Like there is only a few thousand people in the whole town and the school has like 500 kids K-12. We got talking about football too, because I said I had been to a camp at UNI 2 years ago. He really opened up after that and we talked about football and then Colorado because I brought up the fact that I was playing at Colorado Mesa when I get home. Then I started throwing out some little things we do as missionaries and then they started asking us questions about missionary work and stuff like that. It was cool! I really tried to just get to know them and be friends with them. People are often leery of missionaries when they come over and immediately start talking religion. I didn't bring it up hardly at all until they started asking about it. Anyway, we had a great chat and talked for almost an hour. Time flew by during that hour haha. I later found out that they just barely had a 23 year-old daughter pass away unexpectedly from a heart attack. I thought it was interesting that of all the people I felt I should go talk to at the party it was them. God truly does know us and inspires others to comfort us. I don't know how much comforting or anything I did, but I just tried to be their friend and talk to them and be fun! It was cool! After that we finished up some yard work for Sister Kellington. We chopped up this huge plant in her front yard and replanted it in the backyard in like 3 spots. Then we watered it and got it looking all nice and stuff. She is seriously an awesome lady. We are trying to meet with her grandson, Mason, this week! 

After that it was Stake Conference. Elder Scott of the 70 came and spoke and it was super good! The main thing that stuck out to me was don't let the ways of the world, no matter how appealing they seem, weaken your faith and pull you away from covenants and stuff.  He said we are on God's team and God's team ALWAYS wins. I loved that. He said it won't always be easy and it will continually get harder in these last days. But we need to develop unshakable faith in God and Jesus Christ and God's plan for us. It was such a powerful talk. Daren cancelled on us last minute again, so I was pretty bummed out about that.  Natalie never answers her phone, so it has been really tough communicating with her too.  I was sad neither of them made it, but I hope we can use what we learned to help them!

Sunday was great! When we started the day, we literally had nothing planned. We had Stake Conference in the morning until about noon and then Sister Forbes wanted us to write in the triple combination she had gotten for President Forbes and highlight our favorite scriptures. After that we went home and planned what we wanted to do for our day. We did a ton of stop bys of people we had found tracting and we actually had a lesson with someone!! This lady named Jennifer that we found a while ago has talked to us a little bit when we stopped by like 2 weeks ago, and this week we've had pretty legit lessons with her. We talked a lot about the Book of Mormon this week with her and also a little about the plan of salvation, mainly focusing on agency and families! She loves her family and is really family oriented, so I felt that it was good. After that we went and chalked the walking path around the lake and actually had someone call us about it after haha. All they said was "Your chalk art was really good! Keep it up!" Then they hung up.  At least people are seeing it! We drew a big world and then Christ coming to the Americas on one side with the BOM and then the Bible and the 5 loaves and two fishes story on the other side. We wrote John 3:16 and wrote about how God loves all his children worldwide! It was pretty cool! Then we had dinner at the Davis's house. Brother Davis grilled fish and we had fish tacos and this corn mush stuff that I loved. It is super good! After that we tracted a little bit and then had a lesson with Brother Gretz mom, Doris. She is the sweetest old lady and reminds me a lot of my Grandma Barbara. She believes everything is true, but said she still smokes and isn't ready to give it up yet. Brother Gretz and she kind of got into an argument about what is truth verse what isn't truth. I had a thought to show her this talk called "This Day" by Elder Eyring. Elder Sherwood said to me about 10 minutes after Brother Gretz and his mom were arguing, "Hey, what's that talk by Elder Eyring that talks about not procrastinating?" I said, "This talk I have pulled up right now." So we showed her the talk and it was really powerful. I shared one of my favorite scriptures with her from Alma 34:31 Yea, I would that ye would come forth and harden not your hearts any longer; for behold, now is the time and the day of your salvation; and therefore, if ye will repent and harden not your hearts, immediately shall the great plan of redemption be brought about unto you.

32 For behold, this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God; yea, behold the day of this life is the day for men to perform their labors.

33 And now, as I said unto you before, as ye have had so many witnesses, therefore, I beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end; for after this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity, behold, if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed.

34 Ye cannot say, when ye are brought to that awful crisis, that I will repent, that I will return to my God. Nay, ye cannot say this; for that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world.

35 For behold, if ye have procrastinated the day of your repentance even until death, behold, ye have become subjected to the spirit of the devil, and he doth seal you his; therefore, the Spirit of the Lord hath withdrawn from you, and hath no place in you, and the devil hath all power over you; and this is the final state of the wicked.

I absolutely love these scriptures. We never know if the next day we will still be on earth. Nothing is a for sure thing. Repenting and living the gospel is a for sure thing, though. One of the only for sure things in the world. I shared that with her and my testimony that now is the time. Not next week, or next year or even tomorrow. It's now. Now is the time to get ready to prepare to meet God. Those verses are really powerful to me because they help me know that you never know when you will be done. I could die tomorrow and if it was my last day, did I live it in such a way that I can stand before God and say, "I gave you my all. I did my best. I'm not perfect by any means but I know through the atonement of Jesus Christ that he can make up for my shortcomings." It was a cool lesson, and I hope we helped her realize she can't keep waiting until she is ready. She is ready, she just needs to do it!

Today we went to the Mall of America with the Lake Marion Elders and Jaidyn. It was huge. Like absolutely huge haha. There is an indoor amusement park in the middle and then like every store imaginable. We all wanted to get a Moana themed tie to wear, so we went to Nordstrom Rack and found some sweet floral ties that look like Moana ties haha. We also went to the Disney store and looked at all the cool stuff there. The Lego store was insane. We also played mini golf at Moose Mountain golf course. It was pretty fun.  Elder Coon and I tied for first! We also walked around the Nike outlet and all wished we had like $2,000 to spend there haha.  It was a great p-day!

Much love,

Elder Beach

#MavUp #10

Posing as Forrest Gump at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.

At the Mall of America.

A little editing on a street sign... :)

Wearing a Chewbacca mask at dinner.  It actually made noises like him when you opened your mouth!

Got to see one of my former ZLs at Stake Conference!

Happy Graduation to Mikey!

It's always fun to find a street named for me!

Fish tacos!  YUM!

Long Week of Working Hard!!

Happy Memorial Day to all my family, friends and coaches! Thank you to all those who have given their lives for our great country and all those who are currently serving! I'm grateful we live in this great place and have the freedoms we do. This week has been really slow and long but we've worked hard this week! We didn't have a ton of cool stories from this week so I will just share some highlights and funny stories from this week.

On Monday, we had P day and played "Big Pot, Little Pot" which is one of my new favorite basketball games! So you get in a line and shoot from half court. If you make it, there is 1000 in the "Big Pot". Then where ever the ball lands after you shoot it (you run up and try to catch the ball close to the hoop as possible) and if you make it, then it's 500 in the "Little Pot." Then the next person shoots from half court and tries to make it. If they miss from half court and I had made it, then they get 1000 points and if they make it in the "Little Pot" then there is 1000 in the "Little Pot" now. The object is to get as few points as possible and if you get to 10,000 points you are out. It is really fun! We also played 2 on 3. It was me and Jaidyn Gretz verse Elders Sherwood, Coon, and Jorgensen. I've been working on my baseline spin move and I wasted Elder Coon a few times with it haha. Elder Jorgensen always plays catch with me on P day too, so that was great to throw the football around, too. I still feel like I have pretty good arm strength, even though I throw like once a week haha. Monday night we did some tracting in Rosemount and only knocked like 5 doors and talked to each person for like 10 minutes each! It was pretty miraculous if I say so myself. Unfortunately, no one wanted to have us back to teach. Elder Sherwood baked a cake Monday night for district meeting and it was the best cake ever! More on that later. 

Tuesday morning we had district meeting and it was super good! It was us and the Crystal Lake and Prior Lake Sisters. So I was the "Sistrict Leader". I've really enjoyed serving as a "Sistrict Leader" here because the Sisters are great. They work hard and don't have any drama to deal with. So I've really appreciated their work ethic and all that! We didn't have any lessons on Tuesday because Daren was out of town. So we tracted this street in Burnsville that was kind of hard to get to and out of the way. So we started knocking and there was just a bunch of older people who were really nice and talked to us, but weren't super interested. Then the last house we got to this teenage girl and this younger boy were out front so we talked to them. His name was Caleb and he was very energetic and was riding around on a bike haha. Then this lady pulled up with his siblings. She invited us in and told us she was their babysitter and told us to start teaching these little kids.  So they started asking us all these weird questions like, "Is God a turtle?"  So we answered their questions while teaching as well. It was really weird. The lady was from Argentina and I guess she was pretty familiar with our church and missionaries because she knew a lot about our church and stuff. Anyway, it was interesting to say the least. After dinner we did splits with Brother Ruff and Brother Amott. I went with Brother Ruff and we visited Bert Goff, who is a prospective Elder working to get the Priesthood. He is almost done smoking and is down to a pack every 3 days. He's really close! So that was a cool thing to see from him!

Wednesday we had a lesson scheduled with Trish, so we went over there and when we got there, she proceeded to tell us she didn't want to meet anymore because some of the stuff we taught her was beyond what she could come to grips with. She said she didn't believe infants were saved through the Atonement of Jesus Christ and that kids needed to be baptized, and she said the fact we use water instead of wine for the Sacrament just seemed wrong to her, so she she said she didn't want to meet anymore. It was unfortunate, but she wasn't ready to hear the gospel. We did what we needed to do by sharing it and helping her feel the spirit and teach her restored gospel doctrine and principles. She has her agency to accept it, but she didn't. But it is what it is.  After that we tracted this insanely nice street. It was crazy how nice it was. The very first door we knocked took like 3 minutes to walk up the driveway to the house haha. Anyway, we knocked on this door and this kid named Grayson came to the door. He was 11 years-old and we talked to him about the Book of Mormon for like 20 minutes. He was really cool and gave us his home phone and said we could come back and talk to his family. He said they were Catholic, but would be interested in our message. I hope they are!  There was like 14 houses on the street and it took us an hour and a little bit to knock them because they were so far apart and the driveways were so long haha.  After we got done we had some dinner and then Brother Moerschel came out with us. We visited Lorraine and she just had us move a bunch of dirt and clean out part of her garage. It's a mess, so I'm glad we could do something to it! Anyway, after that we went to basketball and thank heavens no one was angry or fighting this week! We had a good clean game and no fights or arguing broke out! It was very fun.

Thursday was pretty great! I went to Dr. Rapp to get my neck adjustment one more time and then I gave him a Book of Mormon! He took it and chuckled, but I'm hoping he will read it.  After that we went and helped Sister Gretz landscape her front yard. We cut out a bunch of sod and edged it next to the driveway and put in a bunch of rocks. It looked really good.  Elder Sherwood and I basically are professional landscapers now haha. After that we went to Mikey's last trap shoot to support him in that. He did pretty well! There was one guy in his group that went 23/25 both rounds which is dang good. After that we went home and showered and got cleaned up and then had some dinner at the Gretz's house and then went to Katelynn's graduation. She graduated from this school you can go to if you need some extra help or if you're way behind in school. It's pretty cool that she graduated because she was really behind in school and now she is right back on track. I'm glad we could support her in that. One cool story is that the Gretz flew Katelynn's sister from Florida up for her graduation. Her sister is deaf and they haven't seen each other for like 13 years. Her sister is much more spiritual and we were able to talk to her a little bit via text at the trap shoot. Hopefully we can share some more with her before they leave! 

Friday we did weekly planning and Sister Grover wanted us to give her a blessing because she rolled her ankle pretty good on Thursday. So we met them at the church to give her a blessing and then we went and tracted some town homes we found in Burnsville that we hadn't tracted yet haha. I've had the opportunity to give three blessings this week. Sister Darrington also wanted me to give her a blessing on Wednesday. I don't know why, but I was just not feeling it on Thursday and I remember waking up just in a bad mood on Wednesday for some reason. So I remember I prayed for a long time to have the Spirit with me and feel happy and have love in my heart for that day. I'm very glad I did that because I definitely needed the Spirit with me to give that blessing. I have learned so well that without the Spirit or the Priesthood we cannot do the work of God. God knows each of us and the Spirit knows what we need and how to best help us. I'm grateful we have the opportunity to give blessings. It is a great testimony to me that God knows us and knows best what we each need. Now, back to Friday. We started tracting and the first 21 town homes we knocked no one answered. Then we saw this lady named Marie in a car out in the turnaround part. She was just sitting there so we went over and started talking to her. She ended up talking to us for like 30 minutes and we gave her a Book of Mormon and some chapters to read! She wouldn't give us any contact info, but she said she would probably call us, so I'm hoping she does. About an hour later we found another lady named Angie. She let us in and we taught her a restoration lesson. She told us that this was actually her mom's town home and she was just there to get food because she was a poor college student haha. So it was cool we just happened to knock on her door right then! Hopefully we can get in another lesson with her. She gave us her address and phone number so we are going to call her next week and set up a lesson with her! After we finished tracting we went to the Pugmires and they took us to the Saint Paul Saints AA baseball game!  It was way fun! Brother Pugmire and their son went with us. It was like a Salt Lake Bees game. There were a ton of people there and it was a good time. They did a ton of fun stuff in between innings and give aways and stuff like that. They had this thing called the grand slam burger but I don't know how big it was. I just got a double burger and it was pretty great! Haha 2 cool stories from the game: Elder Sherwood contacted these people from Lakeville that wanted to have us come teach them but they weren't in our area so Crystal Lake got a new referall.  #2: The players warming up always throw the baseballs up into the stands. We were front row but little kids would always line up on the fence and catch the balls thrown up into the stands. So the outfielder throws the ball over their heads and it hits the stairs and I leaned backwards and one hand snagged it off the bounce. It was great! So now I have a baseball from a Saint Paul Saints game.  Great day!

Saturday was fun too, but we gained like 5 pounds haha. We had bishops breakfast at Bishop Clifford's house and they fed us pancakes, sausage, fruit, and yogurt. Then we had a Hmong BBQ at Suoa Ly's house with her whole family! She made steak, chicken, and ribs plus rice, collard greens, and this enormous berry cake thing that was so good. We decided to bike because we knew we were going to eat a ton haha. So anyway, right before we left Suoa Ly's, it poured rain. So we were a little worried about biking home in the pouring rain, but luckily it stopped before we left. We had a really good discussion about missionary work with Suoa Ly's sister and son while we were there. We talked about where we were from, why we decided to come out and serve, and how we ended up in Minnesota of all places haha. It reminded me of what Elder Nelson said in his mission conference talk about telling people about you. Tell people about you and why you are out doing what you are doing! Then they will naturally ask why you are out here and what you are sharing, etc, etc. It was good! So after that we visited the Bradfords at the old folks home. That was a really great visit. We gave Brother Bradford a blessing to help him with his health. He said to us, "If you aren't ready to give me a blessing, like if you need time to get the Spirit with you, then I understand." I said "Brother Bradford, there's a movie called Ephraim's Rescue where Brigham Young asks people how soon they can be prepare to get out on the trail to rescue the Willie-Martin handcart company. One man says, "I will gather my things and be ready in a week." Another man answers, "I can have my stuff ready in a few days." And then Ephraim says, "Brother Brigham, I am ready now." Brigham Young's emotions get the best of him and he starts crying. That is how we are supposed to be. We are supposed to be ready at any moment to exercise the Priesthood. Brother Bradford, we are ready now!" That was such an amazing moment. I've really tried to always be ready and worthy to exercise the power of the Priesthood. I'm not perfect by any means, and I'm not always perfectly worthy. But I try and I repent and I try my best! I was asked to give the blessing and it was seriously the best blessing I've given. I could just feel God talking through me to Brother Bradford. It was so cool and it was awesome! After that we tracted this street right in the center-south part of our area. We didn't really find anyone, but the house at the end of the street was interesting. This black lady pulls up in her car and Elder Sherwood is like, "Let's go talk to her!" I was like, "Ok!" So we went over and she gets out and says, "Are you Mormons?" I said, "Yes ma'am, we sure are! Can we share a message with you?" She says, "How many black people you got in your church?" I replied, "My friend Max is black and has the Priesthood and is serving a mission right now!" She just looks at us and is like, "Ok, well y'all have a good day." And went into the house before we could say anything else. It was super weird haha.  After that we went to the Davis's house and had ribs for dinner.  I was about to barf after all that food haha. Amazingly I was only 197 at the end of the day. After dinner we had a lesson with a referral from some missionaries in Finland. His name is Nevil Genjang.  He is very interesting. He has been taught for like 2 years and he told us he believes the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith is a prophet, but he doesn't believe in the Priesthood authority or the restoration. I literally don't know how you can believe in the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, and all that, but not believe in Priesthood or the actual restoration of the gospel.  Anyway, he just talked the whole time we were there and I literally said nothing. I'm having a really hard time with people who don't want to listen with an open heart and just want to "Bible bash" basically. I literally don't have anything to say to them. They don't want to hear, so I've just been staying quiet. I don't know if that's what I should do to handle it. But I feel that's what I should do, so that's what I've been doing. Anyway, we will probably go back once more to see if he has any interest at all in listening. But anyway, that was Saturday!

Sunday was good! We had like 3 less actives at church and Katelynn's sister came too! She is a lot more spiritual and open than Katelynn is haha. After church we went over to Lorraine's to help her move some more stuff. She literally was like we are going to have a ton of stuff to move, but we went over and moved like 4 things. So we spent like 30 minutes listening to her try and decide what to do with her stuff.  After that we tracted this street called Fernando Avenue. We knocked the whole street and most people just kept getting us mixed up with Jehovah's Witnesses. The very last door we knocked on this older lady answered and let us teach her a full restoration lesson and took a Book of Mormon! She was really kind, so hopefully we can teach her some more. Her name was Cindy.  Then we had dinner with the Petersons. They are going to be in the Hill Cumorah pageant this summer and Sister Peterson may contact you, Mom! She has lots of questions about it. Anyway, we shared a Mormon message called "Reach out with love" which shows how we can share the gospel with those around us. We asked them what is something small that they can do to become better at sharing the gospel. They decided to share more about being in the Hill Cumorah Pageant with their friends and neighbors so that was good. Then we went to the Gretz to help Brother Gretz move some stuff from the garage to the backyard and also to meet Paul, who is a referral from them and the Pugmires. He has basically been taught everything by Sister Gretz and Pugmire, but we are getting to know him and hopefully teaching him soon! We played basketball with him at this park by the Gretz's and it was super fun. We played through the wind and the pouring rain and all.  It was crazy, but super fun! Paul is really cool and I hope we can help him and bring him to Christ. 

This week has been pretty good! It's still been rainy, but I'm hoping we can get some good weather this week! I really am starting to love the members of the Apple Valley Ward, and I love working with them. Please keep us in our prayers, so that we can find some new people to teach who are ready. We've almost tracted our whole area, so pray we can find some more people! I know this is the restored Church of Jesus Christ and that this is His work today. We are hastening the return of the Lord by sharing His gospel and helping every person and creature hear that His church has been restored to the earth. I'm humbled to be a part of this work and grateful to share it with the people of Minnesota. Love you all and have a great week!

Much love,

Elder Beach

#MavUp #10

Wearing the Bee Yamicuh at Prince of Peace.

At the Saint Paul Saints game.

Katelynn's graduation.

The long driveway we tracted.

Rain, Rain, Go Away!!

Hello to all my family, friends, and coaches back home in Cache Valley, at school, and serving the Lord worldwide! Hope this email finds you well and enjoying the beautiful and unexpected weather of spring.  My brother is turning the big 18 this week, so send some birthday wishes his way! Also, ladies, hit him up for a great date.  Keep my man Colton Durrant in your prayers as well. He has some health issues and could use all of our prayers and support!

Last Monday we did some laundry and emailed home and then played basketball at the Lakeville chapel. We got some Subway for lunch and that was pretty good! I love P days. Haha it's funny cuz we used to look forward to the weekend, and now we look forward to Mondays. That will be something I will have to switch back to when I get home haha. After basketball we went to Lorraine Haines' house to help her move some stuff for her hot water heater to get replaced on Tuesday. So we moved a bunch of stuff in her house.  She has so much stuff in her house! 

On Tuesday we did zone service at Prince of Peace and it was pretty fun. It was a very busy day despite the rain! We were filling orders like crazy. We were a little short handed because the Crystal Lake Elders and Sisters took their p day on Tuesday so they could go to a science museum. So at one point during the day, I was the only one running the food orders and it was insane. I was flying, haha. So it was pretty fun this week! After that we went to Costco with everyone for lunch. Elder Sherwood and I and the Gretz fasted for Colt on Tuesday, so we broke the fast then. Hanger was starting to set in, and we had a lesson with Daren at 4 pm, so we needed to be on our best for that! Our lesson with Daren was a bit of a roller coaster. We retaught the restoration and it was going really well until we got to the apostasy. He really struggles with this concept and also the restoration of the Priesthood. So he asked us what doctrines were lost or corrupted. So the first and most obvious is the idea of the trinity and through the first vision and the Book of Mormon we know that God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost are separate beings. He said that all Christian churches believe that. I wanted to tell him that a month ago he didn't believe that! Literally like a month ago, we had a whole lesson about that with him because he believed that Jesus Christ is a part of God and how they are the same personage or being. So we listened to him talk about that for like 20 minutes and we finally just left it at we both believe the same things now. Haha sometimes you just have to agree with people and let them say their piece. Then he started asking about the Priesthood and how he believes that everyone that believes in Christ has the Priesthood because it comes from Jesus and he says Jesus lives in all believers, so everyone has the Priesthood. Doesn't make sense to me, but oh well. So then he tells us that he already has the gift of the Holy Ghost. We've gone over this so much. So finally Elder Sherwood saved the day. He's been studying a lot about the light of Christ and told him that what he has been feeling is the light of Christ and not the gift of the Holy Ghost. We showed the patterns of light video by Elder Bednar, and it made a lot more sense to him. It almost was a bad lesson, but Elder Sherwood saved it! After that, we went out with the EQP and the High Priest Group Leader to visit prospective Elders. We have 67 prospective Elders on our NAC list, but half of them have moved or are do not contact people. So anyway, we ended up stopping by like 5 each in two hours. We are going to get through our list in like 3 weeks. Most of the prospective Elders are part member families, but most of them are not interested, so I guess we will see how it goes. 

Wednesday we tracted in the morning and met this lady named Maralyn. She invited us in and basically just Bible bashed with us. I gained a very strong testimony of why we need the Book of Mormon after that visit. She asked if we believed we needed to be baptized to be saved. I said yes we believe that and then showed her several bible verses and BOM verses as well that teach that. One of the ones I used was John 3:5 where Christ tells Nicodemus that a man must be born of water and of the Spirit to be saved in the kingdom of God. She said that means you need to be born physically and have your spirit be born, not being baptized and receive the Holy Ghost. So that's why we need the Book of Mormon to clarify when people try to interpret the Bible on their own! I literally said like 2 things the whole lesson. The Spirit was telling me to not speak because she didn't want to hear what we had to say, she just wanted to prove us wrong. Elder Sherwood did all the talking and he basically just bore his testimony the whole time. That was one of the most clear impressions I've ever received from the Spirit to not talk. It was literally like a voice I heard that said, "Do not talk." So I didn't. And we now have a return appointment with her for this Wednesday! Not sure how that happened but Elder Sherwood is killing it haha. After lunch we went and saw Stew Peterson in the old folks home. He is a super cool man. He taught at the church college in New Zealand for 4 years and then served in California for 2 years on a mission. He has two daughters and one of them is in our ward. He is a very smart guy and is fun to talk to. He reminds me a little of Brother Bradford from home haha. He's just got a funny sense of humor and is such a nice guy! It was fun to visit him. After that it was pouring rain, but we decided to tract this street in Burnsville called Sherwood Place. We met this one lady named Kristy who was moving to Arizona next week and said she had met Mormon missionaries before. She said she had talked to Jehovah's Witnesses and a lot of different missionaries before. She said she had one question that no one could answer: Why do bad things happen to good people?  We told her we don't have that answer and only God knows why. We just know that they do happen and that people have agency and sometimes when people use their agency poorly it causes bad things to happen to other people. We gave her the link to a conference talk called, "God Shall Wipe Away All Tears" from last October general conference. So hopefully that can answer her question! Wednesday night we had Brother Connolly come out with us to visit the Bigboys. We had texted Justin Bigboy and he confirmed we could come over that night. So we get there and once again, they cancelled at the door because they had to go to the hospital again.  I am starting to wonder if they actually need to go to the hospital or just don't want to meet. It was raining insanely hard and there was some tornado clouds forming. So we had to pull over and wait it out for a little bit. It was raining so hard.️ We did some stop bys of some less actives and visited the Hawleys to end the night. Brother Hawley is active but his wife isn't and we aren't sure why. She was really nice, but didn't say much when we were over. Hopefully we can help her out a little bit!

Thursday was a day where literally everything fell through. I went to a chiropractor in the morning to get my neck adjusted because it's been bugging me for a few weeks. He is way cool and I'm going to give him a Book of Mormon this week when I go back. He's pretty awesome!  After that we went and visited Brother Hosman. He told us some of his stories about when he was in the navy in the Korean War. He had some sketchy stories. Anyway, it was a good visit and I'm glad we could see him. He loves when we come and visit. After that we tracted this huge street in Lakeville for 2 and a half hours and didn't talk to like anyone haha. This one guy talked to us but he just tried to bash with us so we ended up just leaving and made an agreement that whenever people try to bash with us from now on we will just bear testimony and leave. We finished tracting the street and then had dinner with the Dotys. I love them! We seriously have the most random conversations when we have dinner there haha. After that Brother Moerschel came out with us and we went and stopped by a bunch of people we met while tracting. Nobody was home but we went to visit the Offoriatas and we had a great conversation with them. Sister Offoriata is Brother Moerschel's bank helper lady. So they listened to Whitney Houston songs while we talked to Brian and AJ about school and the Book of Mormon. AJ is reading all the stuff we give him to read, so that's been great. He's only in 6th grade, but he seems super with it and seems to like when we come over and stuff. I'm hoping one day his family will realize that the church is a good thing and be able to start attending. For right now, sister Offoriata just doesn't seem interested. It's sad, but it is what it is. 

Friday was weekly planning and so we got that done and then went and tracted this street way up in the north part of our area for about 2 hours. We weren't having much success but then got two doors in a row that talked to us and it was great! The first one was a lady named Nicole who talked to us on her porch for quite a bit. She asked a lot about us and where we were from and why we were here and stuff like that. She took a Book of Mormon and said we could stop by sometime when we were up in that neck of the woods. Then the next door this guy named Kevin let us in. He was really awkward but had a good spirit about him. We taught him a restoration lesson and gave him a Book of Mormon and he said we could come back this week. Hopefully both of those people pan out into something. We also met this guy named John from Florida who was a Florida State fan. He knew about our church so we talked for a while about football haha. Always do that when I get a chance. We didn't have a dinner Friday night so we went to Savers to get a new tie for President Nelson's arrival to the MMM. I found a black and blue paisley floral tie. It was sweet! Then we did some stop bys after dinner and then had a lesson with Jaidyn on the word of wisdom, law of chastity and the law of tithing. I'm very grateful we have all these commandments. One thing I've found as I've studied all these Commandments is that all of them have many blessings promised with them. That is one thing that is very cool about God's Commandments is that they all have promised blessings if we follow them. After that we had a fire at the Gretz house with Katelynn and Mikey and Brother Gretz. Elder Sherwood shared the light of Christ video and tied it into the fire. It was pretty cool! 

Saturday was awesome! President Russell M Nelson came to our mission conference in Bloomington. He is awesome. I never realized how funny he, is but he has an amazing sense of humor. We all got to shake his hand and I could just feel the goodness in him. I really want to become that kind of man. Like people can just see the light and goodness in me and feel it when they shake my hand. Elder Craig C Christensen also came and spoke with us. His talk was really amazing and I needed to hear what he had to say. He talked about that there is no greater feeling than serving a mission and then getting off the plane. He said it will be the most difficult thing you will ever do, but when your plane lands, you will feel that your sacrifice was accepted by God and He is proud of the work you did. I'm really glad he talked about that. One thing he also said was that the things you learn and become on your mission, you never will be able to change those things if you continue to live worthy to covenants you've made. I'm grateful for the man I'm becoming and will continue to strive to live worthy of the covenants I've made!  After the mission conference, our zone blitzed Prior Lakes area cuz they are struggling to find people to teach right now. I went with Elder Bolinder. He is super cool and we found this guy named Orlando. Reminded me of "Four Christmas's" with Vince Vaughn haha. Anyways, he let us in and we taught him about the restoration and the Book of Mormon and some other stuff he had questions about. We gave his info to the Sisters so they can go back and teach him hopefully. It was pouring when we were tracting and we got drenched haha but it was fun! After that we did some more tracting in our own area but didn't really find anyone. Then the Gretz took us to Culver's for dinner and we went to the YSA fireside with Jaidyn that President Nelson did. He is such a personable and funny guy! It was awesome to hear him twice in one day! 

On Sunday, Daren texted us and said he was in New Jersey for work and wouldn't be at church or at home this week. So we didn't have anyone at church on Sunday, which was a bummer. After church on Sunday we were supposed to go out one with Ryan Tennant, one of the priests in the ward. He texted us like 5 minutes before he was going to pick us up and said he couldn't go. So we took Juan Suarez out with us. He doesn't have a car and can't drive and his family is less active but he comes to church every Sunday. He is really quiet until you get him to open up.  Then he's a hoot and half haha. We were able to take the sacrament to Sister Brown at her place. She was sick and wanted us to bring her the sacrament. That was such a great experience for me. It brought back some great memories of doing that for the elderly folks in our own ward. I don't know why I ever disliked doing that. I didn't fully understand the importance of the sacrament until I've been out and now I know why it is such an important part of our week. I love church so much more now and especially the ordinance of the sacrament! After that we did some stop bys and stopped by this guy named Don who lives in Lakeville. Elder Wolfley and I found him, but he was kind of flakey on return appointments. He was home on Sunday and we talked to him in his garage for about 30 minutes. He said he could see that we were men of God and could see the light in us. I thought that was so cool.  That made my day! He said he wanted to check out our church with his family next week so hopefully he comes to church with us next week! After that we had dinner with the Lyons and then Brother McGill took us up to the President's fireside. He just got divorced and is moving back up to Canada. He really enjoys coming out with us, so I'm glad he was able to come with us to that. It was super spiritual and really great this month. I got to see Elder Peterson and connect him with Brother McGill, and they talked for a while about Edmonton since they are both from there! It was great! Jeffrey also gave the closing prayer at the fireside. He is doing so well and I'm grateful to be a part of bringing him into the church. He just seems so much more happy now, and I'm glad he has found that happiness. 

Just a cool testimony story from this week for me. I was really having a hard time with all that Colton has been going through. I didn't understand why he of all people had to have these trials. I was angry with God and couldn't understand why God wasn't helping him get better. I just had a lot of anger inside me this week and I couldn't seem to get it out of my system no matter what I did. I knew Colton needed to be home to get medical help and get himself better. I was still having a hard time coming to grips with the fact that my best friend that I have done everything with the last 6 years wouldn't be doing the same thing with me anymore. That was hard for me and I was mad about that. I was being selfish. I didn't realize that God's plan is greater than all of our own plans. God's plan is what matters most. While I was sitting in Sacrament Meeting on Sunday, I was just praying to feel at peace with everything. As I was praying, I got an email from Colton saying that he was sad he had to be home, but he knew that it was God's plan for him at this time and he was at peace with it. After I read it I just felt the Spirit pour over me and I felt that peace I had been needing to feel. It was such a sweet tender mercy from God. I felt his love for Colt and I knew that God needed him to be at home getting better right now. I don't know why, but I know it is God's plan. I don't know why I'm still out here and why I've been blessed to be healthy, but I know that I can't change that and I just need to make the best of it. My dad told me to honor my friend and brother by continuing to serve honorably and bringing people to Christ. I'm grateful for this gospel and for all the blessing it brings us. I KNOW this is is God's church on the earth and that he has a plan for each one of us. We can't always see the end results of the plan but we just have to have faith and rely on the merits and mercies of Him and trust that He knows what is best for us. I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Much love, 

Elder Beach

#MavUp #10

Our whole mission at the Mission Conference with Elders Nelson and Christensen.

Got to see Jeffrey at the fireside.  He looks so happy!!

One of my former companions, Elder Johnston, from the YSA Stake.

Ran into a friend from the Minnetonka Ward!

Looks like the Sacred Grove!

Elder Sherwood.