Elder Beach Minnesota Minneapolis Mission: This Week Was Lit!

A big hello to all my family, friends, and coaches back home, at school, and serving around the world! Hope y'all enjoyed General Conference as much as I did and learned a lot from our prophets and apostles. I was very much spiritually uplifted and edified and learned a lot of things I can work on and also had some questions of mine answered. It was amazing to say the least! This week was awesome so I will give you the highlights really quick. Most of the cool stuff happened Saturday and Sunday.

Monday was p-day. As usual and we did laundry at the Dohms and emailed and threw the football around for a few hours, so that was a good time as always. We had dinner with the Beckrich's after that and it was awesome. Brother Beckrich did some grilling for us so we had brats, corn, and grilled chicken. It was way good! After dinner we gave Brother Beckrich a blessing because he's been struggling with some health issues, and we somehow ended up talking about temples for like an hour. He hasn't been able to go to the temple and really wants to get worthy to go back. We talked about how amazing the blessings of the temple are and talked to him about some things he needs to do to get worthy to go back so he can have those blessings in his life once again. It was a really good lesson, and we definitely got him thinking about some things he can do to get back there. He really loves the temple, and I know he wants to get back there someday. For now we are going to support him in his efforts to return there! After that we had a lesson with LJ and it went pretty good! He is still a little wild, but he seems to be able to focus better and has been reading the Book of Mormon and praying more so that's been awesome. We taught him how to recognize and understand the Spirit because he struggles big time with that. Not sure how much we helped him, but I think he understands what the Spirit is a lot better now and how to identify it. It's hard to teach someone what the Spirit feels like when they don't understand it at all haha. But all in all it was really good!

Tuesday morning we had a lesson with Ashlee, and it went super good as well. Last time she wanted us to talk about why we have trials in our lives. So we talked about how it's part of God's plan for us to go through difficult things in our life. We can either turn to Him in those trials or turn away from Him. She recognized that she had been turning away from Him, and that is why she's not super happy. So we talked about some very basic things we can do to help us turn to God, including church attendance, prayer, reading the scriptures, and listening to uplifting music. She said she wants to work on church attendance for right now, but she always seems to be out of town on the weekends, which is a bummer, but it is what it is. We gave her a children's Book of Mormon and she LOVED it haha. Like she was so happy to have it because she said she just doesn't understand the normal Book of Mormon at all. I'm so happy she will be able to read and understand it now. We had a lesson with Jared after that and talked about General Conference and getting his temple recommend. He said he wants to go to the temple soon, he just wants to wait until Spencer Baker and Laurel Dickerson come home for a holiday and go with them so he can go with someone he knows. So that's awesome he wants to go finally. Tuesday afternoon we knocked doors for like 2 hours and literally the only people we talked to was this family outside playing with their dog. We played with their dog for a little bit as Elder Meyer taught them because I'm better at playing with dogs than teaching, and he's better at teaching than playing with dogs. So it works out well! So we taught them a restoration lesson and gave the mom a Book of Mormon and she said we could come back next week! Her son was also very inquisitive and was like, "Why are we here on earth? What's the point of life?" I was like, "Hey buddy, I've got some answers to your questions!" I gave him a Plan of Salvation pamphlet for him to read, and he seemed pretty excited to have it! He said his pastor never could answer that question for him and his mom said the same thing, so yeah... I'm so grateful we know why we are here and what the purpose of life is. That is such a blessing to me. After that we had dinner with the Broads haha. So they have like 5 cats and when we got there, their really dumb cat was sitting on Elder Meyer's plate. So he kind of moved it off and then it sits on his chair and won't move. So Brother Broad grabs a shoe horn and starts whacking the cat with it and it literally just sits there and does nothing. So he starts whacking it a little harder and then it starts hissing at him and trying to claw the shoe horn. I was just trying not to bust up laughing. It was so funny. Then Brother Broad commented about how, "If the cat had 2 more IQ points, it would move up to moron status and also double its IQ." I seriously died. I couldn't hold it in haha. Anyway, funny moment from Tuesday! After dinner we decided to stop by Jill Charter. She was just getting home when we pulled in so we ended up having a chat with her outside about General Conference and invited her to watch a session with her family. She gave us this huge plate of banana no bake cookies and they were so good. They were made out of bananas, peanut butter, oats, and craisins. I loved them haha. We had a lesson with Flora and Brother Poulsen after that at the church and it went super well. Flora's testimony is so strong. It's awesome to see it. We read Mosiah 2 with her to get her pumped for General Conference by reading about the original General Conference haha. It was really good, and we all had some really good insights and takeaways as we read.

Wednesday morning we did service for Christy's mom, Linda. She wanted us to rake her whole yard, which was huge so we did that for about 2 hours. There was a ton of leaves, so we raked them all into huge piles for her. She said to just leave them there, haha, so I don't know what she's going to do with them. She isn't interested much at all in the church, but she was very grateful for the service! We did some contacting on campus Wednesday afternoon, and it went really well! I met this dude from Costa Rica named Joel. He was sitting at a bus stop, so I sat down and talked to him for like 20 minutes. I pretty much taught a full restoration lesson to him and invited him to read 3 Nephi 11 in the Book of Mormon. He was very hesitant to do so, but I bore my testimony to him about it and how it's helped me in my life. He agreed to give it a shot and also he followed me on Facebook, so that was sweet! After that I met this guy named Jean from Florida. He was way cool and I don't know how interested he is, but I got to talk to him about the church and what we do as missionaries! He also followed me on Facebook, so that was sweet. Elder Meyer talked to this couple on a swing set for like 30 minutes while I was doing all this, and gave them a Book of Mormon and I'm pretty sure he set up a return appointment for this week. So it was way good! So this morning Joel messaged me on Facebook and said he had read the chapter I gave him, but didn't really understand it. I said we could get him a Spanish Book of Mormon and he was like, "Yes, I would love one!" So we are going to set up a time to meet with him this week, too. After we went to campus we had a lesson with Erik that Elder Kershaw and I found on exchanges a while back. We finally got another lesson set up with him and it went really well! He had read some of the Book of Mormon and we ended up setting a baptism date with him for November 11. So that was way exciting! After that we drove down to Clear Lake to have dinner with the Fichtnerovas. Sister Fichtnerovas's son James is less active and her daughter Anne is active. We had never met James, but he's a cool dude, and we seemed to hit it off well with him! They made veggie pizza for dinner and it was so good. I loved it. After that we had to drive it like we stole it and haul back up to the church to do a church tour with Tony. He's the atheist dude we talked to like 2-3 weeks ago, and we texted him and asked him if he wanted to do a church tour. He was like, "Yeah for sure!" So we showed him around the church and answered all his questions. It was really good, and we also started a group chat on Facebook with him and he said he would watch General Conference this weekend, too. I'm not sure if he did because he never messaged us back haha. After that we had the stake report meeting with Pesidents Baker and Barney and called it a night!

Thursday we did weekly planning because Friday was interviews with the Mission President, so we did that in the morning and afternoon. The Hutchinson Elders came up to do a blitz exchange before interviews, so I got to work with Elder Meade! He is from Dallas, Texas and is a great missionary and cool dude. We visited Rustin Bird, and that was an adventure. He was drinking and smoking again when we got there. He told us he wanted to be baptized and had been contemplating it for a few weeks. (He's been baptized already into the LDS church). So we just kind of played along and answered his questions. We ended up reading some of 2 Nephi 31 about baptism and as soon as I started reading it he's like, "Oh my gosh, I've already been baptized. Thanks guys." It was super weird. Then we got General Conference set up for him on his computer because he said it sucks and didn't work, but it worked fine, he just doesn't know how to use it or was super drunk. He wanted us to bookmark the LDS.org website for him so he could find it easier. I bookmarked it and then showed him how to get back to it from his bookmark bar. He had some not super great stuff bookmarked on his computer. Anyway, it was a super weird visit! After that we went out to Foley and stopped by the Gillams because we hadn't seen her in forever. B said he got a job finally, and he had been reading the Book of Mormon daily and had seen a difference in his life for sure. I was glad to hear that! We invited him to General Conference and he said they would come, but didn't show up, as usual. I wish they could figure it out and just come and do the things we tell them because it would bless their lives so much! It makes me so sad. After that we knocked doors for about an hour and found this dude named Jesse. His house was at the end of the street and we almost decided to not knock it because it was out of the way a little, but I felt like we should at the last second, so we did and it ended up being sweet! Elder Meyer threw down some super hot fire about the Book of Mormon, and Jesse was super interested in it, and said he was for sure going to read it and see what he thought of it. So that was sweet! We all had dinner together at 7:30 because both our dinners fell through last minute haha. After that we had a meeting with the STLs about the zone focus, and it was good and also a waste of time in my opinion. Like we got the zone focus done but it took an hour and could've taken 25-30 minutes. Meetings like that really bug me, but it's part of mission life and God's way of teaching me patience I guess! Anyway, after we finally got done, Elder Layton and I went for a 3 mile run to end the night, and it was fun to talk to him and get to know him a little better.

Friday was interviews, and basically like half the zone is struggling so they went until like 3:30-4 pm. In my interview with President, I asked him how I can help missionaries that are having problems that they honestly should be able to just "man up and work out on their own." I just don't have a lot of empathy for missionaries who can't get along with companions and are checked so their companionship sucks. I asked President how I can be better at having love and empathy and patience for those missionaries. His answer made me laugh. He said, "Elder Beach, I'm not gonna lie. I feel the same way you do sometimes with those missionaries. I just want to tell them to work it out and grow up a little sometimes. But I always have to ask myself, what would Christ do? As I've done that it's helped me try to understand them a little better and be more patient with them. But trust me, you aren't the only one who feels that way!" We both had a chuckle about that, but I came away realizing that I just need to be more patient and take time to understand everyone's situation before I just say, "Oh you just need to work it out and be more mentally tough." Because I want to say that to people more often than not, but that's not what Christ would do. He would talk to them and and be a friend to them and all that good stuff, and that's what I need to do, too. After interviews we had a really good lesson with Cassondra on campus. We taught her the Plan of Salvation, and it was super good. One thing Elder Meyer and I have been doing is trying to make each lesson personally relatable and applicable to the person we teach, rather than just teaching at them. It seems to be working so much better for us, and we are seeing much better results in people keeping commitments and having a desire to search more into the gospel. It's way cool. We also invited her to watch General Conference this weekend and got her all set up with LDS.org so she knew where to watch it! After that we had some dinner and then knocked this street as a backup because a few of our stop bys fell through. After that we had a great lesson with Sister Hagen that we first met last week. She was able to come to church and she loves having us over. I feel like elderly single folks so often get forgotten about in wards, and I'm grateful as a missionary to be able to visit them and help them know we care about them. They're always so appreciative and it makes me so happy. After that we had a lesson with LJ about following the prophet and reading the scriptures each day. He was a little wild this time, and there's this other resident who always tries to get on his nerves, so they were having a little spat. But other than that it was good!

Saturday was awesome! General Conference all day pretty much! We went and saw Bill again in the morning before conference started, and he tried to give us back the Book of Mormon we gave him. I was like, "No way, Bill! That book will help you out so much!" It took some persuading, but he finally decided to keep it. We invited him to watch conference if college football got boring for him, and he said he might check it out haha. Anyway, after that we basically just watched Conference all day! We had a lesson with a less active YSA guy that served his mission here like 6 years ago and moved back to go to school at SCSU. He just makes a lot of excuses for not coming to church and stuff like, "I'm busy and I have too much homework and I don't have a car, etc." He was a little odd, but seemed like a good dude. Anyway, after that we watched some more conference. For the Priesthood session, LJ and this dude named Abdul, that works at the group home, came! It was awesome and LJ got to meet the Bishop and Brother Charter, so that was sweet. He stayed for about an hour and then had to go, but it was awesome that he got to come for that much. I don't have my notes with me for conference, unfortunately, but I will have to share them later in another email. I really enjoyed Conference though, this year. It had some amazing messages and council from our prophets and apostles.

Sunday was by far the best day of the week. The Bridensteins invited us over for breakfast and conference and it was a hoot. Their youngest daughter can eat more food than anyone I've ever seen. No joke. Sister Breidenstein made 2 huge pans of cinnamon bread and she ate an entire thing by herself throughout the duration of conference. Plus she had ham and eggs, a banana, and yogurt. She had to have eaten at least 10,000 calories. It blew my mind! George watched conference with us and made several comments about how much he liked a talk or a certain story, so that was awesome because usually he's not super "interested" or open about his feelings about the church or anything like that, so it was good to see him open up a little bit! After that we stopped by Stephanie, the lady we edged her whole driveway and stuff for her! It was awesome! Right when we got there, her husband, Gene, came home so both of them let us in and we taught them a whole restoration lesson, and they were both super engaged and her husband was super excited to get a Book of Mormon and said he was excited to read it. We also set a return appointment with them for next Sunday! We then watched the final session of conference at the church. I think that was my favorite session by far. Neil L. Andersen gave such a great talk. I loved the compilation of the quotes from earlier in conference and from Elder Hales. I was glad to hear what Elder Hales had to say about having faith and how that prepares us to stand in the presence of God. General Conference was just amazing. After that we had dinner and headed up to St. Stephens to knock some doors and stop by some people we had found. We stopped by Alyssa's house first, and her dad, Rick, had talked to us last week and was super nice and said we could come by whenever. So we stopped by and he let us in and we ended up teaching a restoration lesson to his whole family!! His wife, Shauna, and kids, Evan, Taton, and Gavin. They all listened intently and she seemed really interested. We promised them the same blessings Russell M. Nelson promised in conference if we read the Book of Mormon each day. The Spirit was so strong and it was seriously the coolest lesson ever. They also said we could come back next Sunday, so I'm way excited to teach them more next week! It was awesome. After that we had our weekly coordination meeting with Brother Charter and called it a night.

I've absolutely loved this week! God has been so good to us this week. I'm glad we are finally finding some success in our work here. I'm so grateful that as we've patiently (well, sometimes haha) kept working and having faith that we finally were able to see success in our finding efforts. I'm reminded of one of my favorite scriptures in the Book of Mormon, Alma 26:12 "Yea, I know that I am nothing, as to my own strength I am weak. Therefore, I will not boast of my strength, but I will boast of my God, for in His strength I can do all things. And behold, many mighty miracles have been wrought in this land, for which we will praise His name forever." I cannot agree more with that scripture. I'm so grateful to be here in Minnesota serving the Lord and sharing His gospel. It truly is a gospel of happiness and hope and peace. I love seeing it change others' lives and also change my own. It's amazing! It's been a great week, and I'm looking forward to another good one. I love you all! Congrats to my Bobcats for kicking Logan's butt this week. Keep up the good work. Stay humble and work hard. Shoutout to my future team the CMU Mavericks, too! I'm so excited to play there when I get home. Have a great week and enjoy every minute. They go by fast, and you never get to live the day you are in ever again! So enjoy it and seize the day. Thanks for the prayers and blessings!

Much love,

Elder Beach

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