Happy New Year!

     Happy new year to everyone back home, at school, and serving the Lord! Hope this email finds you well and enjoying life! I hope you all had a great Christmas because I know I sure did! It was great to see the family and visit with them. Anyway, the work is really picking up here in Hutchalo, so let’s get going with the week.

     Tuesday was our p-day so we did some laundry, played some basketball and football at the church and that was fun! Tuesday night we had dinner with the Curries and it was wild haha. Elders Layton and Woolley got into this argument about whether Lake Powell or Hawaii was better and then Sister Currie just started roasting both of them and I was just sitting there like what the heck is going on? It was so funny! Brother Currie made some bomb Texas brisket and it was really good! After that we we had a lesson with Paul and Melissa and read the Book of Mormon with them again. The chapter we read was in Mosiah and it was about Alma the younger. I think it was Mosiah 27. It was so good and Melissa was like, “I really liked that chapter. I felt like I could relate to it!” So that was awesome. We asked her if she had prayed about the Book of Mormon to know if it’s true and she said she hadn’t, so we invited her to do that and she said she would. So hopefully she can do that this week and get an answer.

     Wednesday was pretty cold haha. It was like -30 with wind chill.️ Elder Woolley got an email Wednesday morning from his girlfriend that said she basically dumped him for some other guy she’d been with for like 2 months. So he wasn’t a happy dude because she had been acting like they were still going good during that whole time. Girls, including my sisters, DO NOT DO THIS TO GUYS! If you are done liking them, then just tell them straight up. It’s so much easier haha. Just some advice from the Hutchalo Elders. So we had District Meeting Wednesday morning and it was good, and then we did some tracting in the freezing death cold for like an hour and literally no one talked to us. Most people were like, “It’s too cold to be outside!” We were like, “Yeah, we know haha.” Pretty funny stuff. After that we drove out to the sticks part of the Buffalo area and stopped by like every single person who lives down out there. We met this one less active lady whose husband isn’t a member of the church and she let us in and we got to visit with her for a little bit.  She said we could swing by Tuesday or Thursday nights to visit with her husband too, so we are going back this week on Tuesday. Should be good! After that we had about 15 unsuccessful stop bys in a row. Elder Woolley was going off about girls and why they don’t just tell you when they are with someone else and it was pretty funny. He was on one. I was just dying and Elder Layton was, too! It was so funny. We’ve been helping him deal with his problem and he’s doing good, all things considered. Still working hard and stuff. We didn’t meet hardly anyone with the rest of our stop bys Wednesday, so that was kind of rough. But it was good and probably good for Elder Woolley because we just let him vent a bunch haha. We hit up some Subway for dinner and then headed home and did some working out and called it a day.

     Thursday we went to Hutchinson pretty quick in the morning to help out Koki Munoz get their apartment packed up because they are moving to Texas. So we helped them pack up and all that stuff. I’m sad they’re moving because they are awesome. After that we headed up to Litchfield. On the way up we stopped by this less active guy named Kurt. He was super cool! They have a bunch of horses so Elder Woolley and he hit it off really quick. We talked about why he didn’t come to church and just that kind of stuff. He had some interesting reasons, but we built a good relationship with him, we invited him to attend church and read the Book of Mormon. So that was good! He said he would crack open the Book of Mormon, so that’s good! He also said he might have us come help out with the horses and cleaning out the stalls and stuff, so that would be sweet!  After that we headed up to Litchfield and did some tracting for about an hour and met some solid people! We met this younger family who let us in that knew some people from the ward. We talked to the dad for about 10 minutes and just answered some questions he had. We invited him to read the Book of Mormon but he said they believe the Bible is the only word of God. I feel bad that people feel that way, especially when they’ve never read the Book of Mormon. It truly is the word of God. It was also written specifically for our day. The stories and doctrine contained in it are so relatable to the things we deal with in our lives today! It’s awesome. So we had a good contact with them and then we met this dude who’s a Baptist preacher and he invited us to come back on Sunday, so more on him later! After that we had a lesson with Rocky and it went really well. She has some dementia I’m pretty sure because she didn’t remember like anything we talked about last time, but she remembered us and remembered that she felt the spirit when we taught her last time. That made me so happy! Even if she didn’t remember what we taught, she was able to recognize the spirit she felt and remember that! We taught her the Plan of Salvation and it was good! She had some questions about heaven and hell so we were able to answer those questions. She loves having us over. We invited her to church and she said, “I’m not quite ready yet. But I will eventually!” So that was great! After that we had some Subway and headed home to buffalo.

     Friday morning we were supposed to have a lesson with this less active/part member family guy out in the middle of nowhere. So we showed up and his wife answered the door and said he was asleep, and then he had to work so we couldn’t meet with him. We were a little upset because he told us to come by at 10 am on Friday. So we showed up and he was asleep! What the heck?  However, it ended up working out for the better. So we decided to go drop off a Bible for this Bible referral in Annandale. So we showed up at her house and she let us in and we taught a restoration lesson and gave her a bible and Book of Mormon! She doesn’t have much religious background but has just recently decided she wants to start attending a church and learning about God and Jesus Christ. She’s really prepared and has some great questions. So I’m excited about her! She came to church on Sunday, too, so that was awesome!  After that we headed home and had lunch and did some weekly planning. It was a rough one because Elder Woolley was still kind of sad about his girlfriend dumping him, so we talked about that and tried to help him out and stuff. He’s doing good now, but Friday was kind of rough. Poor guy. So we got weekly planning done finally, and then headed up to Monticello and stopped by some potentials and some former investigators. Most people weren’t home, but we got to talk to a couple of them and found out they weren’t all super interested. So that was good and bad because it helped us clean out our area book a little bit. We also did some tracting and that wasn't quite as successful as we would’ve liked, but it was fun and super cold haha. 

     Saturday morning was wild. So we stopped by Sister Reiswitz's and when we got there, there was no footprints anywhere. We called out to her, pounded on her house, called her phone. Nothing. So we called Brother Christ to come over and see if he had any insight. We thought she was dead. She’s the hoarder lady, and she has no heat, no running water, no plumbing. So we thought she was dead because it was -38 degrees Fahrenheit.️ So he shows up and is like, “We better call the cops.” So the cops show up and he literally walks up to the house and knocks on the wall and she comes out and is like, “What is going on? I’m trying to sleep!” We were like, “We’ve been trying to find you for like an hour and you haven’t said anything!” She’s like, “I’ve been sleeping.” We were like, “Oh man, ok. At least you’re alive!” It was wild. I guess she has a few space heaters in her house that keep her warm enough, so that’s good. But we almost had to discover a dead lady that froze to death, so I’m glad we avoided that. After that we had some lunch and comp study and then got ready to head to Hutchinson. We had an apartment inspection in Hutchinson and it was nasty, so we drove to Hutchinson, cleaned it for like 2 hours, and then Brother Buchols showed up to inspect it and didn’t even look at anything. We just talked for like 45 minutes about missionary work in the branch and different people he knew we should stop by. So I was like, “Why did we clean for so long for nothing?” But Elder Woolley was like, “Bro, now it’s clean and not straight nasty.” So that was a good point haha. Because it was pretty bad. It’s now quite clean. It still smells weird, but it’s very clean. So Saturday was kind of a crazy day and we didn’t do much missionary work, so that kind of sucked, but it happens sometimes. Not much you can do about it I guess.

     Sunday was great! We all spoke in the Hutchinson branch about member missionary work and President Larson gave a sweet pep talk to the branch because they are really close to becoming a ward as far as numbers go. So we are going to work really hard to help make that happen there. After church we had a potluck with the branch and that was pretty fun! One of the Larson kids tried to eat my suit coat and I was like, “What is going on?” Like I was wearing my suit coat and the kid is eating it! What the heck? It was crazy. After church we got packed up and headed up to Litchfield to stop by the baptist preacher dude we knocked into. He let us in and said he had some family coming over, so we set up to come back this Friday to meet with him. After that we stopped by a bunch of people in Dassel and Cokato. We met this less active dude named Jesse Bunker. We’ve been trying to meet him forever, and we finally did. He is hilarious. He told us they’re kind of in between churches and we were like, “Hey! Come back to the church of Jesus Christ!” He was like, “We will see what happens.” So hopefully we can get him reactivated and baptize his wife and kids. That would be awesome! After that we had dinner with the Tuchtenhagens in Delano. It was so funny. Their daughter kept telling us to tell them stories about our missions, so that was kind of fun to reminisce on some funny stories from the last 18 months. It was fun! After that we went to the strangest New Year’s Eve party ever. Period. It was at Aaron's house. He said we were invited and the party started when we got there. So that will tell you something haha. So we show up and are immediately given dollar store hats and bead necklaces and sat down to play some Texas hold ‘em poker. It was so weird. Aaron was cracking the weirdest jokes and there was another member there with his daughter, and it was just crazy.  Elders Layton and Woolley just kept giving me the funniest looks. After that we headed home because President said we had to be in early because it was New Year’s Eve. So that was a wrap!

     This week has been really fun and good! I’m so excited for the progress we’ve been able to make in the last few weeks here in the Buffalo and Hutchinson areas. I truly believe this is the work of the Lord. His hand is everywhere in the work that we do. There is honestly no way that Elder Layton, Woolley and I could do the things that we are doing without some divine intervention. Like we literally just couldn’t do it without God's help. I am so grateful to be a part of His work, no matter how great or small of a part I play in it. It’s just a privilege to be out here doing His work. It’s amazing. Thanks to everyone for your prayers and support. Couldn’t do it without those either. I love you all, Happy New Year! Set goals and smash them this year.  2018 is going to be a great one!

Much love, 

Elder Beach

#MavUp #10

Elder Layton works hard!! :)

Helping the Munoz get ready to move.

Our awesome New Year's Eve party...