Lots of Finding!

Hello to all my family, friends, and coaches back home, serving the Lord, and at college! I hope this email finds you all happy and doing well. This week has been much better than last week. We still haven't seen a ton of success with finding people to teach, and I still haven't met any of our investigators, so hopefully this next week will bring more success and more people to teach the gospel to!

Last Monday night we didn't have any appointments set up so we decided to tract some town homes right across the street from our apartment. We shared a quick restoration lesson with a few people and gave away a Book of Mormon to a guy. He said we could come back in 2 months.  One of the last houses we knocked this younger mom answered and we shared a little about the restoration and about the Book of Mormon. She said she was putting her kids to bed, but we could come back on Saturday at 6 pm. More on that story later... We had finished a street and it was 8:50. We were like, let's just start heading back to our apartment cuz it's like a 5-6 minute walk. I had a really strong impression to keep tracting until 9 pm on the dot. So we turned the corner on the town homes and this dude was parked in his driveway in a car. We knocked the house next door and then he rolled down his window and asked what we were doing. So we told him we were missionaries, and ended up sharing a restoration message with him and giving him a Book of Mormon! He seemed pretty interested and gave us his number to call him. He actually lives in the Crystal Lakes area, but he said to call him in a week or so. I don't know if it will turn into anything, but it was cool to follow a prompting and have it result in sharing the gospel with someone.

Tuesday we were supposed to have district meeting and interviews with the Mission President,  but then they changed it last minute to Saturday. So we had zone service at Prince of Peace again on Tuesday. Haha this one lady that works there had her last week there. She is moving or something so it was her last time there. We got a zone picture with her, and they were some funny pictures. They are the ones that will be posted below.  Elder Rodriguez took the funniest selfie with the zone and his fly on his pants was open. After service, the Lake Marion Elders took us to Arby's to get a shake because we led the zone in new investigators last week. In our zone, the team with the most new investigators gets milkshakes from the team with the least amount of new investigators haha. So it's incentive for everyone to be finding people. After that we had a guy named Daren who said we could come by Tuesday at 4 pm. So we stopped by and he answered the door and was like, "My kid just came came home from school and he's sick. But come on in!" I thought for sure he wasn't gonna let us in, but he did! We sat down and taught him a restoration lesson and it was awesome! He had so many questions about the Book of Mormon and the people in it haha. We went into a lot of detail on the characters because he was really interested in all of them! He asked us if he could ask the elders of his church if the Book of Mormon was true and we said, "You can ask anyone you want. People are going to give you their opinion. We know it to be true. The only way to know for yourself is to read it and ask God if it is true." He really seemed to like that and said he would start reading it this week and invited us back for this Tuesday.  I was so happy after that lesson! That's the first lesson I've taught in like 3 weeks. It feels so good to teach and have someone be interested and listen to your message. He has some really solid potential, and if he reads and prays, I know he will receive a witness that it is true. He had some questions about personal revelation vs. revelation from the prophet. I shared my story of how I received an answer to commit to CMU and told him the prophet receives revelation for the church as a whole and not for each individual person. We each receive personal revelation from God regarding ourselves and our families (if we are fathers). He really liked that and believed in personal revelation so that was cool!  I'm excited to see what happens with him. After that we had a lesson with some recent converts in the ward, Brady and Jonah. They are the young men that got baptized a few months ago. We took Brother Pugmire with us cuz he is the YM President in our ward and can help get them ready to go to the temple to do baptisms for the dead. We shared the "Hope of God's Light" Mormon message with them. Their mom, who isn't a member, sat in on the video and listened as we shared our testimonies of God's love for us and how spiritual light doesn't come to those who merely sit in darkness, it takes an act of faith to open our eyes to the light of Christ. It is such a great message in that video that God knows us, he answers our prayers, and he has a plan for us. We just need to have faith in him and press forward with hope. Later that evening we had a lesson with Bert Goff, a less active guy in our ward that is trying to quit smoking and receive the Melchizedek Priesthood. We went over D&C 107 because he had read it on his own last time the Elders met with him. He had a lot of questions about it, so we answered some of his questions. Brother Pratt came joint teaching with us, and he is awesome. He had some great insights as well to Brother Goff's questions. Then we went and visited Sister Davis. She has cancer and is a less active lady. Her daughter isn't a member but lives with her. We just popped in to say hi because Brother Pratt is her home teacher. I hadn't ever met her, so it was cool so visit her!

Wednesday we did ZL exchanges with Elder Newbold and Kemberling! I got to stay in Apple Valley with Elder Kemberling. We switched at the church at like 11 am and then went to Subway and had some lunch. Elder Kemberling is a convert and is from Alaska. He has a pretty cool conversion story! It was fun to get to know him a lot better. We had a lesson with Harry Colwell at 1 pm, so we drove up to that and we read Mosiah 17 with him. We read like 10 verses and he seemed to lose interest and go off on these huge tangents that had nothing to do with anything we read. So anyway, we kept trying to bring it back to what we were talking about but it wasn't happening. When we left, some funny stuff went down. Elder Kemberling had some really bad gas going on. We got in the car and he just lets this huge fart go and says, "Elder. We need to go to a gas station right now. I just crapped my pants." I was like, "Are you serious??" And he was like "Yep! I'm serious!" I died laughing, and so we drove to a gas station for him to change his pants and stuff. It was bad. Then we had this super cool miracle after we got the problem taken care of. We stopped by this potential investigator named Trish who lives up by this trailer park and she was there and we shared our testimonies of the Book of Mormon.  She said she was struggling with her faith right now. She just had a lot of trials recently and doesn't know what she believes in anymore. She said we could come back on Wednesday so that was cool! Then the major miracle for the day: I had scheduled in a less active named Anna Jones to go visit at 3:30 pm that lived in the same apartment as the Trish. So we stopped by Anna's house. She opened the door and was like, "Oh good, you're here!" And me and Elder Kemberling just look at each other like, what the heck? So we go in and her mom lives with her, too. Her mom's name is Janna.  She said, "Oh I'm glad you made it to help us move these boxes of stuff down to storage!" So we asked about the plan because we didn't know anything about it. She said she had talked to some Elders at church about coming to help move stuff today at 3:30 pm, and we asked them who they were because we are the only Elders in our building. The Eagan Sisters are the other missionaries in our church building. She said it was someone who looked like me but was taller. I had no clue who it was, but anyway, it ended up working out perfectly and we helped them get their stuff moved and move a dresser in their apartment. I had no idea how it all worked out like that, but it did, so it was a miracle for sure. We had dinner with the Hosmans in our ward and then we had like 5 appointments set up from 6-8:30 pm with people we found tracting. So we went to go see all of them, and the first 3 weren't there, and the last two told us they weren't interested. One of the guys said he didn't believe in our church because we believe that Zion will be in Jackson County, Missouri, and then quoted Amos 3:3 (3 Can two walk together, except they be agreed?) and said he can't listen to our message because of that scripture, which made no sense. So by 7 pm, everything had fallen through. So we had some more town homes nearby we wanted to go tract. We tracted those for about an hour and half until we got really cold. It was like 5 degrees with windchill, and we weren't dressed for the weather haha. We found a few potentials, but no one really solid. We did a couple stop bys on the way home, but no one was there unfortunately. It was a fun day all in all, and I had a good time and learned a lot from Elder Kemberling. 

Thursday morning was MLC, which is Mission Leadership Conference. Every three months they have MLC where the district leaders come to it. It was good, but it was super long, and I had a struggle staying awake at parts haha. I learned how to work better with the Ward Council. As missionaries we just need to be more blunt with people in Ward Council and say, "This is what we can do for this person. Is there anything else we can do for them or to help you help them?" That was like the major thing I took away from MLC. Mostly it is for the ZLs and STLs. As a district leader I didn't say much, and most other district leaders just sat there and soaked it all in. I'm pretty sure most people don't like MLC. The funniest part of the day was the Duluth ZLs (Elder Johnston that I served with in the YSA ward, and Elder Anderson who was my ZL my first transfer) both lost their driving privileges and so the Duluth STLs had to drive the truck back up to Duluth and the Elders had to sit in the back.  Everyone gave them so much crap haha. MLC got done at like 3 pm, and everyone visits for a while after, so we got home at like 4:30 and had to run to ALDI and get some groceries cuz we finally got our car back on Tuesday. We haven't gotten groceries for 2 and a half weeks, so we've been living off oatmeal and stuff like that.  Then we had dinner at the Doty'shouse. They are awesome but their house is insanely crazy. They have a boxer named Kevin who is psycho and all their kids are teenagers and crazy. So it was a funny dinner to say the least. Then we went over to the Gretz' cuz Elder Wolfley said he could bake a cake for their oldest daughter's 20th birthday. She is less active and their son, Mike, is less active and he is 17. Jaidyn's boyfriend and Mike's girlfriend live at their house too, and aren't members, so we baked a cake and had that, and then both shared a spiritual message. It was really good! Elder Wolfley's cake was insane. Chocolate cake with cream cheese vanilla frosting. It was the best cake I've had.I shared the Friday Night Lights message and like almost everyone had seen Friday Night Lights, so it ended up being really good! It was a really good night, and Mike and his girlfriend came to church on Sunday so it worked!

Friday was super cool! Brother Ruff, our ward mission leader, decided he was going to spend the whole day with us so he could get a better feel for what we do as missionaries and what a typical day looks like. So he brought us donuts for breakfast and we did weekly planning together and he had this paper called the "Ruff Plan to Successful Missionary Work." We went over that for about an hour, and I learned a lot from that. He previously served as a bishop and he uses stuff from being a bishop and a missionary to create this plan. It was really good, and I'll send a copy home for Jackson! Brother Ruff took us to Panda for lunch and then we did some stop bys for like 4 hours. We stopped by literally 20+ people. We found this one guy who named Robin Blanchard, who is a "lost sheep" for the Apple Valley ward. That means people who we haven't been able to get in contact with for like a year or more. So we buzzed this guy's apartment and he let us in and we go up to his apartment and this guy answers and lets us in and says "Robin is over there in the chair." So he had just had back surgery and has a lot of physical disabilities. He isn't interested in the church much, but he said we could stop and check in on him from time to time. So that was good! Literally everyone else wasn't home.  Then we had dinner at Brother Ruff's house with his family, and then we went tracting in the evening! Haha literally nobody wanted to talk to us. It was crazy. Most other days we have people that will at least talk to us, but literally no one even talked to us. I said, "Brother Ruff, you picked a "Ruff" day to come out with us!" He had a good chuckle at that.  He set up a lesson with an active member, Brother Hong. He is pretty newly married and has a kid. He actually served in the Dallas, Texas mission. Shoutout to dad! Anyway, Brother Hong just posed as an investigator that he taught on his mission.  We taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ by reading 2 Nephi 31 with him. It was such a good lesson. I love teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ! Now that I've actually tried to live it every day and seen how great it is, I love sharing it with people and teaching about it! After we finished teaching, Brother Ruff and Brother Hong said we did a really good job and the spirit was definitely there. I really want to be able to teach people more and help them feel the spirit and help them draw closer to God. It's hard to do that sometimes when you only get a few moments on the doorstep. I try to bear testimony as much as I can while doing our door approach so that the spirit can testify to them that our message is true! It was a great way to cap off a pretty long, slow day!

Saturday was district meeting and interviews with the Mission President. District meeting was really good! I gave a training on this talk by Tad R. Callister called, "Becoming a consecrated missionary." It is a really good talk and I would encourage all missionaries and prospective missionaries to read it! Funny moment from my training: we were discussing this part about how you have to "leave your fears on the sacrificial altar and talk to everyone." One of the things it says is you just have to square your shoulders and just do it. So, Shia LaBouf has a motivational video called "Just Do It" and someone made a video of him giving this speech as if he's at general conference. I'll share it in the photo share. It is super funny. So I was like, "I brought a motivational speaker to pump you guys up to talk to everyone!" And I showed that video to my district. Well, the Mission President walks in like halfway through to get the next person for interviews, and I just hurried and grabbed my iPad and was like "....so just DO IT! Talk to everyone!" And Elder Newbold was on the ground laughing because President walked in right during the video. It was so funny! Haha then the Prior Lake Sisters did a training on recognizing and understanding the spirit. They did the guiding game where you blind fold someone and then someone else is the Holy Ghost and the blind folded person has to listen to the Holy Ghost while everyone else distracts them. It was super funny. I'll include a video! Interviews were same as usual. In and out with President. Not much was said so I guess that means he's not worried about me or anything. Afterwards the Spanish district wanted to go to this place called El Super Taco where you get like foot long tacos. They were $10, so I didn't get one, but everyone said they were way overpriced and not as good as the price indicated. Then we had a lesson right after that Brother Parsons, a less active ward missionary. We invited him to church and he said he would be there, but didn't show up. However, his wife showed up, so that was good! We also met with a former investigator, Alisa, who is handicapped and in a wheelchair. Somehow she had requested a BOM online and the Sisters had met with her before a few times. We talked to her dad mostly. He said he is Catholic and is too old to convert, but we shared our testimonies of the truth of our message and our church as we talked. Like things would come up that would be related to something we teach and we would share a little about it and testify of it. He seemed like he felt the spirit but was kind of fighting it a little. I feel like he has potential, so we will see! We are meeting with him again on Saturday! We did some stop bys and then tracted this street in the southeast part of our area. We met this really cool guy named Matt. He said he only had a few minutes to chat because he was watching his young kids, but he liked our message and said to give him a call this week to set up an appointment. I really think he has some potential, too. He seemed very genuine and interested in hearing the message of the restored gospel! So I am excited to go back and see him this week! I woke up with a cold on Saturday, and I was dying by like 8:30 pm. My nose was so stuffy and I was coughing and sneezing, so we went to Target and bought some NyQuil and called it a night. I took some walking out of Target and I was out cold by the time we got home. Elder Wolfley had to smack me to wake me up. So I went in and changed and went to bed.  I HATE BEING SICK SO MUCH! It's hard to do good work when you are sneezing and coughing and your nose is so stuffed up you can't breathe. 

Sunday, no one came to church that we were planning on. But....a Doug Watters came to church and the Gretz's son Mike, and his girlfriend his girlfriend came to church, too! So it was pretty good, all things considered. After church, Brother Humphreys a super cool member of our ward, wanted to race us in his mini van, so we tried to but we have a Tiwi in our car hah,. and can't go super fast. He killed us haha. After church we had a lesson set up with Victoria for 4 pm cuz she rescheduled on Saturday. We talked to her at 5 pm on Saturday, and she said we could come Sunday at 4 pm. So we called her at 3:30 pm to make sure we could still go over, and she's like, "I totally forgot and I'm out of town until Wednesday!" So that was a bummer, but it ended up being for a good reason! We decided to tract these town homes for an hour by our apartment, and the first door we knocked, this lady answers and let us teach her the first lesson on her doorstep. The spirit was super strong and you could tell she could feel it. She said she had been looking for a church and I was like, "I think you just found one!" She said we could call her and set up an appointment next week cuz she is swamped at work this week. She said she would start reading the BOM though! We kept knocking for a while and this one guy answers and we had an interesting conversation. It went like this pretty much:

Guy: Who are you?

Me: We are representatives of Jesus Christ and are sharing a message that His church has been restored by a prophet called of God. We would love to share our message with you!

Guy: You believe that Jesus is a prophet and not the son of God?

Elder W: No we believe Jesus is the son of God and our Redeemer, but that God called a prophet to restore His church. You're familiar with the Bible and the prophets in the Bible correct?

Guy: Yeah, I believe the Bible. I just don't believe what you guys believe!

Me: So you're saying you don't believe in prophets?

Guy: (literally 10 seconds of silence. He had no clue what to say.) Have a nice day gentlemen. 

Us: You too, sir!

It was so funny. He had no clue what to say. You could tell he was thinking about it really hard. So I'm glad if nothing else, we made him think about what he really believes in. We basically tracted the rest of the day. We didn't have a lot of success, but we met some nice people and it strengthened my own testimony that the gospel has been restored and our church is led by a prophet of God!

I love sharing the gospel. It is truly a blessing to be a part of the Lord's team and be sharing the message that His church has been restored to the earth. I know it is true and I want everyone to know it is true, too. It is such an amazing message. The Book of Mormon is also true and is without a doubt the word of God. I can't ever deny that after the witness I have received. I know the gospel of Jesus Christ is the way to living a better life and becoming more like our Savior and Redeemer. It is a privilege to be sharing this message with the people of Minnesota, even if they aren't super receptive! I know someone is out there that needs to hear our message. We just gotta keep knocking until we find them! I love you all and hope you have a great week. I pray for all my family and friends every day, so know there are prayers from Minnesota being sent your way. 

Much love,

Elder Beach

#MavUp #10

Our zone after our service.

Foot-long tacos.

Tough Week...but Awesome Ending!

Hello to all my family, friends, and coaches back home, serving the Lord, and at college!  Hope you are all doing well and have had a great week. This week has been one of the toughest of my mission. We have had a lot of rejection and appointments fall through. However, as we have continued to work hard and put our faith in the Lord, we saw some awesome miracles and success to end the week!

We had district meeting on Tuesday again. I'm actually really loving being a district leader. It's really pushed me outside of my comfort zone and made me stretch to be a better missionary and have more charity and love for those I'm serving. It's been a good experience for me! I love giving trainings at district meetings, too. I feel like I learn a lot and also can help my district learn and apply things that relate to being better missionaries. It's cool and I also learn a lot from the people in my district, too. I am one of the younger missionaries in the district, so it's a blessing to learn from more experienced missionaries.  

After district meeting we had zone service at the Prince of Peace food shelf. That is really fun and we were way more busy this week! We had a lot of people come this week to get food, so we were filling carts full of food for about 2 hours straight haha. After that we took my bike to the bike shop to get it fixed. We met the lady who hit me at the shop and got everything squared away. She's a single mom and a school teacher. She was super nice and really good to help with the bike and everything! The bike store guy said it needed a new back tire and would take a week or so. We wouldn't be getting the car back for at least a week and then we couldn't bike either. Elder Nissenbaum let me borrow his bike until mine got fixed. So we tried to talk to the lady that hit me about the church, but she wasn't super interested. She goes to this church right by our apartment haha. We are going to text her and just be like, "Hey can we come share a quick message with you?" And see what she says. We then had to walk home after we got done there and that took like 45 minutes. Elder Nissenbaum's bike was at our apartment, so we grabbed our bikes and biked up to this guy named Moises that we had found last week. He was there and said he was too busy. This is basically the story of the week. We have appointments set up and either on the way there or right when we get there, people cancel. So then we had to bike all the way back to dinner and basically wasted an hour. I hate when people set up appointments with absolutely no intention of keeping them.  That evening, Brother Ruff went out with us and we visited the Duo/Smith family. They are less actives and are pretty cool. Their son goes to Iowa Western college. I remembered that a girl I know from Sky View, Sammy Guadarama, goes there for soccer, so I asked him if he knew her and he said he sure did. So that was cool to make a connection there. He and I kind of hit it off after finding we had a mutual friend. We talked about football and soccer and track and we shared the "I'm a Mormon" video about Jason Smyth who is a 4 time Paralympic gold medalist. It ended up being a cool evening. We also visited the Leavitts, who are a less active family. We visited with them for about a half hour and when we left we invited them to church. Brother Leavitt was like, "Yeahhhh... we might come soon. We've been going to Community of Christ church." I guess they've been struggling with their testimonies. He said we could come over whenever though. Hopefully we can help them with their testimonies and help them find their faith again! 

Wednesday was a rough day. We had an appointment set up with a lady down in the south part of our area in the afternoon. So we biked down there and of course, she wasn't there. So we finished tracting this street we had started last week. We had zero success and it was a bummer. We biked up to the north part of our area after dinner to stop by some less actives and investigators. We met this one lady who was less active. She said we could visit on Friday! The bike I was using got like a half flat tire on Wednesday, so it was half flat and wouldn't pump up or go all the way flat. Go figure.  Wednesday was a long day. We didn't see hardly any success and basically just ended up biking all day on a semi flat tire. I really was struggling with why I was even out here. It seems like all we've done since I've been here is bike and knock doors. We haven't taught a single lesson with an investigator since I've been here. Everyone has been telling me how great this area is and when I got here we had 4 people with a date set and now we have 0, and I've met one of our investigators and we haven't taught anyone since I've been here. So I was struggling on Wednesday. When we got home Wednesday I just was like, I need to workout and burn off some steam. That helped, but not as much as I would've liked. So I just unloaded some stuff to God and told him all my frustrations and dropped all my anger on him. That helped a lot. Then when I got done this scripture from D&C 58 popped into my head. It's verses 2-4: 2 For verily I say unto you, blessed is he that keepeth my commandments, whether in life or in death; and he that is faithful in tribulation, the reward of the same is greater in the kingdom of heaven.

3 Ye cannot behold with your natural eyes, for the present time, the design of your God concerning those things which shall come hereafter, and the glory which shall follow after much tribulation.

4 For after much tribulation come the blessings. Wherefore the day cometh that ye shall be crowned with much glory; the hour is not yet, but is nigh at hand.

I REALLY needed those verses at that time. I just felt like I was sucking as a district leader and as a missionary. I realized that was just Satan trying to get me to feel down and depressed and not work hard. I am grateful we have the scriptures and prayer to uplift us in times of need!

Thursday we had a lesson with this less active guy named Harry Colwell! Harry is a cool dude.  He is like 80 years old and is married to a non member. His wife is kind of anti Mormon so he hasn't been to church in a while. He told us he wanted to meet with the bishop and have us come over once a week and start trying to get back to church.  So that was pretty cool! After that we had to bike all the way to the south west corner of our area for another lesson with Brother Parsons. He called us and cancelled when we were halfway there. So, once again we wasted like 35 minutes of biking. I am basically about to kill someone at this point because we have had like 7 appointments fall through this week already. Oh, on Tuesday, Bert Goff, another less active guy we are working with, called and cancelled like last minute, too. So that's basically how our week went haha. Anyway, back to Thursday. So Elder Wolfley had to use the bathroom so we stopped at Walmart really quick and then hustled home because it was freezing.  I've decided that when it's in the 20's with 20 mph winds it's colder than when it's -15 with no wind. Wind is an absolute killer with the temperature. We then walked down to our dinner appointment because my bike currently had a flat tire. We tracted these townhomes by our dinner appointment but... no one listened to us.  It is so frustrating when people are like, "I believe in Jesus already," and then just shut the door. I'm like, "We have so much more to offer!! Please listen to us!" Uughh,h it's frustrating sometimes. Haha dinner was awesome, though! We had dinner with the Lewises. They are super awesome. They grew up in Missoula, Montana and so we talked about University of Montana and football and CrossFit and it was great. Then Sister Lewis pulls out these nerf guns and starts shooting her kids. The kids had some and were shooting her and us and there was like an all out nerf gun war during dinner. It was a party. I hope my family is like that! Then we met with this less active guy named Joe Brockway.  He is a big time gamer and loves video games and stuff like that. He lives with his girlfriend who is Japanese and is moving to Japan with her next year. He was an interesting guy, but really nice and I felt like we hit it off pretty well considering we have like nothing in common haha. Then we walked like 2.5 miles home and it was super cold because the wind was blowing right at us the whole time. Rough week....

Friday was weekly planning again. I tried to kind of be in charge of planning this week, so it went a little more smooth. We got our whole upcoming week planned out. So that will be good because the last few weeks we've kind of been winging it when appointments fall through. We will have much better plans this upcoming week though! Friday afternoon we just did a lot of tracting. We decided to tract these townhomes just off the main road in Apple Valley. Not a lot of people were home, but we just kept knocking and talking. Haha this one door we knocked, there was a cat outside the door and it looked really cold and it was super fat and had a huge part of its back shaved. I felt so bad for it, but I didn't know what to do for it. So we kept knocking and it followed us for like 6 townhomes haha. Like it would go door to door with us. No one answered at any of those 6 doors, but man, if someone opened a door and 2 missionaries were there with a fat, orange cat, what an interesting conversation that would be! Haha so we kept tracting and had no one who wanted to listen. When you tract for 2 and a half hours and no one wants to listen, it's a little discouraging. After dinner we tracted for about 2 hours as well and literally. NO. ONE. WOULD. LISTEN!!! I was so down in the dumps. We went to the Doty's house at 8 because Elder Wolfley wanted to get cheered up and they're awesome. Brother Doty shared some cool stories about finding and tracting from his mission and it got us pumped up again to do some finding. It was a good way to end the day and I really needed it, too. I'm grateful for good people who can pump you up after a bad day!

Saturday morning we helped a less active family move all the stuff in their apartment into a storage unit. Their names were Mason and Kody Kellington.  Mason got in a motorcycle accident last year and has a rod and 8 screws in his leg and has a bunch of plates and screws in his arm too. He got majorly messed up and is lucky to be alive. So we got to help them move and it was pretty fun! We had a lot of the Elders Quorum there and Bishop Clifford came, too. There was some crazy heavy stuff we carried down this super narrow staircase to get it out of the apartment, and I got to volunteer to carry the heavy stuff. Grateful I have had football workouts and current workouts to help me stay strong and able to move stuff.  See, I try to use football as much as I can to share the gospel haha.After we loaded up the U-haul truck, we took it all to the storage unit. They had a football buried in the truck and Brother Davis found it and wanted me to throw him a pass so he could say he caught a pass from a college quarterback. Oh! Cool side story. So this part member family in our ward, the Singers, have a son playing QB at a D2 school in north Minnesota. The dad isn't a member, but I talked to Sister Singer at church and she said when her son was home next month for spring break they would have us over for dinner and we could talk football and throw it around a little bit! I'm going to try to use that as an in to the dad and share the gospel with him. Anyway, the bike shop called on Saturday and said my bike was done and ready to go (thank Heavens because we had been walking the last two days.) Brother Connoly, who is the assistant ward mission leader, needed help getting a fridge out of his truck and into his house, so we helped him move that in exchange for a ride to the bike store. We met the lady that hit me (Jenna) there and got everything payed for and biked to our dinner appointment after that. We visited the Bradfords again after dinner. Brother Bradford was so grateful for the blessing we gave him last week and said his diabetes is doing better. We had a great visit and they enjoyed having us over! They're great! I love visiting them. Then we tracted some more at some townhomes right by the assisted living place. We prayed beforehand and said, "Heavenly Father, we don't have any appointments, and we are going to tract for an hour right now, so please help us find people." So we tracted and we found a few families and some cool people that said we could come back on Tuesday night! It was a blessing to have some success to cap off a rough week! 

Sunday was easily the best day of the week! Elder Wolfley and I were supposed to speak in church, but they had 2 youth speakers, us and the high council speaker, too. So they ended up postponing my talk for a few weeks due to time constraints. But we had Haymonot and the Gretz' less-active kid came to church, so that was good! And Beth Bigboy texted us and said her husband potentially has a job lined up starting tomorrow! So Sunday was good at church. After church we had this lady that said we could come back Sunday and teach her. So we biked for a half hour up to her house and we get there and, of course, she isn't there. Her mom answered the door and said she wasn't there. I was like, "Oh my gosh, ok." I asked if we could get her number so we could call her before we came up again to make sure she was there and the grandma was like, "I'm not gonna give you her number!" And I was like "Why not?" And she said cuz she didn't even know us. I was so mad because this was like the 10th appointment we had gotten stood up on. I said "We would just like it so she doesn't waste an hour of our time next time we come up here. We just wasted an hour of our time coming up here to share a message with your daughter and she isn't here when she says she will be here. We will stop by another time." I just left because I was about to lose my mind. So then we biked all the way down to this other appointment, and of course, they weren't there either. So we were right by these townhomes and we were like, "God, we need a miracle and we are going to tract for 45 minutes before dinner." So we knocked like 7 doors before anyone answered and the first one that answered was this girl named Mai.  She was super cool and let us teach her a first lesson on her porch. She took a Book of Mormon and we set up an appointment for next Saturday. Then the next door we knocked basically the same thing happened! She said we could come back on Friday this week. Then the next door, this lady answers and says, "Are you the Mormons?" And we were like, "Yes ma'am, we are!" And she says, "Yay! You're back! Missionaries used to teach me and now you're back." She said she had read the Book of Mormon twice and had taken all the lessons multiple times but didn't pray ever and didn't believe in prayer. She said she wanted us to come over Thursday though, so we are going over and visiting her Thursday. Then we had to hurry to dinner with the Lyon family. They're pretty cool and we had fish and veggies and it was super good! Then we decided to tract these other townhomes by their house until 8 PM or till we ran out of Books of Mormon. We had 4. So this neighborhood had a sign that said private property: no soliciting or trespassing. But obviously that wasn't going to stop us, so we started knocking doors! We saw some incredible success Sunday evening. We taught 3 first lessons and had like 8-9 people say we could come back Wednesday night and share a message with them or continue to teach them. It was so great to have so much success after such a tough week. Elder Wolfley also got over his shyness of tracting and just had some killer door contacts and defended the faith well. It was awesome, and I felt so proud to be a missionary on Sunday! I wish I could just feel like that all the time. But that's not how it works unfortunately. We gave away 3 Books of Mormon and 5 total on Sunday. We ended with one left and couldn't find anyone to give it to, but we worked our butts off Sunday and last week and the Lord blessed us with some success and miracles Sunday. It was amazing!

I'm going to share a little bit of advice to those preparing to enter the mission field this summer and fall. The mission is the hardest thing you'll ever do. If you think school is hard, it's not. If you think 2-a-days for football is hard, it's not. If you think relationship troubles you have are hard, they're not. The mission is seriously so hard and there really is nothing to fully prepare you for it. Some things you can do to prepare are 1. Read and study and gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon. 2. Live the gospel of Jesus Christ and gain a testimony of the atonement. 3. Pray for charity and love the people you will serve. If you do those things, you will be a great missionary. Now, the mission is the toughest thing I've ever done. But it is the most rewarding and the greatest thing as well. I've grown so much in these last 8 months and I've gained a rock solid testimony of the Book of Mormon and of Jesus Christ and that this is His church. The Priesthood has been restored by a prophet called of God. I know that to be true and I will never, ever deny that. If you let it, the mission will change you and mold you into what God wants you to become. It is hard, but anything that's worth it never came easy. Bringing people to Christ and to the waters of baptism is very, very hard, but there is nothing sweeter than seeing someone who wants to change and become better and being able to help them. So all you future missionaries, it will be hard and it will be tough. Not gonna sugar coat it. But it is so worth it if you work hard and put your heart into the work and "lose yourself in the service of others and God!" 

I love all of you and hope your week has been great! Thanks for all the prayers and support, I couldn't do it without you all. Sending lots of love to my family and friends back home. I love you all so much!

Much love,

Elder Beach 

#MavUp #10

Teaching one of our favorite couples.

The fat, orange cat that followed us around.

This is what a rough week in Minnesota looks like!  (We found some empty bottles lying around and it made for a good picture...)

Here's me at the playground, doing fire pole climbs.

Miracle Week!

Hello to all my family, friends, and coaches back home, serving the Lord and at college! I hope you all are doing well and are having a great week.  This week our car has been in the shop getting fixed from an accident that occurred in December. Not sure why it took so long to get fixed, so we've been on bikes this week! This area is super small compared to Minnetonka, so that's been a blessing as far as biking goes. We've seen a lot of miracles and have seen the Lord's hand in our work multiple times this week!

Last Monday we had our p-day. This zone is WAY different than the Minneapolis zone as far as what we do on p-day. Everyone meets at the Lakeville chapel and everyone just sits around and talks and plays board games. So me and Elder Newbold played catch in the gym and shot some hoops and we were the only ones that were in the gym, so I guess it's good I got someone to play ball with! Elder Nissenbaum played catch with me, too, which was fun. He's a lot better than I thought he would be, so that was good! We had dinner with the Youngs that night. They are crazy. We had breakfast for dinner and their kids were bouncing off the walls and Sister Young was yelling at them and it was nuts. After dinner we stopped by this less active lady whose kids aren't members. Her kids are named Brian and AJ and they were pretty cool! Brian plays basketball, football, track, and soccer. He is 14 and looks like he is 19-20 haha. He runs track for the varsity at the high school and he's in 8th grade. Elder Wolfley said they used to teach them a lot, but they were super lazy and didn't keep commitments. Soooo.... I just talked to them about football and basketball and gave them Alma 26:12 and Philippians 4:13 to read and we could talk about it next time. We are seeing them tonight or tomorrow so hopefully we can continue to talk to them about sports and make a connection with them! It might be a really slow process, but I'm going to do my best to help them! 

On Tuesday I had my first district meeting as a district leader. It went really well! I gave a training on inspired tracting or "Windows of Heaven." The ZLs said it was a really good training and everyone said they loved it and were excited to tract.  I was stressing beforehand, but God helped me out for sure! Being a district leader is actually really fun! I love helping out the teams in my district and it really is making me be a better missionary and preparing myself more to be a good example and a leader. Being a district leader I feel like is as much for me as for the people in my district, so it's been good! After district meeting we went to zone service at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church food shelf. That is fun. People come in who need food, so we take shopping carts and just fly down these aisles of food and fill their orders and give it to them! It was pretty fun and we had a blast. There is this old guy in the Lake Marion ward named Brother Stanich and he LOVES the missionaries. He comes to zone service with the Lake Marion Elders and then he took us to Smash Burger after. We get there and he just hands us his credit card and says get whatever you want haha. He is really crazy but super funny and has a good heart for sure. That afternoon we had a lesson with Brady and Jonah who are these brothers who just got baptized like a month ago in our ward. Their mom isn't a member, but her ex-husband and his mom are. So the grandma drives like an hour and a half every Sunday to take the kids to the Apple Valley ward, which is crazy. The mom said she would drive them, but the grandma is like, "No. I'm taking them to church."  Not sure why the grandma does that but she does.  Anyway, Brady and Jonah are pretty cool! Brady is 13 and Jonah is 11. I was super impressed with Brady. That kid is mature beyond his age. He really has a good grasp on the gospel concepts and just breezed right through the lesson! Jonah is a little crazy and just talked about random stuff the whole time.  It was good though. Brady passed the sacrament on Sunday, so that was cool. We visited some less actives on Tuesday night. Every ward I've been in has some crazy less actives, including this ward. I'll just say that!

Wednesday we had to go get Elder Wolfley a new shoulder bag for biking cuz his was insanely huge and he needed a smaller one haha. Then we took the car in to ABRA to get fixed and biked back to our place for lunch. Brother Stanich called us and said he was taking us to IHOP for lunch.  So he comes and pick us up and the Lake Marion Elders and took us to IHOP for lunch haha. He's a crazy guy! I don't know where he gets money to take the missionaries out to lunch, but he does! After lunch we visited this older guy in our ward named Bob Hosman. We have 4 elderly folks in our ward who live in an assisted living place that we go visit once a week and spend some time with them! I love visiting the elderly people in our ward. They are so kind and have such strong testimonies. It's so uplifting to visit them. It makes me miss my grandparents A LOT!!  Then we went and did some stop bys of some of our potential investigators. We have a pretty big potential investigator list, so we have started whittling it down and seeing if any of those people are interested in hearing our message and also asking them for referrals. We did some inspired tracting all of Wednesday night. This week my testimony that this is the Lord's work has grown so much. Each time we pray for inspiration of where to tract we ALWAYS find someone who we can share our message with. God really does know where people are who are ready. They may not always pan out, but there is always someone in the street we tract that we share our message with and they listen! It's so cool! Anyway, we started tracting this street at the south part of our area. We found a few people who listened to a short restoration message and said we could come back this week. This one guy we knocked into said he was atheist, but I was like, "How are you atheist??" He said he believed in a higher power just not in God. So we taught him about God and who God is and our relationship to him. I don't know if he changed his mind at all, but he listened and seemed to like what we said! Haha the very last door we knocked this older couple answered and said they had a Book of Mormon and were members of our church. I was like, "Uhhh.. cool!" They said they used to be members but our church changed a lot and then they quit going. I know for a fact our church hasn't changed since it was restored. We teach the same things and have the same beliefs as when the gospel was restored by Joseph Smith. So I was a little confused when they said the church was changed. They said it was in some town that doesn't have a church, so Elder Wolfley thought they might have been RLDS.  But they said we could come visit them sometime, so I guess that's good! 

Thursday was probably the longest day of the week as far as how it felt. I had to account with the STLs and then the ZLs in the morning. After lunch we went down to Lakeville to finish tracting the street we were tracting Wednesday night. We weren't having much success and a lot of people weren't home. Then we knocked on this one house and this mom with like 5 kids answers, and we told her who we were and we were sharing a message about Jesus Christ. She said "Yeah, I'd love to hear it!" So we shared the restoration lesson with her and gave her a Book of Mormon. She said we could stop by another time. She also told us she was a member of another church and was pretty solid in that faith. But our message seemed to resonate with her. She said she agreed that all churches are different and she doesn't know which one was true, the one they went to she just liked. Hopefully we can keep teaching her and her family! Then we were supposed to have a lesson with Maytong and Vandy up in the north part of our area. So we biked up there from the south part of our area and when we got there, they weren't there.  Go figure. So we did some more stop bys up by their place and found this guy that was older and said he had met with missionaries before. He said he was struggling with his health, but he wanted us to come back when it was warmer. He was a super nice guy! Then we biked over to the Flakes for dinner. The Flakes are awesome! They both went to USU and are huge USU fans, so we talked about Utah State football and stuff for a while! It was cool. They're a super nice family and it was a fun dinner. Brother Flake's back was messed up, so he asked us to give him a blessing. Elder Wolfley gave him a blessing and it was really good! Then we went out with Brother Moerschel.  He is a hoot. He is like the Brother Cohen of this ward. But he isn't as crazy... We went to see the Bigboyss, who are two of our investigators. Beth Bigboy is a less active member and her fiancé, Justin is investigating and so is their son, Kayden. Justin is really awesome and I am excited to teach them. Beth just had a baby, so they've been on the recovery from that, but we should be meeting them this week! Justin is looking for a job right now so everyone keep him in your prayers! 

Friday was weekly planning. Weekly planning sucks right now because I don't know the people or area well enough to plan really well yet. So we kind of struggle with planning for our weeks right now. Elder Wolfley hasn't weekly planned for like 2 transfers because his last companion was super trunky.  After weekly planning, we did "Windows of Heaven" and felt like we should go to this one street down in Lakeville again. So we biked down there and we started tracting this street. One thing I've really started working on is having the faith that God wants us there for a reason and we are going to knock until we find the person we are supposed to find. So we started knocking and like the 7th door we knocked we met this guy named Jon. He said he just got off work but had an interest in our church and we gave him a Book of Mormon and he gave us his number and said we could come back on Friday! Then like the next 4 doors we knocked we shared a short message and the people said we could come back! How cool is that? When you ask God where to tract, He inspires you to go to a certain street, and you see that success. It's so amazing! Then we knocked on this one door and this guy said that we should seriously question our religion and that we were on the slippery path to hell. I said that I knew our church was true and he said, "You should seriously question what you believe." I said, "I know this to be true. I have read the Book of Mormon and the Bible and I know both of them to be the word of God. I will NEVER deny what I know to be true and I know this to be true. So don't tell me my beliefs are leading me on the path to hell. I'm trying to share a message about Jesus Christ and bring people to Him. You can keep your beliefs and I'll keep mine. Have a nice day, sir." Then I just turned around and left before he could say anything! I wasn't mean or anything, I just defended my faith and told him what I knew to be true and didn't want him telling me I was going to hell. So, yeah...The very last door we knocked, this young mom answered and was like, "Yeah! I'd love to hear your message!" So we taught her a restoration lesson and she said she believed it, but she didn't believe the Book of Mormon and she said if the spirit directs us to meet again when her husband is home, then it will. So we are praying like crazy that the Lord will help us know when to go back so we can catch her and her husband at home. It was super cool though! We had dinner with Brother Ruff and his family on Friday night. They made us brats and they were super good! I haven't ever had brats before, but I'm a big fan now! Brother Ruff joint taught with us on Friday night. We stopped by some less actives and found this one Hmong lady named Sua Ly. No one had been in contact with her for a while and she was home when we got there.  She let us right in and we had a good chat with her. She said we could come over whenever and visit her and stuff! It was pretty cool. We also visited the Gandarilla family again. Their son, Alex, just got out of Juvenile detention and is back at home and that is causing a lot of stress for them. The ward council is really trying to help their oldest son, Juan, get out of the house right after high school and get a job and go to college. He has a lot of potential to be a great man, but he just is stuck at his home and his home life is a little rough. He is a great kid, keep him and his family in your prayers as well! Brother Ruff just talked to Juan about his post high school plans and about getting a job this summer. 

Saturday was a fun day! We had lunch with Bishop Clifford and did coordination meeting with him as well. His son, Spencer, is the funniest, cutest little kid ever haha. He's awesome. I really like Bishop Clifford and his family. Man I really miss Bishop Patterson, though. I still miss Minnetonka like crazy. I'm trying and praying really hard for God to help me develop that love for the people of this area, too. After that we went up to the north part of our area to tract this neighborhood we felt inspired to tract. We knocked the whole neighborhood and found some really cool and nice people, but didn't have a lot of success. People generally listened to our message, but just said they had their own church they were happy with. While we were walking up around a corner on the street I saw these two kids playing football. So of course, me being me, I was like, "I'm gonna go throw the football with these kids!" So I played catch with them for like 25 minutes or so, and then I talked to their mom. She was from Taiwan and had met Mormon missionaries in Taiwan. We talked for a while and gave her a restoration pamphlet. Grateful to be able to use football whenever I can to share the gospel!  Then we biked to the Larsens for dinner. Their kids are insane. Like they are the definition of insane. If those kids were my kids I would be like man.... Anyway, we had a good meal with them and they were really nice, just crazy! Oh, I totally forgot the coolest part of Saturday! We went and visited Brother and Sister Bradford who live in the senior living facility. Brother Bradford just recently got diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and is struggling with it. So we talked about diabetes for a little bit and shared a message about the woman taken in adultery. I absolutely love that story. Christ just says, "I don't condemn you. Go and sin no more." Christ never condemns us, he just wants us to do better and not continuously live in sin. It's a great story. Brother Bradford asked me to give him a blessing, and that was easily the most awesome blessing I've been privileged to give. I have such a strong testimony of Priesthood blessings. God truly knows each of us and wants us to be happy! It's a humbling experience to have someone ask to have a blessing and be able to feel God's love for them and say the things He wants them to hear. It's such a neat experience. I love giving blessings to people. So Saturday night was interesting. We were biking home from dinner and it was like 7:30. So we are almost back to our apartment and we are going through this intersection. Elder Wolfley was in front and is about halfway through when I enter the intersection. So I'm barely into the intersection, and this lady just pulls out and hits me. She had a red light so I did not think she would go at all. She stopped for Wolfley and then just ran into me. Not sure why?? So I somehow managed to stay up, even though my bike went down. My back tire got messed up and she is meeting us at the bike place and paying for it to get fixed. God was looking out for me for sure that night. Grateful for all the prayers from back home, too! Anyways, that ended our night because we had to make some calls about my bike and we had no way to get around except walking. I was pretty sad because we had to cut the night short. 

Sunday we had zero investigators at church again. I made a goal that my last transfer I will not be trunky and do nothing and leave the area worse than I found it. It kills the next missionaries there. We just have like no investigators and are doing the best to find some more. However, Doug Watters and the Gandarillas came, so that was cool! It was a really good Sacrament Meeting. Sister Amott, the Relief Society President, got released, so she bore her testimony and it was super good. We showed up to Gospel Principles class and Brother Ruff was like, "You guys are teaching today." Nothing like last second notice that you have a lesson... So we totally winged it with our lesson on Sacrifice, but it ended up being pretty good haha. Sunday after church we did "Windows of Heaven" again and tracted this street about a half hour walk from our dinner. We taught an Indian family and the dad let us in and we taught the restoration and gave him a Book of Mormon, and he said we could come back next Sunday! We also met some really cool families that have some good potential. Hopefully we can make some good things happen with them. We had dinner with the Davis family and Brother Davis smoke grilled these pork chops and they were insane! Then Bryant Ruff came joint teaching with us. He is Brother Ruff's kid, and he is so funny. I loved going with him!  We visited a less active lady named Sister Brown. She was super cool! She was really nice and had a road atlas so we could show her where we were from haha. Then we visited with Meg Sjoberg who is a less active member with some emotional problems. She loves the church sometimes and hates it other times. So we shared an uplifting message with her and set up another appointment for next week so we can keep her on the up and up. 

This week has been great! I'm starting to get the hang of the area and ward and people here in Apple Valley. I've seen so many miracles this week. I often wonder if all the work we are doing is making a difference but I know it is in one way or another. You just can't always see the results right away. I know this is truly God's work and it is going to continue and never be stopped. I'm grateful to be a part of it and to help gather in the people of Minnesota to the loving arms of the Father. Time is flying. I'm coming up on 8 months this week which is insane. It'll be over before I know it. I'm working my hardest and leaving it all out here. I come in so dead tired at the end of each day. It's been hard to keep up the two-a-days, but I've done it. I'm out at 10:30 pm. Like unconscious! haha I love being a missionary, and I love the Book of Mormon and I love sharing what I know to be true with people! I love you all back home and serving the Lord and at college. You are all in my thoughts and prayers every day. Thanks for all the support!

Much love,

Elder Beach

#MavUp #10

Elders at Smash Burger.

It's awesome to meet up with missionary buddies from other areas!

Me and my companion using every opportunity to stay in shape!

May we share a message with you?

Love my Mavs!

Apple Valley Week 1

Hello to all my family, friends, and coaches back home! I hope this email finds you all happy and doing well. This has been my first week in Apple Valley and it's been hard to leave Minnetonka after being there for almost 6 months. I miss the ward and all the investigators there. However, the Apple Valley ward is awesome and super missionary minded. We are really lacking investigators right now. I haven't met one investigator and we haven't had one lesson with an investigator yet. So it's been a little slow that way, but we've done a lot of member lessons and I've gotten to meet a lot of the ward! 

Last Monday while I was still in Minnetonka, we had our last p day at the Hickens for a while. It was fun and we played a lot of basketball. The Assistants to the President (APs) called me at like noon and said I was being called to be a District Leader (DL). They didn't say I was being transferred, so I thought maybe I would stay in Minnetonka and district lead. But then the transfer board came out and I saw I was going to Apple Valley, so I started calling and texting the ward members so I could set up times to say good-bye to everyone. Brother Keepman took us out to the Golden Nugget for dinner, and then we visited the Hadleys after that. It was hard to say good-bye to people.

Tuesday we had a whirlwind tour of good-byes of the area and ward members and investigators. Tuesday was probably the hardest day of my mission so far. I got packed Tuesday morning and then we went and said goodbye to Ted Fors and Jeffrey.  Jeffrey was super bummed I was leaving, but I told him I would stay in touch as best I could. Ted Fors gave me his email and phone number so I can stay in touch with him easy! Then we drove up to Buffalo Wild Wings to have lunch with the Plymouth Elders because one of the Elders had a $40 gift card. Then Brother Hansen took us to Culver's to get a shake and so we could say good-bye. He is so awesome, and I will miss him a lot! Then we went back to our place to finish packing and then went to see Johnny Chapman and Deveyon. I will miss them a lot as well. Johnny is super cool and he is a guy I'll never forget. Then we went to see Brother Haraden! That was a good visit. He said if I ever come back and visit I could stay at his house and use his hot tub and stuff. He said he wanted to thank me for helping him get back into the church and be active again. That was a super cool moment for me, just knowing that even if I didn't baptize someone, I helped someone come closer to Christ and feel of His love once again. Brother Haraden said he is going to come to my homecoming, so that will be awesome!! I can't wait for everyone to meet him. He is the funniest guy ever, and I love him.  Then we went and saw Bishop Pattersonand his family, and then Kim  and LynnRae Fors (he is Ted's brother). They are awesome and we've helped them with taking down and rebuilding their garage and shed, and he's taken us to Bakers Ribs like 4 times, so he's the man haha. I will definitely want to go back and visit them someday, too. Then we drove up to Plymouth to visit the Smiths one more time. I absolutely love them! They are one of the families I will miss so much. We talked to them for a while and shared our final spiritual message and did some pictures and then headed out to go see the Nelsons. Brother Nelson gave me a super nice note and a picture/post card thing of this painting of Jesus. It is the one where Jesus is sitting on some rocky cliffs looking up at the starry skies. It is super cool. I am going to miss them so much. They are pretty great people and do a lot for us as missionaries. After that we visited the Broadbent family. They are an awesome family as well, and Brother and Sister Broadbent are two of the greatest people I know. So that concluded the whirlwind goodbye tour of Minnetonka. Then I cried myself to sleep at about 10 pm. Just kidding - I didn't cry myself to sleep, but I was super sad I was leaving. Before I went to bed I thought about my last 6 months there and all the friends I had made and all the great people I've been able to associate with. I remember when I got transferred here that I DID NOT want to come here and now I didn't want to leave. It's funny when you put your heart and soul into an area and serving and loving the people there how much you don't want to leave those people. I thanked Heavenly Father for the opportunity I had to serve there and I knew I was called to serve there for a reason. It felt like I still had work to finish in the area, but I don't know, maybe I finished what God needed me to do there. I know there is some reason I need to be in Apple Valley now, too. I'm not sure what that reason is, whether it be a person I will help come into the gospel or helping a less active or maybe even my companion. By the time I leave, I'm sure I will know the reason I was called to serve here! 

Wednesday morning we drove down to Bloomington for transfers and it was so fun to see my mission buddies I hadn't seen for a while. The best part about transfers is just getting to reconnect with MTC companions and buddies and people you've served around. So I met up with Elder Wolfley, my new companion, and then we drove with the Zone Leaders (Kemberling and Newbold) back to our area. We all went to lunch at Costco, which is basically like Sam's Club, so that was pretty good! We went back to our apartment after that, and I got unpacked and settled in and then we headed out to meet some members and help me get familiarized with the area a little bit. We visited the McGills, Maytong and Vandie, and the Doty family.  Sister McGill is Maytong and Vandie's daughter.  The McGills are from somewhere in Asia and are super nice people. Sister McGill has to use a walker and wheelchair sometimes so she is a little depressed because she feels like she can't be as much help to people as she used to be. I really hope we can help her feel more useful and boost her spirits! The Doty family is crazy!We showed up and they had like 6 guests over plus their whole family and it was a circus haha. But they are super cool and Brother and Sister Doty are great!  Wednesday was a crazy day, and I was happy to go to sleep that night. Elder Wolfley is kind enough to do two-a-days with me still, so we are still doing 2 workouts a day. One from 5:50am-7:15am and the other from like 9:15pm-10:00pm. So we are getting some good work in physically.

Thursday I had to do some accounting calls for the first time in my life, and they went pretty well, I guess.  I just have to call the other areas in my district and see how they are doing and get their numbers and what not. The other two areas in my district are the Prior Lake Sisters and the Crystal Lake Sisters. They both seemed to be doing pretty well, so that's good! I hope I can help them in any way I can and just be a good example of hard work. I feel like that's my best way of being a leader is just by working hard and being an example that way. We tracted for about 3 and a half hours that afternoon and basically everyone we tracted was old and said they were too busy or were already part of a church. However, the mission legend is, if you get a lot of rejections tracting, you get hot wife points so I'm racking up the hot wife points haha.  We were almost done with this street we were tracting and we had an appointment at like 4 pm, so we were hurrying to finish the street. We knocked on one of the last doors and this really young girl answered and said she would grab her big sister for us. So we shared a message with the sister and left her a Book of Mormon. As we were leaving, the dad pulled up and so we talked to him for a few minutes and he said we could stop by another time for sure. So we had a cool fourth floor last door moment there. We had a lesson with a less-active guy named Brother Parsons. He is super cool! He works for Amazon and has had some struggles with employment recently. He's a ward missionary, but is less active so we are trying to help him get fully active. His wife was super sick, so we gave her a blessing. Haha I say, "Yes sir", "Yes ma'am" and "No sir", "No ma'am" because it's polite,  and Sister Parsons is from the south and she goes, "You're from the South, ain't you?" In this super thick southern accent haha.  I was like, "No.  I'm from Logan, Utah!" And she says, "Oh, you just got some good manners then!" It was pretty funny! Later that night we had dinner at Bishop Clifford's house and his wife said the same thing. She asked if I was from the south and I said "No, I'm from Logan, Utah!" Haha she also said I had good manners, too. The Cliffords are awesome and their youngest son, Spencer, is a funny kid. He has some mental problems, but he is the nicest kid and he is so funny! I'm excited to serve in this ward. The ward is super missionary minded. We visited this less active guy named Doug Watters, who lives in an assisted living facility because he had a stroke recently. He LOVES football, so we talked about football like the whole time haha. He loves to talk and had a lot of interesting stories from his life. I hope I can help him get more active into church and use football to do it. I shared the Friday Night Lights message with him and he loved it, so that was good!

Friday was weekly planning and I basically did nothing because I don't know anyone haha. I've been trying to get to know people through the area book and asking lots of questions about people haha. It's been tough being in a new area where I don't know anyone and don't know where anything or anyone is, plus be the District Leader. It's tough sometimes. I had my first accounting call with the ZLs and it was ok I guess. Haha I didn't know what I was supposed to do, so I was a little clueless at first, but now I know what to do so I should be good. We did a lot of tracting on Friday afternoon too, but didn't have much success. We met this one kid who was like 10. He was really cool and we talked to him about basketball and stuff. He said we could come back on Saturday. So we came back Saturday and talked to his mom, but she said they went to a church already and were content with their church. She said we made a big impression on her son though, and he thought we were awesome. So that made my day for sure! Just a small success of helping someone realize we are good people and are doing the Lord's work! We did some more member visits on Friday afternoon as well. We met the Gretz family. Brother Gretz was in the Air Force and graduated from the Air Force academy, and I told him Colton was playing there when he gets home and he thought that was pretty cool. He said "I just gotta warn you before my wife gets here that she is crazy and will say some stuff that will make you laugh." Haha Sister Gretz came home like 5 minutes later and she is hilarious! She just loves to take shots at people and is super sarcastic, so she's funny for sure.  They're a fun family! Friday night when we got home we went for a run outside because it was like 45 degrees. Elder Wolfley isn't in as good of running shape as I am,  so we had to stop every now and then so he could catch his breath and what not. It was fun though! I loved being able to help him and "coach" as we were running. Just like being encouraging and helping him that way. It made me realize that I really want to work at a CrossFit gym when I get home. Doing something I love while helping people change and be more physically fit is awesome!

Saturday morning we went to the ZLs baptism in Lakeville and then did our studies when we got home. I've been reading the New Testament alongside "Jesus the Christ" and wow. My mind gets blown sometimes haha. Jesus the Christ is a super good book, but it is super deep, too. I've really enjoyed reading the New Testament and relearning a lot of the stories and lessons I learned from freshman year in seminary. I still love the Book of Mormon hands down though. It is the greatest book ever written. My testimony and love for the Book of Mormon has grown 100 times on my mission so far. I honestly don't know why I didn't read it that much while I was at home. Then we had to go back to our chapel for a zone meeting to discuss our zone focus for this transfer. We are really focusing on finding and working with progressing investigators. I love this focus because I feel like Apple Valley really needs some work on our investigator pool. So it was good that our zone focus is based on finding! We went to Subway with the Lake Marion Elders because Subway has any footlong for $6 this month. Elder Nissenbaum is in Lake Marion and his companion is struggling too, so we talk on the phone and hang out as much as we can to help him out. I feel bad for him. He's had some tough companions in the last few months.  We did some more tracting on Saturday and we had some cool and also funny stories haha.  So we did "windows of Heaven" where you pray about what street to tract, and we felt we should do this street called Flagstaff Avenue. So we go there and the first two doors we knock talked to us and listened to our message, but were like, "Oh we have a church already." I wanted to just say, "We have the true church and it will bless you so much!" But you can't really say that because it makes people mad haha. Then we get to this one house and all these kids are outside pogo sticking and scootering so we talked to them for a few minutes and then they said that their dad was inside, so we knocked on the door and before we said anything he opens the door and says, "Latter-day saints aren't welcome here. The earth is flat and we live in outer space." Then he shut the door and I was still trying to register what was said. hahah Elder Wolfley was like, "What the heck?" It was pretty funny! Then as we were knocking the next side of the street I'm like 99% sure we knocked on a brothel house. This guy opens the door and he was dressed kinda weird and he says, "This is a business house." I was like "A what?" And he says, "A working house. You guys shouldn't be here, let's just say that." I was like uh ok...? So as we were leaving we saw this sign on the garage door that said DO NOT ENTER. KNOCK ON THE DOOR BEFORE ENTERING.  So we figured it was a brothel. Or like a drug dealer house. Those are the only two things we figured it was haha. That was the interesting story for the week for sure haha. The last house we knocked on was a mini miracle. This guy answered and we were like, "Hey we are sharing a message about Jesus Christ." And he says, "Hold on one second." He runs into his kitchen and grabs these flyers for this thing called "Over the Moon", which is a fundraiser at the mall of America where you can get an all day pass to Nickelodeon Universe for $20. Their daughter had passed away from cancer a few years ago and we talked to the mom and dad for a while. Elder Wolfley's dad passed away from cancer just recently, so he bore his testimony on the plan of salvation and that we would be able to live with families forever. The mom was like, "I just felt this warm sensation, and I know that they are watching over us right now!" The mom said her dad also passed away from cancer and her dad's name was Will, just like Elder Wolfley's dad. It was a cool connection and they said they were super busy as a family right now, but we could come back at the end of March or early April. So that was probably our finding miracle for the day! 

At church on Sunday we had a Ward Council, and it was much different than the ones in Minnetonka. No mention was made of basketball haha. The Relief Society President is super funny and has no filter at all haha. Church was great, and unfortunately we had zero investigators there, but we did have a less-active family come. The Gondarillas are a Hispanic family in our ward that we visited on Thursday evening. They are having some struggles with their son named Alex. He is in juvenile detention right now and will be back sometime next month. Lots of stress for the family, so keep them in your prayers. At church I met a lot of members and also met Brother Moerschel, who is a ward missionary. He is a hoot. He is a little crazy. Kind of the Apple Valley ward version of Brother Cohen.  After church we did some more tracting and then had dinner with the Petersons. They said they have a brother who lives in Logan and their son, Devin, played lacrosse. Their daughter plays basketball right now for Logan high. Dad I'm sure you know them! We visited the Pugmires on Sunday evening. They are a cool family in our ward! The mom has MS and is in a wheelchair, but she is so nice and awesome. She said she noticed my Diabetic bracelets and said that the Nelsons in our ward have a son who is pretty young and has just recently been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. She said I could be a big help to him and I thought to myself that that may be one of the reasons I got sent to Apple Valley! We got a text Sunday morning from this less-active sister named Sister Jones. She has been less-active for about 10 years and just got divorced and is having a custody battle with her ex-husband over their kids. She asked that we gave her a blessing and asked me to give it. That was the hardest blessing I've ever had to give. I wanted to tell her everything would work out and things would be good for her, but I felt prompted to say it would be a battle for her and be difficult, but as she relied on the Lord for strength, then everything would work out how it was supposed to. It was hard. It was a real testimony to me, though that God knows us and knows exactly what we need, and His plan is perfect. 

It's been a good first week in Apple Valley! I'm excited to get to know everyone and find new people to teach. I miss Minnetonka and love all those people, and hope I can get to that point with this ward as well! I love you all back home and serving the Lord! Thanks for the prayers and support. I wouldn't be able to do this work without them. You are all in my thoughts and prayers.

Much love,

Elder Beach

#MavUp #10

This bear suit was in our apartment closet.