Super Bowl Week

     A big what’s up to all the family, friends, and coaches back home, at school and serving around the world! Hope this email finds you all doing well and enjoying life! This week's been kinda rough due to freezing weather, Elder Bowman and I got the plague, and we didn’t find many new people to teach haha. But other than that, it’s been a good week, and we’ve had a good time.

     Monday we had our p-day and played some basketball at the church. The Austin Elders came up, so we had some pretty good basketball games. That was pretty fun! After that we had some dinner with the Christians. They eat vegan only, so we had this vegan soup stuff that was actually really good and some mixed fruit, which was bomb as well. Brother Christian is the Elder's Quorum President, so we ended up talking to him about people to work with and those we are working with for about 45 minutes after dinner. After that we knocked some doors until about 9 pm and didn’t find anyone except this Hispanic family we referred to the Hermanas. I was able to use enough Spanish words to tell him we were missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  That was about all I knew! But he was like, “Si! Si!” Then closed the door. So I figured he wanted us to come back. 

     Tuesday we exchanged with the Zone Leaders, so I went with Elder Vaughn to Rochester 2. We went to district meeting for the other district in the morning and then had some lunch and then went out and contacted. We found 5, yes 5, new investigators. Elder Bowman and I haven’t found 5 new investigators since I’ve gotten here. I’m still scratching my head on that one because Elder Vaughn and I found 5 in about an hour and a half and 3 of them were solid people. Like this one girl we found was like, “I’ve just had the worst day. I’m so glad you guys talked to me!” We ended up setting up a church tour, and she said she was coming to church for sure on Sunday. I was very happy for the success we had, but at the same time, super frustrated that Elder Bowman and I can't seem to find anyone haha. It’s frustrating!! After that we had a lesson with a less active dude named Silver. He’s from Uganda and is super cool. He’s a really nice guy, not sure why he’s less active because he seems like he has a really solid testimony. We talked about reading the Book of Mormon every day with him and he said he reads his scriptures almost every day so that was sweet! We switched back after that because the Zone Leaders had some lessons in the evening and we had a dinner and coordination meeting with Brother Oesterle. Taco Tuesday was super good! His kids are hilarious and we had a nerf gun war with them in the basement after dinner and they loved it.  It was pretty fun haha. We then had our coordination meeting and just talked about some less actives and other people to focus on, and Brother Oesterle gave us a pep talk to keep working hard even though the area is super slow right now. After that we headed home and called it a night.

     Wednesday morning we were supposed to have a lesson with this dude that Elders Bowman and Chen found, but he didn’t show up and didn’t answer his phone, so we ended up contacting for about 2 hours in the morning. We went home and got some lunch and then helped our next door neighbor move! He was a single dude in his 30’s and was super cool! We helped him load up the moving truck and then after that did some more contacting until dinner at 4:30 pm with Sister Fieck. She took us to Panera for dinner, and it was pretty good! We ended up having such a funny discussion about Alaska and this show about Alaskan bush people she watches. It was hilarious. She’s such a funny lady haha. After that we stopped by a bunch of people before basketball and didn’t have much luck with anyone. Literally everyone in Rochester we’ve stopped by at least 3 times and nobody is interested or has answered the door. So we just keep stopping by people until they answer haha. So we stopped by a bunch of people and didn’t have much luck and then we picked up Jordan Clow for basketball and then played some ball! It was fun this week because we had like 10 people there, so we had a legit game this week. It was great. Really good competition too, so it was super fun! It was good for me to blow off some steam haha.  I was just kind of done with people by Wednesday night because it was a rough day. 

     Thursday morning we had district meeting and it was just us, the Rochester 5 Sisters and the Kasson Sisters. It was a good district meeting! We talked about working with members, and I did a training about our purpose from Chapter 1 of Preach My Gospel. It was good, and the Kasson Sisters are super funny haha.  They’re both senior sisters, but they’re super funny. After district meeting we had some lunch and then did some contacting downtown, which was a little better on Thursday. We were able to talk to some super nice people and give out some Books of Mormon. I talked to this lady who was about 25 at the bus stop for about a half hour. I was able to give her a Book of Mormon and she was like, “I don’t know if I will ever read it!” I said, “If you ever read it once and you find some scripture or verse or story that helps you in your life, then it was worth it to me to give it to you!” She thought that was cool and said she would crack it open next time she was having a rough day or was stressed out. We had a super good conversation and she didn’t want to meet up again, but it was really good, and I hope I at least planted a solid seed there. After that we had a lesson with Big John. We talked about the Book of Mormon and he was a little skeptical about why we needed it in the first place. We explained that it taught plain and precious truths lost from the Bible over time and contained the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He’s like, “Well, I guess I should read that then.” Haha he struggles with reading, so we are going to read some of it with him next week when we go over. He’s a funny dude haha. After that I went to the chiropractor to get my neck and shoulder worked on. The dude I went to wasn’t the best, so I probably won’t be going to him again.  After that we had dinner with the Busbys! They are super cool and we had a really good discussion about reading our scriptures each day! They’re awesome, and I’m glad we could have dinner with them and get to know them better! So side story: right before dinner, Elder Bowman and I started feeling kind of crappy. Like almost simultaneously. So we got done with dinner and my stomach was churning. We both had like chills and felt really gross. We had two lessons set up out in Dover, so we drove out there and our first one with Dane didn't happen because he wasn’t there.  So we drove to the lady he referred to us, and low and behold, he was there! So he let us in and we ended up having a great discussion with him about the restoration and the Book of Mormon. He talked about how he would pray with real intent to get an answer about the Book of Mormon. I thought that was awesome because so many people don’t pray with real intent. We both felt like death during and after the lesson, so we just called it a night at about 8 pm. When we got home I was freezing cold and Elder Bowman was puking, so I just went to bed. We basically took turns in the bathroom the rest of the night. Stuff was coming out of both ends, and it was not good. We got about an hour of sleep from 8-4 am. I ended up sitting in our recliner and reading the Book of Mormon in between bathroom trips. I was so cold and then I would just get hotter than heck and then freezing cold again. It was bad. Elder Bowman puked a ton, and we were just sicker than dogs. We finally felt a little better about 5 am and slept from 5-10 am. We both still felt like crap and kind of just sat in our beds and were like “uggggghhhhhh” for about an hour, and then I rolled out of bed and took a shower. We finally got out of the apartment and got our weekly planning done. It was a little rough going because we didn’t feel the best, but we got it done and this week people actually got back to us and we were able to set some stuff up with less actives! So that was awesome. After that we had a lesson with Dennis Hayes, who is one of our investigators. He’s super cool. He played football at Winona State in the 90’s around the same time my dad played at USU. We talked about the Plan of Salvation with  him. He had a few questions from the last time we met with him, and so we were able to answer those questions and he seemed to like the answers we were able to provide for him. Haha he asked us about the “magical Mormon underwear”. We just said it’s an outer expression of an inner commitment to follow Christ and it reminds us of the covenants we make with God in the temple. He’s like, “Oh man, I thought it was gonna be a little more cool than that! But I totally respect that, that's sweet.” Haha so that was pretty good I guess. We also got to talk about football a good amount after the lesson, so that was cool too! Dennis said he wants to come to church soon, and he even asked for a homework assignment from us (reading, praying, etc.) so that was awesome! After that we did some stop bys and got in contact with some former investigators and got a few thing set up with people later next week! I also finally got to meet the Bakers. That’s Mina's family. When we got there, Sister Bartoo (new Relief Society President) was just pulling up to visit them, so we just let Sister Bartoo visit with them. Sister Bartoo is on the ball because she just barely got called as Relief Society President! After that we had some dinner and called it a night!

     Saturday was a little bit of a crazy day again. We had our Book of Mormon read in the morning and we got a call from this lady who was at a Methodist church and they needed help with a big lunch they did for homeless or less fortunate people. The lady was a less active member of the church and loved missionaries, so I guess the Elders had helped out there before when they needed some help there. So that was from 11-1. We got done with the Book of Mormon read at 10 am and then helped Brother Wesman clean the church for about an hour because he was there with his 2-year-old haha and needed some help.  So we vacuumed and helped out with the chapel until we had to run to the other thing. So when we got there, we got to help set up all the tables and then serve food to all the people there and talk to them while they ate! It was such a great experience for me. The people were so humble and kind and just nice people. It was amazing how many of them I had talked to in downtown Rochester while contacting.  There was this one lady there who asked me what was on my named tag, so I told her I was a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. She was like, “It is so refreshing to see young men in white shirts and ties out serving the Lord!” That made my day.  Glad we could make a good impression on someone just by how we were dressed! Anyway, I had a great experience there, and I wish we could just do service stuff like that all the time. I absolutely love doing service for people who are less fortunate and just need some love and help in their lives. It’s awesome! After that we did some contacting and then the Sisters called us and wanted us to go to a lesson with them because they needed a third guy, so we get invited to go teach sometimes. We taught this old dude named Vick. He’s a hoot. Basically he just told us stories about hunting and taming wild animals. At the end the Sisters were like, “So Vick, will you be able to come to church tomorrow?” He’s like, “Yeah, I mean I don’t got nothing going on.... except sit around and stare at these 4 walls...” and he said something else that sounded like, “and just play with myself.” Elder Bowman and I looked at each other like, “Did he just say that?” So I was like, there’s no way he said that. He’s like super old. So we kept talking a little bit more and the Sisters were like, “So Vick, we will get you a ride to church if that works for tomorrow?” Vick says, “Yeah, I don’t have much to do except stare at these 4 walls.... and play with myself.” Then he like looks at us and winks and Elder Bowman and I almost died. The Sisters had like no clue what was going on, so that made it that much more funny. So anyway, after that we did some more contacting and we talked to this girl who was waiting for the bus. She wasn’t super interested, but I noticed she was listening to country music on her phone so we got talking about that and then she was like best friends with us. It started snowing pretty good on Saturday afternoon, so we decided to go shovel some members' driveways and stuff. So we went to the Wesmans first because they just had a baby! So we got almost done shoveling (tried to go unnoticed but that didn’t happen), and Brother Wesman comes out and is like, “Elders, thank you so much! Do you guys have a dinner?” We were like “No...” So they fed us dinner and we had a hoot with them.  Brother and Sister Wesman are so funny.  It was awesome! And they gave us a referral for their neighbor down the street. So we went and shoveled her driveway, and right when we got done she pulled up with her boyfriend, and it was kind of awkward, but we were like, “Hey! Trevor Wesman told us to come help you out shoveling.” She was like, “You guys are the sweetest things!” Just gushing over us and her boyfriend was best friends with us immediately too haha. They’re super nice! We are going to go try and visit them again or see if the Wesmans can hook us up with a dinner with them too. After that we shoveled some more driveways and headed to bed because we were pretty wiped out from the plague and shoveling for like 2 hours.

     Sunday was fast Sunday and we had an investigator at church! He was a former we met this week named Patrick. He’s an interesting fellow, but he wanted to come to church, so that was good! Brother Oesterle picked him up and brought him to church. He basically slept through the whole Sacrament Meeting, and then asked us to take him home. It was kind of odd. He also wants to write an opera about the life of Joseph Smith. He’s a little unique, I’ll just say that haha. Anyway, Sister Averbeck came to church again, too! So it was a good day! After church we did some more shoveling and drove down to Stewartville to stop by some less actives. We met with the Reps family and they are super cool! We haven’t been able to meet with them since I got here, but it was great to meet them. Brother Rep was super busy but he’s like, “Come on in and you can chill with the kids!” So we played with the kids' guinea pig and hamster and then we shared the story about the Jadeite Cabbage with them and they thought it was pretty cool! I also played a little guitar for the kids, too. Well, just strummed a couple chords I remembered from way back in the day, but they thought it was awesome haha. The kids love the missionaries, so they have a lot of potential there. We are seeing them sometime this week once Brother Rep gets his schedule figured out. He said he’s coming to basketball on Wednesday. After that we stopped by a few more people and then headed to the Joslins for dinner! It was super good and we were both pretty “hangry” because it was fast Sunday haha. They made chicken, green beans, and salad and it was super good.  I loved the green beans. After that we went to Karl and Denise's place to watch the Super Bowl with them! President said we couldn’t tract or stop by people during the game, so we made some arrangements to watch it. Karl and Denise were found by Elders Smith and Bowman last transfer, and they love having us over. They aren’t progressing a whole lot, but they’re really great people! The Eagles won and I was kind of sad about that. I was hoping Tom Brady could get number 6 on his rings. But it didn’t quite happen. That was one of the best Super Bowls I’ve ever watched though, so it was fun. 

     Well, time rolls on here in Minnesota. I’m grateful for the restored gospel in my life. I’m very grateful for the Priesthood that gives us full access to the Savior's atoning power and allows us to be sealed together as families for time and eternity. I’m very grateful to know that I will be able to be with my family forever and that death is merely a milestone in our eternal progression! I’m so very grateful for the Book of Mormon. I’ve found myself in it a lot this week, studying about Alma and Amulek, Ammon and the sons of Mosiah and other great Book of Mormon missionaries. There are so many great lessons and truths found in it that can be found nowhere else. I love the Book of Mormon and I am grateful for the testimony and personal relationship with it I’ve been able to gain in its pages. I’m grateful for my Savior, Jesus Christ, and His perfect life and infinite love and support for me. He knows us all and will never forsake us. He will carry us through the tough times and help us become the sons and daughters of God we are capable of becoming. I’m so grateful for my family. I would not be where I am today without them. I love you guys so much and hope you know that! Thank you for all the prayers and support. I seriously could not do it without them! Much love to everyone and prayers up from Minnesota.

Much love,

Elder Beach

#MavUp #10

We love playing with the kids!

Can you see us?

Just another shovel day in Minnesota.

Some of Big John's John Deere collection.

Nerf gun war with the missionaries.

Death Week in Roch 1

     A big hello to all my family, friends, and coaches back home, at school, and serving around the world! Hope this email finds you doing well and enjoying the last little bit of January!️ This week has been pretty good here! It’s amazing how when you have basically no one to teach, we always seem to stay busy and are able to serve and teach people throughout each day! That’s been a cool miracle this week. As Nacho Libre says... “Let’s get down to the nitty gritty” and see how the week went!

     Monday was p day and as usual was good! We played some basketball at the stake center and Elder Bowman and I basically ended up playing catch with the football the whole time, so that was good. We don’t have the most “interested in sports or athletic things” zone, so we usually don’t get ton of people playing basketball. We did play volleyball but it was a miracle if the ball got over the net more than once, so that didn’t last quite as long haha. But it was fun! Good to have a day off from the grind of missionary work. It ended up snowing a ton on Monday, so Monday night we just drove around and helped shovel people’s driveways. Sister Keene called us and we went to go help her with her driveway as well and she was super grateful for that so that was fun! We ended up shoveling about 5-6 driveways in 2 hours, so we did some good work!  We took our dinner at 8 pm since we didn’t have any appointments Monday night.

     Tuesday, when it started, looked like it was going to be a rough day because we had no lessons or anything set up. So we basically were like, “Ok, we are just going to do some finding the whole day.” So in the morning I had to account with the Sisters and so we did that and then we went and did some contacting downtown, and it was a rough day for contacting.  Not many people were super interested in talking to us, but we worked hard and tried to talk with everyone, so I mean we did our best! After that we had some lunch and then had a bunch of stop bys planned out. So we got to meet with the Cammacks, who are a less active part member old couple in the ward. Brother Cammack is a member and his wife isn’t, but they’re super nice and we got to visit with them for a few minutes. We set up a time to come back this Wednesday afternoon so that should be solid! After that we stopped by like 20 or so people and no one was home or interested. We were driving around trying to figure out what to do and we decided to just pull over and look at our area book map and try to find someone we might have missed to go stop by. We both found this former investigator named Big John almost simultaneously, so we decided to go try him! When we got there he was out trying to shovel his driveway in a wheelchair. So we hurried and grabbed our shovels out of the car and ran over to help him. He was very grateful for the help. He likes his driveway down to bare concrete. Like completely cleaned off. So I would shovel, Elder Bowman would ice scrape and Big John would come behind and broom off every little speck of snow. It must’ve been quite the sight! After we got his driveway done (took us about an hour) he invited us in to show us his John Deere collection. He has basically a house full of John Deere models of every kind of tractor and rig they’ve ever made. It’s pretty wild! I’ll get a picture of it next time we go over. So we showed us all his John Deere stuff for a while and then we had to get running and go do some tracting before dinner. We tracted for about an hour and met a super nice lady who said we could come back another day and gave a Book of Mormon to this Lutheran guy who was trying to bash with us, and then we ended up giving him a Book of Mormon haha.  After that we headed to Brother Oesterle’s house for “Taco Tuesday”. He’s our ward mission leader so they feed us every Tuesday and then we go visit people with him afterwards. His kids are so funny.  I love them haha! He didn’t end up getting home from work until like 6:40 pm, so we had dinner really quick and then had a lesson with the Clow family. I ended up talking to Byron most of the time. He’s Sister Clow's son. He’s got himself all caught up in gangs and stuff like that, and as I was talking to him he just kept saying, “I hate it in the gangs. I want to get out, but the only way out is to get killed.” It was sad to see him in the state he was. He knows the gospel could help him out so much but he just isn’t ready to make the changes yet to let it work in his life. I feel so bad for people like that, who just can’t quite see how simple the gospel is and how much it could help them in their life. People also feel like they need to be “better or perfect” to even start, but that is so far from the truth! Start where you are! God takes us where we are, makes us into what we have the potential to become, if we only humbly turn to Him and let Him! It was a good visit, but it was also sad for me because I want them to be happy and latch on to the gospel, but they just haven’t figured it out yet. 

     Wednesday morning we accounted with the Zone Leaders and then went and shoveled Sister Smith’s driveway. It was basically straight ice so we had to like chisel it all away. So that took a little while haha. After that we had some lunch and then did some contacting down town again. We literally have like no one solid to teach that is progressing at all, so we do a lot of contacting and tracting. It’s rough because we talk to so many people, but we haven’t found anyone that’s interested. So we contacted for like 2 hours and then we were supposed to have a lesson with Cindy, and she cancelled on the doorstep (second time this has happened). So we did some stop bys in Rochester and didn’t really meet or find anyone. Then we did some tracting before dinner and met some nice people, but nobody solid that we were able to teach/share Books of Mormon with. After that we had dinner with the Millingtons! They are way cool! Sister Millington joined the church like 2 years ago and they are getting ready to go to the temple to get sealed pretty soon, so that’s awesome! They made us teriyaki chicken and veggie stir fry and it was super good. After that we did some more stop bys to invite people basketball and weren’t able to catch many people home. Wednesday was a rough day. Just top to bottom. We went and picked up Jordan Clow for basketball, and we were the only ones who showed up, so we played 21 and then about 20 minutes into us playing, Elder Bowman was driving in and pulled up and his head hit my nose and it popped super weird and I thought I broke my nose, so I just started walking to the bathroom. Anyway, it didn’t start bleeding or anything, so I was like, “My nose just got destroyed and popped weird but it isn’t bleeding so it must not be broken!” So we kept playing a little bit longer and then we had to take Jordan home so we ended up only playing for like an hour. My nose is not broken but it’s been pretty bruised and sore this week haha.

     Thursday morning we had district meeting and basically the whole zone showed up. We had us, the ZLs, the STLs, Kasson Sisters, Roch 5 Sisters, and the Austin Elders. Winona (where Elder Peterson was) got closed basically on the drop of a dime so they had to come up here to Roch and Elder Michelson went with the Austin Elders and Elder Peterson went up to Cottage Grove with the APs. He was super mad about the whole thing so Elder Bowman and I talked to him about it after district meeting and he was not a happy camper. After that, Elder Bowman had to go to the dentist really quick to get his tooth checked on that he had a root canal on, and then after that Sister King took us to lunch at Hu-Hot and it was awesome! I haven’t eaten there in like 2 years haha. I got a ton of crab, chicken, and fish and loaded up the veggies and it was super good! Super healthy and really good food! Sister King is the only member in her family and is 86 years old, I’m pretty sure. She is the nicest lady! She just has a great spirit that you can feel a mile away. It was awesome to visit with her and get to know her better! After that we went to the dollar store and bought some food coloring and spray bottles so we could draw a giant Book of Mormon on the side of the highway in the snow.  It was sweet! It took us about 45 minutes and we drew the Book of Mormon and our phone number and we got like 10 honks haha. It was cool, and I hope some people at least have an interest in the Book of Mormon from it! After that we did some tracting for about an hour. We met a nice family that said they were busy, but we could come back this week, so hopefully they work out. haha.  This one door we knocked on, this guy answers and literally just dies laughing before we said anything and then slammed the door.... it was strange. There’s some freaks in Rochester. Like, I thought Hutchinson had some weirdos. There’s some real weirdos here in Rochester. But it keeps things interesting for us, so that is good. After that we had some dinner and called it a day. 

     Friday we did some contacting down town in the morning and it went really well! Together we gave out 3 Books of Mormon and almost 40 pass along cards! It was really fun and people just seemed like more happy on Friday for some reason. Probably because it was Friday haha. But it was much better! After that we had some lunch and did laundry at the ZLs apartment while we weekly planned. Weekly planning was rough this week as well. We didn’t have much to plan for and we called and texted every single less active or part member family and any investigator with any potential. Guess how many answered the phone or got back to us? ZERO!  It was insane. We called like 50 people and not a single one answered the phone and not one responded to a text either. I was mind boggled haha. So our weekly planning session wasn’t super long this week. We figured we were just going to end up doing a bunch of tracting and contacting again, so we just planned out where we wanted to work each day. After that we tracted for about an hour and half and then stopped by a few people up by the Mayo Clinic and then had a member lesson with the Smiths. They are an older couple in the ward and we didn’t know them at all, so we visited with them and shared a message about sharing the gospel. They’re actually really good at it! They told us all these stories of people they’ve talked to and met and been able to share the gospel with! So it was cool. After that we had some dinner and worked out and headed to bed. 

     Saturday morning was like one of the weirdest stories of my mission. So we went to downtown Rochester to do some contacting and it went really well! I was able to talk to some awesome people, even though none of them were super solid. It was just great to talk to people and share my testimony with them of various parts of the gospel. We were once again able to give out about 30 pass along cards and several pamphlets to people and invited a lot of people to church. Anyway, back to my weird story: so there’s this main downtown part of Rochester we usual contact at because there’s a bunch of bus stops and some Skyway tunnels to talk to people in. So I was just coming out of a Skyway tunnel into a building. Elder Bowman was talking to someone across the Skyway, so I could still see him. So there was this guy sitting on a bench just outside of the Skyway tunnel and he looked like he was tripping on acid or something, just looked really sweaty and super out of it. So I was like, “Hey, can I help you with anything?” He’s like, “Man, I’m gonna die. I’m dying. I need to talk to someone about it.” I was like, “Ok, do you need a phone or something?” He said yeah, so I let him use our cell phone to call his case manager. I guess he had like schizophrenia or something and was tripping out hard core. So he called his case manager and gave them another cell phone number to reach him at. I guess he had a cell phone somehow. So anyway, I gave him a card with our number and told him to call us if he needed anything. Then he’s like, “Bro, my hand is broken.” So he showed it to me and I was like, “Yeah, that’s probably broken! You should go see a doctor for that!” He’s like, “Yeah, that’s where I’m going.” So anyway, he thanked me for helping him and said he was good to go, so I peaced out to go chase down this guy I felt I needed to talk to as I was helping this crazy dude. So I finally found this guy and talked to him a little bit and invited him to church and Wednesday night basketball. He said he would try to come to ball. After that Elder Bowman and I were walking back to the parking lot and the crazy guy's case manager calls us and is asking us all these questions about him. The guy was like, “I’m going to call the cops and have someone come check on him. Can I get your name if they need to talk to you?” I was like, “Yeah, sure.” Not thinking the cops would ever call us. So anyway, we get back to the car and start driving down the main road, and this crazy guy has like followed us on foot and is just chillin' on a bench outside the parking garage thing. So we just took off and drove away to go home haha. Then like 2 minutes later the cops called us and I got like straight interrogated over the phone about this guy.  Oh my gosh. The lady talking to me was freaking out at me because I knew nothing about the guy. I was like, “I literally met this dude 15 minutes ago. I know nothing about him!” She seemed a little miffed I didn’t have more info for her, but when we got home (5 minute drive) I had had enough the interrogation, so I was like, “I have to go. Sorry!” She then got super mad and said she’d call me later. I was like “Ok that’s fine, I just have something I need to do right now.” Well they never called me back and I have no clue what happened to the crazy guy. So that was my wild story. After that we had lunch (a little longer than usual because I was still trying to wrap my head around all that just happened.) After that we stopped by some people and got to meet Mina Baker. She’s a girl who is a child of record. She is the nicest girl I’ve ever met. She’s like 10 I think, and was so nice. I really want to help her family get active so she can get baptized, but we haven’t been able to meet with them. After that we had a lesson with David Midtovne, who’s a less active guy. He likes to talk a lot and I guess has like 8 kids with 4 different girls. He’s a super nice guy though, and we shared a talk by D. Todd Christofferson called, “Why the Church?” talking about why we even need a church in the first place. I’m not sure how much he got out of it, but he said he liked it and we invited him to attend church and he just said, “I work Sundays.” So I was like, “Well maybe you could ask for work off!” He’s like, “Oh yeah! I guess I could.” Haha some people. After that we stopped by the Schultz, who are a less active family. We met with their 11 year old Caden, who just got baptized like 6 months ago. He’s a nice kid and super funny. He gave us a ton of candy.  I had one Reese’s Cup so he wasn’t sad at me.  So my streak of no candy is over for the time being.  We shared "Dayton’s Legs" with him and invited him to church. He said he wants to come but it’s up to his parents. His parents never come, so we are going try to get him a ride. After that we tracted this huge street on the southwest part of the city for like an hour and a half and met some nice people and gave away a few Books of Mormon. Nobody super solid however. After that we got some gas and hot chocolate because it was cold and headed home and had some dinner. 

     Sunday morning we had Ward Council at 7:30 am, so we had to get up for that and then after that we were hoping to have the Clows and a few other people at church. They did not show up, but guess who came?! Sister Averbeck!! Elder Bowman and I were so pumped! It was awesome when she came walking through the door. We both were pretty excited, and I think she could tell haha. We didn’t do the best job of containing our joy. It was like the best thing that happened the whole week! Sacrament Meeting was pretty good! A girl in our ward going on a mission gave her farewell talk and it was literally 5 minutes long. Super weird talk. Like usually missionary farewells are pretty long, and she just gave a pretty generic 5 minute talk and didn’t say anything about going on a mission. But it is what it is, so who am I to judge? After church we had some lunch and companion study and then drove out to Dover to stop by the dude we found last week, Dane Schwarze. He was leaving right when we pulled up, so we drove like 8 miles back to another town to stop by a less active family who wasn’t home, and then drove back to Dover and he was home that time! He said he was actually just heading out again, but he set up a time for us to come over on Thursday this week, and also gave us a referral to another lady in Dover. So we stopped by his referral and talked to her for a few minutes, and she also told us we could come back on Thursday! So we are excited for Thursday! After that we met with Mary Ann and Ricky. Ricky isn’t a member and Mary Ann is but is less active. Ricky had a date set at one point last year, and then kind of dropped off the radar for a while. We are trying to get him back into it and help him gain a testimony. Mary Ann makes it very hard because she talks the whole time, and she’s a little off mentally, so it’s usually nothing related to the gospel or makes any sense. They’re an odd couple for sure! After that we had dinner with the Bartoos. They are super cool and a really nice family. We had a good discussion with them about the atonement of Jesus Christ and all the ways it can help us. I was able to share a part from the email that Christy Christiansen sent us (thanks for that!) and they loved it! After dinner we visited Sister King down in Chatfield with Brother Oesterle (older one). She is so awesome. Just big old hugs for all of us at the door and just makes you feel like a million bucks haha. We ended up having a way cool discussion about the second coming and missionary work, so it was really cool! After that we got home at around 8:20 pm so we went to do some Facebook work at the church. I noticed Elder Meyer and Flora were both on Facebook, so we set up an impromptu video chat and it was fun to talk to them and catch up on everything with Flora! So that was a great way to cap off the night. 

     Well, the work here is super slow, but we are working hard and having fun in any way we can haha. Elder Bowman is super cool and we get along really well, so that’s been good! I’m excited for winter to be over, but we still got about a month or so left of death cold haha. I’m loving my mission right now and there’s no place I would rather be right now. It’s awesome! For anyone considering serving a mission, do it. It’ll be the best choice you ever make. Your faith and testimony grows so much. Looking back, I honestly didn’t even have much of a testimony before my mission compared to what it is now. Missions are amazing! You bless so many lives and are able to be a light to so many of God's children. It’s seriously the coolest thing on the planet! So if you’re thinking about serving a mission, do it! You’ll never regret it. I promise! Love you all, and hope you have a great week!

Much love,

Elder Beach

#MavUp #10

Our Book of Mormon snow print!

District Meeting that basically ended up being Zone Meeting!

Vikings got thrashed!

     A big hello to all my family, friends, and coaches back home, at school, and serving around the world! Hope this email finds you all doing well and enjoying life! This week has been a little crazy, but it’s been really fun and we are working really hard to find people to teach. All the investigators we have right now basically just expect us to come over and hang out. As soon as we start bringing up anything gospel related they seem to not like it, so we’ve been doing a lot of finding and the usual stuff when you have relatively few people to teach haha.  But I love the area and ward. It’s a really small ward but the members are so awesome and I love serving them!

     So Monday was P-day and we basically get like zone p-day every week in Rochester because there’s 5 teams in Rochester so we always hang out at the stake center. It was MLK day so a bunch of kids from the different wards came and balled with us. So that was fun! There was this one kid that came that thought he was the next Michael Jordan or something.  He was rocking the Nike dri fit shirt and the knee pads and all that, and thought he was some hot stuff. So our first possession on offense he was guarding me, and I caught it in the post and just destroyed him haha.  I just drop stepped and basically put my shoulder through his chin and just put in the nice layup. He just looked at me like, “What the heck just happened? I can’t guard that.” Anyway, we had a good time and it was good to get the competitive juices going a little bit! We had a lesson Monday night with a less active lady named Sister Keene. She was super nice and seems like she has a desire to return to activity in the church. She had some questions about some doctrinal things she didn’t understand. We were able to answer all of her questions and she said she felt much better about the questions she had by the time we were done. Her goal is to get her temple recommend so she can do her parents' temple work for them! So we set some goals and plans with her to help her work towards that! 

     Tuesday morning we all met at the stake center to watch the First Presidency message. That was super awesome! I’m grateful to know that President Nelson, Oaks, and Eyring were all sustained by the Quorum of the 12 and they have my sustaining vote as well. I know they are men called by God, not self-appointed, or voted in by the people. 

     So after that we did our personal studies and planned for the day and then had some lunch at Perkins with Bishop Roberts. He’s a great guy! I like him a lot. He runs marathons and is like 60, so he’s in pretty good shape haha. We talked a lot about members we should work with and how the work is going in the ward. He wants us to work with the Young Men a lot, too, so they can get excited to serve missions and get a feel for what it’s like. That helped me a lot when I got to go out with Elders Murphy and Comerer before I came out here. Those guys were a party haha. After that we headed down to Stewartville and stopped by a bunch of people on the way down. We got an appointment with this less active lady named Sister Averbeck set up for later in the evening on our way back up from Stewartville. We stopped by pretty much everyone in Stewartville and met with Brother Swenson, who is a less active. He’s super nice and has a super cute little baby boy. His wife is a pharmacist and he’s a stay at home dad. We got his Facebook contact info so we could communicate that way and send him stuff each day so they can read the Book of Mormon and watch videos and stuff we send them. I’m not sure why he doesn’t come to church. He said his wife works Sundays and he feels weird going to church by himself, so I’m not sure. After that we knocked some doors for like an hour and it was super cold haha.️ We gave away two Books of Mormon but not sure how solid either of them were. But you never know! After that we had dinner with the Oeltjens. They live in Stewartville and are super cool. They remind me of the Gretz family, that I knew in Apple Valley, a lot. Brother Oeltjen joined the church like 2-3 years ago and they have a kid that struggles with drug problems. They’re awesome though, and made some bomb spaghetti for us. After that we had a lesson with Sister Averbeck. She is really cool. She joined the church in Idaho about 20 years ago. She’s from the Rochester area originally and moved out there for work and joined the church. When she moved back to MN her husband had an affair and now is with his girlfriend who is 26 and he’s 50. Kinda weird. So she’s still kind of struggling with that. We talked about some things that are holding her up from coming to church and stuff, and talked about how to work through them. She’s got a lot of potential, so hopefully we can get her some fellowship from the ward! After that we accounted with the Sisters.  The Winona Elders (Peterson and Michelson) came over to spend the night. It was a night to remember I’ll just leave it at that. 

     Wednesday we had to get up at like 5:45 am to be on the road by 7 am for Zone Conference up in Lakeville. We got there about 8:30 am, which was good, and then headed in to get the party started. Zone Conference was good! Lots of focus on driving in snowy conditions and how to avoid frostbite and all that good stuff. We played this crazy game where you had to run in the gym and answer a question correctly about technology safeguards, and I won in my group even with my cowboy boots on haha. The Rochester Zone took the championship, so that was dope! After that we went to go see Brother Stanich in Apple Valley since we were up this way. He was happier than a kid on Christmas morning when we walked in his room haha. So we visited with him for a little bit. He’s doing much better. He’s lost like 50 lbs and looks good. After that we started the trek home to Rochester. We dropped off the Winona Elders at our place and then went and had dinner with Sister Fieck at Bakers Square. I got this turkey bacon pita sandwich thing that was super good! We got to know Sister Fieck a little better, and she is so awesome. She’s a single lady who joined the church a while back, but is an awesome member missionary and is super solid. She’s way cool.  After that we went and picked up some less actives for basketball and then headed to the church and balled out with us, the ZLs, Winona, and some investigators and less actives from all our wards. It was way fun! And I got to do some missionary work with one of the sisters' investigators after we got done playing. He was on my team the whole time so we were like best buds by the time we got done playing haha.

     Thursday we basically did service the whole day haha. We accounted with the ZLs in the morning and went and got some more food because we were running low on veggies and stuff. After that we went to Channel 1 food shelf and all we did for 2 hours was take bread out of its package and throw it in this ginormous bin. We filled 5 bins completely full and the dude working there was just like completely blown away at how much we did. He’s like, “This would’ve taken me like 2 months to do by myself. Thank you so much!” We were like, “No problem, my man!” It really wasn’t that much work, haha, we just worked really fast for 2 hours straight! After that we stopped by a few people we found tracting but none of them were super interested except this dude named Bakeel we found who was a Muslim. He said we could come back on Saturday, so we got that set up with him. After that we helped the Gregsons pack up their moving truck because they are moving to Illinois. We helped them with that for about 2 and a half hours. We were the only people from the ward besides Brother Osterley that showed up, so I’m glad we were there or they would’ve been packing all night haha. After that we stopped by to see Tess, and she wasn’t there unfortunately. After that we had some dinner and went to the church to workout and then called it a night.

     Friday we did some laundry and weekly planning at the same time. The ZLs have a washer and dryer in their apartment, so we threw in some wash there and then weekly planned at the church and then went back and forth for like 3 hours haha. Weekly planning was death this week. We went through the whole less active/part member family list and decided who we want to focus on and also all the investigators and formers who have any potential at all. So that took a good chunk of time, and then we tried to schedule stuff with them and got like 3 things set up and just planned in stop bys the rest of the week and knocking doors and contacting down town. After that we drove down to Spring Valley and stopped by a bunch of people down there. Literally no one was home.  It was rough. We only got to meet with one person down there, and that ended up being a really good visit! He was a less active dude named Brother Larson. He joined the church like 5 years ago and is now less active. Not sure why.  We shared “Waiting on our Road to Damascus” by Elder Uchtdorf with him and he really liked it. He said he felt like that’s how he is sometimes. He doesn’t always fan the flame of his testimony and sometimes just waits for things to happen in his life rather than make them happen. We ended up giving a Book of Mormon to his daughter who is like 7 or 8. She said she loved the Bible and I was like, “Do you ever read the Book of Mormon?” She’s like, “No! What’s that?” So we gave her one and left her with Moroni 7 to read because her favorite chapter in the Bible is 1 Corinthians 13 about charity. She was stoked out of her mind to read it haha.  So that was pretty cool! After that on the way home we stopped by this less active elderly couple named the Lexs. They joined a while back and said they had issues with the doctrine of “becoming Gods.” So we talked about that and cleared up what it meant. Sister Lex had never read the Book of Mormon and knew basically nothing about church teachings except that, so I don’t know how she even got baptized. Brother Lex has dementia, so I’m not even sure he remembers anything. It was kind of a weird visit, but they were super nice and said we could come visit them anytime we were down there. 

     Saturday was a crazy day.  We did some stop bys in the morning and met a super nice less active lady who said we could come back on Mondays because that’s the only day she doesn’t work. So we will probably be going there next Monday because we have a couple appointments set up for this Monday. In the afternoon we went to downtown Rochester and did some contacting. We were there for like 2 hours and I talked to a ton of people.  I’m pretty sure 95% of the people I talked to were insane to one degree or another. There are some crazy weirdos in Rochester.  So basically I just ended up having a bunch of super awkward conversations with people, so that was fun. Most people didn’t want to hear anything about the gospel, but were more than happy to talk about anything else, so I tried to be nice and talk a little with everyone, but if they weren’t interested I would move on pretty quick to the next person. I met this really cool dude named Jonquel who is from Chicago and is living in Rochester while working. I got his phone number and he told me he had met with missionaries before and had a Book of Mormon. I actually passed Jonquel on the street and felt impressed to go talk to him, so I chased him down and ended up walking about 4 blocks with him while I talked to him. After that I went to go see how Elder Bowman was doing and he had discovered this women’s rights rally going on downtown that was nuts. There were hundreds of people there protesting Trump and how he apparently is suppressing women and won’t let them vote. Mom, you voted correct? People are so strange haha. Anyway, we ended up getting caught in that because they did a march and we couldn’t really get out of it. So we had to wait for it to finish. About 25 minutes after that we had a lesson with Bakeel. It went really well and he had read the first couple chapters of the Book of Mormon and had some questions about that. So we talked about it with him and ended up teaching part of the Plan of Salvation to him. He asked a bunch of questions right at the start that fit perfectly with what we had planned to teach, so it was a money lesson. After that we had dinner with the Dali family. They are way cool and love smoking meats, so next time we go over they’re hopefully going to smoke something for us. After that we did some tracting and some stop bys and then some Facebook work because we ran out of stuff to do around 8:30 pm, and people aren’t super happy when you knock on their door at 8:30 pm.  So that was our crazy Saturday!

     Sunday was good! We had a good Sacrament Meeting, and I got to help pass the Sacrament again this week. I really enjoy participating in the Sacrament. Now that I understand the importance and reason for it, it means a whole lot more to me! So I love it now.  Brother Busby gave a really good talk about how we can attain Christlike attributes. After the meeting, Dr. Coleville asked him where he could get a copy of the talk. Brother Busby just gave him his talk right on the spot. Dr. Coleville comes over and is like, “I asked where I could get a copy of his talk, and the man just handed me the whole damn thing! Imagine that! What a kind man.” I was dying. Dr. Coelville is a hoot and half haha.  He swears at the most random times, and it’s so funny! After church we had lunch really quick and drove out to Dover on the far East of our area. There was a less active part member family out there, so we stopped by and they weren’t home. As we were getting in the car to go stop by someone else, I felt like we should knock the street they lived on. So I was like, “Elder Bowman, we should knock the street haha”. He’s like “Uggggnhhhhh..... ok.” So we did, and met this awesome dude named Dane who was so nice! He was like, “I would love a Book of Mormon!” and took one and said he would start reading it that day. He said he just had shoulder surgery and would be off work for the next 2 months so we could come by and chat whenever we wanted! So that was sweet! Nobody else was home (out of 4 houses) but it was awesome to find him! After that we did some stop bys and then had a lesson with Sister Mancini. Her husband isn’t a member but is a way nice dude. She’s had a tough go the last few years. She’s broken her ankle and had some other health problems. We showed her the “Mountains to Climb” Mormon message and she really enjoyed it! She has such great faith. I was like, “Man, I wish I had faith like hers." After that we had dinner with the Voigt family. They’re a little unique, but super nice! Their kids were so funny.  They all loved us and we had such a great time with them! Dr. Coleville invited us over to watch the Vikings game, so after dinner we stopped by to see Tess, but her boyfriend said to not come back anymore.  I was pretty sad about that. After that we stopped by a few more people (most of them were watching the Vikings game and weren’t super happy to see us), and then headed over to Dr. Coleville’s place. We got to talk to him a lot about patriarchal blessings and how we receive answers to prayers while we were there, so that was awesome! The Vikings got destroyed so that kind of sucked, but it is what it is! Hopefully people will be brought to the depths of humility and be ready for the gospel now! 

     This week has been really good. The work here isn’t super popping right now, but I’m confident we can get it going again. We've just got to work hard! I really learned the importance of following the Spirit this week. Sometimes I get promptings and I just play it off like it was my own thoughts. I tried to follow those more this week and some good things came out of them! I know that God really knows who is ready to hear his gospel and we just need to follow the promptings to talk to those people. It is awesome! We got about 8-10 inches of snow here today, so we are going to be shoveling people out probably the next day or so because it snowed a lot and is still snowing. The mission is great! I’m having a good time and really enjoying it. Thanks for all the prayers and support. They help so much! There are some days I’m so worn out physically, mentally, and spiritually I honestly wonder how I can keep doing it. I know the prayers from back home help so much and I appreciate them a great deal! I love you all and have a great week!

Much love,

Elder Beach

#MavUp #10

The "First Presidency of the Rochester Zone". :)

Me and Elder Gooch - one of my comps from Minnetonka.

We went to visit Brother Stanich in Apple Valley.

Me and Elder Peterson - my MTC companion.

Me and Elder Nelson.  He is in Minnetonka now and came out with Elder Layton.

Me and Elder Searle.

Week 1 in Rochester

     Hello to all my fam, friends, and coaches back home, at college, and serving around the world! Hope this email finds you all doing well and enjoying the cold winter (at least here in MN). First off, shoutout to my Grandpa Gary for his birthday this weekend. I love you and you are such a great example to me! Thanks for all you do for me and my family. Second, shout out to my man Jake Pitcher for getting engaged this weekend! Super pumped for you and Ashley! Congrats bro! I am now serving down in the Rochester 1st Ward. It’s been great so far! I like the area, it’s very diverse. It has the southeast part of the city and then a whole bunch of little towns all the way down to the Iowa border.  So it’s a big area, but I’m excited to be here. The ward is great!

     So Monday was p day and we had a zone p day at the Pole Barn in Buffalo. It was fun and I did some back squats for the first time in a while and actually did pretty well on the weight, all things considered haha.  I put up 245 on my last set of 7x5 rep scheme. So I was pretty happy with that haha because I haven’t squatted for like 18 months! So that was fun! After that we went to Applebee’s with the Princeton Elders again to watch the National Championship. It was a wild one, and we missed the best part of the game because we had to go home due to our curfew haha. But Alabama pulled off the win in a crazy game, so I’m sure my brother is pumped about that. Good day!

     So my area book reset, so I don’t have all our schedule from last week, so I will just throw in the highlights of each day haha. Tuesday we did a bunch of stop bys in Buffalo and knocked some doors as well. We’ve really been struggling to find anyone in Buffalo knocking doors, but it seems to be working in helping us find people still because we keep getting referrals left and right that are pretty solid. We’ve chalked it up to tracting, so we keep doing it! It was good though, and we had fun because it wasn’t super cold! It was in the 20’s and 30’s early in the week and you don’t even have to wear a coat. It’s nice. Tuesday night we had dinner with the Yarcos and that was a party. They made us chili and cornbread and then we ended up having this like hour long discussion about President Monson and what we remember about him and stuff we had learned from him. One thing I remembered from him was he always seemed so happy and cheerful. Sometimes I can get a little grumpy or down and I seem to let it show pretty well on my facial expressions, so I’ve been trying to exude happiness and cheeriness this week! And it seems to be working out pretty good so far. After we had our super long discussion, Brother Yarco wanted to show us some fireworks he had bought, so we went out and shot off some sweet fireworks for a while haha.  So that was pretty cool! After that we headed home and cleaned up the apartment a little bit!

     Wednesday we found out they moved transfers back to Friday instead of Thursday because of some huge storm that was supposed to come through the twin cities on Thursday. It ended up being nothing, so that was kind of a bummer! But Wednesday we went to Rockford and did some stop bys and tracting and also went to Delano and stopped by some people we had previously found tracting. We didn’t have a whole lot of luck on Wednesday haha. It was just one of those days where it was kind of rough. Wednesday night we went up to Monticello and stopped by a few less actives and got to see the Breiwicks. They are super cool! Elder Harper and I discovered them on exchanges a while back. They’re less active but absolutely love the missionaries. They said the Elders hadn’t been over to visit for like 2-3 years so we started going over again. They’ve been pretty sick the last few weeks so we haven’t met with them much, but we got to visit a little bit and see how they’re doing. We got a dinner and lesson set up with them for next Friday, and unfortunately, I will be gone. But it was good! After that we went to the apartment and cleaned up a little bit and I started the “pack of death” as Elder Layton calls it. Basically just packing up all my stuff haha. 

     Thursday we weekly planned at the church. We usually do it in the community room in our apartment but this crazy guy was in there that always talks to us non stop for like 3 hours when we go down. He seems like a lonely dude, but he just doesn’t know when to stop talking haha. 2 weeks ago when we weekly planned, we were sitting in there and he comes in at around 1 pm and he talked until 3:30 pm and we didn’t say a word. We just communicated with each other over Facebook messenger. We try to talk to him and get to know him, but it’s hard to get a word in! He’s a nice enough guy, just likes to talk a lot haha. So we decided to go to the church so we could get it done quicker. Oh I forgot, before weekly planning we visited Brother Archibald in Annandale. He was super sad I was leaving, but I told him I would come visit him when my family came and picked me up to head home. He was pretty stoked about that, so we better go see him when we are out here! He’s a cool guy and was like, “Elder Beach, I can’t wait to meet your parents!” So that was cool! We shared a Mormon message with him and invited him to read Alma 5 as it coordinated with the Mormon message we shared. So after that, we went and weekly planned. It was weird planning for a week I wouldn’t even be there for haha. Elders Layton and Woolley did most of it which was good! I was glad to see them take the lead on it. I still helped out just not as much as I usually do. After that we headed down to Delano for dinner and then back up to visit Paul and Melissa to read the Book of Mormon with them. We talked to her about what our purpose as missionaries was: to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Christ, repentance, baptism, receiving the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end. She was just like, “I’m happy where I’m at.” So I think we will go over less or just drop her because she isn’t really progressing at all. After that we went home and finished the “pack of death” and headed to bed.  

     Friday we got up and got all packed for transfers and it was cold as heck. Like -15 not including wind chill. So that was fun packing the car and getting the bike on the rack when it was that cold haha. We got to Rockford and I remembered I left my razor charger in the bathroom, so we drove back really quick and got it. Elder Woolley drives really slow, so the second time we got to Rockford, I was like, “Bro, let me drive so we can get there on time.” So I drove the rest of the way to Bloomington haha. Elder Layton was going off on Woolley about how he can drive 7 over before TiWi yells at you in the car. And he would set cruise control right at the speed limit so most of the time we were going 2-3 MPH under the speed limit haha. So I was like, "Let me drive, dude. Cuz I drive a little faster haha."  So we made it to transfers like 1 minute early, so that was good, and then we got everything switched to my new car and then went to Chik-fil-a for lunch with like 50 missionaries haha. After that we drove down to Rochester and got all my stuff dropped off at the apartment and headed out to do some work. We went and saw Dr. Coleville first haha. He got baptized when Elder Gooch was here like 15 months ago. He’s a hoot! He’s like 80 years old and is like a male performance doctor or something like that haha. He’s such a nice guy though, and we hit it off pretty quick. After that we went to the Mayo Clinic to give a lady a blessing. She was actually asleep when we got there, and her husband had just left so we ended up not being able to do it. As we were walking around the Mayo Clinic I thought, “This is like a place Jesus Christ would come to to heal and cheer up people.” I hope I will get to spend some time there just visiting people and helping lift their spirits. It seemed like people there could use some of the Light of Christ or just a friend to talk to! After that we hit up some Subway for dinner and then went to the church and got my area book synced. After that Dr. Coleville wanted us to go to this thing called, "Celebration Recovery" with him. It’s this thing that people go to to help them overcome addictions and stuff. He just goes to learn about it.  So we went with him and it was a little strange. I wasn’t sure exactly how it was supposed to help people. Basically what happens is you go sing gospel rock songs, say a couple prayers, break off into small groups and just talk about random stuff. It was seriously the weirdest thing!  Afterwards, Dr. Coleville was like, “I’m gonna go talk to someone in charge and find out what the hell is going on. That was the strangest thing I’ve ever been to.” I just died laughing.  It was pretty funny!

     Saturday we had nothing planned, so we basically just winged it because I don’t know anyone or anything in the area. We stopped by some potentials and visited with this husband/wife named Karl and Denise. They found them tracting and basically they just go over and chill with them and haven’t really taught them much. So when we went by we tried to talk about the Book of Mormon and Denise told us she has started reading it a little bit and feels like it was easier to read than the Bible. So we talked about why it is easier and just some basic background stuff about the Book of Mormon with them. I feel like this area has a lot of “investigators” that the missionaries just go hang out with and don’t really teach at all, so we are going to change that! After that we tracted for about an hour and half and literally the first 5 houses we knocked on were Muslims. It was crazy haha. They are such nice people though, and one dude let us in and let us teach him about the Book of Mormon, so that was pretty cool! We ended up giving away about 4 Books of Mormon, so that was pretty sweet. After that we had some dinner and then went and visited Ricky and his wife. Ricky is a former investigator that just got picked up again. His wife is a less active member. At one point Ricky had a date set and was progressing really well, and then he just kind of cold turkey backed out at the last minute because of pressure from his family. So we retaught him the some of the restoration and really focused on him reading the Book of Mormon and coming to church and getting an answer for himself if this is the path he needs to follow. He seems like he wants to get baptized, he just needs to get the motivation and determination to do so! After that we visited Sister Klow and her family. She got baptized like 5 years ago and loves the Elders, but is also less active and never keeps commitments. I don’t know what to do about people like her. She literally says she will come to church every single week and then never does, so I don't know what’s up?  It’s odd. Anyway, she super nice and hopefully we can help her and her family get back active again! After that we just drove around and stopped by some potentials and invited them to church and then headed home and called it a night!

     Sunday was pretty wild haha. We had PEC and Ward Council back to back at 7 and 8 am so we had to get up at 6 am and get to the church. When we got there they said all the water pipes were frozen and the water wasn’t working, so they were only going to have Sacrament Meeting. Then like halfway through Ward Council someone came in and was like, “The pipes are fixed!” So church ended up being all three hours haha. I got to pass the Sacrament and Elder Bowman gave a way good talk on Christlike attributes. We had one sort of investigator at church, the husband of a member. After church we headed home and had lunch really quick and then Brother Joslin came and took us to Mayo to give a little baby a blessing. The baby’s mom is friends with a member in the ward, and she asked that we give her baby a blessing of healing because it has something wrong with its spine and isn’t moving its legs. They aren’t sure what’s wrong yet, but are working on it. After that the Rochester 5 Sisters needed us to give them a ride and joint teach a lesson with them because a sister took their car keys to her new area with them and they lost their apartment keys and were locked out of their apartment. So they were “up the creek” as Grandma says haha. After that we had dinner with the Jostlins and they are awesome. We had a great time with them and their family. After that we knocked this neighborhood out on the south end of town we felt inspired to go to. Now this is right during the 4th quarter of the Vikings game, so this is a huge act of faith on our part. So literally the first door we knock on, this super nice like mid-20’s lady opens up and is like, “Yeah, I’m watching the Vikings game, but what’s up?” So we told her who we were and she’s like, “I have some really good friends from back home who are Mormons!” I asked her where she’s from and she said, “Birmingham, Alabama!” I was like “Nooooo.... that’s where my little brother is serving his mission right now!” She thought that was awesome and invited us to come back Thursday to meet with her and her husband! So that was sweet! After that, literally every single person said they were watching the game or weren’t interested, so I guess we were just meant to find Tess (the first girl we talked to). Haha so after that we stopped by a few less actives who weren’t home and then we had to go drop off the Sisters' iPad to them because they left it in our car.  So that was the night! 

     I’m pretty excited to be down here in Rochester! It’s fun! I love the people, I feel like this area has a lot of potential, and the ward is great! Should be a fun transfer. Thanks for all the prayers and support from back home. Keep ‘em coming my way so I can finish strong the last few months of my mission. I love you all! Have a great week!

Much love,

Elder Beach

#MavUp #10

The "Hutchalo" Elders and Elder S from Princeton.

The Three Amigos at transfers!

This dog reminded me of my dog, Hallie!